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it's a great class es yeah you're good we're all good oh thank you all right he apologize for the technical issues public College meeting about the Berlin Boylston School District back to order um we did have some technical issues we resolved them we like them now and because of those type of fishes continuity to reread from public comments so I've been very brief tonight um just on two agenda items these uh school year calendar changes I wrote an email to the school committee last meeting um regarding adding and hyperlinks to the documents that are going to be meetings so communities community members can actually be aware of what's being voted upon or the changes that are being made also the second comic was on the appointment of Carol Costello's the next superintendent I listened during her interview last meeting and was very impressed with all of her answers and also for her dedication to the district but I think several community members brought up the point that no physician from the organization was posted and no committee inviting parents and I guess like the staff on silent staff members are involved in the committee members but no committee was created to hire for this position so I just like to consider that couldn't think you just appreciate your doing that place too so when we last dropped we were in the middle of a motion we had gotten a motion to approve the bbrsd from your calendar and we had a second and we were discussing it so I'd like to present what the changes are so on the old calendar October 6th which is now to Hunter's open house was going to be a half day at tejanto for their conferences so they've gotten rid of that half day it will now be open house in exchange on the 10th of November there was going to be a half day with conferences just for the elementary school what they've done is they've made that Thursday the 10th and a half day for every school in the district and the conferences will be on those dates so that isn't changed is there any discussion yes I know that um I already received from my elementary school child a schedule to sign up for conferences on that November 10th day I think it was um so we know that from the Hondo standpoint this isn't going to be disruptive if they've gone if they started to schedule a conferences they have not they're waiting to get those days to parents to the parents of secure the conferences for their elementary students so that they can then go and schedule a confidence where they are a lot of students and there are opening times that don't conflict between and your hours they have a half hour of um before the Elementary starts they also have come from three to six where there's no conferences at town until they would be able to schedule that time for the elementary school so we try to build that in without disrupting two days two half days for parents off so that was our thinking we want to try it and we'll see how it works we're trying to do everything you can to make this work well if we have any adjustments we'll have to reconsider that promotional well I think as a parent who had a child at the Es at one point and wanted to hungo I would have appreciated the half day for the both of them so I'm hoping that that works better for parents as well any other discussion okay uh all in favor and I as well the motion to approve the bdrsd school year calendar changes uh changes to passes could I have a motion to affirm the appointment of Carol Costello as the next superintendent of schools right discussion I know some people have prepared statements yes Adam thank you so I I'm very um afterwards um so uh on August 9th Sovereign on that date Mr James departure meant that he was for willing to file two years of his five-minute contract which was assigned in January 2020 in the consensus violence June 13 2025 two weeks later on August 22nd the school committee published a feedback form and invited the public input on this topic 112 people submitted valuable feedback I read all of it I stated it in our last meeting but the feedback or received was by far the most thoughtful and helpful that we've received since I was appointed thank you to everyone who provided feedback then and to everyone who has continued to provide you back in recent days whether by email felt someone in person thank you even to those who talked to Facebook to voice their opinions the most common responses to our survey even in the community of these priorities will first recruiting and retaining exceptional people second enhancing academic and extracurricular offerings and three improving the district's communication culture being created with the communities the school committee chose to begin by evaluating internal candidates before opening an external search Carol Costello was identified as a qualified internal candidate and if many proceeded the public leaders were like two weeks ago on best background my position on this so I was initially strongly in favor of us conducting a search to find the next superintendent a public search and external search I shared it with this heart and I went so hard to ask her to appoint me to chair that search I wanted to better understand though how other school districts handled superintendent vacancies through my own research I found that it is not uncommon for school committees to evaluate internal candidates before conducting an external search including recent appointments in nearby districts in March of 2018 the club and Regional school committee promoted assistant superintendents of York without considering internal communities in December 2018 school committee promoted its assistant superintendent Greg Roberto without considering external candidates in March of 2020 the West Boylston School Community promoting principal Richard Meader without considering external candidates in April 2021 the Fantastic school committee promoted its Associated superintendent Deborah Boyd without considering internal candidates I'll note that all those superintendents remain in their roles today despite the fact that the average superintendency is foreign so my mindset on this topic has evolved since the initial announcement registers and departure while I was initially a strong proponent of us conducting external search my mind has been changed the reason for that change is the quality of the candidate we have here in front of us all today Carol Costello checks off all the boxes the community told us that their top priority is for us to attract and retain excellent people current and former teachers and administrators in this District have gone out of their way to express their strong support for Carols into the city they have sought us out several of them are here in the room today now because they have to be but because they want to demonstrate their support as part of Kansas City is we want to keep great teachers and attract new ones the best way to do that is there's Carol pastel while change is good we should balance that desire for change with the value of experience with the two internal principles in a relatively inexperienced senior leadership team I would be hesitant to appoint an external candidate as Superintendent at this time regardless of his or her qualifications or how well they can do experience as an educator experience in a regional district an experience in a community similar to ours or things we heard different priorities Carol has experience in the regional district and in the community similar to ours because she's been a part of this Regional District in this community for 15 years the third and final reason for my support of Carol's candidacy tonight is why I intend to vote and why I tend to vote for favor is because of her skills as a communicator culture community community engagement and communication where the third thing that came up most frequently in our feedback that we requested from the community and I've experienced and seen either one-on-one or data open many games how effectively she was able to communicate with build consensus and work with everyone that she interacts with so for those reasons and many others I'm going to be intending to support person in the senior agency I just had a comment as well so I took a similar uh Journey as Mr Wilbur when I began envisioning how we would find a replacement for Mr zangy I thought about my experiences in Industry finding uh replacement executives in the private private sector we'll often work with a search firm that spends several weeks or months building a pool of potentially qualified candidates those candidates are screened and those interested have an opportunity to apply and actually we'll go through a multi-phase contribute process all candidates including internal candidates are treated and considered legally the best candidate has been chosen and off the job my first impressions like Mr Wilbur was that this was the right approach for our superintendent search it would not only be fair but it also appeared there and transparent to our community spending more time considering this approach I learned that this process would take several months and would come with a heavy price tag actually thirty thousand dollars or more we also learned I believe from the mass Association of school superintendents that there's not a huge pool of qualified candidates to be found the process would be slow it would be expensive and it would potentially not Improvement in the meantime I became aware of Mrs Costello's interest in the position she's impressed me with every interaction I've had with her commitment to Learning and Development of our children was extremely apparently she has a unique vision for the district has earned the respect of her staff and colleges and was not afraid to Advocate that was important for our children she spent many she has many years of experience in a variety of roles within the district most notably assistant superintendent she understands what the district does well and also sees opportunities for improvement and she knows how to capitalize on those opportunities frankly I thought she'd make a fantastic superintendent and the likelihood that we would find someone who is close to as qualified so now I felt conflicted if I truly felt that Mrs Costello was the absolute best person for the job but it still makes sense to go to research and recruiting process would it make sense to compromise all of that time that could be spent empowering a new superintendent would it make sense to spend the tax day everyone included what would be the argument to do that well the answer from news Optics we do for objects we would do it to avoid criticism that we didn't look for them I chose to join this committee to influence decisions that will help Drive our school districts to give our kids the best possible educational experience and to maximize their potential regardless of objects from my perspective Mrs Costello will be an absolute rock star of Mr superintendent and a blessing to the school district and the children of them I concluded that I could not in good faith support but ultimately be a dog and Company show in the recruiting process delaying the opportunity for the new superintendent to start executive that does not help the children in our schools I'll say it again Mrs Costello will be a rock star on the superintendent she has years of demonstrated performances and the showings of support from those that have interacted with our audience I can certainly understand why some might wonder why not conduct a search I get it I felt the same way but looking through the lines of the atmosphere from this position we're really blessing to a good reason to do it and frankly if a private business had an internal candidate that was as a high performer with an impeccable track record like Mrs Costello they wouldn't they wouldn't do either lastly I'd like to point out that for those that haven't had the opportunity to see Mrs costell wooden action before the university I can tell you she has her own vision for the school district women I believe parents or community members would be very pleased she has the benefit of Legacy knowledge as well as a set of Ambitions for the district that are on their own I have three young daughters myself they're still in elementary school of EMS their education is a top priority I would not be supportive Mrs Costello for this process about anything he was in their best interests to proceed in this panel anything I was very well said I Echo what both of them said in a wonderful points I just want to add one thing uh everything said three elements and I agree with it to speak so enough for me but I'll just add that given everything we've experienced in the schools in the past two years with all the covet nonsense the learning loss and damage we've done to our students to add another year of uncertainty onto that by going through the search process we just send our kids back so to make this decision tonight to appoint an account at least it gives us one thing we know whether it's gonna hold for the next however many years it turns out to be there's still a lot of Uncertain things going around but the principles will be what the structure will look like or at least if we can get the head of the organization locked down I think that will go a long way to trying to claw back from this devastating situation we're in with what we've seen in the data coming out with recently so I agree with everything you said and people support as well I have the same interest rate it's not nearly as elegant but and I took it I took parts of it from an email from a parent that had reached out last week asking about why we were seeking the appointment versus the full search why we're considering it so the summer I learned that the school committee has the right to appoint rather than to do a large-scale search it's something we have discussed in executive sessions as well as on the floor trying to determine if that was the appropriate approach to take and our Quest is more adopted to interview Ms Costello at our last meeting with the vote on appointment following two weeks later this was intentional because we wanted to give ourselves the necessary time to consider this important decision while giving the community time to share how they felt about both the applicant and the process to be honest I had always assumed that we would do a large scale search however given the great resignation that has been happening across the country we had to really think this decision through scores of superintendents have retired and many of the people seeking to fill superintendencies have never worked at this level given this Miss Costello's vast expertise in curriculum and testing the wonderful relationship she has with both the community and the staff having been a former teacher and administrator having been an assistant superintendent in working with the administrative team and having nearly two decades worth of experience in our district she has a lot to offer us we have three interim administrators and only one who is a veteran um I do uh administrators and only one who is our veteran State thank you a new Director of Finance and facilities manager and I still kind of new director of people and Personnel due to all of that flux we need someone who can help guide these leaders and the permanent principles we hire at the end of the year rather than learning along with them by hiring internally Ms Costello doesn't have to spend a year familiarizing herself with how things are done we're building trust as an external hire would need to do she can get right down to business and while she works well with Mr zangy they are completely different people with different approaches and Visions it reminds me of that old one adage we'd be getting something old and something during contract negotiations this past spring my my respect for her group and I saw how well she worked with both sides she had a wonderful way about her but was no pushover I credit her with setting a nice tone and keeping the peace and negotiations it's definitely moving us forward making the whole process an effective one this brings an important Point anyone can tell us what we want to hear in an interview with Ms Costello she has proven her capability and her excellence we've received a handful of emails requesting we do a full search but we've also received an overwhelming amount of support and gratitude for the possible appointment of Miss pastel I've had many district teachers as well as parents from Berlin where Ms Costello used to be a principal reach out to share their enthusiasm for our consideration of such a qualified candidate in person a veteran loyalty teacher that I have great respect for said to me Carol is the only candidate being a former educator myself I knew how waiting words were in closing a winning friend warned me that I'm pointing care without doing a whole search might cost me a seat in the upcoming election it is important that the community know that I take this position seriously my job is to do what's best for the students given my bird's eye view of the situation it is without hesitation and with great confidence that I feel Carol should be honestly okay thank you I'm sorry does anyone else have anything that they wanted that was great thank you and then it wasn't there it wasn't right it was great thank you so it is clear that we've gotten a lot of feedback from you and it falls on both sides but something you're wrong and I mean I've seen some of these details I've considered them and I have medicine I have to consider him absolutely I think it's important that a lot of the feedback we got it was about to process yes the feedback we thought about the person the candidate was overwhelmingly positive right and so I think that's important [Music] yeah we have not heard anything negative about Carol it's just I think people want to say they want to feel heard and while I can understand that point of view I think I'm in the same boat as what Bob was saying about the time and the money that we would spend when we already have a great person over here who already knows the ropes it just doesn't make sense not not just for the sign it doesn't make sense for our community for the children because I just I think he's just a no-brainer would you understand you don't have to but no I'm sorry you know I I thank you for all your kind of words you know I I love this sister I told you that about the children here in the family and said I will work very hard for everybody visible and open to two differences to different opinions and different ideas of all the answers for everything you know I'd love to hear the new ideas for how we can help here are those who are at home watching [Music] thank you so I think we're finishing that discussion um so we have a motion on the floor on the floor to affirm the appointment of Carol Costello as the next superintendent in schools all in favor um and I as well opposed the motion to approve the appointment of Carol Costello as the next superintendent of schools passes thank you thank you all right before we enter executive session I would like to remind everyone of our upcoming meeting dates we're going to meet on October 11th and we have October motion to enter executive session to conduct strategy sessions and preparation for negotiations with non-union Personnel superintendent Danny assistant superintendo Costello not to return to open session second discussion oh sorry no discussion um is there all right the motion to enter executive session to conduct strategy sessions and preparation for negotiations with non-union Personnel passes we will not be returning to open session thank you
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all would you please keep in your thoughts this evening the men and women are protecting us around the world good thank you so would you have when you have a moment would you call the role for the purpose of attendance please Miss Fitzgerald Miss disler Mr Hayden Mr Cirillo Miss mammal Mr Rossi absent Mr LaMontagne president okay um minutes of September 13th grab a motion to approve those please we have a second second discussion I'm sorry would you oh he did I didn't hear him I'm sorry I'm sorry uh any discussion all those in favor anyone opposed Melissa could we have a cash balance report please yep so the account balance as of September 6 2022 was 2 million one hundred and ninety five thousand two hundred and twenty three dollars and forty three cents plus deposits from September 7th to September 20th of 89 950.62 cents less payroll on September 15th of 952 215.28 less a warrant on September 12th of one thousand dollars a warrant on September 13th of 297 thousand eighty eight dollars and ten cents and a warrant on September 19th of three thousand six hundred dollars giving us a book balance on September 20th of one million Thirty one thousand dollars Thirty one thousand two hundred and seventy dollars and sixty seven cents and a bank balance of two million four hundred and thirty eight thousand seven hundred and thirty seven dollars and seventy six cents on the mmdt account we had an opening balance on September 6 of 8 million eight hundred and forty six thousand three hundred and fifty nine dollars and twelve cents we have year-to-date interest as of September 6 of ten thousand dollars ten thousand two hundred and thirty three dollars and eighty nine cents for a total of eight million eight hundred and fifty six thousand five hundred and ninety three dollars and one cent um giving us a total mmdt balance of nine million eight hundred and eighty seven thousand eight hundred and sixty three dollars and sixty eight cents here we set the motion as the cash balance reported at the center so moved we have like do I have a second don't don't fight over it guys do I have a second oh good any discussion all those in favor anyone opposed okay you'll notice this Consolidated cash Reconciliation Report was a handout revolving fund budget report or in the packet any any questions on any of those okay Communications uh donations of 2006 Cadillac DTS valued at 4 475 donated by Ms Joyce kafori from Lawrence Mass see no articles and no public participation I'm sorry uh well I was streaming is not working you what I'm sorry streaming is not working oh okay I can check on that okay is it not working or are we just not seeing it not seeing it online oh he was here just a few minutes ago okay uh this time then the chill except the motion to take a five minute recess so move all those a favor and you were opposed Vivian made a motion I seconded this evening we've invited uh the representative from the uh North Reading uh bussing transportation company to address the committee we have Lisa I have her last name was your last name altricio here who worked with Bill on a lot of the bus issues day-to-day bus issues every day to uh address any of the concerns or questions that the committee might have I would ask Lisa she could kind of give us a report where at this time the most recent report on what are some of the difficulties that we're dealing with right now here at the school that from her prospectus um obviously we're having late bus issues we have especially in the PM is where our issues are so we I do have some some some resolutions that I'm seeing in the near future I just wanted to start off by just stating some of the things that we're doing with recruiting in order to try to get more drivers as everybody knows there's a labor shortage and National Labor shortage and so that is obviously affecting the buses coming back so um so one of the things if you haven't heard we have the recruiting center in Lawrence that we opened up Governor Baker and commissioner Riley were there for the ribbon cutting ceremony it is a walk-in bilingual center for the and there's the the store is right downtown so it's it's visible it's walking there's a lot of foot traffic which has been really helpful we've had a lot of people come in we've had about 85 people we're we're also we are partner partnering with the Lawrence community and focusing on ESL training and so we've got about 85 people right now that are in the process of of learning English in order for them to be able to at least communicate a little bit on the buses and get them either monitors or drivers so we're in the process of working with the recruiting center we've also launched a community outreach events employment ambassadors that will be building referral networks within the community advertising obviously radio social media school districts have sent Flyers Mass Flyers out to parents just letting them know that we're here we're looking for drivers we're paid training you can get your CDL we will get walk you right through the process um so that's kind of you know what we're doing for the getting the people in also we have increased our wages the wages are going up and we need to be competitive there so over the overall we've increased wages in the area about 1.7 million dollars from FY 22 to FY 23 so that has seen some significant increases in people applying which is very wonderful we've actually greater Lawrence Tech has three drivers that are just waiting to take their tests and they will be ready to go so that will solve three of your 10 bus late bus issues in the afternoon um so other things is we're offering five thousand dollar sign on bonuses for anybody that comes with a CDL license four thousand dollar sign on bonus for current employees that will be upgrading if they want to go from a 7D to a CDL um so that's an in-house bonus also offering three thousand dollar sign on bonuses for anybody that has a Class B with a p endorsement again paid training we're doing 20 hours paid trading which a lot of businesses are not doing this you know they come with their CDL they go and they pay for it themselves the employees are paying for themselves so we're offering the paid training which has been again another thing that we've seen significant increases in applicants coming in [Music] um so that's kind of what we're doing to try to get more people into the pipeline um right now like I said we've got three people that are waiting for tests they are assigned to Greater Lawrence Tech we have had them doing um dry runs to learn the roots so that when they pass their tests they're going to be right out on the road so that will help with what you have right now basically 10 routes that are running late in the afternoons so we're focusing on the ones that are running the latest to get getting to school to pick up the students so once we have those three drivers in place we're going to use those three drivers to go back and get the um there's another three a group of three routes that are running late um and they're they're they're kind of like that almost like 348 350 almost four o'clock so these drivers will be able to go back because they'll have nothing else to to head out to they can head back and pick up the remaining three routes that are late which will solve six of the extremely late pickups that we've been having over the past three two three weeks the other is um we are also working to try to do some root adjustments to be able to so the last four routes or our buses that are getting there about 15 to 20 minutes late and we feel that we can make some root adjustments to get those drivers on time so I hope within the next three to four weeks we will have everybody picked up by you know your 250 your three o'clock that time frame um so that's that's where we are with the update on on what these um these um Investments have done in order to get people through is that we are seeing people in the pipeline I have others that are in the pipeline but we tend to not talk about those until they're they have their hours when they have their hours they're required to have 60 hours of training time and that can take a while to get people through the 60 hours but we are looking at a target of when someone starts to be through the pipeline within six weeks so as those drivers come out they'll be assigned to a greater level greater Lawrence Tech drivers okay thank you thank you for coming uh I got a question so it seems like the major issue is not lack of equipment it's lack of drivers oh correct correct so I mean once you get the driver situation rolling equipment should not be a it should not be an issue nope not at all we have the buses okay and one other question too you were saying that you're you're teaching certain applicants English are you also teaching Spanish to certain because we have a large Spanish popular the whole Merrimack Valley has a large Spanish population is is that also being done on just just a question so no what we're focusing on is trying to get applicants to be able to pass the test so one of the things that we were able to do is get um we had been advocating for a while to have the 7D which is your spedroots your smaller Vehicles getting that test in Spanish and we have managed to do that so the RMV is now teaching and giving that test in Spanish which has helped with the increase of the 7D drivers and being able to get them through a lot quicker than we had in the past so and then the CDL those that test is not in Spanish right now it has to be in English so we're really focusing on trying to get you know Spanish-speaking employees to be able to pass a CDL test to get them in the bus Mrs Fitzgerald beginning you had references referenced the late buses and I was thinking late buses like for this the runs for the uh football team you're talking about late because they're not getting here until almost four o'clock all right thank you yeah Mr Sorrell yeah and we're talking about an hour to 90 minutes for a lot for almost um 13 buses and kids that are still stuck here when they should be at home and I'm aware about your Center because I was actually there as well so which as I'm getting the emails of the buses that are continuously late throughout the last three or so weeks in conversation with a couple of reps that were there as well um is very dis to me is a problem when our kids are not getting picked up it's a great it's a great partnership with Lawrence and and and I also facilitate the mayor's diesel task force somewhere so I'm kind of curious of who you guys are partnering with um to teach the English to um the drivers I'll let you answer that one first yeah so who we're partnering with is um black yeah sorry that I'm like I know it's so um so that's who we're mostly partnering with um they were giving us like two slots but what we are really now focusing on is getting someone in-house that works with us directly as an employee of ours so trying to find that right person to come in and start helping because like I said the list is very long and obviously we can't take all of the slots so they've they've been kind enough to offer to the last time I checked it was two spots so we are looking to get someone permanent full-time with our company into the into the recruiting center okay um thank you for that um any other in conversation with plenty of employees that work for you the terminal that buses are is one of the worst terminals that you guys have I'm not sure if that's correct but the problem is as I'm seeing it this is not the first time we've had this problem this is also has happened in the past but this is the most time that it has been so consecutive with kids being so so tardy um I believe it was last year I had a conversation with superintendent because I got stopped my parents saying that the kids are on the bus for two hours that's a ride from here to Hartford um and then our kids are here waiting two hours when a lot of them have to go home because they have to watch their siblings for their parents to go to work or they themselves have to go off to work to help support the family and not only mentioning that those aspects is also the aspects of them myself have to being here for so long they didn't go home to actually do homework or whatever they have to do to get ready for the next day of school so the fact that it's been happening for more than three weeks to me is definitely a big problem and I understand it there's a work shortage everywhere but we have a contract that we definitely need to have it filled because I can't have kids here for almost two hours and 90 minutes just sitting around answer that or just take it as a comment yeah I I I I I understand and we're really we are working and focusing on getting these roots back on time and so we do have a plan I have a three-week plan and we'll we'll continue to move forward with it I I my expectations are in the next couple of weeks you'll see some improvements for the CDL to go is like almost two months consecutive am I correct to go through the process to go through the process of getting to CDL and so forth because this conversation I've had with plenty of drivers that work for our nrts so it is a long process to get the cdl for those who even want it um [Music] so it is a long process it's it's actually it's kind of it it's it's up to the driver on how fast they want to go through it because they have to have 60 hours 60 hours it's however long it's going to take you um we have been seeing um people come through about five or six weeks but others they struggle they take a lot they may take longer but we are seeing an average of people coming through about six weeks and being ready to be uploaded to the RMV to then be submitted to the state police to get a test and then have the test and so from the upload to the test date is about 10 days actually one final question will you um how many people um do you have that need English classes yeah how many slots is great honest Community Action Council providing because if it's if you have more than they're providing I could definitely get you more seats at other locations yeah I don't know the number I don't have the numbers here in front of me but I can certainly get them and and because we are seeing a lot of people coming through the recruiting center most of them are for 7ds they're not for CDLs or monitors which we also need so but I can absolutely get you those numbers Angela yep your microphone please you're representing a company and your name is Lisa I don't I didn't get anything else it's El teresio do you want me to spell it that's fine okay so what company are you representing nrt North Reading Transportation oh it is the one okay yeah thanks Mrs Fitzgerald yes at the beginning of school this is kind of a touchy subject but I feel with some good reason that great Lawrence Tech has become low man low school on the totem pole and the reason I say that is in the beginning all of us saw Methuen was having problems they never had problems not everybody was having problems other than Whittier who has their own buses and over the past weeks all of the noise from those communities has settled down either internally they've found Solutions or whatever but on our parent an official website the no the noise has not stopped nor has it to each of us receiving um emails telephone calls from the parents of students who are impacted so I just feel that I don't know I I I really don't know except that if why haven't you been able to solve our problem when you've been able to solve the problems for the other schools that you also provide transportation for and I know I'm putting you on the hot seat and you're the representative here tonight but it's a question that we we are all truly upset about um it's just untenable that our kids are still here 90 minutes after school left and I understand so that being said how many of your people in the pipeline are women back in the day 20 years ago there were more women bus drivers than there were guys including right here at the school so do you have many women in the pipeline ready to do this so do I um I know of one person that is that is supposed to test very soon he is not a woman um I do have another driver that is a woman and I'm not sure about the Third um probably if I had to say I would say it would be about 50 50.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
the Board of Education uh policy subcommittee on what's today's hey the 20th 2018 September 28th um Miss jaczynski please call the roll sure Mr grippo here Ms Rosenberg here Mr White oh you can hear him Tim you're muted but he's here so you have a quorum yeah okay uh please rise for the pledge foreign I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for us that must always look so great in on video I've never actually watched that part see everyone or at least myself stand up right depending whose camera is on um okay um Public public comment has there was there any public comment before on the agenda or anything like that we have none as as far as I've received okay and I hadn't seen anything either um or has been shared with me so I guess we'll move on to review policies part three um where did you want to begin I guess we'll begin at the first one school activity makes sense okay the school activity fund is um very limited uh are you still do you see the uh popped up a draft policy or am I yeah okay um there are very very limited changes in the policy itself you can see the highlighted um I guess redlined if you will changes from the title of director of management and Personnel to Chief Operating Officer those are the only changes embedded in the policy the uh regulation has some additional changes Jeff let me just stop you out we only see or I only see the linked that's what I thought let me try it this way um I will okay you should be able to see it now yeah all right so [Music] um just to recap the changes in the policy itself which require board approval are extremely limited uh only change in the title of director management Personnel the chief operating officer uh the rest of this document is really attached for more for your information this is a regulation that does not require uh approval but um again for your information and I I would add within this we've updated this with the support of the auditing firm that went through our uh our Student Activity accounts in Incorporated The Limited changes that they recommended so for example in here you'll see things like this my school box that's our payment method and then you'll see this those are really the Marquee changes uh we had each School independently using uh strategies to record the um the money that was coming and going from as simple as a Google spreadsheet or an Excel sheet to you know more signif more significant like accounting software and it was a recommendation that we have a uniform strategy across buildings and so that's why we went to that EP EST I think it is uh format for the accounting so this is a very limited change in the policy there so what you just showed us was the regulation well the policy was there um to that's only that first page on the link uh where the only thing that's different is where it says the director of management Personnel we take that out and say Chief Operating Officer um Shall Serve as the treasurer of such fund then in the second the next paragraph I should say it's actually a third paragraph where it says the director we change it to the clo so these are those are very limited changes in the policy and there was no further recommendation all right so wasn't didn't um forget who it was uh someone who works for Vin she she trimmed down we had a I guess on a I want to call it an accounting policy I forget the number of it that was like 20 pages and she paired it down to three pages or three or four pages yeah that that might be the regulation so that was a regulation that wasn't the actual policy I I don't believe it was the policy um I think it was the regulation Carol I mean certainly correct me um but I I don't think it was the policy you're on me it was the regulation yeah she took what was like separately listed in every single one of the schools and she combined them into one thing instead of listing them separately so this you know it's still what you'll see here it it says 48 pages but it's because in this copy that we shared with you all of this policy here that you can see is new it's it and when eventually you get to the place where it's old and then it that's all crossed out so you know to your point Adam there were 30 pages and now it's 18.
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thank you [Music] etiquette just uh this board meeting etiquette um please only public participation during that portion of the meeting and if you could just Silence Yourself only that would be great um there are Pledge of Allegiance I would like um to take a few minutes um or a former and long Board of Education member and pastor past prom so if we could all stand for the price of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you a Little Closer Teresa Rachel here okay Gladys here Lauren here Bridget here Julie Brown Albert and Luisa um if you have some community members from Great Plain Elementary School with us this evening believe we have them right there in the front of the table please make yourself comfortable some of you would like to sit down please make sure we can identify you from the rest of the orange shirts so it's good to see you all just wanted to start out with congratulating this team you had an opportunity to stop by the school today for a couple of minutes and last week with the mayor congratulate in this group just want to applaud the teachers the staff the families the students for an amazing job for years great playing School Community has been recognized for great achievement in this town and so it's great to see you recognize on a national level for the amazing work that have that so I just just a few words that I wrote down the National Blue Ribbon Awards and this is for our parents and Community the National Blue Ribbon award is given annually to select schools across the country that demonstrate overall high achievement or exemplary success in closing the achievement Gap great plane is being awarded for its success in closing the achievement Gap this is a well-deserved honor for teachers and the staff at Great Plain and evidence of the tireless work on behalf of the children and families of Land Community so please join me in congratulating principals Keisha Smith Davis the Great Plain teachers and staff as well as the families and students of the Great Plain community [Music] thank you [Applause] foreign [Applause] different attackers surprise thank you [Applause] thank you [Applause] I'm okay I just want to say a quick thing before great playing and I don't blame you guys for running out of here um I've been fortunate to be a great playing parent so both of my kids did go through that school um and serving on the board I was a great deal liaison I was uh PTO president for I don't know how many years and um it's it's a truly unique school um no offense to any other bar insurance and I want to get jumped in the parking lot um but it's a phenomenal score as a district changed and the landscape of things changed great plane has always maintained that quality and um you know a person to kid ratio and and just um I know a lot of teachers there they taught my kids and I think you know dedication um there and I think throughout the district too obviously by everybody coming out tonight I just want to congratulate them from and say thank you um daughter in college uh you know great playing helps prepare kids and and like other schools do to just for what's out there and and that was a time when you could actually prepare a child for you know the the normal education things have changed now but um you know I just want to say thank you to a lot of teachers are still here I know Ms Smith couldn't be here because she wasn't feeling well I didn't speak to her earlier on the phone I hope you guys enjoyed the lunch today um but um just want to say thank you and it's pretty impressive what um to accomplish something like that in the SE times that's what we have going on so I just want to say thank you [Applause] thank you um I'd like to entertain a motion to amend the agenda to move um to educational staff representative at this time for a second and by Route all those in favor so our staff what's that hello hello good evening everyone good evening it's so nice to see all of your faces here and I brought a few of my friends with me to um join us in the conversation that we need to have tonight so for those in this room who do not know me my name is Aaron Daly and I'm a 19-year veteran third grade teacher and the president of the Danbury teachers union I've spent all 19 years in their winter all 19 years and I'm proud to represent nearly 1 100 sample of Harmony [Applause] tremendous achievement that the Great Plains School of Staff under the leadership of Miss Smith Davis I so deservedly earned it's an evening to acknowledge these special Educators for their commitment to building the kind of school environment that nurtures academic growth but while fostering kindness and people building and most importantly respect Great Plains schools Blue Ribbon award celebrates all that can be achieved when the school stakeholders listen to the needs of a school and the school community and come together to work together it's a beautiful thing for sure and we are so proud of the huge and essential role that our teachers played in earning that distinguished award we see you teachers and we thank you for all you do for our kids give yourself a hand teacher said all of our DCF teachers deserve recognition tonight not just phrase true recognition for the continued dedication energy resolve Ingenuity creativity care support and determination that each and every one of our Danbury public school teachers puts forth each and every day we want our Board of Education our city leaders and our community to see us see what we do for our students see how hard we work to see us for what we're worth in this community to see us and value US for the professionals that we are even with this incredible achievement of the teachers and staff at Great Plains all that's not glowing within our school district our teachers have reported the most challenging beginning to a new school year that they can ever remember and that's saying something after teaching our way through covet the past few years with limited resources degrading work conditions a spike in negative and even violence to the behavior a continued increased workload and ridiculous ridiculous and unattainable expectations for our folks many Danbury teachers are now leaving the district it is a terrible loss for our students for sure and why are they leaving well yes it is true that one of the reasons they're leaving is for higher pay January salary at one time were in the top tier for the state but now we rank mediocre at best and with that we take far more responsibilities than many other districts in insurmountable workload with no end of the dependent site and a growing lack of trust and respect that continues to Fester why wouldn't someone leave Danbury to work in another District or they're more valued three years ago I sat right here in this very room with many of these fellow teachers as we reminded the board to see us see us look Us in the eyes and see what we do to respect and value us as the essential workers that we are here working in Danbury HR will tell you the challenges they have faced this year with teacher turnover daily resignations continue we are faced with grave losses to our staff not enough World language teachers a shortage of ESL teachers science teachers high quality Math teachers all leaving Danbury every time we lose a teacher dozens of students are negatively impacted the teacher the social worker the school counselor will just remembered that child's name will just encourage them to try harder and Just Praise them for being kind they're going they're gone and every day it takes to find a replacement teacher leaves a boy for that child and multiplies the impact of loss while those of us standing here this evening have made a commitment to our students we need to know that you the board have a commitment to us we need you to see us and truly value US we're no longer an attractive district for new teachers or one for retaining high quality educators ranking dead last in the state for investment in our students and our teachers just can't continue this rate of decline I'm the eve of our mediation session yes that's tomorrow night for a new negotiated contract we want you to know that our commitment to this District can only be sustained as long as you are willing to commit to us to value US to value US by providing us with a fair wage increase and maintaining our insurance benefits to Value us through demonstrations of respect and Trust in US to value our veteran teachers as leaders and to grow our new teachers through dedicated support we are an investment in this community when you invest in US you are investing in children when you invest in US you are investing in the future of our community if we as a community refuse to invest in our teachers we are revealing to our students how little we value them we are saying to our students that they are not worth keeping the best teachers to educate them Governor Lamont said just last week I've spent a lot of time talking about teacher respect thanking teachers is not enough to address the teacher shortage districts must also thank you financially for everything you've done he put it best when he said that we should respect teachers just like they have honored their commitment to districts and this board knows that the way to improve strengthen and build Prosperity within a community is through strong public education you've already agreed to invest in your Administration you've shown that through agreeing to more than fair races for them and by continuing to bolster added administrative positions in the districts but teachers us this group we're the boots on the ground the people doing the dedicated important work the people actually educating our kids we deserve a equal investment s the cornerstones of the educational process your teachers deserve the respect and fair pay for the demanding work that we do we deserve a fair contract investment in your teachers benefits us all our board and our city has a duty to fill the financial void and work on long-term investment for our kids and our teachers we know our city received a very generous amount of Esser money thanks to the American Recovery Act teachers certainly didn't see that money filter down to the classrooms nor in their paycheck unlike many other nearby districts who did offer that show of respect value and importance to their teachers for the hard work they have put in over the past three years our good hearts and our passion for public education aren't enough to keep us here anymore we need you to commit to invest in US invest in this group of high quality Educators that stand for you see us see us for the work we do invest in US Danbury public school teachers deserve a fair contract I thank you for your time tonight and I thank you for seeing us this evening thank you all for being here this evening thank you oh boy yourself foreign [Music] room three minutes last time I checked there was no one signed up for public participation is there anyone here to speak uh for public comment s going once going twice three times consent calendar I make a motion that the Board of Education approved the items on the consent calendar except it's 22-104 and 22-105 as recommended second any discussion none of the favor both a question do we have students from student Representatives here this evening numbers speaking on behalf of alternative centers are excellent yeah on behalf of the Alternative Center for excellence today last week we had doing invitations that all finished last week this week we're doing interviews with the utility staff members Department grade level Benchmark Friday September 23rd that went really well foreign about the upcoming events school goals for this year as the parents will have an opportunity to follow through their schedule and be ASAP for the upcoming on the same day Katya Karen garcini will be taking her environmental science student to the Erickson boat launch in New Milford yeah we will be bringing students to the college poetry Festival high school student day which means thousands of students from the responsive teenagers from attracted area to call us from Wild beverage they will get the opportunity other people that think like them in this wide world a lot of people are like them but there's also a lot of people that think differently we have been participating in the Bible that is us thank you for allowing us thank you Ezekiel good to see you again foreign a 21-22 here in financial report I'd like to make a motion as the Board of Education except 2021-2022 year-end financial report in accordance with exhibit 22-106 on the floor is there a second by they're good any discussion um in this report that um public as the week went on um any further discussion seeing none all those in favor any opposed any extension motion carries on his report that's quick good evening everyone go to bed and audience we also have a couple of hours of Nea good to see you here I am excited to introduce some new leadership appointments and 22-23 school year we have a number of folks who are in the audience have been waiting patiently we have one principle was not able to make it tonight but I would like to start with two appointments that made last year after very comprehensive search for replacements at our elementary and other two elementary schools so I'd like to begin with period Dr Anna Rocco moved up to district office last year in the spring posted the position at King Street primary we're very excited to learn that Donatella Pereira was interested in this vacancy she later applied for the position and landed as our finalists and unanimous choice to serve as a new principal at King Street primary quite frankly her staff was overwhelmed to learn about her appointment they were excited about her appointment as an interim I think even more excited and somewhat quite frankly we leave that she had received the position so without further Ado I'd like to formally congratulate on in front of the board anyway Donatello Pereira who have previously been with us and served as an assistant principal at Danbury High School and is now the principal at King Street primary congratulations [Applause] our other principal Who was appointed last year before the school year ended no Jackson look around like who is that person and that's Mrs Bo Jackson and again that feeling our other chief of schools Chris roach who had previously served as the principal at AAS we posted the vacancy if there were a very comprehensive and a process we landed on a person who was who previously served in the state of New York in Westchester County and he had heard great things about Merle in that capacity the team every team every so we have two committees that recommend make recommendations through the superintendent in the cabinet Merle was the Top Choice one of the top choices on both and then in the cabinet she really just blew us away and I think very quickly between admin Council which means all of the administrators and I think for staff most recently has opened their arms tomorrow we're really excited to have her on the team we had an opportunity to meet her at least the team and I did over the summer as part of our admin training and I a couple of times checked in and just make sure our world was okay and it was as if she had been here it's overall I just want to take this opportunity to formally congratulate you and welcome you to the Danbury School Community congratulations [Applause] and then our uh you know we we have three more appointments Mr Rodney Powell is not with us this evening Jackie Donato who retired from the school district after years of service servicing this community retired a difficult task of replacing Jackie we landed on someone who we were told when checking references is the standard for alternative education and Mr Powell cannot be with us this evening the principal Powell we will in the near future have him here perhaps at one of our Spotlight schools looking forward to introducing him to the board in the school community could also want to formally congratulations to providing power for his assignment at Regina and [Applause] so next um Mr David Kimball so we had a number of vacancies at Broadview Middle School I think it's probably already laughing about and we posted the job after I believe Dr Thomas has served in this district for over 30 years and and we had again the difficult task of trying to find someone to throw up shoes and quite frankly I think the team and I were just floored like how fortunate we were to have someone come in with um David's experience thoughtfulness and frankly when I spoke to the superintendent it was clear um that she knew he had to leave because he was ready for that step and this is much closer to the home fan as well but we are truly getting a talented individual and I think we've already had some great things happening at Broadview transitioning an entirely new administrative team we went to with new assistant principals one previously at Shelter Rock principal former principal Anna Marshall who were both working on his team but David we are happy to have you here in District and look forward to many many successful years to come and so again this evening we'd like to probably introduce David Mr David Kimball to the Danbury Community congratulations [Applause] and we have two more appointments um this blue is actually here at our last meeting for the first hot board meeting of the year and we had a recognition to celebrate some students and take this opportunity Miss Jen blue was working at Westside Middle School previously as the assistant principal had a vacancy late August when we learned that Dr Labonte was going to another school district and um Jen stepped up quickly and made it very clear this is a position she had aspired to be in he's looking forward to the challenge and so with that conversation we've assigned Mr Blue as the internal principal at West Side Middle School and look although we look forward to having a interview process in the spring we are very excited to have jet in this world right now working with our staff and leading her staff through this transition and Mr Mike Flint who was outside I'm not sure if he's still up where's my mic is hiding behind him um and so Mike who you know if we in order to backfill Jen as the assistant principal we pulled Mike from Great Plain Elementary School school with all those exciting things happening in that building it's also very excited to have Mike also as an Instagram role but formerly I'd like to introduce and congratulate the improve the interim principal and look forward to a great school year thank you [Applause] and then last but not least of the last interim assignment um this school here previously animation moved as printable to assistant principal at the middle school which had previously been an experience of her and that was that was for the most part her resume like her resume spoke and shouted middle school and so when that opportunity presented itself she had asked to switch they work at a middle school and realized but of course that bed wasn't open to school and Alexandra Pacheco AKA Sharma is one of our kind of Danbury own who has come up the ranks in this school Community as a paraprofessional a teacher the coach as a trusted advocate for teachers trusted Confidant for teachers she has been a go-to person for the first language learning community for years but as much as anything she's really been a go-to person instructionally across this district for years she's well respected amongst her peers well respected by administrators in his district I I can't tell you how happy and excited I am for you so with all of that Sean had previously worked with us as a summer school administrator as well impressed in all of those roles now been given me the opportunity after already serving and working with the traffic at Park Avenue I had an assistant principal has been assigned as the interim principle of Shelter Rock Elementary School and formerly we want to congratulate you foreign people have to clean our school in the morning to have more updates on I just want to share with you we are happy to have you in the Danbury Community I don't know if the board has any questions or comments before you leave but I just want to formally just thank you all for being here and then choosing again I would just like to make are many and I quite enjoy that process and being a part of it and you really get to know you know you serve on a panel with current staff you really get to know a panel as well as the [Music] City so it's really um it's nice to see you in person and not behind a screen so welcome and congratulations um very proud and happy if you do any other questions or I would certainly like to welcome you to our industry I've seen you and some of our board meetings and I hope those beautiful smiles that I see now continue year after year and year I want to thank the superintendent for bringing you a to us so we can get familiar with your faces and even though we're not visiting your school and know that you know you're individually at a particular school which I don't believe in going into the school unless it's something I want to know okay because I feel like that's not enough but there's a program or something that that will learn something about I would go through the proper canvas to make sure that everyone knows that I'm 10 years so on that I would like to say welcome welcome and I look forward to meeting you on a personal basis at your school thank you Miss Miss Cooper you know we'll see you we'll see those smiles when we do anything every year I will be visiting the school and I am going to be going through the property because that's that's what it is because we hear things in here and in order in my opinion I speak for most in order to make decisions in here because in here everything is great it is great yeah it's great you know we don't have a lot of positive stuff here but getting down and if you ask around some people have some people some people possible that that's where you get the information that's the you know and understand kind of what the daily that's how I I feel I feel it works for me to make decisions and and hear and hold on stuff in here um but actually knowing what what's going on in foreign thank you for joining us to see congratulations again good Secret and so the next item on this superintendent's report the spotlight your school and it's really just an update to the board and the community prior to the pandemic we had an opportunity to enjoy meeting our principals and our staff members from the district where we would Spotlight a school headboard me so that was something that's something you would like to read and have an opportunity for you to meet teachers and staff and find out what's going on across the school district it's our chief of schools have been working with principals to work through a rotation of schools kind of developed kind of expectations for the presentations time limit on presentation a format for the presentation and then obviously an opportunity for questions if okay so I just want to make aware if that's something that pleases the board yes and last but not least and that is the superintendent goals update fiscal responsibility planning for growth and talent acquisition this sub bullet is District security updates accuracy league is going to speak a little bit about this I was kind of given the nature of the work itself respectfully we're also going to ask to speak in more detail in executive sessions thank you um so we'll be talking a little bit about the much awaited school security uh school security audits those have been completed as promised we'll be diving a little bit into uh what those reported back but then also some of the larger upgrades of the making and look forward to us Stephen back I think I'd let we'd like to resume those I think prior to the pandemic we were doing every once a month so every other meeting typically a group members of the staff presentation or it will it will be a divorce Factor on this price any other questions thank you I don't have much exception on the field side uh DHS PTO met last Wednesday in person um Administration join us it was very well attended I have to say um offered a chance to meet PTO officers hear about upcoming events um and just a parent and parent kind of helpful tips and information which was nice um principal Donovan has resumed his virtual principal breakfast though he had one just the next the following day just a nice chance to have a one-on-one with the High School principal and there were about 25 parents or so in attendance Citywide is having their first meeting on Monday October 3rd at 6 30 at the black box trying to attend the virtual Financial night financial aid night but the high school is also holding at the same time so I know Katie are the liaison you'll be there but if anyone else with Ralph great um West Side Middle School will continue their virtual meetings with the principal um it will partner with the PTO to provide a PTO update at the same time those begin on Thursday of next week and then there is a cave roles and responsibility responsibilities of board members a free webinar that was emailed to all of us um just a few days ago on the 26th um if you're interested in looking that that's always available for my report are there any other Solutions show of hands who's going to the cape convention several okay I just want to add uh to the uh the Citywide PTO meeting we did get a request for a list of contact information for each of the board members here so hopefully that will initiate some contact from the folks who are running the individual ptos so just be aware that you will hopefully see an email from whatever ptos you're assigned to um so city the city center Danbury has contacted us and they're working on a mosaic project at downtown mural and they're looking for um teams of eight it's kind of like a paint by number thing so um Rachel and I have picked a date that other board members could join us October 22nd it's a weekend from 11 to 1 and we'll meet at two steps and there'll be someone there to kind of Step us through the project so if it's if you're interested in joining us that day if you could reach out to me just so I could sign our team up but I think it would be great I think would be a great Ford you know participation thing because it's going to be City Center and it'll you know just to show our participation and just be part of the city from 11 A.M to 1.
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see the Alum Rock Junior Elementary School District is here by acknowledge that the district's tools and Facilities sit on the length on the traditional land of the Maloney people and the board of trustee further acknowledges with respect and reverence the alone people tribe of the San Francisco Bay area for their stewardship of these lands all right we'll go ahead and proceed with the Pledge of Allegiance foreign all right um before we proceed to the uh to the other items we're gonna have to go ahead and um move the agenda a little bit because of certain items that have to be heard before we hear different items in order and also in order for us to have legal council available uh during closed session so at this point we'll go ahead and move um closed session item number six to right now right after uh item number one and then the the balance of the meeting will proceed as as is written in the agenda uh do I have consensus I have a question to can we move another item as well at this time uh sure is it possible I'm wondering if we can depends on whether or not we have to deal with in closed session before right I don't think this is one of those but uh well I'm putting for consideration item 2.01 to move it towards at the very end just so that can give us an opportunity to make sure that everything runs smoothly as it seems like it most likely will and and we can be a little more informed at that time on the vote so we'll put it uh after at a point after item five okay that will take place of item that will be the last item okay thank you on 2.01 correct yes something any other items that uh board members wants to move if not uh do I have motion to adopt the agenda as a minute I've got a motion by board member uh Chavez second bye uh um if there's no further comments members of the board you know what I'll take public comments [Music] hello board president uh at this time we have no requests for public comment okay so there's no further comments for members of the board then I'll go ahead and proceed to call for a vote uh Council we don't need to go through it should be roll call it's it should be real yes because it's hyper we're all here okay all right and then let the fun continue um I'll go ahead and I'll call you from my left to the right um board member Travis all right um board member uh Board restaurant aye word Clerk and alert aye and board member hi myself for another motion passes all right uh we'll go ahead and um yes let me go through the item number six um before we reach into closed session uh I'll go ahead and take public comment and then uh well can you announce items that will be heard in closed session Dr Brown sure so we are going to have item 6.03 Public Employee appointment title uh state and federal coordinator and item 6.04 conference with legal counsel existing litigation as presented on the agenda all right uh at this point is there I'll take uh public comment with regarding Mr board president at this time we have no request for public comment all right uh so at this point we will go ahead and research the closed session we'll return approximately seven how much time do you expect do you believe that we need I would say about 7 15.
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now if the contract didn't get signed between June 28 which is the anticipation based on our email exchange in March of 2021 and we're not talking about the full build of a school for like a 40 000 square foot facility we're simply talking about Pre-K classes which can be done in the 12 months before the classrooms 16 kids so the scope of the project the timeline at that time secretly appropriate to us now we're in a crunch time that's not a bad news we're still going all in doing everything we can to make sure you hit that despite the tight timeline he gets so it's not that you sat by and hopefully find a facility we went all in on it we got to get deals done you got to get leases signed and you can't get assigned these without a signed contract so I think there's a chicken and an aid problem to some extent and we want the contract also to be one in which it was highly collaborative which is why we did 21 millions and 50 hours of work because we wanted k-14 as the authorizer you practice the school to be integrated connected and harder and feel really confident about how we were going to proceed forward we were parallel searching for site within conversating to director William disappointed earlier is this going to be within our district 100 yes right like projects do sometimes so we have multiple site opportunities multiple Pathways forward we hired the folks falling advanced we've kind of gone as fast as we can um and it's still probably perfect against why aren't even having contract in hand always done in good faith right because we believe a contract's coming so we're gonna invest the dollar we're gonna hire need we're gonna hire our deliverance they're all high they're all paid for the work they're currently doing and there's no contract yet if you understand why there's a delay that's fine that's fine but I think we can just fast as we can and we'll move faster if necessary and or something you need to contract that shows What's Happening by the monthly cadency for confident about the timeline of our work on any aspect of it I think we can also make that into the contract so you feel really comfortable with what's happening what's it happening and feel connected to what's going on in the cloud and Alignment to the promises you want to see that questions foreign specific questions about site acquisition and who we're working with on renovation plans and making sure that you Consulting requirements in any aspect of that for the dollars and cents tied to it how is your man and don't be fooled by the British accent which is an honest person [Music] yeah sorry sorry I was I was just asking if it was all right if we um thank you for the questions uh we're looking at two sites currently uh one is the charge of competitive uh which is on 64.
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the Nationwide pool of semifinalists represents less than one percent of the U.S High School seniors the students will have to fulfill several requirements to advance to the finalist level of the competition and be considered for a marriage scholarship award Merit scholar designees are selected on the basis of their skills accomplishments and potential for success in college to become a finalist the semi-finalist and a high school official must submit a detailed scholarship application with information about the semi-finalist academic record participation in school and community activities demonstrated leadership abilities employment as well as honors and awards received here are the 15 National semi here are the National Merit semifinalists Megan Bishop from Highland High Alexander Baumgardner from Gilbert Classical Academy Lauren Christensen who we just saw from Campo Verde Joshua cook from Highland Mia Cruz from Gilbert Classical Academy Ethan Esquire from Highland Hunter Finn from Mesquite High Mason Gilliland from Highland Tyler Judd from Gilbert High Connie Kang from Gilbert Classical Academy Arturo Pacheco from Gilbert Classical Academy and Tyler Quinn quinos from Gilbert Classical Academy Blake Tillis Tillotson from Highland Timothy Wright from Gilbert Classical Academy in Zebo Zang from Gilbert Classical Academy again congratulations to all of our semi-finalists I hope to be congratulating you in the spring and uh good luck on the finalists um ASU Sun Devil press release this is uh for one of our schools recognizing the efforts of the Educators in our community has been a tradition for Arizona State University after all ASU once was Tempe normal school a school to teach teachers we joined the Pac-12 Conference in the college football playoff Foundation to give six Local Schools an extra high five for their efforts in the classroom and in the community during extra yards for teachers week we appreciate all the work that these schools are doing to raise our future Sun Devils each School earned a grant to Aid them in their continued efforts in supporting their schools teachers and Mission congratulations and a Sun Devil high five goes out to our very own settlers Point Elementary so congratulations settlers point and speaking of some sports stuff the Arizona Cardinals have selected Roy Lopez head coach of Desert Ridge High football as the high school coach of the week for his outstanding coaching performance last week they played williamsfield and beat him in overtime they will present coach Lopez the certificate and a two thousand dollar check for Desert Ridge High School's football program congratulations coach Lopez and lastly we are just a few days away from our first fall break with this new school calendar remember students will get two weeks out for fall break it runs from Monday October 3rd through Friday October 14th School resumes on Monday October 17th a sincere thank you to all of our GPS students teachers support staff administrators and families for all of the dedication of hard work this first quarter you all deserve some time to relax and recharge your batteries and get ready for the second quarter I hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable break Mrs wood that concludes my report for this evening thank you Dr McCord we will now move to requests to speak to the governing board and I would ask that the administ should be played the board May make an open call to the public during a public meeting subject to reasonable time place and manner restrictions to allow individuals to address the public body on an issue within the jurisdiction of the public body at the conclusion of the open call to the public individual board members May respond to criticism made by those who have addressed the board may ask the staff to review a matter or may ask a matter be to be put on a future agenda however members of the board shall not discuss or take legal action on matters raised during the open call to the public unless the matters are properly noticed for discussion and legal action during the open call the board requests that speakers refrain from voicing complaints against School Personnel or any person connected with the district as it may impact due process rights policy k e k e b and k e d are provided by the board for disposition of legitimate complaints including those involving individuals forums required for use of these policies can can be obtained from the Gilbert Public Schools website thank you we have two individuals who requested to speak and you will each have three minutes we'll begin with Devin Paul gililea and please tell me if I've please correct me if I've pronounced this thing correctly and then Jonah De Moore please Gilbert Public School governing board I am here to present agree grievances regarding the district's no homework policy at teachers discretion that the Gilbert public school district has adopted this policy has indirectly or directly violated my rights as a parent according to their Arizona state laws definition of parent involvement in the schools because I am being denied involvement with my daughter's education in Oak Tree Elementary I have requested that my daughter's work and and or homework relate it to what is being taught daily be sent home so that I can be informed about her poor performance and support her understandings of the concepts on a regular basis this request has been denied repeatedly by the teachers and the principals I'm I need to know why it is allowed that my daughter's teachers can deny me access to knowing what she is being taught in the class and how she is progressing on the standards that are being covered my daughter has been allowed to fail the first test of this year because it was not informed to me that she is struggling on some Concepts which may have been re-mandated at home by me this is a denial of my parental and my parental involvement and a violation to my rights of direct attend the education of my child based off of the Arizona parenting billing rights I am humbly asking that the GPS governing board look into the situation specifically on my part and my on my child's education I am also asking that the policy regarding homework be amended so that it is clearly stated that if a parent requests for homework to be provided to their specific intervals a teacher must honor this request I am looking forward to hearing from you on this matter thank you and we would ask that you will follow up yes Mr Martin will definitely follow up with okay this gentleman thank you thank you very much and now Jonah D'Amour you'll have three minutes thank you thank you hi my name is Jonna D'Amour and I am all of almost 55 years I have four children um three of them are adults my last one is at Desert Ridge Junior High School 13 years old last year she was put into the pilot program for the my perspectives without any type of formal notification given to me she went through it this year um the SOS program came around and the opt-out forms and the three emails that were sent by Susan Cadena on a weekly basis I opted my child out but not first requesting the materials for the SOS program to be sent to me so I could see the presentation that was going to be given to the children I was denied it not denied directly indirectly Susan Cadena flipped my email right back onto the school and put Miss Khan on at the school guidance counselor for eighth grade then from there Ms Khan throws me back to the SOS website to the parent link which doesn't give you the full presentation I explained that back and forth then the next thing I know Mike Davis is on the emails and I do have to give Mike Davis some credit he called me he discussed it with me and he made sure that I came in to the junior high school and was able to view the presentation I bought brought two other individuals with me into that presentation Mike was very cordial and very respectful but during the whole email process and Miss Khan not being able to give me the information might not really being able to give it to me or at any other parents for that matter I remained my daughter opted out but then the day came the following Tuesday it was the 20th of September is when the eighth graders went in and my daughter passed her classroom guided she went right past where the opt-out students were going to go and she went right into the presentation and so she was there for the presentation talk about a violation of my parental rights when I had it opted out you guys went against the ARF code and I was already should have been a red flag for everything that happened in there I emailed the next day Mike promptly emailed back and said I will find out what happened and where the breakdown was and he called me that night and we've had two real good discussions the first one getting me in there to view the parental and then the second one when he told me what happened in the breakdown and also it was not just my daughter but there were other kids that were opted out that were put into that program he told me where the failures were and the breakdown that happened and it was basically leaving all of it that's that's the end of your time but I will ask that we will follow up yes ma'am ma'am ma'am this is a that's the point of order and I we will follow up though and I do appreciate you coming tonight thank you and a procedure put in place for these out ma'am thank you we will follow up thank you very much all right thank you for those who have come and appreciate your input and we will follow up and and hear back on that we will now move to reports and we will begin with 6.01 the academic update Dr McCord thank you madam president governing board members tonight uh Begins the first of many where over the years we've given Financial reports during this time and primarily just Financial reports and we're going to add at the recommendation of Miss Humphries a little while ago an academic portion of that and so tonight I will turn it over to Dr Newman for that update thank you good evening Madam president governing board members and Dr McCord at this time I'd like to ask Miss Melinda Murphy our Gilbert Public Schools professional development director to join us at the podium she's been very instrumental in the implementation of this year one and so um she'll be she'll be giving you most of the information but I did want to make sure that I um let you know how much we appreciate what she and her team has done with this for sure this was truly an investment an investment in our teachers and investment in our students and we took this very seriously we knew that it was really important for us to make sure that we articulated what the responsibility was of this position and what the role was and making sure that we had the right individuals in those positions as well we also knew that this as district-wide we previously only had 0.5 coaches at our elementary so if we were going to go full time coaches at our K-12 all of our campuses it was important for us to make sure that our principals weren't carrying that heavy weight so what we I wanted to kind of just share with you some of that selection process and how that went so that you can better understand and really truly you'll say yes we really have the best as Miss Murphy continues on there were 77 applicants and when I say 77 applicants those are applicants that actually completed the application and also completed a performance task of those 77 54 were internal and 23 were external and I think it's important to also note that we had 15 coaches that were in the position the previous year we had said that if you have your position you were able to remain in your position but if we had any coaches that wanted to change campuses they were to go through this selection process so we did have a couple that went through knowing that they were going to be going to or hoping to go to a new campus initially they received an email from us and we asked for them to complete a performance task that really involved them learning more about the coaching position student-centered coaching what does that look like they had to answer and and complete some questions for us at that time after those were reviewed by Wendy Peterson and Miss Murphy's office what we did next was then we scheduled interviews as you can imagine 77 interviews is quite an enormous kind of load and we of course did not want principals to do that but we knew it was important that we had a principal's lens on there as well so of those 77 we had 53 that completed our district screening process that would have been they did a great job on the um task the performance task and also they went through the interview the interview panel members were our District staff as well as some of our principals that said that they would be more than happy to help facilitate this and really if you needed a coach it was a great idea because you got first you know first look at some of these really wonderful candidates so of those 53 that successfully completed that process then what they did is they moved to our campus interview so we were able to provide a list of principles of all the applicants internal and external that would have moved through and we would have said this they really fit the bill in regard to what we are holding as far as that high expectation of an instructional leader on a campus that was our next phase which was that campus interview and from there we were able to hire 25 new coaches in addition to our remaining coaches or our existing coaches so from there we were had a great pool of candidates and we knew that our next job was to make sure that they were going to have the training and the support they needed to really truly support our students and ultimately our teachers as well so as we go through the presentation if you look at the faces of the coaches that are on there you can see just how engaged and amazing this group of people are they were Crema the crop teachers in the classroom and they have really stepped in to support Educators so the model focuses on how we grow students coaches are there to assist teachers in finding the best approach to instruction and helping them assess the effectiveness of the work so they work with the teacher to set goals for students based on the standards that are being taught they co-plan they co-teach and then they also assist principals in executing professional learning on their campus that are based on the academic goals that they've set which is a really critical part of their job is helping move the Improvement that principals are looking for forward on campuses so once we selected the model we began implementing the model we kind of looked at you know what is the difference between this and other particular models out there the difference is that this focuses on students we're not about fixing teachers and so we took all the principles so they'd be very clear along with our coaches through a book study using Diane Sweeney's student-centered coaching as a guide the training is led by the for the coaches by Wendy Peterson from the professional growth department and our goals have been to establish a common vision for instruction that is research based and designed to get the very most out of our students the other piece of the training is supporting the coaches as they develop the skills that they need to be effective this is a really different approach to instruction and there's a toolbox that they need as they start working with teachers they have to build trust with the teachers they serve they have to have their own toolbox of an instructional strategies and then they have to have the knowledge of the tools and resources that we have here in Gilbert Public Schools to ensure that teachers are going to the places that we want them to go so we went through and we looked at what teachers are saying what coaches are saying and what our principals are saying and the common goal has been thank you thank you for giving us this opportunity it has been really amazing to watch some of the teachers shared that they are seeing their coach as a resource but my favorite story is from a teacher who told us that her coach just made her want to be a better teacher and that's really what we want for all of our Educators is just for them to bring their best game to the classroom every day what coaches are saying is that this work has been incredibly validating their whole business is celebrating teachers successes right alongside the teacher and I love the idea of the quote that you see there about productive struggle the idea that we can do hard things and then see them through to the end and we all know that teaching is hard business and those coaches are there to support those teachers as they go through and let their students succeed what our principals are saying coaches have been instrumental in keeping the focus on teaching and learning being a building principle I can tell you they are polled in a hundred different directions every single day but coaches ensure that the center of their business is always learning and that is what we are all about so our next steps have been to continue to establish coaches as the support and resource on their campuses through starting coaching Cycles with teachers they will be doing learning walks on our campuses visiting classrooms to see how the work that they are focusing on as part of their campus goals is progressing across the campus and we'll continue to support principals as they begin to develop a campus culture where teachers see themselves as Learners and the coaches are there to support that kind of growth so finally I just want to say again thank you for this opportunity it has been amazing to work with this group of professionals they are dedicated to the heart of what we do which is teaching and learning and they're so excited about the work every time we step into a training we leave feeling better than when we walked in and that's pretty amazing do you have any questions board members did you have any uh yes I have some comments I really appreciate learning more about what we're doing to help these instructional coaches I really think that professional development is a way of supporting the teacher and also encouraging them and giving them a positive way forward um especially when they're struggling so um I think it's really good to see that I would like to have a copy of that book or borrow a copy of that book so I absolutely what it's about and uh I really appreciate the hard work and the effort that's been put into this I think it will be very advantageous for our students and I like the student Focus that we're not trying to fix the teacher we're just trying to help the student so thank you I had one question as well I just I'm excited about this as well and I've heard from principals and teachers and instructional coaches that I've spoken to that already they're seeing impacts in students in classrooms and that's exactly what we need so I guess I wanted to get your thoughts on what type of outcomes do you expect to see in students what what are the things that we're looking for to say yes this has been successful you know this is doing what we're hoping that it's doing so part of the process of teaching in Gilbert Public Schools is professional learning community so teachers sit together they said they look at the standard they're teaching and they set specific goals for student outcomes the coaches are really there to make sure that the instruction that's being delivered is effective instruction so that they can go back they can look at whatever assessments they gave the kids and track their growth over that cycle so specifically it depends on the teacher and what their goals have been campus wide it would depend on what the principal set as goals for the campus so they'll be able to go through look at the kind of goals that they set and then track that based on assessments on different sets of data but it's very much data driven but and trackable so you'll be able to see the outcome one of the coaches that that was a coach last year shared with me the gains they got in math which was like 10 student growth over the course of the year with the teachers that she had worked with specifically so that's my hope is that we'll be able to not just say we feel good about this but we'll be able to look and say that's a gain that's a gain that's a gain but a lot of it is dependent on what the teacher said as goals and what principles set as goals thank you oh miss you Jenny I do have a question and and I actually have a comment as a former principal this to me would have been the most important position on a campus Because I know that every time I tried to sit down with a teacher there was a fire drill or you know something like that but can you and if I I apologize if I've asked if this question has already been answered but what academic areas are you predominantly working on is it Ela and math or are you kind of all over it's everything so one of the reasons that we chose the model we did is we really wanted um campus this is to see coaching for all teachers which is why it's been really important to grow the instructional capacity of coaches so we really focus on strategies that can be adapted for any content area so of course some of our coaches have expertise in their particular content area but we've really focused on what would this strategy look like in a physics classroom in a math classroom in an English classroom and that's been a challenge honestly is getting them to adapt it's really interesting some of the secondary coaches that we work with last week were sharing what they taught and we realized we had each of the four core contents represented which was really helpful for them to start having conversations about how they would adapt things and how they would work with particular content areas what to look for when they go into a classroom but it is a challenge and it's been interesting having to remind the coaches to step back out of their preferred content area and you know think about working with an art teacher one of the great things about the model we chose those we always start with the standard and we always start with asking the teacher what are you looking for in terms of student learning and then we work alongside the teacher so the coaches adapt whatever the teacher needs instead of directing the teacher telling them what they should be doing that I think is a game changer honest nicely we kind of reinforce with the coaches and with teachers as well everyone has a coach no matter how good you are at your job there are coaches all around leadership coaches acting coaches professional coaches right Sports coaches um and that that also is kind of a shift in how we think about teaching that we don't have all the answers but we don't have to have all the answers which is really important and this all brings it back the instructional framework we were working on last year in that core instruction and so that's what they're concentrating on very much so teachers absolutely anything further thank you abandon thank you absolutely Mrs Murphy we appreciate it we will now address 6.02 the monthly budget report year today ended August 31st 2022.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
um yeah I think that um and to answer your question about you know why has the noise settled a lot of the drivers that come on they um they bid on a certain District so even though we are not a union company we still do some things where we bid that there's seniority there's bidding and they pick a district that they want to work in um and so most of those drivers are settled in those districts and that's the routes that they've picked to drive and as a bus driver I'm sure you understand that um so with with greater Lawrence Tech um there were already open routes going into in the afternoons the afternoons is where we're struggling in at school is is the afternoons and there were open there was eight open slots so that's what we're looking to fill is having drivers that are coming in now new to the company that we can assign to whereas at the beginning of the school year the drivers are picking their Roots but now that everybody's picked we can now start assigning people to as they come into specific routes which is what we're doing thank you for um also to get things better I don't think it's going to take four weeks I have like I said I have three drivers that I'm just waiting that are assigned to Greater Lawrence Tech that just need to take the test so there they could be within a week to 10 days is usually what like I said once it's uploaded we wait about 10 days to get a test date so as soon as they pass they can start driving in the next day or so nothing else that can be done to us to get some resolution before that time what is that it yeah so as they as they pass we'll put them right on the route so and that's why we've given them the root sheets right now so that they can learn them so there's no delay there's going to be no delay they're going to know the route they're going to know the stops um and we can get them going so it really just depends on I just it's going to alleviate just the three or six of them it's going to it's going to alleviate yeah it's going to alleviate the the the big ones the ones that are that 90 minutes that some of them that are we're looking at 90 minutes there's five of them that are you're really talking about they're arriving about 250 248 so those are not the unbelievable like 330s 345s that or four o'clocks that we've been looking at those are the ones that we're going to Target to get fixed first and then try to fix the rest of of the later routes that are coming in at like that 250.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
okay you know all right so I just wanted to be clear on that um so then so I guess I guess that's what I was reading way back in the day yeah and so this is all that old stuff and this is from like 1996 or something right yes um yeah um I don't know 96 yeah good memory well yeah I just remember discussing it with Tony and being well this is really old but it's accounting so it's not necessarily that out of date it was more about and I even talked with uh with Tim about it it's like you know is it are there any uh gasby you know regulations to be concerned about and uh but at least the Otters otters have gone through and have have changed what or has made their recommendations and those changes have been uh Incorporated yeah yeah okay um any uh questions uh from Sam or Tim on this okay all right so as far as action on this the only action really that really needs to be taken for from a policy point of view is just uh for our first reading is that the titles some of the titles have changed and some of the software references have changed but really from a policy perspective the only thing that needs action is the policy okay there is the uh you know the policy with the two title changes right regulation is not something that the board takes action on right right uh Sam go ahead are we just changing it because we don't have a position that's the director of management and personnel yes or okay we say we say this person is responsible for all the accounting but we don't have that person yeah you know we have the Chief Operating Officer so that's why we made the change because I right away thought to a human resources person first versus a you know a Vinnie that's why right six I would say but okay um Tim yeah I'm just wondering in general throughout the policies this is not something that's like really spent a lot of time on right now but with regard to putting titles in it would it make more sense to just change all the titles to the superintendent superintendent or his designee eliminate titles from policies and regulations and then it just moves forward from there and not something to do tonight but just a thought yeah I mean we could ask uh about that oh okay yeah if Kade you know if there's I can't think of a reason why that wouldn't be okay but I would want to ask somebody who deals with a lot of policy if there's something that we're missing but sure I think it's a reasonable question I mean my only thought about doing that Tim would be perhaps is you know um Auditors always like their separation of Duties and if it's and you know that let's say a chief operating officer you know answers to the superintendent but does that muddy the lines of uh I know the the Orcs or anything you'd say I don't know I don't know I'm just talking out loud I have no idea I agree Adam I mean you know I would say these superintendent has obviously the full authority of oversight so therefore the onus lies upon him to basically ensure that these various areas are acting within but again yeah I suppose I guess yeah right the superintendent has the ultimate decision right is that is that usually how things are are handled where like let's say Vin would sign off but then you also need to review and sign off if that would be the usual type of uh yeah depending on the level I mean I'm responsible for everything that goes well and Ben is responsible for the things that don't I mean that's our general rule of thumb that we try and follow but yeah ultimately I guess I am responsible and not you know the superintendent would be responsible for everything um I think I hear what Tim's saying just for reading uh and ease of and making sure that this is never an issue that we have to do this again you know yeah that's a fair question um I'll ask all right so I think for now I get you know we probably end up moving this forward I think as is um but we could always um you know if Jeff you could look into that to see maybe maybe that'll be something we'll start doing for you uniformity purposes too right so yeah because we have had to change uh well several policies in the past just to change titles right to have them go through all the meetings just to change the title yeah well we were going through doing some of that cleanup stuff a few years ago we did a fair amount of that yeah so but if we if we adopted a strategy like that we probably wouldn't start from policy one and spend forever going through it just as we hit it we would do something like that right right okay so in this case every 26 years yeah let me get around to it well now's our chance now's our chance we can always make that Amendment you know at our next meeting right right okay so uh we're okay with the way it reads right now then for this one all right uh we'll move on to um well wrong tab the next nepotism yeah that this was uh you had asked to kind of bring this up uh I think is a result of the uh board meeting where we had the conversation about cousins who worked in our school system um and we just I think wanted to revisit it to take a look at what the the policy said around nepotism so I'll pull it up well it wasn't even necessarily that it was that I think you had mentioned in our in our public comments that the attorneys had looked at um the policy and made determinations that some of it was no longer valid right because that the way we had written this policy originally would have ended up being too strict um uh against what the actual lawful findings were right so right so uh the key point that the attorneys have made to us is that um the state of Connecticut determines uh nepotism to exist where there is a supervisory basically relationship and how they dictate that are things like um does the person uh set that other person's there's one family member set the other's schedule are they uh related are they influential and compensated related decisions um do they have any Authority uh to recommend in employment for that person um and and so and they they outline you here you can see in the middle of the page this includes but not limited to decisions concerning hiring promotion transfer discipline termination salary evaluation or other similar Personnel actions action so um in this case you know we can employ relatives as long as they don't have that relationship if you recall Adam because you were on the policy committee when we made this initial where we adopted this version um what back in 2019 yes the um we had an assistant principal whose sister-in-law was a teacher in that building um she didn't evaluate that teacher nevertheless we transferred the teacher to a different building um at the time just to avoid the perception so you know that we don't have in our school system now as much as we have many relatives um we do not have any violations of this well that's wonderful to hear yeah sensitive it seems pretty basic right yeah um so then according to the the new interpretation then eighth of family member can determine workload potentially right because that in the because I guess we can use the the case as an example because I guess it was held in public right so we can comment yep um so in that instance because the cousin was could have was was determining I guess jobs workload on that day but did not determine the schedule that's okay according to as crazy as this sounds to me foramen which is what you're describing yeah is specifically carved out like that's not to your point they don't um they can assign duties but they don't have any traditional like Personnel related Authority they don't evaluate individuals they don't do many of these other things um that we were just talking about which is a little crazy to me but it's specifically carved out right uh Tim go ahead yeah so I mean just talking about this specific situation it just seems crazy to me that you have the manager so the you actually have the administrative line and that's not related and then you have the dotted line to the related person it just it seems to me that although the supervisor is not related they are going to place significant reliance on the person who the dotted line is in a in a tip in this department situation yeah on the foreman you're going to say well is this person doing a good job I mean I think I do that I think most people would do that you don't just make sort of your decisions in a vacuum because you know you have 10 of your work day involved with somebody oh they do a good job or a bad job what happens you know when I'm not looking type of thing are people people doing a good job so this makes absolutely no sense to me and this has nothing to do with anyone in particular um it's just in principle I just don't feel like this sort of situation should exist so my question is is there anything that we could do to change that um not that I did we yeah we yeah so much facts that we did but the uh no and I don't want to take anything away from you it's like we ended up in this one specific situation where it's getting parsed a little bit more and and I got it I get it how this happens but I said it during that meeting I'm like the bottom line to me is it still just doesn't feel right um because of the situation I just described where I think any you know a normal manager is probably going to have play some Alliance on other people um and so that's why I'm just not comfortable with this situation so if there is anything I don't you know how we could change it legally I don't want to do anything you know wrong per se but I also feel like the Situation's not appropriate right speaking of you know legal um implications I mean I I think because we're discussing the policy and not the individual I mean as much as the individual because you know from a legal perspective if we're discussing you know an individual's um role uh capacity in the organization and they're supposed to be provided notice of such conversation and invitation um but you know again I want to we're not discussing a certain person's performance here we're talking about the nepotism policies it relates to these situations and that I'm I'm happy to review with vin um I mean I think it's logical to try and avoid that sort of situation and I think we've addressed that but you know in that in that case if you recall the desire was to transfer um to a position where they would be reporting to a family member as a foreman and we initially cited that as nepotism and declined that transfer a legal guidance said that that wasn't a valid reason oh you because it's not technically nepotism well was that legal guidance predicated on policy in any way there's predicated on the law okay so maybe it doesn't maybe it does okay I mean maybe that's why you know again the the if you recall the transfer request was put in which would have made the individual working with their family member and a relationship where one family members the foreman and the other wasn't we rejected the request for transfer based on the grounds that it was nepotism our attorney reviewed that and said well technically you can't do that it's not nepotism because you have the Confluence of two different pieces coming together here uh uh one is the nepotism law itself and the other is um the bar collective bargaining agreement um that allows for the requests to be made in a public school system with a collective bargaining group when they can make that request I can't cite a law uh that that is it would be a violation of the law to say that this is nepotism well it's not right that's I don't mean violation of the law like I'm breaking speeding law but it's an interpretation that's incorrect um was the feedback so yes I mean we we do try and avoid that but you know it's what's nepotism nepotism is the way we have it defined in our policy is the law defines it I don't know if that makes sense no it does it that makes 100 sense um yeah it's the I I wasn't sure so I'll just say from the collective bargaining agreement I actually I was like okay that's an argument that seems reasonable to me that was being made in that situation but um but just generally the point is is that the nepotism policy that we have is is basically just mirroring the law and it we don't have the authority to refine it further right um if that's the case now I don't believe so in a public in a public uh institution but the uh as you were talking about I think maybe the way to address it is through the collective bargaining agreement okay so then yeah and I haven't gotten into the details of the of the Union contract like I mean so so then our policy per the law is sound the instance that we were discussing which is public right that was just using it as an example and not speaking about it specifically right specific case wise just as an example um so that there was an interpretation of the law as applied to regulation right in that instance I suppose but the actual references in our policy and the way the policy is written is still sound according to the law and according to uh uh what's uh per cop per uh Employment contract I forget that the term yeah the collective bargaining lot the bargaining yes that it's still not in violation it's just that it's just in this specific instance there was a I guess a gray area that needed interpretation right and then it was interpreted by our attorneys or or jointly with whomever right right to say that that was a yeah it's a gray area I mean I mean obviously when we adopted that policy it was three years ago the uh incident in question was about a year ago and I'll have Floyd take another look at it um just to see if anything's changed but you know I believe our policy to be sound and that was our interpretation of that relationship which you know I wouldn't think that a foreman I would think a foreman position would be supervisory in nature um but I guess technically it's not so uh right I'm not a lawyer and I I would think I live and I learn I guess yeah yeah Common Sense would say yes but apparently there's a a loophole much of law is not dictated by Common Sense I guess right yes but I'll have Floyd take another look at it just to affirm yeah um but yeah yeah we just put it on I I wanted it on the agenda to make sure that we could take a look at it to see if we had to change something because the law was less strict than how we envisioned the the policy to be right in our mind right so so I think what we'll do is um if it's okay with you guys have Floyd take a look at it I can send an update to the full board if it's um if it's still accurate if it's not then we'll take it back to policy and make any amendments as necessary I'm okay with that put on the next agenda if that okay okay great plan um let's see up next week oh here we go holy smoke oh so we have oh boy all right we'll just go to let's see Title Nine here we go digging in yeah so [Music] um the Title IX policy uh We've we spent a fair amount of time on this when did we update that one that was I want to say a couple years ago as well with the change 2019 probably 2019 yeah with the change in the law um 2021 we adopted this so a year ago um but we adopted it with caveats right because there was like everything was in transition yeah and so the uh we we've had a chance now for a Year's worth a little more than a Year's worth of uh legal processes across the country and across Connecticut and we met with our attorney who handles these sort of cases she took a look at our policy and said it's you know it's hard to read it's you know and I forget what the other policy was that we all looked at in Bertram and Moses sent us a revision to it and say oh yeah we just like that one better it's much do you remember that uh it was uh last year at some point but I I thought that was our bullying policy or yes yeah thank you and uh so we in this case have the same thing where the policy this one you know typically we derive our policies from Cade um and sometimes they're you know spot on they're always legally sound but sometimes they could be particularly when things are a little bit more complex hard to navigate and um so Rebecca our attorney at um Bertram Moses sent us this revised policy for your information I also included is a point of reference the regulations um in here and you know I'm not gonna just scroll through the whole thing because it's between the policy and the regulation it's more than a dozen pages that we're not going to be able to sit and read the whole thing but um what I'll say is that the policy itself is much easier to read the regulation is much easier to follow but don't get too used to it um the office of civil rights who oversees Title IX uh is revising they're coming through the public comment period on revisions it will probably probably be in Rebecca's estimation somewhere about a year from now that changes come again and I I know you may have heard me complain about this um this uh policy or the from uh OCR because it really I think it does not protect uh kids and it's not very suitable to a um a school system setting this is more Collegiate in nature where people are have legal representatives in their you know dealing with different sides of issues and collecting evidence and in a different way than might happen in fourth grade so we're still at that level right now where it's still more of a personal proceeding yep okay so so even this this okay I'll have to admit I did not have a chance to read through it um so this uh because I I would have moved to table it for months uh because I I know that just remembering the old policy out great I mean that the old one was I think 40 pages if I recall yeah we're on the 12 so that's an improvement um but um yeah I would I would move to table this one just so we can all read through it a little bit more even though it's going to change again um it's just to kind of see what's changed already because we knew that I think the last time we had even though it says up we adopted 2021 we had originally had the one from 2020 which was very different from the one that we adopted in 2021 so um I guess and so this is more of a like you said it's gone through some legal revisions and some court cases and that sort of thing and it's still not done still not right at least for us yeah it's gonna change and I think what um I what we try to do with this revision is provide much greater Clarity around the process and what's going on you know this is the sort of thing where um when there's an allegation of sexual harassment um then you know every witness statement is public basically for both sides um and it's very hard uh for uh an adult let alone a child to step forward and tell you honestly what's going on when they know that their entire peer group will know exactly what they said if you know it's really a tough spot it's not not really designed for this uh the setting in my opinion but I think that's a lot of people's opinion which is why it's changing uh Tim go ahead yeah so wait just uh two things Adam you said that uh you want to table this for a month uh yeah I I think I'll make them I can make a motion on that in one second um but I just want to in the meantime Jeff just really simply so this is moving it's a moving Target and it has been for years if something arises there could be something right now in front of you I don't know I don't really want to ask right in this meeting um are you getting hand holding from the attorneys yeah absolutely okay yeah because this process is very new um and it's very different than anything we've engaged in in the past so yeah we we do solicit their guidance um to work through them in a way that follows the law uh supports both parties as is required the uh person the alleged perpetrator and the victim uh alleged victim and you know so yes we have had to use that um yes I mean that makes sense to me then is this the same policy that would fall in line with I don't think it's the office of civil rights there's another um because these the office of civil rights is that federal or state that you're referring to there firstly that's Federal that's Federal okay um but there's the hro is the Connecticut right now do they do they derive their Authority from something different than Title IX or is that because I forget yeah on it yeah chro and OCR have a broader umbrella than sexual harassment so it's um really discrimination in any form is under those umbrellas this is just one this gender-based discrimination um is is specific to Title IX okay and does this have anything you know we we had a board member bring up something related to regulation from the USDA is that do you recall that um yeah vaguely because I thought there was a reference to Title IX in that as well and I wasn't sure if that needs to be incorporated since that was I think a a presidential uh decree or something like that I wasn't sure if that's the yeah it's not related to this not related but okay so if that's not Title IX either just to make just so we're keeping every all the uh the silos silos well that's I think that's one of the challenges Adam is that there's not you know it's not there aren't clear boundaries where Title IX is in effect applicable to any you know public institution across the board in most private institutions really um you know so in a federal assistance program or in a federal uh you know Food Service program that the USDA administers the uh you would be required to not violate Title IX or title 6 which is a another uh discrimination based law so there is some bleed but it's not there's nothing that's going to influence our food service right he does all right so um yeah I I think I would just like the table just so at least so I had a chance to read all what if it was 12 Pages revised yeah whatever it is just to read through it once without you know taking up a lot of time at at this meeting you know just a um because you know we used to have those four hour meetings where we would kind of do that and this will work out because actually uh Rebecca is our expert in this um or Floyd you know his versed as well but um you and I had talked about other potential agenda items that you know the this it would be perfect that this person could touch on our attorney Kel Touch come on that'd be great on a subsequent meeting okay um so do we have to table it or we just take no action on it just take no action yeah it's not up for reading necessarily okay so then if everyone's okay then we will just take no action on it for now because it's sort of in effect already because it's federal law anyway right this is more of a formality but as we all know words matter and we'll just make sure do our do due diligence right to make sure we read the words so at least in my point because I didn't read the words and I would like to so um uh Sam go ahead do we I mean this semi relates to establish the various tiers of You Know Chief investigator um I forgot all the different titles sure the decision maker investigator that's some of the complexity um I'm saying I'm not sure why but with your with your mic open are you guys getting uh yeah I'm getting I have some feedback we can hear you but there's like this interesting bizarre clicking noise anyway um those roles are not necessarily static there's a a Title IX coordinator who's Robin and Kerry that that role is static she will perpetually be that person the title and coordinator until we change her there are other roles that you mentioned like the investigator and the decision maker um to me they sound kind of like made for TV names but the decision maker it can be flexible depending on the circumstances the investigator will be flexible uh depending on the circumstances so we will assign those individuals because there are very clear rules around the person can't have any like really uh affiliations with either party and so you know if I make one principle the the Perpetual investigator decision maker and the complaint comes from their building and this is somebody they've supervised it's like there's a conflict there so we have to find somebody so we're providing that flexibility is is what the attorney says that's good yeah Silver Lining yeah that's why I understand something's going I don't know if it's the head I don't know that's that's the thing Haywire yeah okay uh so we will take no action on that uh so we will go to oh our our old friend electronic board meetings um I so we have I guess we have to make it an official bylaw is that uh since now even though it's it's law right state law right yes yeah it's a little bit like what we had talked about previously uh in our last board meeting about the fact that the full board is adopting um this is a little little preview but the full board is adopting our goals um we still have to in our next policy meeting take that up and build it into our policy manual um and this is another one of those things even with the Title IX when the Law changes um oh this is the wrong one you when the Law changes uh you still need to update the policy in this one is our updated policy on electronic meetings of which I know we're all fans uh and this uh just kind of outlines what the legal and particularly as it relates to foia uh Freedom of Information Act uh requirements are to hold these meetings um did we ever uh figure out I don't know if maybe it was a technical aspect but if we like if we didn't anticipate that there was going to be uh public comment um but someone wanted to comment during one of our meetings right even though right it would be at the the I guess the will and pleasure of the of the chair right whether or not the entertain common but if someone wanted to do that and we're not in a physical place right like this um do we have a a way of allowing that would is there was there something in there about um like could they email ahead of time to say that they wanted to make a comment or anything like that um do we have that ability um well we did recently change our uh email if you recall when we started to do remote uh meetings we had I think it was uh CPS covid-19 at cheshire.k12 or whatever was and we would take many questions if you remember in the early days like yeah it would almost be like pure q a um and we have recently changed Carol can you remind me what the new email address is I think it's CPS comments or something uh Boe comments yeah Boe comments at cheshire.k12.o.e contacts contact yeah yeah so um I'm just looking in the policy because I want to say board conducts meeting other than executive session um it shall provide any member of the public a written request submitted last 24 hours prior to such meeting um physical location of equipment necessary to attend such meeting in real time so if somebody needs equipment and they notify us they can participate um and then the same opportunities to uh participate via the email so you can use the public uh Board of Ed contact email to submit questions and comments that way too okay because as you guys know the public comment section is not necessarily it's exactly what it says it is it's an opportunity to State your uh common it's not an engagement in Q a necessarily but is a quick plug next month we do have our Board of Ed Forum coming up um great opportunity people want to engage in dialogue with board members and central office administrators without the public cameras we do have this meeting annually to be able to allow people that in privacy and opportunity for dialogue because the the public spotlight's not for everybody right because I think um because yeah there's no real technical solution other than writing an email because if you if you hand out a link to our meeting that I get that kind of creates a problem because of the link is shared publicly yeah it could be hijacked so right what they do say is that if you notify US 24 hours in advance of the meeting you can we'll have to set up a place for you a physical location to go to participate where somebody would chaperone in effect okay because I and and for me personally I mean I'd always be willing if there was like some overwhelming public sentiment where you know people wanted to comment I'm for me it's just for me personally I'd be willing to you know change the meeting to a public location as well you know at least for the means that I share anyway right um so um yes there's always ways around it unfortunately yeah there's no good way to handle that unless um I guess unless we added something about like if uh something about 48 hours if that was a preference perhaps if they notice five within 48 hours then we could change our location because then that gives us that 24 hour that puts us in the 24-hour window so that we could notify that the location would change right that would be yeah and I don't know if that you know the likelihood the I mean well here's the other thing though that if that were to take place and we said it was going to be a remote meeting we would simply do something like move to the humiston boardroom and project it remotely so that it's it's still Vermont I mean we could change Where We Are on a half hour's notice really right okay necessary you know instead of just taking it from your house or whatever let's or your office in my case it's Carol let's just go to the board of ed conference room right you know and then you can still hold it remotely like we would all right so there are ways around it then yeah I think we're pretty good okay all right great um so uh for I forget so for bylaws we don't have to do free readings right um but I haven't received any direction from our chair either to Fast Track you do have to do three meetings as well okay well and we have fast tracked bylaws you can fast track but it's generally better to do the three readings you would only Fast Track if it was like um yeah right okay and yeah because this does deal with public comment and stuff like it would be better to right hip ample time okay uh Sam go ahead this is just more of a process question actually is there a um not I don't want to say mandate but a requirement in that we have to have three reads on policy and rights based on kabe's action or we can't expedite certain policies for final approval so policies themselves require three readings if the regulations don't get read at all policies in in bylaws of the board require the three readings there is a carve out though if there is um an urgency for some reason to change a policy uh post haste sort of thing that motion could be made at a board meeting and adopted with unanimous uh I want to say it's unanimous I don't even think it's like three-fifths or you know they pretty sure has to be unanimous uh vote of the board to Institute the policy change immediately regulations are they're kind of like the the internal operation rules of how we uh facilitate the policies those do not get board approval right yeah we we um we changed the we Fast Track the policy for I guess the order of agenda right yes and when was that in 2020 21 I think um where we change we put public comment it was all the way at the bottom and we moved it to position three um and we fast tracked that um but I think that's the the only thing we ever did uh that was fast tracked um it's designed to give the public ample opportunity to review and comment on policy and changes adjustments right especially yet so and this this one would be strange because it's I guess it's state law now right so it's right it's different because before we were we were running under a Governor's uh executive order before so um and then that expired so then that luckily they passed the law allowing it for for subcommittees right not for board not for Maine business meetings I don't think right because that was different of course I think you can do it for business meetings as well actually oh I was just looking at that that policy that um bylaw today and it says after the policy committee refers to proposal to the full board the proposed policy or amended policy shall be read at three board meetings if the board concludes that for good cause the policy should be adopted after the first reading it may decide by five affirmative votes of the board to waive the second and third readings an additional formal vote with at least four affirmative votes of the board is required to adopt the policy or as proposed or amended okay so it does have to go to the full board like Adam as the chair right now cannot expedite it right via committee okay I thought it was uh I knew it was a higher standard I thought it was unanimous but it's just five I thought it was uh well that's what that's two-thirds right yeah quick math not just majority vote right okay so it could happen if we wanted to uh so when I when it's read at the next business meeting when I when we go through our our report and I if I read it in its entirety I suppose I could or or something that effect then we could um there could be emotion I guess at that point to do that so I'm just saying only just for efficiency say that there's certain things that because it's statute that we don't necessarily have to go through three iterations of something if we can fast track it that's all I'm just trying to right all right and there is a different threshold with bylaw than there is with policy policy we've never we've never fast tracked policy I think that's a that's set in stone that the for public comment purposes um that is uh uh needs to be three readings but because of bylaws almost like an internal governance that I think we have that Latitude um so um I'll I'll discuss that with uh with Tony our chair and uh for Jeff that's just for public reference um uh so and uh and see what he thinks about that because you know we we could go ahead and do that so I'll I'll follow up on that um so let's see so is that that's the end of our our first first reading reading so then we would we were going to move school activity fund and electric um electronic board meetings right for our first reading theoretically right or technically um all right so I will make a motion uh move that policy 35 43 school activity fund and bylaw 9321.2 electronic board education meetings be moved for a first reading second in seconds um is there any additional discussion on that okay um all in favor raise your hand or say aye there we go it is um it is unanimous for those thank you very much and you have to nope here we go so we'll move to item number four which is the review of food service charging policy so this um this policy uh is a change in the law and the uh real guidance here is about meal charging um in here where I just highlighted uh when the students balance is equal to 30 days of a negative balance then they can be referred to the homeless liaison uh Robin and Kerry is getting a lot of air time tonight because that's also her role so did that change if I recall wasn't that 20 days you know I apologize Adam that I don't know the number I don't know that that changed I think that the the 30 days was a new thing I think what was the issue was that previously school districts would be able to in effect what we would do is not withhold lunch but provide a scaled down lunch um when you exceeded well beyond your charging and you weren't paying that it would be like a sandwich fruit milk kind of thing not the full scale and that was fairly common practice across Connecticut the law has changed now that it's just and I do appreciate this that it's a more of a referral to address the issue with the parent in some way rather than you know putting it on a a young child I mean if you're 18 it's a little bit different you know then you're eight but and launch staff too right because yeah you get the nod you're like okay you got to get that kid the uh the special lunch yeah you know it's a tough spot for everybody involved right so so that's not practice anymore it's basically if there's a payment issue it gets referred to um liaison and they kind of hang out on the background I mean typically I mean if before it gets to 30 days usually the principal gets involved in some way right you know to just first of all make sure the child's okay the family's okay and then you know if they are can you make a payment to try and square up on the lunch so of course we have the luxury of not having to worry about this for through November for a little while longer right yeah free you know lunch and breakfast but uh ultimately I'm imagining it will probably become an issue again um I I guess on that note just I I guess it's a little off topic but um as far as the the funding goes are we going to have to engage in some sort of uh public information uh uh uh right scratching or something like that for the parents so that they they're more aware again of what's going to happen yeah I think we've I know that we've sent information to families about the free meals and everything and the fact that it would ultimately end um certainly is that date draws closer we will Blitz people with that information about hey you know this is when we anticipate the money running out if you will um and please make sure you find your child's account in advance right well I think since our meeting what was it last year where I then became acquainted with uh parent Square uh in the app and everything that personally I found that the communication is is pretty effective it goes through the app you get an email you know you get at least two or three notifications for every uh for every message so yeah and you can personalize that yeah right so I've I've personally found it effective anyway yeah I'm keeping uh up to date there's a dad I benefit from the prodding so getting the alert on the phone or whatever and you know that's helpful right I mean it was it's a Gorilla Marketing you know they say what was it it's like nine times or something so at least you get three so it's something yeah uh so um okay so um are there any uh questions or additional comments on this policy um okay seeing none I'll uh make a motion to move um policy 35 42.43 food service charging policy for a second reading do I have a second Tim all right Tim got his hand up first um any other discussion all in favor it is unanimous great thank you um and we'll move on to a third reading uh is there any material changes to these policies I guess we're going to do a high level review there there haven't been if that's okay all right yeah yeah no yeah I wasn't sure if we wanted to go through a high level you know uh the the those were all statutory changes I recall the distribution yes Advanced courses definitely was challenging curriculum program and gifted and talented all were statutory additions um I know where was it that Sam had a question about it might have been semantics yes it was it was one word yeah which one was that Carol the will or yeah 61.72.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
um it's I don't know the theme but it's they're doing it over several days of going to be downtown yeah it's pretty neat what is it that you're doing on the 22nd concerning the view so we're going to be actually painting a piece of the mural the team of us it's like a paint by number so you know how they do like the paint parties and they set you through the factory how to paint it we're going to have a section of the mural that we're painting that day with somebody there telling us how to what to paint where to paint step by step like connect the dots painting kind of thing foreign already been over or uh there's a mirror down there or Mary and erson and um so that would be a visibility to contact for people that are running for so City Center Danbury is running this project and they've asked they've reached out to me to see if they can get teams of eight they need 200 people to help this project do their thing I don't know where it's going I just said I'll check in with the board and see if they want to participate talk to Rachel Rachel said it's a great idea but I don't it's not we're not painting over anything I believe it's going on a holly building downtown that's yeah right thank you so Bridget has a little information as well because a whole other site they were decorating another set alarm decorating another section Al any other board comments or questions exception all right um is there a motion that the Board of Education can be in an executive sessions discuss security strategy personnel and to present the tentative one-year contract extension for para Educators with possible action public so all those in favor aye
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
well approximately Virginia [Music] oh we're moving yeah Linda if this is excellent did you forget yours no I'll just choose not to use I'm a two-time Survivor me too so I figured with enough natural and if he wants to take the whole board he's gonna do that too yeah without it's something this voice sounds like yours is that who's talking right now I think it was another person yeah it didn't sound like ahead but then again you might have a mask on in his mouth I might be sounding like you yeah only when I use my mom voice oh no it may be old but it works are you insinuating all things don't work my parents have a Singer sewing machine from the 1920s that works like a charm to this day yeah they they were made very good then yes yeah do you know how to sew no no I can do like I can thread needles and that but not but not the actual stitching so but I I know my sewing needles I I think my mother still has a set of uh what is it golden eye sewing needle right you know they the the the either gold so that you know how the thread are you sure no those are from a long time ago oh golden was it yeah sewing needles because my mother quilts and she you know I I have not seen those since I was a little girl a long time ago it was like the gold standard of something yeah because they because the the eyes are uh plated gold so that it's easier to thread you can always get a jeweler to go through [Laughter] okay so at this point because we're all back we'll go back to uh we'll call this meeting back to order at 7 11 pm and we'll go ahead and take on item 2.0 um sorry about that we'll take on 2101 yes yes yes thank you for that reminder so um Dr Brown want to go ahead and report yes I'm gonna ask um the action thank you Dr Bauer I'd like to report closed session agenda item 6.03 the board unanimously approved the employment of Lupe as coordinator of state and federal programs yeah all right so moving on to item 2.02 because 2.01 would move to after 5.01 uh prove and amend the legal services agreement between Alum Rock Union Elementary School District and Dennis wellover and Kelly um do I have public comment on setup hello Mr World president at this time we have uh no requests for for public comment okay Mr President motion to approve second there's a motion a second by uh motion by Boardman board arrest president five second by board member Chavez um because there's no further comment I'll go ahead and call for a vote as I see you or remember Chavez hi uh born vice president Trump I board uh board members I don't know aye myself for another motion path unanimously all right moving on to item 2.0 to item 3.01 it's Award of bid package and contract for be 2223-17 and Joseph George Middle School uh asphalt replacement do I have a public comments item foreign President we have no public comment at this time for this item all right any further members of the board there's a motion by board with President second by board member Chavez is there any further comments for members of the board seeing none then I'll go ahead and see a board member Chavez aye Boardman boardwrestler.com aye board Clerk of Valor aye board member I don't know I put myself with an eye motion passing McQueen item 3.02 uh Award of bid package contract for b223-bonds 18 at avalante one asphalt replacement is there any public comments item uh Mr board President we do have uh one speaker uh the speaker is uh EB uh speaker EB if you can please unmute yourself you have two minutes when you begin speaking the timer will begin are you there president looks like EB dropped um out of the meeting and we have no more public comment uh there's a comment from motion to approve second motion by board clerk second by board member Chavez there's no further comment and I'll go ahead and call the board as I see you uh boardroom Travis hi board member board aye work clerk hi board member aye with my software motion path unanimously all right to item 3.03 approved contract with Silicon Valley Paving the amount of 58 000 for the removal and replacement of asphalt tests as a traveler's Early Learning Center uh is there any public comments Mr President we have no requests for public comment all right um is there any further comments for members of the board motion there's a motion by board member Chavez the second by board vice president from uh if there's no further comments remember the board I'll go ahead and call you as I see you board uh member Chavez aye board vice president Trump aye board clerk aye board member all right myself for another motion pass unanimously all right Dunham 3.04 it's Award of bid package contract for number b2223 Dash bonds 20 located at William Shepard middle school locker replacement uh do you have a public comments item uh Mr Moore President we have no request for public comment on this item all right um Mr President just the question uh you know when it says installation only so uh if we're replacing lockers isn't it also installation included or something like that somebody could explain why it says just installation only Mr Chang is on standby for questions oh okay uh where are you yes this this spit is only for installation uh you may recall that the board did approve a piggyback contract um in the previous meeting to purchase of the locker yourself so just bid itself before the consolidation part of the um of the project got it all right thank you thank you there's a motion by board member Chavez second second by board vice president from there is there any further if there's no further comments from members of the board and I'll go ahead and call them what does I see Warren Chavez aye unanimously all right um item 3.05 award bid package contract number b223-bonds is located at Joseph George middle school locker replacement installation only is there any public comment inside of uh no request for public comment on this side of Mr board president so motion by board member Chavez is there a second second the second board vice president Palm if there's no further comments remember to the board I'll go ahead and call you as a call for the vote as I see you board member Chavez hi board vice president aye or clerk aye board member aye all right with myself we're not the motion passed unanimously item 3.06 update on HVAC projects this item is for information only um Dr Brower can you go ahead and call the people who are going to present for yeah I'm gonna turn it over to Mr Chen okay thank you Dr Bauer um at this time I would uh to do a short presentation to provide the board building an update on the HVAC project so uh Ms Mathers um if you're ready to go yes okay hi everybody me share my screen and uh all right okay all right so um we wanted to give you um an update on the projects that we're currently working on for um in our next group and so this is hopefully um will be helpful for you so we have three projects that are currently being can everybody see my screen yes okay so uh we wanted to let you know that we're currently working on three different schools Russo McCollum and Adelante two all of these projects will include HVAC modernization with Adelante II and Russo also having Roofing projects um the reason why McCollum does not have a roofing project is that was it's a actually has a new roof um so so those are the projects that we're currently working on we have hired an architect and just to give you a little bit uh our current schedule we anticipate um submitting January 1st or the second um in 2023 the reason behind that um we could actually submit about a week or two early but we want to make sure we're in the next code cycle on that's advantageous to us um because there is no changes to the code that would actually affect this work so that's good we anticipate um DSA approval in March of 2023 um because we are doing a design bid build we're not actually able to contract for the construction work until we're out of DSA so we'll actually go out to bid before um we get DSA approval so that when we get DSA approval we actually um are able to sign the contract as soon as we get that it'll take us about a month for submittals and we will order our equipment for the HVAC projects across the board with mechanical equipment we are actually finding between 9 and 12 months for delivery and unfortunately it was six to nine months it used to be three months it was six to nine months and now we're finding it closer to 12 months this shows our anticipated arrival of somewhere between January to April of 2024.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
uh the second is uh we're talking to the Boys and Girls Club uh um thank you foreign October 11th so if you have any further questions or concerns that you've like haven't been addressed tonight bill or myself anyone can get back to you in a really timely fashion um talk further in detail about certain aspects a revision of the contract you feel is necessary we're open to that for us it's about meeting the market making sure honestly would do which requires a contract to be signed so we could just deeply appreciate that making sure you are addressing your concerns versus you signing a contract and having concerns on the fact that that's never a good way to start a deal so this is really important as to get it right and to get it right with you um will allow a little transition time um we'll see you next time the agenda um thank you thank you yes thank you so much thank you so much for joining us um absolutely my name is the City of Commerce City and I joined the city um about a month and a half ago to lead the effort within the five urban renewal districts that are within the City of Commerce City the one that I'm here to talk tonight about um is the mile high Greyhound Park which is a lot more than here as a lot of you apply to familiar there's some residential construction on building that area right now my purpose tonight is to uh lay out the uh the intergovernmental agreement that was executed between the board and the authority back in 2018 for the new members this will probably be new information to you so members have been here for a couple years this is probably just an update on what's happening at the project I will give you an update we have been meeting with staff from Adams 14 and talking about uh two areas in particular one is a multicultural building that we had in 2018 originally talked about partners with ads 14 to occupy and also a donation by the developer Dell westbing on 330 000 that I understand no longer meets the needs of the Adams 14 so whatever thoughts you had for that I can certainly put that back to the the group that donated that and get it organized so that you can use that on something that makes more sense for the needs of if you don't even have your students so again the purpose is simply to give an update on the project it was originally executed in 2018 as part of that intergovernmental agreement there was a caveat that the developer would contribute 330 000 to Adam's working to allow for the addition of modular classrooms at the Central Elementary and also there is a caveat about that the school board and the CC Ura would work in collaboration to come up with the design elements for a building that's up to 60 000 square feet and at the time the needs of absent working occupy uh 15 000 square feet of that there's been a lot of different ideas floated around about whether the certificate based or based on technology or whether it's culinary and understand over the last years and some of your needs have changed you've made Investments feedback on on the partnership right here the area that circled in yellow or the non-residential portions of the project that the Multicultural building is scheduled to go and the balance of the site is residential with the exception of the Sun or closing growth club which is in the bottom right side of the street this is the preferred site plan for the area of the non-residential development this was brought to the Commerce City urban renewal Authority earlier this year identified as the the preferred cycling the blue building is the building they'll be talking about um building there's about 45 000 square feet of retail anticipated on the site of gold that could be used for conferences of course it builds kitchen or other kind of multi-purpose that would be private and economic based and a hotel which the city Ura is anticipated to transact November this year for a private hotel that occupy these are just some drone photos that we took about three weeks ago out of the site this is the 230 unit uh multi-family building this is a subsidized uh rent building where the rents here are for individuals making between 60 and 80 of the area median income and it is scheduled to have individuals move in the first week of November this is the storm water park it's in the middle of the community you can see it has a really residential feel to it there's a little Amphitheater built into it in the basketball court but it's a for an attention fund it's a very usable area volleyball workflow these are some of the single-family detached films that have already been constructed director next to those are some some error codes that are next to those you can see those already constructed sold occupants living room the area that you see on the top of your screen is a large detention fund of the CC Ura paid for adjacent to that is uh our pads for 78 poundos the large pad in the middle are going to be Condominiums other occupied Condominiums variety of sizes for a variety of income levels foreign Girls Club that you see on the left side of your screen but other than the area in the background are the areas where the non-residential goes so you can see that from a timing perspective the residential is nearly built out as far as the two uh the the non-residential partials go those are still owned by the City of Commerce City and urban renewal 40.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
Dr McCord thank you madam president governing board members we have our monthly budget report presented by our associate superintendent Bonnie Betts foreign good evening governing board members um Mrs wood Dr McCord this is the second month so actually six weeks of activity that we've had since the start of school and so we're still very preliminary in our budget and financial status but so we're only going to focus on three of the financial report areas so the three areas are the operating funds the federal grants and the state grants when we present to you the mno override and bond update next meeting then we will share some of the details of all the bond the two bond funds so to begin we always start with the maintenance operations fund as well as classroom site fund are two largest operating funds so note the available balance on under maintenance operations of that just under 32 million the 31.9 million dollars so about this time we have all of these salaries and benefits fully encumbered so that year-to-date expended encumbered of 264 million dollars does represent all of the scheduled salaries and it also includes the two dollar per hour increase for our hourly wages hourly employees as well as the second increase to all of our professional employees after you adopted the budget on in July so what we do know between the beginning of the school year and the end of the school year around June 30 at this point in time we expect to spend at least another 10 million dollars so considering that you would see our your dating expended encumbered to be closer to 274 million dollars which would bring down our available balance to just under 22 million dollars recall that when we made all the recommendations to you that we were purposely drawing down about four million dollars a year so we that would leave us with we budgeted a 30 million dollar carryover that should lead it leave us with about 26 million dollars so we would we're estimating being at 22 million however there's still a lot of moving Parts going on right now so we feel that this represents a really good place for us and is consistent with what we would expect at this point in time so under the classroom site fund I wanted to again point out the available balance that 18.5 billion dollars or so about seven million dollars of that still represents that one-time money that was awarded two years ago from classroom site fund we are looking closely at this fund to determine and ensure that we are allocating out the salary dollars appropriately between maintenance and operations and classroom site fund so we do expect that you'll see some changes in this fund over the next few months and then finally under shifted Capital outlay you can see to date we have about 6.7 million dollars expended and cumbered we are allocating out unrestricted Capital dollars daily to all of our schools we've expanded the various approvals of projects to include shade structures library library Furniture redos are still very popular along with some of the playground equipment and those sorts of things so we continue to allocate out more and restricted Capital as we go so before I move on are there any questions I just wanted to mention that some of those some of those libraries have had their furniture for 30 years yes so it is it's long past time that they had something to um move up to it's true okay so moving on um to the Federal grant funds uh just wanted to point out the 100th day in-person Grant the sr1 as well as the education plus up so the 100th day in-person Grant if you recall has been designated primarily to fund our flexible substitutes at each of our buildings we also have two I believe designated for our secondary schools is that correct um Mr McIntosh two flexible subs for each of the secondaries so that that's the predominant funding source for that for the current fiscal year Esser one there was eleven thousand dollars left over at the end of June 30 due to encumbrances being released from various spends we have to spend that money no later than September 30th which is this week but you can see that we have it spent to date so we are not going to give that eleven thousand dollars back to the state and then finally the education plus up Grant all of that as well as user3 and possibly some maintenance operations fund balance will go towards funding the uh fifteen hundred dollar retention stipend that you also approved with the salary increases in July and half of that stipend is scheduled to be paid on pay period 8 right after fall break so are there any questions on any of this data Misfits so why don't we have that encumbered then generally speaking it's considered a supplemental so we actually process that as it comes up and so it's not encumbered we could have we could have opened up a purchase order and encumbered it um we did not do that because of the quickness in which it was going to be spent so okay thank you and then finally the state Grant funds a couple of things I wanted to point out about this grid so note the adopted budget for the struct Structured English immersion was 171 000 our practice is when we don't know what the allocation is for each of these state grants during the adoption of the budget we make an estimate based upon the prior year so our prior year budget for structuring this immersion was just over 171 000 since that time we have been notified that it's over 360 000 I think at this point in time so that's where you that's where you will see that the available balance is negative 28 000 only because we have not revised the budget yet so starting in the for the September report which we will share with you next month we will have an additional column that would be a pending revised number one budget column and everything will be compared to that revised budget number one and that will eliminate that negative twenty eight thousand dollars on this particular grid and of course that pending revised number one budget column will be on all of the um all of these uh fund grids into the future are there any questions on any of that okay given that information I am the report is complete board members are there any further questions thank you Miss butson thank you to your department that will take us now to the consent agenda and I will move to 7.01 and ask for a motion for the approval of a consent agenda items board members I moved to approve the consent agenda thank you Miss Humphries it's been moved is there a second second thank you Mr Parker it's been moved and seconded that we approve the consent agenda items all those in favor please vote by saying aye aye any opposed with nay thank you now we will move to the action items and we will begin with 8.01 rate increase to Community Education programming Dr McCord thank you madam president governing board members uh before you tonight is something that we brought to you at our last work study in terms of rate increases for programming in the Community Education Department that includes their programs for children as well as facility rental fees Mr Ryan our executive director of Community Education is here tonight to answer any questions you may have thank you Mr rain would you mind just giving us a brief overview of what you use to determine how the rates would be increased we had a public comment today online that addressed that they were sad to see an increase and that it's true it's going to affect them so I just want to hear your thoughts again sure so um Madam president governing board Dr McCord the the primary piece that we looked into were Staffing costs it's our largest expense Staffing costs obviously have gone up exponentially over the last few years there hasn't been an increase to any of our tuitions and rates over the last five and a half years so over the course of that time the costs that we've been taking on in terms of staff and as well as things Supply costs food costs before school programs also offer food preschool programs and whatnot so each of those pieces were looked at along with what's the local market and so we looked at private organizations public organizations we looked at before after school preschool facility rental facilities that are available throughout the community we knew we didn't want to be the highest we knew we wanted to try to keep it in a Range which could be accessible by our families but at the same point in time we have to ensure that we have sustainability the one thing that we didn't want to run into who is Ever not being able to offer something because the finances just aren't there and so we have to make sure we're sustainable we have to make sure that we can continue to offer the programs long term to our families because we know they become very dependent upon us to be there before school and after school Summers breaks holidays now intercessions and whatnot so each of those were taken into consideration another piece of this was two to three years ago we were looking at the same information we knew we had to make an adjustment and just a bit later some financial support in by way of a grant came through which allowed us to sustain our current pricing structure for nearly two more years than we had originally thought and so while it's not perfect then we never want to come and ask for more we're just in a position where or for us to continue offering what we do we have to increase our prices thank you Mr Ryan board members are there any questions or discussion oh actually let me make a motion first yeah well we can ask we can talk to him if we'd like to but let's ask for a motion first and then we'll continue I move that we approve the rate increase for Community Education programming thank you second thank you Mr Jetty and thank you Dr Santa Cruz now I'll ask for discussion or further questions um Mr Ryan I believe that if I if I remember correctly from a couple weeks ago that we do have some type of a if we have if the family has more than one student involved in it there is some kind of a break correct that's correct Mrs wooden Mr Ryan at your presentation uh you offered us a grid of the marketplace out there and those competitors for program and we were substantially or relatively substantial like under many of them uh perhaps as we look at the marketing pieces that we include those rates so that our community can see the comparatives and see that we are not overly bloated in this area yes sir no I agree I think it's a wonderful piece and I think even just the question and relevance of what was considered while making the adjustments so potentially I can work with Dawn in the marketing department to ensure that all of the Publications that are going out there's a comparative piece in there so I think it's a great idea thank you and again this is for the 20 well this starts in it will start summer of 23.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
uh Vivian so when do you foresee um everything being fixed with all the buses being taken care of like what what is your projection as to when this whole situation will be resolved right now I can't give you a projection I can give you what I have right now which I know which is I have three drivers that are waiting for their tests and then we will have those drivers go back for the other three that are running late so I would as soon as those drivers are done their tests we will have a resolution for at least six of them two of them will three of them will be on time three of them will be they'll probably still be waiting about a half an hour until we can get more drivers in and then the other the other four is is going to be that it's gonna still be around that 250 Mark right now and as the drivers come on we will always I'm going to look at the latest and fix the latest and just work our way through but I don't feel comfortable giving you a prediction right now until I have more drivers that are further through the training I'm more than happy to give you an update no definitely I I would need one um because it's only technically resolving three buses even though those three bus drivers are coming back to pick up you know the other three routes it's still not on time whether it's only by 15 minute delay or 20 minute delay is still a delay um and it's initial that has not been resolved um I'm curious um all the things that you were describing as to what nrt is doing to bring people in is that something that you guys just decided to do now um or you know these are things that you've been um instituting into your into your company for quite some time to to recruit people so yeah we have been doing it um we have been doing all these initiatives we've been tweaking them a little bit one way or another just trying to see what the ebb and flow is of of drivers coming in um they're over the covid period nothing seemed to work um I'll be honest I think people were making more money on unemployment than they were here and coming to work so but now we are seeing people come in we are seeing people be interested and we we have finally have a pipelines this is working um the one the big thing that's working as well is um is having our 70 drivers progress to a CDL so they've been part of the company they are now feeling comfortable with driving and understanding you know what it is to be a school bus driver and so we have a lot of progressions going on within the company which is is is is always helpful because you have people that are dedicated they're not just going to kind of go through and and leave they they want to be here so Fred you all set uh Mr Willow there you go um and sorry I know I said it was final but it comes back to a conversations that a lot of bus drivers after the last meeting we had in Leo um I did reach out because it Depression was going to be on the superintendent to give us an explanation um after our last meeting but I believe sometime this week or last week I contacted Leo and said no we need somebody from the bus company to answer the questions for this for the for us and a lot of bus drivers reached out to me and you got a lot of new bus drivers coming in that's going to be making more than the ones that are already there and from there complaint is we should get more money um as well which is not my issue because I to be honest my issue is making sure our students are getting picked up on time um and I was there for the grand opening of the year of your Outreach Center and I know you're getting all these electric buses and everything else in your partnership with Lawrence Public Schools um with that said my issue is that if there was a brush shortage issue in the summer that we that you're aware of that was going to affect our school or any other school district but to me I'm worried about this school because I get to when I get the calls or I get stopped in Market Basket or whatever time gets the same thing um Marilyn we all get all the same stops and all the same questions when the kids are still in the school building waiting if there was a if you knew there was a shortage then did you contact the school to say this is what's going to happen because when I got the first one message I looked at it didn't really pay too much mind to it because I was assuming it was the first day of school things happen the second one I took a little bit of notice but then I got I'm at the bus stop where I have parents complaining and then I get the third notice the fourth notice and the superintendo is the first one to get a call for me to what's going on with with this with with this with this issue we have him with the buses because this keeps progressing it just went on from one week to another week to another week I didn't get any message this week but not not to saying that it's not happening um so if you knew there was a bus shortage in the summer of drivers did you contact the school to say this is what's going on um let's work together so we did have a meeting with the school district and we did let them know that there was an issue with the PM and that we were in hopes that we would there was seven still seven PM routes open but we were anticipating that we were going to be able to cover the majority of them we had I don't everybody may know that when school is about to start about 10 of your drivers do not return um so knowing where that those drivers are going to be and what district um is the unknown part um but we we could have I'll be honest we could probably have done a better job in updating and keeping the district updated with exactly what our numbers were but we we did have a conversation with them there was a conversation about seven seven buses being late because I'm going back to one of the emails and it's showing let me say one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen buses late not 13 16.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
so if you look at the last one I can share it on the screen if you want here real quick um sorry so in the gifted and talented students program it's the identification process is based on multi-criteria assessment process typically including both subjective and objective data the process and that um we had in the draft must include multiple measures in order to identify students strengths in the intellectual ability creativity or specific academic area I think Samantha had asked you know will you know to me that I went back and looked at the statutory language and it's not required must versus will so um whatever you want to proceed with is fine will sounds less um forceful forceful right but I don't know if if the meeting is is the same it has to be different right because why would there be two different words unless just it's verbiage context I I don't know uh I'm not an English major oh oh Tim do you have a comment I'm perfectly comfortable with whatever I I mean there are two slightly different words but I'm comfortable with either doesn't I I gotta break up my phone I I'm just gonna google it just for my own Peace of Mind here let's see uh is is that is that still acceptable in Academia to to use Google maybe not I don't know it is for me let's see using will shell must as verbs and the difference between must and will is that must as to do with certainty uh indicates that the speaker is certain that the subject will have executed the predicate um will is to wish desire or will that's you know so we talked about seems more definitive is the must but I think I I would go back with the must because of the fact that it is definitive in nature yeah because it seems like will is like a an intention or a hope is like you know it's happening right yeah it's happening right we are doing that that is it's an absolute issue yes yes yeah to go with must all right well thanks um you know I think I learned something there there is a difference you know and that's the only thing that we had any questions on of those remaining policies great um then I will make a motion uh move that policy 1140 distribution of materials to and by students um 61 41.51 Advanced courses or programs 6141.52 challenging curriculum program and 6172.1 gifted and talents gifted and talented students um be moved to a third and final reading do I have a second I'm going to give it to Sam this time uh is there any additional discussion seeing none all in favor it is unanimous fantastic um let's see we have no other uh agenda items I'll just I guess I'll just sort of repeat for my own clarification uh we have decided to take no action currently on the nepotism policy and the Title IX policy just so that we can get further uh clarification from our attorneys I guess right and have a chance to review further um okay then I don't know if you want to mention that um in light of the substantial referendum depending on November 8th and um speaking commitments uh we're not we didn't plan on holding a policy committee meeting next month uh when we're going to do that in November yes thank you for mentioning that uh Jeff we will not uh hold a meeting in October because of our other substantial commitments and we will reconvene in November probably well we'll call it first half of November hopefully right because in the second half of November gets busy anyway yeah Thanksgiving so yeah the first half of November will be super busy with all sorts of fun things that aren't Thanksgiving related okay uh that being said um can I have a motion to adjourn all right so uh I'll make a motion to adjourn uh we'll go Tim second all in favor is unanimous this meeting is adjourned thank you everybody good night everybody all right have a good
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
so while we had originally anticipated this work happening in the summer of 2023 this work is now going to happen in the summer of 2024. so we wanted to make sure that you are aware of this um we of course you know if deliveries change you know we'll we'll speed it up but we don't anticipate that happening this work is rather disruptive to the classroom so that it does need to happen in the summer time um does anybody have any questions um I have a question nobody else in fact we go for let's say that the the timeline is what it is we see it here but somehow supply chain issues get better and the equipment is is available would we be in a position to find uh those who are going to install and be able to jump on this during 23 or just since the timeline is what it's already stated and it kind of throws off everything so I would say um it really depends so we are going to have the contract in place in March so that we can actually purchase the equipment so we would already have the contractor under contract so if for some reason everything turns around anything is possible with supply chain right so if something turned around and we were able to actually get our our equipment in the time frame that we used to get our equipment we would be able we would have people available to actually do the work this is not anticipated we are not seeing that happen um across the board we're actually seeing time frames go longer um but anything's possible anything is possible but we'll be prepared for it if it does happen I'm thinking like a project falls through somewhere else the equipment's freed up and you know we have a lot of since we're doing three schools we do have a lot of equipment um so that could be possible but that would be highly unlikely yeah I think my question was along the lines of yours that if uh I don't know and this is not my field so you know I'm just thinking if I had a business maybe I just bought extra because I knew there was going to be you know a hold on the equipment and so I wanted to be ahead and that maybe we found somebody that might have the equipment to maybe start with one of the schools um you know again that can happen and so if that's possible I haven't I haven't seen that um the equipment typically is um probably per school is close to close to a million dollars so for somebody to hold that kind of inventory it would be highly unlikely um that being said any Anything Could Happen um it could fall through or something could come up but I would I would not anticipate that foreign Terry is there is this the only process that is available to to this to the district um or are there other processes that are you know within the the the the ways the processes that have been approved by the state code and all of that yeah follow this timeline correct so there are a number of different ways that we could bid this out so we're doing uh what's previously been approved by the board which is design it bid it and then build it which is the standard way that DSA does it the other way that could be done is um lease lease back and that is done a little bit differently and we would actually be able to order the equipment probably about a month and a half earlier however a month and a half doesn't really get us enough time to get it you know early the other way would be for the district to actually purchase the equipment themselves there's a little bit of risk with that because we actually have to turn the equipment over to the general contractor and we'd write it all in the in the contract that that's not really a huge issue but again it only saves us about a month to two months worth of time um because our our time in DSA we're anticipating only to be about four months you would not purchase the equipment um until you actually went to DSA and got the preliminary approval so um as you I think are aware we go to DSA we'll get comments back we address those comments and then we resubmit it we would wait to to order any equipment until we got the comments back to make sure that there's no changes because we don't want um equipment to go we don't want to have to then reorder the equipment um if there's a chain change made by DSA we don't anticipate that but they do sometimes add exhaust bands or they might change the size events those are the things that I've seen in the past but so there are a number of different options but I think for this purposes and somewhat some of its timing of it I just don't see us saving more than two months okay and I just I'm asking for because I wanted you to see that we have looked at different ways and I wanted the board to know you know that it's not just like we were stuck to one and we're gonna get other options and I also want obviously a community to know um thank you Terry for bringing this um wanted to make sure that the board is brief every step of the way because this is a long-awaited project um that are being really impacted you know by things that are above and beyond our further comments with regard to DSA um are we pretty confident that that timeline is going to be as good has have they been kind of older they actually have been pretty good with sticking with their timeline um we will be doing a preliminary review with them soon and so we'll get a better handle on it they have slowed down a little bit uh we do anticipate them picking up again uh but they seem to be having time and they seem to be sticking pretty well with their um turnaround time frames okay all right so there's no further comments and we'll go ahead and proceed to the next item thank you thank you all right item 4.01 one of those uh fun and exciting items that we're all looking forward um uh we're moving on to approval of a school-sponsored field trip lists um is there any public comment on on this item uh Mr board President we have no requests for public uh comment on this item Mr President 4.01 I got a motion by board vice president found a second by board uh any further comments for members of the board all right so you know and then I'll go ahead and call for borders I see you board member Travis hi uh board vice president from aye Works hi um board member aye myself for another motion passes unanimously have fun all right um 5.01 um I want to prove revive job description Elementary School outdoor education coordinator uh is there any public comments at him no requests for public uh comment on this item Mr board president all right um I I just wanted to make sure that the the board uh knows what we're trying to do and that the public knows it's uh uh a job description that you have previously approved under certificated only so because we have not been able to find anybody certificated who's able to do this kind of work we're adding we're expanding it to classify in the hopes that we're able to find the appropriate individuals so come and help this is an amazing role so anybody out there who has Environmental Education at heart um we are inviting people to apply all right um I have a motion by boardroom second uh second by uh four of us for the pump uh is there any further members of work seen none then I'll go ahead and call you as I see you uh Warburton Travis hi foreign discussion consideration approval resolution number 17-223 uh to ratify Response Code with pandemic authorized remote remote virtual telecommerce meeting board members yeah I was uh so he's like most people probably saw or heard me uh with a little disruption a little while ago I was trying to log on to something to just get a sense of um you know if I could see or hear anything in terms of the quality so I'm not sure if we have anyone on staff or or wherever it may be who's monitoring the zoom uh feed I guess and the YouTube feed everything at least audio wise appears to be um working well here in in the boardroom um to my knowledge there's no echoing or anything for anybody but I'm just wondering um if we could verify those I guess the two ways where the public has access if we've had a clean audio feed for the duration of the meeting looks like Laura has a responsor or did you sure I can respond um yeah no it sounds like um there's hardly I don't hear any Echoes um and the the the images are pretty clear to me is that on Mr Chang is that on the YouTube or Zoom or um this is just on Zoom so I'm not sure um what's happening in YouTube I think Mr President uh Barbara has a her hand up oh um this is part of public comment or is this you're asking I think they're people who's monitoring would you just asked okay I think I just wanted can you hear me yes I just wanted to let you know that it's uh I'm on the zoom also and it's very clear okay is there anyone anybody can jump on YouTube so that we can I was gonna see if we checked YouTube when you guys did the dry run we we did uh it worked very well all right well we'll wait for somebody from stop to jump on YouTube to see how it's well I'm I looked at it right now because I'm putting it live and it looks well to me I mean clear everybody look that's what I'm seeing because I can see it thank you for the feedback uh are you are you your comments did you conclude your comments oh me yeah I was going to call uh yeah uh well I'll just say that um since we don't have we don't know I mean it sounds like things are good right now we don't it doesn't sound like we have for YouTube a you know a clear indication if that has been um you know clear throughout the entirety of the meeting but given the indications in the room and with this with zoom um the feedback that we've got I'm inclined to support this item tonight and then over the course of now in the next meeting I'll just take a look at the YouTube um for the whole meeting to make sure that that's also the same as it appears to be and and you know I may have comments based on that at the next time around but um so those are my comments all right four advice uh is Rogelio here is a yes here in in Zoom land there he is oh okay so uh we passed so so at the last regular meeting we passed the stipulation that the board would return in person you know the meanings remain hybrid but the board and the administration returned in person uh I did not see that stipulation in the published version of the uh resolution in the agenda does this mean that I we need to yeah just make your motion okay the board will support it okay so okay so I I moved to uh of approve I am 2.01 with the amendment that going going forward effective today uh the the board and administration will resume meeting in person in the boardroom while uh audience participation remains virtual so there's a motion in terms of the language of going forward this resolution has to be repeated over and over again correct uh we can't just have a resolution now and just and then it solves a problem all right solver issues move forward because we have to bring the resolution again and again and again every 30 days correct that's correct every 30 days so then it would have to just be repeated over and over again or could we have it written into you know the next item yes when when it is renewed in 30 days because we have that stipulation written into the resolution yeah all right so you have made your uh uh motion with the amendment there's a second by board is um do I have to become um I see no requests for public comment at this time miserable president okay uh see no request for public comment is there's a there's uh there's further comments from over to the board I'll go can I get clarification on what the actual motion slash amendment is then at this point it repeats your motion without any effective effective today uh the you know uh the amendment to item 2.01 is that the the board and administration resumes meeting in person in the boardroom uh with audience participate a participation remaining virtual all right so approval of 2.01 with your the language that you just did yeah so then can I um look I don't know if Mr Ruiz is reading over the the actual language right now but is that in accordance with um the uh with the amendment I'm I you know I'm rethinking my position on this at this time but I'm wondering just in terms of the way that the amendment slash um motion is does that align with what is legally Our obligation with ab361.
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there is a motion approved last week to list us for sales those will go on the market uh this Friday so we expect to have some development interests over the next 30 to 45 days on developers would be interested in developing those so that's kind of what brings us here tonight is with the interest with the fact that we're moving forward with the development just to kind of understand where the board is as far as what your needs are if you still have a need to occupy a portion of that building uh in Aid regardless of what your intentions in the Multicultural building to get ideas or at least to start the conversation on how you want to avoid the 330 000 so that so that we can go back and coordinate with the developer who made that donation and get that paperwork updated to uh to get those implants allocated foreign just a different perspective of the same building the last one that kind of shows a plaza that we're designing um just outside of the Multicultural building that would be a great spot for Gathering we're trying to activate that area throughout the day and into the evening one last it shows kind of a picture of an inspiration of what that building may look like high concentrations and masonry products and glasses patio area back to so um don't know how much I can add to what your needs are as far as the 330 000 dollars in or discussion on what your needs may be to the Multicultural building I'm happy to answer any questions but I do see multiple staff in this group that we've been having that conversation with so you may have already had some of those internally or no kind of how you'd like to progress again when we're looking is probably the next 45 to 60 days we'd love to have an idea of what your needs may be so that we can reduce our architect to start on the design of that building and then that way when we finally enter into the purchasing sales agreement with the master developer for the balance of that land uh we won't be behind and everything can develop at the same time uh design on a building like that is likely going to take about nine months in construction probably 12 months so I called about a two-year blowout any questions you have I'm happy to answer great thank you for your presentation um actually I just wanted to point out that any of us that are now on the board in 2018.
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okay I did have one question about those who maybe are struggling to afford the prices that we have what other options are available we really didn't in our work study talk about the Boys and Girls Club but I would understand that to be an option for more affordable after school care is the is there any kind of busing available to the Boys and Girls Club just asking that question no so the boys and girls club their program's much different than what we offer before and after school yes it's it's an after school program or a before school program but um from my experience ours is more structured and it's uh I don't know if they're DHS certified or not I would assume they are but they they may not be so when you look at those that can't afford uh certain programming especially if they're DHS certified then they are able to qualify through DHS and Des to make sure that they can get a rate cut and so we will only charge them the rate that is charged through or that Des can pick up okay thank you for that information are there any further questions or comments yes it was my understanding from your uh presentation that this is a hundred percent uh Alibi for the district I mean it's not it's not something we're required to provide but we do this as a service to the community and you essentially have to pay your own way uh we're not receiving tax dollars or other funding is that correct correct right that's that's a great which is why you have a piece of information absolutely so it is um it is its own proprietorship it's it's its own business and entity where we we must make sure that we can sustain ourselves there is no tax dollars that it's coming in to support um and so the increases that we've seen in recent years obviously fall back to us to be able to manage so I do I do have one more question just if if someone the maybe the process to qualify with DHS or whomever supports those families that maybe we include that information or give them a link to that process so they can know how to go about doing that sure we have a processing Community ahead that if they if they indicate that that's one of their issues they have individuals over in their office that will walk them through it okay thank you appreciate that absolutely thank you any further discussion thank you Mr Anne all right seeing no further comments or discussion board members I will ask for the vote all those in favor of the rate increase to Community Education programming programming please vote by saying aye aye any opposed with nay thank you the next several items um tonight we are going through many policy first streets and these are results of the the legislature the the last legislature what they passed in the the last legislative session so all of these were directly related to that I just wanted to let our our viewers know that um so I'll just begin with 8.02 policy development First Street at policy JRR student surveys Dr McCord thank you madam president governing board members all the policies that I'm about to discuss this evening have went through the first round of of discussion with the policy committee last week and so what you have in front of you are policies what you don't have because they don't need approval by the board our regulations or exhibits okay but just know that we talked about those as well and to make sure that they're in place so for this first policy JRR this policy is regarding student surveys and basically and I'll read through some of this not everything word for word but student services for student surveys will be prepared administered retained and communicated to parents and students in a manner consistent with state and federal laws no survey that solicits personal information about pupils regarding any of the listed categories in ARS 15-117a shall be conducted without being approved and authorized by the superintendent a teacher other School employee may not administer all any survey regarding this statute without obtaining written authorization from the superintendent and the categories and additional rules applying to the surveys are listed in the regulation jrr-r and so we will comply with these with the provisions of FERPA as well as idea and the protection of pupil rights under ppra thank you Dr McCord board members is there a motion Summit okay thank you Dr Santa Cruz and second by Mrs Humphries thank you is there any discussion as mentioned we we have discussed this in policy meeting and we will take it back to policy meeting again so we can also continue discussion there and in the next meeting so all right yes please it might be appropriate to indicate to the public just once again as a reminder that the governing board is part of the policy committee and we convene regularly to review these policies so we have reviewed all the policies that we are looking at today for first read first read indicates that we're accepting it for now and we'll go back and review it a second time before we bring it back for formal and final adoption and so if the public should see limited discussion or no discussion they would understand that we have had a great deal of discussion at our policy committee thank you Dr Santa Cruz I appreciate that any further comments no I'm sorry it's the board meeting you can't ask questions you can ask us afterwards thank you thank you okay I will then call for a vote um those in favor of approving policy first read of policy JRR student surveys please do by saying I I any opposed with name thank you 8.03 policy development First Street at policy Ki visitors to schools Dr McCord thank you madam president governing board members um this policy Ki it pertains to visitors to schools and it basically says that no the addition to this policy based on the legislation that came out and said no visit to her observation shall be permitted If it threatens the health and safety of the pupils and staff parent and prospective parent visitors the superintendent shall develop procedures to allow for visits tours observations all of all classrooms by parents of enrolled people's parents who wish to enroll their children in the school district and again we have a regulation that reflects that parent and perspective parent visit tour and observation policy shall be established or easily accessible from the home page of the school's website and mask or face coverings are not required the district does not require mask or face coverings anywhere on the district premises except where long-standing workplace safety and infectious infection control measures that are unrelated to covid may be required thank you Dr McCord I will ask for a motion I move that we approve the First Street of policy Key by visitors to school thank you Mr Jetty is there a second second thank you Mr Parker it's been moved and seconded is there any discussion seeing no further discussion I will call for the vote all those in favor of approving the First Street of policy Ki visitors to schools please vote by saying aye aye any opposed with nay thank you 8.04 policy development First Street at policy KB parent involvement in education Dr McCord thank you madam president governing board members again this is uh an existing policy but there were some additions to it based on legislation this last year the purpose the purpose the governing board adopts this policy promote the involvement of parents and guardians of children enrolled in the school district this policy is adopted in consultation with parents teachers and administrators the governing board recognizes parents rights as codified in the parents Bill of Rights 1-601 1-602 in the Arizona other codifications of parents rights as stated in title 15 of the Arizona revised statutes outline of policy KB regulation exhibits policy KB contains the governing boards policies as developed and adopted as required by law regulation kb-r incorporates the superintendent's detailed guidance in the administration of this policy exhibit kbea provides superintendents with a mechanism to collect and maintain instructional staff background information and exhibit kb-e-b contains the parents Bill of Rights is codified for ease of reference definitions for the purpose of this policy parent means the natural or adoptive parent or legal guardian of a minor child and then we have a title change where it says Parental involvement procedures and there's some additions to that c is procedures by which parents have access to the school's library collection of available books and materials and D is procedures by which parents may receive a list of books and materials borrowed from the library by their children the following are exempt from paragraph C and D schools without a full-time library media Specialist or an equivalent position and two School District Libraries that have agreements with County Free Library districts Municipal libraries and other entities pursuance section 15-32-6 subsection d and then moving down under k number 13.
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um so depending how many students are in each bus and which direction they're going if they're going to Lawrence are they going to um Andover North Andover or Methuen that's a lot of kids that's still waiting here and that's not even counting the kids from the after dark program I don't even know if if they're still waiting around here um going back to school to Lawrence to their schools so and I know you can't give us a prediction of a thing but you're talking about you got three drivers that are going to come in and like my colleague from Lawrence said there's only resolves three three buses because they still have to come back here depending on traffic because anybody who's been around the city if they're going to Lawrence Methuen this there's definitely traffic um that means they're going to be here for another several minutes before the another group gets picked up um so to me it's completely unacceptable that that this has gone on as long as it has um and and I'm standing there and I was standing there for this grand opening this great Center that's going to do all this Outreach and get all these drivers and so forth um and then come to school year we're going three weeks of our kids here and we're talking about 13 16 buses not 13 not two not three um it's completely unacceptable to me yeah I'm leaving to talk to my rest of my colleagues I actually want to thank you for coming and giving um some kind of an explanation and I definitely want you to come back and let us know what's going on and keep us informed because the way keeping us informed keeps our constituents informed keeps them knowing that we are actually doing something to make sure that we're resolving their issue I'm I'm talking with Bill every day or texting with Bill every day and keeping them updated with the office and myself so we are doing everything we can to be communicating in a better way and making sure that you know we give at least the updates of what's going to be late I think that our last meeting with um went fairly well and and we were um kind of in line with each other and we I I feel like the district is feel seeing it it's not 16 anymore it is those 10 that we're having that issue with um over the past couple of days maybe the past week and a half or so we've we've fixed some of the issues so we are we are actively working on it and you know I apologize to the community because I know how difficult it's it's been this is uh Fitzgerald yes I have three specific questions for um a superintendent after um Lisa is through she this is dealing with the busing but pertaining to the inner workings here at the school Vivian out of curiosity um considering that you commented that the three new bus drivers would be once they're they finished their route that they would come back the current bus drivers that you have now is there an incentive in place for them to participate in um also um if they were done with their route to come and do a second one to pick up the remaining you know buses that are not being intended to at the moment so right now those are the ones that are running late that they're coming back and picking up those kids because they're finishing their Roots a lot of the roots are longer so we're looking at those routes that we can get back quicker to have those people come back um but that's how the the late half is getting is getting picked up is by those drivers returning okay and anything for them okay if I could before I call on Mrs Fitzgerald again I do want to thank you for coming thank you very much it's not an easy thing to do uh because you know you knew you weren't going to get a lot of attaboys you know what I mean but we do I do appreciate you coming uh could it uh I was hoping that we could ask you uh if we could be in contact with you uh once a week like by Friday if you could write an email to the superintendent and he'll share it with us on the progress that you're making or the lack of pro you know I know that sounds not fresh but you know what I'm saying okay we hit a one of those three people is now working for XYZ instead of instead of us you know what I'm saying type of deal if we could stay in the loop we won't have a lot a lot of questions if that's acceptable uh and if we could do it by Friday this way here the superintendent will be able to uh to share it with us um you know and then on our Tuesday meetings you know absolutely and I will leave my card on the table and you guys can have it so that if anybody has any questions you can reach out to me directly wait we're always better off to go to administrate you know to say that's that's really the way it should go it should go through Administration to you you know but I we appreciate that you know type of deal if you've been just hang around a few uh moments uh for Mrs uh God only knows what Mrs Fitzgerald is going to have to say uh oh oh you would oh okay I'm sorry I'd like to excuse you then uh thank you very much for coming like I says uh I you know thank you very much I appreciate it and if we could start that by you know this Friday I'd appreciate it you know by the end of business I know if you have John's uh email okay if you're sure you do I'm sure you do I would I would appreciate it thank you for coming okay continuing on with the investing uh update uh Mr show you understand it's a public meeting correct though I'm just saying I mean it is no I'm just saying there are many people what you know what I'm saying but you wanted her to leave I don't know why but you know just say I know but at least you would have it okay whatever it's okay no no problem I truly didn't mean to send her on her way I was trying to give her a reason to be able to leave okay okay so continue please yes so I have three questions at our last meeting you mentioned another busing company specifically I think it was the Ramon busing company that you were going to try to set up negotiation between nrt and Ramon did we have um any luck with that that was question number one question number two is since I look at nrt as failing to meet their negotiation negotiated um contract um are we going to see some reduction in our phenomenally large busing Bill question number two and question number three what problems are we having to deal with either space wise supervision wise with the children that are staying here 90 minutes later where are they doing their homework what are we doing to give them snacks whatever so those three things the Ramone busing the negotiating downwards our financial contract and then problems that might have Arisen from this problem superintendent so first of all in terms of working with Ramon transportation out of Lawrence had several conversations with him had conversations with the leadership at nrt they were all in favor of trying to work something out and communicating with the Attorney General's office we could not negotiate a contract with Ramon directly but what we could do is if nrt was willing to subcontract them that would be acceptable so I asked nrt and for moan to come together to at a meeting with a meeting with me which happened which happened a couple days ago and as a result of that has been determined that Ramon cannot provide the services that are necessary he um doesn't have any he has six buses I believe which he uses for the charter school which he wouldn't be able to get here on time for us and um and then the other situation is um he said he could get he can't get any more buses he thought he could get buses but he can't uh he learned a lot by meeting with nrt because there's a lot of stuff he didn't know I didn't understand uh also one of the other situations he said he could get drivers but really he didn't really have drivers he didn't really understand what was necessary to get a driver licensed so that didn't work out either um so there was really no way that Ramon could actually provide any service or subcontract anything with nrt um so that didn't work out when they left and nrt was very very good about the whole situation they were trying to work with them tell them they would help train their his drivers if he had drivers they would do everything they could to make that work and also help him in any way they could to help him get off the ground with his business because they felt as though you know he's just starting out and he's got a lot to learn and they're willing to help him get going so I thought that was very good on their part because they're basically he would be their competitors but they totally were all in favor of doing whatever they could to help his own organization so the that organization that bus company learned a lot from nrt and I thought they were more more than helpful in trying to make this work if it were at all possible when they left they were going to meet together to try to see what they could do as a team to try to see if there was any other things that they might have missed so the meeting didn't produce anything that would be helpful to us hopefully it's helpful to that particular company because it would be nice to have other companies out there that could you know be competitive and when we go out for a new bidding particularly being a Latino Community businessman in the City of Lawrence that would be awesome if we could have him have a successful bus company so that was a result of that in terms of our contract with um uh the bus company we will do an analysis on um what what has been the impact in terms of our own students and what do we believe um has benefited the bus company in terms of their own costs by not providing the service they should to us so that we can then know what kind of adjustments they should be making for us also meeting with our own attorney I have contacted our own attorney a couple times to talk about what you know what were the recourses we could have we had in terms of Legally to make this happen for us there wasn't a whole lot given that this is a situation somewhat out of the bus company's hands but still what our attorneys said that if it continues to go on that we would have a meeting to see if there any what what could be the possible repercussions in terms of legal issues that we could uh address with the company so we will be reaching out to them again this week to set something up now that we had this meeting and we've got and we had the bus two bus companies come together and we've I think we've come to realize it's not going to get settled I don't suspect that this will be settled over the next three or four weeks regardless of what you know they get three drivers is not gonna it's not gonna make a difference in terms it'll make a little difference certainly it's not going to resolve the whole problem until they have enough drivers to cover all the routes so um so I think we'll um will continue to pursue other Alternatives if we can I don't know what other opportunities we have it's not like there are other bus companies the state is aware of the situation doesn't seem to have any solutions as well um to help us at this point we have some other issues relative to the buses like we have our homeless students at the bus company is not providing services for that we're struggling to find a service for them a legal service for them in order to get them to school here so we're still dealing with that also um as one of another problem we're dealing with we have three students we're trying to get to the school legally here that have transportation problems on the third thing I'm going to let Sue answer the third thing she works closely with Bill with the students at the school and the activities and the things that the students are dealing with day to day in during that time yeah so typically most of all of our buses are gone by three o'clock we have Bill and Krista both are responsible for traffic patterns and busing as well as the entire security team we also have had many of our administrators out there helping you know because it was basically Mr Bogle and misgill is out in back with it could be up to 100 students supervising them our security staff typically will leave by three o'clock so it's been kind of an all I I do want to recognize both Bill Vogel and Krista and other members of the security staff and the administrative staff that have really stepped up to ensure that those students are supervised we now have clubs and activities that have started on Tuesday and Thursdays our homework help program is also on Tuesday and Thursdays what we found is many of the students have now and parents have made started to make alternate Arrangements for right now so their students don't have to wait but we we are ensuring that those students are supervised they're in there they're currently in the cafeteria and bill has set up a system where he supervises out back so when a bus comes we radio upstairs so the students that are inside are aware that their bus number has arrived so we've kind of tightened that up a little bit you know but I say I will I have to say that it has been really a challenge for them because they have other duties that they they have had to stop doing in order to supervise that thank you Mr Hayden okay yes yes um so one question you said Mr you said that you we couldn't get in control with Ramon's bossing because I'm guessing it's because we already have a contract so that would be like a bridge of contract or something like that well um the problem would be we'd have to put out an RFP that would take uh and obviously what you already mentioned Ramon is not ready too no they don't have that they don't have the services we didn't know that two weeks ago until we had them over here and then the other question question I had is what you know what our family is saying and I believe me principal already answered that question because obviously they doing some alternative to take care of the kids getting home or at least we are supervising so do we have plan b or plan C to keep doing what we have to do or do better that we what we already doing that's my question yeah and I would say at this point um you know now that we know that it is going to be a little bit more long-term I'd like to work with the superintendent as well as the discipline office and our after school program is to see if we can come up with at least something better for our students additionally now that we have more information from the bus company we will be doing more of it and we'll be advising those families like so so because I've had parents say is this going to be one day and you know we say no I will say that we're doing on day to day our I believe our team has gotten better in communicating with students and families like it's now pretty much the same buses every day but before just making sure that if a bus is going to be late that everyone is informed but I would agree now that we know that it's a little bit more long-term we need to come up with some maybe some alternative activities for those students ensure that they have a snack and now that we're getting into the routine of school day we don't want kids just sitting here for 90 minutes like can we provide them you know resources of space to to work on some homework or or can we think a little bit outside the box box especially you know now it's fall weather but the last thing you want to do is um go through this when the weather gets colder okay uh Frank Francis thank you um and yes I gotta recommend the staff for the communication that's how we have been able to track what what's been going on and it's been coming out daily sometimes before noon and I know what to expect throughout the day and but thank you for you like me because we definitely have to have something in place for these kids that are still here and I didn't think about the food situation once you brought up but Mr superintendent you did bring up another interesting um point that I didn't think of at the time either um homeless kids that need to be in school they're not getting picked up because I know there was a time where some buses would pick up kids take off the other half of the kids that didn't make it to the bus stop before that because there's they're expecting to be there at a certain time um I stand around realizing that where's the bus and the bus is dropping kids off here by six six thirty um I think that was only week one am I correct that hasn't happened since uh because I haven't heard about that since then but if we and based on the law if those kids that are homeless need to be here and need to be serviced so we have to look at something alternative um independent where they are um to be able to get them here on time to be able to service them but even if we get them here in time then it's the problem of getting back home yeah so we we have at this point been using some limousine service uh the people that drive those limousine services that need to have a 7D license so that's been sort of a problem um we also in the process of negotiating with another bus company to provide services at twice the cost that we had originally budgeted for with the existing bus company so we're hoping to resolve that um this week actually to try to finalize and make sure that there's Clarity on who's picking up who we're trying to work with one of the communities which is Newburyport in trying to split some of the costs because the student lives in Newburyport and they're willing to provide some support in that in that area so I'll give you an example there's one homeless student we have that has a a sibling that gets picked up and I think they're going to Lawrence Lawrence High School but the bus company won't take our student because they said they're too full so our student gets left behind and theirs gets taken to the other student gets taken home so that's just one example of the kind of stuff that goes on that we're trying to deal with and I'm quite aware um some of the issues because but I was unaware of the homeless situation um of kids that are housing insecure which is the new catchphrase term but into the you know I wanted to come into staff there are staying and helping out with watching the kids we don't have kids just hear unsupervised I know that they'd rather be home but the dedication to the kids in the school is far above anything else so much kudos to them and everybody else involved I just wanted to make a final comment on our meeting that we had with the bus company I do want to say Cynthia thank you to the Ramon Transportation because they genuinely came in trying to help us resolve this problem and you know they learned a lot but their intent was to try to do something to help us so I truly appreciated that and let them know that as I sit here what I'll do is also do something formally in writing to him to express a thank you on behalf of the committee as well for trying to support our school and our students Angie Mr Hayden Mr Lavoy do we still honor the taxi vultures we did that a few years ago would that help us with some of these homeless kids that that really is illegal we really cannot put kids on taxis that's against the law so we can't do that [Music] anything further on this matter John all set okay moving on uh superintendent Lavoy self-assessment I believe there was a handout given the document I sent out on the self-assessment I'm not going to go through it because you're just getting it so I'll let you take it with you take it home and we can address uh any of your questions and concerns regarding the self-assessment but what I will do is go over the goal that I put together and an explanation of why I'm presenting one goal this evening so if you look on the gold sheet there superintendents goes it has goal one and go one really is it's uh develop a five-year glts strategic plan but goal one incorporates every standard uh in the superintendent's evaluation uh process and each of those standards which includes all four of them instructional leadership management and operations family and Community engagement and professional culture is captured will be captured in the Strategic plan and I will be addressing all of these standards within the Strategic plan and so the number one goal is I will work with all School staff and stakeholders develop a new five-year strategic plan in this strategic plan we will establish key priorities to help us accomplish our goals to move us to the next level the focus indicators which I've established some of the basic Focus indicators and this particular goal is a major undertaking which will incorporate working with the entire staff including teachers administrators the uh facilities cafeteria every aspect of the school CTE academic every aspect of the school we'll be addressing we'll be putting it together I'll be putting together teams to develop this goal so it'll also include stakeholders outside of the school also lead a municipal leadership and state leadership to be involved in this work so it's very comprehensive time consuming but the focus indicators will include improving the quality of teaching and learning review quality of existing programs and determining the need for future academic and Vocational programs recruitment support and retaining diverse teachers and and leaders are retained diverse teachers and leaders engaging families as our partners in our work ensuring efficient effective operation systems this also will include everything from looking at the existing facilities and where we need to do in order to increase enrollment in the school we have right now some very future plans in place with regards to adding new programs which one of the main functions of adding new programs is to be able to increase enrollment but also in order to do that increasing space so with that comes a lot of issues and challenges that need to be looked at in a very strategic way so that'll all be addressed in this strategic plan so some of the actions at this time were to establish a steering committee that includes staff parents Community stakeholders and students develop a timeline calendar to complete plan by September 2023 established priorities for all aspects of the plan reach out to all stakeholders to seek involvement include strategic plan activities in our operational admin operational meeting bi-weekly uh report progresses to the school committee monthly collect data from all departments and programs which will be ongoing determine strategic plan format and provide a rough draft progress presentation for feedback from the staff stakeholders and school committee somewhere between I would say April and May and a final draft on September 2023 a five-year strategic plan that will provide greater Lawrence technical school with the plan to provide our students with a high quality education to succeed in their career or post-secondary education this plan will also support the communities for skilled labor in all Industries moving forward questions for the superintendent take this document and absorb it ladies and gentlemen and I'm sure superintendent will continue on it did you have a question uh Mr Cervelo thank you Leo through you are you saying we're not going to make the June deadline for July first submission and we're going to push it to September do a report on progress no later than May beginning of May so which will be a substantial progress you'll be able to see how close we are to completion and um but you'll be getting monthly reports also so that you can give feedback and committee will also be involved in some of the committee work that's going to be going on so you'll be having ongoing communication with me to have a complete understanding of the work and and the progress so I would certainly allow you to evaluate just about every standard that I'm working on to give some feedback on that we pushing back the um submission to Desi until September so I can break goals sometimes or over it can be over a two-year period so I can break if you would prefer I can give you a deadline I can give you a more specific as what should be expected at the end uh in May early May of what should be expected in early May and then you can evaluate based on that if that and then the rest of the goal the second part of the goal would happen uh as part of the second year plan if that makes you feel more comfortable I can certainly do that anything further good no I'm not no I'm just saying yes this is so yes when does our present strategic planned expire our president uh strategic plan expired beginning of last year I would suggest that five years it's not that it's ambitious but I don't know if it's practical I think a three-year plan is something so many strategic plans are done then there sit there in a binder and they're never looked at again but a three-year plan with set dates constant so the Strategic plan committee for all of the people that you've said here those people would meet on at least a quarterly basis to see the progress but I I just think that five years it's not that it's too ambitious I just don't think it's practical in its um deployment that a three-year plan is much easier to um check on just my personal opinion I just don't want something that sits around and never gets looked at and have to fight after five years maybe not a single one of us would be in this room to check to see if it's happening so uh I I just I it it's just it's just a thought um that perhaps three years is more realistic for everybody [Music] here's the thing uh five years to two plan is a requirement of DSC so I have to do A Five-Year Plan and um here's the thing I think what's important in the work of this particular plan is that there is complete uh timelines and guidelines as to how we utilize to plan we'll be part of the plan so in other words I agree with you 100 our last five year plan I think we looked at it twice and so in order to do A Five-Year Plan we're trying and I met with and soon I talked about this already several times how do we incorporate A Five-Year Plan into what we do day year to year with our school Improvement plan so that it's something we go back to on a regular basis so that kind of activity has to be incorporated into The Five-Year Plan so that it's ongoing and connected to what we do year to year and how we're going to do that I think needs to be outlined in the plan itself hmm anything further okay moving on fiscal year 2024 budget timeline of events please John I provided you with uh working with our finance director we uh we came up with a budget uh calendar in order to build this up next coming School Year's budget and I think we've made some adjustments from last year that we think are realistic and I think we'll be give us more effective time to work with all staff in building this budget so every person in the school from teacher to administrator will have an opportunity to weigh in on on the budget if if it has any impact on them at all and so if the committee is comfortable with that we'll move forward on that if you did you want me to go through each through the whole calendar uh no no okay as long as you presented it to us if there's questions I'm sure they're to let us know I'll let you know anything on that ladies and gentlemen uh Mr solo no thank you um because now we got a way to keep track of where the budget process should be uh and we have to move the little dissect this a little bit more before I could actually have more comments so that might be at the next meeting uh thank you oh and Leo by the way thank you for making the suggestion of the bus company sending the email um so this calendar is for this year for the school year that we're developing uh a budget for 2024 .24 the calendar is this year right it's uh well this year's calendar is 22 23 next year will be 23.24 so it's what what we call Budget 24.
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I I believe it does okay all right um questions Tina then I'll go ahead and call you as a few for the person of the vote board member choice hi board uh West Virginia aye foreign at this point we'll go ahead and adjourn the meeting at 7 38 PM I've got any kind of have a good evening
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