Board of Education Meeting 9-6-17

001[Music] [Applause] as many Nepal we had to retire flat there were a number of photos to resign everybody and so in his total we have [Music] so and now mr. Myers well [Music] who is [Music] are we great Sophia Simone we have who is a health we need armor William thank you and it is displaying information already from the high school all right but we have Melissa Lee who is one of our two new teachers we have led Hale who is a teacher mr. riah a teacher we have k12 yellow world language departmental and then we do a little building we borrowed know we're from a mean I was energy teachers now a cruel and greedy who is a college class or a certification so join in as well [Applause] we're gonna introduce our leader

002for a deposition so we just met and I think that you've met and we have so we want to thank you for giving us that position because we really appreciate it and I think it's gonna help move the strategic plan forward and really be an asset with the development of curriculum and instruction this year well I met many of you at convocation and as I said at that and that first event that our favorite time of these board meetings is this introductory session where we get to meet people and and and see what is going on in our schools we hope to see you again with students in tow you know showing some of the cool things that you're doing and we all just want to welcome you to Brookfield and congratulations on those of

003you in new positions so I know the principals have already told the teachers that yes you have lots of work to do tonight and get ready for tomorrow so you're able to leave when I'm ready so you're comfortable and feel it's appropriate you guys are welcome to move on with your evening thank you for coming tonight all right and the crowd thins out why don't we just give up one session where we continue you know I know okay why don't we continue next up on our agenda is an opening day report it was an emotion something it's just an action that's okay so not sure so the the four principles actually have talked and they were going to present a bit differently I think they're all coming up to the podium together this year to

004do an overview of how the first week went so principles and I think dr. shealynn is going to introduce things good evening we decided we realized that year after year we companies already done and see to our reports we all say thank you to all the same people so we decided that I would represent the team initially to do our round of thank yous and each one of us will do our own individual report so on behalf of the administrative the building administrative team I would like to take a moment to acknowledge our gratitude to the following individuals and organizations for their help in getting our schools ready to welcome our students for the 2017-18 school year to superintendent Burrell and assistant superintendent Ruby for their support in preparing for the start of the school

005year to each school office staff and library staff for their enormous help over the summer to our assistant principals and curriculum resource teachers who scheduled plan and find ways to make our schools work in the very best ways for our children to are custodians who spend the summer refreshing and revitalizing our schools and making ways for the building to shine everywhere - Mr Dan Caldwell and his staff for all of their help in making repairs and updates to our buildings - Deb Jones for her help with bus changes routes and organization of the safe transportation of our students to the teachers and parents who came out many days this summer to make up our interview teams in helping us to find the very talented staff that you met this evening - the teams of teachers

006who spent many days this summer working on curriculum writing teams that helped us to envision a stronger more integrated learning plan for our students in Brookfield so the park and recreation and PTO for their beautification of our school grounds to the PTO for their opening school social events that helped our students and staff ease into the new year and finally to the teachers and staff at each one of our schools who made this a wonderful school opening ok so now for my school report I already introduced my new teachers so we were asked to give you our report as we usually do for my enrollment report this year we opened our doors to a hundred and forty-eight kindergartens that kindergartners with four classes of 19 and four of 18 we opened the door to a

007hundred and seventy-one first graders with students classes of 19 and 20 and so far we have 39 pre-k and that number obviously continues to grow as we get students in out of birth to 3 so for the back to school professional development this year the grade one students went I mean teachers hussar I went to huckleberry and met with the teachers in the second third and fourth grade to do training and the new star math assessment and spent a very productive day they're learning about the assessment that they will be giving soon the kindergarten teachers spent a split day working first in the morning to use data that we gained through our kindergarten this is the first year we've done this we gained good data in our kindergarten screening and they use that data to

008begin to plan for the school year in our open court how they're going to use the open court program that now that we're more used to with you know we're better able to use that data to plan and in the afternoon they went math standard by a math standard to get a cohesive assessment plan how they would use data from the inside the classroom through performance assessments and through the assessments that come with program to have a solidified Pro assessment plan that they could use for kindergarten the specialist teachers worked in their departments these special education teachers worked in their departments and also over the two days every teacher met with people from the special education and the related services feels to be up to date on the students that were coming to into their

009classrooms so for the upcoming year we have focused for ongoing professional development in the in our building and we're trying to keep that down to a Co a small amount of big goals that we can really focus well on so our biggest school this year is really focusing on meeting the diverse needs of our learners and engaging our learners in ways that will help them access the curriculum using our data to process collaboratively to solve our learners needs and finally to apply the lessons that we learned last year as we were implementing all of our new programs and our new assessment tools this is our year to take a breath and really look at what we learned last year and to apply it deeply and to really meet the needs of our learners and finally

010to really continue to look at how do we communicate with parents everything that we're doing with our students and how do we communicate to them around data in ways that they really can understand what we're doing with their children and what we're learning about their children thank you Chris all right huckleberry we opened our doors to 521 students we have 172 second graders 173 graders and hundred 79 fourth graders we also welcome 30 new students huckleberry this summer 11 in second grade 10 in third grade and 9 in 4th grade we've one more fourth graders registering tomorrow so welcome in a couple weeks I meet students coming to us from his closest new town in Norwalk from as far away Utah Jamaica Sweden in South Korea so we had a quite a wide variety of

011students joining us this year and our class sizes are ranged between 19 and 21 depending on the class and that kind of thing so we're in really good shape the teachers are thrilled and this classes are gelling well and it's just it's been a really nice start to the year our focus for PD the beginning of the year was again as Chris mentioned our star math assessment so all of our 2nd 3rd and 4th grade teachers were together collaborating around that and learning more about star math and how the standards will be assessed using the star math assessments and kind of getting a handle on what that would mean for our students and in that data that we'll be getting from those resettlements our special teachers are unified arts teachers work together around curriculum and

012put together a lot of curriculum documents our related service providers we're meeting as well as I said all of our teachers meet with and related serves and specialized teachers over the course of those 2 days to make sure that they are aware of students plans any particular needs that are in place that kind of thing and make sure they're well prepared to start day one with those plans I've been running our focus for this year also is is really the theme is collaboration so how are we working together as the adults to use the data that we have and the resources that we have to best meet the needs of students and we're really focusing on that through the idea of a cycle of inquiry so we spent a lot of time last year in

013the year before building our assessment literacy so we understand that what the data that we're getting is telling us about student learning not only that's our learning but also about our teaching and then forming questions and trying to understand how we can better meet those needs looking at the resources that we have and connecting our resources with the needs that we've identified and then designing an instruction that will be I can dress those needs then coming back and reflecting and doing the same thing so in order for that to really work we need to have good collaborative practices in place for staff to work together across classes across not you know not quite a general classroom with special education with reading teachers with our power educator so that's really going to be a focus for

014us this year and another structure we're trying to put in place is called it's called a wind block and a lot of school districts do it but when stands for what I need now and the idea is that each grade level has an hour day where we are doing looking at using that data and that cycle inquiry in order to target our instruction not only for remediation bills also for enrichment so we're really looking again across the gamut across the spectrum of student needs to make sure that we are meeting those needs with our instruction and best utilizing our resources not only the resources and programs we have but also our staffing to make sure that we are optimizing and maximizing staff skills and the programs and resources that we have in place in additionally

015continuing to focus on our politics education for students practicing kindness acting responsibly working hard and showing respect our climate team is fantastic they put together they selected three books for each grade level that reinforce these concepts and also kind of focus on some issues that typically come up in each of the grade levels and we design lessons and questions along with those books they'll be read in each of the classrooms as a read aloud our PTO has purchased the books for us and then each student will take the book home with them over the course of a month or several months to be read with their families as well so we're really again Chris mentioned partnering with families and helping them understand our assessments which is also part of our focus but we're also looking

016at from a climate perspective how we're building that citizenship as well don't we're excited for the year thank you thanks very much good evening Dean man depends what was scary middle school we opened our doors to 885 students although today we have 888 students is the last day they've had three new students move in we have the number sometimes I think we have 47 new students have come over the summer but we all obviously had other students that have left the biggest thing to think of it is that the grades that we have from fifth grade last year the end of the year they were 190 students in fourth grade right now in fifth grade we have 205 so were up 15 there were up 17 she would be five students in 6th grade up

017to 245 students seventh grade we were down one 206 an eighth grade we are down to 231 so if you look at it's about a + 18 from the end of last year those current classes - to the current the ones from last year to this year we attunes come from obviously that the neighboring town theater in Fairfield Bethel Brewster we had some from different parts of New York New Jersey Kansas Florida but the farthest for us was crema Italy which is north of Milan the cutest kid the first day he's walking and he's just walking we're already calling the bosses oh my hey come on let's go pick it up pick it up and he's easygoing slow zombie and picked up so I said he said his name and it just I like this

018gotta be Italian I knew we had a student government so we said he started talking to me and I thought the funny story for that was you know Georgia stabile who was our Spanish teacher but his Italian and just you know what up to him and says listen if you need anything I'm I'll being that you know back in class if you need anything in the kid said to her the student said to her don't worry buddy to learn English so he was fine that was pretty pretty fantastic the PD what we worked on a little bit around the Atlas Rubicon in our curriculum and bundling the standards and curriculum that's going to be going into that we had done some work over the summer but we continued that work some of our specialist teachers

019were working on as you know from last year our schedule change it was skinnier that there's there's 20 more minutes added to that so figuring out the curriculum and how that will work for that time obviously similar to the other two schools with special ed and our guidance department in special services talking with all the teachers and making sure they're up to date students that they have was definitely you know some good work that we obviously needed to do before the first day of school the one thing that our focus is going to be again working at working with data and our results from our dibbles and our star math and our star reading and the different assessments that we have in figuring out what we need to do differently well number one for interventions

020for students but then at the same time thinking about what we need to do maybe differently instructionally as Mary Rose had mentioned also so it's our are learning at the same time but one thing I'm very excited about and I think some of you know that dr. mark racket from the Yale social-emotional center for emotional intelligence came to speak at our convocation of our staff and I went along with John Maureen and Christine over the summer to the training and it was just to the ruler training and when I spoke to my staff and I know even at other buildings that we talked about there were a lot of staff that were very excited about it and what's neat about it is that the first year is just about training adults right and then the

021second year is then putting you know perform into the class and I had staff that already had conversations with the mood meter I don't know if any of you have seen the movie yet but google it and it goes through the different types of moves that you could have in a day but I have staff that I've already started talking about it with their kids which is great they don't have to do that but it's just again it's an excitement that going forward and just for people that don't know out there as a ruler is to recognize understand label Express and then being able to regulate their emotions something that we see I think we see in society with adults and students but people being able to find those the way to regulate the emotions

022you can be sad you can be frustrated but there's a that you have to be able to pick the right time when to express those emotions and and I think it'll be something at least I know at the middle school that we've been talking about and it's something I think the verbage that you're going to start we're going to start to use and use some of these tools they call anchor tools that they have I think is going to be very very official for students because obviously we always talk about academics academics but we always go back to we all have to be there emotionally emotionally inside for us to be able to perform at our best so we're very excited about that adults and students and then just lastly you know the first day

023I always love the the big smiles and the wide eyes by the fifth graders as they're walking in to school but just a couple have many new students as I said you know how you doing it what do you think about WMS one of the students said you know everyone is so nice here and then the other student had to be next to him it says this clueless this school is better than my old one and of course you know me I said there's no doubt in my mind it was so all right there no specific feedback per se I think with obvious that students don't have as many teachers to be going to I think it makes a little bit in that transition it was it was interesting in the scheduling part of it

024because I think as we went through it last year it's not as easy as just the way it goes because I have a math teacher a science teacher that are in the cluster if we can what would call it but they're really on the same team if you want to put it so it was a little bit difficult with that but in the end everything it all worked out the first core of the day didn't work out perfectly but the first score of the day is the core that students that they have homeroom so what it does it just makes it easier we talked about not worry about taking the attendance and we have to take attendance but not worry about the transition going from homeroom to there they're already in their first score other

025day so that you know gives us a little bit more time and that is not as many transitions obviously going back and forth so yeah sure no problem thank you thank you all right welcome back everyone I say if I have to measure my mood meter right now the United same I'm humbled to follow Dean Renda so what I'm feeling right now I'm any great but I'm humbled a little little nervous so beginning enrollment numbers total enrollment for the first day of school was 866 students there was 220 we have 223 ninth graders 214 tenth graders 217 11th graders and 212 oh craters pleased to announce them some great numbers in athletics after working with Steve Walden I've got some numbers here for our different sports for participation and we have 98 students participating in

026football boys soccer we have 56 boys girls soccer we've got 43 field hockey is at 54 girls swimming and diving is at 24 boys cross-country is at 43 girls cross-country at 24 I think possibly the most impressive is girls volleyball is the second most 66 girls playing volleyball and which is an amazing number and thanks to all the work this summer we actually have standards in the large and a small gym now so that they can actually split up practice which is great so I'm trying to crowd all those girls on one court so that was some great work over the summer dance we have 25 students and Cheer 28 so that brings us to 461 athletes which represents 53 percent of the student body participated in athletics in the fall which is an unbelievable

027number that you know stays that size and has been that way for the three years I've been here and our first games really start this Friday we have football soccer try things anything else to you and volleyball as well on Friday our PE time is beginning kicking off the school year we're fortunate enough to have a lot of different pockets of the high school and departments that have experienced different levels of some of this training and I know some some of the board members were able to meet with dr. Alcock wood and training this summer so we have various levels of where faculty are and so talking about standards-based instruction curriculum assessment and we spent a lot of time and that PD trying to get some common definitions for those people that hadn't had the

028opportunity where I was like to say the cloud parting experience when you have this PD to really understand the importance of standards-based instruction curriculum and assessment so it's it's been at we had a lot of time getting on the same page it really was for me that cloud parting experience really because I've been talking about this with staff last spring we've had these conversations about proficiency break base grades and let's integrate what is the meaning of a B what does it really look like this is what I was missing now I have those components to bring it together and the staff is energized and excited to really start talking having those conversations about what we can do to transform to really get aligned with the standards based system and high school so I'm really confident

029as we move forward we look at our our timeline we'll be able to do this in the next couple of years it's very exciting so the staffs not bored with that and then we've set the stage for their work and they're CLTS every four days to continue that work looking at standards connected to assessments so that we can really see what we're measuring as we move forward we've also launched in the knee ask self-study and the ask visiting committee will come in December 2018 today was another meeting where we started looking at our standards break tup broken up into committees so he spent some time doing that and that'll be a year long all the way through the fall really exercise we've got a couple committees we're looking at starting to look at our schedule

030to take a look is that the best option for us I think in in collaboration with the work we're doing with standards it's important to take a look at that and see what we're doing from a proficiency based standpoint I'm looking at community service options we're looking continue to look at the senior project options things that the board is then on board with we're excited to have an additional reading teacher which is fantastic really looking forward to using some diagnostic data and really provide the best interventions for students as possible combining that with a school improvement grant we had a very successful summer pilot program with Kaia kayaks and talking to some too mr. Beldon over the summer we're talking about the possibility maybe there might be a board retreat with kayaks in the future

031just throwing that out there so we also did we're gonna continue training with English language learners our teachers and continuing the reading program you know our open house is tomorrow night at six o'clock one last thing I'd say don't have necessarily a funny story about the opening of school but the focus has been about standards and academic conversations and we talked about our core values and beliefs aren't just academic there's also civic and social expectations and I went to something just today's I'm trying to come up with this what am I going to say that's gonna be funny and make people laugh and it's not funny it's heartwarming as I'm in the hallway after school after our faculty meeting then our new Marine recruiter was here in the hallway he was hoping to catch up

032with me instead of time us for us to meet and he brought with him a former student of mine from New Milford who is in the reserves and now is doing recruiting and so we I got to catch up and about two minutes during that two or three minute conversation in the hallway two different students two different grades at completely different times walked by stopped turn to those two Marines and said thank you for your service that was unprompted it was unexpected it wasn't because I was there because they you know I don't like to admit it but they could really sometimes care less I'm there it wasn't about me it really was about the Marines it was it was a heartwarming to see their faces and say you've got some good kids here and

033we really do and so I can't take credit for that and say that's the school's job that what we've done but it is nice to know that those the students that we have and we continue to reinforce that respectful sort of behavior for people that deserve the respect so thank you Mark everyone quick questions right the girls volleyball is at three teams yes that's three teams freshmen JV and varsity huh one question a couple questions Anderson um community service starts with the incoming freshmen correct the acquirement have you decided yet how that is going to be reportable or what we have we have a community service warm that students can actually submit and will be completed through the school counseling department and they'll be keeping track of the 50 hours required for graduation and one

034more pet project well language there yep I've been I've been working with Kevin Holly who's there doing some training I believe it starts beginning of next week so to have kind of a grand unveiling ribbon-cutting you know I would like to have it sooner but come in really and I want our teachers to be trained so they can really show off for you what the world language is what the investment from the community was so we're going to wait a little bit for that grand unveiling but we hope to have to do is there in the next couple weeks rotating a regular basis absolutely I want to be able to do that for you okay thank you thanks mark okay thank you thank you sounds like a great shock all right so next on the

035agenda is public comment do we have written correspondence from Ron Jaffe regarding social and emotional factors impacting student motivation education in a digital age and opioid editorial from raid to Stephon regarding Cape from Christina Zimmerman regarding huckleberry hill elementary school mold from Dorian and re regarding reading action program Jessica Mitchell regarding air quality heather Buckley regarding huckleberry hill elementary school mold and Cheryl vartholomio regarding mold in huckleberry mr. land is working on that and yes the individual will be with us next next time am I correct on that mark for later in September recommend a motion that the board approved the minutes listed below is recommended the regular meeting of the 16th of August the kites moved and seconded any comments on the minutes okay all in favor any opposed all right so mister berola

036you're up next to the superintendent's report all right Thank You mr. Belden before I I have three distinct areas I want to speak to this evening but I'd like to first turn it over to mr. Poe so just give a very brief update on how we're doing with the audit and reconciliation process with town so thank you we spent the focus in the last few weeks really has been on filing the EO 1 with the state which we did at the end of last week and for those of you who don't know that's the very complex and comprehensive year-end financial report that we have to fly over the state and we got that done successfully we've sent Kimberly the town controller a lot of documentation I don't know that she has had a chance to

037review it all yet we met with her and mr. Belden was there min or two ago and she had not had a chance to review everything yet so I'm going to be setting something up with her within the next couple of days to just go through I believe we've sent everything that that we need to and can at this point but I want to make sure that what I've sent is what she was expecting to receive so okay so I think we're in a good place she also spent a lot of time with our County Supervisor John Reynolds going through some of the reconciliations just to make sure everything was in order and it was in good shape just for the board like I do attend the Board of Finance meetings as our representative at

038the last sport of Finance meeting they actually awarded a new contract for a new audit firm so the brookfield will have a new auditor starting this year the only challenge they had is that auditor cannot start the brookdale audit until January so much like last year the audit will be sliding into the beginning of 2018 but it's more because of the auditor availability and I think that Board of Finance gave Kimberly and Kent in the charge to make sure we're completely ready so that can go fast when when the auditor comes in and that's why with such a focus on it right now so hopefully that'll be the last time a lot of that finishes in January earlier because they should be done into somebody absolutely okay thank you can do up all right thanks

039again so then specific to what mrs. Stern was just sharing with a couple of parent questions as many of you know that late last week we had a complaint from one of our teachers brought forward a concern that there was mildew or mold on a chair in the reading room so we immediately responded with a visual inspection not only Dan Caldwell facilities director but both Ken and myself went there personally to take a look we immediately arranged for powers environmental to perform an assessment of the room to see where we would be at regarding that particular mold or whatever it was we have the tests first on the samples were taken on Friday and sent to the lab first analysis over the weekend at the same time we arranged for servpro to come in and

040professionally clean not only the reading room but the room next door so this is rooms 501 and just because of proximity we had those rooms assessed and out of an abundance of caution we assess we excuse me cleaned for other classrooms in that 500 block of classrooms and the hallway so that was done over the weekend we then had those two rooms tested again on Tuesday morning the results came in at 4:30 p.m. today and there is a comprehensive summary report that was emailed to us but the the highlight is that the air quality is representative of typical indoor conditions so that means it was a negative test levels are where they need to be in the room room is healthy and safe so that's that's very very good news we continue to monitor will

041also retest in another month and then take a look at addressing heat and humidity and kind of the conditions in the room itself which may be a source of where that came from in the first place powers environmental is the the professionals that did the air quality assessment they are here to help us with communications we plan on working with mary-rose actually so tomorrow she could send home a parent communication explaining exactly what I'm explaining today kind of as closure from the Friday letter that she sent so it'll be a Thursday letter and in addition to that those specific emails we can help the Board of Education answer those specific emails questions that came in from the for parents so we're on top of this I'm actually very proud of mr. Caldwell our facilities director

042and the team mary rose and her teachers everybody just handling themselves with such calm and and frankly such aplomb and coming forward handling it and you know getting the professionals in place they could really help us with a situation like this and rectify it make sure it's a safe and healthy and clean for our students so I know if there was any further questions on that well I just we'll start with what I as I read the letters that came in all four of them have said they'd like to do further testing broader testing at the school did you get any input from from powers that's on doing that sort of that's a further conversation I know dan has had that conversation this evening but we are going to have a further conversation with Bill

043powers from powers environmental tomorrow on that the sense in that regard is where you have complaints or smells odors or visuals of that which what could be that kind of musty concern that's where you might do your testing first or in very close to Jason areas as we did but he doesn't the professionals don't give us the sense that you just rush over to another area and test for testing sake so what we're gonna have some further communication with bill I know all right good any other questions from the board Bob just answer your question a little bit you don't probably let this another district I believe I'm guessing the Department of Health in the state of Connecticut has sort of a guidance document on just that very nice subject you know what does Iook

044you indoor air quality testing you know is it a good idea is it is there any scientific basis for the for the sampling you get and the general census from the Department of Health is no there's no good litmus for you know do I a Q test really early representative of your actual conditions so anybody who wants more information I would guide them to go into the Department Health website looking at the guidance documents on mold and indoor air quality testing because again we're always lay people here with us I really would depend on powers environmental the state of Connecticut Department of Health really is the one who sets up those guidelines well thank you for saying that you made me think about what we will also put into the letter tomorrow some links to

045those kinds of resources so it's easy for parents to click right on and take a look for themselves it's important in our teachers because in the end that's it's all about the kids right so we want to make sure our kids are all in that greatest possible environment that we can give them and I mean if we need to do testing if the if power says we ought to do more testing we oughta stand up and do more testing here if but if the professional say it's not going to do us any good it won't help us improve or not improve we ought to follow their guidance I would be interested in hearing the follow-up conversations that powers does have with them that she said they were gonna be discussing their regards we're gonna see

046how we can make mention of that perhaps in the letter as well tomorrow okay as well reference that a little bit and you had mentioned that possible conditions in that room that may have precipitated you know beyond said of all the heat and humidity is it just unique to that room just unique to that block or to the whole we understand it's unique to that area you know you've got to remember summer time frames are closed off a high humidity high heat that kind of a thing so we believe that's that's what it is that would be the closest we've got to address that humidity exactly and but that's the key with staying on top of it monitoring hearing from your teachers who are in living in those rooms every single day so we know

047exactly what's going on you do our best to address any you know issues that might arise so it's to that block that the conditions are unique versus the entire ground level okay and I did I hear and if one of the notes that went around that this was it this is environmental type of fungi stuff that you find in dirt and yes it's not black mold and things that our cars are understanding it is environmental mold that could come in on shoes with dirt and that kind of a thing and then again the heat helps it's a environment that it thought grows in and it's on you know organic material that maybe in a classroom it grows that way okay gotcha knocking it down to diminish it but I think that's where the and that's

048why you need the professionals so that's it and specifically you mentioned kind of mold it's in the report right in the letter so if people want to look it up they see the scientific name for it and you look up themselves okay okay the next one is actually mr. Baldwin Steve Baldwin our BHS athletic director we want to recognize Steve for incredible achievement he's among an elite group of athletic directors in the country that actually has national certification as an athletic director so I'm going to read from a press release that kind of summarizes this quite nicely we're very proud you see the national interest elastic athletic administrators association is pleased to announce the stephen baldwin athletic director at Brookfield High School has been recognized by the Association as a certified athletic administrator to earn

049this distinction Steven has demonstrated the highest level of knowledge and expertise in the field of interest elastic athletic administration the voluntary certification process included a thorough evaluation of the candidates educational background experience and professional contributions as well as a rigorous rigorous comprehensive written examination steven is one of an elite group of Interscholastic Athletic administrators nationwide to attain this level of professionalism the National excuse me Interscholastic Athletic administrators Association is a national professional organization consisting of all 50 states and their athletic administration associations in more than 10,000 individual members is dedicated to promoting the professional growth of high school athletic administrators and preserving the educational nature Interscholastic athletics and the place of these programs in the school curriculum so see if I can make a few more comments but you could work your way to the

050podium just to say a few words about this I believe Steve is one of less than tween in our state that have this certification so it truly is an honor to pass through the rigorous assessment process the interesting thing is Steve learned not only about this particular certification so he could learn more but he studied through classes he would take in going to the annual athletic director Association conferences and really picked up a lot of skills and a lot of programmatic elements and ideas that he's brought back just in his first two and a half years here with the district so Steve if you could share a little bit about that and where you're at we appreciate um congratulations thank you um it's been a great experience to learn and bring everything back to profil

051I've taken 17 national classes to get this certification they really go into your background a lot it's just it's based on like super that pearl said on the experience your education and leadership stuff that you've done so stuff that I brought back here is I'm able coaches need five CEU classes before they can get recertified it's a lot of coaches have to go out and pay to get those I can teach those based on what I get here so that saves us money having to educate our coaches I'm certified to do that you know just a lot other grant writing you know legal issues emergency action plans I mean ton a ton of stuff that I that I've been able to bring back here you know I mean you look back at you know before

052I got here people some of the uniforms people have a guiding years in you know truly only in a year and a half every single team has gotten uniforms we got scoreboards for whiskey near the mulch in the back fields just fine resources to help our kids you know we're gonna wrestle Matt you know none of those stuff is cheap in a year and a half we've gotten a lot it's just you know we're going to the why for swimming that's you know we don't have to rent out the dive shop or go to the Y for a little bit less money and we helps the community we deal with some work to to build a nice relationship there but it's you know thank you to everybody here for letting me go to those conferences

053and getting the certification to bring back to help our kids help our coaches all right congratulations again Steve and then the final piece which really I think will take up the lion's share of some discussion this evening with the board is what most folks are already aware of and I think we talked at great length to two or three weeks ago at our August 16th meeting which is the governor Malloy's proposal in terms of reducing the education cost sharing grants to many of the communities here in the state to help balance the budget the board tasked me at that meeting last month with working with the administrative team and putting together potential spending reductions in preparation for a worst case scenario or up to a worst case scenario so to kind of recap for the

054folks on TV and the folks here and to just bring the board back to the ECS discussion the legislature has not adopted a state budget at this time this gives the governor the authority the executive authority to reduce the EECS funds across the state for Brookville it could mean up to one point four million dollars but the Town Board of Education departments have been asked a plan for worst-case scenario options up to three percent of the budget for the board of education that's 1.2 million dollars as we walk through the proposal which is attached to the the memo in your packet please understand that the cuts progressively worsen each affecting the children closer and closer to their learning experience budget means cutting valued programs in people there's no other way to say it will be

055painful if we have to go there it does mean cutting valued programs and people the last me at the last meeting I reviewed the main improvement actions we have already taken as a Board of Education and administrative team with our budget thus far some of those include which is you know temporary purchasing freeze temporary hiring freeze and alike I want to thank the principals and central office administrators for their creativity and doing the best they can to keep for as long as possible as you'll see through the progressive cuts while all affect the students keeping it as far away from the students as possible before really getting to where it absolutely immediately will hurt students but no matter what make no mistake about it if we were faced with such a major cut it will

056be painful and it will set the district backward there's no doubt about it so having said that as an introduction and I know if there's any introductory points before the details we are we are not making these cuts correct right we this is a what-if cases correct depending on what the legislature does or doesn't do the town is doing the same thing right so in fact at this next Board of Education meeting the town is expect they're expecting the town to bring in their thoughts yes and are us to bring in our thoughts and but I think it needs to be clear we're not making these decisions until we know exactly what this plays out the problem of course is the longer the year goes on right the harder it is to find savings right

057if you had to so yeah Steve before mr. Perot goes through this any new input on what's going on yes I'm just talking back to what I said before this is exactly the reason why we need a budget we need now because any reduction in ECS funding is going to impact the children no matter how much we try to mitigate it I'm sure the the you know I know superintendent Barone assistant superintendent Ruby have worked hard in trying to make these you know as non educational as possible in regards to cuts it eventually Domino effects down to the children so that's why I would never accept the budget that cut anything from perfume or Bethel for that matter with that said the last I heard which is one shot of good news is that we

058are going into session on September 14th with my understanding the only thing like abilities to adopt the budget but my understanding is the Speaker of the House is kind of call us in a session and then recess to caucus with the majority so you know what you know I'm urging the speaker to and I'm gonna talk to John a little later about this maybe setting up some sort of you know press conference or something to we're going to know when we should go into on September 14th to vote on a budget and we shouldn't leave until it's done they should lock the doors and say figure this out and when you figure it out we'll open it again I'm fully intending to go up there and I want to sit there until we figure this

059thing out and it's up to the Speaker of the House actually call call the budget for a vote I don't care whose budget it is at this point we need to get something done because these cuts are drastic drastic and if you go just across the border in Bethel this is 1.4 is bad it's 8 million in Bethel so it's not only drastic to our communities drastic all across the board well it's it's interesting that was a piece of I sent it around to the board but there was a piece of analysis that one of the state watchdog agencies had done and they showed actual cuts as a percentage of school budgets and you know Brookfield's us like three three point five percent which is hard and we see how hard that is there was

060one district it was 39 percent of their budget would have been cut and you gotto imagine Mazal to shut shut the doors and baffles up on like in the teens and this is a very hard budget the other bit of analysis that I sent around was there's actually proposals from the governor which was basically take most of the suburban districts to zero right and and actually he didn't helped us the the city's much either right so it was more an overall reduction but there's also proposals from the House Republicans the House Democrats the Senate Republicans in the Senate Democrats and they laid them all side by side and by far the for Brookfield the most harmful one was the you know all the others were actually close to where we were in the past year

061or maybe slightly down or slightly yeah we happen was one proposal from the legislature and I'm not gonna get into a party doesn't matter it just you know for them they're all berries there's a current proposal now which has been discussed which to raise sales tax and things like that which you know what I'm not gonna get into that tonight but the the problem is is that in one proposal that you probably looked at where it said we were gonna be hold on UCS it actually gives the governor discretion to cut about a third of municipal funding so yeah we would vote okay fine give Brookfield you know the one full one point for ECS the governor that it would throw the ball back in the governor's court and he's gotten talk to one-third of

062funding so who knows what he would conjure and with it with a direction that his proposals have been we might pass a budget that says oh great regards to that budget one-point foot 1.4 million dollars of Brookfield then the next day the governor's is okay yeah we're make that five hundred now okay so think that could be troubling and and the other thing I read and one of the articles that were being passed around is part of the motivation is to take the education money and send it to the place where there's the greatest need and to force the wealthier districts to raise taxes to support their schools well he's missed that boat right we've already set our taxes great alright and and so it's it's very difficult so so as a town I mean

063and by the way I've talked to mr. done our first selectmen I've talked to the Board of Finance for our town and this is for all the listeners everybody here in the audience this is serious planning work this is where we're not taking it lightly but at the same time all of them we're all proud of our schools right so nobody wants to take it out of the schools in fact the first reaction of the first selectmen is we have to look at where we can reduce on the town side of spending and so that we don't have to take big spending cuts and I think if this were to come to pass we're gonna have some hard hard discussions to have it will probably be the it'll be a very challenging set of meetings

064last year from if it comes to pass the worst thing that could happen would be a continuation of the uncertainty right because it just leaves everybody having these discussions and you know not quite sure what to do so and it's problematic so but we have a lot of support I mean from the other boards in terms of wanting to make sure we take care of our schools but realistically if it was that kind of a cut would have to take some cuts here so we have to think about what those what that would be and that's why we do so on that and just in the spirit of collaboration I actually was i sat with first Lachman done and we had conversations similar what you're talking about mr. Beldon earlier today and yesterday afternoon actually

065while I didn't share the details of this draft proposal for possible worst-case scenarios so it is again for those watching is it's not an actual plan its its event planning just in case having said that I met with the are all of our different Union presidents yesterday and had a conversation about this upcoming it really is going to affect all of us as I said earlier as you'll see as we go down this list valued programs and personnel are affected which ultimately affects our children so if I may I'll get started and walk everybody through this so starting with there's there's six different scenarios and they progressively worsen as I say and add up to that 3% as we continue on which is 1.2 million dollars so starting with the initial piece on which first

066gets us to $200,000 and potential savings the first one is pretty straightforward with all the new teachers you saw today with the teacher turnover and hiring new teachers many times teachers are hired in totality at less salary than teachers who had retired so that savings is approximately $135,000 the other piece is interestingly with the way enrollment turned out in our French classes the classes actually had relatively low enrollment they were not burgeoning already and then as happenstance would have it our one of our French teachers who is a point-six teacher part-time teacher resigned to take a full-time position in another district mr. B'Elanna was able to work with our other French teacher happens to be mrs. Mac the Teacher of the Year have to get that plug in for her we're so proud of her

067she part of her teaching load was she would teach our English language learners some of our English language learners at the high school she's now taking on the full French load we had to combine some of the classes so class sizes did increase but they're not unreasonable in number and but our English language learner services we had to have our teacher who is not necessarily assigned to the high school go over there and pick up some of those students so we're spreading you know the resources a little thin there but that savings between you know the not replacing for the time being not replacing the French teacher part-time French teacher and the teacher turnover is about two hundred thousand dollars in savings or 25% the next one that many of you are aware of that's

068going we're going to work to get to four hundred thousand dollars now is our plumber maintenance mechanic that's mr. Caldwell who's acted in that position for the past few years when mr. teabolo retired dan took over the interim facility's director role is that a heck of a job for us this summer in that role but we have not replaced his plumbing position now all that worked out over the summer because the schools are not in heavy use when two thousand seven hundred kids descend upon the schools the toilets start to get flushed and you start to have plumbing issues I mean that's just the nature of things having said that we've already had to quell in some private plumbing services to give us a hand because Dan just can't balance both full-time jobs so while

069we'll save seventy eight thousand dollars potentially by not replacing Dan the reality is we'll pay it you know eventually on the other end with hiring a private firm so there's a delay in response time as an impact to maintenance needs and the cost of outside contractors copier lease we have a potential to put off the to extend the existing leases which could save us thirty thousand dollars in the short term but it delays our plans to really negotiate some of these copier lease contracts that we wanted to work on as mr. Baldwin was just talking about conferences those are professional learning experiences for our teachers we're going to we put a freeze on anybody going to conferences potentially if it lasted all year there'd be $30,000 in a reduction this inhibits our ability as mr.

070Baldwin just talked about is gaining new expertise in particular areas and bring that back directly to the to our programs in to the students we're going to delay replacing damaged furnitures which is a savings of fifteen thousand dollars we also had we're going to reduce spending in the field trip account by twelve thousand dollars which would force the principal's to work with the students and rely on the fundraising efforts from our Student Activities funds with the students to go on the desire trips and then we have a half we had a clerical position at central office at TSO the individual resigned and while the full-time position is needed we for the time being are working to only hire back a half-time person to replace the full-time person to handle essential human resources needs what this

071does is decrease the assistant superintendent Maureen's productivity in other clerical positions and and lessons you know response time in general so that gets us to $400,000 in savings the next section of potential reductions I'm going to go through bring us to $600,000 and savings we are going to defer the purchase of some technology equipment switches that that could really need to be purchased but we're gonna hold off Erik's working to hold off on that it's going to lessen our ability to add different devices to our network we did also receive some additional great grant funding so we're looking at a net of saving about $25,000 in the technology area we're not going to purchase a new library books for savings of $20,000 which decreases access to current books that align with new curricula that we're

072developing I mean you heard from the principal's although all the work we're doing with that you need literature to support that extra curricular stipends and late buses we worked with the principles on specific stipend areas where we might reduce those opportunities unfortunately those enrichment opportunities after school for students may also inconvenience parents we think across the board we can possibly save $50,000 we had to get to this level that'd be very unfortunate monitors we had increased the budget specifically for whiskey and center school they wanted to have some additional supervision for the playgrounds and for the cafeteria so we would leave supervision where it is with monitors and not higher addition not higher you know additional part-time honors or increased hours of those who are already working with us we have unaffiliated staff member position

073mr. Belinda has done some reconfiguring in his main office for the reader to work with new visitor management system we were hoping to add another set of eyes in addition to mr. Casten Ella its security and the SRO on the floor of the school but we may not be able to do that we may have to reduce a staff member in that particular area we also have three part-time positions that are clerical positions that support support our special education department those are folks that they scheduled PPT meetings they call parents they work on a calendar they help the teachers with organization so we'll convenience for parents to be very honest with you and that won't happen as quickly phone calls will get returns quickly they'll be able to upload on our special services teachers as

074well as on our clerical and secretarial positions in general and an increased demand on administrators such as spreading people thin when you reduce those support roles that gets us to $600,000 the next we really start digging further to personnel we would take a look at district-wide reducing one custodial position which would decrease our capacity for cleaning maintenance and building use it's pretty straightforward we would have to take an organizational approach where we you know a custodian for example isn't necessarily married and living at one building on they might have to split time between buildings in the evenings or something like that again these are things that we would if we faced we would give you more detail on but right now these areas we're looking at the other is an administrative position you can see

075it's a significant savings there that would trigger a reorganization we've already reorganized a lot about leadership positions we would have to reorganize this would be an increased workload on remaining administrators it would lessen supervision it would lessen the the effectiveness in thoroughness of evaluations it would lessen the the response time for problem resolution and response time getting back to parents and others that that need the administrators attention that gets us to $800,000 I'm almost done folks if you just bear with me we're now looking to get 12 million dollars we had going in that direction on we would look at one of our secretarial positions again we would look kind of district-wide and figure out how we would reorganize it would trigger a reorganization and increasing workload and remaining secretaries and in fact administrators again

076lessening response time we would then take a look at after-school sports at the middle school again what a major loss of opportunities for our students and something like this could be a possible impact on Parks and Rec program with increased staffing because parents rely on that time before they get home from work for the students to be actively involved if you add that with my earlier discussion about some of the extracurricular siphons those are clubs for kids so you start to peel away from that and it really in starts dating back whole community it's not just some students at some schools and we start to have to really take a look at our teachers we would locate through eight we've already looked at a high school position again with that world language position I mentioned

077right at the outset we would look at one of our our enrollment we would locate through eight and likely if we reduce the teaching position we could be looking at increased class size certainly unplanned for positions if we had to mix classes together to balance our numbers to be in alignment with our guidelines for enrollment age class um if it was in the specialist area it could be loss of tremendous opportunity for our students so we have to take a look at that and see where the least impact would be next we would look at one of our we have at least 63 paraprofessionals in the district total five of them are regular dedicated to regular ed services not just special education we would look at one of our regular ed paraprofessional positions that's loss

078of tutoring opportunities intervention opportunities for students and it redistributes responsibilities the kids needs don't go away they still have needs and could use some extra time we then get to the next level that gets us to a million dollars and then the final level we need to get find another two hundred thousand dollars we would again look at two teaching positions again you know I could hit class sizes the unplanned transition and loss of opportunities for students that may be horrible if we had to get to this particular area and we would again look district-wide at a secretarial position to see how we would you know trigger for the reorganization and workload and alike and it was just lesson or effectiveness overall so you know those are some details without getting into actual people to

079share with you what it might mean if we have to go down this road and as you can see it progressively gets worse and worse the depth of the cut so were open for questions conversation I do appreciate your attention can I have two quick questions can you just explain the unaffiliated staff member is that are we not going to fill a position or are we going to reduce maybe introducing a position okay then my second one is to listen to your sports does that number include officials and buses or is that actually can it doesn't work on us I can't even explain to you the coaching stipends okay it's only coaching segments yes okay so there would be additional saying I would imagine that would almost up between bussing in officials probably not I

080think I can fly down yes one thing that all this is is obviously god forbid there's a situation we have to cut something you know I would obviously we need to have further discussion at that time and because because there's a couple things like that are top of list here which is like a point six of the VHS world language teacher you know I I might put that in priority over some of the things as you go further than LS like for maintenance mechanic or copy or lease or something that may be a little more not educational and so obviously we'll have that discussion god forbid in the situation that we have to have that discussion in Tennessee is a function of enrollment and taking a look at the size of the classes and the

081interest the students have in those particular courses so you know it's all I was listening to that's something that's already done right oh yeah no that's already done yes okay you are essentially done deals well I understand that the teacher is went to another district or is not here but I didn't know if we had plans of rehiring somebody I guess you're saying we did that's outside of budget issues with the current enrollment we do not it that doesn't have to necessarily be a temporary and we're waiting to hire another world language teacher to fill that void that's something that's a done deal our numbers are reasonable in those classes the way mark has reconfigured it and that's something we can live with for the year where there was a loss was that in order

082to cover the classes that the French teacher was teaching under her other certification which is a TESOL certification we had to take the service that we have the one TESOL teacher that's itinerant across the district and so we had to take her time Andrea portion it so that she's that she's teaching a class at the high school one class right and so that's Everett so because of our block scheduling it's every other day so every other day Deidre Curry is teaching a class at the high school so that's that just as time taking away from her working throughout the district and mrs. Mac is taking up all of the French at the high school now instead of some English language learner students and French let's just how that's going I have a quick question for

083Ken on some of the positions and I'll just pick the person when that comes through under custodial it's a twelvemonth position is this representative twelve months because if we don't have an agreement for October or 25% of the money into the year so it is twelve months yes so it is four months so we may need to explain this list a little bit to accommodate that yes on the position some of the other things were for you know if they are what they are they are but yeah but things where it's a position you'd have to eliminate again for anybody who might be joining us at home to watch the meeting these cuts were talking about are not in place we don't plan to make these cuts also to this this is a discussion about

084potential education cost-sharing cuts coming from the state because there's no budget and we're planning just in case and I can also add that these aren't efficiencies that the district should be taking to save money that these are all items that would directly impact the way that we can best serve our students except maybe the first couple right we're savings retirements so Steve I have a question is there anything that we can do as citizens should we be writing to anyone can you suggest anything I have to get collaborates with Zhang's I know that we plan I'm doing yeah another joint letter yeah I'll do that tomorrow I'm thinking if we could get that organized for next Wednesday right which that you're going into session on September 14 and so that's that's the day before basically

085we'll have everybody in a room together right well the people you'd want to have sign because I'm at the Board of Finance meeting you could come I mean ask John to come and present this and I'll talk about that occasionally so we all may be there so we meet we have the joint meeting next week on the 13th they haven't actually called the joint meeting okay so that's okay oh um but yeah no that's if I could find a way to make it even quicker though because I'd like to get about there but yeah the person you should write out and at this point is the speaker the house he's the only individual that can call us in this session his name is Joe Harrison was I think it's Joe Harrison was at CGA SCT

086that gob is his email ar e s IM o wi c z good memory people call me is e up there because he's a speaker the house and then joining me urging him to get this done and he has the power to call us in the session he's costing the session to get this over with and create a budget in my opinion that hopefully will fully fund our district is anything short of that it's unacceptable because you could see what impact this has on our students yeah now it's not a time for the legislature to be partisan now's the time for the legislature to come together and do the right thing by the students and I think it you know Bobbitt Express this earlier this is not fulfilling this is how many other towns almost

087eighty something 80 plus towns throughout the state each one of those towns has a legislature what legislature obviously and this is something that impacts all of the towns many state representatives many state senators across all all facets of both sides of the aisle yeah there's a time for us to work together it's now okay any other questions for mr. Birrell wellness okay hearing none I've been in discussion with with mr. G and aza the chairman of the board of Finance about doing a joint meeting I've actually offered to host it here sure we have a better facility for it I don't know if you've had a chance to check availability we did yes it was available but it is what was it yes I saw ours if we need I will call him tomorrow and

088confirm one way or the other I think it would be good if we all attended and we had a joint session there's a chance to talk and having something like this here front of the Board of Finance they'll want to have questions and thoughts and it's something we have to come together as as the the two big boards in the town and I'm gonna also urge the Board of Selectmen to comment Guillen session was so we have all three boards tentatively well they're the Board of Finance meeting is on on the 13th right which is Wednesday a week from today they usually started yeah we can actually move cave to here too so watch your emails all as soon as I talked to rob I'll confirm that that's what they would like us to do

089and also confirm with mr. Dunn that they would either join or not join and and work with Lisa again a formal notice out so and and for those of you listening it's the sort of meeting that would become good to come listen in on and potentially speak up because this is a this is for all the board's to come together but it just it'll be the similar to tonight we're all in planning mode even the Board of Finance isn't planning on I don't expect any decisions to be made at that meeting but I but I do think the discussion will be illuminating and useful yes and if I might add the communication subcommittee is meeting tomorrow we're actually going to talk about a possible communication to our parents good and know about this situation it's

090all good yeah just let them know you know I'm not sure every parent is - did what's up here in the Hartford now only very straightforward do you recommend besides us running tunas writing to mr. a-to-z that parents and if you wouldn't mind Steve reiterating his email address parents members of the community we could really use your help this will directly impact the students this is something that we don't want to do and it's because of the situation and our state right now of not having a budget passed that we have to go into this planning mode of possible situations that we may have to take so Steve if you wouldn't mind repeating his email address and asking people to contact and that would be awesome [Music] Naomi ar e SI m o w IC

091z @ CGA ICT calm but yeah and and john and i will discuss that out of the meeting about sending out maybe an email from both of us to the community to the parents about what we're facing in the communications committee we can well you have something like that yeah but we'll check to the meeting enough obviously the parents want to contact the speaker then we can provide that email sure that would be right thank you Steve thank you you're welcome okay so most any other comments move on sure anything else on your report no I think I said enough times thank you all for indulging me thank you it was that was all quite frankly it was very useful information all around and sometimes some joyous with with new recognition nationally prophetic rector it

092does I come with a mood meter that what come on so mark what color am I okay - five - five no alright so next up on our subcommittee reports and considering we went long why don't we do just a quick run-through on the subcommittee's tonight so first would be heip actually August 15th and essentially our prior our our whole meeting was concerning the current practices with providing feedback to the students and returning assessments at the high school level we had had some concern brought forward that students were not receiving assessments of my assessments I mean tests that are given during regular subject classes at the high school and they were not receiving them either in a timely manner or receiving them at all to provide feedback as to how the student actually did on

093the exam and how they can improve their knowledge base going forward so it was a good thoughtful discussion and essentially the decisions being made is that that a really something does need to change because right now we have what's current practice there's no set forth policy or regulation as to what should happen in a practice seems to differ department to Department so the discussion is going to be furthered whether we set forth just a policy as a board Kate may be in discussion with policy on that or whether we just put forth something that's the expectation that this will be the practice going forward probably that as it lasts just as long as that year and usually policies are generally the guidelines for future boards and future you know districts going forward so it definitely

094merits further discussion on that point one other thing I did want to mention it was not discussed at Cape but it pertains to both Cape and communications as we discussed revamping report cards and that was brought forward Dean and and Mark discussed it that dr. Murray Alcock had a presentation a two-day presentation for the staff and administrators in Bob and I were able to attend it and it was phenomenal and it was very insightful as far as bringing forth standards-based grading and it's really difficult to have a standards-based report card if you don't have the standards-based grading to go with it and we had discussed that in cave and communications because it is a big concern with parents as well and it really brought to light the fact that we can't even really touch the

095report cards until we have the standard based curriculum and grades to go with it so but it is ongoing there there is the whole staff and administration is working very hard to rectify that situation and get it had a vertically you know lined in the right direction any questions for Colette on the Cape meaning um when the students weren't getting the feedback was it just the physical test that they weren't getting back or with a um it dependent and again it was departed departments some departments were handing back handing the tests and reviewing them but collecting all the tests again okay um some were handing back the tests and every you know not reviewing them in depth there's just no standard that goes even department department versus classic class so teachers were just generally practicing

096taking the tests back sort of integrity exactly maintaining the the tests for so it could be used again okay but they were getting the students were getting feedback sound agree yes okay I think we saw a lot of variability dependent and it seemed to be around the departments so the science department may be doing something in the English department may be doing something different than social studies and math so they were very they were notably different when we walked through so ok policy Steve not forgetting sorry I've done this for four years now is August 16th we met for a policy meeting we discussed in our camp policy which is already presented for a first reading the second reading should be at the next board meeting and the other thing we discussed is the continuation

097of 9000 series we completed all of it but there were some discrepancies in regards to the policies that contradicted each other or policies that were still out of date so we're trying to correct that we've made some good headway and correcting those and we should be presenting those I believe probably the next board meeting okay so that's an update of policy any questions for Steve on policy rosa you had had a document that you floated around Steve you get that did you get that in your email if not you should look at it yeah yeah I wrote a pretty extensive email on on one of the so region 5 has is basically the committee that oversees pre-hospital treatments for things like narcan administration other things well there's a like well it's a very long document

098but the one page that pertains to narcan administration was I thought really pertinent and I think that it should be I think the policy as it sort and now might just need to have take that into consideration so yeah if you had a chance to look at it so what we'll do is I think we'll probably have a policy meeting prior to the next board meeting so we'll just use that document and see if we can flex it into our policy for a second reading perfect and I'll just remind everyone as we talked about at the last meeting if you do have comments on that policy please send them to Steve before they meet again so that we can make our next meeting effective because then the policy committee will have had a chance to

099absorb the input that we may have before we do it at the board meeting so okay ad-hoc first I apologize for my voice I'm not sick I have seasonal little allergies that affects my vocal cord so I'm sorry if I cough or whatever anyway um we met at the ad hoc committee on Monday August 21st we had everyone in attendance except for two members we at the meeting we actually decided to change our name from ad hoc because the town has an ad hoc committee that is reviewing the police-station school and the library so our new name is going to be known as school facilities steering committee and that's what we're going to be going I from now on special thanks to Paul choco and Josh flowers for doing that document up for us clarifying

100the areas that were a bit hazy and needed just clarification to the bettors we received seven bids for architects to come into the school systems to review all four schools to look at you know our enrollments to look at the conditions of the school to look at how our schools are set up in terms of grade levels and one thing that that we do choose is going to be spending quite a bit of time here talking to us looking at the schools with yet everything gathering information to come back with us back to us with their best proposal on what would be best for our students and our community like I said seven were submitted we have chosen three firms to interview our interviews are going to be held on September 12th after the interviews

101our committee the steering committee will be meeting and we will be discussing that we interviewed and hopefully we will be making a decision on choose to hire that evening so next meeting Bob I should be able to give you the name of our a new okay so we can get this ball rolling finally that's what what do you think the timeline would be then once the other is hired okay typically if but go through all of their proposals the mean timeline was about six months okay but that could be a an interview question that should be the three funds that we were looking at yeah I believe yeah just just to give you an answer about six months okay any questions for Eve all right so Paul you went to be enough committees I decided

102to put them together so sorry it looked like it was out of order but that's what I was doing so no no that's quite all right okay so the most exciting thing that's happened in a while at the MF is what litsen scheming and we discussed potentially revamping some food service and the serving line at the high school since they're gonna come back with some cost proposals but it gives us the opportunity to have more offerings for the students and different offerings and because that's a self-funded item hopefully we'll be able to move forward on something like that when they do come back with some cost proposals and ideas financial reports we went through water project is unfreeze obviously that I believe that contracts been with the first elections office for question five but given

103the but the state of the state budget that is on hold right now roof project is moving along in nearing completion that we just have punch lists of warranties left to do huckleberry portables projects on hold center school roof repairs that we do get three quotes or again and hold until something's point critical Center School floor I do Oh Dan the information from the first RFP if he'll and if you're listening reach out to me on Friday and I don't sign that to you do me this update again could you give us just a quick quick on the munis okay sure we've got the the ball rolling now on the HR and payroll implementation we spent two full days so far with the with the project leader from from unis and we have days scheduled

104and you may have two days next week and then we go about every other every two weeks and do another one or two full days with them and a lot of it is going right now a lot of it's been them learning how we do things and us learning how the system does the things that we do and now it's going to be a lot of building tables and process and things like that to get everything in place so we can go live January 1st all right good luck thank you we spoke about the audit Jim floor refinishing we did receive some bids again all these things are capital movements they are and hold it doesn't mean we've stopped the planning but we've taken them up to a certain point where we can't proceed any

105further Steve and so you guys at the state do your job mr. Aziz I'm gonna write mr. all right I planted fields capital same thing we're in a planning process what do we do with the fields how do we replace the turf when does it have to be done what other portions need to be packaged with that to have a finally a comprehensive playing surface out there or not like events there's a lot of planning that goes on we haven't stopped the planning but it will come up to a certain point where we won't be able to go any further your business obviously we heard from the principals on summer cleaning and maintenance we eat the EECS rent to death or sanitary inspections can were they done the before school started correct yes they were

106done and there were some relatively minor findings that are being addressed very well update on capital project planning and again yeah we we had about 19 projects that have been in the queue either not yet started or just a culinary planning again we're gonna move them forward a little bit but there's not a lot we can do the special meeting will have to do with the ECS funding and that this was superintendent Burrell discussed this evening we had reviewed a draft for that at the special meeting minor revision and that's it any questions for Paul okay thank you all consent agenda recommend a motion that the board approve the items in the consent agenda is recommended second okay moved and seconded you all have the list of new hires resignations and degree changes in front

107of you any questions on those okay all in favor all right any opposed all right so new business recommend a motion that the board approved the Berfield public schools educator evaluation and support for an amendment is recommended by Assistant Superintendent greenberg second okay thank you Paul would like to say a few words yes if you recall we presented the teacher evaluation plan recommended changes by the P deck committee in the summer and we sent the changes up to the state and they were we were fortunate that they got back to us in a pretty short order turn around and well you already approved the changes that we proposed in August we're coming back to you again you have in front of you a letter dated August 16th that was sent to mr. Birrell from the

108chief talent officer dr. serif RZ we went through with the timeline changes that we discussed with you how the teachers wanted a specific timeline put into the plan and that is that is the only change that we're making the state had questions on some of the changes that were proposed regarding the number of observations and the types of observations and because we wanted to put the timeline we thought that that was very critical we took votes through email the teacher chair Fiona Daugherty contacted members of the committee through email and the decision was made to go with the timeline change for this year so that we could have that in place and then deal with the other changes that the committee was considering and proposing that had to do with the number of about observations

109and who that I was who thought how many observations put that just drop that and the or just ledge drop it for now and revisit during the year because they we know that there will be other changes to the plan as we continue to improve so because we are implementing changes that are slightly different because we're eliminating changes it's data that we in this letter that state statute requires that the amended plan be adopted by the local or regional Board of Education prior to implementation so that's why we're presenting it tonight so the the changes that you're putting in are the same ones that we talked about without like wire but without the changes in the number of the observation that everything will remain the same only the timeline will be in so now was

110the one that said you had to respond exactly the time yes so forth and so since that is different from what you approved in August the state statute requires us to let you know um what the what we're doing and asks you to approve this finis warm right so there are any questions for dr. Ruby analyst since we've been through a once before okay hearing none all in favor of approving the educator evaluation of support plan amendment as as presented any opposed all right passes unanimously thank you thank you all right so that's it for for new business before we adjourn alia can we go through upcoming events started school year means open houses so I have a list of open houses that are gonna be running in the next two weeks all of these

111start at 6:30 except for the Berkeley High School which starts at 6:00 tomorrow the seventh is the Brookfield high school open house Monday the 11th is huckleberries second grade Tuesday the 12th is Center school first grade Wednesday the 13th is whisk in your fifth grade Thursday the 14th is whisking their sixth grade Monday the 18th is huckleberry third grade and Tuesday the 19th is huckleberry fourth grade next Board of Ed meeting is next Wednesday or I'm sorry is Wednesday September 20th and I did want to state in advance thing you all received a invitation to the Brookfield education gala I am the word of an ex-officio rep on the the foundation and the gala is the main moneymaker of the Brookville Education Foundation which does fund grants into both the schools and the community this

112is if anyone's been there the last couple years it's been a sold-out event the last two years it's a really really fun time and a great time to get together for community it is Friday October 27th 7 p.m. to midnight at Fox : do you do that by tables I mean who is you know as far as to you is it best to like a group of people you can do either um if you go onto the website which is www.hyken.com you can get a table all day attend yourself or you can just ask to be seated with one or two different couples that you go with and they will accommodate that as well okay thank you for that okay so without objection our meeting for this evening is adjourned thank you very much [Music]

113[Applause]