Board of Education Meeting 12-6-2017

001[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] good you nearly 100 76 2017 I would like to call the regular meeting of the Brookfield Board of Education to order I'm superintendent John Burrell and if you would all join me and rise as we conduct pledge allegiance [Music] if everyone could remain standing my apologies if everyone could remain standing for mr. lamendola in special course is going to sing the national anthem and then also some other selections for us this evening early light what so proudly leads and that's why nice last evening and eyes mr. Ravenel thank you thank you for having us this evening I'm Tom local the choir director at high school and these are members of VHS chamber choir we are here and so is George and members of his fans sieving thank you for having

002us what we're here our vision project which is here at the high school December 18th at 7 o'clock so if these yes we have our first concerts the special for us and the Chamber Choir at a non-traditional church on Monday night senator boxer although as a long-standing tradition since 1970 that's the Congregational Church Virgo so we'd like to just give you a little teaser right now don't care what pens [Music] we share Christmas [Music] yeah people sing songs of the chair so please come on December 18 there's a long-standing tradition here before high school to add the vibration concert with and inquire and then at the end we have alumni mr. long doll special course thanks so much have another run now mr. st. George will be up with the special ensemble this evening they

003handle everything on this group include my earnest this recently performed at the F relay at the ESO offices as well as Crowne Plaza over in Danbury [Music] so and now also media featured at our lock loop have been throwing up on 7:15 and also that are going to concert on December 18 so overdue to the choir [Music] [Applause] [Music] as the strain on some old comes up I just want to take the opportunity to also mention our thanks to the Muirfield Educational Foundation which has the word of this group a grant so that they can purchase new strand instruments and also purchase some music as you know the show does not have a Orchestra program as normally but we have all these great strength players who then took it upon themselves to the right to

004the Pediatrics or grateful for their support for of these six fine people have also addition for the connected educators association Western Region Music Festival and we're all accepted some that will be performing representing our school in January as well [Music] [Applause] [Music] you [Music] like these time doesn't rate students mr. st. George thank you so much congratulations on reading much appreciated that's why we do it right there incredible incredible okay so tonight is the first board meeting after our town elections and I'd like to send a warm welcome to our new board members at this point in our meeting at this point our meeting is where we will vote for election of officers at this time I would like to ask for nominations for the position of chairman for the Rockville of the Board of

005Education let me add a nomination I'd like to nominate collector for a German okay thank you mrs. Fernandes are there any other nominations okay all in favor of mrs. Stern for Sherman of the Board of Education hi all right thank you very much congratulations mr. chairman Board of Education meeting over Tina angry much you might say something I said a parting chair I just want to thank the public and before for letting me serve I hope I've done a good job in a couple of years I've done this I will tell you like truly truly enjoyed it and Collette I am sure you will the same perhaps the most important role of the sheriff is representing this board as we reported equals right to other words in town and to the other leadership and that's

006a very challenging town in some respects so I want to thank thank you everybody for the two years that I have chance to do this and want to give you the you I'm gonna let you have the timer if you won three minutes okay I would like to open the floor for nominations for the office of vice chairman at this time I'd like to nominate Bob about it right sure any other nominations okay well close the floor for that all in favor of Ashley I think by this provide loss we need to go buy a roll call vote so we're just going to go down roll call vote please or for the nomination so we just are you say ah yes I hi may I i hi hi okay motion passes 61 thank you this

007time I'd like to open the floor for nominations for the office Secretary of Education I'd like to nominate Roy Greenstein for secretary and you had the nominations it will close that we can please aye aye they aye aye aye aye 61 congratulations okay at this time we have public comment do we have anyone who has signed up for public comment no one is signed up is there anyone in the audience that would care to make public comment at this time okay then we move on to a student representative Daniella floor is yours my birthday is rather quick this Friday all Brooklyn schools will be on a half-day schedule for PLC the annual vaca-oom concert will be Friday December 5th 7 p.m. yes and the winter concert is the 18th I help a very help students

008raise eight hundred and fifty one dollars to support UNICEF this year the student council voted to donate three hundred fifty three dollars to the Connecticut Association of schools to help support hurricane relief in Florida Texas or Rico in the US Virgin Islands at WMS the eternal soccer team won their last two games and the season with two wins two ties and one loss and even more now middle school for the first time in 19 years the boys soccer team ended the season with two wins three ties and one loss and was the first time that they beat both ran chambo and memorial the senior he field hockey team ended the season with four wins three ties only one loss it is the best season they've had in a while and cross country team for the

009girls finished with out of the lone WCC's championships the girls came in first overall be West Division racist States and with five of their seven top girls finishing in the top 50 state Meghan Guilbeau finished second in state and Haley Morales finished in the top 10 of every race this year the boys team tremolo ko finished fifth at the state finals and on 15th the WMS will be sending some of the unified Smurf's athletes and partners to the CT Unified sports Youth Leadership Summit Harvard then we'll be guest speaker Ryan Martin who was a City native and a pro wheelchair basketball player at the high school the Spanish Honor Society will also be raising money for people of hurricane people of Puerto Rico due to Hurricane Maria in addition they will be doing this with

010a big sale on the first basketball game which is December 22nd and student council has we kind of work on the city Hawkins dance and getting class of 2018 apparel and in the library mrs. Kotter is hosting a competition where it smash your face up to a book cover and the winner is only $25 Amazon be fair thank you very much okay next is written correspondence okay we had five emails come in first was from Kari Colombo regarding budget requests for later school start times Ron Jaffe regarding congratulations to the new board members wrote field cares and agenda packets Kristine Zimmerman also regarding budget considerations and portables Irene Korea regarding class size and budget contingencies and Burke Matson regarding a student matter and on Wednesday December 28th will be our next board meeting at 7:30

011seven o'clock Thank You Gerry could you make a motion motion to approve the board minutes um just um you can just be the motion that the board approve the minutes listed below is recommended the budget round table at 11:15 regular meeting 11:15 on board retreat minutes we have a second second oh yeah any questions concerns about the vents okay all in favor aye opposed okay proved next we have the superintendent's update all right thank you sir congratulations and congratulations to join up for the new positions and welcome new board members we're excited to have you here and be together and get moving forward we're really excited about that beginning with a budget tonight later on so I have a couple of things I just trying to brief or the board on the first one in

012my update this evening is our ECS funding I am actually been lucky enough to be one of 15 superintendents able to get into a new seminar on December 12th regarding learning about how easy is funding is actually formally so that's something we've all been wondering about for quite a while so I'm actually going to hopefully learn something to bring it back to everyone so that's coming up a couple of weeks we had our board retreat first board retreat with new board membership led by our board of education attorney Dan Murphy on the 28 that I thought is a very productive evening and really talked about the legal authority legal responsibilities roles of board members and and there's some good individual feedback from board members and a number of administrators attended as well so we're looking

013forward to our next order treat which I'm sure we'll talk about later tonight which is a next week I want to turn it over to Ken post our finance director and all the great work going on to the music version all coming sure thank you with the HRA roll part of the project we are getting very close to the completion I have to say that this has been a very time-consuming project for both the business office and the human resource SAS special credit to our accounting supervisor Joe and our technology director Eric Hoffman but really been leading the way with this effort getting a lot of support from the other folks awesome about so right now we're the set up in the system is complete all of our employees have been loaded into the system

014and we've begun running parallel payrolls so far the way it works is every time we run a parallel payroll so we run it in taking existing payroll from our old system running in newest and identify what the problems were whether it be could it be deductions being taken when they're not supposed to be taken or throw off when they're not supposed to be left off and investigating resolving what the saying was that was wrong fixing it and running the end and we just keep doing that until we only make all the issues so we've been whittling down the issues I believe we're getting getting close to being a being completed and our target date for live is technically January 1st but our first payroll will be January 12th so in that first week of January

015would be the update on the general ledger accounts payable project as you know we've been live since July first on that the last part of that project was to set up our balance sheet accounts so we can run a full trial balance we have done that we've got our opening balances but we have not been able to put them in the system yet we frankly don't know exactly how we're supposed to do that we were trying to get enough from us and haven't been able to get that yeah and frankly with all the efforts that especially John and Eric are putting into the HR Payroll that's our top priority so once that's conquered we'll circle back in and finish up and that's where we are news thanks Santa well it was really exciting about the

016munis conversion as well is right now all of the employees receive a paper check stub on paydays that goes away as of January 13th we'll be communicating now formally before the holidays but we're part of the whole part of ministries that are not being employee portal where employees will be able to go in and it will cross-reference with Aesop which is our time and penance system so it's everything about their employment is in this one system of course password protected and of the electronic so we're really excited about that for the employees it's gonna be much more convenient much more efficient I mean probably some holdouts a tough time not having something paper in their hand but eventually okay and then all the the the other piece I want to talk about is actually written

017on the super and Hana report mammal is capital improvement planning there was a couple of questions you know over the last couple weeks about the approved capital projects from the 1516 year they're all on schedule we've been working closely with our purchasing agent as well as the town and of course Dan Caldwell office of new facilities director and proposed here and we're actually putting a schedule together and we'll be meeting with business and facilities folks our subcommittees next week to go through that and while I will present the budget the operating budget the seeming the capital discussion is scheduled for our next meeting on the 20th so everybody go through that and make sure everybody's aware of that but if there was any question about the 1516 projects getting done everything's on schedule we anticipate

018everything being completed through the summer of 18 and November 2018 so we're moving along that quite nicely on that and then the final piece I wanted to bring up and I'll turn it over to you this is Sir Martin mr. Beldon regarding the request for the special appropriation regarding the overage and special education expenditures for theya current year and so we want to talk about it on the following being a barcode I wasn't sure if it would be our okay so that's all I have unless anybody has questions for me thank you thank you that bro next we have the subcommittee reports and first is the PMF for me so even I just what the point I'll take a leave okay tt-this a little bit matters all for a couple words we meet on November

01913th you have a minutes in your package I'll just quickly go through some of the highlights if that's okay the the big discussion we actually had at that meeting and we actually had a further discussion at our last board meeting if you for those of you who were on the board at the time about the special education cost situation and for those of you listening we have had quite a number of additional out play students and has caused it is causing an over sand in that area and you'll see it in the budget reports as well as we went through that in unless she tell us we were allowed to under the law and are being enough meaning the end result of that is a budget exposure a little over $500,000 and we have actually

020placed a special appropriation request to the Board of Selectmen that was mailed out this morning I hope everybody got quite sure if the BOE mailing list was actually getting into if you didn't get it like no boy and I will make sure you have a copy but that was signed and nailed it's a hard equation I need to be frank it's you sometimes you have situations where you have unanticipated costs this happens to be a category that when you haven't happened it's big and so and this is we haven't had that problem in a big way over the last number of years but this year was people who leave a comment alike and there's lots of reasons that happens but it's going to be an ongoing discussion I think we've the Board of Selectmen and

021the Board of Finance over there they're all coming scheduled and I expect the board will be invited to come meet with them and go through that in details so I'll just make a comment it also makes it harder to deal with our budget because the those costs are in our next year's budget but they're not currently approved in this year's budget so we're gonna have to go you know you know have some flexibility as we work through the budget cycle because you know knowing what your base is is always useful for you know how you're working through what the budget is your growth rates will look bigger than you otherwise expected I think we'll see that just quickly through some of the other areas the roof project we've talked about that a couple of times

022it's completed and the final paperwork's not been sent to the state for the reimbursement we just heard on the news update we talked about that at length with mr. post and we talked about the huckleberry portables and Chicago did report that he's he's got a scope of work now on demolition only which is what we had talked about here the prior or meanings and we'll get those specifications I think in our next meeting so that we can get moving on that project the PHS water project sell on hold it's really a project for next summer so it's not a huge problem yet but the contract it works in the first Elevens office for approval we talked a little bit about ECS FF spend well publicize them spent some time on the strategic steering committee recommendation

023and fundings also it over to my partner in crime you sir know what okay we received the contracts from Tecton the architectural firm that the funding was too poor to hire there were a couple of questions that Jerry gay our purchasing agent found he has contacted Tecton for clarification right now we're waiting for that clarification to come back if there are areas that need to be corrected they will be corrected and then it will go to first left and Don's office for signature so that's where we are on that especially on other capital the big another big discussion we had was on a 10 year capital the big issue there around high school fields and it's been an active discussion between the Parks and Rec Department and our our school facilities Department on who should

024be carrying forward what's actually potentially a rather large capital expenditure to deal with our athletic fields which are now they're all paths on life - yes just this afternoon Dennis marks and rec emailed me a copy of his plan is bringing forward and I'm gonna be sharing with the BNF committee next week it does include placeholders in the first three years of the plan for various aspects of the field and Lane and so now in terms of new items we do have talked about the budget presentation and we talked about how to work through the rollover budget I'm not gonna talk about that because we're going to go through a budget and more length later the BHS tract need is some hatch patching work to be done and we talked about getting that going and

025hopefully through the rest I don't think there is a lot of other things that really need the board's attention at this point so that's my report on you know questions just looking at the press box yep because at one time I know we were talking about capital project that was going to be a really expensive obviously found well there's there's two levels of press boxes so we talked about one is just getting a ramp yeah from the back so that's the existing cross box and that's what we can get going on a bigger project will be tied to the whole schools one of the things I've learned is we can't go on the bigger project around the crosswalk is a light ball right there and you have to deal with a lighting project there along

026with it so it was a lot of coordination this is the able ramp is 88 compliant we take a sanding violation or non-compliance statement off the table which would be great and one other question we're just clarification with huckleberry portables was it if I remember correctly like 600,000 would event for demolition and putting new ones it was that the the the figure they had or that was yes we went back out the look at different quote on that but the demolition is close to is around fifty to sixty thousand dollars for the full demolition upcoming right then you know that's when we have capital discussions over the next month or so we thinking about that and really Minnetonka mary-rose actually and walk into the building again mr. Caldwell really analyzing our space and seeing you

027know well we all know that there is some kind of building project obviously on a horizon before this even a shovel in the ground a couple years so we need to think about in the meantime what are going to be right but even just the demolition a couple of years ago so that all that money is used just for the demolition yeah and and just for clarity one of the reasons it was expensive to go with building new is it's not like he did fall on a truck and drop the building on the ground yeah put in footings electrical you know he I was stunned at the positive of the confluence right you know getting that in so they got something that put it all was really and that wasn't anticipated in any of the

028original massage thank you they capture at all okay next we have Cape and as outgoing share Cape I'm gonna get that reports came to meet on the 21st of November and first I do have to put a thanks to principal Marco Landa for all of the work leading up to this because if you remember there over the last couple of meetings we asked for a lot of clarification information issues and he came with a lot of information the sweet we joked is pretty much the Marco lattice show this last Cape meeting but a first on his list and and a lot of this can be in depth but I know he wants to focus mainly on budget presentation now so if we do have greater questions because we did ask for clarification on these items

029I'm sure we can put in an agenda later and have him come back and give a great presentation if needed but the first thing you did report on really AP source if you remember or for those who weren't here when a couple of meetings ago he did a report on last year's AP source they were unexpectedly low in some classes and we just couldn't we asked him to go look for other data to see if they were trends he did go ahead and take a look at the last three years and get an average mean score of every class that we offer AP and the stores compared them to the state means which I'm fairly certain is about the information we got maybe an extra year or two but then he went further and took

030a look at all of the grades that the students received this past year in every single AP class and then found a mean score for every ap score we broke it down by the score on the AP test that they received by grade it was rather interesting then some of the classes there was very little variation between those students that guy perhaps a 4 or 5 on the AP test to those that got a 2 or 3 very little variation in a mean rate you know to them so it facilitated a really good discussion about what exactly he's raised me and what are we grading and what are we assessing during that time and show these grades be a predictor on the AP source should they be a predictor on how the students perhaps they're

031gonna be doing in college or what exactly are we assessing in grade 4 extrapolated not only to naps but virtually to all of the classes in the high school and we also got a discussion about the weighing of grades and how that figures into the GPA and motivations perhaps of students where they take classes and why they are taking 4 versus away essentially it led to discussion that there's a lot of work that still needs to be done and fortunately though as we're going through the curriculum writing in the entire district this is going to go hand in hand perfectly with that especially since dr. Muraki who is facilitating the curricular writing really does emphasize how the greats have to be tied to the curriculum and exactly what you are assessing grades for so we'll

032be hearing more about that next on the list were results with surveys about assessments at the high school and this is a result of several discussions we had about tests at the high school about returning tests for those new to the board we had some of the sessions at the high school about tests being returned and if they are returned the feedback that's given to the students in regards to the test assessments and if they're if the students are allowed to keep my mother handed back and my assessments here I mean tests quizzes projects or papers so mister Blanda did a survey with all of the teachers as far as the types of assessments each teacher gave frequency with them what how if the assessments were returned the timeliness that they were returned the feedback

033that the students got and if the students were able to keep it or the assessments that hand to the back and there was a lot of data and essentially we found there's an incredible amount of variation not only with departments which we knew that each department kind of had their own test assessment philosophy but between individual classes and then between individual types of assessments so essentially the I guess lesson learned is there's a lot of work anything down there as well unfortunately there is a focus group working on the philosophy of assessment at the high school and so from there you probably will all be hearing about it some more I'm sure in the form of a policy or maybe a regulation and get more standardized next mister Belinda win over the requirement update for

034health classes at the high school currently our high schoolers received by the state regulation one half of a credit of health and that's delivered in a quarter credit in ninth grade and 11th grade so it's one half of one semester that the students receive a ninth grade and then an 11th grade for the class of 2022 which are this year's eighth graders next year's freshmen that requirement is going to be increased in one credit hour but it needs to be delivered over all four years so these students are going to have to have a quarter credit hour every year from ninth grade through 12th grade that's going to probably require more staff more personnel unless we significantly decrease the amount of physical education that our students receive because generally it's health and PE teachers that

035deliver the instruction and I'm not sure any of us want that to happen so down the road this is just kind of an FYI we were probably going to be hearing more about because they are going to need more staff it's not going to affect next year's budget the budget the presentation that we're going to have because next year students are ninth graders and the 9-3 has already received instruction but down the line for for the next budget cycle after this one we're we're gonna have to address that fortunately we do have a year to figure that out and I know mr. Blandon and team are crunching a lot of different models right now as to what the new model next was the program of studies updated to high school as well for those returning

036members you know that the last two programs studies had some fairly a lengthy amount of changes to it mr. Blandon had said that this coming when there's really only to be three significant changes to the program of studies that will probably be presented to Cape in the next meeting and so it will be up after that if not the next he did also review the senior demonstration project which in his previous reiteration was that capstone project which as a reminder was put on hiatus just because of the lack of consistency and accountability uniformity I should say as well for the project this is going to be a requirement for graduation for the class of 2021 which is our current freshmen so there is a focus group under way that's chaired by Vice Principal Edmund Eric

037and they've already gone to a workshop sponsored by caps regarding the demonstration project and they're also going to be going to visit on-site visits and high schools in the area that have senior demonstration projects that they think may work for our school and our students as well coming up and lastly dr. Ruby gave an update on the next generation science standards curriculum and curricular tools as you know the we have new science standards that are in play for K through 12 but unfortunately really don't have secretary tools K through 8 as well dr. Ruby has been looking at several several several as a matter of fact if you go to TSO and go to the back I think every horizontal service is staffed with different types of science unfortunately not much of it with it

038not much of what she received will work for our district especially our K through four because we share instruction time with other subjects and most of the curriculum curricular tools depend on 45 minutes every day in order to deliver the entire length of discussion she did going through everything find one that looks promising it's a Smithsonian program and the nice thing about it is is she had brought a couple with her last time there there in modules small modules that addressed the four areas of the science and if I gave this its life science physical science earth science and engineering right got it okay and addresses that and in the different grade levels as well but it doesn't in the module form which of us is going to offer the flexibility that we need K

039through 8 especially food before she's contacted the people that publish this and they are willing to let us have it as a pilot study four to one module for two programs three through eight free of charge for this next spring semester so she's going to have a rep I believe it's a video conference now correct there's a rep it's going to be video conferencing the next came eating and should Kate think it's appropriate then we will all see that probably the meeting after that all right sorry that was lengthy are any questions at all okay [Music] next on our list we have a consent agenda so we can have a motion for that recommend motion that the board approve the items listed on the consent agenda as recommended ready okay um any any comments questions

040on the consent agenda I would just like make a couple of comments I'd like to congratulate someone's here with us dr. Chris a lon Chris if you could raise your hand for those who might not know you from the door there dr. shealynn has decided after many years in education in ten years or the profile of public schools she's announced her retirement to her staff she will be completing the school year but she will be retiring at the end of the year and we're just so thankful for her service and so appreciative appreciative that kritis that you let us know early so we can really operate from a position of strength as as we look for a replacement so dr. salient thank you very much for all of your service it's greatly appreciated and and

041we really wish you just a joyful remainder of this school year so thank you very much and we also had another retirement mrs. Hale Laura Hale is a longtime secretarial member of the Profoto public schools 22 years in district 18 which were whiskey near the the last several years with the TSO in central office not only in special education but also helping with the facilities department and we're really doing this Laurie she actually ends her tenure and a week or so and we're of course looking for a suitable replacement for Laurie and we just appreciate everything she's done and almost a quarter-century century that she's gave it to profil really appreciate appreciate of a pervert she goes into retirement and considers new opportunities and things like that so I just wanna Laura's not here but

042thank Laurie for all she's a second my thanks to both Laurie and dr. Thielen for everything that you have done for the Port Phillip schools okay no other comic we have a vote all in favor aye opposed approved new business we had an ice hockey trip that the board approved a trip to propel high school ice hockey teams travel in North Yarmouth means participate in an ice hockey tournament at the Travis Roy arena from Tuesday December 26 2017 to Thursday December 28th 2017 as requested by athletic director Steve Alban okay sorry sorry before Corey introduce the gentlemen were up at the podium I'd just like to share how proud I am of our high school and our athletic department we've taken actually in the last three years we've taken on a leadership role of the

043cooperative hockey program which is with its BBD Bethel burrow field dan Barry and we are the lead school so a lot of the running of the interference goes through this ball in our athletic director and working with the other two schools obviously this trip they're bringing to us because it's a fantastic opportunity for the students so I'd like to introduce not only mr. Walden who's out there are athletic director but assistant coach near Caston Ella and rusty Ranger our head coach gentlemen thank you very much for having us you've heard most of the details the reason for the trip is that we would like to have the kids go up there we have three different schools and a lot of the kids don't know each other we have quite a few new case in the

044program and it's a great opportunity for the case the bond you know away from school plus if they're not all of the same school you know it gives an opportunity sense that's applying together also to you know play a higher level competition and a tournament like format where could help us prepare for the tournament at the end of the season we haven't done it we've did about six years ago for two or three seasons before that and worked out really well in the same main area so we're excited to bring a case for that all the games are at North Yarmouth Academy we will be leaving on the 26th each children child will have a parent confident you know take care of that kid and they don't stay over so well washed and Aaden Cara

045any questions okay all in favor of approving a guy's hacking trip all right host right spruce very much matters thank you okay now we had a fall sports update Steve Alton ball force update um it's gonna try to go quickly and you guys have got a lot on each other with the budget we have 15 athletic teams in the fall 4 and 17 students played sport this wall that's 48 percent of our student body so you think about half of our kids are staying after school for athletics sixty percent of our student athletes received all academic swc status so that means they I had over 3.5 GPA so 60% of our students receive all academic little word from less WC 45 of our student athletes receive the postseason word whether it be all-conference all the

046Allstate all but once were qualified for the state tournament very proud of the girls soccer team in field hockey team for receiving the swc sportsmanship of work we bought that t-shirts for that because we're proud of our kids are going out and acting right way for the second straight year we were awarded the Michael's cup I handed out a pamphlet from one of the kids through there accepting the word that ties it with the class act pledge last two weeks ago chick-fil-a we had kids come down and sign a pledge that they're going to act correctly athletic events mother playing they signed the pledge they got a t-shirt and you got at all games for free just a lot of things that we're doing to promote good sportsmanship in the town and we're one of

04714 schools to get the microscope and I think we may be Hillier one about two years around and this year we started Unified sports at with Skinner which were extremely proud of start at the high school and we're down to having it whisk in here we had a middle school tournament here it was awesome great day in the middle school high school unified athletes and partners our North Hartford to attend a conference on next Friday they last I know we're talking guys are talking about helmets I wanted to show a few things before before I bring them out we're lucky here because of you and our budget we have a line that's dedicated to the safety of our kids there's one line it's tough it goes towards the recognition of football helmets across all those

048shoulder pads any of our equipment that needs to get reconditioned get sent off the stadium systems we're very lucky today I found out that 22 of our lacrosse psalmist's will not get recertified means they're not safe but within our budget line we get those what I we have money to keep our kids safe again new ones also football lacrosse we're on a cycle football helmet last ten years we buy any eighth year so then as eight go out we have eight come in so then we're never buying 80 once really getting hammered at the cost so we have a cycle so now you can see the difference in those two it collects you look inside you can see that somehow some of the damage throughout the year and then lease on the mouth to get

049reconditioned that's what we get back they replace the guards to facemask in the show and those like I said typically last in eight years but we're on a cycle where we're getting our kids newer elements bigger you know I know mark is what about home that's ten years old like muscles do we have a good program in place to keep the kids safe and dr. dubrow and Ivan exploring with the choice of being the first girls lacrosse team in the state to have helmets they're going to Samuelson samples even though all the teams may not wear them it's still safe for our kids to wear and others other teams not to have them because it's a soft shot but obviously we're very concerned about keeping our kids safe can I ask a question what our

050budget round table we had one of the parents who smoked made a comment that the technology is dramatically improving for a concussion safety and football helmets in radicular are you seeing changes in technology as you're buying a new obviously every year and we got it like I said we're in the cycle of replacing helmets every year so we don't have the big cost but every year technology gets better so every every year we had eight better eight to ten better helmets of the newest technology and and you're seeing format okay I've seen the statistics with lacrosse and so I fully support the helmets we're hoping to be the leaders in that and obviously we want to protect our kids yes it's see you know well we don't want to drag the presentation I've reflected for

051our new board members in the folks at home just what we do for the concussion protocol from done to the last couple years in terms of our pre testing so yeah and um we do impact baseline tests so all of our athletes and take to impact us so if they do get a concussion they can go to the doctor the doctor shock smile even if he clears them we still have a test at the doctor get they retaking the compare of the baseline before and after so the way we have it set up is in May or June I go to whisk in here and surrender has been awesome with helping us he tests all the kids there so when they get to the high school they have all had the baseline test and then

052I just get the kids who may have transferred in or out that day and really alleviates a lot of stress on us getting the kids tested we got him right in during PE class there it has been very helpful even kids who get a concussions out of school parents call me up and print out the test get it to them they give it to the doctor for a song to compare and so this made me it's been fantastic for our kids I'm Unified sports and the little schools that basketball oh we did soccer and in the fall winter we're doing basketball love schedule I'll go to everybody should be done within the next week or two thank you okay board subcommittees ok recommend a motion of the board discuss and approve it subcommittee structure and

053other board representation - will be EF education connection for Phil cares RB AC AC from January to June 2018 actually I have a correction education connection changed its name about a year ago - ed advanced thank you okay why are you sure yeah that right thank you sure okay I will send these out I know I have talked to all of you in regards to committee structure and interest and so I have put this together a few others if you'd like it and I also made this house with you a little bit of a change in the subcommittee structure as well the first being and I know Bob you mentioned this before teasing apart the BNF the business and facilities subcommittee just because there's so much information that's covered them and especially as we get

054more and more intensive with the Facilities Committee and looking at either renovation of or a new school there's going to be a lot more placed on them so it's here you will see that Finance which was business and facilities have two different subcommittees finance being Bob gem and myself and facilities being Yves joy and Debbie strategic facilities then which is our for ad-hoc is now strategic facilities is the same as the facility subcommittee which just makes sense they would be the Board of Ed reps on the larger strategic Facilities Committee so that's what you see there cape it will be gen rosa and joy because we put apart the business and facilities we really wanted to try to make the same amount of committees because otherwise were going to be spending all the time committees

055so we did put together after discussing input and also from dr. burr itself we combined policy and communication which seems to work because dr. Burt was the administrative liaison for both of those and well policy is going to be really needy and a lot of different areas when we're reviewing the policy series I think when were or when they are in between first reads and second reads they're just going to be a little more time to handle the communications as well so we're going to go then trial see if it works see if it can be managed with those two that's going to be rosa bob and debbie and then personnel in negotiations which has traditionally been the chair vice chair and another person essentially because per bylaws the teacher contract is negotiated by chair

056vice chair and otherwise so that's generally the personal negotiations so that's going to be myself Bob and Eve so the dates are pretty much going to stay the same we the policy communications new subcommittee is going to take the old policy date cave is staying the same Finance is it will have the B and f1 and so then the Facilities Committee just needs to get together and determine what an appropriate date would be for them so we do have the first meeting scheduled for December that's going to be directly prior to the board retreat and I at that time perhaps he discussed whether the meeting time will be for that Sparta's representatives for the different ones we have Rosa doing the academic for International Studies of the magnet school we still need someone for ed

057advanced so if anyone is interested in being the referent for an advanced we would appreciate that you did that last time she can let you know as far as the time commitment for that I'm going to be continuing on as the representative for Education Foundation Debbie was going to do Brookfield cares and Bob is going to continue with our back are there any questions concerns regarding the structure no other than I think it's a great idea splitting the facilities and the finance I then when I was on that committee for the past two years there was not enough time I felt during the meeting to really dedicate two to both of the subjects so great idea thank you but with facilities just to swear it up for everyone I believe we are meeting when you

058said before the retreat so everybody has the day is next Tuesday next Tuesday 12 hour the 6 p.m. retreat at 5:15 yes great thank you yes 5:15 directly before in the TSO curriculum oh great thank you okay um as long as there are no questions with it all in favor of the new subcommittee starship I opposed approved next we have the superintendent's 2018-2019 budget proposal okay thank you everyone um before I actually jump into the presentation I wanted to just mention that we have really some some wonderful things going on well I will share beginning of the presentation tonight incredible enhancements in a great deal of work and effort that's really going on over the last couple of years but specifically to 17 18 and I really have to I have to thank dr. Ruby

059mr. post the Board of Education for all their support the administrators here in this room and our principals for just all the work that's going into what we're doing now but also as part of the process and in talking part the process is very important I'm going to sharing a presentation tonight that has been nine weeks in the making for those of you aren't aware I'm basically on October 1st we've launched into so we just start the school year where we're in school for four and a half weeks and we launch into preparing for the next school year it's that early in the process as a matter of fact this presentation from the superintendent tonight is two weeks earlier than typical in Brookfield so it's very early which is good because it's going to give

060us a lot of time to discuss what I initially present this evening so it starts with the principals developing their their next year's budget based on their school improvement plans the board in October developed assumptions and priorities going forward for the 1819 year and also we had a referenced a couple of times tonight the budget round table where we saw input from the public second piece that is actually we have tonight but then going forward after these nine weeks tonight's just the beginning I present it is not a ch2 in stone it is the initial discussion of the needs that I truly believe is the superintendent after recommendations central office and our administrative team we need to go forward with aligned with the strategic cohan's plan and the board's priorities and so that's really important

061to know we've got another meeting in two weeks and in a process I want to start this year which has been a little different than the past two years here in Brookfield is I would like to as you absorb the information this evening and I promise it will not be a lengthy PowerPoint as you take that in what I'd like you to be thinking about is you know those questions you know in jotting down some notes and thinking about those things but you're gonna go home with materials we're gonna have a binder for everybody and you'll be able to go home and really comb through the details of the spreadsheets and so forth and match up the PowerPoint okay what if John say you know how does this match up and is this a priority

062that we talked about back in the fall and all of those things and see where they align and also dig in on things that perhaps aren't colored this evening what I'd like you to do if you can to have an appropriate response that you know that values you know where you're coming from if board members could get the majority of their questions maybe by Monday morning this coming Monday morning they can to me to dr. Ruby and what we're going to do is we're gonna have those we're going to record those in a spreadsheet and we're also going to have it you know who asked that question and then we'll someone will develop a response the individual board member but we'll have that for comebacks for next next meeting and we'll have that Lizzie's a

063little record and I'm going record over the next seven weeks or so as we develop the final budget really launching forward and driving our plan forward is going to be your comfort level as a board and we need to become comfortable after all of the conversation but the public input I think we have a public hearing we're looking at January 3rd when get back from the holidays by the end of January I think it's January 30th 31st February 1st wherever the day falls we have to have the budget already mr. done in the first eleven his office through the Board of Selectmen that's the way if the town charter works so we launched tonight and like I said we have seven to eight weeks to brainstorm you know basically the better part of two months

064to figure out what we want to do going forward for 1819 and then let's see they cover everything I think they did so what the board asked me to do over the last two presentations that have done is there's a lot I had a lot of details well it was high level but also with a great deal of detail took me almost forty minutes of talking and I understand that after a while that's that's difficult for people to take in even though all the information is very important what I decided to do this year is take that feedback from the board and tighten this presentation up there's probably 18 slides 12 of which I'm actually going to speak to this evening so without further ado I'm gonna jump right in okay so I'm gonna start

065with the ask what are we asking for from the budget and I'm gonna break this out so our current year budget and this is going to link back sometimes to that special education overage this year so there's some context there so in our current year our budget is forty million eight hundred thousand dollars and so the proposed budget going forward is forty three million four hundred ninety thousand dollars simply the cost to maintain status quo services Elementary wrong language program our band program at the elementary school our athletics all the wonderful programs we have in brookfield contracts with vendors contracts with collective bargaining units or unions all of those increases are nine hundred twenty three thousand dollars for a two point two percent increase so just a non-starter to continue with services as we have

066now is going to cost us almost a million we have special education increase off the base of this year's budget to next year of 1.1 million dollars now again mr. Beldon sent around that special appropriations letter and aptly explained the overage for this particular year the contingencies that are dedicated to the Board of Ed side that are held over on the town $300,000 in the like so we're gonna have a lot of discussion around that but that's 1.1 million dollars going forward we have an increase in our recurring revenues and yet again can provide lots of detail on this that's negative to the increase of two hundred thousand dollars that's a good thing we also have a loss of one-time revenues of four hundred and six thousand dollars number one that's the three hundred thousand

067dollars in contingency for this year's budget as well as the settlement from the former finance director of approximately $50,000 in emptying out that paid a participated account from back in student activities and so forth as an offset to this year's budget so those were one-time fees that helped offset this year's budget those are obviously gone because they were one-time revenues and then super superintendant strategic investments so the specific things I'm going to review tonight that are specific strategic things that are aligned with our priorities aligned with our strategic plan and those total $305,000 4.8% as you can see all of that adds up to a 2.6 million dollar increase our 6.4 percent request so that's the proposal going forward just wanted to start with those numbers so let's walk through what's our district mission to

068inspire challenge to prepare all students to live meaningful and productive lives the Board of Education has a strategic plan there are four goals goals for learning clearly defined teaching for learning measures of learning and alignment and coherence of systems the four broad areas in a strategic plan there's lots of objective under those we've reported out to the board on strategic plan accomplishments and the district improvement plan accomplishments this fall in our paw there are the key academic areas in character areas in which we want our students to achieve communication and collaboration critical thinking and problem solving creativity and innovation and character and connection that's what we're all about I'm not going to read through this this is for the folks at home those are going to go online it's small and I understand that but

069I have it divided by elementary school middle school and high school the academic investments in this current year that I was talking about at the beginning of my my chat this evening and so there's a number of things we've done we've increased instructional time for kindergartners by over 60 hours of the course of the school year on that's also helped save money on transportation we are in year two of the math program K through 8 we are implementing reading ratings and units units of study we had a new data feed process in place with our assessment assessment system that is in place across the district we're working on a great deal of curriculum writing as we'll probably talk a little bit further about tonight and also professional learning that goes along with that and we

070also are really focusing and supporting our teachers our regular education teachers and how to support those students with English as a Second Language for a new to our country I've done a great deal across the board with mr. Baldwin leading it in health we have alignment and compliance now with standards not only at the elementary school but at the middle and high school and we've had a number of programs be project last year those of you were on the board and those of you were coming to the means will recall we went around and round on new middle school schedule and middle school actually had two new teachers added in this current year a reading teacher and so thirsty' teacher and so with that we increase instructional time not only in Unified arts but also

071in social studies and a big piece was supporting the transition of our fifth graders our fourth graders to fifth grade now they're they're seeing typically on a teen around three teachers versus how many would it typically the more traditional team yeah four to five teacher so we produced it by two to three teachers in some cases for students so a lot of great things going on so I'm gonna move forward from that operationally we made investments you heard Kant earlier talking about muna so let's talk about some of the operational things we've done it here instant laws and certification requirements with the new administrative team and all of the support that has been provided by the Board of Education by the town we have a fully operating human resources department led by mrs. Cavanaugh and

072we are in alignment with employment law our teacher certifications are in alignment and and while that seems low level and pretty straightforward in concrete that wasn't the case a few years ago we continued controls and compliance for all elements of employee benefits that was majorly supported with the benefits coordinator position which was recommended by blue Shapiro when he did a review for us we're in a conversion communis everything is converted to minutes in the district with the exception of payroll and human resources which will convert in January as we talked about and our financial and regulatory controls are absolutely in alignment with the town so a lot of incredible accomplishment over the last few years the other piece is going on this year is we did a lot of great things and technology and mr.

073Conklin Aubrey's your hand love people don't know Garrett he's been with us for two years now our technology director we've done a lot with communication devices in capacity we've really improved our presentation stations at the high school the majority of promos recently purchased or for the high school but also for the middle middle school and huckleberry network switches at the high school a new district file server laptops for the elementary teachers and updated and updated lab at the high school here in library have all occurred this year and then of course Capitol improvement the roof as we talked about was completed and this is just one of many capital projects and we're working on the tacked-on project getting ready for that the arc for the the strategic facilities project so a lot of great things

074going on and then the last thing about this year that I want to remind everyone about we reorganized administration and teacher leadership not go through this in detail we could all go back and look at this but we had three components we reorganized our special education leadership our curriculum leadership and also our high school department chairs so there's a lot of great work going on there and that was relatively for the most part of all budget neutral all right so for those board members who are just joining us I just want to review for everyone conceptually for the folks at home I had mentioned that the board has a strategic coherence plan we have strategic coherence plans for major components that I was discussing that was adopted in February of 2016 as you can see

075and typically strategic plans one four to five years we have our set for a five-year plan we certainly as the board can always go back and revise it's a living document and we report on it annually the strategic plan has what's called a district implementation plan if you came around to the meetings or you were on the board you would have seen us over the course of two meetings in the fall present on district implementation plan in the school improvement plans and so that it was a two-year plan last academic year in this current academic year and we continue to make growth in that area the board developed assumptions and priorities for the 1819 budget back in October and here we are the seasoning beginning the budget process as I outlined at the beginning of

076my remarks two slides I am NOT going to review this is again for folks at home those who want to go back and look at this later this is part of the memo of the budget assumptions and also the budget priorities so we check those priors and make sure your superintendent has brought forward a budget that includes the priorities that the board has set forth all right so I'm going to show you this slide and then the next slide this slide is but drivers the next slide is those specifically those strategic investments we need make so what our budget drivers the things that are moving us in a direction that really many times are mandates or we are contracted to go it against there's things with sans quo there for services their salaries there's all

077kinds of things so I have some basic numbers here just to show you how things go so a couple of things here we have right now one hundred approximately of one hundred students who are English language learners serviced by one English language learner teacher that was a teacher we brought in last year across four buildings it really is a tall task probably an impossible task our teacher is doing the best she can at this time what we're asking for is an additional English language learner teacher to support those students the other thing we're going to be asking for in the upcoming budget is a new science teacher at the high school there's really three big areas we need to address in size number one if we want our students to be competitive and learning what

078they need to learn and we want our high school to be competitive and we want our high school to rank well with our me ask assessment coming up we need to make sure we have proper electives first is we also have a bubble class coming into the high school and then the other part of that is there are OSHA requirements with science laboratory classes where the limit on enrollments 24 suits so we really should never be going over 24 students so that's a limitation as well so that's going on so we're excited about that opportunity there is an offset however in maintaining class size with bubble classes in middle school and in high school we're seeing reduction of enrollment at the elementary school and we anticipate lower enrollment in kindergarten and in first grade and

079therefore we will reduce one section in each of those grades the recommendation is going forward I talked already about a driver being special education that is in this current year it's actually an issue as well as going forward tuition transportation and professional services and that's that one 1 million dollars we also under the guise of special education we have many more students who needing occupational therapy so I am recommending that we bring it part-time certified occupational therapist assistant you can see the cost would be thirty thousand dollars there mr. Caldwell our new facilities director is taking a look at custodial services across the district rather than having individuals precisely married to each building and how we can achieve efficiencies and he's recommending recommending the reduction of one custodial position all of our contractual collected parking

080obligations so basically those salary increases that tolls $390,000 employee health insurance is going up by 150 mm we anticipate electricity and oil going up by 77,000 regular education transportation there are some pieces in there along with the actual increase in the contract the the natural increase in the contract at ninety-three thousand dollars and then we have wouldn't you notice some new unfunded mandates from government and this is I'm not this is an exhaustive list of all the unfunded mandates that we all have to live under but just recently with the excitement of getting most of the EECS money and not having that draconian cut that the governor recommended there still was enough of a cut in a program called team this is a mentoring program for our new indicating teachers the each or assigned a

081mentor the stipend that would come down from the state to pay a veteran future to be a mentor was five hundred dollars well you can see the clear they are not funding that anymore as part of the EECS give to us so that's going to be sixty thousand dollars that no one was expecting we also have a new expulsion legislation now thankfully we do not have a rash of expulsion they're usually not a full hundred eighty days I think this year there's three last year there was about three so that's where we average we hope to have none going forward in the coming year however we anticipate this this current year spending about $35,000 existing expulsion in the 12 hours a week requirement of tutorial services that we are mandated to provide when a child

082is expelled that essentially has doubled with the new state law that we have to provide 25 hours of tutorial services to children or a spell just to realize the way the law goes in it they don't want you and fertilise too much but a typical school week for a student is about 36 hours so this becomes tutorial services 25 hours for a student who's a spell so there's some issues there and we're doing our best we anticipate on top of the 35,000 we typically spend we'll probably have to spend $25,000 more we need to be prepared for that hopefully we don't ever have to say that but that's that's there two other requirements the data privacy legislation that has to do with software applications all kinds of things and us being very careful with the

083student information that's provided to the vendors and so we have to look at legal fees and we're still up you're talking about policies that'll be a policy we working on we there that's in technology and then the health requirement that you talked about earlier a collab for the class of 2020 - right now there's not going to be a class for next year but going forward we need to be prepared for that all right so what are the strategic investments these are just a few of them this isn't everything this doesn't encompass every board priority but these are kind of the new spans the new asks or ask for us going forward so in terms of all the curriculum work we're doing to align our curriculum our instructional supplies at the building level our instructional

084supplies with K science materials the time to have our teachers writing curriculum and the requisite professional learning you can see the cost the new costs associated there we've worked through the budget on that exploring enrichment this has been an area for a couple of years that parents and more been interested looking at an enrichment model specifically most likely at the middle school so what we've done is contacted a Renzulli group at UConn and in your one of consultation will be about $15,000 for their consultation and they'll do focus groups they're actually meeting with us in February with a leadership group to get started free of charge before I even next year start so really getting serious about that and especially if we go forward which is they say the board we talked about school start

085times we're going investigate school start times next year in planning and preparation for nineteen twenty year nineteen twenty that's going to be consulting services approximately thirty thousand dollars we also want to bring a world language lab to the middle school we're going to bring a mobile lab to the middle school that's gonna cut our costs but also be very effective and mrs. Holly can you raise your hand you're in the world language English language learner Department sure you're new to the district so make sure everybody knows you that is for seven thousand dollars and then upgrades and technology increases to that particular budget line one-to-one technology again so might remember we're getting away from the leasing of the iPads and we're moving to the purchasing of the Chromebooks we have presentation stations when we finish

086that project at the high school and then continue beginning at the middle school and then a lot of capacity bandwidth again further switches for the networks the firewall for the safety of students and I mean update all out at the high school and another lab at the middle school the other thing that we're going to do different profile that hasn't happened before is we're gonna work through dr. Cipolla witch doctors operation and make sure everybody knows you Christine another new administrator to the district she's already begun to work on Medicare reclamation for those students who qualify for those services and we can recover those funds from the federal dollar have done that before so that's going on so those are the key strategic investments I will have you know things like a flooring and additional

087world language mrs. Holley's going to be beginning that this year anyway in looking into next year in the following year so that's the word priority it's just not on here because that's part of our natural work it's not going to cost us any money to do that all right so I want to summarize any near the end here faculty and staff additions asking for one English language learner teacher one science teacher in the part-time certified occupational therapist assistant at a cost of one hundred ninety thousand dollars the reductions to sessions of elementary school at specifically at Center one custodian and that's a savings of thirty five thousand dollars in terms of the employees the way those positions work we're not asking for any new positions in the sense of new headcount all right just a

088brief slide here that you can take a look at for enrollment projection so we had some we had to make an amendment to the October 1 enrollment report and that has to do with these students receiving help placement services in special education that's up 12 students in this current year from last year we anticipate that number being the same next year but as you can see from this current year to next year we'll be down a total of 67 students and I have some notes there at the bottom just to briefly go through with you it'll be good for those who want to look at this online are soon as the special needs 356 in district that's all 14% of the population that's right in line state average that's that's about the number you should

089should have identified we have right now 97 students receiving English language services are free and reduced and that's going to be level for next year we anticipate we'll be level unless we have a drastic change in enrollment free and reduced lunch this year 278 students seems to be leveling off from last year only a 1% increase and we're responsive to enrollment fluctuations every single day and number of Union Board members or educators so you see this case are moving in schools and districts all the time so we're seeing we're no different in Brookfield we're seeing that it's actually becoming more the norm here in town than it used to be and then the other piece is several students with special needs have had change in programming as a result of the 12 new students being

090identified for all placement services and also enrollment changes in that particular area impact of that all right if you look at this a busy chart plenty of time to look at the history of this but if you look at the very bottom row it's mostly green and that's great okay what you can see there that's the class size average projection for the next year so you can see in great K&K in one where we either at Target or just below or just the default target in grade 2 below targeting grade 3 below targeting ready for we're at targeting grade 5 just a little targeting raid5 same thing grade 6 and then we're above the range in grade 7 and we are at target in grade 8 so our class size averages really do look fantastic

091with the way we have things laid out the one thing in talking with mr. Aranda about grade 7 was looking at the schedule looking at student needs and what we've really learned is that while the average is 25 in the homerooms there is an effect size effect in those classrooms where students many times through their classrooms are receiving their students in those classes who are not necessarily always in those classes receiving tutorial services outside there's paraprofessional scheduled in those classes or special education teachers schedules in the classes so effectively that 25 is more likely 23 to 24 still above the range but we have to come to you and we have to make some tough decisions on you know our responsibilities and what we're asking for and we're certainly open to the discussion about that

092or really in a good position there that if you as you can see there was more red in the other year so we're getting better there we have a bottle class there all right it's gonna go back to that initial slide that I discussed recapping for you we're currently at a forty million eight hundred eighty four thousand dollar budget the additional 2.6 million dollars that we're asking for bridges to forty three million four hundred ninety thousand to maintain the status quo is nine hundred twenty three thousand dollars major increase in special education costs this this current year which translates into next year you can see the percentages there the revenues and then the strategic investments total costs of 0.8 percent or three hundred and five thousand dollars and as you can see if if the

093ask from the superintendent and the principles is three hundred five thousand dollars if you take the status quo out in this major increase in special education you know we're really if the the what we're asking for for new enhanced exciting things for our kids is actually not that much obviously the totality of this request is six point four percent well aware that the last two years I think it was a one point two percent increase from last year this year the year before it was a two point one nine percent increase so just a little history there and that's the presentation I don't know if I was 15 20 25 minutes but I'll stop and open the Florida discern any questions can proceed rationing is fine after everybody want you yeah if you had handed

094that to us beforehand I would've been looking well for questions about the budget John just about the schedule I know yes yes I know we had talked before about the potential of moving the public hearing date from January 20th to January 3rd and just I made that request because we're scheduled for a possible possible approval of the budget adoption of the budget on January 20th and I if it doesn't make sense to have a public hearing the very day was scheduled to adopt the budget because we need to evaluate and really take the input my public has seriously so I asked if the potential to move that up one meeting people are right but if we if we then move it past the January 3rd day we won't even be able to discuss them for

095generally third so if we have a third party all the other thing we could do is move it to the twenty sometime in between yeah that we could as well and I could be the guy who sends a nice voicemail on January 1st reminding everybody about the me on 3rd and ruiner Happy New Year day Navigator I'm used to doing those things um we can discuss that I mean school is back in session at that time public hearing that it gives us the best amount of time to discuss what does everyone think about that so what are you thinking of time six o'clock then for the public that's what that's what it was scheduled now for six o'clock for January 20th right we definitely have to do it earlier yeah exactly I would prefer to

096see it closer to the first week in January then towards January 20th just to make sure that people have enough time and we have enough time to take their suggestions into account I think the third is fine everybody has to be back to work time to get on the new year I'm fine with the third yeah no I understand what you mean Bob but you know what they're all back to work what's up okay so could we change that on the budget schedule then I posted I think it's posted in the in the administration of it actually that'd be great and then we can start advertising it as soon as possible so that way public knows are there any other question with the budget proposal articulate what they were like to see in a budget

097or bank we leave that up to the principles and how they go through their building budget process of how they work with their part and chairs or their system principles and if they bring in the teacher leaders or other groups of teachers so that's it's not a formal process that I oversee but is that information ever made available oh yeah I mean maybe that's useful to share exactly how they get that information I can get that answer to you and great great do by school break so so when I was before make sure I'm clear and how I heard your presentation it doesn't sound like we have any major changes to existing programs is that a fair read to let loose edition was theirs last year at this time we were having a lot of

098discussion about think changes with such a little hard with language into education yes and and so there's no major changes now just a problem we solidify that Center school position you know remember those discussions last winter and that's working quite well okay body here yeah and the and in terms of ads programs it's it's a lifeline of a middle schooler and more science those are the two major major and then any ask on the request for an additional teacher TESOL teacher burning flames large which is more of a substructure as opposed to all necessarily offerings okay but it's quite necessary oh absolutely necessary and he saw teachers of or teaches thank you refresh my memory about World Language at center and huckleberry there is no Spanish any more entries there is yes yes we have

099said wait five teachers for K through four okay so and that's what we've always had hesitation yeah the discussion last year was we were having trouble filling the center and we actually got somebody there henkka and that seems to be a much firmer ground which was great and then now the big issue we talked about with the amount of time middle school which was hard I mean Dean Peters juggling more than any I've ever seen something trying to juggle skipper schedules so maybe they will fit in a lot more social studies time without taking too much away from the world language that was a hard possession wants Jane could you tell us just a little bit more about the science teacher what are some of the thinking's of what that would offer to the high

100school I'm actually gonna turn over time so like we stay the deep work we're limited in science classes in terms of the numbers to to second me in the class in a different way because the publishing regulations and the number of laps pasta there are so that's the first thing and we we have a requirement of four credits of science to graduate so right now we're meeting that but in comparison to other schools in the area and across the state we have a limited number of electives and we're actually bio heavy and physical sciences light and when you look at the next generation science standards and you look at the types of jobs that are currently available and the types of jobs that we don't even know about that will potentially be out there for

101our students there's a need for more offerings in the physical sciences for this type of thinking and learning that students should be able to accomplish in their high school and right now that's not an area strength for us so we would be looking for a teacher who could teach be certified as the other issue a certification you know social studies teacher can teach social studies an English teacher can teach English but we can't take any science teacher and plug them into any science course because science is certification driven and so mark with regards to our science certifications could you speak to that he's much more or neither of those teachers then I am and with this with the next generation science standards which we have a lot of work to do on Jillian Bigley I

102get the big leotta our chair has been working on NGSS all along for the past I'd say three years but she also teaches two classes and which is different from what our other department shares are doing and so she's a department chair we really need her to be doing more of the department share work right now but we can't ever do that because we don't have any in the department who can teach these classes yes dr. Ruby's first question sought certification so in science and can si Connecticut if there's a couple different certifications give me general science certified which allows you to say very introductory sort of level science you can be biology certified you can be chemistry certified physics earth science so there's five different certifications and they're very prescriptive is two types of

103courses based on the course description you can teach there's been a lot of conversations at state level with the shift to NGSS and what those sort of certifications that they begin to become more flexible at this point there's no bending from what I'm hearing that they're going to keep those certifications and expectation is the same way knowing that we are so physical science light on the back end when it comes down to a typical sequence for our students would be taking you take your earth and energy essentials your freshman year biology or sophomore year you start to get a little bit more opportunity possibly your junior year but mom most students are going to take chemistry or some form of chemistry and then when it comes time to a elective or to meet that fourth

104option certainly some students will take physics as an option right now after that you could take AP environmental science as a possibility but the other electives that we're running right now is ooh ology very bio it's a life science expectation we offered a DNA on biotechnology which is biology we run that Tech which is biology life science certification so as those students look to explore that next level there aren't we don't offer any opportunities really in the physical science for that you know senior year other options for electives so we really need to expand what we do and that's one of the reasons were another reason we're asking for the social science teacher so I'm just wondering are other particular types of courses that you're considering developing or as you depend on you can hire

105it really depends on what you know and as I was the challenge right so we would be looking for somebody with social science certified right I mean I would be d posting if approved to that level we look for somebody's physical science physics certified chemistry certified you know the general science mixed we need to find some other STEM types electives you know that push towards that level it's really dependent on and it's going to be an interesting mix to see what we can do we can certainly in our program studies we can maybe offer additional sections of other courses you know maybe be able to pull in looking at some of these other ones you know we might be able to run an additional section of environmental science which is a little bit it's it's

106not quite you know the it's not quite the physical science piece listen or a science piece we shouldn't have a lot of options for a case that way physics but a lot of those types of course offerings and what we do for the program of studies and what's in there so yes it will help us open and expand our offerings but it might take two years to really get that developed and moving along the way yeah we don't start now we're gonna be forever playing catch-up here and when you look at the science standards that we're responsible to now and where we want our kids to have opportunities in the future and that course of studies that we have it's so bio driven that it's it's not a well-balanced curriculum there's nothing wrong with a

107curriculum that we're offering it meets all the state guidelines but it just doesn't offer the variety that we believe that the children should have and being able to follow different paths we're kind of shuffling everybody down the same pathway with what we offer when you talk about you just to talk about this work or principles with like earth we guess that engineering principle and that what we don't we're missing that piece I mean we have we have it you know we're compliant to the degree but we need really not the best part is no do do teachers often have more than one certification when they tend to just have one there's a whole lot of what you're looking for science teachers generally you're gonna have a lot of biology teachers people go into biology major

108and then look the letters themselves to become teachers so myself I'm a biology certified teacher and in general science you sometimes get a lot of those cross endorsements not as many chemistry or physics teachers out there I the same thing but so you're mostly gonna get biology and general science teachers is Johnny English you can find the easiest and one of the things that we talked about is if the board was supportive of this even though our budget doesn't go through the whole budget life cycle and till you know be at completion in the spring if the board was backing this this request we want it post and the anticipated opening because I don't need so anybody that's sitting here what happens when your budget doesn't get finalized at the end of the year you

109start posting positions especially when they're special specialty positions like this the people are gone and so we would want to have an anticipated posting and be able to connect with the the schools that are preparing the high level teachers in science that that we're looking for and this request also just I want to bring up as well that several years ago I believe it was starting with a 1516 school year was the first year we operated with nine teachers in the science department previous to that there was always this there was this attribution it was this 10th teacher and reallocation budget you know that teacher was reallocated down to the middle school you know I think to uh whether I'm not sure that the conditions resignation retirement something along those lines so he did have

110ten teachers ten science each of the high school for Nick Fury at a time and it's already in 1516 we actually bumped it down to nine so this is actually you know a conceptualize bring this kind of back up to knowing that we have classes in the unites yes 24 is a guideline for a lot of our biology and life science classes those lab heavy classes but we do have some upper-level classes zoology we're looking at 28 kids in class so it's something to be mindful oh thanks for that question again does it called us to be able to tell you a lot of important stuff [Music] I have a question about the English language learners so it still seems like two teachers for almost hundred kids across four buildings very shocked so what exactly

111did he do and how is this going to really we're trying to be respectful of the taxpayers while we're thinking about this and obviously if we wanted to create a budget for a dream school it would be you would laugh at us I have to be honest I agree with the sentiment that you're expressing and if we were not in very tight financial times at the request would be for more teachers I personally you know call me crazy but I would love to have one dedicated TESOL teacher in each building but you know we have to look at all the things that all students need and so we felt that if we were fortunate enough to get one additional TESOL teacher and we would make you know we'd work that out that way it would

112have more data to come back you know in the following year if our numbers stay stable and after one but I'm certainly I was certainly welcome being told by the board that that we never say I could really handle that I know I know mostly are mostly students are heavy in one fingers wide I know the high school is probably the lightest it's latest but it's really interesting that you bring that up because we talk about this all the time and I and if you want to chime in at any time it's the latest in terms of the number of children but remember they're the furthest behind in their development and it's the immediacy of oh my god these kids are going like out into the world so it's it's different in each school we

113have the largest number at huckleberry and boy would I love to have a full-time person you know in a school and like it would really start talking about maybe we need to that's I mean we could really talk about this and and get ourselves into bigger numbers of teachers but I think that we at least need one more and hit me anytime you want but the other point that dr. Ruby who is the we're doubling that department if you will and is this in it with a second teacher and we want to make sure that that's effective as well and we'd be able to come back to you today yeah so we do appreciate the sentiment for sure and again this is the initial proposal and discussion as we and if you you know you

114might want to hear a few words when this is holidays she's actually essential on for this year yes I've stacked back to devote my time to other things now that we have her working in the schools and she can tell you exactly what's going on because she's got her boots on the ground in those buildings every day so you can ask her Poppins he's not your head like herself and she was an English language learner so she knows what you know better than any of us who have studied it or read about in a book she knows what these students are going through as as newcomers and language learners sorry there any specific questions that you know that I can think of and yeah I'm mostly concerned with the numbers and media this isn't moral

115question or issue I'm sorry but the number seemed to go up so drastically every year and you know you projected that it was sort of like level off but that big jump every year is probably not at once it's probably throughout the year so yeah I guess I'm you know I'm concerned that two teachers are going to service that many students but then are you gonna keep climbing so there are a lot of factors to to the numbers for example we can also say that you know this is also a transient population or tends to be I know for example in speaking to a lot of the teachers a lot of the parents as well some of the parents are on work visas for about three years so there is that mobility within the AEL

116population so that's a factor to consider as well right now we're seeing a leveling off so I definitely echo that from the numbers and you know yeah it definitely needs they don't speak any English or how small it that's another factor they all for example we have I could think of three level ones at the high school you know one from Puerto Rico with interrupted instruction not only due to the hurricane but because of other factors then we have another one from Ecuador that she's really advanced in Spanish but not so much in English but her literacy in Spanish is amazing and then we have another one from Brazil who is kind of you know in the middle so even though there are all three of them are level once they're all it there's a

117lot of different factors culturally socially economically that alone is yes yeah and so thinking about that you can appreciate that there's three students right there totally different backgrounds and they're all beginning English learners but they need a tremendous amount of differentiation so it's not like having oh small class of three is having three classes of one where you have to plan differently for each one of those students so the numbers are the kind of thing really don't tell the whole story I know we have like 23 languages but what is the SI guideline for like how many students being one particular language that we're sort of in terms of higher levels in education so you need 20 students that speak that language in one building and we don't have that yeah okay do you have

118many students exiting the yellow program as they become proficient in English well that depends on also on this is my first year here so I mean and just looking at the data from last year we ended up in June with around 86 students and currently now we're at 100 so in terms of giving you exact numbers of student exiting well that certain certainly is our goal we also have a lot of students entering the district at different times so that's why I wouldn't be able to give you a concrete number yeah but one teacher doing the testing it was doing the testing that yeah so last year prior to last year there were people who got stipends in each of the buildings and did the testing last year because of questions about data and meeting

119to get everything all of our assessment practices and all the state reporting all to be in compliance we had one person combing through all of our documents re-entering data that had that didn't jive with paperwork that we had etc and we had that one person do all the testing so that we would have a baseline we're looking at currently looking at training other people to do the testing but we did it with regard to the types of services that we were able to provide with the one teacher and all regular teachers as you know are responsible for providing instruction to second language learners as well we were able to exit a number of students who have been in our program in in our system last year so they reached level five and were eligible by

120law to be exited so students in the program is spite of the fact that we don't have a manpower we should have are making progress a different grace each one of them depending upon with their background so we are exiting students and also in addition this is an emerging field and I I was just in a cappella Conference on Friday and there's a lot of questions surrounding just Els and that not even the state knows yet so in terms of that but I know in our district for example at this afternoon I provided PD for center teachers both kindergarten grade one and also the specialist teachers over there and how to differentiate using the help standards and you know I told them bringing a lesson and let's take a look at that help standards and

121we really got down to how to implement them in the lessons so that is going on across the district so there's continuing PD over sorry when that primarily provides the PD yes and also coaching sessions in the classroom where I observe the teachers and debrief with them afterwards and follow up you know something that might be helpful if if you could shed some light on it how how do you educate children that don't speak English what are you teaching to the teachers through the PD you know the region have a child that comes in they don't speak English you put them in a classroom how are we educating that child if you could kind of give us a big picture of how how that works I think having that mindset of understanding what you're doing

122and how valuable that second person will be would be helpful do you understand I mean the big picture is quite big yeah the first up you know I always tell teachers as they have to look at qualitative and quantitative data to see what exactly that student can do because as I stated before just because on PowerSchool it might say level one you know what what does that mean so I really sit down with a teacher and take a look at the quality that one quantitative data of not only various assessments but also their observations of the student so it's critical that they understand what the student that yo learner can do in order to then provide personalized instruction that will have an optimized affect on the English language proficiency building of that student so there

123are many factors that go into my coaching of the teachers you know it we take a look at the individual students that they have in their classes we take a look at like I said there are English language proficiency levels we also take a look at their cultural backgrounds in order to select the correct linguistic supports teaching strategies to utilize within the classroom and of course there has to be follow-up when we select those strategies together it's really a collaborative effort that you know we're trying to have permeate throughout the district but as I said it's it's an emerging area and you know fortunately I work with teachers that are very receptive to the feedback you know they give them after I've served lumen ends of course I'm receptive of bears as well so I

124hopefully I answered that interesting so what does the e LLP cur you know des we're talking about it doesn't need a teacher neil how did that how do they engage do they go into the classroom they take the kids out of the classroom how does that process work well currently we advocate a pushin model where the teacher pushes into the classroom and provides instruction to ELL students in some classrooms I observed that you know the grouping it's not just yell students but also other learners that can be identified as struggling to kind of maximize that time within the classroom especially you at the elementary school I'm thinking the little reading groups that they have within the classroom to do that yeah so we we do believe in that pushing model and that also involves you

125know coaching the teacher which I've been primarily doing but sometimes also co-teaching between the general education classroom teacher and so the the teaching position what goes into individual classrooms as a in a structured way yes which is why it's so challenging to have one person that's before school and scheduled so it's a really tricky partnership I said if I could have one teacher in a school that would be amazing because that person and come and have to plan through the principles with the individual teachers that have English language learners in their classrooms which is almost everybody for 100 fields all those are the hundreds different centers across the districts and then plan for what it is that child's background is and the cultural piece is really important because you have to understand the child's background

126to know in their culture how is this instruction going to be received how it has the personal interaction need to be set up so that you're not insulting a child you need to know in which cultures are children allowed to make eye contact with adults as an example and which cultures are they not because at all frames that's the context for how you're going to provide that instruction these two English language learners might be at the same level any the same type of support but they come from different cultural backgrounds and I need to get a pen instruction in one way and I need to give him the same instruction but in a different way and teachers are prepared to do that so that's where the coaching is so important so there's a lot of

127time that's needed with individual teachers and individual students and one person and apartment share who's also department chair k12 oral language I can't do that no matter how they they are I mean it's it's a lot of work and the principles have been dealing with this as well so how much sort of time does as it stands now just with one teacher how much time is on average a student get per week with that teacher um so the best answer I could give you is that we developed a rotating schedule where we have the TESOL teacher going into two schools every day because also you have to take into account that you all support class at the high school that occurs every other day so that's something that remains fixed on the schedule so that

128really drives the rotating schedule and then so the students would be seeing the TESOL teach and they are seeing the TESOL teacher every four days and it also depends on how many ELL students are in that class I worked with the principals at the beginning of the year to at least have three or four per class to make it more manageable for the TESOL teacher other steps we've taken we really revitalize our registration process if you take a look at our website you can see that multiple forms as well they're being given in different languages are being provided in different languages there are additional questions in the home language survey also to really get down to those for example cultural questions another thing that I've been working on with the building principals is getting that

129introductory meeting with a family when they come into the district to ask them those specific questions that teachers want to know for example what type of instruction they were receiving and their home country yes and we also have a trans we're working with a vendor sarah comp where we're providing translation services for example during conferences building principals and teachers were offered that option and it's super simple because all teachers need is access to the telephone it's an 800 number it's a simple four-step process and they have someone there available so it almost like yeah you haven't found a language at that they can provide yeah yeah you know I used to work with I use thank you that's any other questions very any other questions regarding the budgets speaking of questions I wanted to make

130sure a partner is you know if we can by Monday morning we want to have a thorough response to the pup for you next week or for the following board meeting if you can get those questions either can or me or dr. Ruby we will compile them on stretchy and provide response as well if we certainly camper if we can't provide one in an immediate no take more of a discussion we'll have it noted and when we prepare to answer it with the understanding though I need there's it's been a degree there's a lot of line my line iris here and that's understanding that you're probably not going to be getting through all of that by Monday so as you go along and continual if you can get the first round of questions we probably

131want to have a date there's questions right here next Monday we address all those by this one yeah yeah the question is why we have questions you know by the eleven they'll will have all the responses available and for fuel of the discussion ready to go that's right and the other thing I'd like to put out there as it offers any of the board members at any time a lot to take have been through this before I talk talking to a port number earlier this evening before the meeting started you want a one-on-one meeting you want to go through the budget binder and have lots of questions that you don't need to have formal written answers to do I have a big pile of discussion about come on it walk through anything any questions you

132have just know that I mean you know if it's really had a needy greedy numbers and figures and you want to walk through with count on those kinds of things you want to walk through curriculum issues with dr. Ruby or you want to sit with me and go through both of those things more than happy to do that please don't be afraid ask questions we don't ask questions so there's all those who will want you to hold most of the questions and books yes thank you thank you I hope the presentation short enough with enough information so they did find Alison it did it's amazing the status quo number will be posted online for that's right so encourage everybody if they weren't able to see this or even if they were to see the information

133in further detail to go on the website and share it there oh gosh and poor finisher that that brings us to upcoming events which Daniel pretty much still to Thunder I think on everything yeah be covered everything okay and so that is it so unless there is anything else without objection the meeting is adjourned thank you [Music]