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excuse me um and we have determined that we do need to in fact increase that fee in order to ensure that the summer school program becomes a break even um remains a break-even program for the school district because we don't use any tax dollars on this so with that said we are recommending that the Board of Education approve the student fees for the summer of 2023 as presented second and just to be clear that is the only fee that will change that we're asking for tonight is just correct correct yep we're still working with some of our other vend um we're going with some of our other vendors um are looking with some of our Runners to ensure that any none of the other fees have changed something's overall costs are going up for summer school specifically in what area um so the the really most of the fees that the tuition fee that we're looking to increase from 350 to 400 um is really just to cover the salaries um of the teachers that were for the classes that we're running um the one fee that we um are also increasing by 25 is the behind the wheel fee for our driver's ed so we are required to offer us drivers ed we are only required to offer the classroom component but we do offer the behind the wheel component as well in the 350 dollars as a bargain compared to many of the other private companies that are out there as well there's too many students to take advantage of that though yeah we um Wendy could probably speak better to it but we lock we literally book out of all the students that can take Driver's Ed both during the summer and during the school year it's been pegged that way for I don't know last 25 years that I've been here I think yeah so that we can be waiver for driver's day so yeah a few waivers are a waiver are are available for those families that are in need we not necessarily waive the entire fee because most of the classes during summer school are you are taken as kind of an enrichment or to get ahead um but if those courses are necessary for graduation yeah Ben Yosef hi Sal aye Orson hi Tire hi and no hi motion carries okay Pepsi contract yep so uh we are nearing the end of our Pepsi contract uh we have entered into um we typically enter into a five-year deal for the sale of drinks I'm not going to say we used to say soft drinks back in the day but now it's mostly drinks um and we have a wide variety of drinks um I think in the if I included in that contract you can see all of the various drinks that Pepsi does in fact have ownership over so we did take a look at that Coca-Cola is not interested at this time again we've been a Pepsi product or our Pepsi school pretty much since I've ever been here and then you can see the incentives that are provided um to the district but this is is not a cost this is a revenue producer for the district this does not cost the district and just to be clear that for your blip when we did go to Coca-Cola was Martin Michelini's under Market it was it was certainly not under the tutelage of myself I guess it's not fair because I did tell Mark I would never throw him under the bus so I guess I did once yeah and Sean somebody might wonder um well wait a minute does this have to be bid it does not because it's because it's Revenue producing not a cost so um you know essentially you know I think what you're looking for is you know who's continued yeah dollars yeah continue dollars and continued support and Pepsi is a a great um partner to work with they have a variety like I said they have the variety of prop products I'm the one product that really probably goes over the best that they own is uh is Gatorade um and that one makes the most sense we use it for all of our athletic programs and then we use the um their G zero and their G2 which are the lower sugar brands that um Sodexo sells just in case anybody's curious all of the products that Sodexo purchases and sells through our lunch lines are all part of this particular contract so it's a pretty lucrative contract so you can have it I'll put more information in our mid meeting memo and then we will be seeking action in November especially after and see what asks the question if you were here yes it's currently the contract is currently under review by our attorneys so we'll have that finalized for you in November all right thank you um okay and so can I have a motion for the consent agenda to approve the consent agenda so move second okay so hi gorson all right Tire all right no I and yosa aye motion carries all right and that brings us to um our last information report uh we have a few items for tonight um but uh we are excited to begin with our annual student achievement report and joining us we have Wendy custable and Tony reibel um and I believe um you guys are going to take it away right yeah and I think folks have uh a hard copy in front of you okay and while you're doing that um let me just because I remind myself that we have some new members on the board that the student achievement report is our annual report that we pull together for the board that includes all of the data that we currently have on the previous school year so generally speaking we present this report every October and I think we have all updated data for the most part yeah ACT SAT great um and so generally this is a report that extends the conversation that we had at The Retreat finalizes all the data and really is kind of our ultimate accountability report to the board around student achievement so with that said I will turn it away to Tony and Wendy to walk us through I know but why is it not sorry I'm scared what my husband text me so hey everybody I'm Wendy testable oh um um so uh just as we get started we have three District goals as many of you are familiar with these are the rings from the 20 21 22 school year our three goals are basically our student achievement goal our college readiness goal and our social emotional learning goal um so the first piece that we're going to talk about is our SAT that's our State student achievement exam and just want to give a little context um last year was our first year kind of back having testing as normal as we could um and so that's just our timeline from September to May uh when we took what and when um with April being a very busy time of year as you may already know um the other piece of information that's in your packet just for your reference is um should I share this out with us at the beginning of the school year about just the kind of craziness it's been with testing in our worlds um and so our 2023 graduates you can see over on the right their first in-school state exam was um their fall of last year so they've taken two they took the PSAT in October and then the um sat in April and that's the data we'll show you um here right now and that means they missed their freshman practices sat and their sophomore practice sat because of so yes thank you yeah we've got a lot of spaces and the data so that we have a lot of we'll have a lot of spaces for a couple years yet um so the one chart here on page seven I just want to highlight for you is if you just look down at the bottom Although our students have missed some things due to covid the top in the brownish colors are um the junior test are current seniors in what their um total score on the right of a 1220 and then compared to where um other Illinois students were and were um students Junior students at the time nationally were ranked in their scores the left is the English um reading and writing and on the right in the middle is mathematics if you up at the very top you can see their benchmark scores of where they where they should be can we if you want us to do questions or comments sure however we want it totally fine go ahead so there's been a lot of you know information in the news and whatnot about kids and test scores and the impact and so we we stayed pretty steady we see pretty good yeah that's impressive so that that is super impressive okay and that's really you think back to the hard work that our teachers have done over the last few years and you know really taking Zoom very seriously the zoom education as hard as it was and I would also celebrate our kids like the kids at some schools didn't didn't show up didn't but our kids were really dedicated to doing the work and they came to class and um I think we were able to really you know I don't think any of us would say it was the greatest educational experience that we ever had but it was good that's yeah yeah it's pretty impressive definitely um to that to that end since we only had two exams for for our current seniors last year's Juniors the PSAT so the growth um was pretty amazing too from the growth from when they took the PSAT in October to when they took the um sat in April um you could see those numbers and was just interesting and just fascinating is how many exceeded even with all of that and only having those two exam they exceeded 16 exceeded growth on both and we although we're not we're never happy when we have any student who doesn't but it was at 3.5 which is still something in the work doors but pretty good folks that just a reminder the goal that we've written around the s t State testing for us is not that we want kids to get to some specific score but we want all kids no matter where they start to grow by the accepted amount in the time that they're here so you can see that only three and a half percent didn't meet the minimum growth in both so that the shift from act to sat for Illinois requirements was relatively recent correct 2018.
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comments will be limited to three minutes to provide all visitors an equal opportunity to address the board individuals needing more time should submit their thoughts and writing to the board secretary visitors addressing the board need to submit a comment slip to the board secretary will be invited to the microphone we have five slips okay prior to addressing the board audience members should State their full name the proceedings are being tape recorded for the purpose of producing accurate meeting minutes and these are being streamed out I the board's presiding officer reserve the right to modify these protocols if circumstances warrant audience observation of these protocols is appreciated all right uh first speaker is Rich Brennan hi I'm rich Brennan at Downers Grove taxpayer and I really like the open meetings act part where it says that the school business is the people's business it's my favorite part comments today on the Press policy changes at d99's board meeting on September 19th the board introduced another batch update of board board and school policies this time 18 of them it was the first reading of the policies and admin regulations 8.20 ar1 and 8.20 and deletion of 4.120 for its food service the 18 policies proposed to be amended were shown on the screen but there was no explanation for the reason the background for all these changes tonight you'll vote on those changes is this proper notification without quite enough background for us the people on September 19 Mike Davenport said it was a lot of housekeeping things and a few other things that his committee worked on everything was recommended by press except for 8.20 use of school facilities he said the goal was to put policies in line with press heck added 8.20 was our own customized policy to align with some old policy practices if most of the current policy changes are being prepared by press where's the local control and decision making what happened to the community review and approval the business of the schools belongs to the people the original purpose for the first reading was to provide that initial information to us and propose changes to obtain Community input and approval of those changes the last big batch of policy updates was approved at the May 16 meeting unanimous vote approved 44 policy changes in one Fell Swoop the first reading occurred at the previous Workshop meeting not the business meeting so it seems that it sort of circumvented the purpose of getting full disclosure to us the changes made to all 44 policies were once again drafted by press 2.120 board meeting member development adds trauma-informed practices school 2.220 school board meeting procedures to add Robert's Rules of Order 4.60 purchases and contracts puts a superintendent in charge of all purchases and contracts it looks like to me like there isn't enough transparency what is Press why is press it seems like press is feeding policy to the school board instead of the school board using that expertise to form your policies superintendent's supposed to suggest policy changes that obtain input right residents and taxpayers feel like we're not quite well enough informed I'm sure it couldn't be that the isbeiasb and School District boards don't want public to know thanks foreign thank you good evening I'm Laura hoist of Downers Grove This concerns The public's request for policy changes that is our our requests District 99's own board policy 2.240 directs the superintendent not press to develop and publish appropriate administrative regular regulations also known as d-99 board policies okay we the people propose these changes to press's proposed policy revisions policy number 2.230 public participation at school board meetings delete the language relating to directives of the board president to preserve a speaker's constitutional rights policy 3.10 goals and objectives we object to item 2 which provides for student mastery of Illinois learning standards when some of these are exactly the same as the national sex education standards policy 4.165 awareness and prevention of child abuse and grooming behaviors we say eliminate the entire policy by opting out of the national sex ed standards District 99 has opted in over our objections we again Ask d-99 to opt out of the nses if students are not subjected to inappropriate sexual teachings at school there will be much less risk of child sexual abuse and grooming behaviors around schools and less need to report child sexual abuse and grooming to the authorities under policy 6.60 why does the state promote sexualization of children there's big money in it we are not interested in having our children adopt new pronouns we do not want our children to be subjected to how to do sex many ways lessons we do not want to let you steal our children's innocence we want District 99 to support pro-american pro-freedom ideas ideals and we want District 99 to allow conservative student groups and activities at school Illinois Law currently stops sex offenders and child abusers from teaching children but if Amendment one which will be the first item on the ballot is approved on November 8th unions can void the laws that protect children a lot of people don't realize this we've had enough we ask you to postpone the vote on policy amendments until the board members have had an opportunity to fully consider our comments and requested changes to the policies thank you foreign District resident the Illinois Association of school boards an Illinois nonprofit provides pamphlets about school governance and the role of the school board the iesb seeks to educate local board candidates with mandatory training but does iasb prepare all types of candidates including conservatives for school board they stayed on their website that while times have changed the function of school boards today Remains the Same to provide local citizen control over public education but batch policy changes means there is no local citizen control at dgn and dgs we see indoctrination toward anti-racist ideology sexualization and gender influencing this is the state's agenda not the parents agenda we want our kids to be properly educated not indoctrinated iasb says the Board of Education studies the needs of students and the community bases its decisions on those needs and the superintendent carries out the decisions press makes the superintendent's job easier by preparing most of the policy changes can provide input in advance regarding School curriculum when do parents get to object to the focus on equity and social emotional learning what are the district's policies regarding informant informing parents of their child's gender transition when will the district disclose its active anti-racist policies to parents of white children here are the cold hard facts policy decisions are being made in mass in accordance with press dictates school policies are being revised uniformly in Illinois across all school districts most parents do not know this is happening it is your responsibility to tell them Eileen breiner good evening Eileen Briner Downers Grove resident The public's request for policy changes board policy 7.21 regarding students this policy says District 99 does not discriminate in any of his programs or activities on the basis of actual or perceived race color our national origin but lessons about white supremacy and anti-racism are being taught in class to students here doesn't allegations of white supremacy and oppression discriminate against some students policy 7.21 also says District 99 is dedicated to creating a safe and welcoming environment for all students staff and visitors it directs students to report Anonymous concerns through safe to help Illinois Anonymous alerts students are told to submit an alert to safe to help Illinois via website text phone app or email to receive a response from a trained safe to help crisis professional available 24 hours a day seven days a week 365 days a year no no parent is involved in this activity we object to d99's direct referral to students to safe to help without parents knowledge or consent d-99 signed on to safe to help without advanced notice or information provided to parents as far as we're concerned there's no trusted adult at a state agency when parents aren't told these people are talking to Anonymous people not safe we ask you to postpone the vote on policy amendments until the board members have had an opportunity to fully consider our comments and concerns regarding these changes Ryan seal hey my name is Downers Grove and taxpayer into uh District 99.
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our school-wide ceremony will take place at 9 A.M and last until approximately 10 30. I think that everyone who attends will not be disappointed and we are working with our technology department right now too as as well to get it live streamed so those that can't be in attendance can actually watch it but not be there at this time I'd like to formally invite our school board and our central office administration to actually attend the event I know I haven't sent anything out to you guys formally yet so now I am formally asking you or requesting your attendance if you can there is a QR code on the sheet if you scan it you can actually fill out the invitation on a Google form there's also been emails sent out to parents and students as well to fill out the Google form if you would like to submit a photo of your veteran feel free that veteran picture that Veteran's picture will be placed into a PowerPoint presentation that will be sent and played throughout the entire ceremony so you will see the picture of your veteran that you submit so please make sure that you guys fill that out send that back to us and if you have any questions in regard to the actual ceremony itself they can be directed towards me uh and if you guys would like to just email me if you are going to be in attendance that's fine too or if you'd like to fill out the 50 little QR code that we put together that's fine too but that's it thank you very much and thank you to the committee thank you to everyone here for giving us the opportunity to present this to you and we look forward to seeing everyone there on November 10th [Applause] [Music] next up we have some members of the executive board with the Lake Central Education Foundation team to come up and present round 57 grants to our winners well first we would like to thank the board for allowing us to do this um this is the Lake Central education grant round 57.
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so that's gives you like a nice snapshot I think of the choices that were made available so what are the new the new editions the last two that is Wink and forget me not um so there were some some questions about the unit and so I I'll share a few things and then I know our Middle School folks are eager to share some of their thoughts as well what I put in front of the board is a summary of each of the book titles and these summaries I took from a company called booksource and the reason I took it from bookstores is that they are a vendor from which we get many of our books they're considered the leading provider of books for classroom libraries incidentally they're a family-owned company out in St Louis Missouri and they've been around since 1974.
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thank you Eddie I don't have a sheet to put up on the screen but we want to give you just a couple of the highlights of of what's uh what's coming up and we're we're gonna have a full breakdown uh for the board uh very soon just some decisions still have to be made um but you know there's um there's actually two uh two schools that'll be going over there both the um the high school and its academies and a middle school component as you'll recall the uh the special legislation that uh gave us 80 percent of the purchase uh at a middle school piece uh tied right into it uh anyway uh what we're looking at so far for High School staff is um probably something around uh 26 uh certified uh staff incremental staff to go over there um mostly uh classroom teachers but they'll be you know some guidance counselors ESL um the usual kind of components we'll also have two or three administrators uh for the Thousand kids that are there um of course safety Advocates we think maybe three or four safety Advocates should do it and um some custodians for example others support staff I think three or four custodians right now and uh some I.T as we have in all our buildings to keep things running but it adds up it could be close to 50 staff uh when all is said and done and if we are planning right now is for teachers at Masters step five or six and we think that could come in uh under five million dollars for the year for the the Middle School uh piece it's a little uh different because we have to move a whole and a middle school program in unlike uh the high school where we're taking academies out leaving academies uh back in in the high school it's a it's a whole middle school so it could be a few more teachers um than we'd need for the high school um we would have uh some paraprofessionals there um uh you know special ed teachers it would look very much like any other Middle School a nurse things like of that nature but at Masters step six uh that could come in uh also close to five million dollars when all said and done the third piece that we've done some work on is transportation there are uh you know minerals although this the school buses will say uh 65 passenger capacity uh that's Elementary School students you can only really get two high school kids to a seat and same with Middle School so what we figure they'll be maybe 20 uh high school 20 buses for our high school kids for a thousand kids 50 on a bus would make for 20 buses and maybe seven middle school buses are total of 27 and we know uh we have our contracts in place right now with sta for that year uh the price per day is 440 dollars so uh for 180 days that would be right around two million dollars so that's uh that's the work we've done so far and and again we'll have um a better breakdown for the full board uh very soon I know uh Carey and off carries here but um happy to answer any questions so far the um the I assume there's going to be a principle for the high school there uh there is right and there'll be is it going to be at the same level as the high school principal currently with a bigger School the um the High School principal's salary is set in collective bargaining and uh without regard for enrollment uh but um I don't expect we'd be hiring at the top step or uh someone with the experience our current High School principal has um we would look to hire at a at the lower step so it would be a lower cost uh but you'll you'll see budgeted a lower cost well I don't understand why it has to be uh like a full principle and not like an assistant principal being that there's only going to be two Academies although we there'll be a thousand high school kids that's that's quite a bit and um well over 300 middle school kids um it's that's a busy day for a principal and uh but the middle school kids are going to have their own principle right right so this is the the building is made up of 1 000 students with two distinctly different um academic themes and then the the mate the big campus at Danbury High School will have four Academic Teams um but with with those those themes both campuses will still have their own unique Logistics and challenges that will need to be addressed um everything from operations to working with unions to um responding back to parents and families and so the the school building is still going to have the same feel of a regular campus Building with someone who's going to the NBA be in charge of the campus it's it's it's not really unique to Danbury but this the model is cons what we're doing would be consistent with how these models are implemented across across the country with academies so you're going to have two principles one for the high school one for the junior high but you're saying that the high school principal is going to have overall charge right so there will be a principal at both high schools and then there will be an academy leader for each Academy which essentially right now is an assistant principle line and then there will be someone in charge of the Middle School um whether that's a principal or not we have yet decided exactly what that's going to look like given the kind of the the size and scope um of that program which right now was projected to be at about 350 students so that means 650 students for the high school no and no in high school a thousand a thousand this 13 this over thirteen hundred students projected to be at the Cardis building 1 000 students that are 9 12 and then 350 plus six eight well I thought nine was going to be at the high school on clapping Ridge sorry 10 12.
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in terms of nutrition and basic care the numbers are very Stark cancer or health and wellness overall Magnolia is 575th out of 580 census tracts and uh diabetes prevalence is 550. mental health 577 and so on so these numbers are Stark yet right in front of you you know is part of the solution and creating a higher sense of awareness about nutrition and about what can be done I think gives us all great hope you're going to see a tour in a few minutes of our amazing Urban lab this is not just a farm this is a farm that's an urban laboratory and again thank you to our board and a Piercy especially because I know she's a gardener and she got it right away in terms of what we were talking about we took some of our covid money and we created an outdoor learning space like no other thanks again to our entire board Mr Jabar for agreeing because we took a risk right we took a risk we did not play it safe in terms of getting a lot of the other stuff but we decided hey we're going to create uh lemonade here you're going to see it and the amazing work that the entire district and has come together to create this huge opportunity um but this I like to show this is a new graphic because it truly is a graphic of a community school no longer do you go to school and have maybe School in one class our school at just Magnolia High School one school this model has widened the aperture of access to intellectual Capital through our partnership with Community College with ROP with our over 90 corporate and non-profit partners so school and auhsd is across the district across content and it involves people from the community including parents too we're all learning together to solve society's most pressing and Urgent problems I'm going to give you on this schema you can see it here too just one example on the right side is the Magnolia average science center here that's right here on the bottom is the Anaheim biotech program and our kids at Anaheim threw dual credit are learning how to genetically engineer drought resistant plants that's the plan and as you know those of you who are aware about crispr and about the technology that that has brought that America has really innovated there are billions of sequences of DNA and if our kids are taught to unlock a sequence that can help create a more dark resistant tomato they can go to the bottom there are the left is pi as Western High School we've opened one of the Region's first urban High School business incubators where our students can learn how to patent their ideas and monetize it it's all about creating a better world together for the unlimited you so we're really really proud of that in the middle is a new schema called the career preparedness systems framework and like Bob Moses civil rights leader from Martin Luther King or Cesar Chavez Civil Rights was always about access to meaningful and purposeful jobs and so auhsd is leading the way to create more meaningful and purposeful jobs so the for the United States I mean that's what's at risk here we are unleashing the innovation of teachers to unleash the innovation of 30 000 students and if this model succeeds we can unleash the innovation of 6 million K-12 students and 60 million across the United States so again this model is teacher-led reform and I'm so honored all of us from our board to our teachers to our administrators to have just amazing teachers that you're going to you're going to meet a few of them in a second so um at this point I'd like to introduce our next speaker and we just saw our superintendent about a month ago so we're at Sycamore and I gotta say that um Tony Thurman has been a strong advocate for Community Schools and auhsd has been fortunate to be the recipient of proportionately the largest amount of funding from the state for Community Schools 24 million across 13 schools and thank you to Carlos Hernandez and his team for helping to make that happen that deserves I think a big round of applause and I know that Mr Thurman when he came out you know it made us feel so honored and affirmed for the work that we've done because his whole life has been dedicated to making Society a better place and certainly Community Schools are part of that but if you don't know he has been a social worker Public School parent and elected for more than 10 years in office and like many of our own students superintendent Thurman came from very humble beginnings his mother was an immigrant from Panama who came to San Jose California to be a teacher his father was a soldier who didn't return to his family after the Vietnam War and he met him for the first time when he was an adult after his mother died when he was six Thurman and his brother were raised by a cousin who they never met superintendent Thurman's family relied on public assistance programs and great public schools to get out of poverty and public school education allowed him to attend Temple University where he became student body president and that's why he's so connected to you young people so without further Ado please welcome our state superintendent Tony Thurman thank you superintendent good afternoon do we have a round of applause for a superintendent matsuda thank you an incredible leader I don't think he believed me when I said I would come back again I said if you invite me I'll come back and if you feed me yeah I'll really come back I don't get invited to a lot of meetings where it's built into the program that you actually have the opportunity to eat and to eat good food is truly a pleasure um and I just love in the slide presentation how you put it all together the um the important work happening here around healthy food the importance of the Community Schools effort the importance of career Pathways and cyber security and now today to learn about really the ability for young people to create patents and to become entrepreneurs and then how you opened in context that our work can make the difference for students and families who live in poverty and I appreciate that you know you you mentioned the word food stamps I kind of looked up because I haven't heard that word in a long time on because I was a food stamps recipient and so conversations about food are really important to me because in our household we often grow up without there are many times when my Tia would just say God will provide and as a youngster I was more like well we hungry what we gonna eat you know because we didn't have and um we never went without and I might have been a recipient of every USDA program that exists for students and families I was on the free lunch program my family did get food stamp coupons which is today the EBT card and CalFresh and we had government fees delivered to my household yeah raise your hand if you had the pleasure of government cheese right box of cheese a block of cheese and very thick plastic that you had to work to get through but if you got through it it might be the best grilled cheese or quesadilla that you had and for a family where we didn't have it was important for us to have these resources to overcome very very humble beginnings and so I'm grateful for the work I know we have some folks here from CalFresh anyone else here from USDA just stand up so we can show our appreciation um everyone from the USDA team thank you thank you for supporting California students and families I think you know during the pandemic we probably at the beginning of the pandemic price already about 800 million meals all across the state thank you for all the waivers all the waiver requests were written by Kim frenzel and and Jacqueline who are here today from our team I'd like to acknowledge our team nutrition services thank you Kim's hiding she doesn't want any attention but she makes it possible for us to understand how we support schools and we know that we're asking a lot it doesn't just happen you know um what we're seeing today in the Magnolia agri-science program it doesn't just happen it takes a lot of work and thank you for working with us to give us the flexibilities that we've asked for to care for California students and families during very difficult times I'm just going to keep coming back superintendent I'm not going to leave because I think you're providing great examples for what we need to see and I'd like to thank the members of the board who are here today I understand we have trustees Pearson here perfect and trustee Randall Trejo and of course our president president al-jabbar he's always here every time I come thank you um thank you for the great things that you're doing and also want to acknowledge the folks who have made this incredible agriscience opportunity happen Orlando griego thank you thank you and I just want to acknowledge the wonderful students who greeted me today there were many your students are really great spokespersons you know in a time when there's so much negativity people forget easily that great things are happening everywhere and it's easy to overlook it it's someone did a study and they said that people will always gravitate to what's negative it somehow it captures your brain for longer your students are real a reason for why we should think about the positive and what is possible and I hope that we all uh get with our students and support them around what is possible I just had a fabulous conversation today with Amanda Jacoby and Gilmore thank you let's give them a round of applause stand up and Monty is Monty still here I you know you all yeah stand up and be applauded it's really about you all and about your fellow students and you all are such great spokespersons and um you know I appreciate the welcome but I appreciate that you all are really about to work and you're making it happen um you know I'm joined by one of our Deputy superintendents who's here today I want to acknowledge her as well uh Nancy thank you uh for joining me here she's telling me ideas of what we should replicate because there's a lot of things here that should be replicated and so let us continue to work together you know I just want you to know that the state is here to help and a superintendent when you talked about your quote I thought about what people often say about government and there's probably a lot of things that government can get better at but the reality is is that as difficult as these last two years have been California is providing incredible resources to schools this is a an inflection point this is in a moment to do something that hasn't been done before not to mention you know 596 million dollars that goes directly to making sure that every hungry student will have a meal when I was on the free lunch program I had to show a orange ticket at my school to say that I was on the free lunch program and I'll tell you I got teased for that I ate my lunch under my desk because I didn't want anybody to know I was on the free lunch program and then I became an adult and I realized every single person in my school in my community was on the free lunch program and so that tells me that we have work to do it as a nation to get past shaming those who are hungry but we have real resources and the state is making it possible for us to have a meal two meals a day for every student regardless of their background their neighborhood their zip code everyone gets a meals so we're pleased to support you with universal meals all the resources that have been provided for infrastructure of kitchens because we know that it takes a lot of work to do this and I I have to thank Congressman Correa who has provided the federal resources to do this for infrastructure in addition to the state resources we're grateful for that we know that there's a whole lot more that needs to be done but as you put it together in that slide we have to put all these programs together excited to work with you on Community Schools I mean we're busy trying to figure out how to get preschool for every four-year-old to make sure that our students learn to read by third grade that there's more after school programs and tutoring programs to accelerate learning to offset the learning gaps that have grown during the pandemic we were saving lives you know in November 11 000 people were dying every day during the pandemic and people are going to tell you that there's nothing good about what happens in California but California people have been resilient and I want to thank every single person who has put it on the line for our students our teachers and our classified staff any in the room and make sure we acknowledge you all wherever you are yeah yeah thank you to our students and parents for your resilience to stay in California can and will do and a great part of what we do will be providing meals for families and providing healthy meals and I just uh appreciate those who talked about the powerful transformative effects that having a garden in this in this school Community can mean in a community that's ranked the way that it was that you described at a 500 and almost 90 census tracts that they wanted to rank this community near the end I I look forward to when we're celebrating how we accelerate this community racing to the top of the list and as you said there's no more important social justice than giving people a chance to earn a decent living to pay for themselves and their family so um I'm gonna keep coming back I'm gonna have to find an office space for me superintendent because there's so many great things happening here that we want to highlight we want to support we want to help Implement them and find ways to support the 30 000 plus students here and our six million students in the state thank you so much for everything Tiffany boss and I have a few remarks for you today and then we're going to go to the Garden or to the farm for you actually before I start to recognize my staff who prepared your meals today this is Edgar Garcia who is our manager everyone in traditional staff real quick yep um [Music] Josie Debbie Elizabeth and Leona and um they're here every day working working real hard to make sure we get the kids uh Edgar shared a story with me right before we began and he said that the 750 800 kids that he serves every day that uh he sets out over a thousand pieces of fruit and vegetables and they're all gone by the end of the serving period so clearly the kids like fresh fruit and vegetables which is not always typical of some schools that this is typical of Magnolias and we attribute that to sabina's hard work with the mac and the work of the of the district itself thank you guys foreign stuff that's here for a very hard thank you Edgar and I would be remiss if I did not introduce my staff behind the scenes you guys uh this is uh my two members of my management team Maria barragon and Renee Burton and our production lead Maggie and our student intern Elaine [Applause] there we go I don't want to take too much of your time but I did want to share with you about a little bit of news a little bit of information a little bit of facts about Food Services the Food Services Department we're a department of about 26 million dollar budget 26.7 million dollars and we have an entitlement of about almost two million dollars so for those in the room who don't know what that means we get USDA entitlement for every lunch that we serve from the previous year and right now we're at about 1.9 million dollars that we get from the USDA so those monies are translated into uh funds that we use for processing food we use it for Department of Defense food or produce which is used primarily for California grown produce so uh we also do what we call brown box and brown box might be everything from cranberries to canned peas or corn or something like that or even fresh or frozen vegetables uh a my department as I told you before is a K-12 program and we service about 43 000 students and we served last year approximately one six mil 1.6 million uh breakfast and over five over uh 4 million lunches we're on our way up uh during covid we are dramatically impacted and we didn't serve nearly as many meals as we have normally served and we are currently serving about of approximately 900 more meals a day for breakfast and about 1200 more meals for lunch and that is primarily due to Universal meals so Universal meals there are questions in the room what is universal meals so for us what Universal meals means is that all students have access to a meal breakfast and lunch on a daily basis that has always been that has always been the case in Anaheim Union High School District what is different for us though is that all students are eating at no charge that's extremely important and we have to thank uh State superintendent Thurman as well as the state of California for what they have done in my opinion California has led the way in making sure that students have access to meals on a daily basis at no charge it's something that the nation needs to do it the next step is the nation students should not have to worry about whether they have a meal to eat whether they can pay for a meal or not they should be able to come to school learn have a meal breakfast and lunch um I was telling Tiffany it wasn't just two years ago when we build the elementary the Anaheim elementary school district a hundred and twenty four thousand dollars for negative balances so those were students who were coming through the line during the school year 1819 who were unable to pay for their food but we fed them anyway so in turn we had to build the Elementary District the elementary District's general fund for those meals at a tune of 124 thousand dollars so during covid what we experienced with students were eating for free we saw those numbers rise as the students came back to school because they realized they no longer had to pay for meals which is universal meals mandate and that's a wonderful thing what covet taught us was there is great hunger in our community um we knew that by the long lines of families who were waiting for us prior to us even opening there are people in the room uh Aaron Chao was working alongside us at South Junior High School almost on a daily basis watching kids come through the line with little signs out the window saying thank you very much God bless you because the the hunger was palpable we knew that they needed us we serve them breakfast and lunch every single day Saturdays Sundays holidays we were out there and what that led us to believe what we learned from that was that when we went to community eligibility provision we had a choice to make the choice was do all of our schools go on community eligibility provision or do we leave some schools out Anaheim Union High School District covers five five cities on the far west side we have schools that are very low free and reduced on the far East Side we have schools that are high free and reduced so the choice we had to make was do we make all student all schools on community eligibility provision or do we not it was a no-brainer for us hunger was everywhere throughout our school district we had families were in line at Kennedy High School they were in line at Ponderosa Elementary School they were in line at catella High School in South Junior High School so it was district-wide so when we chose to go on to community eligibility provision we chose to do it at all schools now in a regular school year with regular reimbursements that might not have worked very well for us but because the state of California is supplementing our reimbursements by making every meal free at the free rate it works for us quite well during a regular school year that might not have made them the decision we made but for us it's the right decision to make sure that all students have access to meals we knew that there were families in our district who might have a student who goes to Oxford Academy but might also have a student who goes to Ponderosa Elementary School we knew that we didn't want families to be confused by well do I have to fill out a free why do I have to fill out a free and reduced application for Tiffany but I don't need to fill out a free and reduced application for Tony why do I not have to do that we wanted to make sure families knew what that all meals were free and accessible to all students throughout our campus as that's why we chose to go to community eligibility for all campuses and that's why Universal meals works for us and why we're seeing the number of students increase this number of meals that we're serving go up each day foreign we're getting funding from the state of California in the tune of about one about 1.6 million dollars for the kitchen infrastructure training funds those funds are being already being put to good use we are purchasing ovens stoves we are purchasing new packaging machines for our Central Kitchen we're buying warmers we're buying milk coolers and we're also being able to now have our staff have more formalized training recipe development food safety all kinds of training that they've never had before and it's because the state of California has made a commitment to Food Services departments throughout the state to make sure that our employees our our kitchens are now going to be uh state of the art so that we now have that ability to do fresh cooked meals like you have today the USDA provided us with supply chain assistance funds which helped us go which helped us purchase more minimally processed foods those that kind of funding needs to keep coming to us just as I said that it needs to be a federal response to Universal meals we need to keep the money coming to food service departments it's quite frankly during covid we were hurt badly in my department we lost three million dollars in 2021 we lost over two million dollars in 1920 just because of coven we're now on the rebound and we're thankful for that but it's a long way it's a Long Hill decline thank you um so we purchased a lot of produce I pulled a report for last school year and for produce alone we we purchased and served over 54 000 cases of fresh fruits and vegetables so because it's such a large part of our school meal program we really do our best to purchase California grown produce whenever we can we're able to do that because we maximize our DOD funds but also we work with our distributor gold star who works with over 25 local Growers suppliers and processors and of course the grant funding that we received from the California Department of food and agriculture they that has also allowed us to purchase more California grown produce as well as purchase produce from the farm here at Magnolia um I this this school year we made a big commitment um to the district to the students uh that we would purchase produce from the mac and serve it uh for lunch so uh we've we've been able to purchase a variety of different items all at different times and so uh some of the things we were able to purchase were different types of lettuces different types of tomatoes green onions cilantro even strawberries of course depending upon the quantity the availability the seasonality we would um we would put them on our salad bar that some of you saw we would also incorporate them into recipes and I have to give a big shout out to our Magnolia staff because they are a big part of this commitment to the students as you can imagine pulling produce from the farm it's whole it's not processed at all so they are spending extra time and effort to wash it Down chop it prepare it so this picture here is our spicy chicken wrap which you some of you got to taste so the lettuce the green onions and the tomatoes that are pictured here are from the mac and so some of the produce that was in your your spicy chicken wrap is also from the Mac um and um when we can this was earlier in the year we were able to get zucchini squash broccoli and Edgar and his staff washed it down chopped it prepped it seasoned it and he roasted it um I wouldn't say it was a huge hit the kids I don't think they really enjoyed it but what he did was he ended up incorporating the roasted veggies into his chili our house made chili so they really enjoy that both the spicy chicken wrap and the chili are popular entrees here at Magnolia um the menu is a huge part of our program someone had asked how do you how do you choose menu items or how do you design the menu so since auhsd spans across five different cities we do have a wide variety of student demographics so the taste preferences the food preferences at different sites it's all it's all different so what we aim to do is provide a good variety so that they have a diverse selection of items that they can choose from I just wanted to highlight some of our new items and some of our items that are not new but they're oldies but goodies so our turkey chorizo breakfast bowl that's something that was new this year it's scrambled eggs turkey chorizo and a whole grain tortilla bowl our teriyaki chicken is not new but it sits in a bed of brown rice steamed vegetables and then our Shake Ramen which you got to try um I had mentioned that it's a local small business and so the owner Brian he's a native to Orange County he has roots here so it's wonderful to get to provide that type of meal to the students but still also promote our local small business and then the walking taco it's my favorite it's ground turkey meat pinto beans and it has all of the toppings like pico de gallo shredded lettuce and it's served with baked whole grain Doritos I'm actually a product of auhsd I went in at Anaheim elementary school district I went to Clara Barton Ball Junior High and I graduated from loera high school it's really I feel like School food service has progressed so much from where when it was my time and it's really meaningful to me to get to be a part of something like that to be a part of that progression in a district that I was raised in so this is uh yeah it's very meaningful um the breakfast bar is another new thing for our district um we wanted to we provide free breakfast and lunch to all of our students but we wanted to entice the students to come and eat breakfast with us so at breakfast at all of our Junior highs and high schools once a week we prepare freshly made pancakes or waffles they get scrambled eggs hash browns fresh fruit and so some of the students had really positive feedback I mean some of them even said this is better than my mom has made me which that's such a compliment to us um our salad bars we have salad bars at most of our Junior highs and high schools we actually haven't had our traditional salad bar in over two and a half years because of covid but this is the first year we were able to bring it back this is a great way for us to provide different vegetable subgroups to the students and it looks attractive it's colorful so we're so happy to bring this back um in June of 2021 we had we were awarded the farm to school incubator Grant from the California Department of Agriculture food and agriculture this grant the goal of it was to introduce the kids to California grown produce increase their exposure and their consumption of produce and we really wanted to educate the students about where their food comes from for us in accomplishing these goals it was really important for us to provide that type of education early on so that by the time they came to us in seventh and eighth grade they already had that background of you know healthy eating and where their food comes from I wanted to recognize our amazing team because we were able to do a lot of wonderful things with the grant funding um but today we have Anna Luciano athenas she's this um supervising Public Health nutritionist for Orange County healthcare agency we have Meredith Ibanez uh she's the program manager for nutrition services and then we have Nigel Napoleon who is the wellness coordinator for Anaheim elementary school district and then picked your tears George and how there are garden experts so for me what really came out of this grant is the collaboration the relationships we built with Orange County healthcare agency and Elementary School District um it's really it's it's been wonderful and that's what's going to sustain us even after the grant is over um just a little bit about our grant um we had a school garden component it's starting off at our elementary schools but we hope to we eventually it's going to run into our our high schools and Junior highs so last year through the cdfa grant we were able to implement Gardens in six of our school sites so we did site assessments we were able to determine where the garden was going to go what type of gardening to use because they were also different and so we reached over 30 teachers and 800 students just through those six sites of course over the grant over the course of the grant we're going to expand our efforts to Anaheim Union High School District sites to help with help improve existing Gardens or Implement Gardens that you see here at the sites thank you to make it special for the students after we did the planning and many many trips to Home Depot we had a planting day with the kids so they had this really special session where they got to they were educated about where their food comes from they provide they were providing nutrition education by Nigel and the Orange County healthcare agency and then they got Hands-On learning like they got to get in there and get their hands dirty and learn that planting a garden only takes very little you don't need a lot of space very simple tools I wanted to share this before and after this is Orange Grove Elementary so you can see in February this was the garden site it had one garden bed with not a lot growing in it and there was just bushes I mean we weren't really using it and then a month later it all got torn out and there's four large garden beds there and then two months later from that because of the students and teachers were maintaining the garden so well it was thriving they had cucumbers Peppers different kinds of lettuces tomatoes so thank you it was it was really nice that they got to see that before they left for the summer and then we also had a harvest celebration for each of the six School sites where we got to Orange County healthcare agency came in they did cooking demos the principal actually selected a recipe to feature and it it featured the garden produce so they got to incorporate that and this one was Orange Grove it's a marinated cucumber salad it was really tasty and then the kids got to take home a little gardening kit so that they could Garden at home with their parents and then as far as other than this you know the the garden aspect we wanted to make sure to incorporate the cafeteria and of course the classroom so for the menu side of it we were integrating California grown produce every month we we featured a highlighted fruit every month so one month we did blood oranges which most kids heard the word blood oranges and they didn't know what to think but we were able to slice them in our kitchens and then we served them at breakfast and then we also prepare tasting kits where Nigel took them did nutrition education in the classroom so they the point of that was to get multiple exposure of blood oranges so that they would recognize it they would know it they would take it they would go home and hopefully recognize it in the store with their parents so that they would then bring it to their parents and say hey let's try this um we will be out at the Garden shortly When Tiffany talks about the classroom connection um in the cafeteria classroom connection one of the most important things for us is Outreach to students and parents so quite often when Mr Saldivar was the principal at Anaheim high school and when Carlos was a principal principals often invite us to come and do a coffee with the principal we take over the meeting we talk to parents about school food service we tell them all about what all the regulations we have to follow and then the most important and most popular part of the meeting is when parents get to taste and what you guys did today they get to taste what their children eat and that is extremely important to us so the parent that type of Outreach parents understand what their parents have what their children have access to on a daily basis however the most important part of our job is to meet with students is to find out what students want to eat so our menus in my opinion if students if I don't like it makes no difference because if students like it that's the most important piece of the puzzle so we meet with students on a regular basis some are friends from the from Appropriations asked the kinds of questions about how do things get on the menu I'll tell you in the High School District sometimes it's the most challenging looking at our two three students here their tastes change rapidly so we have to be nimble we have to be flexible and we have to be able to change with them to provide them with what they want so we listen to them on a daily date we listen to them on a regular basis and meet with them on a regular basis also finally I want to talk and and my part before I hand it over to Monty is to just talk briefly about supply chain shortages despite the fact that supply chain shortages have not eased for us and I will tell you just one quick little story the beginning of last school year Tiffany started reaching out to our distributor on a daily basis to find out what we would receive what we would not receive and what we'd be substituted on a daily basis we would receive I would all of us would receive an email from Tiffany and it would have anywhere from 100 to 200 items literally that we would not receive that would be substituted or that would would be uh shorted we thought that would get better quite frankly it hasn't the beginning of this school year we started to get emails from Tiffany I was extremely happy it's like oh my God five ten items awesome about three weeks ago I opened an email on a Sunday got an email from Tiffany on a Sunday that's never a good thing 200 items what happened despite that our commitment is to our children our commitment is to make sure that they get what they want on a daily basis our commitment is to follow our menu our commitment is to make sure that they have access to healthy fresh food on a daily basis so we substitute we substitute and we find a way to feed them and that's what we're doing on a daily basis and we're proud to do it I'm going to turn it over to Monty thank you so right now there are 23.5 million Americans including six and a half million children living in in what is so-called a food desert which is mainly in inner cities and rural areas for your information a food desert is a geographical location where the residents have little to no access to Affordable fresh food hello everyone my name is and I live in a food desert I am an immigrant who left Iraq and ended up in Anaheim California the same Anaheim known for the happiest place on Earth Disneyland located just miles from beautiful Southern California beaches and home of the Anaheim Ducks and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim while my family has benefited from the land of opportunity and have been able to make the better life my parents envisioned for us um myself and my my brother my sister one thing that we have left behind is access to healthy and nutritious food I in fact lived on a farm in Iraq and grew the food we ate but now my family and I live in a modest apartment on one of the main streets in California called Beach Boulevard will take you to Disneyland Knott's Berry Farm Pacific Coast Highway and many other attractions however you may need to drive drive past the many hotels motels Corners in which illegal activities are publicly displaced such as prostitution and Drug cells in addition to these many vices the one Vice that is often that is often overlooked is ignoring the healthy food crisis in poor neighborhoods like my own in the words of Rod Finley the gorilla Gardener himself from South Central LA he says the food deserts are where the drive-throughs are killing more than the drive-bys this is because in these neighborhoods there's an abundance of fast food restaurants convenience stores and gas stations rather than grocery stores and farmers markets in fact I live right next to Taco Bell when I say right next to I meet right next to we actually share a wall the closest grocery store to my house is a food for less that is almost two miles away so one of my my family and I get hungry it's much more convenient for us to walk 100 feet to the Taco Bell rather than trick the two miles to go to the grocery store down the street for many families in my neighborhood our daily diet includes fast food snacks from vending machines and also treats from the local 7-Elevens we know conception of unhealthy Foods leads to health concerns such as obesity diabetes and heart failure because of the high sugar salt saturated fat and processed ingredients in these Foods some may be quick to blame families for allowing this diet but are never quick to help fix it fast food places have attempted to provide healthier options however have you ever ordered a salad from McDonald's Carl's Jr or even Burger King well that's a bit of a trick question because they actually don't offer salads on their menus but a healthier fast food option um yeah healthier factory options such as Subway actually does however the last time I was at the subway instead of a sandwich I tried to order something a bit better I have a salad instead of paying 529 for a 16 sub the salad costs 7.78 an additional two dollars and 49 cents for substituting the bread with fresh veggies that's an almost 50 increase in price to get a healthier option that is society's way of telling me that I have to spend an extra two dollars and 49 cents so that I have a lower chance of dying from a heart attack becoming obese and suffering from high cholesterol what should I do when my family can't afford a 50 markup for a healthier life the only the only way this will change is if we collectively call for a change this is why I am proud and I'm grateful to be part of that art that to be to be a part of the Anaheim Union High School District because we focus on student engagement and student voice as a student ambassador for Magnolia High School which you guys are all at right now obviously um I get to represent the student body and their concerns and their needs and their assets it was because of student voices that our district took a dirt lot that was behind our science buildings and turned it into an urban farm called The Magnolia agriscience Community Center which is a Mac those are the produce yeah the vision of the Mac is to nourish your students and community members but also create job training skills and experiences to educate students and the community on sustainable food practices and ecological issues we want to turn Anaheim from a food desert to a food Healthcare and Civics Oasis now I'd like to end with giving you some food for thought imagine fast food restaurants would make salads cheaper than burgers imagine vending machines stocked with high with foods high in fiber and nutrients imagine being able to solve food deserts climate change and health care now instead of imagining I invite you to be a part of the change bring awareness about food deserts invest in student voice and vote for people and politics that will support us students and families like my own together we will make big changes thank you so what you've all been looking forward to is we're going to go to the mac and you can leave your stuff here there's some water on the side if you want to take it with you or you can just come back and have a water when you get back I didn't want to make one just real observation is that what's unique about Anaheim Union High School District is the relationship that food services has with the ed services side of the house uh and I and I don't mean to separate them but I think that I look around the room and I see Kim kind of Nod her head it's unusual in school districts where that relationship exists Food Services tends to be a little bit of an island and we kind of operate and we go along but we have a relationship with ed services and it's powerful and it's meaningful and I'm thankful for it thank you for being here for today thank you yes sir okay so we're gonna go out this door here you're gonna follow Sabina
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so it's still even interesting just getting because all almost in the room we were in Illinois we're act and so helping our students the teachers too helping our students through the SAT has been interesting and once we started it we went pretty much into covid time so it's been an interesting little journey well and I think especially those two pieces together this data reflects really positively on the work that's being done in fact understand students it very much does so one thing that you know we're where I enter the picture here is with our grading and assessment system so last eight nine years we've been you know moving to an evidence-based approach getting those skills out in front which aligned to AP and sat and we're able to now cross reference pretty easily how the kids are doing on the skills in the course but those core skills and criteria also give us insight into how they might be doing on the SAT and AP as well as you're going to see some of this other data as well so this is a new addition to this report but you can see pretty clearly that we have in a lot of the skills that cross over to sat um I guess to reframe that we're not stopping the learning to go do SAT style practice it's embedded in what we do and I think you know that's been the goal for a long time and we're finally starting to see that that data come out so thank you to that point exactly with the change from the paper sat to the digital that's coming up that's if you've looked at the test it's considerably different so that I would think is going to have an impact on on how classes are structured to support the kind of thing that you're talking about what you're thinking along that and how it how is that going to move forward because that's coming up in the next year it could be in the next year 2024 yeah yeah it's coming so Apple of things is one just getting teachers familiar with it just getting teachers familiar with what that looks like and getting everyone comfortable just with the change in technology which we're finding students in iPads or if we use Chromebooks whatever we use for those testing days just getting them those experiences in class we're going to talk about um APS and just in just a little bit but one thing we're doing this this spring is AP is also going that direction and we are going to Pilot One course to see like what's that test setting like for us infrastructure wise but also for students and those experiences so we can start because we're seeing that coming down the road with absolutely everything without the whole with all the clouds but the tests itself the kinds of things that I'm thinking about is the test itself oh yeah for example the there's not going to be any it doesn't look like there's going to be any writing components right so that changes things and then the way the reading components are structured where they're shorter passages with fewer questions and all that so the criteria that is it's just kind of bad a difference sure yeah yes yes the criteria that's going to be referenced in the SAT change will then be our teachers will look at that and put that into our rubrics which fit nicely under these skills too so yeah because the first if I'm not mistaken the first electronic version is the PSAT next fall yeah that's what they're saying or is it April was it no it's not the same yeah sure yeah thanks thanks definitely teams are going to start looking at that sooner you know college board means sending boxes and boxes of materials they have no school elimination they've got to be happy to get out of that I mean just to change their I see the prices will go down I'm sure I do have one other question yeah do you all use um Khan Academy for Preparatory support at all we don't formally do that I know a lot of our students have used have used it our teachers don't use that in the classrooms we tell the kids that's true but I mean we tell the kids that exists and give them the ability but it's not part of our now it's there's that's their individual practice for sure we're talking about um up number on the number on the top is those are the students that only took it once took the SAT once and then you can see it progressively go down of how many students are taking it the one thing I just find fascinating is what about almost half of our students take the SAT once they don't and with the scores that you saw so that takes us to this one which is interesting and I'll leave this to you to spend you know some nightly reading on at some point of but the one what I want to highlight is um down at the bottom you're looking to see what's expected of the graduated class which they expected because there still could be a couple more students that want to take it one more time for kicks I guess um and so that and just explain I don't know the average super super score and I make sure I'm new with this job but I make sure I have this correct is that if they took it multiple times it takes their best score in their super score and so that's the reason why we have students um here that will take me take it everyone and as you can see the scores are and then for sat testing can students just choose one subject to do the retest or have to test all four subjects what did they take all four yeah okay that's different devices yeah right okay so um before I move on to college readiness any additional questions about sap so our college readiness um gets to what are the college level experiences that we're providing students um and so we do that in three major areas four if we count the um the by literacy that I'll talk about in a little bit but advanced placement dual credit and articulated credit and so just to kind of give you um some context we offer 32 AP courses we have um 31 dual courses and four articulated courses and as Mark shared earlier we're increasing we're trying to increase that as um as we go there are definitely some AP courses on the horizon that could be potential for us as well as some additional dual credit courses um along the way um just a side note a lot there's a lot of our dual courses that our students at the technology campus are receiving through the College of Lake County um and this graph just shows it's nice lunchable chart that just talks about um the percent of our students that get that college level experience and just to kind of remind um all of us our goal is to provide the college level experience and that we believe that if a student has you know an experience or two um before The Graduate students of high school that's going to prepare them the best for college or their post-secondary choices not necessarily taking an AP exam so I'll talk about that in the second one we get to the eight piece yeah and again another new insert here is the skills and how those connect to kids taking a college level experience versus kids that aren't um and we can pretty easily see that you know how kids are doing proficiency-wise in the skills depending on the college level experience that they take so this is just a comparison between uh this last year's group that graduated with at least one college level experience and the proficiencies they ended with um in semester one uh of that year and the kids who did not have a college level experience that graduating year uh how they fared in those skills and this is what's exciting about this is this is already these this is already this process is already cycling through our MTT and our targeted tutoring as well the skills that are here it's already in process our tutors are talking about this so this is all embedded in supporting our kids so in that to that end does that mean that you know they're encouraging kids to to take a college level experience and to you know that those conversations is that is that oh I think this information can help us have conversations with kids to give them the confidence that they can do that yeah yeah okay certainly as we move into AP to some just some thousand 290 exams were given this past school year with um 2 900 or 2009 students um majority of them 61 were Juniors and seniors and then just to highlight of this with that if you look at the kind of the circle on the left um 89 in the head at least a three or better score thus hopefully giving them a the college level experience that they need to prepare them but also maybe even give them a credit to depending on where they're going and this is just a long um latitude data just telling you basically the same thing as we move all the way over to the right um what's in really interesting about this one and I I can't wait to see how this plays out is although the number looks like it's coming down slightly what we aren't seeing is students the number coming down and students taking AP courses our college level courses we've seen over the past couple years and I don't know if it's covert related or not students making choices for themselves they're taking the experience but some of them made students choose most of them seniors saying look well I don't need this credit or I'm not going to earn this credit my University so I'm not gonna I'm not gonna take the exam took the course had all the experiences but decided not to take the exam I think we believe the taking of the course is more important than the exam so yeah yeah fine for us senior happy kids are making that choice to you know control their I was going to say do you see that as kind of an SEO moment that maybe you know that's going to stress me out too much I'm not going to do it so yeah that's perfect there's no window for registration it's now has it closed already for this year okay I'll be curious to see what it looks like November 8th no yeah well that's when the early registration you can still sign up until March you said to pay an extra so if we really will have a number until March because many kids still waiting in there a lot of kids that don't wait until they get closer like I don't want to spend the money or the willing to see how they play out in the course first again though to your point about being sort of intentional both with their family's resources their resources and their energy it makes good sense exactly kids are making some good choices I think and this is just um something for your reading pleasure later about um that the mean score the number the percentage of exams by division this is um one of the things we're really trying to hold true to um is you know giving freshman that freshman level experience um so you can see definitely the numbers change once the students become sophomores Juniors and seniors about taking um an AP course and how do the 11 kids where do they come from it's a it's a variety is a lot of them are students that just I want to take the Japanese um AP exam or different exams that we don't offer Italian we see a lot of them in the world languages yeah they're almost all kids in the world languages who are creative speakers and just want to get the test out of the way and we they don't even take the course they just take it we don't offer the generals just take the test we don't allow freshmen we don't let them take the classes as social studies always historically been the highest it looks like the number of exams is quite if yes it is and a large percentage uh not a large there's a lot in government U.S history and there was a very um intentional effort a few years back I don't even know um Erica Trey might know a little bit more of the history of we're as we were trying to figure out how do we get more students taking these college level experiences that was a course that was an easier one to it was more accessible for kids yeah and honestly the science number is much higher than it was yeah and it social studies has been high for a long time but some of the other groups are catching so the disparities be much bigger if you went back 10 years yeah it would have been social studies would have doubled up everybody else because because had an amazing teacher division many amazing pictures yes in addition we also have our dual and our articulated credit courses um 472 of our students took advantage of four uh 24 courses as well as the students that took articulated courses so these are just as wonderfully proud of these programs too because a lot of times these courses tend to be courses that get students that this might be their only college level experience um so I think you pick up on the theme and my role in this presentation here so um we could with the with the grading system hat and the structure we have now we can now cross-reference skill proficiencies and the AP score which we were never really able to do and these these skills again align with the AP curriculum and get them ready for the test like Gary was saying what's on those tests so we can clearly see that you know on this that AP Physics one there were uh you know seven percent of the kids who met analyzing and interpreting data throughout the year got a three on the exam so again we can you know we don't want kids to fall through the cracks we want to know who they are we want to support them and get them to where they need to be and with this structure we have we can anticipate that and get ahead of that be proactive for the word I'm looking for um so I if you go to the next slide I just kind of picked a few of the larger courses this is AP Bio so you saw that you know there was five percent of the kids that met in mathematical computational thinking um in that course uh they got a three on the test but most of our kids you know got met skills five six and eight of that course got a five on the AP test so to me you being the data nerd that I am I'm super excited to see this because I can I think we can illuminate some different profiles of students here so and then if you want to get really crazy um we can cross-reference final uh semester grades with ap scores and the skill proficiency so we can um I don't know maybe I'm just the only one that was nerding out on this all week but I was super excited to see that this this data set because there were there were kids who met reading in rhetorical analysis got an A but they got a two on the AP test right so not that the AP test score is the goal but we can definitely now identify the students early and help them out um which you know we could run this every day all the time to see that how they're progressing so um and then the green where kids you know who got in approaching in those skills but still got a four or five on the test hopefully that I was a little worried about presenting that that made sense but I think great distribution uh yeah so I've this is kind of Quasi main um I've always given you this crazy graph there's a lot going on but these are great distributions uh throughout the year uh semester one last year and if you go to the next slide semester two by division um and you know it just tells us the distribution a is BC's days and um you know it's an exciting graph lots of colors um our kids do really well um but if you go to the next uh thing here we can now again not to keep this theme home but we can see kids who took a course that had a skill called simplifying and solving and gonna add most of our math Works mostly math and got a final proficiency score of meets in that skill this is how the grade that they earn so 57 of the kids who got a meet in simplifying and solving in whatever class usually math that had that skill they got an a for a final final grade and if you go to the next one same thing in Reading so we can watch kids grow in skills over time and connect that to whatever we want so are you saying that there are particular skills that you pull out as benchmarks essentially yeah based on what Gary was saying earlier our review of the criteria apsat whatever test if there's a new test that comes in we have the structure to pretty easily do that so and the exciting thing about that is that for so long schools especially high schools we're so driven by content and then you and then just go take the ACT and sat in Good Luck you know right um now we're able to really kind of like zero in on well what exactly are those skills that are going to show up on the actsat but then are transferable into our curriculum which is something we just we're never really able to do before yeah I'm sorry crazy no problem just to try to understand the data here so so for the 60 percent of student got a um under the myth category right so which means they can get a three all Targets throughout the school year just on that one the way this craft is just on that one skill that's at the top grade it's reading comprehension analysis if they took a course that had that skill and they got a meets uh 61 of them what's what I'm looking at is that tail is that there's a lot of kids who got a meets got a b b or B minus like how does that help what conversation does that drive now that we can help support kids so which means if a student can stay on the track of all means they can ensure they can you know get a as a final grade in the cross-reference from the chart from a few minutes ago where we talk about the AP scores that come out so we can start to say well are we giving grades that are appropriate because the grade should you should get a good grade if you can succeed on the AP exam so are those two things lining up and then also are what we're identifying as meeting the standard to those lineup like so there's sort of three checks right what how are you doing in your standard how did you do in your grade and what does that look like on standardized exams that measure that material so it gives us sort of three points to identify AI if we're doing the right thing like because you might wonder like how did a kid get a d who has met the standard of reading comprehend that's an interesting question right and we we're going to want to know how did that happen what was the learning profile of that kid let me make sure that never happens again like that's an interesting question right yeah and to your disjointed thing those three areas of all those three mechanisms have always been here but they've never there's never been really a through a through thread to to see it and now that we have this is pretty interesting that and and just to give props to our student learning program our student support they've done an amazing job taking these skills into our tutoring and running that through it's just really really exciting to see and I mean I think yes the SAT is important but beyond that I think the SAT is a college readiness exam so the skills that you're highlighting here that correlate to an SVT score makes sense to me that those are the skills that would be most necessary to be successful in college so another piece just to highlight um that gets to our College college readiness is our seal of by literacy just to highlight because it's a pretty amazing program and just to highlight it a little bit you have 200 with two things I want you to really focus on here is we had 213 students that were awarded the sealed by literacy um and in 13 different languages um and so they get this and please help me I talked to Justin this morning to make sure I knew exactly what where how they got this but students have to have show proficiency both in English and in the other what are the other language is so a lot of our students get that by the score that they receive on their sat or act uh and um for their English and whatever a lot of our students are taking like AP whatever language that they're taking or they're taking we have a variety of different software groups that we work through that will then assess in whatever language they want so we offer I it's many many different things we've doubled up every other high school around and the number of kids that are running this and all ready for next year the number is going to be about it's gonna we're gonna be about 60 more than that yeah and so what students receive from this is in the state of Illinois anywhere from like six to 12 credits or you know earned to that University and many other in the nation too depending on the student the situation in the college so it's getting our students way ahead um in these areas foreign goal which you heard a lot about already this morning or this morning earlier um and just so you know um we work through and I'm sure um Dr Fine Zimmer talked has talked a little bit about the Panorama software that company that we use um that normed reference um uh surveys we offer four different surveys um the one you hear from the teachers is from the student voice survey and I'll show you a little bit of information kind of school-wide that kind of puts the science team a little bit into context tonight we do an um SEL questionnaire a school climate survey and then trisbet Hauser with the athletic program does another one for student athletes and of um the piano room of the student voice survey there's six categories um you've heard today um from the team you've heard um they were talking a lot about their classroom belonging that is one that many many of our teams are looking into how can they address that within their teams in their classrooms and another one I want to highlight is the classroom teacher student relationships especially coming out of this is our first kind of real school year in a while and so where are we with that and how can we improve that one of the things I definitely want to highlight here is if you see up at the top um there's 14 828 entries so our goal and our hope and our desire and what we tell teachers is that every student should have an opportunity to provide feedback in every single classroom every single semester and so we're getting there students are providing feedback so this is from our classroom belonging and if you remember what you saw from the science from the science group what's really interesting if you saw in theirs theirs is a year-long class so they they're usually relationships a cluster belonging is lower in the fall and higher in the spring because that's a year of getting to know the students in their classroom but what's really interesting as a district as a school we have or seeing those big dips which is really fascinating and although 74 is fantastic as being Stevenson we're like well that's 74 what about the Raz and so to put a little bit more context is Nationwide where the 99th percentile um for this area which we're pretty proud of well I think Don brought this up too I wondered belonging class right they can say I don't feel like I belong here because of the type of class or the level of the class for the students in the class or the interaction with the teacher like that question is just it's loaded with a lot of different background and so you said who did you talk to your kids to get different information I have a new board member question yes hopefully I have a new assistant principal answer about this student voice survey I think that I stumbled on this data it must be public on the internet I think I stumbled on survey questions Stevenson is that possible yeah it could be and responses I mean this data when I was doing research on my own about the school um and it's great and I'm also in addition to being a new board member I'm also an absent-minded parent so I have two students here and I never thought to ask them about them taking any service in other words I didn't know that the survey was taking place but you would follow the Sprint you would see if you Googled Stevenson SEL you would see this report from previous years this data is out there because it's linked to our website I mean so yeah you would see this do do do we communicate to parents or how do we communicate to parents that the survey that the survey is taking place or do we are better to parents of that the student receives a prompt related to the survey and oftentimes teachers will do the survey of the class typically in class assessment we have had but just to be clear I think it's great and I mean it's a good question and I'm and I was glad to see it and I'm glad to hear about it and learn more about it and I bet that there's lots and lots of parents who would think the same thing highlighted in the minute man a few times over the past few years where we've said like here's here's some of our data here's so the information has come out um through that venue but never is like a and it's a really interesting question because it's not about academics per se it's about how your children are feeling and what their perceptions are and that's interesting one as a parent like huh I wonder how they are feeling in class because I'm sure how communicative communicative high schoolers can be with families right and so it would be really interesting but to be clear I mean for the most part it's data that is actionable for us right like this is data that we're collecting and that we're using so that we can make changes instructionally in the classroom it's not it's not General perception data you know about you know right right so I mean I think it's important to recognize that we give this assessment just like we would give any other assessment you know academically in the classroom so just as we don't necessarily tell parents about every time we're going to do an assessment about you know math or social studies or science we wouldn't necessarily tell them about this but it's it could be out there I mean did we we did put we we tell parents annual report there was it's all over I mean just Google it you'll find it you know what I mean but yeah and just one little side piece about classroom belonging and as you'll see probably throughout the school year at each board meeting each team um will be addressing classroom alongi specific to their groups of students specific to their classroom situations specific to their strengths and areas of growth too and so it's that's where um where some students may have different feelings a sense of a long link hopefully within their day they're getting that in a variety of different ways throughout their school day the other one I just wanted to highlight before we um is just a classroom teacher student relationships and is building that and you can see that it's continually um growing and that also um isn't in the 90th percentile as compared to peers and just like sense of belonging this has like five or six questions mark that you know we don't just ask kids sensible and do you feel it belong if there's six questions that guy that drive into that and just like this we don't ask you do you like your teacher it's six questions about the experience that kids are having in class and that gives us data to be able to lend as teachers be able to take action on behalf of the students is this data used in teacher evaluation no no no because it's you know it's there's an element of perception on behalf of the students the minute I feel like I belong if Mr gobble's given me to these you know so there's an element of you know you have to take it it's somewhat of a grain of salt but it you know is there actionable information in here when you look at it holistically oh yeah all right so thank you both we appreciate you great job um yep a lot of information um and just so our new board members know like this is an every October kind of thing um we generally share with you some in preliminary data at the retreat but this includes everything that we've gotten from AP from sat uh used to be Act was running a little bit late but we have everything now right awesome all right thank you guys um I also just wanted to share information around our current enrollment um we just did a check five minutes ago and our current enrollment is 4 499 students so up about a hundred students from last year um that number fluctuates week to week you know in any given week we're plus or minus a number of students we'll have a full report at the November Board of Education meeting but um we're one student away from 4 500 students and if you recall we were at about 4 300 a couple years ago so um that number is is slowly but surely just as our demographer said that number is ticking up so I think they had us this year at somewhere around 4 500 4530 ish yeah um and so we're yeah we're tracking pretty closely to what they've suggested so I'm gonna just send out all the Theta for the next dragon yep uh and then Sean you had two items one about tax appeals yep so um again for some of our newer boards um new board members uh we engage Services of Robin Schwartz to help us with um large tax appeals and or board of review cases the district only gets involved with the taxpayer is requesting over a hundred thousand dollar uh reduction in their assessed value um and typically what happens is um the you know uh we go through and and you know they'll come up to an agreement um sometimes they'll use an appraisal sometimes they'll use other history um but as you can see from here um it um the taxpayers you know the large taxpayers and again you know when you think about a hundred thousand dollar reduction in their taxes right that's probably we're talking businesses right maybe some homeowners but predominantly businesses and so in those instances they only received about 40 percent of the reduction that they were asking for there's two reasons why this is important one is it keeps our tax rate um lower and to probably more importantly um is that it's you know any reduction by any one taxpayer then increases what every other taxpayer in our district is going to pay so if we don't intervene on some of these very large taxpayers then our smaller taxpayers are all going to actually have to pay that business this year so that happens every year we engage age like I said we engage our attorneys to take care of that and you can see from the report that it's very successful so did that make sense I just want to clarify today board members yes okay yeah okay do you know when they there was a couple of them in here that were arguing based on low occupancy yeah is that reassessed from year to year then if they fill the strip mall they're technical it can be um it can be it can also be affect the quadrennial reassessments always a fun time as well where they look to reset base values for those next four years [Music] um they're in in just to make be clear you know most of these appeals are coming from um again larger businesses that also have attorneys that are looking to reduce tax flows um taxes that they have to pay so it could be a large apartment complex it could be you know a grocery store it could be whatever that's in our district so what we're trying to do is try to um uh we're trying to keep the playing field level if that makes sense um and the other thing to keep in mind that we have our district is unique in that not only do we cut across 18 different communities but we also have a large business infrastructure yeah so there's quite a few businesses who understandably so pay a lot in taxes correct and would love like I think most of us to see a reduction in those taxes so um it's important that we engage in the process because otherwise you all and single family homes are going to end up picking up the right yeah we appreciate that the increase so we're not looking to fight anybody right going to battle but we do want to make sure that and just so no means getting taken advantage of yeah and I I just want to clarify this is only on reductions that are over 100 100 000 so if you as a homeowner say boy you know I'm paying more than my next-door neighbor and I look it up in my next-door neighbor's house is is ten thousand dollars or twenty thousand dollars lower than mine and that you seek out that reduction we're not intervening at that point okay um the other thing that I um wanted to announce and this is a good thing is that um I'm happy to acknowledge that we did receive lead recertification yet again so this is our third um recognition by the US GBC U.S Green Building and uh us Green Building Council sorry easy for me to say um and this is for uh the what they call lead e-bomb which is existing buildings so our entire campus they look at all of the practices we achieved certification at the LA at the Gold level this does not include um our new edition which did receive Platinum not because that's a brand new facility so again um the policies that we have in place to continue to sustain to continue to practice sustainable um practices over time is working so it's okay okay and then uh one last item if everybody can hang in there for five more minutes and eight seconds um I have a video from the foundation that we'd love to share we had a foundation event on Saturday night at um it was a Nashville unplugged event it was awesome Yep Don was actually there and thank you Don for being there and supporting the foundation in addition to hearing just great singer-songwriters telling their stories about writing all these songs for famous people um the foundation actually showed a video that I just thought was really great it's a new video that they put together that I think they're going to be sharing um in different venues and I thought you would get a kick out of it because it really does show the impact that the foundation is having on behalf of our students so let me see if I can queue this up ever since the foundations started helping me I have that confidence to say I'm here I'm deserving of my space [Music] there are many good schools throughout the Chicago land area but what makes a school great Stevenson High School is an exceptional academic institution frequently ranked as the top open enrollment Public High School in Illinois there is no question that Stevenson inspires students to dream big [Music] you and my family circumstances there were times I felt that my future was uncertain that college Was Out Of Reach but with assistance and support I felt in high school and now I am an education giving back to students the care and authentication I've received and I have the Stevenson Foundation to thank for making it all possible Stevenson High School is extraordinary in every way focused on more than just test scores and state championships students experiences in and out of the classroom propel them to an array of colleges and exciting careers this is a place where a student can reach with stars as an educator photographer engineer or even an NPA player I'm Jalen Brunson NBA point guard in 2015 to see Mr high school graduate Steve and offers world-class academics and the best in-state co-curricular arts and Athletics but while the vast majority of students can take advantage of all of Stevenson has to offer there are hundreds who walk these Halls each day silently carrying a burden you may not see pretty sure should face financial hardship often like the most Basic Essentials they need to fully engage in their learning let alone access the school's Rich co-curricular experiences which are key to emotional growth for financially under-resourced our first generation students College can feel Out Of Reach even worse only five percent will ultimately be delivered what if there's a way to help and we didn't share right here right now that all students can succeed at Stevenson and Beyond [Music] the Stevenson Foundation empowers students to reach their brightest futures vital Foundation programs provide immediate assistance and long-term resources and our alumni association keeps Patriots connected I think without the support of the foundation I also would have gone to college my college search at a minimum would have been a far more conservative I guess in the sense that I would have been able to explore as many college options as many programs that they've offered and I think it would definitely considered going directly into the workforce more heavily outs if I had had the help of a foundation I don't think I would have pursued my education further than high school if it wasn't for the Stevenson foundation so once again I just want to give a thanks about Stephen saying you know it tends to be a higher income area all the theater schools tend to be higher income and so I feel like maybe like the lower income it gets overlooked a little bit like oh well Stevenson's rich like they don't need any help or support but there are kids from you know all different classes and all different backgrounds and so I think it's important that everyone feels supported not a lot of people have the uh the financials that a lot of the people here do at this school I have the resources I have a little Community behind find it and it's just like the knowledge that I'm not alone um and that there are other people supporting me within the foundation and other people that also want to see me uh succeed not only my family like I could just turn to anyone mostly anyone in the foundation be like hey what do you think about this or can I get your opinion on that and it's not something that I would have had had it not been for the foundation now maybe this crucial supports are possible without the partnership of community members like you it helps students Thrive here at Stevenson and with hard work and effort realize the future of their dreams join me in support and success of all Patriots make your gift or get involved today at CNC foundation.org foreign immediately after the video ended people start putting out their wallets it was amazing it was it was very cool um but it was a great event and it really just uh highlighted um the great work that the foundation is doing on behalf of kids so it was a lot of fun very well done yeah it was very well done and uh the event was such a hit that they're already talking about having another Nashville unplugged in a year a year and a half try to make it a an annual thing and uh it was really great so we're happy with uh with the work that that's happening there so that's all I have can I have a motion to adjourn yeah or we can stick around the government folks are saying please all those in favor all right
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
this is also regarding the Press policy changes speaking to the mike thank you it appears the board or committees are rubber stamping suggested is iasb policy recommendations without adequate public discussion I believe there are 18 policies with no discussion reason for change or public comment prior to tonight's meeting that were changed or about to be changed the board described it as housekeeping and the overtly and and overtly stated that the goal was to align dg-99 policies with press and the iasb I'm just a simple layman in these matters but we do do we not have an elected School Board to critically evaluate policy changes and not just rubber stamp a non-elected state board's recommendation as context the iasb was a paid member of the National School Board Association which was the School Board Association which lobbied the FBI to investigate parents who spoke out at school board meetings why should we rubber stamp policies which iasb recommends iasb also recommends in a statement of beliefs number 14 that students should be allowed to turn in assignments late with credit or statement of belief 13 that are the principles and Equity of an inclusion should be incorporated in curriculum and operations if Illinois or even the Downers Grove was an educational Powerhouse returning spectacular results perhaps many would turn a blind eye uh that and just assume that the means justify the end but that's not the case I've got the SAT results here for the district and 46 and 47 respectively in math and Ela are not meeting the required standards so we can self-congratulate ourselves and give awards every every board meeting but the facts are the facts here we've got some problems in this state it's it seems like the case is that they're particularly in Illinois that there's a group think among anyone involved in public education it seems to be endemic because policy goes from Think Tank to state board or a state level associations and then on to the board where the rubber stamp is affixed it's all good we all agree the school board that simply adopts State industry associations recommendations is derelict a local board is the only control that parents have over public education a ball work if you will the public deserves the opportunity to learn about these changes and have a comments we want effective we demand an effective board oversight and transparency but go along get along board is not an effective board and we're going to need a little more than that thank you was the last public speaker can I just clarify something I I would like to correct the record before we go forward okay um board policies are follow a very specific process and go through a board policy Committee of which the meetings are public meetings they are posted in advance with an agenda at those meetings the administration which is met in advance of those meetings and has reviewed the recommendations for press sit with the policy committee discuss the rationale for the changes whether or not we will adopt those changes or modify them have lots of discussion and sometimes debate over those changes before the policy committee comes to a decision whether or not to advance those to the full board or not when they go to the full board they are posted for the community in advance with revisions so that the community advance of that first reading has the ability to see what the board will be recommended the board has received all of that information well in advance of that public meaning then they are on review for at least several weeks sometimes an entire month before they come to the entire board at which time board members can reach out to any member of the policy committee or the administration to accept revisions or recommendations sometimes then we come back and discuss their policy in depth as a full board sometimes it's the policy committee received that and the administration is recommending making that change that's happened over the last month many of the policies that come not all are brought up by press press is a service from the Illinois Association of school boards that we pay for that takes a look at the policies that are out there and the laws that have been passed and determines whether or not they may there are recommended or required because of changes in law updates to board policies we pay for that service because for me to review all of that with the board's attorneys would consume a lot of time and could leave room for error the fact is is that there is a wide variety of school attorneys across the state that work with the Illinois Association of school boards to revise and update those policies we pay for that service collectively school districts across the state are paying for that service in a cost-sharing way in order to make the cost of keeping track of law cost effective for local communities otherwise every one of our policy committee meetings would be exceedingly expensive in the attorney review leading up to that that meeting now there are other times when we look at certain press policies that come along as an Administration and there are sometimes recommended changes optional changes or changes that we don't believe that are necessarily tied to law but our recommendations in practice that then we do evaluate discuss with the board's attorneys before taking that to the policy committee um this allows us to keep current with law and to make sure we are effectively and efficiently updating our policies there are a good number of policies that are District 99 policies that the policy committee has a schedule established for periodic review of those policies that are our own any Community member could ask the policy committee to review a policy and then it would be up to that policy committee to reevaluate that policy that doesn't mean that those that it will be reviewed it doesn't mean that changes will be accepted but the policy committee has the option of discussing those at that time and there are times where the policy committee or board members as a whole recommend policies for review at that committee once again they are discussed at the policy committee comment first reading they are posted as public documents with revision they are there for a month then they come back for second revision I report to the board on any suggestions or changes that happen in that month period of time we'll do that tonight I have received nothing before this evening even though they've been public for quite a while about uh changes that that should be made in those policies they'll come back later this evening but I wanted to put on the record the process that we follow nobody rubber stamps policies here the administration reviews these policies in detail here there are many hours that go into board policy and plenty of public oversight over those processes now if there are anything anything else you'd like for me to address I'd be happy to do so I was just going to add what we did but again they are posted for a public comment they're open for public comment all the revisions are on there for both readings and I just I signed out and checked in to make sure for the last meeting that they were all visible to the public through board docs and they are all there I know staff can probably attest to this but I mean over the years that I've served on policy committee I I you know I think you know how much time I spend reading everything and frequently come to those meetings with several comments in questions and by the time it comes to here for first reading any of those questions or comments that I've had as well as any that other board members shirelle being the other one with me right now um you know those things are Incorporated so that when you're getting that first reading there's already been right and then we still have yet another month to hear from people but um you know it's you know it's it's unfortunate that some people perceive this as a rubber stamp sort of thing because it means that um I can't I couldn't tally all the hours I've spent reading all these policies and it's actually been a huge work as Nancy will attest since we've joined the board to straighten out the policies um and it's you know to have to have policies that aren't consistent with regular standards of care puts this District would put this District as right would put this District at a considerable liability and risk you know being on an island so you want to make sure that the things that you're you're adopting that there's consensus um Statewide and we've done a I think we've done great work in that regard and we continue um you know to demonstrate that in terms of the fact you've you mentioned that we have policies that press hasn't adopted they're our own policies and we have a regular schedule by which we're making sure that we're looking at those two we look them and we talk about them right right just to make sure that we're not forgetting to go over those things that we need to look at and you know as we read those press updates I'm not only am I reading the updates but I'm reading the existing policy too and and sometimes we've had little Corrections I've caught things that our attorneys caught said hey we we need to take care of this because press isn't up to date yet on that so um so this board's done an excellent job as far as I'm concerned with in addition to the two members of the committee oh I'm sorry in addition to the two members of the committee it is the expectation that every board member read prior to voting all the materials and it is not an infrequent occurrence that we see questions going back and forth a question here a question there um or even a point of clarification so again I the suggestion that it's a rubber stamp is is not you have this really large um there's been a few large groupings of changes you know and this is really attributable to covid um and and uh you know the lack of keeping up with things as much as we'd like maybe for a lot you know not us but the state and people uh a lot of legislation yeah overall so we we we you know there were there were more than normal um uh changes the Illinois school code is more than or almost doubled in size and 10 to 15 years so that's a lot of fun there's a lot of legislation around schools that has been passed in in the legislative session not the last year but the year before it was extensive the number of school related pieces of legislation that passes in pieces of legislation you know so unfunded or not some of these things are our policy we have to adopt it and it's been mandated we must adopt them so um so we're up against that as well and sometimes that's a little frustrating so um I you know I I get that you know if if you haven't been following along with us for a long period of time and you show up at the meetings and it can appear that we're just you know saying okay to things when in fact it's there's a lot going on behind the scenes and and the meetings you say are open and we publish all this stuff online and it's all very very transparent um and um and we're doing a lot of work at every one of our meetings board workshops board meetings the only difference between those two meetings is a board meeting there is action but there's a good amount of board business conducted at workshops and at meetings and at policy committee meetings so this isn't not any one meeting is more important than than the previous one but I do want to just a second because we yeah we've stepped on Charles wanted to add in the previous packet prior to this one there was multiple hours spent yes reviewing that because it was a huge packet and sometimes the my point you're reading this and it requires even a second read or a third read of that of one policy just to ensure that we're given to the due diligence that it need so I am excited I'm I'm glad to be a volunteer here but I also want to make the point of the work that we put in to be a volunteer here in the community as taxpayers as we all have stated tonight so well I I just want to say I can't tell you the number of times that we've looked at policies and um in fact waited another month to vote on them because we've had questions we talk about it and and gives the policy committee time to look at it again to to iron it out so that it is the way we want it to be and to think that we rubber stamped this is to me appalling so that's just my personal opinion so for what it's worth it's okay all right okay moving on to the recommendations and reports of the superintendent the 2023 medical dental and vision plan no no we've got I've got some it's not actually something else is surprise so a few bits of good news and awards um our own Julie nydek was recognized [Applause] the Holly Jack outstanding service award uh this recognizes uh School Board secretaries that have provided extraordinary work and service to their communities which we know Julie has for a very long time and uh as much as she wanted to go in and delete this slide out of the presentation I felt that it was important to recognize and then at the upcoming joint annual conference uh in November there will be a special award ceremony for Julie so uh we'll send out those details to the board so we can all be there to celebrate with Julie on this well-earned recognition the work that you do [Applause] also District 99 in white and Company are being recognized for the highest level award of Distinction in architecture for our Master facility plan project so it is I have been informed by white that it is very rare for a project of this size to receive this award these are because it's such a high bar to receive the award of Distinction most school districts will piece mail out the different parts of the project so most school districts like us would do the commons as one application and then the auditorium as one and you know and and and through all the pieces of the project hoping that one of those would meet the bar if you don't if you submit it all like this and you don't get it you're done like you get one shot for the projects so it's kind of bold in the approach of going after the highest award for the entire project but I think it shows uh the level uh of work that we provided for our community throughout that entire project from beginning to end so this will be a featured uh project there is a exhibition throughout the entire conference where people can walk through and see examples of these different projects and ours will be highlighted at various points throughout the conference congratulations staff and that put in to the input for these projects have to be recognized too because they put extra hours in you know in all the Committees and all the work that was done and I just want to say thank you to all of them because this wouldn't have happened without all of their input and so it comes down to we have a fabulous staff and very true that means a lot for our students and for our community so thank you to all of them thank you Terry we had over 300 staff members that volunteered their time but we also had dozens of students that served on a variety of different committees and dozens of community members that served as one was in the room tonight Don Renner who served on the core committee which was a lot of hours that Mike and Don served on that that committee so thank you all thank you all absolutely I don't know about you all but um the when we passed the referendum when the community said yes in that first time walking past all the um all the uh the exhibition at the triple I conference in November I can remember looking and thinking boy this would be really great if now we're up here in another four or five years or so and now it's happened so it's really it's really a cause for celebration for the entire community says a lot about District 99 yeah how we can come together as a team to get great things done and then my final recognition for the night is we are an Illinois principles week Arwin and Courtney aren't here tonight because they're at IPA the Illinois principles Association conference the next couple of days the board and and I recognized our building leaders today with a small gift that we've provided them but a huge thank you to all of our building leaders that give lots of hours and time and dedication to Leading our staff and students at each of the the two schools all right now any other surprises that's it that's it for surprises all right uh this is the time of the year where we come to the board with uh medical dental and vision plan and premium changes I know this is what you all look forward to every year these recommendations come from the insurance committee a reminder that that committee is made up of representatives from all of our different employee groups across the district as well as Hub which is the company that is our insurance Consultants that look at what's out on the market and work in our best interest around plan changes and redesigns for uh the past several years we have been working with the insurance company or the insurance Consultants hub on a challenge that our different PPO plans and we had several of them were cost effective as a whole but were not balanced within those individual plans so at various times one plan would be offsetting the costs of other plans and a while ago there was some more significant differences and benefits between the plans over the last several years knowing that uh we were balanced in the whole but not across the different plans we started working to make changes to bring them more in line which ended up causing plan a and plan B to become more and more similar in their benefits over time as a result A and B are not that much dissimilar I'll show you a slide in a second that shows you the key differences between the two but we're at the point where um between premium increases next year and then the inherent costs within plan a that combining it with B actually ends up being the cost-effective move for those in a um so we're recommending collapsing A and B into one plan keeping the benefits in Plan B those in plan a will see a slight decrease in premiums those in Plan B will see a slight increase in premiums but across this this will balance out those two plans into one standard PPO plan is the board is aware a year ago we added a PPO plan has similar benefits to the ppob but has a health savings account so a higher deductible plan with a health savings account so moving forward we recommend and there's also a bronze plan that's out there we're recommending collapsing all of the ppos into two options a standard PPO which is a low deductible higher Premium plan and the PPO with an HSA which is a lower premium higher deductible but has an HSA to help offset that deductible plan so that and then we'll spend the next several months through open enrollment explaining the actual details behind this the advantages disadvantages I know some of of our higher users of our insurance plans we'll need to sit down with one-on-one to walk them through what the best option choice is for them moving forward but we've been the insurance committee has been at leading Us in this Direction with our Consultants recommendations over the last several years we believe that this year is the time to make that final step going into this this was strongly considered last year but the fact that we were still experiencing the pandemic at a high rate at that point made us cautious about changing anything related to Insurance in an ongoing pandemic we feel at this point it's the the right change to make at the right time so that's the summary of the changes questions about the overview that I just provided I know I shared with the board the same memo that went to the staff so this provided a lot of that same information so this would be the premiums that the board would be approving tonight um the PPO increases as I said are a slight decrease from ppoa they're about a 10 percent increase from ppob so they kind of fall in the middle of those two plans the PPO with the HSA is about similar rates is what they are this year am I correctory in that and the HMO is a nine percent increase but the HMO is in a managed plan that's managed by Blue Cross Blue Shield so those increases aren't at our discretion what we're working what uh the HR department to read myself for all working on is starting uh to get ready for open enrollment next month is putting together a crosswalk for every employee so like if I'm on this plan now and I select this plan next year your premium will increase or decrease by this amount your deductible will increase by decrease but your total out of pocket will increase decrease by this amount to make it and remember for each of the employee groups that could be somewhat different based on how contracts are negotiated so that everybody can kind of get the big General overview of if I step from this to this this will be my experience finally this kind of shows what will happen from going from a to the standard that's the biggest change overall the PPO with the HSA those benefits remain the same from last year to this year the standard PPO is the benefits that were inside of B last year so standard PPO is the same benefits as B uh going from if somebody's in ppoa and then goes to the standard PPO their employee deductible for for employee only will increase by 250 dollars for a family or employee plus one anywhere where it says family here it's the same for employee plus one will increase by 750 a year total out of pocket increases for an employee 750 so employee only family or employee plus one by two thousand two hundred fifty dollars those changes if you factored in um the premium increases that would have happened in a if we maintained a uh if you factor those in they would and the deduction and premium of going from a to the standard so you take all of that in a pot of savings what the increase would have been and what the savings actually is uh if somebody maxed out their insurance so maxed out their total uh out of pocket it would be pretty close to balanced so like a person in the worst case scenario it's kind of cost neutral for going from a to um trees not in her head so I said that correctly going from a to standard would be that somebody going staying in B it is about a 10 percent increase um and then if you switch between plans then you know it all all changes because you're changing your benefits at that point so we anticipate that there will be a lot of movement at Open Enrollment this year because of the change the education behind the changes in the plan and everything else but in the end everybody will then filter into three specific plans right now we have oh my goodness two hmos a bronze a d uh yeah six yeah so we have six different plans which makes it sometimes you can have too many it just makes it difficult to sort out all of the cost benefit analysis I think you know this first year will be heavy lift because everybody's gonna have to figure out where they go but then after this uh for current employees or onboarding new employees the amount of work around insurance benefits gets a lot easier it gets a lot easier to understand and it gets a lot easier for the insurance committee to manage this moving forward so for all of those reasons we're recommending the or adopting we're recommending the board adopt these changes tonight any questions I have a question and apologize if I missed this because is is there any um costs increase to the district yes so the cost increase to the district is very dependent on where everybody kind of flows to so if somebody goes from A to B There is a savings and premiums to the employee there's also a savings and premium to the staff anybody that's in B that stays in B there's a cost increase to employees there's a cost increase to the board anybody that goes from a to the PPO with HSA there's a premium savings for the employee there's a premium savings for the board right so depend if somebody goes to HMO you know it all kind of moves that way we built in when we brought the we anticipated this was coming when we built the budget this year based on the conversations we had we've been having for several years we built into the budget we jury and Mark built into the budget anticipated 10 percent increase in Insurance costs overall we believe that we will be within that projection when everything sorts out over this year a reminder that any increases that are there are really ha only half a year of those increases show up in this year's budget right because the yes the insurance year covers the calendar year our fiscal year ends in June so we would have time to if we were outside of that to adjust for this one half of the year but then strategically adjust even more for next school year so we have been based on the fluctuations and what is what we think yeah right we think that that is the worst case scenario for the board okay okay that's similar to the increase for somebody staying in B it's about a ten percent if we if we've ever been an increase to the board yes yes so the increase isn't because of the change no there would have been right there would have been an increase in in there probably would have been a greater increase for the board because we would have been absorbing the increases of A and B where in this case the board gets a savings for people that move from A to B or a to the consumer driven Health Plan and only sees increases for those in the HMO or in B that remain there the committee that's representing the you know is representative of employee groups Insurance Advisors staff so this is something that's been well vetted amongst our our staff right we're expecting I would assume uh a favorable response to this change all right for the most part I think anytime you make a change you're going to have people that are concerned so I don't know how if favorable is fair but I I think we will work I know we'll work very hard to make sure that people understand what benefits are afforded them well there isn't anybody I don't think that doesn't feel the pain of health insurance costs going up every year as a self-employed person I yeah it's I pay more I keep getting less but I think hopefully we we're doing a good job here to try to maximize the benefit while keeping costs the nice thing about the insurance committee is that the board has the Insurance Consultant there Hub acting on your behalf in the room right you have the administration acting on trying to act on everybody's behalf and even if you looked at it selfishly from the employee groups if they were only acting on their behalf you know they have a seat at the table but that's not the way that that committee works it's always historically especially because we're a self-funded plan has tried to balance you know costs and benefits with one another and maintain a high level of coverage for the best possible price and I assume that this compares favorably with other districts in the in the area too so it keeps us competitive that way as well it does very good all right uh that is up for Action this evening are there any other questions all right uh t99 update is the board is aware part of this year's budget is an expansion of t99 just to give some history this is the reason for the expansion if you look back when I showed up in the district in 1617 I think was my first year we had 46 students in the district utilizing the resources of t99 within the next couple of years we're going to be pushing up close to 100 so more than doubling the the student enrollment there when I got here in 2016 it was tight with those 46 students as the board as aware last year we expanded a little bit more in there and now to keep up with it we purchased the lot north of the current property so you can see that above the little place marker there it's the property up there in the top corner um we'll take control of that property in the spring and then demolish what's there grade the property and then expand the building and the parking our building footprint will expand kind of into the current parking lot you're going to see this in a second here in an image I think and then parking moves into the lot next door and is the board is aware the Omega restaurant across the street for a long time years and years has allowed us to use their back half of their parking because we don't fit in the t99 parking lot so this is yeah I thought I had an overview so there's the overview of how the property changes with uh the dark dark buff dark tan I don't know what color it is uh is the existing uh footprint the lighter tan is than the new edition and then you can see the parking lot where that falls in with a larger Bus drop off and turn around right now uh remember a lot of students at t99 are coming in groups of one or two or three so we have a lot of drop off and pick up there we end up out on Bernard quite a bit this will help us keep our traffic on our property so in this in the dark buff or whatever it is um what point about is are we going to build out from you know how it's kind of like empty in the back oh I hit the wrong button I don't have a pointer here just about you know just so we already built out classroom uh uh five and six okay the washroom storage sensory all in the back that was all the garage before yeah so that's what we did last summer okay and then uh the front half from classroom four forward was the original build out right um and then we're adding all of the stuff up above it so two more classrooms another multi-purpose space um you can see a pantry some toilet space a couple of offices uh there as well you could build back there yep just like we did the last time I'm just asking well what I'm wondering is I mean it what yeah when when when do we reach when do we max out with this well with at about 115.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
whoa A lot of people tonight nice to see you okay our purpose is is we raise money to provide grants for teachers or students or businesses people that are interested in helping students with Innovative learning projects okay okay so um this year we this round we had eight grants we gave away five thousand two hundred and twenty six dollars it has accumulated to 622 grants worth 321 902 so that's what we have given so far this grant round isn't that wonderful this grant round will reach 1014 students in our Lake Central School District okay so the first one we have is Tracy Capozzi from Watson The Treehouse Travelers for 750 dollars okay the goal of the Treehouse Travelers is for students to learn all the important reading skills while traveling through different time periods and learning about new cultures and science topics they will be working together to read and discuss novels with groups of students and partners of a like ability different abilities in small and whole reading groups with Tracy here the novels will take the students on a journey that will spark the love of reading while whisking them away off to different places and keeping them in suspense while each eventual ultimately encourages them to want to read and learn more the strategies they learn through this unit will encourage them and they will gain science and social studies topics and will make them stronger readers and more well-rounded students so um side note I use these in my classroom my kids they read one chapter they want to read the next chapter we don't you know so these are wonderful books very much oh yes Tracy thank you so much okay hello um our next Grant recipient is Lori Rosine from Clark Middle School Maurice Grant was called building School community Through project lit for a total of 747.29 this is for Clark's project lit members our literacy members who helped spread the joy of reading among the rest of the students via donations to classroom libraries book talks on announcements and summer reading raffle and campaign congratulations [Applause] our next our next Grant recipient is Molly waldir from kaler middle school her Grant is titled integration of virtual reality to impact social studies academic performance and she was awarded 642.92 cents students will be able to take virtual reality field trips and interact with the content to bring another layer of immersive learning to each unit Molly Molly oh she's right next to me congratulations no I wondered where she was something benefits first of all as a co-president of the foundation I'd just like to say thank you to the board members that are here this evening to help and work all the time we have our co-president Susan Schweitzer and our vice president Danielle spellevoro did I do good we also have Mike seljin who is our Treasurer and Zach seljin who helps us out do lots of running around to get things done so you guys thank you for being here this evening and Melody we know is our grant chairman but you didn't say your name so there you go yeah and you're pay to die for doing this we also want to thank the school board and the administration Rob always helps us out a lot Dr Morocco thank you very much and we're taking a second and we'll move right along here all right thank you all uh my uh opportunity to present her check tonight is Beth Hall from the high school she works with a couple other people Mark stribach and Holly Sweeting and it their Grant is called accessibility through virtual reality she was awarded 586.89 students will quickly learn that the sky is not the limit when they board a spaceship to explore our solar system and in feeling adventurous they may choose where to go and where they've never been before on a mission to explore the enchanted territory of deep space all via virtual reality amazing technology huh thank you I better give you your money so I'm jumping back in okay um Elizabeth Schultz is from Homan it's called give it give it a shot for 514 dollars basketball is a great way to work on a team it also improves gross motor skills by using major muscle groups young children who play basketball improve flexibility and endurance the students will benefit from improved fine motor skills such as hand eye coordination your consideration of this grant proposal is much appreciated in order to ensure that home and students to have updated safe equipment in which to enjoy the sport so thank you [Applause] cheese Jennifer Miller is she here tonight okay Jennifer Miller was one that didn't respond to me her Grant is what is a fraction angle for 493 dollars and then we have two people that didn't attend Jeff Edmond at Clark for student selection and further reading and Allison council at Clark for a middle school book love so and we forgot to introduce Janice Malco or Dr Malco is our board liaison so so thank you again guys appreciate it thank you very much for your time and our entire Community helps to raise funds and I see some faces here that work with the foundation I just wanted to say thank you very much for sponsoring and working with us we have a 5k fundraiser that's coming up honoring one of our own students Dr Dana Les who is a graduate and perhaps some of you know about her story we do appreciate everybody that contributes Lake Central is a really a good place to be and thank you for the community for helping us help our teachers [Applause] very young thank you very much [Applause] all right I'm going to move on with my final agenda and above the night and I do have talking points in the back if anybody wants to see what exactly I'm following in terms of the format and I do want to try to follow it for those folks who aren't here this evening but maybe either watching the live stream at home or we'll watch the recording later I think most of the people in this room are aware but at our last meeting we were challenged to look more closely at the displays in our classrooms throughout the district and we did go back and you know take a stroll around the buildings to see what do we have as far as displays or signage that could be deemed political or religious in nature part of what we received in the message of concern was that we really weren't following the current case law or guidance in some cases of the Indiana State Attorney General and so we wanted to look closely at all of that information um a review of that did you know remind us at central office that you know our classrooms are not an open public forum okay we have different litmus tests for what should be in classrooms compared to certain areas a Town Square Etc and I want to say this early in this presentation that we still firmly believe that our staff members have decorated their rooms to make students feel welcome it's been said to me that's too simple Larry that's too simple of an explanation but I still firmly believe that however it is in plenty of case law that classroom decorations are considered non-verbal speech and so our teachers while they can put any sign in their yard they want for any cause that they want as a classroom teacher you know the courts have said were paid to teach the material not express opinions and create our own lessons okay student displays on the other hand if you look at case law on that it's a lot broader unless the student's shirt or the message that they are displaying is causing a significant disruption to Student Learning or student discipline the school has to determine that it is not a violation of what the state would say should not be displayed so as we move forward we look at it and say okay we got to be intentional in what we have displayed mainly because our students are a captive audience they don't have a choice we have a a state that has a mandatory attendance law and when you sign up to be a student in our schools we should have classrooms that cannot be seen as indoctrinating our students So based on that our displays should be neutral displays involving political or religious perspectives as I said earlier could open us up to a being an open Forum which means then some of the other hate stuff swastika flag stars and bars things of that nature would also be eligible to be displayed um and so the conclusion you draw from the analysis in Indiana is that all messages must be considered for political or religious content you don't have to go too far west to get a different message okay that pride flag in Illinois is not considered a political message in Oregon it's not considered a political message in Indiana it is um so the results you know in us having to look at what we display and trying to determine where exactly does it fit so what do we do to adjust to this in order to follow the guidance from the law case law the Attorney General opinion we are permitting only classroom displays that are neutral politically or religiously now our staff was notified last week to remove items that support black lives matter Pride Flags specific lgbtq messaging and religious messaging at the same time you know staff must continue to be diligent in addressing and reporting violations of Lake Central's various non-discrimination policies so at our principals meeting the week after this came up my number one concern I shared with our admin was how will we support students who saw that little symbol on the wall or on a teacher's desk as a welcome mat how will we give that same level of comfort and I shared then and I'll share it again now that our staff probably needs to be more diligent than ever to not let kids get picked on for any reason color of their skin the way they dress the color of their hair they're too tall they're too short they're too skinny too heavy I believe and I have full confidence that our staff can use this situation as a springboard to celebrate kindness to call out meanness and to can you continue to be welcoming because they already are and that's why students like our schools that's why students like our teachers because they trust them and then for those who are concerned who say I'm glad this stuff is going away and our teachers do evaluate their staff they're in classrooms regularly informally and formally and so they will continue to observe to check that but with 550 different staff members and 9 200 different students things can be brought up many times by students and so discussions do occur and it it can in many ways be beneficial to the learning process um so what else can we do well we have to study this a little more and I think our people are pretty creative but we have a board policy 2110 that already says that all are welcome here it already says that each individual has dignity and worth students are our number one priority and perhaps we can amend it to add something all students are welcome and all are respected we can adapt that policy anytime we want to include stronger language but in the end you know it is the actions and the words of staff that are the most important thing for having our students know they're cared about do I think that some symbols are comforting yes I understand that but currently based on everything that we've researched in all of the legal opinions we've gotten we will not win this argument in in a court in Indiana um so really it comes down to how can we use this situation to become a Kinder Lake Central that's what I'd like to see I think that's what a lot of people in this room would like to see one other note I want to say before I turn it over and I know that a lot of people are going to come up and make comments and we welcome those here at the end of the the business meeting is that if we do board policy revisions we generally talk those over at a work session but it never gets voted until it comes before this regular public meeting so when we list a board agenda we individually list those policies so before any action would get taken people if you if you watch the agenda you would see it coming and when we take action at this meeting it is an action item so you would sign up on that first opportunity to speak and weigh in before the board would hear the proposal from me and then make a motion and then vote so that's all I have for right now and I will turn it over then to Mrs mucha Director of Human Resources we are recommending the following Personnel items be approved but I do want to draw special attention to the retirement of Nancy moroviak who has 39 years of education so congratulations do we have a motion we have a motion by Dr Malco second second by Mrs Kelly any discussion hearing none all in favor aye motion passes thank you my second item is for transportation benefit change to increase by one personal business day for every bus driver we've improve the transportation benefit change we have a motion by Dr Medlin second by Mr Marshall any discussion it will it will now match what the paraprofessionals get I think all in favor aye motion passes thank you thank you move right along to our director of primary education Dr Bracey good evening I'm just seeking approval for the professional leave request in your board packets move to approved motion by Mr Marshall second second by Mrs Kelly any discussion all in favor aye aye motion passes thank you our director of secondary education Mrs Castaneda thank you for my first item I am seeking your approval for the professional leave requests the revised copy that you received this evening motion to approve we have a motion by Miss Kelly second second by Mr Marshall any discussion all in favor aye aye motion passes thank you and for my second item I am seeking your approval for the field trip requests move to prove the field trip request motion by Dr Medlin and I will Dr mail cow will second that all in favor or any discussion excuse me all in favor aye aye motion passes thank you director of student services Mrs gramala my only item tonight is to seek approval for the professional leave requests included in the board packet move to approve motion by Mr Marshall second Miss Kelly will second that any discussion I was wondering what what is augmentative in alternative communication I in low Tech Mrs Hall is watching me answer this question um hi and low-tech methodology to support students with speech and language development so students who might be non-verbal how can we support them and give them a voice and a functional mode of communication so some examples and can you give me some examples sure um low Tech would be a picture exchange Communication System where A student uses a picture to request what they want all the way up to high tech which is a those would be technology devices that here we tend to use a methodology called Lamp which allows students to use a device to speak for them and generate spoken language very good I appreciate that explanation thank you so much all in favor aye aye motion passes thank you our director of Business Services Mr James thank you Mrs sues um now is the the culmination of the budget process that we started two meetings ago so my first couple of resolutions will deal with adopting the 2023 budget so the first resolution in your packet is to seek your approval for the budget Appropriations and tax levy as presented move to approve I have a motion by Mr Marshall second by Dr Malco any discussion all in favor aye motion passes thank you Ms next item is to seek your approval for the 2023 capital projects plan move to prove the 2023 capital projects plan we have a motion by Dr Medlin I will second that any discussion all in favor aye aye motion passes thank you my next item is to seek your approval on the 2023 School Bus replacement plan also move to approve motion by Mr Marshall second by Dr Malco any discussion Mr James am I correct in Remembering these are mostly propane uh we have been we average around 10 bus new buses a year and we've been doing approximately seven propane and three gas just because we need the traditional gas vehicles to go on some of the longer distance routes where we can't necessarily rely on propane tanks to be found so um yes but we are transitioning more and more buses to the propane route all right thank you all in favor aye aye motion passes thank you my next resolution sets the amount that we will annually transfer from our education fund to the operations fund uh just a little history that once the funding changed in 2019 many things that used to be paid off our old general fund were statutorily moved to the operations fund but the funding mechanism did not change that all the money comes into the ad fund so we have to transfer money to the Ops fund state law doesn't want you to transfer more than 15 percent of your tuition support there this resolution will transfer six million dollars during calendar year 2023 from education fund to Ops fund and those would represent approximately nine percent of our our funding so our secret approval on that resolution motion to prove motion by Mr Marshall second second by Mrs Kelly any discussion all in favor aye aye motion passes thank you uh next I seek the board approval to apply for the common school loan program from the state of Indiana we use these funds to replace technology Chromebooks and smart boards throughout our school district so I seek your approval for that motion to approve second by Dr Medlin any discussion and every year when we go through common School fund loan approvals I always suggest that we add the staff to support the unique and effective implementation of the equipment yeah yep we have the tech trainers that specifically do that at our buildings and we have the technology assistants that are signed to each building as well so um yep they are there to support our staff and our teachers thank you all right all in favor aye aye motion passes thank you I seek your approval for the three professional leave requests in your board packet move to prove the three professional leave requests I have a motion by Dr Medlin and I will second that any discussion hearing none all in favor aye aye motion passes thank you um next I seek your approval on the donations that were listed in your board packet motion to approve the donations donation excuse me Mrs Kelly and do we have a second I will second that I have a second but I approve those donations thank you motion thank you uh all in favor aye motion passes thank you uh now I just want to give the board and the public uh just a a summary recap of our ADM count our ADM account is our student account that is taken in the middle of September that basis of that count is uh what is used for our funding I mean our education fund um comparing the fall count here in 2022 to 2021 we are down 134 students district-wide to a total of nine thousand zero ninety four um but just diving into the numbers a little bit more um what I do is I kind of look at the cohorts of each at each class you know how does this your seventh graders compare to last year's sixth graders and so forth and our current junior class at the high school is about 25 students less than they were last year sophomores and the 10th graders are about 15 less than they were a freshmen however pretty much every other grade has more students than it than they did last year um and so you look to say that well then how are we down 134 students well the answer is because we had 844 kids graduate and we had 600 kids come in as kindergartners and so instead of being down 244 students we're only down 134 because we've had 110 more families and kids coming to the school district and wanting to be here and moving into our district instead so um we're we're down our high school numbers this was a big class of 844 last year our current classes at the high school are all under 800.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
so the summaries were taken directly from there they were not crafted in-house I put on there the Lexile level the H in HL stands for high interest we've got the Lexile number so what's Alexa the Lexile is the reading the level of reading goes from low to high and then the reading age as described by the publisher so you can see that the Publishers are Publishers of books for young children so little brown books for young children penguin young readers groups Scholastic um and then you have Simon and Schuster little brown Etc again just just to give some um some context to who decides what age group this is appropriate for and that would include taking into consideration the Lexile level and the reading age and grades and then bookstore sort of lets you search by certain subjects and so this one about ghosts called ghost boys if you were searching for black and African-American protagonist you that would pop up as a as a book that was on the list so the book one of the books that was in question was a book called ghost voice and I only shared this with you as information that the teachers take into consideration when making their selections so they look at you know who else thought this was a good book because the classroom teacher might think it's a good book but they go to different different lengths to understand where where these books are in the genre foreign so that you can get an idea of the material that teachers looked at before making this decision I know there was some question about developmental appropriateness which is why I sort of highlight some of these sorry faith I probably should not just put them together no that's for you but she likes passengers I do so pretty widely read pretty widely um you could see some nutmeg Award nominees in there for Connecticut you get an idea of some of the grade levels certainly is I think a wide variety not a not a niche or a unknown in talking with the teachers there was a conscious effort to represent student groups at Dodd and so what I did was just to pull up some of the percents of students that were that we have in uh it for some of the students that we have in our schools and so we have um five percent of students who represent two or more languages in the seventh grade so they're coming to us knowing two or more languages meaning is that not accurate that's two or more races two or more races sorry we do have information on languages though do we not hang on no it must be right here I'm sure it's right here well let me start we've got at dot point two percent for American Indian 10 who are Asian five percent black not Hispanic 75 white six percent Hispanic and four percent that represent two or more races so when the teachers had spoken about having windows and mirrors within the reading material I think that's part of what they're getting at having a having a variety of characters in the novels that they've selected so what else can I tell you I have a question sure um were any because this this was done in the past year past three this is our third year Mr wood three years um any of these books on the all of those books except for the two additional choices so we've been going with the same books for a couple years now yeah for the support here this is the third year can you um take us go back three years ago how did we get into book clubs like what was what was the process who um I mean you know what adult book clubs are a lot I mean you know they're not always just reading sessions we don't buy the wine in our book okay I didn't say that but you know so I guess I just how did you decide that setting up book clubs would be a um uh effective for a um it would just be a and a valuable curriculum Choice yeah I think this Shanley is absolutely ready sorry yeah no question only because I saw some of her materials so back when we were making this decision first of all I think you know that our curriculum is primarily based in independent reading so we were making a change to that to allow for this age group to have participate in conversation because research shows that that at this age they're eager to communicate with them with one another and they want to have that discussion um there's lots of I have quotes here from um various sources talking about how it's essential for building empathy and having those communication having those conversations centered around similar texts allows for growth for students so a couple of the things that we are mindful of is building Norms in our discussion and having the teachers go through some conversation starters at the beginning of the unit and make sure that students are aware of how to participate a conversation they do that by modeling a short story text give the students a chance to participate in that and then they break them up into their book club groups okay I'll just add to that I think where you're gonna I mean book clubs have been around as a as a tool for many years I would say probably in the early 2000s they really started becoming more popular within schools I worked in my previous School District they were just setting up book clubs when I was teaching and getting into Administration my district was getting into book clubs and those types of things like Kristen said it was because it was especially at the middle school it allowed students to have some more controlled conversations in which they were able to be respectful of one another and pathetic of things and it also allows an instructional tool for teachers to really take a look at authors pose what perspectives those types of things they can really get into actually how the book was designed and what the author was thinking so it was a good Tool uh to get at that okay and could I just add yeah you know the pandemic we were so Reliant communicating by a customer that our kids really kids were struggling to communicate with each other just face to face the opportunity of the classroom to do that in a really structured way teaching them along the way how to have respectful conversations and how to communicate with one another I would add to that because we're experiencing this at the college level at the University we need we need to get kids back working collaboratively on projects and talking just talking to each other because nobody's talking to each other right now how did you conduct these during my pandemic and I do remember we discussed this during the curriculum review meeting a couple of years 18 months ago we did a combination of Google leads and so some students were remote so we had a Google Lead set up and some students were in the classroom um and when in the springtime when we do our book clubs we had them Outdoors a lot of the meetings took place Outdoors so they were able to be socially distanced yeah and what differences do you see now versus that I mean especially with those in-person outdoor meetings what are you seeing in terms of conversations in terms of understanding I mean so it's um interesting the students we do book club surveys after the book clubs just to get their feedback on things and they said that that there was some lagginess with technology sometimes and that was a struggle but they really appreciated the um ability to be able to communicate with their peers during that time even though it was over a computer but now they're talking about so last year's were saying I mean I've lots of quotes from different kids but they said that participating in a book club allowed them to take in um I learned that if a lot of people read the same book they will each take it in differently and then um one thing I learned while participating in the book club is that you should always be open about other people's ideas because sometimes you might learn new things about the book you would never have thought of so they oh here's another one um I learned that there are many great ideas coming from students and it's easier to express them to peers in small groups than in front of a whole class it felt like my classmates inside the group book club meeting were more animated and shared more ideas than when they were in front of an entire class um so I'll I'll try to sort of weave in a couple of other things that were brought up that day at the meeting one of them was about common sense media because the link that was sent out to parents had a link to Common Sense Media so that parents could sort of go on there and and read a little bit about it and I wanted to um explain why that link right like why not book Source or why not some something else and what we found was that Common Sense Media was a a resource that parents who especially those in the PTA were using to pick out movies that were appropriate for the parent for the PTA movie night so they would they that was like common lingo language resource amongst parents that they had been familiar with and using since elementary school so when the team looked at where should we go to give parents some ideas on you know Ruby views and you know just to get a overall summary of the book Common Sense Media was something that parents were familiar with that could be utilized not necessarily the resource that the teachers were using to select a book this is another tool that teachers are familiar with um this has been something that's been around it's um from achieve the core and it is a rubric that helps teachers to take a piece of text and identify where it lies as far as being complex moderately complex Etc so there's one side for literary text and one side for informational text so this isn't not necessarily a tool that teachers pull out every single time once they've used the rubric and gotten familiar with it it's something that helps them guide complex text and so this would be something that is in their toolbox that maybe they used for this maybe not but it's something that they're familiar with and use in general to look at and select texts for students foreign sort of mentioned that night was about what are we teaching if not the books that they're reading and the answer is we are not teaching the content in the book rather we're using a genre of books to teach Common Core grade level reading and literacy standards and these here are those standards and then there's some essential questions on the back that we're using in all of our in all of our standards in seventh grade you know what is the evidence whatever you're making your claim on whatever the character is saying what is the evidence in the book for that talking about inferences so you know you're looking at some enduring understandings about finding text evidence defining inference and these are this is the Crux of what is being taught and this happens whether it's an independent book it's an independent reading book and I want to stress that as as I think you said already but I'll just reiterate that there is a large volume of reading that students are doing in seventh and eighth grade they have choice of that these choices that were given for book club were again were six choices that we expanded to eight choices and I think that's what parents were looking for that we are we want kids to be happy with their choices we want to meet families where they are we want kids to have high interest books to read that these decisions that our teachers are making are coming from their work every day with students their interactions with parents during parent conferences and questions and the sorts of feedback that they're getting from being in the trenches at the middle school over a year's time especially when hearing about you know kids who just aren't interested in a certain book so making making these selections High interest which I know you're doing in independent reading but it also extended to the book clubs as well foreign we also talked about um talked about when I shared the demographics I wanted to make sure I put that in context and that when I was talking with Kristen we're talking about again those windows and mirrors and looking at Grant funds to support the buying of texts which we have done over the years to make sure kids have those opportunities to read things that you know are both a mirror so that they can see themselves in love with literature that they're reading and also a window into different points of view and different different lives different cultures Etc do we provide the students with whatever text they do yes yes and then they give them back to us and use them in Mexico so that we have to order more books I think we did the other question I have about adding two more choices did that do anything significantly to the the or maybe you don't know the answer to this yet to the size of the groups and to so because there were more choices it did make the groups in a lot of cases smaller um so you know because we were honoring in almost all cases their first choice We There are some groups that are like three instead of what normally last year would have been more like five-person groups do you have a group size um typically teachers don't want more than five it just tends to be not as productive once you get more than that and were there a lot of kids who had already selected the books and did they go back and change once they were given what what was the rate of change once they were given the second selections so um there was one team of students who had not yet um responded initially so I can't speak to them but we had 40 46 kids that chose the two new titles um amongst the three teams so there were some of them obviously were from had had already started and changed and then others were new you know just were interested in these titles okay um so under just curious on the rubric um how the seven books there where do they fall typically are they the extremely and very or do you so if you look at this that Marley okay so um where it talks about the left side level you'll notice that a lot of these Lexile levels are not particularly difficult but the other thing to to take into consideration is obviously the subject matter so by combining the two of those things I think then that is where that other rubric that you're talking about with complexity of text comes in as well so I think it's it's a combination of the features that are being shared um for ghost voice for example is told from um it involves a ghost and so that conceptually for some students is very difficult to like wrap their heads around right so even though it may be a low Lexile level the manner in which the book is written is a much higher like reading level does that make sense [Music] okay so on this rubric one text could go like in a lot of different levels and whatever like the language might be really complex but the idea is less or vice versa correct I'm going to share another piece of information and this is a sample of when kids are reading what kinds of questions might we be asking foreign so I hope that this provides some context around the discussion that was held at the Forum of 10 days ago and gives some context around how choices were made why they were made and how teachers came to the conclusions and the decisions that they did that it was not you know a group of people sort of in isolation making these choices but rather a real consideration of a variety of of inputs so I remember several years ago when this whole thing came to us and we were we were talking about this new idea of having bullets and this that and the other thing but I have to say I'm really um I'm actually kind of glad to be taking this having you present us with this deep dive because from my perspective I already I was quite on board with that as a curriculum Choice as a teaching learning choice [Music] but seeing sort of the amount of thought that goes into what we're doing I mean I just have to commend you this is a this is a very um well put together section of the curriculum I'm sure all the sections are as well researched and as well because you all are professionals you know what you're doing right um but um I'm happy to have taken this deep dive into what goes into putting together curriculum for one section in the seventh grade curriculum it's a lot there's a lot to it I agree and um I'm amazed at the amount of work that goes into this and so going forward um is this I mean there doesn't seem to be anything anything secretive about this or and I'm sure when you have your parent groups you do go into this Deepa dive with them I'm just thinking if this had been out there um could we have allayed anxieties or even prevented them uh you know if we saw the number of book awards awards that these books got um over you know that alone is an endorsement for the book which might have kind of quelt some of the fears or concerns and and um um I know you guys provided the descriptions for the books but you know reading levels and the Publishers and putting it out there because these are not fly by night Publishers I mean they're respected Publishers that we all leave books from um you know we read Little Brown books we read Simon and Schuster so it's not like it's you know the weather the Weather Underground suddenly bought a publishing house and we're trying to indoctrinate the kids I mean and so I'm just wondering if if putting this up there and those parents at least offering it making it available so those parents who are concerned saying where did this come from it's it's not a bunch of activist teachers you actually went and did the research and I don't know what you think if that's possible I mean it's just and I'm of the Mind more information is best and a lot of it will be ignored or people a lot of people will ignore it but for those who are concerned I think we can certainly put something up on our curriculum web page related to these book clubs and maybe even gather these same resources for the upcoming book club so that there is a plethora of information out there that people have access to yeah and I'm not saying overwhelm them but uh although it may this would this one this one home with everything no and I'm not saying no we'll break our budget for sure I'm just saying make it and just a few trees yeah um but they just have it as a resource for them it might just kind of you start a different kind of discussion then and and I love the way our discussion glad you know a couple Thursdays ago went eventually but it could have gone in a very different direction um so another thing and this is this is kind of my Bugaboo about modern reading you say you're not teaching context and and yet these are these are contextual questions here I mean this is what the what the child is getting now and I guess that makes me kind of sad because I you know we can read for technical expertise but do we read because we love it I think there are places in the curriculum where we do both okay yeah okay this just does not happen to necessarily be one of them but isn't that why we get into book clubs I mean ultimately is to I I mean I love the idea that they're going back and forth and my guess is they're not talking about pulling textile to meet a certain demand they're talking about this theme or that theme and I agree with this theme and and that is what kind of Fosters the love and appreciation of literature and I would hate to think that in you know the state's quest to make us technical readers we lose sight of the beauty of reading and why we do it in the first place which is which is really almost entertainment uh is sure beats TV these days but I don't know just I'd be interested in your thoughts on that yeah I think um when students are given the choice during the rest of the year they have an independent choice of any book they want to read and that's usually Guided by Teacher book talks in a first some teachers do the first chapter Fridays where they read the first chapter of a book and inevitably after you read that first chapter of us you have author of students coming up here and say I love that book I want that book so there are a bunch of opportunities during the school during the um length of the curriculum length of the school year to Foster that love of reading and I think the book clubs do that too just in a different way um I found that a lot of kids who didn't think they were going to enjoy the experience of the book club ended up not only making experience but loving a book too so I think it happens in a lot of different places in a lot of different ways and we just tend to do that differently in every unit uh so there's a developmental aspect here too to have when I go in and see the classes and see what the kids are having a conversation about I mean there are parts of you that are kind of like holy cow these kids are really asking me questions some said they have to be prompted they have to be coached if we taught how to ask those questions and I think we'll close especially in seventh grade really Foster that so yes there is a technical aspect of the reading but there's also a very technical aspect of how we engage one another in a group in seventh grade especially because in that group you're going to have highly motivated readers you're gonna have some unlimited readers you're going to have people you know so for them to participate in that like Kristen said in it's an experience and I think that's something Elementary's kind of get to that point but I think when kids are doing that at the level that they're doing it in seventh grade I think that's a part of the experience that they really like that their voice on on the textual reading Was Heard validated and then also in the discussion and that's I think when the kids are older at the high school level in college then they do that independently that's the essence yeah and anecdotally I I've seen over the years kids really enjoying reading more and more due to the choices that they have whether it's sensory choices in a book club or the choice of any book they want to read rather than being told they have to read this book yeah have you one other question I'm just wondering if you've thought of asking is um this is something that I used to do long ago when I used to teach and I we I was in the classical school so we were reading classical you know the classics and but I would say does this does this book Merit the classic label and with modern or contemporary fiction I would love to hear the the kids respond to will this book stand the test of time will we will your children be reading this book and if so why um in what technically but also um thematically just overall context of the book do you think it's a worthy raid we didn't ask that question exactly but one of the questions on the eighth grade book club survey was something to the effect of do you think this was an appropriate choice for this book like to be offered in book club unit and um and why so sort of similar because they had to say why they felt it was worthy and the other thing about book clubs is sometimes there's a really great book and it you could love the book but then to bring it to a book club conversation or or to say we're going to read it for book club it may not have anything to discuss or it may lack discussion points so I feel like that was another thing that we were mindful of in choosing these books is that they were going to be able to have conversations around them so I like that question and I think that we can definitely incorporate that to uh to ourselves right right yes that's like an old capped question yeah okay um I I'm just I want to just because it was raised um just how do you guys address the parents who were concerned and raise the point about political content and there are concerns in that area how would you how would you address that point with them if you had been there I mean what would you because they these are dealing with current event issues I mean how do I say you know I mean they're hot button issues these days um it is contemporary I know I I understand and uh you know when I was long ago I was you know reading about the wild west because it was current events no I don't know um just you know I think there are a lot of a lot of people are on edge right now and I think people thought these books were feeding into that so can you address that Mike into Christmas I think that a lot of this addresses that too that there was this was not a you know I think when you get to know Mike and you come to the parent conferences and you hear from these teachers and they talk to you about how they selected this and they present with this information um they really like their jobs most days and they're not looking to jeopardize that or to put children in a difficult position their aim is to give kids the tools to become adults who can navigate situations and make their own decisions so I think when we say that we're not teaching the content of the book it's not with an ulterior motive you know it's because of all the all of the reasons that were shared as to why that why that's here for kids I think that's at the heart of it and I'll let you know certainly certainly them speak but just having worked with them knowing where they're coming from understanding that um it's apparent in all the work that they do what Their aim is and their aim is clearly here um and and not wouldn't be right it wouldn't be right appropriate or ethical to do that to right and to fully understood and you and I discussed this and these guys are just new to Dodd parents don't know you parents are learning this school and and we talked about that didn't we yeah and maybe this is a unit that comes later in the seventh grade year once you guys are all much more familiar territory or turf and um but you brought up a valid point the fact that you know as a former social studies teacher whenever something current was happening you always we always try to relate everything to that current to get the kids engaged and that is a part of what this was as well you know we had some contents that some content standards that had to be taught um wasn't always the most engaging and it wasn't always the most kind of pull kids in the way we would take a look at these content but if you have a vehicle and we we've said this before in communication you know Keller and I sat if the vehicle could be really something that engages kids it really makes for some great teaching um and I think part of that yeah I mean I think a part of that does that like you said today's societies is we're very how do we walk that you know that narrow Edge has become narrower and narrower over the years um and I think kind of going forward with this becoming into the third year I think we I know I felt we were kind of in strive with this we kind of had to pulse on the community we kind of had everything and obviously you know there were some more concerns and I I know I had anticipated so but for that being said it was not in any because we had done it two previous years there wasn't anything here from my perspective of even working with you know our ELA teachers there was nothing to the line of you know this is a an agenda of things this is a political thing this is there wasn't any of that and that's the piece where it was you know and we're here talking about it now because we had to overcome that and I think you do bring up some valid points about trust um I think that's not only from Community to school I think a lot of that can go on society as well right now but I think that work you know that has come up um that being said in seventh grade we did have teachers kind of approach Us in different ways we had a teacher who was able to do it in person at a parent night and I think people when you see someone in person you can kind of get a little bit of building some trust there um and that teacher did a great job and had started the unit probably a few days before everybody else and there wasn't anything because I think people had that uh trust there um I think we we definitely taking a look at that for future you know pieces like I think you bring up some valid points about maybe getting to make sure we have that trust gained before start heading down some of these you know maybe some push button topics thanks I want to conclude my thoughts by saying thank you to Martin and your team for going above and beyond and including two more titles because I know that there's work behind that when you're thrown a curveball in the middle of doing something um so I just want to say thank you for you know your work in in helping these parents get to a comfortable place yeah you know so all right somebody Harrison agenda thank you guys um you can stay through this scintillating meeting if you want to get this information back to you because yeah you know it's going to be readily available on the website sometimes sure if you can hang on stuff do you want me to hang on to mine and bring you Thursday no you don't have to I'll have I'll have extra for everything on Thursday okay we're going in yeah maybe I do no I wrote on them okay thanks you guys thank you thank you both very very much all right um information items um first up Master oh our school master schedule [Laughter] so we have assembled a schedule committee to look at both our daily schedule and our advisory schedule we shifted our advisory to 40 minutes rather than 20 but reduce the number of meetings so that we could better accommodate programs and not impede on the daily schedule so that we'd have time to run programs and you know we've run a block schedule in response to covid we developed a Blog schedule so that we had flexibility so we could have longer classes so students could take Mass breaks so that we could have fewer transitions in the day that was a huge consideration when this whole thing started we maintained that so that was the first year of code that we maintained that last year because we started the year with masks and needed time and we maintained it this year because we've heard from teachers and from students there's been so much uncertainty please no changes so we maintained it but it's important to pull together a group of teachers so we have nine teachers we have seven students two from each grade we're waiting for one one additional ninth grader to be able to join our committee two parents and three administrators um and include yeah three administrators uh who are working together to do the following here's the scope of the committee Jeff obviously talk about the context and the why behind the the schedule that we developed to recall that we have 30-minute lunches so whatever we do there are just some realities we have to ensure we can accommodate 30-minute lunches we also need to ensure and this was a meask a New England Association of schools and colleges accreditation recommendation slash requirement ensure that we are providing time during the school day for teachers to collaborate we've worked that through um by associating that collaboration time and splitting the longer periods of teachers can collaborate and then Provide support to students the other half of the period that's just one way we've handled it um and to just to to also support drop-in support for students so those are some pieces that you need to keep so the first piece is what's the context which I shared with you the second what are the requirements of our schedule the third most importantly as a committee and as a school what do we want our schedule to accomplish what's so what's important to the community and then review feedback from feedback we have from our faculty from last year and then feedback we will get this year through this committee from our community which includes parents students teachers the whole community and then talk about the pros and cons of block schedule and other schedules we will also include collection and review of research meaning what are other schools endurance A and B doing for their schedules we've done we've done some preliminary work there we don't have an exhaustive list quite yet but there are a number of schools that have that maintain a block schedule in Dirk's A and B uh some that have and have a combined block some with more of a rotation so we're looking at what's out there and then we'll determine through the committee how to communicate our ongoing progress and then the ultimate piece is uh making a recommendation by February so that we so that we know what we want to be by the end so those are the goals committing I love the fact that we have students from every grade level two kids who reach grade level so that some students have never had a different schedule the students so we need to know how coming in from ninth grade do you go from 52-minute classes sometimes you have an extended 50 you know extended class in Middle School to the longer 80 or 85 minute class on advisory day they're 75 minutes so we're looking at and all of that and the positives and uh mm-hmm I have the schedule so we're doing a pretty deep dive into into this work and we have a terrific team to do it so and I communicated with the faculty uh so that they know who the representatives are from each department so that they can speak to them if they have recommendations we'll send that up to students as well for their their peer Representatives and the parents as well what's the time of our blocks at the high school before code we had it depended on the day it was just about an hour just about an hour and so we had uh six classes that rotated through a to d now we have alternating days so you'll see your class every other day so there are were other schools already doing more of a block scheduling either um I don't know the history of it was before covet some of some of our work is defined that the rationale behind their their block and why they went to it if it was coveted related why would they stay with it there have been a number of schools in Connecticut who have already been on a block schedule for for well over a decade yeah that's what I was thinking a Blog schedule where the class times were more like 80 correct yeah and allowed to only four transitions um and so we've had some preliminary feedback from students so it's it's no I think it makes a lot of sense to to research it before turning back to what we were doing before because maybe this is better yeah and we just want to make sure we want to make sure so we're looking at every angle so between rotating and blocks are there other scheduling options that are um that have come up and there are schedule options yeah that make my head spin I'm sure yeah some have um you'll have a straight eight then you'll have four periods in the block then you'll do a rotating day it is and there are some schools that do a combination some have a combination that is exceedingly complicated why because everyone's trying to fit in enough instructional time enough connection time to students so that you've had so you can build that Rapport um and it takes time to do that to reduce transitions because that's that's just helpful to to slow the day down because it can feel so frenetic when you have you know your classes are too short you feel like you can't get anything done if they're too long it feels you know we're looking for the Goldilocks schedule actually yeah hopefully we will find it nothing nothing is perfect though um but yeah there are there are multiple schedules that serve a number of purposes one other piece is we have to make sure that um our students who go to school at the um at the Arts Academy that put in all the requirements before they break for the day so we can't have afternoon classes meeting in the in the morning and then have more requests to meet in the afternoon to rotate because then it would close them up so there are just a multitude of considerations um I could go on so so we have to look at all of those all those elements as we as we explore how many meetings have you had so far we had one preliminary meeting in our first full meeting with everyone who can participate we had someone like I can't you know so we we had the preliminary to set the agenda this is what we're working on do we all agree great we're going to confirm our group membership and then our first one is the 25th okay my first full formal meeting and so obviously you're going to be presenting the ideas I mean these um 16 2018 22 people are not going to come up with they're not going to be tasked with okay you because you've got a lot of lay people here hey I looked at this my friend teaches here here's what they're doing so they're already sharing some ideas which is right so will you report back to us on February March yes once you know I'll let you know what the recommendation is absolutely yeah and how we got there okay that's I guess that's the question is there any do you want to come back before then to give us I can do it why don't we see what your next meeting is at and if you have some things to report I think it'd be great to just keep these guys in the loop absolutely as we go along yeah okay what we're wrestling with yeah I think uh it might be really interesting to have the teacher and the students that's like an expressing how it works for them or how it doesn't work that's why they're all that's why they're all involved in our initial conversation is really interesting to hear student perspectives and teacher perspectives and for them to hear each other has been great and then what's nice is then that starts to bubble out into the larger community so it's nice yeah great thanks sure all right and um our last item is we have an out-of-state overnight DC we do so these students who are attending who are asking to attend this trip they are students who did not have a chance to go to Washington DC and they played so exactly yeah yeah okay yeah yeah so this is the AP History Class apux class that will be headed to Washington DC to see where the seat of government decision making happen they'll be looking at um the let's see there's another piece that the national museum Vietnam War Memorial the World War II Memorial the Korean memorial the Jefferson Memorial seeing all of it um and also get a chance to see the FBI headquarters and diplomatic reading rules um and this is a much smaller group yes yes which is great yeah so how big is the 440 today I'm heading down by motor coach that's a long ride um there are only 40 kids that did not make no no in the 18 years yeah exactly okay okay [Laughter] to do this yeah all right but do they have to pay for it yes it is uh yep 27 711 and 800 depending on remedies um sounds great uh any questions I think those I think it's great yeah yeah I work in the Department of Agriculture are they going to the department oh my goodness yeah they will already be really warm like that so yeah yeah all right well that brings us to oh my goodness that was four minute shy um I know you want to go before the clock rings again um if you're ready I I we got six minutes I don't think we have that much to talk all in favor yeah all right thank you
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10 12 will be a thousand students okay I just don't see the uh the scope requiring a full principle at that level I'm sorry right well to I mean we have an elementary school we have schools across the district that are certainly less than a thousand that have a principle and so I don't I don't think we want to set up a structure in which the person ahead of the building is across town at another school um because of our unique structure it's right and so we have a principal at Ace Ace alternative school we have a principal at reach and Endeavor both alternative programs but none of them come close to 1 000 students um but ultimately if you graduate from those programs you still graduate with a Danbury high school diploma and so in this instance it's very similar in that regard but more connected through you know kind of the academic offerings thank you you're welcome thank you uh other questions let's move on okay I think that's it those are the two gen uh agenda items on all right good question Terry good question Terry as I understand it the metrics I understand it the numbers the numbers kind of in line with the metrics we have in line with the metrics of grade school and other schools that plug with the smaller numbers that still have a full principal challenge is that a correct statement Fair statement Mr Walston I'm sorry the suicide didn't hear that whole thing you say that again it's a metric the metric with a number of children we have in other schools and and in elementary uh which require which have a full principle in charge is rather in line with that that full principle position that you're gonna go with up at uh the Career Academy yes that is accurate if you think about how two middle schools which both have about a thousand students Broadview Middle School uh Rogers Park Middle School have two assistant principals and then as a principal and to build it all right seeing no further questions uh Kate was delayed because she was in an expulsion hearing thank you for for getting your cake I guess our time together has only just begun I will entertain a motion to adjourn and we will go to our our next strategic session yes okay thank you everyone um I'll see you in the next meeting in the next meeting thank you can you hold that candidates please can you stay on ID to ask you some questions I need to ask you some questions it was running the show for the next meeting oh but that's not is it 6 30 well oh well never mind never mind but who's making the motion I'll make the motion I'll second it what was that Louisa yep all in favor aye aye any objection extensions meeting is over see you at the next one
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okay this facility is about all you can do and then you have to start looking at you know do you open up two differently need centers and that's what that's what happens in a lot of districts you'll build another Center for students with lower needs or greater depending on what the breakdown of your your system and your community is and then you start looking at another location is there's no merit in building out more now or at some point are we sending more students this acid that's always an option as well although this is the long-term cost-effective option building this out over time this will uh this will pay for itself well that was for me that was the that was kind of The Fringe benefit of the deal number one was doing right by our our students in our district you know well this board's approach has been for the whole time I've been here is to keep kids in our community right when we can and and have control over that and have you know offer them the best Services the way that we we know how to do that but uh yeah um so there'd be room to add on additional yet and in the back if we needed to then we'd be going back to Omega for parking okay we should be okay for a while here but yeah I mean at that point and you start to re that's why I'm saying you start to reach a point where you've maxed out this plot of property either you're looking then for more adjacent property or you're looking for a different location I think we well so that the area behind in white that's already paved proper is that already paved back there but yeah behind that we would expand into yeah that's already paved right I'm just thinking about storm water management yeah if if whether we're as long as we're building uh if we were to build build on ground that's already covered we don't have to do anything more in terms of storm water management correct um and then I know I'd mentioned this once before but just the between the addition and the in the dark buff that we're calling it there's only the one access point right we don't we don't ever foresee a need to have a second access point we think based on programming and how the classes will be distributed that this will be appropriate if there is we're not going to have people needing to go no because I mean you will now and then but the each classroom at t99 or group of classrooms is of similar ability level and needs so I would imagine the classroom seven eight and that multi-purpose would be somewhat of a similar programming needs where when you move over like right now classroom five and six those are similar students with similar needs that and abilities that are in those areas like classroom two has a group of students one and two or more similar so you know they they kind of get the different locations and home bases around the building and the students and staff members that are working with that specific group tend to remain somewhat similar throughout the day so another way of thinking of this is as if the addition was you know in a way a standalone building until itself and we've created a convenient connection for when it needs to be there so you don't have to walk outside but that's kind of what we've done here that would be a good analogy Mike yeah might be a faster way of saying what I just said oh all right and here is kind of the reveal of what it will look like it looks very nice it doesn't look as industrial yeah because it was an industrial building [Laughter] yeah yeah and they'll get a nice sign in front of the building and we're going to do a little bit of branding inside the building as well you know they've adopted the mascot of the Centaur right which is the combination of North and South so um you could talk to the staff there about that I don't I I don't want to dip into that at all as far as wayfinding goes you know signage you know if I'm coming to the building How will I know which door to go to so you'll see that the turn in that's there and you see where the about the I wish I had a pointer on this guy uh you see the two in the poll in the two arrows there where then it's a sign so we're going to get a new sign there that indicates the building that's part of the challenge right now is it's on the building so when you're driving by it's kind of hard to catch it this out on that island should help us get it a little bit more and then it'll be very clear with a canopy and an entrance there that that is the main entrance I think that so that's so people will always be coming to that main entrance would they then have to potentially go all the way through the building to then get into the original a visitor or a guest yes because of security protocols we want them coming through that main entrance student drop-off might vary where they come into the building based on where they need to go which is very similar to our main buildings right at the morning we have a lot of doors open but then once school starts we have one door that everybody comes through it'd be similar to T90 well one of the one of the compliments I had in the design is the fact that the that you can you I think visually are drawn to the one entrance the new entrance and that was an issue we had here at South for years right um which door do I go in right so um this this I think accomplishes that well one of the challenges we have now is if you look in the darker tan where it says vestibule by that entrance we have no significant canopy over so when there's inclement weather the students back up down that hallway waiting for their vehicle to arrive now with having a canopy on the outside it'll make it a lot easier for staging part of the backup that we have now is if you know you have a student in the front couple students in the front that have a wheelchair that are waiting for their vehicle and it's the student in the back that theirs shows up first you know you can see the kind you get a traffic jam in the building and outside of the building this should make it a lot easier for us to Route traffic but growth of people and of vehicles you know we've covered a lot of this before but I just seems like a good time to kind of rehash it yeah it is a significant expense yeah but it's going to be well worth it well worth it right and cost effective like I said if we would have been outplacing all of those students you know well that gets expensive yeah it's been beneficial to this point so this is you know this is a projection based on real experience so well in real enrollment because our students that are here in our MN program will likely matriculate to t99 so and it's not cost um building it building more now wouldn't be cost advantageous I do not believe so okay well there's there's budget concerns with that yeah I know yeah there's a bunch of concerns and there's it's also you know return on your investment we show that the facility is growing to 115 in our current projections but could that change it could and it's space that we could definitely lease out if we needed to to someone like sassid or another school district so I don't feel like it'll ever sit empty but I wouldn't want to get so big that there wouldn't be that potential return on investment for the board well that back room that back area that's all built out now originally we talked about yes we leasing it out to sass it or someplace else and we've more than filled it so yeah we thought we were being pretty smart by having the expansion we did it bought us another year we thought it was going to buy us more time than that I have to tell you well the program grew fast I get success so word gets out how well we do so okay all right nicely done um oh we talked about this at a prior meeting but yeah there's the there's the dollar amount we talked about this as the board approved the budget but I just want to make sure that slide was part of the package yep all right restructuring of District administration this is in consent tonight uh it's approval of board policies that match the job description and under consent you'll be asked to waive the first reading and adopt the policies this is pretty typical for job descriptions as yes the board is just adopting a job description all right so uh as the board is aware we accepted a couple of years ago intends to retire for Mark Stalin Rod Rousseau and Jim colager uh will be next year between those three of those gentlemen that's 75 years of experience leaving the district in one calendar year worth of time institutional knowledge and experience it is a lot um now the board had the foresight of knowing uh that Mark was on the way and we brought jury on board and promoted her into the position of Chief School of Business official last summer and she has been taking over more and more of the day-to-day operations of the business department which is always a challenge because she is also the one that is managed in the business department so a lot of times she's wearing both hats as she's preparing she she's made this transition then is preparing for the next piece which will be posted I think this week which will be the director of Business Services which is the person that fills in back behind jury so that posting will come out uh soon and we've kind of talked about how that would go but then as rod and Jim are leaving we're kind of restructuring a little bit so we're kind of replacing rod with the assistant superintendent for learning resources this would be the instructional uh expert looking at how we use all of our physical resources across the district to support students in learning then our technical expert in the district for technology would be Colleen davoren she's already a member of the tech staff has been a member in the district for over 25 years and has extensive professional learning in preparing to move into this role so we'll promote her to Chief technology officer and then with the growing expansion at t99 we're not adding a person but we're moving a person's location so we're going to move Lisa Barlow over to t99 so that there's an administrator on site there it's just getting to be a lot of administrative tasks over there uh uh Carolina schoenbeck has done a wonderful job of being the program manager there she's fabulous actually I would have asked her to be here tonight to talk about t99 except we have the options Fair going on this evening which she organizes and plans and is is going on uh for for students across the area not just within our district so she has been fabulous in that role but her needs administratively are being split and taking away time from being the instructional leader in that building so to provide her administrative support we're going to house Lisa over there we're going to need to shift around a few responsibilities along with you know for the IEPs for the outplaced students that she manages she doesn't manage the student she manages their IEPs so we're going to have to ship shift some tasks around but that will then give us an administrator on site at t99 so really a net neutral number of positions here as a result just a lot of Shifting around any questions from board members on that so you'll see some postings coming out soon we had them we've responded to them and they are up on the website this is another thing administratively Jill is sitting here in the front Jill Jill Julie Lauren and I have all been going through our Freedom of Information Act training because this is a task that Mark Stalin has had over the years that we're preparing to take that that responsibility over from the communications and superintendent Department so up on the website moving on to the consent agendas or any item on the consent agenda that any board member wishes to remove hearing none we need a motion for the Board of Education to approve the consent agenda as presented which includes the Personnel report transfer of position Administration transfer position exempt transfer position classified appointments classified the Personnel report retirement certified resignations of classified the financial Pages the appointment of the DCFS liaison the educational tour and waiver of first reading and approval of board policy 3.57 assistant superintendent for Learning Resources 3.59 Director of Business Services and 3.71 chief technology officer so moved second Terry and Joanna thank you very much Carrie pappasich aye Joanna Vazquez Drexler aye Mike Davenport aye Mr Espinoza aye shirelle Fuller aye Jenny hagstrom aye and Anthony gender curies we have one action item for um approval we need a motion for the Board of Education to approve the calendar year 2023 medical dental and vision plans and premiums as presented so it moved second Chris and Joanna Mr Espinoza hi Joanna Vazquez Drexler aye Mike Davenport aye Mr all Fuller aye Jenny hagstrom aye Terry papusic aye and Nancy cupka aye carries then we have a motion for we have some old business a motion for the Board of Education to approve the policies and administrative regulations as presented and the deletion of policy 4.120 so moved like Davenport aye shirelle Fuller aye Denny hagstrom aye Troy pavasich aye Joanna Vazquez Drexler aye Christopher Espinoza aye and Nancy krepka aye motion carries uh we'll move on to the second reception of visitors we've received no additional slips okay hearing uh none we will move on to the communication announcements report on uh Lund John anything yeah so we had our first meeting of the school year on Friday September 23rd um as we hadn't really met since May there was kind of a recap of what's been happening in Springfield we were also in person for the first meeting of the year um they have again introduced a bill to expand the 120 paid days for retirees to sub through June 30th of 2023 um they're discussing an amendment to the Illinois constitution during the veto session which clarifies what issues must be resolved through collective bargaining on September 16th Governor pritzker extended the emergency order for an additional 30 days which means the coveted administrative leave Provisions are made in place um on the isbe front there was Dr Steven osoye I think was appointed as the new chair of the ISB e the isbe is continuing to work on their Equity project portfolio including culturally responsive teaching and learning standards they are reviewing recommendations from the center of assessments looking at improved reporting adaptive design and end-of-year testing and Tif reform they're also looking at professional development training this could include tying some professional development requirements to teach your license licensure for example things like treating treating certain health conditions such as allergies asthma and diabetes Dr thaley will continue to look at the Lend policy and mandates committee and share that looking a lot at calculate revisions for calculating graduation rates what criteria is necessary to approve teaching dual credit classes and our next meeting is October 28th a couple of committees I'm sitting on related to that next week I'm in Springfield for their uh isbees committee on literacy so I've been asked to represent DuPage County and lend on that committee and last week I served on College DuPage Student Success committee which is looking at measures of success but a component or discussion portion of that was dual credit and our the relationship between College DuPage and the local high schools and how we can make sure that students are successful here and when a lot of our students go over to college you DuPage perfect thank you our meeting's on Wednesday uh Foundation yes we just had a kind of a rundown of how the the Food Truck Rally or the block party went um we did end up uh in the black so that was a good thing um not by a whole lot but we were in the black so and it was a great day tell you if you if you met I mean it was a great day and um so it was very positive we're gonna probably make a few changes but um we anticipate doing something at North again in the fall like next year next year awesome yes yeah and then in the spring we are still planning to do pizza wars so we we don't really have a date yet for that but it because of the school calendars it's a little uh harder so um but that we were planning to do it North and all right South South I'm sorry um to kind of share the wealth uh between the two schools and uh then just uh so the teachers know that uh the grants are due the first part of November so if any teachers are listening you know and want to do a grant you know we do have funds available for that and please turn those in to the foundation because um you know that's what we're there for is to help our students and help our our faculty you know get the programs that they want to enrich our students so um you know we we started out with one of the very first smart boards you know in the district so you know it's those kind of things that we want to promote and to make sure that our students um reap the benefits of that so commercial for the day Chris anything on ISP uh none other than the convention in in November which I division meeting is coming up when is that uh the second second November let Julie know if you would like to attend you're going yeah yeah she just did and Chris and Chris this says yes all right okay uh upcoming board meeting is there anything else you have before we go okay upcoming board meetings November 7th we'll have a workshop meeting here at 6 30 and then on the 21st we'll have a regular business meeting also at 6 30 here we will be moving into closed session uh we will be coming out with a vote uh recommend uh vote but we will be moving into closed sessions for the appointment employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal of specific employees specific individuals who serve as independent contractors in a park recreational or educational setting or specific volunteers of the district or legal counsel for the district including hearing testimony on a complaint lodged against an employee a specific individual who serves as an independent contractor to park recreational or educational setting or volunteer the district or against legal counsel for the district to determine its validity do I have a motion so moved oh second Terry and Mike Terry pavesich aye aye Mike Davenport aye Mr Espinoza aye Charles Fuller aye Jenny hagstrom aye Joanna Vazquez Drexler aye Nancy kopka aye thank you we'll be moving into closed session board will remain in here um a quick turnaround
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we don't really see much change in the incoming classes they've been in that low you know 500 600 kids amount but with less kids graduating maybe that Gap will be less and we can absorb it but the good thing is that we see this with our demographics and based on that we can project going forward and know what our position is going to be based on that so uh any questions on that okay um finally my last item is uh we're at the end of the quarter the third quarter of budget year 2022 and so at your workstation I've included two nice spreadsheets for you um the first one is if you look in the top left hand corner it says the cash flow for our education fund January through December and again this is for calendar year 2022 because that is our budget year um this is through actual activity through September and if you what everyone looks to is the bottom right hand corner which shows the positive and the negative of how did our Revenue compare to our expenditures and currently we are projecting to be plus about eighty thousand dollars to the good which out of a 66 million dollar budget we're right online because we are not in the business to increase our cash reserves we want to put all the money we get from the state into our classrooms and support our teachers and our paraprofessionals in class so um we've been averaging pretty well and again even though we were down students our funding actually is increased this school year because of the amount of money that the general assembly put into the funding formula during the long session a year and a half ago and so before I move on to the next sheet does anyone have any questions okay so because of what I've explained yeah we get our money from the state but we also get money for our taxpayers that goes into our operations fund and we also have our referendum fund and we have a rainy day fund and really all those funds work together now and because of uh as I mentioned earlier we move money from the one to the other to really get a true reflection of the school district you got to take all four of those funds together because they are just important as I said our our referendum fund goes to help pay for teacher salaries so just looking at the education fund itself doesn't do it justice that rental fund pays for our sros it pays for uh counselors and social workers for our kids and so forth so it's important to look at that money when we look at the school district so the last um the second page I have for you combines all of those four fonts together to see how the district is operating and currently um right now we're looking at our expenditures exceeding our Revenue by about almost about 186 thousand dollars again out of a 94 million dollar budget we're right online there of um we want to be as close to the margin as possible to support our teachers and staff and all of our employees because this incorporates them all so we're running well there financially we're in fine shape and so I would turn it over to the board in case anyone has any questions so I guess I have a question so the 186 000 negative does not concern you um no because you know it's pretty out of 94 million dollars that's pretty close to as we're going to get and so much is an estimate um as when we're preparing a budget you know we just 10 minutes ago prepared the budget for County or 2023.
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none of us saw eight percent inflation in our cost of fuel and our cost of food a cost of school supplies for kids and so the fact that we've been able to um take those extra costs in and still be able to run pretty close to the margin and not be eight percent down um it's this team working together working with our teachers and staff to still provide that education process but you know as close to the margin we know we're going to take a hit a little bit of a hit but we're weathering the storm too okay so very good and I knew you would have a good explanation so thank you for that well thank you that's all I have any other questions questions all right so now we'll move on to our public Comics comments portion I would like to remind everyone that public comments are for the board to consider the time is not set aside for back and forth debate if you ask a question and we are able to answer you that will be part of your allotted time all statements shall be directed to the board president and no person may address or question board members individually each person signed up with information requested on the sign up sheet will have three minutes to address the board you will be alerted when you have 15 seconds left and we ask that you wrap up your comments the public common portion of the meeting is limited to 30 minutes unless extended by the board once we are at 30 minutes I will ask the board if they wish to continue to hear public comments please we ask that you refrain from personal attacks or derogatory statements about any student School employee or anyone else whether in attendance or not when we call your name if you'd please approach the microphone and address the board and please state your name and address and then we'll hear your comments so our first uh speaker is Ryan Neff foreign [Applause] Lake Road St John and uh I'm a father of two daughters in the school system I have been happy with their education not only with the curriculum but also the values that they're being taught with compassionism understanding accepting and becoming well-rounded human beings the teachers administrators counselors coaches and Club sponsors have all had a hand in the development of my daughters becoming who they are the phrase that takes a village to raise a child originates from an African proverb and conveys the message that it takes to people many people to provide a safe healthy environment for our children the concept of this Village is the notion that caring for children is a shared responsibility amongst many therefore we as parents cannot do it alone and I am fortunate to have a school system like Lake Central to help my daughters grow into strong kind Independent Women part of that education is learning to accept people for who they are and learning to become an ally and a friend to those who have been bullied discriminated against because they are viewed different have we forgotten what it says on Lady Liberty give me your tired you're poor your huddled masses yearning to breathe breathe free a progress pride flag or a BLM poster has shows the marginalized student that they are safe and welcome and able to breathe free it shows these students that we accept who you are the lgbtq plus and minority students have traditionally higher percentages of being bullied poor mental health and suicide is it imperative that Educators and peers make these students know that they have a safe place and they are welcome this past week the teacher has been instructed to remove Flags posters and materials that are deemed political and religious from their classrooms it was sad it was the same week as National Coming Out day and the fact that these materials have been removed sends a message to lgbtq and minority students that they are different and we could not discuss you in school should be a safe place for all students it should be a space where we learn about different cultures ways of life a place to advance young people to well-rounded human beings that make a difference in this world having these materials up in the classroom benefits all students promoting acceptance and respect teaching them about diverse people and families in the world students support are able to empathize connect and work along with diverse groups of peers they understand that they're being taught by by these same uh minorities in lgbtq communities and it teaches us to be a Ally and a friend saying that these materials are not a political statement that's incorrect it's a humanitarian statement sexual orientation gender identity and race are separate from political affiliation these 15 seconds moving on we need to respect our Educators and be an ally with them these are the same people that provided a safe space at the potential school shooter last year we need to stop coming to at this board with selective discrimination complaints all right thank you [Applause] and I'm sorry if I pronounce your name wrong uh the next speaker Alexis horgash [Applause] Alexis horgash 9241 Marquette Street St John Indiana I would like to express address the recent decision to remove remove posters flags and other items that allow students to express themselves and promote acceptance and positivity printed on page four of the Lake Central High School handbook the foundation for Lake Central School corporation's vision is commitment Pride service Integrity respect ambition Excellence responsibility and tolerance what is tolerance according to the Oxford English Dictionary tolerance is defined as the willingness to accept or tolerate someone or something especially opinions or behaviors that you may not agree with or people who are not like you below this level of foundation is Safety and Security each student has the right to feel safe in school however how are students given the chance to feel safe when they do not feel accepted the decision to remove said items can have a negative impact on a student's self-esteem feeling of acceptance and a potential to cause academic line without the foundation of this Vision the pillars would not be able to stand alone which would lead to not being able to achieve the top of the pyramid which is stated to be a College and Career ready graduate we are at school for 6 hours and 54 minutes from 7 15 when the bell first rings to 209 when the final Bell Rings we are to go from class to class we are provided lunch and are expected to stay inside of our rooms unless allowed to do so by faculty and if we don't we get a consequence such as a detention or a Wednesday school on top of that we are now to sit in a classroom with the with bare walls this is a schedule that sounds much like a prison with bare concrete walls being a contributing factor located on the Lake Central School corporation's website a belief of Lake Central is a positive School environment is essential for learning how are students able to learn if we do not feel safe and secure in our school environment as we note that some students may not see an issue with their learning environment we must also see that other students have some concerns about this another like Central belief is students are our number one priority if we choose to only focus on the students who do not have an issue with what is and what is not on our school walls are though opposing students being placed on second priority if each student is valued and respected like the next the right for a student to identify it and express themselves should be valued and respected as well posters promoting colleges and academic Partnerships are displayed all throughout Lake Central High School College and Career Readiness is often expressed in the lchs handbook it is also said that high school is meant to prepare students for the real world which is 10 seconds which is which is referring to the responsibilities of high school if we are preparing our students for the future we must teach them that it is okay to not be accepted and by who they are to identify as thank you thank you Kalia saldara [Applause] Kalia Saldana 670 Gatlin Road Schererville Indiana 46375 so um I came here today with a speech I'm not saying that speech so um I'm gonna move this closer because you probably can't hear me you'll hear me breathe though um I have gone to the school district since first grade um and I have never felt uh so not accepted until now well I did I've been bullied for a really long time never told anyone because the two times that I did come forward Lake Central staff showed me security footage of what happened to me and did not do anything about it so every morning if we are told that is it is okay to ask for help and that we are not alone they tell us that every morning over the announcements how come when I went for help nobody saw me nobody helped me under the harassment rule um I do not remember which module it was but it states that any sexual referencing towards a teacher or staff member will be punished by suspension and maybe even expulsion but when the same thing happens to a student it can go unpunished or at the most with the detention I don't see the difference in a person whether they are old enough to understand what is happening or whether they are too young to know foreign I want you to know that because I feel that that is important because I know other people who did not report how they were feeling or what happened to them my freshman year I was pushed down the stairs so much my legs began to scab and Bruise how come there was no teacher to help me when that happened how come there was no teacher when people called me slurs about who I love and how I am where were they where was the punishment and the reprimanding 15 seconds students if Lake Central School Corporation values their students as much as they say the topic at hand is indubatable thank you Alicia Paul [Applause] foreign Calhoun Place Crown Point um thank you to the board for allowing me to speak tonight I would first like to talk about the poster brought before you at the last meeting I am urging you to not take action based on one person's beliefs or opinions the poster in question was deemed offensive and honestly I find that interpretation incredibly offensive the poster reads as you all know in this classroom We Believe science is real black lives matter love is love feminism is for everyone humans are not illegal kindness is everything a lot was mentioned about the black lives matter organization however the statement that black lives matter is a fact science is real it was mentioned that because of kovid that isn't true covet and how that was handled does not change the fact that science is real I didn't hear an issue with feminism is for everyone I'm sure there's no bias there as the board all non-partisan members please do not allow political extremists dictate what is appropriate in our schools in the Lake Central code of conduct you have your own beliefs listed just like that poster it reads sorry I'm so shaky it reads each individual has dignity and worth students are our number one priority we must continually improve and strive for excellence everyone can learn people learn in different ways and different rates teachers are critically important in every student's education school provides a foundation for a lifetime of learning the total School environment affects learning self-esteem is directly related to learning educated citizens are essential to a Democratic Society that is what it says on your website I don't see any of those statements say one person's opinion should dictate our classroom's environment you your students are a captive audience that is what you said Dr Barraco and you are forcing teachers to tell their students they are not their allies they do not have support at school a pride flag is not a political statement thank you thank you Peter Paul [Applause] hello Peter Paul 8677 Calhoun Place in Crown Point thank you thank you members of the board I am here to raise awareness about the impending future for Lake Central School Corporation if continued disingenuous outrage is yield to two across the U.S special interest groups have organized to push their views by running for school boards even if they have no children in the corporation as well as local government positions you can see it already happening across the country school board meetings across the U.S have turned from polite albeit a passionate discourse into screaming yelling chaos it has already happened here believe me posters are not going to be the end in the past year over 1600 books have been banned in the U.S schools Librarians have been fired sued and have had at least 27 police reports levied against them this is the true goal of the movement steadily demand their personal beliefs be adhered to until police until Public Schools more closely resemble private and or Christian institutions you will hear buzzwords designed to frighten and enrage parents like marxists Communists and pornography to demand change under the guise of Parental choice is the school board beholden to every demand from every single parent where does it end can an atheist come in here and yell loud enough until no Christian imagery is to be seen on or near school grounds I know I don't personally have all the beliefs that every teacher and administrator has and that is okay if my children see or hear something at school they know they can come to their parents and ask are we not talking to our children [Applause] in the real world our children will be exposed to different views and cultures don't you want our school to reflect a real world democracy where people of different backgrounds come together and are inclusive of others and their ideas learning to live together peacefully we all want what is best for our children as you on the board they want that as well is inclusiveness acceptance and tolerance that horrible please try to view this from the students that are here and with whom the poster applies to are we telling them that they don't matter that they are different and not accepted I'm putting my trust in this board's decision it's an ability to be compassionate and caring enough to listen finally I live with this with the new policy in place are we going to change the name of Easter break that's religious thank you [Applause] Abby O'Neill [Applause] Abby O'Neill 6628 Falcon Drive Schererville Indiana thank you I'm about to tell you I'm sorry I've been uh I am Central School Corporation was in second grade and I am now a senior on August 13th 2019 I walked into my photo class I decided to see that it finally a high school student and I'm ready to meet my new teachers as I walked into Miss Carrie why to keep Chris's room I noticed that and she wasn't like the rest of my teachers that I've had before she had photos of her family and friends her achievements and most importantly it's just some random random decorations that made her class her class one has always been so kind and generous to me and my fellow peers the only time she has really talked about her Pride legs is when she's talking about herself or when we usually ask as a sponsor for the gay straight Alliance Club she deserves to have those flanks in her room so she can always applicated to represent that they are not alone and since ever since she's been told to take down all the stuff in her room it just hasn't felt like her room like like I walked in freshman year all the stuff that she had like from the past like last year is all gone all of the photos of Miss Vera Putin is gone and just everything that she's achieved August 10 2021 I also walked into my English 10 class obviously obviously not excited for your new school year but when I first got my schedule I didn't recognize this new teacher and neither did my friends so going into that new school year without any opinions on a teacher is kind of scary because you don't know if they're going to be really strict or really friendly when I walked into Mr Lee's class he agreeded me and then when I finally sat down I looked around his classroom and noticed a little bright flag hanging from his cup this that year I noticed that he's there's no sorry this year I noticed that he got in a bigger Pride like and hung it up right next to his door so other people don't feel alone but as same as what he also had to take it down from previous events so both of these teachers have welcomed me into their arms and haven't forced anything on me or my classmates if I've noticed thank you for listening Jerry Maldonado [Applause] my name is Jerry Maldonado I live on 8425 Pine Island Drive good evening board members I stand here today to speak on behalf of the students who cannot make it today I'm here to talk about the disgraceful events that are preceding I'm here to talk about the attack on us students who stand proud of who we are I'm here because I'm very upset and very hurt by hearing that the pride Flags in my school must be taken down because of one concerned bigot who has no involvement in the school by you acting without reason has caused you to not only upset me but many parents many students and many faculty I learned freedom of speech when it comes to my sexuality and freedom to express who I am in a respectful manner are protracted rights nothing was wrong with my lgbtq expression before this bigot attacked us I as a Latino should have the ability to express who I am the same way everyone expresses themselves being gay or not and be respected we are all human we all have our own beliefs and for someone to objectify us for our own beliefs is not okay by you even considering and proving to have having the flags that and our pride be taken down throughout the school is shameful you are acting extremely shameful and disrespectful going against all the school's rules you require us not to act like as a board your job is to protect us students and make sure we have the things we need to grow mentally and become amazing humans these actions will make us as a student body be more aware of these ongoing board decisions so our rights are not ever trampled again now that this event is not forgivable and we as students and parents will not forgive you for these idiotic decisions we are truly hurt by this our pride has been stripped from us and all you've done to show that even a higher power does not stand by us in these events all of us have fought hard and long in this ongoing war of hate that devours our world we've made it hard and far and hard we've made it long a long journey and for you to take this decision into action has just led us back to the beginning of where we stand thank you Dallas type [Applause] how far away should I stand to the microphone thank you Della styfe 9630 Sheffield Avenue Dire Indiana I know there is a current controversy regarding certain things hanging up in classrooms and I want to ask you a simple question how are Pride Flags political and or controversial why are teachers at the high school elementary and middle schools forced to take their supportive flags and signs down or face having to resign I want to put something into perspective for you imagine you are a young lgbtq teenager and you walk into a classroom and you see a sign that says hate has no place here and beside that sign is a small pride flag that you can see clearly from the teacher's desk this shows the young teenager that this teacher is someone they can confide in and share their identity with for many there is no fear surrounding sharing one's identity but for an lgbtqt that isn't that simple I want you to imagine that the teachers are scared they take those things down and all of a sudden this lgbtq student does not know if they have an adult to confide in to see teachers who are so confident within their identity having to take those things down is doing nothing but hurting those kids according to the Trevor Project lgbtq teens have a four times more likely suicide rate than their straight peers this is not because of their sexual orientation or gender identity but they are placed at a higher risk because of how mistreated and stigmatized they are in society do we want to contribute to this mistreatment and stigmentation instead of standing against it I am happy to share any of this research through email if anyone wants it but research isn't everything I can also speak from my own personal experience I know the importance of having teacher or adult to confide in and how these relationships can save lives how are those teens going to know they are safe if the teacher cannot express their tolerance the lgbtq plus Community is not political it is centered around identity it is centered around loving who you want to love there is no reason teachers should not be allowed to have these things up in their classrooms according to the Court case Tinker versus Des Moines teachers and students do not lose their first amendment rights when they enter the school building so long as it does not become a distraction if students do not complain about the signs to school administration then it is not a distraction to their learning how are teachers First Amendment rights being protected can teachers get into trouble for having those things up in classrooms at Lake Central Schools where would this end and ultimately how effective can an educational institution be if students do not feel supported in who they are listed on the Lake Central School corporation's website we have belief statements included within our mission statement I'd like to end by reminding everyone that we believe each individual has dignity and worth a positive school learning environment is essential for learning teachers are critically important in every student's education and students are our number one priority thank you hi Blankenship foreign Street Schererville Indiana today I want to talk I want to take a second and share my experience as an lgbtq kid at Lake Central High School I can't speak for everyone but I want the board and Dr varaco to understand another student perspective of the current situation freshman year I walked into kerrywood way to keep Cruz's room and our pride flag let me know that it was a safe space for me it was it's it's hard to put into words how scary it is to be a queer kid in high school it feels so isolating seeing the flags in her room and knowing that there is at least one safe space where I could go at school change my high school experience forever I remember the moment I came out to miss Whitaker Cruz and Sarah verputin the acceptance they showed me told me that I had a place at this school and this is coming from a kid with the most supportive family I can ask for my dad is even on the list to speak tonight and even with this overwhelming love and support from home I was afraid to express myself in high school so I can't imagine how important this symbol of acceptance is to students who can't who cannot be themselves at home for students who could feel unsafe expressing their identities to their friends or family being lgbtq plus is not a religious or political issue it is not it is our identity it is who we are we cannot change our height we cannot change our skin color we cannot change our sexualities we cannot cannot change our identities taking down Flags isn't going to make queer people less real it's just going to make them feel more isolated and alone thank you [Applause] I'm Neil Blankenship 223 Lace Park Street in Schererville and I appreciate the opportunity to speak tonight I come as a parent concerned about the force removal of Pride flags from our classrooms I believe the unintended consequences of this policy could be much worse than any perceived dangers posed by these supposedly ominous collection of colors I would hope that most here would agree that the highest priority of our schools should be the well-being of our kids a recent National survey conducted by the Trevor Project shows the lgbtq kids experience higher rates of bullying and violence they are much more likely to show symptoms and anxiety and depression lgbtq kids consider suicide at a much higher rate and they attempt suicide at a much higher rate than their straight CIS counterparts these risk factors are not higher simply because of their sexual orientation or gender identity but because of the stigmatation stigmatization and negative treatment that comes with them in fact the suicide attempt rates were lower for LGBT youth when they felt high social support from their family when they felt they lived in a community that was accepting and most importantly for our discussion today when they found that their school is LGBT lgbtq affirming as far as Pride Flags I can honestly say there's a straight CIS male I've never encountered or seen any flag of any kind that has made me question my sexuality I would be interested to hear from anyone who may have had a different experience but the reality is that um that's not how sexual orientation or gender identity work I would hope however that seeing a pride flag might help anyone who sees it understands that it represents a group of real people who deserve real support and respect I would hope that any lgbtq people who see it would feel supported and respected and more specifically I would hope that any non-lgbtq students who see it in our schools would know that it represents a group of students who are dealing with all of the same struggles that they are but in many cases many additional struggles as well I would hope that any lgbtq students who see it in our schools would feel like they are in a space where they feel included and feel safe as mentioned before many lgbtq youth are in higher risk situations many may not feel like they can be accepted that they are by family or in our community our schools may be in some cases the only safe spaces they have it's not political it's about acceptance and inclusion specifically for some kids who need it the most if we care about our kids all of our kids we must consider the negative implications of these decisions thank you thank you Natalie Genovese my name is Natalie Genovese 8176 Knickerbocker Place St John I'm a senior at Lake Central this year it also marks my third and final year in the place that I've called my home my Publications classroom I come to school every day looking forward to Stepping through the door if you won 20 security Cruz do I call what is a human that I associate with the classroom within those classroom walls is where I feel the safest in the school building and I'm not just saying that because of the circumstances I'm seeing that because in these walls she has taught me so many valuable life lessons one being to always speak the truth truth just happens to be one of the four of the Indiana High School press Association core values the other three being courage freedom and integrity being here tonight as part of a high school's Publications Department I feel me and others that are here tonight represent the voice of the Lake Central students Miss wideki Cruz used the pride flags hanging in her room photos of her wife and kids posters and about kindness and inclusion and most importantly a sense of comfort for anyone seeking a safe space in the school building now her walls are bare because why would any teacher want to express any part of themselves if they can't express who they really are and being part of the lgbtq plus Community is part of who she is and I don't love her any less because of it she's a leader a teacher and a friend but more importantly she's a human being who deeply cares about her students no matter their race ethnicity or his sexuality being in the lgbtq plus Community is not what defines her being a good human is what defines her she's someone that I can go to for anything and she will give me sound advice I focus on Watts tonight because she is my teacher but I'm quite sure there are other students here in other classrooms with teachers who have items of self-expression and have the same feelings as I do about Miss Kerry widdicky Cruz never one says she ever pushed me or any other student to study or learn anything about the self-representation items she contains in her classroom having these things that I just mentioned is simply an act of nonverbal speech which Americans have their First Amendment right to the freedom of speech by definition self-expression is being able to express one's feelings thoughts or ideas which in turn nurtures a bond between a student and a teacher there are many any LC students of the lgbtq plus Community who have formed a bond with Wad and who come to her classroom for acceptance and to feel included as part of a community at the last board meeting critical thinking was brought up isn't critical thinking being able to read a sign an article or see a flag and be able to decide for yourself if that is something that you believe in I can tell you as a whole I can tell you as a whole open-minded students of like Central do not have a problem with self-expression I believe that this is the parents pushing yet another piece of their political agenda on the schools your actions are doing more harm than good to our student body in closing it wouldn't it be better use of our time to focus on the things that bring us closer together as a society than the things that tear us apart look forward [Applause] I am Brooke forward from 933 Quinn Place Dyer Indiana I wanted to start by thanking the board everyone here and everyone watching online and I hope that you would not only listen to me but respectfully listen to everyone else because that's what I've done for you guys I stand in front of you today as not only as educated journalist and student at Lake Central but this is my senior year in Lake Central I've been here since I've been in kindergarten being a journalist I've covered many different experiences and wrote from unbiased point of view the Indiana High School press association's four core values are courage Freedom integrity and Truth let me tell you about how these four values have been foundation for who I am today and who I will be tomorrow courage is defined as the ability to do something that frightens one I've been building this part of myself my whole life become a journalist meeting new people and Lifestyles stepping out of my comfort zone are all things that allow me to grow for example standing in front of you all today I'm speaking up to be the voice of the many silenced people that have been affected by the events that have taken place at the last school board meeting the poster as you all know reads science is real black lives do matter as Mr Dr Rocco did say which is true all lives matter black lives matter science is real feminism is for everyone humans are not illegal and as everyone that has been discriminated against knows kindness is everything I hope that if you do not agree with my words that you could hear me out because I have for you this has brought me to my next core value of freedom I know there's legality behind this but I believe that is our teacher's job to teach us the ways about life that are not like our own and give us the outside concept that we do not know ourselves I know personally in my classes in the curriculum I've been learning about different religions cultures languages historical events and the validity of science for as long as I can remember not once have I had a teacher exclude discriminate or suspect any of these topics is our teachers duties as our teachers to provide us with the knowledge that they we need to progress into adulthood you'll be sending your children to college and they will be facing these factors anyways we as students are the present the learning and the future every poster I have seen at my high school are inclusive and inviting since last board meeting I've watched my teachers be restricted and censored the most welcoming caring and encouraging teachers have been asked to strip their rooms of signs that may be taken the wrong way from the wrong people I can tell you from personal experience that I've been beautifully exposed to many ways of life Pi flags are non-verbal speech but they are required I know it may seem that it's political but it's not these are people's lives these people identities and it's not your political Playhouse this is people's lives you will be you'll be shown this no matter what if you're in these walls or not so why censor it many teachers have been told to take down their things some choosing to do it beforehand because they knew it was coming these items have been in classrooms for years with no complaints I leave you all with one last thing today my last two core values integrity and Truth The Golden Rule a concept we've been taught since kindergarten the speaker who brought the poster to the poor detention's last meeting believed that these messages decreased our critical 15 seconds I disagree in order to correctly think you must know all sides of the world like Central I hope you think about this in the last 15 years you've built a community that is loving caring and encouraging by taking it away you were ruining everything you've built thank you guys for listening Haley Kentucky [Applause] 11448 Valley Court St John Indiana one of Lake Central's core beliefs as stated in their handbook which is passed out to every student at the beginning of the year is that harassment including what now limited to threats extortion racial or ethnic slurs and initiation activities is prohibited profanities threatening remarks posturing and obscene language or gestures by students struck toward another student are not allowed this is general rule number 31 something that in my personal experience is not enforced properly I have seen heard and been the subject of bullying based on things people cannot control I am an open person and I do not and will not hide parts of myself that are not under my control to appease people who refuse to accept others differences in my freshman year of high school I had a backpack with rainbow straps on it on many occasions as I was leaving the school in front of multiple security guards and officers I was harassed several different times including being punched because of Simply wearing a rainbow someone even attempted to cut the strap off which led to my backpack breaking and being rendered unusable now I ask according to rule number 31 in the student handbook is that harassment does it count as a serious offense if I don't know who the young men were who did those things to me not allowing Pride Flags or teachers openly expressing their allyship does damage if this rule stays put one day there will be another freshman and that freshman will be harassed the same as I but the difference is that freshman will not have a safe space they will not have a teacher they can go to and talk about it with because they will not know what rooms are and are not safe spaces that's why this rule will damage so many young adults while I understand the concern regarding parents not being conscious of what is shown to their kids in schools students still have authority over their own opinions the flags and positive statements are not there for a class lecture but to provide a beacon for students who seek a community Sheltering their children from lgbtq plus people or people of color will not do anything for the child except create a larger issue something that isn't being taken seriously enough because people won't see past the bright colors or simplified statements and they fail to acknowledge the history of Oppression and violence against minorities that led to what these flags symbolize in the present day you are not just taking down a flag you were taking down a sign to lgbtq plus students that they have been recognized and related to despite what they may go through at home or at school having one simple piece of fabric up can make a difference and sometimes the difference can be life or death multiple teachers have been made to take down Flags arguing equality for people of all Races which is an inalienable right of all citizens of this country via the United States Constitution the black lives matter and lgbtq plus equality movements are not arguments that should be debated by anyone regardless of their political party multiple books in the English curriculum argue Racial equality including A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry why the Cage Bird Sings by Maya Angelou and the hate you get by Angie Thomas reading these books is the exact opposite of Sheltering like Central students so why should teachers be forced to take down signs possibly a symbol of Hope for people of color when they are reading those books in the first place these issues are not seconds these issues are not political arguments these issues are human rights and basic human equality so if general rule number 31 says that Lake Central does not tolerate harassment of any kind why would we even consider worsening its effects by eradicating any trace of Refuge for hundreds of young adults it's time and I'm Maldonado [Applause] Maldonado 8425 Pine Island Drive Crown Point good evening board members my name is Anna Mall Donato I am the proud parent of a gay Guatemalan Puerto Rican Latino son proud parent to two strong educated Latina daughters proud wife of 30 years to a Puerto Rican latino man grandmother of a afro-latina granddaughter proud mother-in-law to an African-American son-in-law proud daughter of Guatemalan immigrant parents and a proud Guatemalan immigrant girl who became a naturalized American citizen 32 years ago I wear this with pride I am here tonight to defend the right to State science is real black lives matter love is love feminism is for everyone humans are not illegal and kindness is everything I am here to defend the right of my son that the Supreme Court of this beautiful Nation ruled in 1969 that students do not shed their constitutional rights of freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate my son is very disheartened upset and emotionally distraught that the school he needs to feel safe included and welcomed would allow such bigotry my son feels discriminated I will not stand by you see in June of 2021 the U.S Department of Education confirmed Title IX protects students from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity turns out federal laws are handled by the office for civil rights and they tell my son and me he has rights that the ACLU will help him protect I'm not happy that a board can be so easily intimidated bullied and tyrannized by actions of a dogmatizer Mr Barako shame on you for caving into this bigotry you were supposed to protect your team you were supposed to protect my child's freedom of speech without fear of reprisal without fear of him expressing who he is you lost my confidence and all I need everyone to understand this is not a mass mandate fight these are civil rights violations my son's freedom of speech will not be trampled by some boarding dogmatizer looking to pick yet another fight I leave you with this board members fight for my son's First Amendment rights fight for my son to be able to say and be happy of who he is fight that this immigrant Latina mother of a gay son doesn't waste any more of your modern taxes thank you my United Nations family is the new America and we will not sit down okay hi my name is Jada Jones 1507 Churchill Drive and today I didn't come prepared with the speech because this is not my first time speaking about it this will not be my last time either and it is saddening to me that I have to speak about this black lives do matter you see my life as a political organization why is that being tried why are lgbtq plus flags being tried why is that a thing why do you have to do that like people here they want to express themselves when I first walked into my teachers rooms Mr Lee and Miss snuff I saw Pride flags and I was happy to see that it felt comforting to me I met new people as well that are lgbtq Plus members and they made me feel safe as a black person that goes to LC I do not make majority of the school I make up minority of that when I walk into a classroom every day I think to myself am I the only black person in this classroom sometimes I do feel unsafe I have been said things too people have said racial things to me and that nothing has been done about that I see black lives matter when I see somebody has a flag up I feel safe and I feel like that is a space that I can talk in that I can feel comfortable in and in the real world what are you gonna do when you see a flag up what will you do when you see that flag will the parent complain about that then can they complain to a multi-millionaire company can they plan during pride month about that flag what will you do then at this school it is hard to feel safe sometimes so just seeing that small flag up there it feels comforting to me I again did not come up with a speech like I said before this is not my first time and that is so heartbreaking like I saw my peers crying I saw my ice was crying myself I could not stand for this the fact that it's being tried to me is insane and I just came up here to say that that's it thank you Aiden from Kerry Court foreign Court good evening Lake Central board members and Dr vraco my name is Aiden Ace I'm a senior here at Lake Central High School when I first heard about this threat taking of taking down anything not related to the curriculum of our own high school of my heart drop my first thought wasn't about me it was about the people who expressed themselves in and out of the classroom my mom has been a part of the lgbtq community for as long as I can remember with her being a lesbian she brought one of the best stepmoms I ever could imagine into my life they as two gays parents raised me as well as any other parent in this world having specific views that others don't agree with doesn't make someone a bad teacher bad parent or a bad person in the classroom the teachers aren't using these things that could be quote unquote distracting to teach the younger Generations the main reason these teachers have these types of things up in their classrooms is to make their students feel comfortable in the classroom I've had Mr Lee for two years and he's never once brought up being gay in the classroom unless it is for unless it was to tell his students a little bit about himself last year I had Mrs wad she was one of the best teachers I've ever had she taught in a way that motivated people in so many ways Miss Watt and Mr Lee have preached just to be yourself even if you think that it is wrong or even if Society tells you what's wrong just be you that is one of the most valuable lessons I've learned through school both these teachers set such a good example on how to teach this new generation creating an atmosphere where kids feel safe makes teaching so much more valuable and interesting by not allowing teachers to express themselves through posters pictures Flags anything we not only separate our school from creating a better atmosphere in the classroom but we also violate the First Amendment rights of these teachers and students so let's make changes to what classrooms look like let's make them better for everyone in this world and most importantly let's set future generations of kids and teachers up for success and anybody and I mean anybody in this world look at the most influential person in my eyes Pitbull once said every day above ground is a great day remember that Jen Wilson [Applause] Jen Wilson I'm having my daughter read for me because she's much better at it but we're from 1534 Mockingbird Crown Point Indiana thank you I'm here tonight to give voice to the quiet majority who does not shout each other down the ones whose moral courage comes from treating others as we would treat ourselves the ones who remember what community is and how it strengthens us all I stand before you as a product of our schools as a parent and a former teacher I did not learn about public education from cable news or from outraged postings on Facebook I learned from the old-fashioned way by personal experience and careful research and by approaching questions with an open mind many of us in this room benefited from schools not afraid to offer well-rounded curriculums schools where teachers could answer students questions about the world around them without fear schools that expose us to ideas that we did not encounter in our homes none of that made us turn against our own Heritage and traditions instead it helped us better navigate this complex world we live in in calmer times none of us would want less for our children I'm so grateful for all of our public schools have to offer LC has over 200 courses to choose from options from AC AP and dual credit classes to trade and industrial courses during covid LC did their best and offered in-person or online classes our teachers worked two jobs at the same time and yet some people felt the need to sue our district claiming they didn't listen to parents the louder voices claiming to speak for a majority based this opinion on a survey that was given weeks before the school year started and was limited to parents with kids 12 and under I did not get to vote nor did many others their statement simply is not true now some parents cite conspiracy theories and claim to be fighting the leftist agenda they demand the removal of Pride flags and want certain books pulled from the shelves because it is so offensive so then I ask if teachers have to remove everything political and religious from their rooms then why do students recite the pledge every morning and why must we remove Pride flags for their offense when we haven't even changed our mascot and haven't entered the tradition of having a student dress up as an Indian in a headdress which is something actually offensive to minorities I'm asking this community to find her better selves let's trust each other and the professionals that work for our schools we must talk about difficult topics or we will not progress as a society we can teach our students to think critically but when it comes to the values identity and character of our children parents and teachers can try to shape them into the molds that we want but at the end of the day the choices beliefs and morals of our kids are entirely their own there's a true majority out there with strong moral values we do not shout and are not afraid of differences we work hard we build institutions and then trust them to provide growth for all 15 seconds our Public Schools make us proud resilient and offer our kids the chance at an even even better life than our own to those of you who think America's angriest political battles should be fought in school boards I want to ask do you really think that makes our schools better thank you thank you Joanne schramz [Applause] Jillian schrands good evening Jillian trans 1004 Richmond Court Dyer Indiana first I'd like to say thank you to the administration and board as I know the last couple of weeks haven't been easy while I strongly disagree with the administration's new directive there's no denying the consideration and time that what was put into it my primary objection to the new directive is that it's an overreaction to the complaints of a minority group and a broad Strokes policy that doesn't differentiate between a teacher's expression of political opinion which is clearly not allowed in public classrooms and visual representations of the diverse identities that make up our student body if the if the poster in question from September 19th was found to be political because the wording expressed an opinion we believe then the scope of the administration's response should have been limited to posters that clearly represent an opinion but instead of stopping there the directive removes all symbols reflecting the identities of our lgbtqia plus students I object to the administration deferring to the anti-gay minority and allowing them to determine for our whole Community what's political I want to be very clear our students identities are not inherently political inclusive displays such as Pride Flags or statements of support for secular human rights which reflect the identities that make up our school population are not political it's the parents in the community who are playing politics and it's my kids and our kids that are caught in the middle and support for this decision the administration is citing mayor V Monroe which is specific to teachers verbally communicating their opinions to students on topics during class time that's not what representations of identity do and a recent case in Oregon that was decided last month in which the Newburgh School Board put a policy in place restricting political and controversial displays in classrooms was struck down successfully by the ACLU due to their State's Bill of Rights which is nearly identical to Article 1 Section 9 of the Indiana state constitution the problem with Lake Central's sweeping ban on all lgbtq posters and flags is that it's not based on what's best for our students the 2019 National School climate survey found that lgbtqia students who could identify supportive staff through things like posters and safe space stickers were less likely to miss school had higher gpas and were less likely to say they might not graduate high school in summary they had better academic outcomes isn't that what we want for all of our students I'd ask the board and administration to revise this new policy and to limit the definition of political to materials that clearly communicate a teacher's opinion or bias and not simply restrict all posters flags and Decor that reflect the diverse identities of our student population here at Lake Central thank you Kathy kaneki [Applause] good evening Kathy kaneki 11448 Valley Court St John Indiana thank you uh good evening my name is Kathy konecki and this is my second board meeting my first is when my daughter received the perfect score on word Masters in third grade um I'm a resident of St John a wife to a lifelong educator and football coach a public education 8th grade history teacher and a proudly essential parent of three children who attend Watson Grimmer and Lake Central High School our children are involved in multiple things theater sports clubs and bands through the school district and we enjoy supporting all students in their extracurricular activities I wanted to speak tonight so that I could do something I'm sure not too many people would want to do I want to apologize I want to apologize to the Board of Education the administrators the teachers and the students of the Lake Central School District my apology comes because for two years I have watched school board meetings I have talked to teachers students and administrators and I've told them how thankful we are for their job well done but I never spoke out I have sent emails and joined text change but I have never come here I'm embarrassed because I care about our district yet my yet my absence speaks volumes the truth is I was ashamed of the parents and the community members who have dominated the board meetings with their rants misinformation disparaging remarks and awful Behavior towards the school board Administration and teachers I was I was so ashamed that I did not want to be associated with them by being in the same room instead I talked privately with District employees friends and community members where I found that the parents who were the loudest were in fact not the people who should be representing our community they are in fact a minority of of the district population it was not until my daughter came home distraught this past week that I finally decided I'd had enough I'm done letting other people speak for me I'm done letting others dictate school policy and atmosphere based on fear and uneducated assumptions I realized that as an educator and parent I had a duty to speak out and speak for the people who have been degraded for long enough we hear from these loud community members all about what they are against they are against Mass inclusion social and emotional well-being accurate teaching of history and equal representation for minority students and staff it is almost like they hate public education 15 seconds I'm done hearing what these people hate about public education I want to shift the focus to what is great about public education the inclusion of all students the critical thinking the social and emotional well-being of every student and the teachers staff and administration and board members who go above and beyond for every student to feel welcomed cared about and valued thank you Indian Coletta right my name is Indian paletta and I live at 9818 Forest Street Dyer Indiana thank you and I come tonight to speak to you guys not as a member of the lgbtq community that is a straight Ally you know all my closest friends like a lot of them I think they're all uh I think a lot of them are part of the lgbtq community and you know I could see the way that they are feel represented they feel represented by all these flags are in like Mr Lee's room or like wad's room and that's beautiful like straight up that's beautiful and I love that because I as like a proud Mexican man I know what it's like to be proud of who you are and like that's how I feel when I see the Mexican flags up in like Mr Perez's room or whatever because that's awesome you know and we need more of that and the fact that that has been eliminated like because of outdated and irrelevant laws hidden somewhere in some old document in Indiana like that's not what's best for the students and you guys as the board need to decide what is best for the Lake Central population and this is not it straight up that's not it foreign so I humbly ask you as just me as just Indian paletta for you all to go back and to think about your decision you know like I'm not saying you're wrong I'm not nothing against you guys but you know read the room [Applause] and so the majority is spoken and I have spoken the night's coming to a close you know and I just got to say you know I feel like the community showing out tonight has been wonderful you know and I appreciate everything everybody has had to say and I have I'm genuinely shocked it's because like the school board meetings in the past like I've watched them they're not pretty you know and I watch these I feel disheartened it's because this is my school as a student here this is my life I come here that's seven in the morning like half asleep and I spend the whole day here and you know I want to feel comfortable in this environment and I want to feel like the government of this environment has my best interests in mind and with this past decision I don't feel that way and you know like I believe that we as a student body I believe we like together as a school with administrators and of course you guys at the top at all I think we could all move on from this I think we'd all learn from it I think we could all learn to make better policy decisions and work for a better future together and that's all I have to say thank you thank you Lauren Bridgeman thank you hello hi Lauren Bridgeman I am a Clark Middle School teacher and I'm here on behalf of lcta which is the Lake Central Teachers Association tonight thank you um with a message for Lake Central students so teachers decorate their classrooms to share a little piece of themselves with you that sharing is a way to start a conversation to find and Foster human connection points to create a community Cubs are socks obviously Cubs my students now I hear a Purdue posters quotes and artwork are also ways to share stories of successes and struggles Triumph and tragedy as well as interesting facts and compelling ideas the message is communicated on classroom walls and bulletin boards simply remind us that we are all human sharing a space time and place together in a moment no matter how different we are you our students are part of those connections and those moments students we are here for you we support you we see you you are amazing and you belong despite the messages you are hearing from a very small percentage in this community this tiny portion of our community wants to see a classroom messages judged and removed even if they get their way you are worth much more than a poster a picture could ever say you always have been they may take the sayings and messages from the walls and halls but they cannot take how we the teachers and staff see you with every wave in the hallway every greeting every fist bump you will know that we are here care for you here to help you and nurture you're becoming we are in this with you when it comes to creating a supportive environment in school we are your biggest Advocates and no one not even a few can take away your worth or Time by restricting and rejecting sayings quotes and pictures on our four classroom walls a challenge for our students and our community when devices divisive issues like this pop up it is our responsibility to ask ourselves the question of who who benefits from removing the ideas posters artwork and quotes who benefits from controlling the exchange of ideas in a classroom and perpetrating the notion that students somehow don't have the capacity to critically think or process various viewpoints who benefits from using this community's classroom as a place to gain control by inventing a purposely divisive emotionally charging galvanizing issue to incite and activate others another question is why are they acting so defensive and so afraid even if it means marginalizing those in their path including you our students our staff and our community members as I stand here tonight talking to you all it has never been more evident that inclusion is what what's at stake no matter students race sexuality or gender we will never allow one student to feel marginalized left out or unsupported because as teachers it is our mission to make every student feel valued and heard and we will continue to do that as teachers in this Corporation regardless of what unjust demands may come our way thank you thank you Tim true [Applause] Tim true Kate prashan hello good evening my name is Kate pershon I'm at 8694 Tapper Street in St John thank you I'm a Lake Central graduate and parent I would like to start by thanking the teachers in this District who often at their own personal and professional cost in any way they can can they continue to make it clear to all of our kids that they are loved and welcomed in their classrooms so thank you I'm not only standing here for my children I'm here for all Lake Central kids all of them our school corporation is composed of black and brown children gay lesbian transgender and questioning children Muslims seek and Buddhist children immigrated and undocumented children children with physical mental and Social Challenges many many people in our community including me love respect care about and protect them we expect the same from their school district my kids have been fortunate here they have not been discriminated against they have not been harassed judged or excluded but if they were I would want them to know where they were safe and with whom they were safe especially at their own School I would want them to immediately know who they could trust safe inclusive signage is everywhere in the community including school districts across the country and here in Indiana they are desperately welcomed by all people who do not fit into a cultural box in their environment a child who sees these symbols feels that they can be themselves in that space they can relax and they are free to learn in that space as themselves every child deserves this the key word here is learn these signs are not detracting kids from learning and actually I feel it's the opposite I feel they're encouraging all kids to learn I am here to show that not everyone in our school Community feels the same way about the inclusive signage that caused such a terrible stir at the last school board meeting these signs in question along with others were prematurely removed from the classrooms and challenged by someone who did not bother to educate themselves about how prevalent and Forward Thinking inclusive safe signage is in our communities especially among our young people and our young social cultures our kids are more diverse than we give them credit for and even if your child was not represented on that sign I can guarantee that most of our kids love and care about other students who are they are classmates teammates co-workers and Friends the message we send by taking these signs away is that not everyone is welcome and our school and our community this is the message that will emanate from Lake Central and discourage new families from coming here I wish Lake Central was more forward-thinking to do this the same as other school districts Perry Township Washington Township Muncie Franklin Fort Wayne who proudly boast diverse inclusive statements on their District sites this is not a political issue or religious issue this is a human rights issue and human rights are for all people in a public school in a democracy thank you thank you Louise Talon thank you very much for being here this evening my name is Louise Talent 2723 Sycamore Drive Dyer Indiana my words are simple students are the most valuable resource on the planet and I know very much how hard you all work how hard the custodians work how hard our bus drivers work how hard our food service individuals and employees work and each one of you on this board are administrative office at central office every single one of you I know how hard people in this District work and how they are very dedicated to the most valuable resource we have thank you thank you you want to do this [Applause] hello Laura dubish St John Indiana um parents as you all know can you hear me I think I have to make it higher just tilt it up how's that better okay um well first I would like to thank Dr Morocco for addressing the concerns of so many many parents recently as well as following Indiana Law this is not something that the parents are dictating any portion of the parents This is Indiana Law um well Dr Rocco referenced the law from tadrakita Attorney General you can look at it yes they did not follow the law on that but that's not why I'm here um so I wanted to thank you for that it's progress on a separate topic I'd like to address something important I think everyone likes to have the truth so they can draw conclusions accordingly at least I would hope this to be the case there seems to be a big disconnect in the interpretations of what occurred regarding LC's math decision in August 21.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
uh-huh and it's relevant because of some Facebook Twitter talk please yeah let's let's uh not shout out and try to drown up the clock for a second Terry please everybody was quiet up until this point and you may not agree with what the speaker is saying but let's respect and be quiet until it's done thank you thank you and it's interesting which side is the beliefs it really is uh our side was quiet so there's a disconnect here so everything I'm about to say I have the documents and proof The Mask issue was resolved on August 2nd meeting and voted unanimously 5-0 to return to school mask optional I have your own board meeting minutes here whoever wants a copy come see me message me and I'm happy to give the board a copy so I have the attachments I also have an August 3rd email correspondence between superintendent Morocco and board members it states there is no misunderstanding mask optional return to school I have that email here as well my purpose is not to rehash all of this my purpose is the truth is important I think the teachers wanted the truth I think parents on both sides wanted the truth everybody wants the truth as for the county level it was yellow on August 2nd and it was yellow on August 6th and it was yellow for four weeks four weeks more I have the county data sheets right here as well to prove it so there was no need at all for an emergency meeting that disallowed public comment you were advised that it would turn orange any day but that Source was never verified which turned out not to be credible there was no difference in data of masked optional schools and now that we have all the data the data is easily accessible then there was from Mass mandated schools your emailed the comparison using school specific data for the height of the biggest covid case wave on February 3rd of 22 between Crown Point and LCSC there was a virtual seconds there was virtually no difference LC had six percent more cases but also exactly six percent higher population I have that data as well I sincerely hope that moving forward board members will not just be receptive and seek the truth but we'll analyze the data given to them by concerned parents and base their decisions on it thank you okay thank you can I please have permission please chairman Lena Miller Luna Miller can I saying that right Lena sorry I get to follow that so that's great um Lino Miller 9695 Genevieve Drive um I wrote something but I'll keep this really short the kids have done well enough representing themselves here tonight the only thing I'd like to discuss is the at the last board meeting when this was all brought up there was one individual that was called out by name for comment we all know why we're here we're here because there's an election in three weeks and no other reason these signs have been up in classrooms for years they didn't care it wasn't addressed where the sign originated from whose classroom it was in the only comment they wanted was from one board member who was up for re-election we all know why we're here so I'll leave it at that the real reason that I came up here tonight was just to say something to these kids we will protect you not from nonsense like a poster not from yourselves because you are amazing but from bullies not just narrow-minded peers that walk these halls but from shameful bigots who walk around with a mouthful of scripture and a Heart full of hate that wish to erase you so to these kids just know they can take down Flags they can try to push you back in the closet but please just know and remember we see you you are loved and we got your back thank you Teresa I.E theresae okay come on Sherry true good evening good evening um Dr Rocco I'd like to thank you very much for ex actually looking into my request of figuring out if the poster was inappropriate or not and I appreciate that you taking action against it um for probably over two years now I've emailed the board with no responses I've sent you several emails and I've never ever got a response except from you Dr Morocco after I've asked you for a follow-up and I appreciate that so when everyone says that our voices are heard in this District it's not a comforting fact when I send emails to the board and I never get a response and so when people say you don't this isn't the right place to bring something up in a public forum well it is because you have not addressed my concerns privately over the years that I have brought them to you and so if you are not going to address my concerns as a parent and as a taxpayer I understand that there's different sides of issues but it doesn't mean that I don't have the right to come here and express my opinion and I just like to end with this is the parents Bill of Rights you have the right and expectation to question and address your child's school officials via letter electronic communications in-person meetings you have the right to attend public designated meetings with proper notice and meetings provided you have the right and expectation to question and review curriculum taught in your child's school by questioning your local school board and administrators during public comment periods of publicly designated meetings you have the right and expectation that the academic curriculum taught in your child's School aligns with Indiana and federal law you have the right and expectation to participate in the selection and approval of academic stand standards of the state of Indiana you have the right and expectation to access educational materials and curriculum taught to your child in the classroom you have the right as a candidate to run for your local school board you have the right to make decisions regarding vaccinations and ammunitions for your child you have the right and expectation to make medical decisions on the behalf of your child you have the right and expectation to receive your child's student health records and you have the right to receive special education services on behalf of your child with a disability so I would just like to say that these rights are given to us by the law in Indiana and I appreciate that you guys are following them now and I hope that we can have open dialogue more and I hope when I email you in the future that we can discuss these things and we can get them resolved in a timely and appropriate matter thank you thank you Angela Spencer 9475 Genevieve Drive St John Indiana um I think I want to like thank everybody for coming today because these kids really put a lot of thought into their speeches tonight and I can definitely appreciate that coming from a mom that's a junior that has friends in my backyard that are every nationality and and every gender um we're not here to to dispute them not in any way shape or form what we've always wanted from this board is to come together for agreements we've never gotten that when the masks came out we actually attended a meeting and we were shut down there was there was no open dialogue there wasn't any any honest conversations um points were not being heard um that's not what else she should be about we should be listening to these kids we should be listening to the other kids we should be coming together unified as a district we're the fourth largest District in the state of Indiana and this is what we have I mean Dr varaco this is this is what you are developing right now you are developing a decisive room where it's one side versus the other and that's not what we are about we're not about that we need to come together I get that I get that we should be able to love who we want to love we should be able but that's also in the same token that ha there has to be a line drawn when these kids go into class it needs to it needs to be about the education right now I'm looking at the at the Department of Education right now our core 40 we're below State average right now honors graduating we are below State and we are below other schools like ours SAT scores we're not even there ACT scores we're getting our butts kicked by Crown Point so what can we do what can we do to come together and make it a safe environment for all students every single one I don't want to see this girl crying because she was getting bullied and the administration did nothing about it so what can what can we do to come together as an agreement to get back to the academics to get our kids graduating with honors what is your what is your action plan going to be foreign but the flag is not defining you you and the relationships hold on you all right that you develop defined you a flag please address the board please 15 seconds well I'm just saying you the characters like their relationships that they develop in the classroom that's what defines a person a group doesn't define a person BLM doesn't define a person you define yourself and the and the relationships that you create time you define yourself thank you Melissa Ramos [Applause] good evening Melissa Ramos my pronouns are she her I reside at 1746 burgundy Street in Schererville Indiana thank you I'm the parent of a seventh grade grammar student my third and youngest to go through the Lake Central system I have co-authored and facilitated a number of diversity and inclusion training sessions for faculty staff and students throughout the Purdue system where I work this fall I spoke on the phone with Terry mucho and asked if the district offers or requires diversity inclusion training for anyone and I was told the program had been put on hold since the pandemic I've also heard nothing since at this time I'd like to publicly reiterate the offer I made to Ms mucha during that call I offer my time and knowledge in this area on a volunteer basis to revive a diversity and inclusion framework offering to all of Lake Central because clearly it's lacking earlier today after school my latinx transgendered child told me about a minimum of 8 to 10 individual peers who had bullied him in the course of one school day today this happens on a regular basis the data is clear lgbtq kids are depressed they are self-harming they are suicidal at a significantly higher rate than their straight peers removing the affirming symbols that make a public school a safe space for these guys is the same as bullying and it's enabling further bullying thank you protected classes now we're trying to talk now we're going to talk about federal law protected classes are things like race religion family status ability status what I'm talking about today sex and gender gender identity gender expression is a protected class in itself these flags are not a political statement and the parent who and as the parent who complained would have the school board believe they ensure diversity and inclusion a sense of belonging diversity is a reality not an issue to be debated lgbtq people are protected by federal statute but more than that we are failing our children if we're not encouraging them to actively include all people aren't we if you feel otherwise if you think I'm wrong then perhaps public education is not the best choice for you 15 seconds because at the public schools civil rights my child and everyone's child civil rights supersede any of your ideology put the flags back up do better Elsie Robert Starkey what blanket here in that I don't have anything to talk about this topic that everybody's so passionate about so so I don't expect any Applause um this is I wanted to give a brief update on um what the town of dire is doing Robert Starkey 509 Northgate Dyer Town Council president um I'd like to acknowledge Alan Brooks Alicia Myers in here thank you guys for coming out um let's see here I have four quick topics I'll go with the schools that we have in Dyer for bibbage the southwest corner of the intersection at heart and 81st has been a hazard for years Frisco buses and drivers Dyer has partnered with Lake County to purchase an easement we worked with NIPSCO and Comcast to move the utilities so we could widen that intersection if you guys have been down there you'll see it's some new uh work down there makes it much safer for the school buses to go by in 2024 2025 we have a plan to add a lane down 81st on the north side of it to help with traffic coming out of bibbage so that's what we've got going on in bibbage um protzman we are currently completing some repaving work on Jackson and 211th these streets are behind protzman outside of Door L oftentimes that's used as a a rear exit for the children to just go into the community so what we're doing is we put some some new Ada ramps on there we're marking the entire area making it no parking putting up some pedestrian signs just to make that area on the town side safer for the kids to exit into the community um Dyer Parks we'll be partnering with the protzman HSA in their efforts to swap out the mulch for a pour in place surface our goal is to have the dyer parks department purchase that in bulk to lower the rate for everyone so we'd like to do that for prodsmen at kaler anybody who's driving down 30 right now knows what a pain the construction is we are working with the state on an indot project to install brand new Ada Crossings in front of kaler um again the the traffic's awful but once it's done that'll be good um a future note I haven't seen I was up there I haven't seen any of the council members for any of the other communities in here and so again that's why I think Alan and Alicia for being here uh next up after what I'm assuming will be more comments you have a future items section I think maybe at some point adding a bullet point not every month maybe not every quarterly but at some point to have the municipal leaders come in here and talk about how we can be better partners with the school district and how the school district can help the communities um so that's that's my version of an update of what Dyer is doing for the the dire uh the schools in dire on a personal note 15 seconds oh I'll be I'll beat like 20 but I'll talk fast on a personal note new three minutes on a personal note uh you guys been listening to this pick up your pencils I've got a couple names I have a first grader in Crosman and I want each of you to acknowledge miss Mom miss Morales Miss Jail uh Miss Kessler the administrators where's Peter it's still time thank you they're making the difference thank you Dante gremolian foreign if we haven't learned over the past three years to not take blanken's statements such as trusts of science or we are doing what the national board of education and or County Health Commissioners telling us mentality board members Educators politicians and the like are going to have to do some serious soul searching for what they allow to happen over these past few years I Say Never Again the issue of political and religious speech is a complex issue that includes the school board's decision to mandate mask we say this and we talk about how do we ever think that a piece of cloth would divide people it did science is proving that masks were not working and we're learning from that we've heard trust to science over decades and it proves to be wrong over time so I hear students here that are politically engaged and I celebrate that they have the right to do that and I encourage the teachers that got all of these students here to encourage these guys to contact their local politicians I want to commend the board for talking with legal doing what is right according to your fiduciary responsibility in doing that but that being said for these students here that are outraged talk to their parents talk to those that can vote and make a difference with your politicians that being said it only turned a mask into a quasi-religious de facto political symbol that sends a message along the lines of I believe kindness is everything or I believe in safety above all else for those who do not believe that kindness and safety are virtues above all else being forced to wear a mask is no different than asking an atheist if we were forced to wear a cross when the people on the school board finally realize this things have to change and so as I look at this you look at school boards around the country to remove A Book Like To Kill a Mockingbird which depicts racism and bigotry in the harm of perverting the foundational belief that all men are created equal before the bar of justice and the consequences of doing what right and living proud of that you are allowing The Grooming of children in some of these libraries across the country whether you want to say that or not these are facts that really do exist and so your fiduciary responsibility is to allow my child to come in and to learn math to learn Reading Writing to learn the the gift of critical thought and all that being a side differences apart whatever we want to say of these political organizations BLM lgbtqi inclusivity diversity is they are politically motivated and so the job the job or the the job of the board here is to glean discern and understand decisions that require critical thought and how do we come together as having different political opinions and ideologies and doing what's right by the students the students if you want to do something contact your legislation thank you Vanessa Welty [Applause] [Laughter] hello Vanessa Welty 888 Hanley Court Crown Point first I would like to speak directly to any lgbtq students in attendance I just want you to know that you are seen and supported there have always been people like you and there will always be people like you you are fortunate in the fact that you are growing up at a time of Rapid change our society is putting in place legal protections for you most notably the Supreme Court decision obergefel V Hodges which made same-sex marriage the law of the land I know I don't have to tell you that discrimination that still exists but I have seen a seismic shift in a positive direction since I was a child stay strong Live Your Truth and be happy you will find your tribe if you haven't already next I would like to speak directly to any lgbtq teachers or staff in attendance I just want you to know that I trust you to teach and work with my children thank you for choosing a profession that can often be undervalued nobody goes into teaching to get rich they do it out of love for Learning and a love for kids I know most parents are grateful for the essential work you do every day I have three sons who have been educated within the Lake Central School Corporation from kindergarten at pifer through High School in this very building I am confident they have acquired the skills character and temperament necessary to live happy productive lives my husband and I have worked hard to make that happen but so did many LC staff members and I want to recognize that finally I would like to speak directly to the board and Dr varaco I'm very disappointed that teachers and staff are being forced to remove rainbow Flags they are non-invasive they are a non-invasive message to a group of people who had been historically marginalized and I personally find it laughable that anyone would find Roy G Biv offensive but I also realize that you are being forced into a no-win situation if you were to allow the flags to stay you're probably exposing yourselves and the district to yet another round of frivolous lawsuits which would waste even more taxpayer resources I'd like to I'd like to let you know that this topic is personal for me growing up my favorite uncle Erwin was openly gay when you have someone who you love in your life who is gay it is extremely difficult to watch them be on the receiving end of hateful homophobic Behavior Uncle Erwin was kind generous successful and Brilliant but none of these qualities or accomplishments could Shield him from the intolerance in others and this has instilled in me a great deal of empathy with the lgbtq community and empathy I see 15 seconds sorely lacking in other folks even today they can make you take down some of these flags but they're not going to push you back in the closet Jennifer brother [Applause] good evening my name is Jennifer Prather and I live at 4919 Heron Drive in Schererville thank you I am specifically talking about the poster that was mentioned at the last board meeting um and I will be following somewhat closely a script I believe that one weakness of the poster is that it shuts down Socratic discussion and critical thinking it declares We Believe by not allowing each student to choose which of these statements he or she agrees or doesn't agree with it promotes Collective collectivism rather than individualism the second weakness of this poster is that it is vague in attempt to gain Universal support while maintaining that students let me see maintain student ignorance of the true nature of these ideologies so um this one specific one is the um black lives matter this poster combines the raised fist along with the slogan black lives matter the race slogan has a sordid history as and is connected to communism and Marxism and I do have the the documentation the articles that that support of this and I I'd like to go off of one article that said how how one woman's yard sign can become a rallying cry for allies and the first the first point is the story behind a simple list of beliefs that turned into the most enduring symbol of anti-tr anti-trump resistance so this version of the original did originate and was birthed the day after Donald Trump was made president of the United States and according to this article as a political Creed it is more bold and memorable than anything the Democratic party has come up with in the last four years that I don't know and although this um this poster States in this classroom originally it did stay 15 seconds in this home we we believe and so I do believe that um if you want to see the article you can but it is a political Creed and therefore the poster should be it's timed thank you thank you [Applause] [Music] thank you my name is Mike Miele kovachovich I'm a first generation American citizen my parents legally moved here from a communist country and I'm watching America go down in fire okay my parents taught me about communism socialism Marxist everyone who came up to this microphone doesn't know what clue about Marxism until they come up or experience it themselves now for for the sign that was in a poster I was quiet for all you guys I expect the same respect for me taxes pay for school they don't you don't send your children to come here to express themselves you send your children to school to learn an education so they can be functioning adults in society so they don't need a pillow or a safe space to cry if someone picks or says we don't like how you did your report go and you're going to cry in a corner so first okay science well you guys said science isn't real you didn't believe masks I provided documented proof from legal uh 3M corporation that mass do not stop viruses okay so there's our science isn't real BLM it's a Marx Society ideology all of you on the board should be ashamed of yourselves because all three members founders of BLM have openly expressed that your Marxist organizers how come you haven't seen the videos you guys are you guys are in charge of our children's education and you are the most uninformed people I've ever seen in in this area Okay so BLM okay so to say black lives matters what about Serbian lives matter I don't see a Serbian month and Nikola Tesla provided everything here where's the serving lives matter or where's where's the serving lives month okay I know we're not yelling racism in America there's no racism in America how do I know because I'm a first generation immigrant son and I have to watch news how a black person in Chicago has to put bleach and wear a red hat so they can stage and and say that all Republicans and current servants are racist that's BS okay we prove that there's no racism okay when you guys say love is a love that means you're supporting pedophilia if you are under for more unfor if you are if you are unformed if you are unformed pedophilia uses a slogan Called Love Is Love and now they are trying to push minor attracted persons if you're unfamiliar with this term as people as Leaders of in our education I expect you to look it up I was quiet please respect me I'll be done very shortly when you guys say feminism is for everybody the feminist movement pushed abortions that killed black babies all across this country why is there a Planned Parenthood in every black neighborhood okay the doctor the book according to America okay fine well what about the time them booing me no one can hear me ma'am Cindy 15 seconds the position who pushed for abortion wrote a book called aborting America all right are you are you serious that's why I'm mad is 15.
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you still have 10 seconds 15 seconds 10. the doctor who pushed the abortions under Roe versus raid his name is Dr Bernard Nathanson you could try to find his book but I guarantee you it's going to cost you it cost me over 200 it's called a boarding America written in 1979. he said he was wrong and he's the one who pushed it thank you it's time Amy Barry thank you my name is Amy Berry I live in St John can you hear me my name is Amy Berry I live in St John uh that's a Tucka act to follow uh actually everybody is a really tough act to follow I thought the students did a really great job thank you uh as you can tell from my shirt I am an ally so I do disagree with the decision that's been made to remove posters however I also agree that you're in a tough spot because of the laws and that's really evident by what has been shared so I think I know how this is going to end but I would just encourage anybody who's in this room especially seniors who might be 18 there is an election coming up and everybody needs to vote not and I'm not just talking about there's only one person on the board that's up for re-election and I don't know how she feels so it's not even against you or for you but I'm just saying in general the only way that we're going to change the laws in this state is to vote so that's for everybody in the audience to vote vote vote and really thank you for your time and I know this isn't an easy position that's been a lot over the last few years especially with kovitz so appreciate your time um but yeah everybody did uh great tonight so with that we'll move on to board comments in consideration of future agenda items Dr Michael we'll start with you [Laughter] well I would agree with the last speaker it was it was good to hear the comments it's frustrating as you know to not be able to fix it so everybody's happy but that's the way the world is today and um I I thank you young students for coming out and expressing your views I think that's really good and and that's what happens when we give students the opportunity to be strong individuals and we guide them and I know some of that guidance has happened to school and it happens at home and it happens with your friends so um thanks for grabbing that opportunity a very very very special date is November 5th that's a Saturday morning that's when the Education Foundation is doing a walk in support of Our Heroes did you oh it's a walker run I thought she was telling me time I was going to get mad about that one okay so November 5th is at Lake Central High School and it is honor of Our Heroes now the hero that we started this with last year is Dana Les she was a student at bibbage kaler graduated from Lake Central Pharmacy student at Purdue she's one of the two gals that was um basically gunned down when she was at the hospital doing her Pharmacy internship at his Hospital on the south side of Chicago so from that love that we have for Dana and she loved running that's why this all happened the Rhonda honor Dana but now we're expanding it into any Heroes so if your grandfather was in the military and you want to honor him come bring him or you can just walk and do it in memory of him or in honor of him so think really deep think about your Heroes it might be teachers after what I've heard tonight it might be teachers so again reach out it's not an expensive walk run but it is the morning of November 5th that's a Saturday and I believe the next day is the fallback day so you have an extra hour to rest right okay thank you thank you Dr Madeline first of all I'd like to think just about everyone who spoke tonight it is really impacted me in my thoughts I did prepare some thoughts for the evening I will keep them very short personally I was extremely upset at the last board meeting when a parent took issue with inclusive signing promoting kindness that was posted by a teacher Dr varaco responded by saying that black lives matter and Nicole Kelly said that she believes that kindness is everything that made me happy however I was not elected to this board to push my personal feelings I was elected to work with the board as we are a voice of five not one and to keep an open mind which I'm certainly keeping my mind open tonight as well with the best interests of students at the Forefront always therefore I had to listen to what Dr varaco said during tonight's meeting and consider it as well as the advice of our lawyers many of you have rightly argued posting black lives matter in lgbtq Rainbow Flags is not engaging in politics but instead walking everyone to class I personally agree with you unfortunately Indiana courts have a record of not agreeing Dr varaco the administration board staff and teachers across the corporation want every student to feel welcome that's the best reason for Lake Central to develop its own messaging we can be created in united in this effort to promote caring and kindness through Lake Central posters we will not let hate rule our school love and inclusivity will prevail [Applause] Kelly I have a few things to say um first and foremost I want to commend the students who are courageous enough and brave enough to come out here and speak it's not easy to get in front of a crowd and speak um the next thing I'd like to say is we want all of our kids to feel included safe and respected could you speak up we can't hear you sir I can't I can't move it any faster or any closer closer thank you um so anyways to recap I want to commend the students that were brave enough to come out here and speak not an easy thing to do we want all of our students to feel included safe and respected in our schools and in our community it is my hope that all staff and students will continue to support each other in the absence of flags and posters in the classrooms it is unfortunate that a group launched a campaign against this type of acceptance but it is what it is and we have to follow the statutes and the guidelines that the states give us with that being said I would like to make a suggestion to our teachers specifically our art teachers to possibly add a poster project to your class I was quiet why everybody else spoke please give me the same respect back to what I was saying um let's try to come up with a symbol that doesn't have any political or religious connotations to it that will promote inclusivity and something that when our students enter a room they see it and they know they have a safe place a safe teacher to talk to and they are accepted thank you thank you Mr Marshall thank you Madam Secretary can can everyone hear me I have to stretch out on this microphone it's got a very short cord I like to reiterate a lot of what my fellow board members have mentioned um the one important aspect of the evening that really has hit home to me is a sense of pride a pride in hearing a lot of the speakers tonight because they resonate with my personal beliefs what we have to finally realize and come to some conclusion as a school board is do we emphasize personal beliefs or do we follow case law legislators are are esteemed attorney general who I find myself disagreeing with more and more each day on some of his pronouncements uh or do we just continue to go the direction that we're going uh I appreciate the comments that have been made this evening I think they're important and you've just reinforced my sense of pride in all of you thank you for coming out thank you and I have to agree with my fellow board members and I appreciate every single one of you coming out tonight and to your parents are raising great humans thank you and with that we'll turn it over to Dr Morocco for Board calendar and future activities thank you our next meeting is the eve of the election November 7th we'll be back here that night thanks all right motion for adjournment motion to adjourn second all in favor
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[Music] is so much higher that we're seeing this repeatedly that just we're running it we're always having to upgrade our electricals in all of our projects because the standard announced because the standards so high yeah [Applause] above Construction there we go welcome to the October 18 2022 meeting in the city of Ann Arbor Planning Commission for detailed information on meeting procedures please review the full printed meeting agenda uh Mr Leonard will you call the roll I will commissioner Gabe Randall present commissioner Abrams here commissioner sovay here commissioner Mills here commissioner Hammerschmidt here your dish here Mr Lee commissioner Clark yeah commissioner white here of course all right may I have a motion to approve the agenda commissioner white seconded by commissioner dish any discussion no discussion all those in favor please say aye aye aye all right emotion passes uh we have one minute uh to approve or not from September 7th um moved by commissioner dish seconded by commissioner Mills any discussion no discussion already all those in favor please say aye aye motion passes okay on to item five which is reports from City Administration City Council planning manager Planning Commission officers and other committees and any written Communications foreign start with commissioner or council member dish C I already told you that tc1 passed on first reading right yes just yes you might get a little closer oh okay I'm sorry and last night I don't remember doing anything that you would be interested in thank you Mr Leonard eventually yeah um a couple of updates um at your table this evening and it'll be attached to the agenda packet in the next day or two um there was a question um at a previous meeting about sort of the procedures to add agenda items to the agenda on the bylaws dictate that the planning manager sets the agenda for the Planning Commission I've referenced that uh um uh I referenced that that section if I think from my perspective it has worked pretty successfully over my tenure however I just remain open if there's any questions or desires to revisit that language we can always do so second um uh related to a item later on the agenda I wanted to share my joy that the requester proposals for a consultant to help with the city's comprehensive plan has been issued um it's out it's available on the website if you are interested in it I did make some revisions based on the conversation at the comprehensive plan subcommittee um uh as a reminder this is uh not uh the document that determines our vision it is the document that helps us select a partner to embark on that conversation in our community um and ultimately arrive at those recommendations and approve a document those proposals are currently due on November 21st I'm working to assemble an evaluation team that will help me with that process to ultimately recommend to the city council thus the action later on your agenda and um that's all I have to report for now alrighty thank you anybody else from any other as a commissioner liaison or other look like anything already so we will move on to item six which is public comment There's an opportunity for persons to speak up to three minutes about an issue that is not listed on the public hearing of this agenda we'll first call an individuals present and then remote participants to speak during this hearing please remotely please please press star nine if listening by phone or use the raise hand feature if viewing through the web link for phone access call 877-853-5247 and enter meeting ID 977-663-41226 to unmute plus start press star six City staff will select callers that have raised their hand using the last three digits with their phone number or by name if available through accessing through the web link when you hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background song so that we may hear you clearly for either method please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments anybody present that would like to address the Planning Commission [Applause] thank you trigger Randall Ken Garber 28 Haverhill Court very nice to be with you here tonight um you'll remember the village the 484 units off duvern road um with another 100 or more to come later which you'll see I'm sure eventually the developer Robertson Brothers has agreed to Electrify the 164 single-family homes but the 320 Apartments will still use gas you approve the project many of you with reservations at your September 7th meeting and it's on its way to city council at the end of that meeting Tim Lofgren Robertson Brothers agreed to meet with me and with other concerned citizens that meeting took place three weeks ago attending for the citizenry were Matt brokof Doug Selby Jan Culbertson um and commissioner Hammerschmidt also attended unofficially all of them have professional experience designing or building low and zero emissions buildings Robertson Brothers entire senior management team showed up including the company CEO there was an amazingly Frank discussion of the barriers to building electrification that this developer faces they had no concerns about the technology hire rental utility bills aren't a major issue right now either because current gas prices put electric heat pumps at parity roughly there was some worry about upfront costs and supply chain reliability but the biggest issue for them was our local electric utility DTE and Robertson Brothers experience simply hooking new projects up to the grid can take a long time in one instance they built 10 homes and then waited a year for DTE to give them Electric um and uh just getting DTE to return phone calls can be hard and if more transmission capacity is needed there's no predicting when DTE will get around to making the necessary upgrades maybe it's not surprising for Monopoly utility not to care but it means that electrification poses or business risk for the village project it's not just the delays DTE charges large fees for electric upgrades in contrast DTE Gas hookups are fast and cheap um by the way I've heard that the Ann Arbor school district has had to delay heat pump hookups until DTE gets around to making circuit upgrades from a climate point of view it's still insane for the village or any development at this point to go with gas full electrification should be mandatory for all new construction and this should be written into our city code but dte's dilatory behavior is a real problem I don't have an obvious solution except for City staff to bring up electric capacity with developers at the very start of the review process so DTE can be brought in right away if necessary a municipal electric utility would solve the problem but we're a long way from having one of those thanks thank you anybody waiting in line for us virtually indicated uh to address the commission okay alrighty so we are on to item seven which is public hearings for the next business meeting all right okay then we are on to our regular business item 8A which is the Amendments chapter 55 unified development code section 5.22 stormwater management and soil erosion for storm water management systems looks like we have Miss de Leo and Mr Hancock ready to tell us all about it um I'll just do a brief introduction um and um then Jerry who is official title I believe is the flood plain and storm water management programs coordinator close yeah so exciting let me introduce what is on the agenda for public hearing this evening we have some amendments to the unified development code which is chapter 55 of the city code we are talking about section 522 which is the storm water management and soil erosion um section um and then specifically we are talking about subsection 5.223 which is the storm water management systems and to this subsection we are proposing some amendments and then um we are also proposing to reorganize section 522.2 and 0.3 those are non-substantive we are not changing any of the rules regulations procedures numbers data steps processes of anything of the sort but we are um adding putting some of the text in tables and adding headings um to it um I will let Jerry um give you an overview of the substantive amendments and then I am assuming we don't need to talk about the reformatting but I am here to answer any reformating questions I feel that the reformatting should be fairly straightforward but as always I'm happy to answer any questions um Jerry all right thanks Alexis so the reason these uh changes came in is because the city has to have a permit um it's called the national uh npdes National pollution discharge elimination system permit and that those permits are required by the Clean Water Act but in Michigan they are handled by eagle or the environment Great Lakes and energy department and when our application our renewal application was being reviewed a while back they provided some comments and said we we have some exceptions in our stormwater requirements that do not meet the Clean Water Act rules and from to simplify all of the changes basically they're saying that the exceptions we have are kind of based on use and they don't really they don't really care what impervious area we use is if it's impervious it should be controlled it's kind of it's kind of the kind of a summary of it but um a quick overview of the changes that are proposed they indicated that on all projects on sites that are over one acre we have to minimally require control of the first flush and we had an exception in our ordinance that if a project didn't increase impervious area you didn't have to do stormwater management and they have said that that's not okay for projects that are over one acre um and the other the other there's three other exceptions that they've asked us to eliminate and they're basically we had some some minor exceptions for projects that were only for ADA compliance and nothing else where we had an exception for public sidewalks um and this would only apply to a site plan if a public sidewalk were being proposed through a development um you know not if something's in the public right-of-way it's not part of the site plan anyway so there's very very limited application for that anyway and then historic buildings so we had a minor exception in for for the roof of a historic building and they said that that doesn't matter so um to give everyone a sense of like what does this all mean like what would be the effect on development um we look back at the last two and a half years worth of site plans which are about 65 site plans to see what the effect of each one of these items would have and I can report that the the change to require first flush on projects over one acre we found two projects where that would have uh kicked in so um and it's and just so everyone knows first flush is the first inch of rain so we're all the change in that requirement were you know two projects over the last year and a half would have had to control one inch of runoff so a fairly small change the exception that we currently have for for Ada there were no projects that utilize that um that hasn't been utilized in a long time that that was put in in the 90s when there were some changes in ADA requirements and we had a rash of projects and so we put this exception in and it hasn't been used much since then then the public sidewalks we found one project where there was a public sidewalk uh basically going around a tree to preserve the tree that would have gone on to the private property that would have added a very minor amount of storm water management for that project and the historic uh building or historic roof of exception that we had hasn't been utilized in the last two and a half years so zero projects that would have affected and additionally there's one other change that we are proposing that wasn't asked for by the state there is an alternative section basically meaning um where a site could choose not to provide stormwater management if they provided either a land to the city or money that there was a formula that you know the idea of being equal to allow the city to do their detention for them and some other other Manner and that that section has only been used once in the last in over 20 years and it's and the the dollar values in it are also over 20 years old so not representative of current cost um so we're proposing to change that section instead of instead of looking for uh compensation just providing more flexibility like if it if a development is on a site that's contaminated and they really can't do detention if they can provide justification um we still have to require first flush for the state requirement but there are some flexibility for difficult sites and there's a few um specific example listed in there where exceptions can be made oh and we thought that that would that would help with especially with these changes that were proposing uh to make make things a little more flexible instead of this the um and basically pay in lieu of section that we previously had that wasn't utilized that's kind of the overview so I think we can take questions should we do the public hearing first alrighty so we'll we'll have questions in a bit um so this for public hearing persons to speak up to three minutes about these changes to the UDC uh first call an individuals present and then move a remote if you're speaking remotely press star nine or use the raise hand feature for phone access call 877-853-5247 and enter meeting ID 977-6634-1226 City staff will select callers that have raised their hands uh please go to a quiet area so we may hear you for either method please state your name and address um at the beginning of your comments is there anybody present that would like to speak doesn't look like it alrighty anybody virtually let's just give it one moment nope no indications okay well I will read the proposed motion which is the anniversary Planning Commission hereby recommends that the mayor and city council approved the amendments to chapter 55 unified development code section 5.22 stormwater management and soil erosion subsection 5.22.3 storm Water Management Systems to eliminate currently offered exceptions and revise the criteria for approving alternative standards and to reformat subsections 5.5.22.2 and 5.22.3 with additional headings and tables for a more user-friendly and concise layout consistent and reorganized content for efficiency alrighty we are in discussion oh sorry I'm sorry skip that part moved by commissioner sovay and seconded by commissioner Abrams now we are in discussion commissioner dish and then commissioner White I just I had a question on page two of the um staff report it says that a detailed explanation and Analysis of the proposed amendments and the reorganization is provided separately was that meant to be the marked up document with comments or did was there a detailed explanation more along the lines of what Mr Hancock just provided us that was supposed to be attached and wasn't um I can address that as I wrote the staff report although my screen just froze um the um in the body of the staff report the strikeout version that was done the strikeouts with done with the current format um that was what was intended to highlight exactly what was being amended so it didn't get lost among the reformatting and the analysis does come from um Mr Hancock's memo from September 2nd is that it that's it okay commissioner White uh this is just a um maybe a typo era that I just want to clarify so I am looking what am I looking at hold on okay I'm looking at attachment number three ordinance to amend storm water management system final draft 10 13 22 version 2 PDF is it error reference source not found yes got it okay it should be section 5293 and section 5294 it's in your strike through version but it's not in the version that I presume will go to city council so I just want to make sure we catch that because if we approve it and we don't catch that then I think there might be problems that is um just for clarity um that's considered just a I think they call it a scrivener's error so even if the ordinance to amend included that um that's a um that's not a code um issue and it can it can be corrected without any type of formal amendment that is a editorial situation for lack of better editing terminology yeah and um my apologies for that we try to catch those what that is is a function of we are maintaining that document in Word and it's a link and we do our best to try and fix those but when we're doing edits and pulling a section out of the UDC that's um sometimes I make that mistake yeah the links get broken commissioner sovay we'll start by saying I think these are great you know changes that I I think make it clearer um maybe I'll just add on to some of the little edits though um one of them was uh in terms of the replacing the exceptions with uh sites that are less than one acre size site plans for planning manager grading permits that don't increase their overall impervious area it reads unclearly as if it were any one of those things or all of those things combined but the table is really helpful that I understand that less than one acre um is kind of split sometimes it's not applicable and sometimes it is but then when I go to the table it says one acre or less and the narrative says less than one acre so the exact one acre lots are kind of straddling the definition um to be on one side or the other so I think again it's just a small clarification comment if we get a perfect one acre site there might be some confusion early on but also uh maybe an Oxford comma combines all of that that sentence together to make sure it's all of those pieces combined um and then I did have a question for the sidewalk requirements to be included in the calculation that is for any public sidewalk on the private property or also within the right-of-way adjacent to the property so when we decide plan a project we're only site planning the private property we're not site planning the public Street per se or that that fronts so the storm water requirements don't apply to the public right-of-way so you'd hit you'd have to have a situation where you were putting the public sidewalk on private property for that for the current exception to have any effect on stormwater calcs and it's it's very rare that that when that happens okay I just want to declare it sounded like there was that one like hook of a path but not that this becomes a much bigger kind of move that we are tracking anything adjacent so that was just a clarifying question but other than that the kind of where does one acre land in that split um and making sure I believe that all three of those are supposed to be combined together correct to be exempt in that first paragraph one b b uh sentence or paragraph one or maybe we could address both those Alexis maybe you could talk about the structure of the exceptions and Jerry if you could address the one acre is it is there a specificity with the state guidelines yeah the The Memo from the state said over an acre okay so we'll make those Corrections cool thanks anybody else I think it works um I'm gonna screenshot oh yeah I've I've got a couple of questions too so um I'm wondering how this meshes with what we passed earlier this year about the 300 square foot um that you can change a site plan add 300 square feet of imperviousness and not trigger site plan submission and so I'm just wondering how these changes mesh with that because according to this it according to this table I would think that that reverses that and so I'm just curious how how does that affect that um go ahead Alexis I think I'm going to share a um word document here this afternoon Jerry and I were meeting um and to make to make sure that our reformatting did not change any of our of our substance and so this um table these highlighted in yellow um we ended up changing the this language um because it just it didn't what is in the packet doesn't seem to Jive um and I think that this may um address the partial question here and then I'll get into it a little bit more but um one for sites that are in the city of Ann Arbor's review responsibility and here's something the it's actually not jurisdiction um it's review responsibility but when you are in this city of Ann Arbor review responsibility and your site is one acre or less um and so this threshold is new um because we are removing the exceptions if you have no net increase in impervious surface um and you were years ago an administrative Amendment or today if you are a site plan for planning manager approval there are no changes required to your whatever stormwater management system you have there now even if it's none um now so this is consistent with the 300 square foot and this is so this is I would say an exception but Jerry correct me with the terminology but the review comments didn't have issue with this exception because it offer a site of one acre or less so we are maintaining this exception but we are going to make sure that this language and this is the language we're going to use um says when you it's no changes are required when you have a site plan for planning manager approval now if you are doing a 300 square foot Edition um you're not even triggering the need for a site plan at all in the first place in our development review table so again these two issues are not connected they they work well together and there is no change these reformatting or the exception changes doesn't change if you were doing a 300 square foot Edition or slightly larger and it was not and it was on a small site and it was going on top of existing impervious surface um then again your stormwater requirements tomorrow will be the same as today and that they um no changes are required um and then I'll just circle back with this yellow language here um because it was and so it still will be you actually do have to provide storm water management when you're on a small site even if you have no net increase but if you are a site plan first Planning Commission or city council anyway I hope it didn't ramble too much and I hope that actually answered the question so if you have no net increase in a site that is over an acre does that trigger stormwater or no yes that's that was the comment from the state the state has indicated we have to at least require first flush okay so that's a change then from from when we passed it before it seems strange to me that you can have a site like relationally to the size of the site that you're you're actually doing less you know because it's a bigger site but it still triggers the system if it's over an acre yeah and it's that that was that was the most clear thing from the state that and so the the rules of the Washington County Resource Commission that commissioner that we use as our standards that that is how theirs is set up there there's is set up to meet the state requirements because it's it's been revised more recently than ours uh that so we just we we just didn't have that one acre threshold indicated we were just saying if it's a site plan for the old administrative amendment that you didn't have to do storm water they said that that that did not meet the state requirement so that's that's actually the largest change that's proposed okay and then how does that relate to the whole 50 business from the county in relation to that as well in terms of change like how does that dovetail with yeah so it um So within the county rules which which basically any site plan that comes in the the review that if it's at the city or the county it's going to be reviewed the same other than this table that we're looking at because we both use the county rules the county rules have uh a a threshold in it that is not in city code that if a development is is um disturbing less than 50 of the site that they only have to deal with the the 50 or less from a storm water management standpoint not the whole site if you are going to disturb 51 of the site then you have to address the entire site so um that applying that threshold basically uh eases up the requirements on all all you know projects that are a complete Redevelopment okay so can I ask yeah please so Jerry am I to understand then that a two-acre site that is proposing to disturb um 25 of the area 25 of that area is going to be have to meet all the county design standards for stormwater for that Disturbed area however the entirety of the site would have to meet first flush at a minimum yes that is correct good clarification thanks yeah that that does help okay all righty that's how the county rules are already set up okay okay uh anybody else alrighty I think we are ready for a roll call vote all right so this is uh um on the proposed ordinance I do want to note I don't feel like we need a motion to change but I just want to know we are going to make sure it's up to one acre for uh the exception um because it's over one acre is what the state we're going to follow that to the letter and then we will also correct the reference and may also clarify the exception language to make sure it's clear what the intention there is so um I'm I just want to there might be some small changes from what you're seeing but I am hearing acquiescence to all those big improvements so I'm gonna we're just going to do that uh commissioner sovay yes commissioner Abrams yes commissioner Hammerschmidt yes commissioner dish yes commissioner Clark yes commissioner white yes commissioner Mills yes commissioner good Brandel yes it is unanimous okay we are on to item 9A which is other business and we have quite a few of those so um let's see we will begin with the update to the state of Ann Arbor Parks and Recreation open space plan the prose plan for 2023 through 2028.
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good morning [Music] myself [Music] foreign Community Institute wow oh yeah [Music] I could do this thank you [Music] thank you hey welcome everybody thank you hi this is here all right so the next item is uh to approve our agenda sexy any discussion okay guys yes um so number five we're moving right along guys so this is uh for the minutes from our September 12th um hold for a second Community discussion yeah I have two um changes okay um in the motion to approve the executive session that says I made it since I wasn't at a meeting and I was difficult for you to do that no problem and also on the ratification about your emotion refers to the district and financial report rather than the ratification of vouchers so with those two changes and they look okay to me thank you I don't know who made the motion to go into the executive sessions okay yes what the amendment foreign [Music] and the last five years we've had three victories in five years um and so this year we came in with it and we were a little nervous going into it um but our boys and our girls on our team were super super hard and getting commitment that we were going to change that around this year um that's what I got two two step up and introduce themselves um my name is Christopher Moreno so one's my alignment and one's my tight end you can take a look and figure out which ones which but uh a couple of girls on our team and we kind of did The Impossible of what people around us thought was impossible and we went out and we started winning football games uh we wanted to eventually we ended with five wins on the season um and one of the things that I really provide ourselves as Continental School for years and years is the sportsmanship award that means more to me than hardware and trophies we were able to win games and also be nominated by all the other coaches in the league for sportsmanship New Year football team so foreign thank you all right good evening everyone thank you for being here thank you board members and for the business girls for me um as you see our theme for the year is this us and you'll get my presentations I present the things that we've accomplished and things that we've done with the amazing staff students and community that we serve we get our vision and our mission so you see it boys and girls it's posted everywhere at our last 40 meeting we talked about a challenge and we're challenging students and parents to memorize our mission statement or our vision statement are there any students who have the mission or the vision memorized yet okay our mission statement Continental School District will provide a community environment in which all individuals are challenged to achieve excellence in academics character and life skills and our vision statement is building for the future learning cooperating and caring for all so everything we do every single day is aligned with our mission and our Victory statements so teachers and staff that are here it's your challenge to help our kids and our parents make sure that we're always keeping our mission and our vision in mind our enrollment update we are we have lost a few students compared to where we were last year so we are down 12 students total and when we check to see where our students are going eight students have moved out of the country or out of state so it's not that they're the major charter schools are going to other places one moved out of district and we have four unknown students who are not yet registered and we haven't had any records requests so we'd like to know where our students are going but we are as students leave we've just enrolled two new kids yesterday and um another one starting tomorrow I will be sold so even some commitment uh we attended an Ade assessment conference uh it was attended by myself Mrs Cuevas Mr Nathan Mr Ferguson and Mrs malay we attended many good informational sessions and had time to collaborate and discuss our needs for fundamental so you can see Mr Ferguson and Mr Nathan their heart and thought and work um I don't know where she was hiding at that time but um on the right you see the academic impact of NAB which is um looking at long-term trends and naep is a national assessment of educational progress and it is often called the nation's report card and they release trends of students that are nine years old which are third graders and um on that graph on the side it was the first time ever drop in math and the first drop in Reading since the 1980s and the scores are comparable to um 20 years ago so that the national Trend right that's national graph when you look at Continental our third graders on our state assessment we were eight percent above the state in ela and we were 29 average above the state in math overall our school average we were up four percent above the state in ela and 10 of both the state in math so you can see the national Trend was a drop like I said for the first time since 1980s but continental and our students and our parents and our staff continue to work hard and we do not align with the national trend of the drop in reading and math for third grade so everybody deserves a great big relative Applause foreign ers okay this data is about you so you tell them great job in getting high fives okay so we're I'm very proud of the work that everyone continues to do so thank you um I presented at the national Outlet Summit in Puerto Rico and my presentation was on effective leadership strategies to build strong superintendents and governing board teams and in the presentation I shared with our boards yesterday's executive session and I'm so proud of our relationship and our work and our courageous conversations that we've had to continue to reversible forward because as you know in the nation a lot of superintendents and boards are struggling and having difficulties but I just want to commend our board um for their support of our leadership team and of our students staff they always keep the students needs at the reward print other sessions and topics were how to make tutoring sustainable strategies for infected District white programs which we know that if we can get things aligned pre-k-8 we're going to have more success um also strategic planning reducing friction and increasing momentum leading with a wellness mindset again talking about leaders having to really have growth mindsets and take care of ourselves in order to be good for our staff and our students one quote that I um that I liked was the most important question we must ask ourselves is are we meeting good ancestors so when we look at what really matters and being role models and being um setting that role models being role models for our students are PTC sponsors mother-daughter dance huge huge success our PTC and our parents truly Rock we had over 250 people here in our gym and you can see we always have over-the-top decorations we had a DJ how many of you attended the event all right good thank you um we also celebrated Hispanic Heritage Month and Sunday O'Connor so your students your children should have participated in activities on um both so we there's some samples of things that occurred here at school and annual fire department coloring contest also came over and it's always the Highlight when our students can go ride in the fire truck and Market prepping comes in itself the awards Walk and Roll to school this is Kelly Kohler our PE teacher working with Pima County nurse Maureen the Green Valley Recreation Cycling Club and with our amazing staff who help every year to make this another great annual event we had 132 participants from pre-k-8 family scooter fight what and that's pictured below even rollerblades so I believe we have our rollerblade dad in the audience here thank you foreign [Applause] shade is finding here with the Gaggle ball so um we're super excited thanks to PTC and our Esther funding we've been raising money for a long time for shade very very expensive to put in shade structures tomorrow we have Mr Curtis and Mr Nathan are going to be demonstrating down the hall um for the teachers and students so I think our PD on Wednesday we might have some teachers out there doing you guys all as well so that they can make sure it's being used and I'm not sure what GaGa ball really is um but we'll all find out right so it'll be the next thing to pickleball okay Transportation news congratulations to our burial driver and trainer sister Ken Cruz on earning his seventh degree black belt in Taekwondo and earning the title of senior master so we have some pretty important people on our staff and we really need him to start teaching Taekwondo here at school but I know it's been pretty busy with a Taekwondo lessons and just outside of making sure our kids get to school and home safely every day that we can do better it just that's the other one um yes so okay I guess the last lives but again thank you very very much um everyone for all of your hard work um thank you [Music] so we are putting it in a new order for shirts so when you come over here we're gonna leave with what your teacher wrote about you we're going to give you a good for one free ice cream cone from his father Java so it's on from one of the guys thank you families for being here tonight my name is Max and kindergarten all right [Music] congratulations [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] amazing my name is [Music] the teacher writes Ruby is a shy quiet girl who could easily go unnoticed what her teachers do notice her they notice her kindness willingness to work hard and her daily practice of treating others safely she does her best in class and always has her work done on time Ruby can be counted on to be honest and responsible and it's a pleasure for having class congratulations always willing to help and without even being asked to do so she's kind and responsible she embodies what a quote should be congratulations my name is the teacher writes one is honestly one of the most sincere students I've ever had the federal working with her hard work and determination is contagious students who sit around her all over Greek I think ever perseverance this carries over to her activities of brain break and recess this girl has some soccer skills and even taught me how to chip in soccer her kindness is infectious and I love how she just always does the right eating all the time when does it need reminders to do what's affected of her and I couldn't be more proud because foreign [Music] foreign [Music] has shown so much growth in these past few weeks he's always responsible respectful and a great helper he is so smart and has amazing education congratulations thank you today so who's teacher right because that is an outstanding young man he shows how a horse is trying to save and responsible by turning he's working on time looking out for others and being a good example I'm so glad to have to stay in my class you get to know who's this reporter has been a real treat and they sent it to spend the rest of the support your weekend yeah congratulations foreign [Music] Edition as this quality makes her stand out in the ground to everyone around her that is a safer responsive responsible Continental cult congratulations you're right Christopher is responsible kind and always looking for ways to help others he's dedicated to the schoolwork and demonstrates High academic rigor while still finding time to help his careers congratulations Christopher foreign [Music] you guys can smile that's okay [Music] all right I want you to stay here real quick one of the things that we implemented a couple years back is something called the Golden Portugal award which is similar to um like employee of the month if you will and our staff worked really really hard to make sure that your kiddos are safe and give us the best education that we can provide that only happens with great stuff they're truly dedicated one of the unique things that we did this year is instead of us is advent picking those people which we've done the last couple of years is because we've opened it up and they're actually nominated and voted on by their peers um so that's we really like that because it's you know recognizing the hard work that they do for each other and one another and so we actually have cool quotes from the people that nominated the two that we'll share with you today um and why there's such a tremendous asset to our team here in condo so our first is Venice [Music] right a few of the things that they wrote is this is an Amazon worked hard has a great attitude and treats our students with respect while still communicating roles and expectations she's very hard-working individual and is always Pleasant at morning Duty willing to help and smiles a Time she's an awesome support to everyone we put on her feet and always willing to help she's terrific with the peers and students she interacts with thank you for our certified staff member is this is Patty tesso foreign [Music] she was one of the first teachers to welcome me as a parent and now as a staff member thank you ready good job thank you thank you all right all right thank you that takes us to the rest of the meeting everybody's welcome to stay or um thank you foreign [Music] discussion I just had one small little thing a comment or more or less on a Disney trip I went on that a few years ago when we went to Disney yes what was that our kids now are juniors in high school yeah but anyway it was such a blast you know I think Mr Lang and I are willing to go so it's really super that we can still help facilitate Washington DC trip I think thank you music it's just like that I'll get it for you so with that done roll call please yes this is yes all right thank you very much so we are on item number 10 the report items just start finding out your report as of September yes good evening members of the board if you think your package is this month's latest Finance report um I present this to you every month um so I will present for your approval again [Music] short report so discussion just one question um and one comment um Greg can you can you explain a yes or two I know that they had covered related Federal benefit at the end it showed a negative budget balance of 112 000 this month it shows a positive seven thousand dollars what would cause that kind of rolling over from doing final end of year titles um when the grants finally get their completion report status can be deleted updates the report s of change right right because what happens is that they give us our final uh request so after June 30th we can't request any fun so anything that we have spent between June 30th and that reward date it has been reimbursed so that's why the cash back looks like that okay so what this tells me is there's still an additional seven thousand dollars of unspent money in the other two fund there's a little bit more than that that we haven't um but yes okay um the only other comment I still have a question is on the budget versus the financial report as far as what we approved um I've seen the response from Council um I still have a skepticism about one piece of death and I will deal with it now um but I will request today that this week okay Greg would you would you agree that our financial statement summarizes the current condition this month not everything has been rolled over for every previous fiscal year so cash balances will not be accurate but given the data that we have yes the financial statement summarizes the current edition yes yes ma'am thank you okay foreign [Music] a second yes Mr mcgibbon yes thank you all right approval to dispose of broken and no value-west so the last time I arrived before the board items for disposal you asked me to give you something a little bit neater than the handwritten pages so we actually have a form that uh Mr Ferguson has gone through and he's tested on a bunch of old laptops on Chromebooks um printers and they're just items that no longer have of value something that I couldn't even sell at our auction so we're bringing this three-ranging light for disposal um just as a side note we will be looking at recyclers for electronics so we can probably get some more Portland items so we are looking into that as well [Music] all right yes Mrs Alan yes Mr mcgibbon Mr alario the next is the approval of the Supreme attendant evaluation this is something we worked on for a long time and uh [Music] grocery superintendent evaluation tool one second as just to see how we can get that information thank you and I would just like to thank everybody for it's been a journey to say the least for all of us including uh Miss Rico um moving forward on other things abstain excuse me okay the business item um so back in I would say June July we approved the real one plan for our futures and but then that is 20 of the 301 going through their base um let's just call what it is I dropped them off and I never got the information for the action figures so this is actually getting those teachers that 20 that that they will get over there so they'll get the entire 20 we're going to be able to remaining comparison so bring that tonight for your approval first by the teachers so so is this 1800 just paid out on a monthly basis for the rest of the school we're here thank you foreign yes Mr uh yes all right all right now here's for the really exciting part I hope everybody's got a pillow you need a bathroom break first we can do important policies there's probably 25 of them so a lot of things are not surprises because we've been talking about a lot of these policies in the last six months we are ahead of the game in a lot of the policies so this is his first read some of them may or may not have happened to us the first question I think is your result of legislative action in Phoenix yes yes it's legislative action which goes to Asda policy so that we can update we have to either approval or to deny them so that they can be effectively many of these were some of those episodes right right okay so we're looking for a motion and we can discussion I don't think we need a motion sometimes yeah I agree I tried to read again policies shot second okay good yeah all right and that's there is a lot of stuff going on now and it's over here yeah this list probably doesn't even include one so we'd like to invite everyone on Thursday night we are having behind family night and our book fair is going on so so please join us Thursday night if you can and visit our book fair we have a lot of exciting field trips that are taking place but then a canyon the cartoon of caverns we have uh students are going to the Phoenix so as you see good fun times since covet has been lifted a lot of our cultures are now um thank you and with that we traditionally do a governing board discussion and we'll just start at the end of the Skies well I'm sorry I missed you all yesterday but I was riding a train through the Verde Valley and thinking how much fun that would be to have 80 high schoolers on the train it would what a fun trainer very dirty Valley it it was just a wonderful trip and uh sorry I had that planned for many many months and so I'm sorry I missed you yesterday good job on what you did okay I wanted to mention the father-daughter dance it was a very good turnout during the night um I was roped into serving dinner I mean I was told that I really missed out on serving the concession stand because they were just back there eating cookies no it was it was really great um my husband and I were talking about it on the way home pptc has their hands full this month that was a very big event and their biggest event of the year is still coming up so they did really really good we will also share the link PTC did a wish list for Carnival prizes and you could just shop and their you know prices for the carnival but they're anywhere from 14 to this is okay thank you I'd like to thank our PTC don't hide oh my goodness a few weeks ago yeah at least the first and small number property tax and the amount of tax allocated to Connell school yeah which I think is somewhat I don't know what everybody else is looking like my whole building but um I think that because everybody has something to do with the fact that we made the efforts to refinance the bonds of the school and we passed on a million dollars with the savings to the taxpayers in the Continental School District and I think it resulted in a little bit more money being in each of our tax return by phrases tutorials [Music] schools that are 20 times which is a real compliment to I mean I've had people that I kind of know and they said what's your kid go into DTC okay all right all right I'm gonna go up and I want to put my 400 to help her go you know it's just that good I mean people a lot of them get it I mean we all think more skip because take advantage of it because it's free I mean you're getting I believe that signature do we want to do 4 30 .
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awesome yep College order all right Lindsay I'm going to call this meeting to order all right so I'm going to start with the land acknowledgment Creighton School District understands that our community of schools are located on the ancestral land of the oatham Druid and akamal Ultram people who descended from the hohokom and have it inhabited these lands since time immemorial the oatham whose name translates literally to people or a vibrant culture in community spending countless Generations into the past continuing to thrive in the present and carrying a powerful Legacy for Generations into the future with this acknowledgment the Creighton School District formally recognizes that the traditional care in keeping of these lands by indigenous people is an aspirational model of community stewardship that we are committed to honor with practices policies and human relations um Nexus Pledge of Allegiance um pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it should dance okay so we have Miss Lindsay McCaleb on the phone Miss trevory and myself oh roll call I did roll call okay we would like to welcome everyone tonight to the meeting we are open to the public and in any individual Desiring to address the board shall complete the appropriate card and submit to board assistant board members are not allowed to address items that are not on the agenda if you are in need of special accommodations please call the superintendent's office um so let's go to number two number two approval of the agenda so I'm going to move since we only have Lindsay for a couple minutes I want to move 9A to be heard first consent items and then we will lose Quorum so we will hear those two items in your second yeah I need a second second all those in favor Lindsay aye Ms Nick Jeffrey hi hi all right public comments we have one um from Katie Gibson McLean and because we are short time we're going to keep it to two minutes tonight my other public comment that I had planned because I was going to discuss something regarding the last meeting however I'll wait until the rest of the board is here for that um I'm trying to I love I try my best to be patient and maybe it's because it's the second time in the last week and a half where I've gone to a public meeting and had my time wasted I sat for two and a half hours at a city council meeting last week for them the last minute change an agenda item that I was trying to comment on and be sent home um so and here I am tonight I had like prepared reading a bunch of stuff before this meeting while trying to feed my kids and show up and that's just me and it's not about me there are all these families and kids here and I know I'm preaching to the choir because you all are here um but at the same time I think I know it's there's open meeting law requirements however there should be some way for coordination to happen and know ahead of time if people are going to make it or not especially when you have people here that are ready to get presentations that have taken time off work that have brought their kids that are cutting into dinner time all that and I know crap happens but like there has to be some way to coordinate ahead of time and also honestly and I'm not I'm this is not coming from anything personal but if somebody's not checked in and they're checked out then maybe it's time for for them to move on and if somebody's in a position of leadership then they need to take responsibility and figure out what their schedule is and where they need to be and who they need to talk to in one so those are my comments I'll save my other ones for the next meeting thank you thank you all right so we are going to move straight to 9A Madam president members of the board Dr Lewis and executive team mistina doolian who would normally do this report is is ill this evening so you're stuck with me but I will give you the use of bond and override proceeds report for fiscal year 21 and 22.
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[Music] when it comes to sports my main sport is basketball I really get a lot from basketball whether it be just the team bonding or getting to know other people and stuff like that and creating friends I also play golf golf with my first sport this year I'll be playing basketball um in the winter but uh when it comes to clubs I'm in PEP Club I'm part of Roar I'm part of the Wildcat athletic student leadership team and I'm also a student ambassador [Music] one thing that has been really good for me here at West Chicago Community High School was participating in Roar and just kind of the values that go along with it a lot of people are sometimes scared to break out of their show but I think that really helps people be themselves and that really leads to them reaching their potential really I really believe you should just Embrace who you are and just be yourself I think you'll distract yourself too much trying to be somebody else and just trying to impress others you'll really get the best experience out of the high school if you really just Embrace who you are and have fun with that I really think I'm really good with numbers I've always loved math since I was a kid so that's kind of the area I'm going into so I'm really thinking of going to fintech which is finance mixed with technology and it's all in kind of that business school kind of business field my name is Aiden Russo I'm a senior here at West Chicago Community High School and I'm this year September student of the month [Music]
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