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so I'm gonna do my best to give an analogy I'm a visual person so an analogy of what we are kind of proposing so it's essentially a refinancing we're looking to refinance this lease I've provided uh on the screen here a visual about two schools so we own Cooley and Sossaman Middle School actually we don't own those we we're leasing those um we have jmf Higley and that I realize how that is presented um not intentional but uh and then we also have the Phoenix idea the bank in which our lease payments are made too and so currently we make a payment to jmf Higley gmf Higley um takes that payment and makes the payment to the Phoenix Ida um that payment is is then you know jmf Higley does manage various fees and agreements um with some of our funds and they pay the principal and interest to the Phoenix Ida bank so what we're proposing is to eliminate jmf Higley and just pay the bank uh principal and interest and so I know that's a very high level and and probably not the best reference but essentially what we're looking at doing is refinancing um our lease agreement uh with that I would like to invite Mr Jim Gill up to talk a little bit uh about the terms in this agreement and talking to you about some of the legal conversations that we've had thanks Tyler uh Jim Gill with Gus Rosenfeld uh good to be back here again uh I'm sure you recall we've had a couple of Prior discussions about this 2012 financing so I just wanted to go through there's a fair amount of detail as Tyler mentioned and intricacies involved with that financing way more involved than any kind of bond issue that the district or any District would do normally so I just wanted to kind of take you through some defined terms from that 2012 uh financing so that you have a sense of exactly who the parties are and what documents we're talking about because we do have a couple of underlying issues that we're uh trying to uh get resolved with the uh with the borrower uh still um but I think I think we're in good shape but uh um I just kind of want to lay everything out for you with respect to those issues so first just to start Tyler mentioned the borrower jmf Higley that's the limited liability company that stands between you and the Phoenix Ida they are 501c3 and they are technically the owners of two of your middle middle schools the Ida Tyler mentioned the Phoenix Ida you normally wouldn't ever have to bother with them but again due to this unique structure that was presented to the prior Administration that's kind of where you are with Ida bonds so the bonds themselves nearly 70 million dollars of bonds that are callable uh in in in the normal term of 10 years so in this case December 1st 2022 you can call the bonds either in whole or in part uh but the key here is that we need the consent of the borrower and the Ida um normally you would imagine that you would need the Ida's consent to throw a bunch of money out of them and for them to call their bonds but but the wrinkle here is that we need the borrower's consent as well in this case jmf Higley the foundation so we've been working on that with them for a number of months I guess over a year now and we do have them on board uh they were I would say reluctant at first uh but I think we're there now um as part of those 2012 uh financing we've got facilities use agreements uh two of them each dated 40 years one for each Middle School the facilities use agreement well let me just back up we've also got ground leases that I don't mention on here because they're not up in the air in any way but the way it worked was on the district leased you own the real estate that the two schools are on that's the good news you lease that those two Parcels through two separate ground leases to the 501c3 um and then the 501c3 leased the two schools once they were completed to you in the form of these two facilities use agreements so you can kind of think of the facilities use agreements as lease agreements that's what entitles you to be in the school using them uh We've also got a trust indenture something you would never have in a normal school bond issue but that's the agreement between the uh the Ida and and the trustee UMB Bank in this case they and UMB kind of takes care of the debt if you will they are the representative of the bondholders so there are financial institutions and possibly uh mom mom and pops out there who own your bonds well I'm sorry the Phoenix Ida bonds and uh if the district chooses to move forward we'll call them away from them and use District proceeds we'll get to that I'm getting ahead of myself a little bit to call those away um but that's where the trustee comes in they get very much involved in that process of redeeming bonds early under that trust and denture we have a capital repairs fee that's required to be paid and you guys have been very diligent you've made those payments you're paying 175 000 per School annually we've got over a million dollars in that capital or Paris fund that is built up over time uh as you've probably heard we've had a hard time getting that out because as part of the original financing uh it was upfront agreed to uh what repairs would be made uh on a set schedule which of course never made any sense but uh Tyler's been lucky to get some of it out but again still sitting on a million dollars um which brings me to the capital repairs fund itself which is the actual fund under the trust agreement held by UMB we struggle with this one a little bit because there's a provision on the trust agreement um and as I think I've mentioned to you in the past that says if we pay the bonds off the balance in this case over a million dollars accrues to the benefit of the borrower slash foundation and not to you which of course is as silly as it sounds but there's another provision section 5.14 of the trust indenture that says never mind uh you guys actually do get the money so fortunately the borrower Foundation has agreed to to read it the way we're reading it on Section 5.14 so you you the district will ultimately get the benefit of the million dollars um that should never have been an issue but and I kind of attribute it to a drafting error uh 10 years ago but that's the way the documents read another one of the primary documents to which you were a party 10 years ago was were two option agreements uh the option agreements were exhibits to the facilities use agreements so one for each site uh Unfortunately they they allow you to exercise options to purchase the sites but only or the improvements but only within a 30-day window June 1st to June 30.
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so if the average is eight does that does that mean that there's a class of like four we're gonna have Amy come up and talk that through and remember we have Am Pm right so those four classes are all of the classes so there's two am classes and two PM classes just as a clarification can you hear me yes if it's up the button should be up yep um so so children can enter if they have a nice nope nope not up there you go now we're up sorry Pre-K rolling and rolling I'll start again so um for preschool we have rolling enrollment uh children who qualify for an IEP will qualify on their third birthday so we technically have to have a seat for them exactly on their third birthday so some of the classes fluctuate quite a bit because we are expecting many more uh three and four-year-olds to qualify during the year this year actually we have the most evaluations then we've had over the last couple of years from what I've looked at we already have 25 students on our list for evaluations whereas the past two years they completed only 28 29 evaluations for the entirety for the entire year so certainly the numbers will change and fluctuate quite a bit from now to June and that's also one of the reasons there's no guidelines with regard to right it's a board of ed set guidelines for pre-k correct so I think so we've talked about some things but we never answered your question yeah different um districts use different practices but right now they're divided by threes and fours so the four Le the four-year-old classes are larger than the three-year-old classes and then the three-year-olds will keep coming in throughout the year right so but my question was are there classes smaller than eight if or is it truly the average I believe it's truly the average but I'll have to double check on what it is this week because okay it was just confusing because if the average is eight but there's a class of 12 that would sort of imply the other the other three have to be five or six right so so I will double check for you and I can get those exact numbers for you but I wanted to explain why things might be very different okay okay thanks yep any other questions on the class size report next one okay the next one is the multi-lingual learner report um and as you know from this report last year um it was discovered that we were in need of a bilingual program to do our best to provide that at Huckleberry and that is again based on criteria from the state if you have a critical mass of students in a particular language then you have to provide a bilingual program based on the the information we were referring to earlier the dearth of teachers available for bilingual in the state we are actually servicing our students through we happen to actually have a teacher who is bilingual certified and also Spanish language certified so she's working with a lot of those students at Huckleberry along with our tesol teacher working with our students but this again is going to inform us as we go forward it confirms that we still are in need of a bilingual program at CLE s next year it's something that we're also going to have to keep an eye on as we as we administer the last links test which is the state test that allows us to kind of identify what level of language students are at in terms of their acquisition of English and so that whether they still qualify as a multi-language language learner or if they are you know kind of matriculating out so they are no longer in need of bilingual education um so you'll notice again that our languages are continuing to shift and increase and change a little bit this year for example at Center there's a student who speaks Bengali that is not something that was on last year and we're also seeing a rise in our Portuguese native speakers and so we're keeping an eye on that and Catherine Abrego who is our new world language and multi-language learner administrator K-12 has been doing a lot of work with the the administrators and the teachers across the district to build this capacity so I'll just for the people listening in at home the summary of the reports is a hundred and one students whose primary language at home is not English in our district it's a sizable number and there's 13 different languages spoken across all the schools of which Portuguese and Spanish are the largest but the next biggest two are Mandarin and Albanian so you know the challenges of a multi-ling and then and then there's a lot of them with one two and three right Beyond those um but the uh the challenge of a multi language lingual program is the variety of languages that children speak at home so it's been an ongoing uh investment in our in our schools and will continue to be and we'll continue great we have a lot of diversity here in Brookfield any questions on that report all right the third one is uh um The Homeschool report so as the board is aware I'm sure that um you know students who are homeschooled there is a form that families have to complete when they remove their children from the district and then we ask them to identify a notice of intent that is what that we are required to send to these families but there's no uh purview that the board or the school district has for them to have to return the information so the information that we currently have is that 28 students are homeschooled of the that number uh there that's 20 that represents 21 families we had 20 23 students of those 28 we did not get any information back on so really we had three out of the 21 families return information about their students that they are intending to homeschool their children and then we had two other students uh for two other of the other students parents sent refusal forms and they are not going to fill out our form so that's that information okay any questions on that one okay so that's the prepared thank you very much thank you to the team for helping me prepare these reports all right so next up are three policies um Amy do you want to do the motion so we can move that off I will I will move that the board approved three new policies for a first reading as recommended by the policy and communication subcommittee they are policy number 6162.51 survey of students policy number 5145.53 transgender and gender non-conforming Youth and policy number 6115 ceremonies and observances separation of churches okay second all right moved and seconded um as we has been our practice uh Debbie you want to give a brief overview of each of these policies um I won't spend too much time on them since you do have time to read them before our next meeting so I'll just try to go quickly through these first one is survey of students 6162.51 this is required by Cabe and we do not currently have it um so this just really outlines the fact that um the board the different ways the Board of Education may use surveys to assess the need for student services to determine prevailing views pertaining to proposed policies or practices to determine student knowledge and or attitudes related to specific subjects or units um and you know there could be many other reasons why the district would want to administer a survey uh this policy would require administrative approval for surveys well administrative approval would be required for any survey but then there's a list of factors that would require board approval and those factors are listed here there are eight of them political affiliations and you can go on and see the rest of the list there attitudes and behaviors all that um so basically again it outlines the fact that parents and Guardians would have the right to inspect surveys uh and the request would have to be made in writing so um that's pretty much it again it's this is a required policy that we don't currently have so uh it's pretty straightforward okay oh it also says um the important thing is that surveys are always anonymous okay so the next policy is 5145.53 and that is transgender and gender non-conforming youth um I touched on this briefly last time but I think it's important to say again that Connecticut state law has addressed transgender students and um the handling of things such as public bathroom use since 2007.
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so that that's not very helpful when we're talking about redeeming bonds as early as January February March whenever the whenever interest rates cooperate so we have I believe uh gotten the foundation slash borrower to agree to amend that provision so that you know they'll be flexible in terms of allowing the district to exercise the options when it makes sense and when we can redeem bonds so uh Tyler can go to the next slide so if you do choose at a later meeting to go forward um with this we will formally notify the Ida uh the borrower and UMB and their respective Council and all those parties that I've just mentioned have all been involved in conversations of your intention to pre-pay and fold the outstanding bonds um and if you do choose to uh to do such a resolution again at a later meeting you're not locked into it in any way you don't have to issue certificates of participation in this case to redeem those bonds you you can adopt a resolution and wait for the markets to see when interest rates make sense and we'll get to that discussion um but but what I'm trying to express to you is that you are not you are not required to do anything with that with that resolution it is not binding on you it is simply an authorizing resolution where if we fit in certain parameters right in the middle here we say if we could put together a financing not to exceed 30 years in an amount not to exceed 61 million 730 000 at a bond yield not to exceed 5.75 so if we can fit in those parameters then you've given District staff uh the authority to move forward with the with the refinancing but again I'll it's all contingent upon the market if you decide to go forward with a resolution in this on December 14th or later uh well then UMB will then provide a contingent notice to the existing bondholders that the district has taken such such action intends at some point to redeem bonds again we're required to give that notice but it can be contingent upon the district uh issuing those those cops certificates of participation uh at that point once we issue certificates participation the um the existing bonds get paid off the underlying real estate the two primary the two middle schools get get released and then but then encumbered again for your new lease financing but let me stress uh this lease financing that you could do to take out these bonds is very straightforward we've done it a number of times for other school districts in the valley and it's really what the district should have done 10 years ago rather than do this you know Ida financing so this is tried and true and we believe there's a market for the for your certificates of participation so basically Elise Elise financing so we'd just be taking the remaining 30 years of your original 40-year financing do you have any questions about what I've covered rather quickly president Kaylor he says or something that have you seen are currently the current lease that we have now have you seen this throughout the state or the country at all this the the 10 year old financing at your party to yeah the 2012 that we've now that was very unusual you were kind of the test case unfortunately um the group that got it through the prior Administration tried to do it in other jurisdictions other school districts in the valley and we kind of were able to warn the others off um so we're the only one as far as I know you're the you're the only one who actually did it um I wasn't a party to it um we were your bond Council prior to that but we were let go um as part of this tenure as part of this prior financing since we didn't and this one must do it many many boards ago I just want to point that out to all the people maybe watching that this was many boards ago and um two superintendents ago thank you sure all right so I'd like to invite Mr Mike Lavelle yet to talk a little bit about how this would look um if based on the current market and uh what we have outstanding so thank you madam president members of the board Mike Lavallee with stifle uh I too uh was working with the district back then but not involved in this transaction um and as Mr Gill mentioned I'm glad he mentioned it right at the tail end of his presentation the district has the ability to do lease purchasing you do lease purchasing for copy machines and you know buses sometimes and you can do at least purchase structure to finance buildings in our state and the district could have done it on its own through the use of a publicly offered lease I.E a certificate of participation which is what we're talking about here but again instead they routed it through this sort of non-profit through the idea structure it's more akin to a charter school financing that's I guess the closest thing I I'd say it's akin to again we don't see it in the public school space at all other than this than this District um so this evening uh we just wanted to show sort of the before picture and the potential after picture the before picture is the darker blue bars uh the principle that would be refinanced um is that first call on there the first dark roughly 61 million and change it could be replaced with less principle and how could that be well uh you in refinancing the entire um two leases the entire amount that it will release some Reserve funds okay there are these Reserve funds because these are education revenue bonds through the Ida a reserve fund was required when we do certificates of participation as the district you do not need to do reserve a reserve fund and so there is a reserve fund outstanding sitting money sitting into account um it is investing you know being invested but it's available to in case the district does not make a payment on this then they would use that to make the payment but that would be freed up and that reduces and so we will use that to contribute to the New Deal and lower the principal the amount that you're borrowing okay so that's that and a couple other special funds we're releasing some some monies and that's why the principal is less than the original amount being refinanced the interest column uh the dark the replacing the old with the new right now unfortunately because of where the market is interest rates have shot up since January 1 of 2022 the lowest point almost in history to today they have shot up so this picture looks a little different than when we talked in the last year or two or three where rates were so the interest cost on the new transaction is likely going to be higher than the interest cost alone on the old transaction however we have this last column which is the fees the fee component roughly 16 million dollars remaining and so there's annual payments in addition to The Debt Service being paid as Mr Moore mentioned or showed in his diagram two dollar signs going to jmf Higley one dollar sign going to the Ida the other dollar sign is going to fees another accounts um and so we would that's an annual amount too so those amounts would be removed entirely and replaced with no annual fees through the cop issue so essentially replacing 16 million dollars of fees that were are programmed in over the next 30 Years and so with that the amount of remaining payments um which includes the various fees and restrictive fund deposits so your Capital repairs fund that you're you know that deposit you're making that Mr Gill mentioned that amounts to over the next 30 years of about 124 million in in change you'd be replacing that right now and again it's based on our estimated rates uh numbers that we ran about a week and a half ago uh and that'd be about 114 million so you would have roughly about 10 million dollars over the life the 30-year life of freed up general fund budget capacity cash flow capacity and that last paragraph about 365 000 a year uh of of improvement to your general fund and an additional amount likely uh because we're freeing up the capital repairs fund of a million dollars that we hope can be spent right away or at the district discretion for Capital and so roughly 10 to 11 million dollars freed up again depending on where the market is when we were able to lock in rates and secure and get that and get that find out what that overall interest cost is um going to the next let me just elaborate on that a little bit so that so that what that means is if we call our budget presentations right we earmark we've been earmarking 4.4 million 4.4 million basically right off the top of our budget for this payment so that would be reduced by approximately 365 000 based on current interest rates right now so you know that that can fund a number of teachers we can we can do a number of things with that which is why this deal even though interest rates are not in our favor right now it still makes sense because of the operational funds that we will um get back on an annual basis so um Mr Moore or either one so looking at like these big numbers like 178 million dollars was like this big so of and I get like the whole Charter funding like he's jmf Higley is that what did he make what is what is he made well the foundation itself or the foundation I I don't know if they've made they make a lot um annually on this uh but there's other fees you know so there's a developer for him is the fees that that he's able to pocket back they earn they earn a fee for managing the facilities and and you know there's facilities use agreements um this the the foundation itself does not make a lot from what I can understand s but there's also Annual fees for the management of the facility which is a separate entity uh there's uh fees for trustees there's the Ida fees okay going through the Ida they have a fee an annual fee it's a seven and a half basis points my recollection of the remaining Debt Service and so as you pay off debt it does go down but there's a fee annually on that there's accounting fees auditing fees and so all of that would be essentially removed yeah yeah and that 178 million that Mr Moore didn't mention in the beginning that's adding up principal interest over and all 30 years 40 Years of projected fees correct yes but in 10 years of jmf Higley having it there's had to have been some fees well yeah sure the 178 million is now down to 124 projected you know for the the next 30 Years right yeah you've already the district has already been paying you know for the last 10 years on this okay thank you president Keeler Mr Moore um the 365 000 does that include the administration fees and all the additional that would come off or correct that's net so that's the net if if you will general fund savings basically if you stack the three dark blue bars and then you stack the two light blue bars it's the difference between those two but then we break it down you know annually and it's roughly about 365 thousand dollars of if you will pure Savings of removing uh the fees of the old deal and you don't have fees on the new one Annual fees on a new one so by removing the fees by by removing some principal um that's the net savings um annually President Taylor yeah we like the present value dollars and so 30 year 10 million dollars of you know savings over 30 30 years amounts to roughly about a million bucks just under a million dollars on a present value basis in today's dollars if you will that's a financing term but we like to you know our in our world that's how we you know the the value of this is roughly about a million bucks now if we lock in rates a month from now or whenever rates in January or February if they are dipping lower than what we just ran a week and a half ago that number will go up your savings will be higher it'll be more than 365 000 a year and in fact if you are we ready to go to the next slide yeah um rates this this is a snapshot of where the municipal Market rates are about a week ago as of uh November 4th in the bottom left corner there bottom right pardon me um and as of today I believe rates have just dropped about 15 and 20 basis points so that 4.08 at the very top that's the 30-year rate is now about 20 basis points less so about a 3.9 let's call it 3.9 percent now this is the Triple A Market so these are issuers who are rated AAA not a lot of issues are rated AAA but everything prices off of this Benchmark so this is the general level of where rates are when they go up or down everything trades off of that so we would be applying for a rating for your district for the for this lease okay typically lease purchases are one notch lower than your general obligation Bond ratings your general obligation Bond rating uh is a double A minus I believe and so we're hoping and that you'll be in the a plus category on this lease and that's how we've structured in estimated rates at this point those rates would be higher than what you're seeing here because that's what a triple A borrower can get everybody else below that double a single a actually pays a little bit more and so we've priced it in at an A plus if you will and we hope that that's what we'll lock in in terms for rating president Kaylor can either of you because you have lots of experience in this as well had we done this on our own what would we have paid for these two middle schools oh boy I that's a that's a very difficult question to answer mainly because that um I think the original thought was to do a 25-year you know Ida deal and then when the overrides didn't pass I think they stretched it out to 40 years I'm not so sure that we would have recommended if we were hired to do you know a lease on on its own with the district we would have recommended going out 40 years I mean well so it's a very difficult way it's hard to do a comparison if you will what does it average cost to build oh so you're talking about the construction dollars yeah that I mean what was the the amount that the district borrowed was I believe 70 plus million you know that uh you know that you did fund a reserve fund you could subtract about three and a half million from there you did have a couple other things additional payments and fees and all that but you know what was the pure Construction contract I don't know it's probably North of 60 million yeah yeah and at the time in those dollars I'm not I don't know what middle schools cost back then but I'm yeah I'm not sure they were that much it would have been significantly less potentially yeah that's that's I'm not a construction expert but I mean this route cost us a lot more than it should it was all packaged to the developer who put this whole package together and helped the district hire the the contractor and put the foundation together and work with the Ida and made it look sort of Charter school-esque if you will okay thank you thanks Mike uh so looking looking at a timeline um as you know this is a we're bringing this as an information item um uh Mr Gill mentioned uh you know preparing a resolution for the governing board on December 14th that resolution is is flexible and that it would give us some time to either watch the market and make sure make the most fiduciary response you know I guess action uh in terms of exercising this cop steel and making sure that is still beneficiary benefiting the district and we're not making a deal that would financially put us in a worser situation so um it does provide a resolution uh approved on December 14th would provide us approximately six months of time in terms of executing this agreement it'd be within the fiscal year we would not extend past fiscal year 23 but that is the general financing timeline there's also several other things going on during this we would have credit rating calls we would be out in the market selling bonds so there's other dates on this schedule but this is a high level look and that is all I have so if there's any questions we'll be happy to president Keeler Mr Moore I just have one question or one right now um I just heard words like think and like we have them but we or we think we have them we're not sure so do we have anything in writing from jmf Higley at all saying that they'll do this or where are we with that I think we're we have verbal um and I know Mr Gill is working on executing in a a written documentation maybe you can speak to that yeah a good question uh Madam president members of the board uh yeah we do have email exchanges uh with uh the foundation and their Council where they've agreed to the to the term so to speak um both the uh release of the capital repairs fund to the district and uh building in flexibility for the option agreements but so what I was as Tyler mentioned what I was hoping to do was your the boards the district's formal Direction um to to both the foundation slash borrower and the Ida and the trustee we would build into that instruction uh Direction um those terms so that would be so they would accept the the change in terms we would have um either amendments or amended and restated option agreements for both my real estate partner will work on those and uh yeah we won't go forward unless we have that but you know we pretty well have it in hand just at least in as Tyler mentioned verbally over Zoom meetings and in person as well I believe as well as written emails so I'm comfortable with that president kaler Mr Moore I want to thank you for the hard work I this has been something I moved to Arizona in 2012 in the summer of 2012 and this was something that we've heard about since December of 2012 these leases and what happened here um since I joined the board four years ago this was something that has always been payment paying of the lease paying of the lease paying of the lease and I'm excited to see that we're working on something and not staying stagnant with our previous agreement so I thank you because I know this probably took a lot of work on all three members who spoke here today on their behalf because this was not a normal lease agreement so I thank you president uh Mr Moore I just the capitals repair fund that we're allowed to not use right okay right we're not allowed not allowed yes um it's only for it's only for it's only for specific things right it is what it was correct yeah in that original agreement um there was a 40-year schedule for Capital repairs and uh I don't know how you anticipate what you'll your buildings will need over 40 years so um we have submitted requests um they have been denied because they weren't a part of that 40-year Capital replacement plan which is why we haven't been able to touch that money and why it's accrued um it was a part of the original deal we we signed the deal and so Mr Gale has we've worked with jmf Higley to try to get requests out of that but you know they have stuck uh strong with that deal we get the roof huh did we get the recent roof repair yeah so that so the saucepan roofed the 600 000 that was part of the capital repairs um so their 40-year maintenance schedule um that was one thing that was up this year uh which is why they granted that um granted we have done a number of other things on those buildings uh with our own internal budget um so it frustrates me that we still have to send off 350 000 to them to sit on the money but um they did approve the the roof um but the next thing on that list would be a couple years out and I think it was Windows which from our facilities director they are not in need of repair so it just shows the the Ridiculousness of that 40-year maintenance schedule so just so the public understands too that we've asked and not been able to use the money or right correct correct so it's not like they're paying for our maintenance fees or anything correct okay president kaler in addition to that we're also paying them to um what was it uh maintain well there's there's a management fee management which they don't have anyone managing our schools so um to put it in perspective it helped me so we have the debt but we don't have the asset because someone else owns our buildings and we're leasing them what you're asking to do is refinance them and then we will still have debt obviously but then we have the asset of them because they would be ours in the overall scheme of things yes a bank still holds them but right now they're I mean just like a mortgage I mean we own our homes but we pay a mortgage so technically a bank owns them until it's paid but you have the the asset of that we don't even have that asset because there's somebody in between us uh under the under the new agreement excuse me the district would own both the real property and the improvements you would then ground lease uh the real property and improvements to a trustee uh possibly UMB the current trustee but possibly another bank and then um they would lease to you for a 30-year period your buildings but it doesn't change the fact that you would you own them you own them they have an interest the bank does a leasehold interest for the 30 years to secure the financing for the benefit of the of the future of the cup holders that's the security but but you do own um there's no question that you own both the improvements and the real property so like I said similar to a mortgage Banks holding it technically it's theirs until you pay it off but here as it stands now it's someone else yeah that's true so that at least we gain that that part of it as in addition to to saving some money and it also doesn't mean that in the future if we're back at historically low interest rates that it's not something that can't be refinanced in the future and again save additional money with lower interest rates true right you wouldn't be locked into a 30-year financing you would most likely have a 10-year option to prepay is that what we would expect okay so yeah you could look at it down the road okay um something you said and I'm trying to remember oh the the money that we would agree to get back that's going to primarily the focus will be for those schools as that money has been intended for so we would look at using that where we need them at those schools is that correct correct yeah and if you recall on the 22 boundary polls that we didn't put any Capital money in there because um the intention was at the time the lease or would be funding those Capital needs so the money that the current balance in there would be utilized at those two schools to fund some of the out there's some outdated maintenance needs there um yeah that would stay within those two schools which then frees up other money for other schools that to meet their needs correct yeah well and this was intended for those schools as well so we would honor that purpose correct but we're right now having to pay for stuff out of our regular budget because we can't it doesn't fit in their timeline so it would we'd be able to address other issues that need to be addressed at those schools with this money and therefore it frees up other money in our budget to take care of some other things within the district yep yeah and around Robin way yeah we could free up other operational Capital dollars to emphasize some of other Capital needs across the district thank you very much 11 million dollar savings over 30 years is a good deal at this point so um it's uh it's been a lot of work for you I know and we appreciate all the hard work you've put into this Tyler I know you um worked hard for us as well as our attorneys and we are grateful as well so I think this is coming back to you December 14th again coming back to us December 14th for a resolution about so I encourage you if you have any questions or concern board members please reach out to Mr Moore and get those sorted out before that meeting all right we are moving on we are going to our uh 2022 2023 this is 6.5 classroom site fund plan review uh we will be voting on this as well tonight but this has been a discussion prior with our prior HR director and making sure that this site fund monies was put into our base salary for our teachers and so this is just the um kind of the sum of that and again I believe this is Mr Moore yes yeah if I may president Kaylee remembers the board I'll just make a couple comments I might go into too much detail but you'll see the red line version here um a lot of the changes uh we're done with Miss Martins and the meeting conferred team um but so formally the classroom site fund was formerly prop 301 and if you remember in our budget conversations that proposition uh expired in 2021 but our legislator and our governor um Extended that and made that uh six cent sales tax into law and that now expires 2041.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
we this is a policy that's recommended by K but not mandated but we have already been following these guidelines but we thought it was important to communicate the board's expectations about how locker rooms and bathroom issues will be addressed so that's why we're recommending this policy at this time the policy itself really just um goes over some common definitions uh really just outlines how staff is to handle certain procedures um and several of our neighboring districts are adopting policies such as this one or this one that's recommended by Kate it also very importantly talks about their students records right and the and the privacy of that right so this is so it's there's a lot here to to read especially on this policy so again I won't spend too much time on it tonight I suspect that at our next meeting when you have feedback we'll probably have a more in-depth discussion the last policy is oops I have two here six one one five ceremonies and observances and separation of church and state this one really is very straightforward um basically just States that the board states that the schools will at all times be neutral in matters of religion stresses the fact that um students we need to teach students to be tolerant and respectful of religious diversity the direct the district will approach religion from an objective curriculum-related perspective and that all students and staff uh will be encouraged to be aware of the diversity of beliefs and respectful of each other's religions and then it outlines just the handling of holiday celebrations absences for religious observation and recognition of religious holidays okay I just caught my eye on it there's a reference in like the fourth paragraph it references the No Child Left Behind Act is that still in place it's still active I thought that was old news but it's because it's from O2 so yes but but it hasn't lapsed it's or been replaced there's a lot of things that are not laps that we Implement that's interesting [Music] so those are the three for tonight anybody want to have discussions on any of those this evening or do you want to have a chance to read them and we'll send feedback in like we normally do everyone okay with that okay when do you need input by um I was looking at uh possibly by December 19th so that we can process it before our next meeting our next policy meeting November 19th uh December so because we need 30 days right oh okay you want to give the full 30 yeah for 30.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
so we do have this funding all the way through 2041 but is now called the classroom site fund and so a lot of our language in here is aligning to that during that legislature that legislative action they did add the ability to extend beyond just classroom teachers so we did modify our language to include some educational professionals that do support our classrooms within our classroom site fund plan in addition the other big change was they moved to Danielson so the paper performance part in here is now reflective of our new evaluation system so but those are the high level changes if there's any questions I'll do my best to answer but you've seen this several times in several different different initiatives where we've tried to increase pay specifically to the base and that's represented in this plan here president kaler thank you for pushing this forward that we get to vote on it tonight so then our teachers and staff get this or our teachers get this before uh Christmas and before that big holiday so they have that money yeah and in consent you did approve the first the 1500 if you scroll back up to the first page um that was in consent you did approve that tonight so any other questions or concerns for Mr Moore okay I know our teachers are going to appreciate this moving on to 6.6 we have an amended amendment to policy KB which is our parental involvement in education and again this is going to be it's Mrs Richards sorry president Kaylor members of the board as you know the Arizona school boards Association provided updates on several policies through the policy advisory committee in August of 2022.
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I think for these okay I'm sorry yeah I think our next policy is November 30th that's why I was just thinking about yeah I think that's too soon in the pipeline gotcha I'm talking about this okay so uh so December 19th feedback to you we'll talk about them in again at our next meeting at the next meeting after that which will be early January yep okay all right thank you very much um all in favor of accepting these three policies for first read please okay any opposed all right it's unanimous okay the last item new business is the uh prioritized 20 2324 and updated 10-year Capital plan uh the action is that we discuss and approve so there is a motion that we need to do uh the updated 10-year priorities catalog project as recommended by the facilities subcommittee uh Joy would you like to give a brief overview yes RS for next year are very light thank goodness we only have Paving and restroom upgrades and repairs so if you look at year one that's all you're going to see is Paving a mushroom upgrades and repairs and then we'll plan to continue to look at the 10-year plan after the building condition study so it's not a big ask for next budget for this budget season so I asked Ken what the right words to use were and the after year one it's unchanged with the exception of minor modifications for updated estimates so um we we as a committee we chose not to adjust it because we're going to do a whole new building condition study and it will have to be updated then so so we've we as a fine facilities committee was we should just let it go through as is and tell the capital committee we'll change it when we get new input yep I think if a major says a quick point of emphasis um we're really focusing obviously on whiskaneer in the high school because we'll be in a new elementary school so all of our effort is going into a building condition study that will really assess uh the infrastructure of each of the buildings and everything else we need to do over the next 10 years and we'll really tighten up and be much more targeted in the remainder of that plan going forward yep yeah there's flat out zeros for Huckleberry and Center for next year as as is appropriate um so we need to formally submit this to the uh the town so I think we need a motion to approve the uh 10-year prioritized capital projects plan as as presented so moved second okay moved and seconded um any discussion all in favor any opposed okay all right that's it for new business uh on Old business uh broadly we just have an update on the Candlewood Lake Elementary school project um yeah so um I'll do uh just a brief um update um because um you know progress is still is still moving forward um there's going to be some progress updated photos that we'll be able to share um maybe I'll be able to share them on the Facebook page before okay yeah so I'll I'll be making a new um post so that the public can kind of see some of the the newer up um updates and and how the progress is coming along because it's really starting to kind of take shape and like some of the the Cubbies are in some of the classrooms and um some of like the the gross motor space you can kind of see some of the angular designs starting to take shape and a lot of sheetrocking so it's looking really good um obviously flooring is is still an issue we do have some install dates for some of of the flooring throughout the building like carpeting tiles but the major Terrazzo flooring is still kind of an unknown and that's that's the flooring that's going in the main hallways so you can't really do and from what I understand to put in this Terrazzo flooring you can't be doing other work in the area it's got to be like pretty much everything's done so having the terrazzo flooring is still a kind of an unknown hanging out there is is a big sort of problem in terms of our our timeline moving in um so I think at our mid-December meeting we should be able to have kind of a firmer date on when that might be and hopefully Paul knows that you know I'm sure he's putting a lot of pressure um on on all the contractors to kind of get in those dates so that we can we can actually have sort of a move-in date hopefully by next month um so that's that's pretty much it do you wanna you wanna add anything yeah we talked to Paul and that's you're right the terrazzo flooring and for any of you who don't know what Terrazzo flooring and what it takes to install is there's a there's a couple of great videos online if you do just search on Terrazzo flooring it first of all when it goes in it's going to be magnificent in our hallways it's really durable and it's really really gives a good feel to the school but the supply chain it's the resins and the the physical things the crushed rock and things like that and that go into it are both in short supply so they're talking to the potential suppliers and one of the big suppliers also went out of business like our carpet and tile surprise so the ones did he did tell us the good news was all the carpet and all the tiles and all the vinyl flooring is going to be in and installed by February right so and remember that was one of the big discussion points last month and uh and so that means the the classroom wings are going to be largely completed right it will be because they have a carpeted hallway down they don't have the terrazzo for the flooring there it's the front of the building where things are going to be in the main Halls that's where it's going to be it's going to be challenging so we're hoping to get some breakthrough thinking so we can get in and that's at the spring break it's kind of a big picture but we're not sure yet yeah so yeah any questions we could bring given the hour we certainly could bring more photos and uh we actually have a uh Amy put together a little slideshow with the project manager regarding the playscapes and the accessibility and so forth so we're really excited about sharing that as well okay let me do that in two weeks okay so that's it for all the business items we're back to public comment um and uh and this is our second round of public comment again I'll repeat we have three minutes up to three minutes per person need name and address at the beginning um on this time let's slot we can talk about anything that was an agenda item or anything under else under the purview of the district but we did need to have people signed up and so we have three uh and I just will repeat discussion of individual School Personnel students or board members is not considered appropriate so keep yourself any comments to the the business items um so first on the list is Casey and Owen Clarkson this is I think we're good hi thank you for having us this evening as a former Brookfield high school graduate it brings me great pleasure now to have three children oh sorry Casey Clarkson 48 Mountain View Drive as a Brookfield high school graduate it brings me great pleasure to have three children now in the Brookfield Public Schools the teacher staff and administration that we've worked with at Center Huckleberry and now at Western Air have been nothing short of amazing and they deserve to be celebrated but we have a very serious problem in our district the privacy and safety of our students is at risk a few weeks ago I was made aware of my son's personal information inadvertently being given out without proper adapting strangely enough this information was shared with me not by the district but by another parent um I wasn't made aware of this by the district until I reached out and said hey what's going on here and that is when the head of the special ed Department acknowledged the breach of security in response to my inquiry she was very vague and did not share the full scope of what was shared out I understand we're all human in 21 years of personal um Public School educator experience I understand accidents happen but we need to do better the lack of clarity from the district led me to file my own FERPA request last week when I picked up my own FERPA documents I was given a document sharing the information of yet another student in the district this time no attempt at redacting was made I was given the name grade address phone number parent names parent signature academic concerns and referral to special education about another student in the district that goes beyond the scope of oops we didn't read act I immediately reached out to the head of special ed and she blamed it on quote multiple FERPA requests submitted by parents who seem to be out to get the district I am not out to get the district I'm out to protect my children I'm appalled that these mistakes keep happening I've also reached out to the superintendent several times via email and my emails have been ignored if this was a threat to the physical safety of my children the district would act swiftly to remediate the situation instead of ignoring parent concerns why isn't the district taking immediate action to protect the privacy and security of students and their information I encourage the board to look into this situation form a committee find out what's really going on at the district head the head the district's head of special ed and her office I tasked the board to uncover what safeguards protocols or Personnel will be put into place to ensure that this does not happen again we need to do better to protect the privacy and safety of our students in the district and this is not a faceless thing that's going on this is a student whose information was shared and he would like to speak to you tell them your name where you live I'm Owen and I live on 48 Mountain View Drive I feel unsafe be when my info was shared with another parent my teachers do a great job of making me feel safe in school but the board event needs to help make sure my info stays private I should not have to worry about my info being shared with another with another parent or without my permission or my past permission thank you for taking this seriously thank you very much and thank you for staying with us so late into the evening okay next up is Mrs Scalera you're good now I don't probably don't need it up um so again I've sat here at every Board of Ed meeting for the last year and I continue here month after month that we're over budget for special education and it's constantly mentioned about out of District placements and related transportation to be honest knowing what I know about education educational laws all of this is quite frankly a moot point as state law requires that school districts must provide tuition and transportation to any student that resides in district and the school is unwilling or unable to meet that child's needs Brookfield is not alone with the growing number of districts that having to fund out placements my question to you this evening is what is Brookfield doing to identify children earlier and meet their needs I sat at the last Board of Ed meeting disgusted when I heard when it was stated that the district will happily exit children at the high school level when identification levels were being questioned I think the tables and immediately need to be turned and the district should be asking themselves what are we doing to ensure proper identification to our struggling students how do we drive meaningful instruction and better yet how do we develop and ensure we consistently follow IEPs how do we move from a one-size-fits-all approach to meeting our students exactly where they are my son fell through the cracks for five years and parental and teachers please for services yet fell on deaf ears in August the district funded over seven thousand dollars for an added District test none of the testing reported was anything outside of the scope of what could have been identified in-house we lost five years if it were dealt with years ago I still wouldn't be fighting for remediation this day therefore seven thousand dollars was wasted because our special education program fell short this is one child how many others are seeking outside testing because the district is turning a blind eye to the area areas of concern or the validity of testing my son is capable of learning at the same rate and level of his peers yet I stand Here questioning if Brookfield is capable and willing to drive meaningful instruction and Remediation necessary to my different different abled child my son's needs and accommodations are not something that would break the bank it wouldn't require utilizing outside service providers at what point do I simply throw up my hands and seek out placement I requested special education Financial records under foia specific to outside testing and added it up from 2018 to June of 2022 and we've spent over three hundred and twelve thousand dollars after looking at the line item closer I do not even think the records that I was provided are accurate as my son's Audiology testing from December 2020 wasn't even in those records I'll end with brookfield's mission statement the Brookfield public school district is a dynamic Learning Community dedicated to providing a superior education experience which challenges supports and prepares every student for success in a changing world I'm here to tell you that's not happening for every student I am begging each Board of Ed member to commit to an evaluation and audit of this entire special education program and it needs to be a priority I've been in this district for well over 13 years dealing with special education and this year by far is the worst I've ever seen it our kids needs are not being met IEPs are not being followed questions aren't being answered one-on-one parents have now become shared Paris many children who require legally required pairs don't have them goals are not being met with necessary progress monitoring data provided BCA bcba contracts were terminated and changed parental concerns are met with constant pushback resistance and passive aggressive approach by sped administrators which sadly then falls on the principles in classroom teachers I have heard of more State complaints filed in the last two months than I have in all the years that I've lived in ma'am your time's up so if you could wrap it up this is a systemic issue affecting all four of our schools our children deserve better our teachers deserve better thank you and just for the record I'm not going to ask her to do it she didn't give her name and address it it's uh it's fine Aaron sclera five Jackson Drive so you're on the sign up sheet so I just figured I'd do it for you um all right next up is uh Denise rice Denise writes three old Hemlock Road I understand that you're all concerned about the typical Children's Mental Health surveys are done but what about the mental health of the children with special needs here are my thoughts special needs students and paraprofessionals in this District are treated with complete disrespect under this Administration it is the worst I have seen in my 20 years in the district powers are the backbones to a special needs Student Life Powers not only drive home the goals on their IEPs but learn how the student functions to be able to get the most out of that child they do it with caring and give that kid the push and confidence to achieve everything they can the new Administration feels that if a power can quote lay eyes on a student in the classroom they are getting power support this couldn't be further from the truth it is unfair to the child and totally minimizes the work these people do for our children now in this District powers are being treated as disposable kids are being pulled out of ELC and plopped into regular classes with no support support is being changed without parent knowledge IEPs are not being followed I myself have six violations filed with the state progress is declining and behaviors are up parents are approaching me constantly about this let me tell you what all of this is that is a district that is affecting the mental health of the special needs child affected you see if a kid can't express themselves or speak at all I guess nothing's wrong well not true behaviors that means something's wrong you're affecting the mental health of these students by disregarding them and their powers and the support they give them how do you think a child feels when they were doing well with the support and then you changed it and it's taken away and suddenly they're doing horribly how do you think this affects their mind depression sadness avoidance of school are only some of the ways it's displayed just because they can't explain what they're feeling doesn't mean they don't feel at all this is not even looking at how Paris stopped the special needs kids from being bullied and yes it happens every day and the effects are permanent some of you might remember me from my oldest I'm tired of only hearing about the cost of the special needs Community do you think any of them ask for their difficulties what about the mental health stresses you are causing they didn't ask for that either what are you going to do to fix what's going on and treat the students and the parents the way they deserve to be treated stop the shortcuts our kids deserve to be treated fairly I do promise you one thing I will go as public as possible I will continue to go to the state and I will help any parent that contacts me to push this District to get it right thank you very much okay so that's it for public comment I appreciate all the input um moving on the uh three main points uh I thought we should cover the whiskey near spotlight and the Brookfield the discussion of the Brookfield care study and then the Candlewood Lake Elementary School update foreign okay with that okay I'm saying no it's all around sounds good I think those were like the big points of tonight the um okay and then class size reports were interesting but yeah um and upcoming events um pretty quiet we have the bef Gala on Friday night and the auction at 7 pm with the candle went in all schools have early dismissal next Wednesday and are off Thursday and Friday for the Thanksgiving holiday Center School has picture retake tomorrow as does whiskin ear and Huckleberry has picture retake on Tuesday November 22nd and on the 22nd Center also has a turkey parade and rescue as the culminating event for their PTO turkey triathon fundraiser very fun that's all I have okay thank you so that's it for tonight I appreciate everybody staying for a long meeting we kind of when we said we're going to do this once a month we all kind of said we're going to do long meetings once a month instead of shorter meetings twice a month and um this is a this was a long meeting so um so without objection we're adjourned [Music]
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
this includes policy KB parental involvement in education where the purpose of the policy was clearly defined it states that the governing board adopts this policy to provoke the involvement of parents and guardians of children enrolled in the school district the governing board recognizes parents rights is codified in the parents Bill of Rights 1-601 1-602 and in Arizona's other codified codifications of parents rights as stated in title 15 of the Arizona revised statutes as a district we request the support of the governing board for the set data policy and bring it to the Forefront this evening a key aspect of this policy is an updated definition of parent within this specific context for the policy KB parental involvement in education parent means the natural or adoptive parent or legal guardian of a minor child and one thing we know in Piggly is we got the best parents in the world and they're very involved I want Dr treat to provide some additional insights to the process that was used in reviewing this policy and recommending updates thank you very much uh president kaler members of the board one of the important things to remember is these policy updates the language has influenced of course by state law and it's very important that we always remind ourselves that we don't do this work in a vacuum but we have Regional peer districts and it's important to see what our regional peer districts are doing and the way that they're handling this language and these opportunities to make changes as well so I've had an opportunity to go ahead and do some research with our neighbors around here and I can tell you that districts like Maricopa Tempe Union High School District Chandler Chandler Unified School District Kyrene Tippy Elementary have all accepted this language and they have recently just in the last two months made the same types of changes that we're proposing while the other districts the mesas and the Gilberts and the Scottsdale's and queen Creeks of the world are in the same process where we are right now so it's important to note that we are uh staying in step with what our regional peers are doing and also affirming our support for parent rights here in the Higley Unified School District thank you Dr treat and not only that we also look at asba we look at our attorneys we we run this through the whole gamut before it comes to our desk and so we very much appreciate the background that goes into a policy before it even makes it to us and we have plenty of time we are given our board packets over the weekend so that we're able to read everything ask any questions get clarification so by the time a policy reaches this moment which will be in a couple that we vote on it it's really gone through the ringer so I appreciate the work that we do on policy here in Higley and your right parents parental rights is a Hot Topic hot conversation out there and so thank you for getting this to us as soon as you could appreciate it thank you and with that we have one more policy tonight and this one is going to be 6.7 amendment to policy IMD School ceremonies and observances and this is from Mr Walker tonight thank you president Candler members of the board uh we're seeking board's approval tonight to amend policy IMD School ceremonies and observations based on asba recommendation that was rooted from HB 2707 which is also known as the moment of silence law that amends ARS 15-506 subsection A6 where it adds additional language that clarifies and specifies how long the moment of silence needs to be and then what the role and responsibility of the teacher in the classroom is your questions concerns no that's it thank you again again policies are going through our policy committee weekly and we appreciate the background that goes into them before they reach us so with that we are going to go and move on to some action items [Music] but we are going to do 7.1 first I move that the governing board approved the classroom site fund plan for the fiscal year 2022 2023.
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second I doubt there's any questions or concerns all those in favor aye aye motion carries five zero next up we have 7.2 thank you I move that the governing board waived the second reading of this policy and approve policy KB as presented second all those in favor aye motion carries five zero 7.3 I move that the governing board again waived the second reading of this policy and approve policy IMD second all those in favor aye I I motion carries five zero 7.4 we had a presentation at our last board meeting on our preschool rates being proposed updated here's a little picture of what's Happening is for everybody to remember thank you you can remove that thanks Nate so I moved that the governing board approved the 2023 2024 rates for preschool as attached second questions concerns or comments all those in favor aye aye all those not in favor all those the abstain I abstain from that boat motion carries four one four zero sorry one is Sting four zero Christine Mrs Zimmerman knew it to write All Right Moving On 7.5 I moved at the governing board approves the 2023-2024 rates for kids club as attached second questions comments all those in favor I I most all those abstain I abstain from that vote thank you motion carries four zero one of steam all right moving on we are going to ask the board is there anything that you would like to see on any future agenda items Dr Foley had to step out tonight for her son's performance um but I'm sure that Mrs Richards or anybody else could take information go ahead Mrs Anderson I'm not sure if this is the right spot for it but I was just curious as we receive information that has been brought forward within like a year or two and brought this previous board meeting if on the agendas that they could State the meeting date at which it had been brought forward I don't know if that's something and try not because I'm not clear I'm so sorry [Laughter] so sorry whenever we're given information items or information and it says well we previously this was brought forth previously at another board meeting I was wondering on the agenda if it could state that board meeting date so that we don't have to try digging our public doesn't have to try to go searching of when that occurred and I don't know if we want to put a limitation on that or if it's something that's agreed upon again I'm not sure if this is the right spot to request that but I was just making an update to our our agenda or our so normally if there's a sorry normally if we have an action item on a vote of something it's going to be the board meeting prior but that does not always happen so if it's not the board meeting prior exactly is that what you're asking for something that if it's yes because sometimes gosh I am so sorry information items address things that have occurred meetings ago so to answer your question I guess yes if it's not a previous meeting vice president Anderson and members of the board we can definitely make a note of that because it it makes sense to me if it was last month or whatever I'm not going to remember what date so thank you you're welcome okay anything else I'm afraid to talk all right is that better we're almost done so it doesn't really matter we're we're going to take a little uh 10 minute break and we are going to then have a work study our work studies was something that we did prior to covid where we would break out into a work study covet hit we kind of got into the habit of doing everything in our kind of general meeting but we are going back to our work studies it's a it's a nicer conversation on certain topics that we like to have this will not be live streamed but again the public is always welcome to attend our work studies if they so choose tonight we are going to be doing a suicide risk management so again a 10-minute recess and then we will be a journey from our meeting in our work study thank you and have a good night
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superintendent of Clearwater schools with a brief video update it's been a little while since we've done one of those so here it is next week is a short week we only have two days of school Monday and Tuesday we are out Wednesday through the rest of the week for Thanksgiving break I know lots of folks folks excited about that and the soon coming holiday season one of the topics I want to talk about today is if you've watched the news or taken in much media you've probably heard about us the State Board of education's recommendation last week about Indian mascots and branding so last week the Kansas State Board of Education passed a motion that strongly recommends that non-tribal K-12 Kansas schools retire Indian themed mascots and branding as soon as possible but no longer than within the next three to five years the State Board of Education could have made this a requirement by tying it to our accreditation they chose not to make it a requirement but only to recommend that schools do this so that will move the conversation to 20 local communities where we can have a conversation about what Clearwater wants to do moving forward I've consulted with our Board of Education and they obviously want Community input that's going to take several forms whether it be surveys Community forums whatever voting however we're not sure or what that looks like yet we're just starting this conversation but what I will say is that's going to take place over the next many months to possibly even years it's it's not a decision the board wants to rush into whether to keep things the way they are or to make a possible change so so that's what the conversation will be about here in Clearwater and again it's a local decision your local Board of Education wants to do what's best for our community and once your input so like I said not a huge rush but we will State Board of Education we'll expect that we do have that conversation at some point so I'll keep you informed as we move forward but it will be over many months and possibly years to to have that conversation the other thing we'll be doing in that time is looking at other communities the other 20 other communities that are going to have a similar conversation in our state and I don't know if we come together with them at all or if we just kind of observe and learn from their uh conversations and and structure because I'm I'm confident that in some places it may be a very divisive topic I also believe that here in Clearwater we can have a really civil discussion and and come to um a decision about what we need to do moving forward so on a different topic our high school Wonder practices are in full swing we'll soon be having winter sports events there the middle schools already having lots of events I know big basketball going on this Saturday so come out and support our teams we'd love to see you and with that not just our teams but um we're really looking at how we can get more parent and Community engagement get people in our community have events where you feel welcome in our schools I I'm I don't think we've ever really gained back to where we were pre-covered where during covert we couldn't have people in our building and we want to get back to where we're having events we are intentionally getting together coming together as a as a community and as a family and doing things we've considered like donuts with dads muffins moms Community ice cream socials uh appreciate a parent giving me lots of good ideas celebration nights and other things speaking of which on Monday we do have Clearwater skate night from nine to six to nine at the Carousel Skate Center so hope you can come out I'm planning on going out probably putting on some skates I think I heard our workman's comp insurer scream in the backgrounds when I said that but I planning to go out and maybe skate a few circles with the kiddos at the Carousel Skate Center that's 312 North West Street and that's Monday night six to nine pm so um those are the type of events we can all come together but also we could use Volunteers in the building so we're working on developing a schedule where maybe we can put that out and folks could sign up to come in and just spend an hour reading with kiddos or doing you know working on on some of their homework or whatever that might look like but getting Community into our buildings because honestly schools can't do it alone we're not able to do everything we're being asked to do without your support and involvement so just putting that out there to say we're going to try to do some intentional things to live out our vision of vision of one district one team one family so we want to come together and work together uh that's all I have for today uh I'm looking forward to uh the next little bit of winter season here lots of basketball I might even get out my horn and play in a pep band again uh but hope to see folks out at those events as well and uh this Mr Cooper signing off work hard have fun and be your best self
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
right uh welcome to the November 17th 2022 meeting of the Ann Arbor renters commission the purpose of this commission is to advise the city council and the city administrator in matters affecting renters in our city the commission is made up of voting members who are appointed by the mayor and approved by city council of City Council Members appointed by city council um and I think that we now have a vacancy for our city council member of non-voting Liaisons the housing and Human Services Advisory Board of non-voting members representing different landlord perspectives which will hopefully be filled shortly and of a non-voting representative to the United to the University of Michigan Student Legal Services SLS uh to speak during any of the public comment opportunities during the meeting you will have to speak to the webinar link or by phone for phone access please call 877-853-5247 and enter the meeting ID 935-8080-1941 and you don't need to have signed up in advance to to give a comment uh callers if you're calling by the phone you have to press star nine to raise your hand and then we'll call on you uh and if you're viewing uh through the web link uh the a2.org forward slash renters commission meeting link just raise your hand you will then be called upon by City staff one by one using the last three digits of your phone number or by the your username through the web link um and then you will uh have three minutes to make your comment and we'll remind you when you have 30 seconds left so now we move on to um see yes we will go into a roll call agenda point two so uh since it's electronic we do still have to say the city and state we're attending from so I am here calling from Ann Arbor uh commissioner Chen did we lose down down oh dear okay the night in the uh attendees either okay well I'll keep going commissioner Welch commissioner Peterson I'm here calling in from Ann Arbor welcome commissioner Kelly here also calling in from Ann Arbor welcome commissioner mckergie hi I'm here calling in from Ann Arbor okay commissioner Cohen Smith here calling from Ann Arbor commissioner Redmond is absent uh commissioner Cato commissioner rumel here calling in from Ann Arbor Township wonderful and council member Regina here in Ann Arbor right uh our SLS liaison Gail Rosen I'm here calling in from Ann Arbor welcome uh Karen wanza who's our liaison for hhsib I don't see her here oh nice okay done is back I'll look back around hi Don Don we're just doing roll call right now uh so I'm caught in front end number okay thank you welcome um and our city staff present uh Sarah is Alanis Alanis Alanis excuse me um here from Ann Arbor great and I know that John Weiser will maybe be joining us later in the meeting if he's able to she's not here right now so let's see that makes Sarah Sarah I'm sorry I do see we have um attorney Frost over in the participants and I don't know if he's planning on joining the meeting or if he's just watching I think he's just watching because I asked him to make sure that I didn't mess up yeah that's that goes for me too thanks just raise your hand if we if someone makes a mistake um okay so we do have Quorum uh I count six Commissioners and one council member and our liaison um so that's great now we can move on to the uh approval of the agenda um so do we have an approval for this agenda or sorry excuse me do we have a motion to approve this agenda motion okay motion by Lucy we have a second I'll second by Nick okay um all those in favor say aye aye aye okay so uh the agenda is approved uh Now we move on to approval of the last meeting's minutes uh but we actually don't have minutes to approve another member because um uh the we didn't meet Quorum so we didn't officially hold our meeting we didn't make any decisions or anything so then we move on to the up uh let's see update from hhsap liaison I don't see that they're here and we didn't receive anything any Communications so then we go on to our public comment agenda 0.6 so this is an opportunity for members of the public uh to speak for up to three minutes actually it says uh Sarah would you like to leave this section does say that the staff member is supposed to lead it yeah I'll do it thank you okay this is an opportunity for members of the public to speak for up to three minutes for phone access please call 877-853-5247 and enter meeting ID 9 3 5 8 0 8 0 1 9 4 1.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
thank you take pictures thank you good evening everyone I'd like to call the regularly scheduled meeting of the Clifton Board of Education for Thursday November 17 2022 uh come to order if you all would please rise for a salute to our flag followed by a brief moment of silence I pledge to leave the United States of America to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you please be seated roll call please Mr abedravo here Mr Awad here miss bassford here miss Beltran Mr Canova here Dr Danny Mr Paris here vice president Daley here president Smith here we have a camera uh Dr Danny is uh excused and uh Miss Beltran is on our way um Mr Daley would you do the admission statement please thank you Mr President the mission of the Clifton School District in an open and reciprocal Community Partnership is to provide all students with a quality education to develop the skills necessary to become literate lifelong Learners who are responsible and productive citizens contributing to a Democratic Society in a never-changing world things act the New Jersey yelpa public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right to the public to have advanced notice of and attend and to excuse me advance notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act the Clifton Board of Education has caused notice of this meeting to be publicized by having the date time and place thereof posted at the city clerk's office Clifton Public Library administration building senior citizen Nutrition Center on cable TV in the local press on the district's website and mailed to presidents of parent teacher organizations this meeting will be tape recorded in accordance with policy zero one six eight okay we're going to go into uh public recognition Europe right isn't that next oh I'm sorry did I go right no you're right you already want to do it after first right okay we'll do we'll hold off on the public until we did the presentations all right so we're going to move to um recognition and award presentations we have the students of the month uh so if you are here if you kindly when your name is called to come up and receive your award and if there's any family members that are here and wish to come up and join them and take pictures please do so as well so uh whoever has freshmen please four of them out uh Natalie yep I have Natalie okay Natalie's favorite favorite subject is social studies because she enjoys learning about past societies Natalie's favorite teacher at CHS is Miss Odessa because she really connects with his lessons and also finds him to be kind of funny Natalie finds inspiring inspiration from her older sister Abigail who has served as a role model and is currently studying to become a pharmacist Natalie's teachers said that she is eager to learn and always contributes to class discussions Natalie's a member of the CHS Anime Club uh her interest in this in the in the club is also her future career aspiration to one day pursue a career as an animator is Natalie here tonight no no okay we'll make sure that uh Natalie gets that uh that award all right next we have our sophomore uh sophomore Ryan Badu Ryan is a hard-working student who has been finding success in Mr iwa's geometry honors class and has always had success in math classes one of the most influential teachers in Ryan's High School career has been his history teacher Mr Henry Mr Henry who has set high standards for his classes and pushes Ryan to achieve His Highest Potential Ryan's family inspires him to be a successful student and are also supportive in his participation in the pre-med club and on the CHS lacrosse team Ryan's teachers are continually impressed by his determination and ability in his classes the certificate of achievement this recognition is certified to Ryan Badu on behalf of the Clifton Board of Education Administration for CHS sophomore student of the month November 2022 with sincere congratulations on your meritorious achievement with recognition by resolution of the Board of Education the desire to excel is to formula to a lifetime of success your efforts have brought distinction to you your family and the Clifton Public Schools congratulations Ryan is Ryan here Ryan they're such good students that are home doing their their homework so we appreciate that uh next our Junior please Junior Deborah I'm all Deborah's an ambitious hard-working respectful student whose main favorite class at CHS is English because it provides her an opportunity to articulate her ideas effectively especially in a world where word choice can transform the way a concept is understood Deborah credits her success in school to her family because of all their successes have motivated her and all of her Pursuits her family has inspired her as the youngest in her family she feels unfortunate to have the ability to see all of her family's successes as the president of the Key Club Deborah works tirelessly to improve our school and our community in addition Deborah is a member of tri-m a music Honor Society where she serves as the club's vice president and last but certainly not least Deborah is an accomplished member of the track and cross country team at CHS after Deborah graduates from CHS while she is still on this side as far as what she wants to do she plans to attend college and take a shot is Deborah here all right [Applause] congratulations sir congratulations your family picture now yeah yeah we'll do this one first yes okay yeah [Applause] all right senior yes thank you Mr President uh senior is Haversham Harrison shrimp Harrison's favorite subject at school is biology which makes sense when you consider that Harrison plans to pursue a career in the medical field once he graduates from Clifton High School Harrison enjoys learning about the anchorage's intricacies of life and its functions Miss Miller Hamilton is Harrison's most influential teacher because she stressed the importance of viewing people's messages through a more critical lens and was always there for him when I needed to talk to somebody Harrison is a member of the Student council's Association executive committee as well as the varsity Athlete on our cross-country indoor track and outdoor track teams Harrison credits his success to his peers he has been inspired by the successful and hard-working seniors from from each graduating class watching other students Supply themselves and contribute to the school's inspired him to do the same Harrison are you here today okay great [Applause] thank you congratulations congratulations what are we thinking about college next year I wasn't right in here but we're not sure where again okay see all right [Applause] getting about my foot if you just think about it the number of students that we have at Clifton High School which is about how many about 2 900 students and these students were chosen um out of all those other students for the great job that they do that is a tremendous tremendous task to complete and we're so proud of them and uh their families for for this great honor so please don't just throw that uh award uh in a box be proud of it hang it and remember that you're a proud Mustang always so congratulations to everybody this evening [Applause] um we do have some um presentations from um Miss virgosa so um if everyone would like to just stay for that and then if anyone of the students wish to leave after that these presentations please you're more than welcome but you can stay for the for the meeting if you wish okay yes sir oh sorry you're right I'm all confused tonight good evening everyone good evening uh thank you president Smith vice president Mr Daly Dr robertozzi Commissioners and Central Administration for the opportunity to present to you tonight's showcase school school number eight where everything is great especially the learning we are so fortunate to have a room filled with passionate educators families and students who really embody the one Clifton Community what you're about to see tonight is just a small glimpse of what school aid is doing with their pbsis implementation what happens at school 8 is magical this is their second year that they've been implementing so New Kids on the Block last cohort to be trained but nonetheless rocking it out like we knew they would tonight you'll see the full team the cares team and you'll see the cares junior team as well as their fearless leader principal Munoz and a special guest who helps lead the way at school eight but let's take a look at what's happening with the junior care team and the overall process at school eight [Music] [Applause] evening everyone Clifton Board of Education members Dr robertosi Mr gengaro Mrs kusilevic and District administrators my name is Mrs Munoz and I am the proud principal of school eight where learning is great I am very excited to share with you our pbsis team members and students ambassadors at school 8 we like to say we care when someone shows that they care this means they're demonstrating our school-wide pbsis expectations which are being courteous acting responsible being respectful and encouraging kindness at school 8 we use physical dolphin dollars to say thank you when we see students showing that they care these tickets can be placed in students classroom bins and use at our weekly Friday Raffles in our all-purpose room if a student's ticket is chosen at our raffle they can come up and spin our wheel of prizes our care team meets weekly and since we began one of our biggest goals has always been brainstorming ways to reach and incorporate our students in as many ways as possible we always believe that in order for our program to truly be successful that staff alone could not be the only driving force as Miss Adams just stated from the very start we want to get as many kids involved in our pbsis program as possible so one of the first things we decided to do was create our Junior care team to help run the pbsis program we decided that we wanted our Junior care team to consist of students in grades three to five because one of our expectations are acting responsible and we felt that the older students exhibit that on a daily basis once we discussed the role these students would play we created and sent our applications out to all of our students in the grades two to four at the end of last year the applications consisted of questions like why they want to be part of a team and what makes them feel like they are a good leader we also have the parents and teachers complete recommendations in supporting the characteristics of the pbsis goals our 2022 Junior care team consists of 12 students four from each grade grade level they are grade three Alexandra Carroll Jaden lastra Jacob Lazaro and Kaden Ruiz in grade four we have Lillian Abu Nazar Julia Capilano Carla Chung lore and Simon Coniglio and in grade five we have Patricia gorvasi Malaya Morrison Xavier Ortiz and Amaya Pereira our Junior care team members help us with many things they collect our dolphin dollar classroom bins for the weekly Raffles every Thursday before dismissal they help set up for our pbsis events such as our kickoff our mid-year refresher and reward socials they help announce our morning message and remind students what it means to care we participate in our weekly Raffles by choosing the winning tickets announcing the winners and or assisting with prizes they made sure to share all monthly pbsis events with their classes and the younger classes they are linked to this helps ensure that all fundraisers are promoted and helps to increase participation at our pbsas events work with other classes on Special Special Projects one project we are about to begin is having them teach each class or school song so we can add singing our school song as a new tradition to our pbsas raffle since our Junior care team does so much for our pbsis program we wanted to find a way to not only let them know how much they are appreciated but to also help them feel proud and recognized in the position that they hold so we created our pbsis Junior care team medallions we had a ceremony where these medallions were presented to them in front of the entire School so just as our school safety patrol get to wear their belts and display their position now our pbsis Junior care team members have these medallions to wear each day which represent the importance that their position holds in our school community one of the reasons I wanted to be a junior care team member is so that I can encourage kindness around the school and help my classmates what I really like about the program is how it encourages kids to make the best choices possible because I think that a music character like be responsible and be like on time to school and be respectful to like everyone in the school and be kind yeah um I think it's really nice because you know we get to stand out from other people and it makes me feel appreciated that we are a part of the GI care like helping people and um I just like being kind and um being good to people and helping people and make sure they're not being left out this shows us that this shows other kids that we are junior cow Dolphins we help out with the program program and if they need help you can just come to us really happy because now people can notice that I'm in the junior care team and it makes me feel special [Music] oh oh we are being we're also introducing to a a very VIP very important person at school aid Finley Finley embodies what everyone at school eight feels which is a caring approach hi Finley hi so we'd like to take a moment now and um first we'll um Finley if you can help us kindly we're going to first recognize the team so then the team could help us up with the students so um uh president Smith Dr robertozzi Vice President daily would you do this um the honor of helping us present the recipients with their Awards so first up Miss Wendy Munoz [Applause] next up Mrs Jenny Teigen go God 's Gods gotcha Miss Jennifer Manila [Applause] Miss Maura Porter [Applause] Miss Kimberly fosetola and Miss Brooke Adams thank you let's get a couple on this side next room over there wow okay hello Cindy it's always smiling come on all right Stephen thank you [Applause] so you can stay with me for the kids everyone else could sit yeah okay okay we're gonna recognize this student Junior care team who everyone's here to see so big round of applause for each and every one of these amazing students the first up Miss Alexandra Carroll [Applause] Jaden lastra [Applause] Jacob Lazaro [Applause] be careful okay please watch that step kindly please and thank you Kaden Ruiz [Applause] Lillian abuna sir [Applause] Julia capuano [Applause] Simon Coniglio [Applause] Patricia Gervasi [Applause] Malia Morrison yeah my apologies Malaya Xavier Ortiz [Applause] and last but certainly not least Miss Amaya Pereira [Music] [Applause] okay [Music] [Applause] yeah no she needs to there you go yeah alrighty thank you congratulations thank you very much yeah oh my God ready here we go perfect thank you um well I was just gonna say you're free to leave but uh I guess they got the message anyway right Miss ragosa as always thank you so much for your leadership in this program and to uh School number eight great job we're so proud of all of you and and what was the Finley and Finley thank you for making your appearance thought it was a there was a football game Miami Okay so I think I'm gonna do it before Junior uh let's go into uh public recognition uh this portion of the meeting is open to the residents and non-residents of Clifton for the purpose of addressing any subject matter pertinent to and or directly related to the operation of the Clifton Public School District residents and non-residents are requested if in person to sign the register provided for this purpose all speakers are asked to State their name municipality in which they live and subject matter before speaking comments are limited to five minutes per person issues raised by members of the public may or may not be responded to by the board all comments will be considered and a response will be forthcoming if and when appropriate your questions may or may not be answered by board members the board asked that members of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of other individuals when speaking specifically comments regarding the students and employees of the board are discouraged and will not be responded to by the board students and employees have specific legal rights afforded by the laws of the state of New Jersey the board Bears no responsibility nor will it be liable for any comments made by members of the public members of the public should consider their comments in light of the legal rights of those affected or identified in their comments and be aware that they are legally responsible and liable for their comments all right we'll start with uh virtual um call in do we have anyone yes hi we have Samantha Vassar dialing up foreign I can great thank you you're all set good evening everyone Samantha vasford Clifton New Jersey and tonight I'm not going to say please consider voting for me because I did that a long time it's the first night that I'm actually not sitting there so it's kind of weird to be virtual but I think I deserve to time off I need to say thank you to the 4409 voters my Village from outside of Clifton who supported me to thank that many people minus one because I voted for myself obviously really blows my mind the past year I've spoken about supporting others in our community and its entirety after several groups of people have said hurtful things about their existence although I do not experience that level of disrespect I understand the feeling of feeling less than throughout this election process I've been told I was a waste just like my mother been called names at the polling sites which really did happen because a bunch of people witnessed it head city council people do everything in their power to make sure I wouldn't get a seat at the table and that's just during the election though I am white which gives me privilege being a woman is often at times what people see when they look at me in my day-to-day life it's often hard to be seen but also heard possibly my thoughts and Views challenged me more which statistically speaking is because I'm not a man oftentimes I get mansplained or ignored because I'm not seen as equal no matter of my experience which ultimately leads me to have imposter Sam Drummond feeling less than I can sit here and list all the ways that past leaders in this room have made me feel including recently a teacher starting a rumor that I was going to the Board of Education meetings to physically fight someone instead of listening to understand you listen to respond and I can confidently say I ran a clean campaign without calling any other candidates other than I didn't see them sometimes on the campaign Trail why share this is not because of only my recent adversities I faced or the second-hand trauma of bullying throughout the 11 years people in Clifton causing me emotional harm that I am a product despite how Others May treat you when it comes to the greater good you don't give up and you keep going I heard people say last Wednesday they want to give up and I kept asking me how I feel and how disappointed I may be but I can tell you I've never been disappointed in myself during this process I woke up Wednesday after the election feeling drained but emotionally proud I showed up I spoke up and I stayed true to my values and not only did I have these people recognize that by voting or maybe because my marketing was so enticing tell me that you won't remember leopard print and cheetah print and pink signs all over Clifton but remembering that the 13 year old student that I met the Halloween event at the high school whose mom said she recognized me from TV she told me her daughter looked at me and she told her daughter advocate for yourself like her and that to me was one of the best things I could have ever heard and matters to me more than anything so that's a to that young woman her family all the supporters thank you for your belief in seeing me this didn't break me nor make me want to run away my impact and Mission goes beyond Clifton and that is who I am to the Core everything is either a win or a lesson and I can look back and say ace this lesson this was just my dress rehearsal and now that I know how the game is played this might not just be over for me yet I want to say thank you to Joe Canova for all that you've done and you will continue to do congrats to the new board members I wish you the best of luck and welcome to the real life circus as you know I'm an audience member often so I look forward to being in your audience so thank you again to everyone and one more point if I can make let's move election so that Board of Ed and city council do not overlap it was very tough to even be recognized when there were 17 other people running so that is my first suggestion I will make as now I'm not running anymore so thank you everyone and have a great night foreign thank you is there anyone else no motion to close uh calling by Mr habitravo second by Mr Awad we'll now go to um in person if there's anyone here that wishes to address the board please come up to the podium uh state your name and municipality and you have five minutes foreign good evening Jessica Farrell Inglewood Road in Clifton um I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to public publicly address the Board of Education regarding a health and safety issue my son attends school number nine last week we received a call from our school secretary stating he was having a health issue we received a call from the school secretary because we do not have a school nurse um we ended up in the hospital overnight due to him having difficulty breathing I emailed Dr Robert tozzi expressing my concern about the lack of a nurse in our building I thank you Dr robertosie for your prompt response I did get a response from him very quickly and I very much appreciate that um the response I received shared his difficulty with Staffing nurses around the district and you know the large amount of students who are medically fragile who all need a nurse during a time when there is a niche Nationwide shortage which I do recognize on Tuesday I received an email from Miss back the nursing supervisor she basically reiterated what Dr Robert Tosi said regarding the nursing shortage I was also told that if my son needed a nurse at school nine they would contact the nurse at School 14 and she would be the one to come and address the issue I emailed her back asking questions as to why School 14 was the best answer Sheila b is right on the same road correct me if I'm wrong but I believe there are two nurses that work at that building as well as it being the home base for Miss back the nursing supervisor so there are times when there are possibly three nurses in that building I mean no disrespect at all to any of those people I know they all work very hard I also know having worked in preschool myself over the summer how important it is especially when you're dealing with disabled preschoolers how important it is to have that staff there so I don't mean to say that they don't need the help I'm just trying to look at the proximity for those of us who live in town which is all of us we know what the traffic's been like around town I deal with the closure of Mount Prospect every day when I drive to and from work so for a nurse to have to leave school 14 to come to school nine it's not as simple as coming down Mount Prospect and going to down Brighton Road you need to go do a big loop around so that was just a question that I had that Miss Beck has not responded to me about yet so as a mom I was just coming trying to come up with a solution should there be an issue um I'm just a mom trying to come up with a solution not just for my own child but for every child in our district um I'm a mom who's thankful that my child now has a plan and hopefully will not even need this nurse he's on five different medications and in my opinion there should be a nurse there in case he's not feeling well um I have watched his principal his teacher and his secretary address this and jump into Play Take on the role of a nurse this week which none of them should have to do that's not their job I appreciate it very much um I want really everyone to consider asking themselves is this fair to our staff members our staff and our children deserve better it's a liability could potentially be considered neglect if there was a child with a health issue that is not properly addressed um I would like to end though on a positive note and send my sincere gratitude and thank you to Mr Rosati our principal Ms Heiser is our secretary and Miss frasso who's my son's teacher they've all gone above and beyond his teacher approached me yesterday and made a Google sheet which she shared with me where she's keeping track of when he's wheezing what time he's using his inhaler um so I can look at any point during the day she's you know a newer teacher to the district she's young she's not a mom yet and she's really stepped up and gone above and beyond and I appreciate that so much it's given my child who's very fearful when he really struggled able to breathe the comfort of feeling safe in school so I really appreciate that I also just want to quickly recognize our nursing staff throughout the district those that we do have I know are working hard and tires tirelessly and we very much appreciate that in my family so I just wanted to bring that to everyone's attention um I hope everyone's families are safe and healthy and have a very nice Thanksgiving thank you for your time [Applause] hi uh ladies and gentlemen board thank you for the opportunity to speak uh my name is Ryan Tate I live in Clifton uh right off new Briar Lane and I'm concerned about the same situation she was talking about so everybody thinks their kid is special my son unfortunately has a condition called hydrocephalus so which has required since he was four months old multiple brain surgeries and he has a shunt in the back of his head for life it's no big deal it's like a pacemaker as long as it's working it's working but when it doesn't let's just say you get a headache no big deal he gets a headache he may need to be going to brain surgery so previously we had Dawn Dawn was familiar with hydrocephalus she knew what to do so I felt comfortable having my child here at that at that school because she would know the difference between oh he's just not feeling well or no this is actually an issue and as a parent I'm sure everybody can understand that so now imagine my kind of shock and dismay finding out when I went to the PTO meeting that's the first time I heard that there's no more Dawn there's no more permanent nurse there's nothing there's just a traveling kid and you guys talked about 3 000 students at the high school imagine that more at 29 different locations it's kind of logistically problematic to me um and I don't want to make it just about my son like it's about all the kids my son's a special case but I mean you got kids they need help they need things so I kind of want to think about just put some seeds in your heads think about these things I just ask you like you don't have to but I kind of feel like this is opening up to a liability situation what if kids need emergency help that can't wait the 15-20 minutes for a nurse to come from school 14 maybe more than that I don't know maybe that's excessive but are they just going to sit there and suffer waiting for her to come over I to me that just what if multiple kids at multiple different locations we've got what two floating ones maybe that seems problematic as well um now and I also understand Mrs Rosetti's been jumping in which I love that about her of course she's going to do that she's not going to let them sit and suffer that's her nature but she's not trained for that nor should she be that's not her job she's make sure everybody's happy but how much can we ask of her uh and what if another problematically for less serious things while they're waiting for the nurse they're not learning and just like your guys's Credo you're committed to learning this seems like a hindrance it's time out of a classroom it's a wasted time to me and finally I want to focus not on the kids I want to focus on Mrs Rossetti how many principles have we had in the last four years at school nine buy my count at least four four years Fortune principles do we want to ask for a fifth because how much are we going to ask of our principles how much are we going to ask of our staff at what point do we consider you know what this shouldn't be your problem this shouldn't be your worry but Mrs Rosetti I love her she's like no I'm going to help I'm going to do it because I care so I really ask you guys please reconsider do what you can because these are our children it's not mine it's ours all our children thank you [Applause] my apologies on my name is royaponte I'm a I live on Albert Road right next to Market Street and uh if um uh the president may I I'm I have brain I have stage three brain character so it affects the way I speak so please take your time sir thank you so much all right ladies and ladies and gentlemen on the board I come before you today as an advocate for the community of school night in expressing our concerns with traffic safety currently there are minimal traffic safety signs around school zone in the area of school nine parents have noticed vehicles conducting violations that have at times been too close to call as far as incidents prompting parents business owners and community members to take action on this dilemma on October 27th of this year a letter including a petition signed by parents business owners and Community voice our Grievances and made recommendations to address this issue on Market Street and Brighton Road we understand that these two roads are essential for commuters to get to and from work to meet their doctor's appointments to shop in local business areas and most importantly to drop off their kids but sometimes I uh I feel like and I'm not exaggerating it's like a war zone when you see a car speeding down to try to beat a traffic light that is more than 100 yards from the crosswalk and if you're on Market Street you know what I'm talking about this situation has parents and pedestrians who utilize the crosswalk terrified to walk across the street due to the careless actions of these drivers although we have dedicated crossing guards who place their lives on the line for our children some commuters ignored the crossing guards that are holding up the signs while the actual children are on the crosswalk scary there are times when parents are relieved that commuters will obey the traffic laws when a police officer is actually directing traffic yes it's essential and it's relieving but we don't have the luxury of having a police officer in every corner during school year bottom line the community of school nine members want more traffic safety measures on Market Street and Brighton Road recommendations were made in the letters sent to you um which we feel the board and city council should consider and here are the recommendations having traffic signs equipped with flashing LED lights and audio notifications for for people who have special needs placing traffic pylons on areas where it says no parking so that the person that's on the crosswalk is visible to the drivers once in a while I'd like to see a patrol car maybe patrol around the areas doing drop-offs and Pickups to you know see if commuters are doing that and issuing some of this if necessary for those who break the law whether it's state or city ordinance lastly I'm asking for your help we are asking for your help to Advocate to the city council to maybe create an ordinance to reduce the speed from 25 miles an hour to 15 miles an hour I know I used to work as a police officer in Jersey City and we've done that before we understand that the board has no Authority or control in getting traffic measures or how Christian PD operates around the school zones still the Board of Education and Clifton PD collaborate to to provide a safe environment for our schools and our students we humbly ask you for your help to reach out to our elected officials police officials to get more traffic measures as soon as possible every minute that passes increases the chances of our children or residents be a victim of a motor vehicle accident implementing these traffic measures would be placing liability on the driver who will face consequences for their careless driving thank you for your time for consideration and I yield my time [Applause] good evening Dr Robert Ozzy Mr gengaro and Board of Education members while I cannot and will not speak for all of the Power Professionals in our district I am fortunate enough to have worked with some of the very best who have joined me here tonight and we are asking for your help to be clear I am not speaking about any specific school department or Administration this concern is district-wide as you may be aware since July more than 50 paraprofessionals have left our district a few have retired some changed in status however a large majority of paraprofessionals have left to join other neighboring districts these districts such as Montclair West Orange and Passaic to name a few have made our powers an offer they couldn't refuse full time which includes more money plus benefits no one can fault those who have left for the betterment of their families or financial situations however the large number of Departures have been felt district-wide we are well aware of the district's social media exposure to advertise the need for power professionals flexible hours be a hero yes there are applications and interviews and offers of employment while some do accept the offer of employment others do not and this does not help the shortage of power professionals we are experiencing the shortage not only affects our jobs as power professionals but it affects the special education teachers as well they have so much on their plate already the daily worry about staff is very upsetting I know I live with one morale is at its lowest I have seen in 18 years with the district and the stress level is very high unfortunately many individuals within our district do not understand the importance of a paraprofessional we are more than just a body to Shadow a student through a hallway we work with the most awesome students in our district our jobs can include but are not limited to the following toilet training feeding discrete trials arts and crafts dancing gym music behavior management and more and this can all take place in one day before lunch for our emerging vocal students and those without vocal language we must advocate for them and be their voice we are their support and comfort when our students are upset and experience emotions they don't understand all behavior is communication and we work with our students through these challenging times I cannot even begin to say what we all found ourselves doing during covid just to get our kids to attend to a screen it's all good because our students deserve the very best we can give them each and every day most recently we have had a large influx of agency paraprofessionals to cover for the shortages left by the departure of many of our district Paris this is a Band-Aid on the bigger problem and I ask that you please just take a look at the salaries paid to these agencies as reflected in the July 28th agenda for the same work that's being done by our district Paris the figures are disheartening something must be done to not only hire new power Professionals in our district but also for the power professionals that are still here every day it is not easy to come and speak before the very people who hold your job in their hands you can hear it in my voice however I cannot say bye and wait for somebody else to speak up as I said before we as paraprofessionals work with the most awesome students in this District they deserve the very best we can give them each and every day not all heroes wear keeps but just imagine how much we could accomplish with some additional help and support thank you foreign [Applause] can we get your name for the record please thank you good evening Dr Robert cozy board members um I initially came here just two name for the record just state your name for the record but Joanne butchnowski thank you I came here as support for the other power professionals that um I've worked alongside with for I'm going on 20 some odd years in the district um I just want to Echo what Miss Mrs marakovitz said morale is down you see uh the powers are dropping left and right and they're going to other districts that are offering them the benefits and the agency paraprofessionals that are coming in here um they're just bodies um you're putting an agency power professional in an ABA classroom who wants to learn but you're taking time away to have to train them to do these discrete trials to do the behavior modifications take care of your own and you wouldn't have to go outside to find people to fill your spots thank you [Applause] foreign and I live on Valley Road Clifton my intention was not to speak but after the moving expressions of parents and professionals I would like to impress upon you each board member I really don't know the reason or the marief that anyone will have to roam for a school board member or less is to make a mark to make something out of it as a person that has worked tirelessly for the last 50 plus years on education I know that education is the one thing that can be valuable to any human being regardless of age some get an education to become prominent famous wealthy others get an education to be more Advocate and to help those who may not have the proper help regardless of social economic condition race Creed language or even physical looking education to me is the ship is the portion of one's equipment that will lead you to success whether is Success on your own success to help others and I could not really sit there and see how tears come into the eyes of professionals who are trying to help perhaps your grandkids your nephews your friends education is paid through the taxpayers property owners business owners and all of those who contribute I think it's just fair and it's the right team to put a priority on education because this generation this generation is going to take an account of what has been done to them our generation is passing and with that I wanted to congratulate one of the youngest persons I have ever known or heard running for Board of Education and winning and that person happens to be sitting right in front of me his name is Richie Mejia and he's only 22 years of age I sincerely hope that he can make a difference on this board and for whatever is worth uh I wish that all of you will think twice and listen to what is being asked you almost beg because no one in the education field that is the one thing the Legacy that we give to those children and young people shouldn't be put asunder because there are other priorities politicians in the city government state government or whatever government they have another agenda but Board of Education members is to produce the very best the children under their care can be thank you foreign Elias Ragsdale president of the Clinton Student Union president Smith vice president Daly board members Dr rivertoz the administrators citizens uh good evening I'd like to start off by saying congratulations to those that have made it onto the board now um the fight to get on is over but a new one begins you'll be tasked with hearing the concerns of citizens parents teachers and staff of the district and especially students and you saw that here today students are the future and the reason why you're here students effectively can reap the rewards reap the efforts of the district via paraprofessionals VIA parents that are tasked also with supporting the students and with the employees of the district it's important that you hear and listen to all of us I've come to most know you I've come to know most of you that are running for board um and personally I'm very confident in your leadership the Clifton Student Union hopes to continue to work with all of you and I hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving thank you [Applause] is there anyone else wish to address the board there's one right there Marsha Miller Clifton I am appalled that at the NJEA convention last week Friday November the 11th 11 A.M there was a promotion of drag queens called the drag queen reading hour drag queen should not be a part of our school system and our tax dollars should not be funding drag queen material at the NJEA convention the NJEA has undue influence on the school boards we should be promoting learning and academics that was last when our schools were I'm sorry that was lost when our schools were shut down the last two years due to covid and not emphasize drag queens and social issues it needs to be turned around to Reading Writing math and higher education standards since our standards have decreased over the last two years school has started and the graphic sexually explicit new learning standards are now being implemented in many school districts across the Garden State what's even worse the New Jersey Comprehensive Health and sex education standards are diminishing real education like math language arts Finance science along with other vital workplace skills necessary for a child's future so what is so objectionable I'm going to use one standard for eighth graders 2.1.8 Point SSH 0.9 the fine vaginal oral and anal sex the New Jersey Department of Education has been promoting sexual activity the grade school children for decades the Murphy Administration has now taken it to a point to overt sexual exploitation the above section of Standards does not even suggest waiting to engage in sexual activity the tone and content clearly make the assumption that minor children will engage in sexual acts including some that are Dangerously affecting their lives leading to lifelong physical and emotional consequences the above core idea regarding the vaginal oral and anal sex and its performance expectation the fine oral and anal sex that is age inappropriate and sexually exploitive the New Jersey age of consent is 16 years old in the United States the age of consent is the minimum age at which an individual is considered legally old enough to consent to participation in sexual activity individuals aged 15 or younger in New Jersey are not legally able to consent to sexual activity and such activity may result in prosecution for statutory rape the New Jersey statutory rape Lord is violated when a person has consensual sexual intercourse with an individual younger than 16 years old a close in age exception also known as the Romeo and Juliet law exists allowing minors between ages 13 and 15 to engage in sexual congress with a partner up to four years older the age of consent is raised to 18 if the older partner is a parent Guardian sibling or a relative closer than a fourth cousin or an individual with some authority over the younger party for example a teacher or a victim's boss the age of sexual consent is 16.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
see that all right I called to order the workshop for Bullhead City Elementary School Board on Thursday November 17th at 5 30 p.m roll call Corey Burgess here Amanda Eamon here Charlene Diaz here anna Boyd here Melinda sabrowski here all president accounted for uh item 1.3 presentation from Kate Hall about Life Academy this Hall I'm excited I don't have a monitor to look at do I all right do you have my presentation I shared with you pause pause it's okay hey it has been a long week hey Will is there any way to get this one brought down for her that works it's not anymore that's okay you could just look at the good side of my face over there we're waiting for the humongous monitor okay Thanks Gloria okay it is actually it is and I brought my my staff came tonight so that you guys could meet the staff that worked there introduce them while we wait then you guys want to stand up so we're missing one the young one she's not here tonight um and that's Logan Evans she lives out in Topock so like she needed to drive home before it got to go to River Valley yes graduated River Valley we love her she's amazing um this is Sydney Johnson um she joined our team most recently um and we have Mr art Schnabel he actually was a para and is going to school to become a teacher and so we asked him to become a long-term sub and join the Dark Side and he is now teaching one of the classrooms um we have Miss Medea down there in the back um she's our special education teacher for the Life Academy so she takes care of all of the special education needs for the department and then we have Miss theme um we were lucky to finally get her we tried last year to get her in the district and um she just couldn't make it work and then this year she applied again and we swooped her up as quick as we could um and so we're really happy to have her with us as well so they work um all day long morning shift afternoon session with the kiddos in the Life Academy and they're doing amazing things with them awesome and Miss Hall if I may interject and for the board don't be fooled by the fact that miss bedia is the smallest of the group and looks like she's 12 years old yeah she is mighty and is a wonderful teacher yes very much so okay well thank you thanks for being here yes we love them all foreign okay so in my free time I put together a PowerPoint for you to see because thank you that explains things really well um so at the Life Academy um I've completely revamped it from what it was in the past um and we started with some clear expectations um we're a place where kids can come to get that second chance they it can be a short-term placement so I have some students that are getting ready to go back to school in January and some that just started two weeks ago so you know just for a couple of weeks coming to the academy to get their life together and be able to go back and be successful over at their home campus and then we have long-term placement we have students that are there for the entire school year so um depending on what comes out of the hearing officer the hearings that they go to with the hearing officer or if they are special education placements it all depends on how long they'll be at the Life Academy we provide academic support the students learn positive social skills as well as positive behaviors and how to care for themselves and others inappropriate and productive ways they also we thankfully have Southwest Behavior that's working very closely with us right now at the Life Academy and they're providing services to multiple students that we have there and they're providing those Services free of charge to the students as well as to the school district the therapist will come to Coyote Canyon and meet with the students either before their session starts or after they're done for the day and the therapists that we're working with she is not afraid to go meet the teacher or meet the parents at their place of work to get the documentation signed to do the intake at their work or whatever whatever place is most convenient for the parents so that we can get these students into a therapy program that will help them to build their confidence and give them some positive skills to use when they're frustrated or having a difficult time in life and then we are working on goals they have to set goals when they're getting ready to return to their school so starting the week after we come back from Thanksgiving break the students will be meeting with me to come up with their individual goals as to what they will need to do when they return to their home campus or we're setting goals for the long-term students as to what they need to do now in their life to make changes so that when they leave us my two long-term students two of them go to the high school next year so what are their goals once they leave us what do they want to do from now until May in order to be able to go to high school and be successful in high school So currently right now um we have one Desert Valley student that's there for the lre the least restrictive environment so they're placed there because of their special education needs we have one student from Diamondback that student actually hasn't stepped foot on Diamondback he came from residential treatment and we brought him right into the Life Academy to set him up for success and give him that smaller setting before working on transitioning to Diamondback for his academic Services there and then we have four special education students from Bullhead Middle School that are with us right now and for Fox Creek none of the students are lre placed at this time for the hearing officer side of it we have none for Diamondback sunrise or Desert Valley that are hearing officer placed we have one from Bullhead middle and 11 from Fox Creek eight students are expected to return to their home school come January and the lre they can return once they start making progress towards their social emotional goals and making sure that they have the skills and the that they need to be able to cope within the general curriculum and the general population at you know their home schools so one thing I wanted to do with Life Academy when I started the new position of special ed director and administrator over Life Academy I met with the staff that was that works at Coyote Canyon so miss Kathy Cherry Miss Kathleen rosenketter and Jamie Cottrell and then Miss Tammy Alvarez and I asked them what was working with Life Academy previously and what was not working with Life Academy previously and so we went through a bunch of the problems they were seeing things that they liked things that they didn't like and I came up with expectations for the Life Academy every student who is sent to the Life Academy through a hearing their parents have to schedule a meeting with me and with the student present and we go over the expectations of the Life Academy and I let them know that these are the guidelines this is these are the rules the expectations you have to follow and any deviation from these will and can result in removal from the program immediately and being sent back to the hearing officer for further disciplinary action um the students go nowhere unescorted everywhere they go they have a teacher with them so that means if they have to run to the office to grab something or their parents there to pick them up a teacher escorts them to the office the bathrooms are within the Life Academy classroom so they're not leaving the classroom at all just to go mess around in a bathroom right they're in the classroom the teachers are monitoring it at all times um they sit separated at their meal times um so they're not sitting right next to one another we you know as the the number of students from Fox Creek increased it was difficult to kind of keep them away their the friend groups away from one another and so we did our best like summer in the morning summer in the afternoon but the ones that we couldn't get separated we did they're at separate sides of the table um and there are staff members sitting in between all of the kids monitoring their conversations and um modeling for them how to be appropriate at a table okay their cell phones are not allowed to go to the classrooms with them their air pods do not go with them they must be left in my office every day and their backpacks do not go as well they bring their backpack to carry their folder their paper and their pencil and the folder paper and pencil is all they get to take with them to the classroom they are searched every day we have the magnetic wand that you know we search them with um and so before they leave my office every day they have to go through that search before they can enter any further onto the campus they are expected to do homework so right now they're writing essays on gratitude and what gratitude means and who they are grateful for so each day they're giving and given a homework assignment or each week they're given a homework assignment and it's typically either like the math they didn't get finished or math they need to practice or or it's a writing assignment so for a couple of weeks they were having a difficult time with manners somebody would open the door and they'd just Barrel on through well if we didn't say thank you for holding the door or we entered the room inappropriately that was a paragraph as to how we use our manners and how we enter a classroom appropriately I do walk through the classroom I try to do it at least once for each session as long as I'm on campus you know just going in checking on the kids making sure things are okay and holding them to the expectations that need to be held in the classroom when they're in there working so the way our days look our morning session is eight to noon the students come to the office and they began they begin their day with me and we do our first our morning check-in with one another that's when we if they get there early we talk about their evening what they did just kind of building those relationships with the students um and then we I begin the searches um nobody has had a problem with the searches the parents are made aware that when they come and they fill out their contract with me that they will be searched every day even the students that are there because it's their least restrictive environment we don't single out kids depend you know that because of why they're there um and so after that's done they then go to the cafeteria and eat breakfast in the cafeteria previously they ate in the classrooms um and I wanted them to I didn't want the classrooms destroyed and we have a perfectly good cafeteria that's just sitting there so they needed to be in there so that they can learn how to be appropriate in the cafeteria setting because when they go back to their schools they will be eating in the cafeteria um then they go to class and they start working we have the the PLP program the personal learning platform that they work on as well as um other activities and assignments and stuff that the teachers in the classroom see fit because the numbers right now are lower or smaller and I have almost a full staff I need one more person they do get a lot of one-on-one two-on-one help in the classroom and one thing that we are noticing is that the students have a deficit in their learning there's a lot of students that we're seeing right now in the Life Academy that are struggling academically and so we're working on taking it and being able to identify where their holes and gaps are and work with them in that area and then there are a couple that we're going to start met ones on to see if they would qualify for special education testing and if they to see if they can get more services when they return to their home school that can support them in this in their academics um then they leave before they are allowed to leave the school they have to come back to my office and we debrief we talk about the day how was your day were there any problems do you have any concerns do you have any homework what are your plans after school what are your plans this weekend again just building relationships and letting them see and know that I'm holding them accountable as well as their teachers and that we do care and we want to know about them so um they cannot leave it's done one by one they're all they're all in my office it looks like a hot mess at 12 o'clock when the morning's leaving but they're all in there and we're talking and I'm asking how are you getting home oh I'm walking okay please be safe we'll see you tomorrow you know just giving them that last little like pep talk do the right thing before they walk out the door then the afternoon session comes in and we do it all over again the afternoon session does only get lunch because well they're only there for lunch time and we don't provide dinner yet at the school district so um they just get that one meal session in the cafeteria while the morning group gets more it gets breakfast and lunch so the student expectations are they're going to abide by all district and school policies My Fox Creek students they all have a copy of the Fox Creek handbook when they come back from Thanksgiving break they're all going to have a quiz as to what is in that Fox Creek handbook and they have to pass the quiz before I'll sign off on them going back to Fox Creek they tell me oh it's in my backpack or I already have one of those well now here's one to study because they need to know when they came to me and I said well why did you do this well I didn't know or when I told them you can't have a nose ring in well I didn't know well it's in your handbook and so they all have one now that they can read and study and take their little quiz um they there's a zero tolerance policy for any nicotine Alcohol Tobacco weapons anything like that any of that comes on my campus they're gone immediately um there's no damaging school property um in the previous years there was a lot of damage done to Coyote Canyon in the cafeteria as well as in the classrooms and other areas of the campus it is not tolerated and they know that before they step foot on the campus that there is to be no damage done they have to wear their school uniform every day um and they all did just get school jackets um Fox Creek Bullhead middle and Desert Valley were really good about providing me with as many jackets as they could for the students so that they didn't have to wear their Nike jacket in class or whatnot so because of what the Legacy Foundation gave them we were able to get some jackets for them and then they're going to work on those individual goals so these are the expectations I go over with the students and their parents when we meet before they come into the academy consequences we call the parents a talk to the parents referral back to the hearing officer and then they're gone it's not you know oh well let's try it again tomorrow or you know let's do this all over again it's not like that there are a few students that we give leeway to but those are the sped play students and I have to treat those instances in cases a little bit different because of federal law if you're there because you've come to me from a hearing officer you have no you have no leeway these are the expectations you're going to meet the expectations or you don't have a place with our program so the behaviors that we have had at Life Academy so far this year we've had four Defiance write-ups two for Destruction that wasn't of like School light switches or ceiling tiles or anything like that it was a classroom stuff on the wall papers torn up and then one for inappropriate language and all of these behaviors have been lre placed students none of them have been students that have come to us from the hearings they do get rewards they love it if we call home and talk to their parents or if we send a note home to their to parents to let them know that they're doing a great job they actually can earn a ticket for a perfect score Miss Padilla and and Mr are using Class Dojo to keep track of their points for when they're doing um positive things in the classroom making good choices getting their work done and when they receive so many points they get that perfect score ticket so in their personal learning platform if they bomb a test or a bomb not a test but the quiz or one of the assignments that perfect score ticket can replace that and they can get that hundred percent as you know trying to motivate 13 year olds is really difficult and and not as easy as elementary students right and so we had to be creative with what our reward system would be because they do they are still kids and they like positive praise and they need rewards when they're doing things well so they they're a big fan of that perfect score ticket they then can have a free they can earn a free dress Day within the school book or the school handbook parameters they're really looking forward to the week before Christmas I told them if they can make it that far with no discipline issues or anything like that that we could do a spirit week that last week before they go back and so it's giving them something to work for look forward to and work towards and then ultimately the the main goal and the main reward is getting to go back to their home campus so one of the big projects projects we've been working on is vision boards wanting them to look and think about what their future is going to look like being junior high students going into high school next year for most of the ones that we have you know it's a quick four years and then they're in the real world and we're trying to instill in them that the decisions they make from high school on are going to impact them the rest of their life so they um they worked really hard on these vision boards they were given time every day after they completed their assignments to do work within their vision boards they gave me permission to put them up I didn't do it without their permission so they told me that I could because they were so proud of them and then here's some more students that are you know that are working really hard on those and I was surprised that the two where their faces are showing they said yeah don't cover my face like they're really proud of what they've done and what they've accomplished since they've been at the Life Academy are there any questions how long has you is has this program been in place well I'm not sure about the Life Academy itself this is the first year I've taken over and it's been since September then you've been since August since August yeah okay um because we had our first student come within two or three weeks of school starting so it's been can you can you describe your best um your best success oh gosh they're they're so we were just talking about this in my office today like we have students asking not to go back to their home campus in January they don't want to go um though our first our first Life Academy student um she came to us and she had zero self-esteem she had no ability to decide what was a good choice what was a bad choice um she was closed off didn't trust anybody wouldn't really engage in much of anything and now she's one of the ones asking to stay at Life Academy for the remainder of the year because she's recognizing that she still isn't quite sure if put back at her home school if she could maintain the positive progression that she's made she doesn't feel that she's had enough time with the support that's been provided to her and so her and her mom have both requested that she stay for the remainder of the school year uh it was a success yeah yeah and and our one student I'm they're just each one of them is so individual and we see like little things from each one um are one one of our guys you know he's in and out of treatment centers all the time and um he's been able to for the first time in his life make friends and the other kids are looking out for him and supporting him and caring for him um one of my eighth grade kids they the one of my third my third grader was talking about bullying and how you know how it would upset him when he would be bullied at school and the eighth grader sat there next to him in the office and just had this Heart to Heart like it's not it's not you that the bully hates it's themself that they hate and you know just had this conversation this eighth grader with this you know third grader you know and supporting him and so we have these conversations every day with the kids we and my staff is really good about getting them to think inside and about themselves and how they would want to be treated in the situations and things like that and they're now starting to use that with the younger kids that are coming to the academy if you had uh if you had a could have we could Grant you any wish that you wanted what would what would be your best wish for the Academy I just want to keep it going where it is to see where they go and just I would love to be able to have more students there that need it with the support that was my question on here is what do you need to support those programs to keep it going the way it is I don't know we're pretty resourceful they're like I need this I'm like I'll get it for you um so we just I mean it just having Southwest Behavior helping us now has been huge and getting her there you know a full-time counselor would be amazing but Southwest coming in and providing those Services has been amazing for us um we do and would like to Branch out some and be able to set the students up and get them alongside some of the Civic groups within the schools out volunteering alongside some of these students that are already making positive impacts in the community and getting them next to them and buddied up with somebody going to events and helping to volunteer so that they can see that there's greater things in this world besides just themselves and their video games and and all of that but I wasn't too sure if that was allowed with students who came from hearings if they're allowed to go and let's say my eighth grader is wanting to go to Desert Valley to help at their craft night or you know things like that so just to be able to provide those opportunities for them another big thing we're seeing especially right now with my Wellness One young lady that wants to stay um their her transportation is going to become a problem in January because there's going to be some changes in the family Dynamic and if they're not in special education I haven't been providing Transportation because our transportation is very thin right now and so just to be able to have the ability to make those decisions of you know for your success and for your future yes you can come here and we'll provide some transportation for you to do so um they want to be in school I asked one of my young ladies like what do you like about Life Academy and she's like I love Life Academy it's the first time I've been able to actually learn math it's the first time I can come and be myself and not have to show up for other people you know and I want those kids to be able to find that love and be able to continue with their education I just have to have the means to be able to do so thank you I will I just interject if I may I'm I paid a visit to the Life Academy right after our last meeting um it is um it is very structured but it's there's such a positive atmosphere and you know the the kids were smiling and even though they were they were all working and um but they were they were happy to be there and it was it was well done and I'm very impressed thank you bye I don't like when they come to me I I don't hide the fact for the you know the reasons why they're there you're here because you brought a vape pen and you were smoking marijuana on campus that's why you're here you know and we talk about that and so we don't hide it we don't shelter it we don't minimize what they did like you did this so when they get when they do try and get because they're Junior High kids and I've had to learn Junior High kids because I'm so Elementary but when they start to get sassy and stuff well why can't I well you did this and so that's why you know not letting them forget why they're there um I do have not my kid coming but don't tell the kids it's a secret they're coming the week we get back from Thanksgiving break for a presentation on marijuana use and tobacco use um so just I'm trying to build some community relations I've been in touch with the probation department in Kingman um to set to try and get some things set up and you know work with them to help kind of curb their desire to partake in this recreational use of drugs so um I I like the idea of getting out to the Civic clubs I don't know if that's possible maybe we can look into seeing that being a reward system that we put into place and bring that back and we'll see what we have to do to but yeah whatever we got to do let's make this girl fighting this is great quantities yeah and what not in would probably make and bridge that connection too yeah the Lions Club has um coming up in December we have a vendor fair event at Coyote Canyon that we're putting on so seeing if the kids want to come on that Saturday and help to like clean up and pick up trash or you know do those things you know just so that they can see what it's like to give back and how fulfilling it can be and gratifying you know within yourself to do that I want to give them those opportunities that they might not have otherwise awesome I like it yeah thank you so let us know what you think okay thank you yeah thank you guys all for being here yes appreciate you guys coming [Applause] um you're gonna have to do your other part during the meeting yeah we do have another item for our Workshop but we don't have that as an agenda yeah we'll come back to you later uh we have a public hearing that we are supposed to hold so we have to down to item two point 2.1 I've called to order the public hearing pursuant to ARS Workshop first yes I move that we adjourn the workshop Amanda amen all stuck in that motion Charlene Diaz all in favor aye Corey Burgess hi Amanda amen hi Charlene Diaz hi Anna Boyd I'm Melinda sabrowski so moved uh pursuant to ars-15 938 C and D 15 905 15 15962 D 15 1103c for review of the proposed fiscal year 2023 expenditure budget Dr Stewart Mr President and board members after the 40th Day of School when enrollments and ADM and all of those things are calculated the Ade finance department determines whether or not we need to review a revision of our budget turns out that this year yes we did but we also had reason to do so because of our ending of the contract with ABM and needing to reassign funds around in the budget so this revision reflects both the um recommendations from Ade finance department and the changes we need to make needed to make to run our own facilities Department you will notice that we've had a very slight drop in enrollment doesn't seem like it I think our principals would tell you it feels like we have more kids this year but it's about nine kids so that didn't result in a big change in the budget but a bit of one so this is the time that the public that has questions about our budget or statements of concerning the budget can address the board yes it is and I would also remind the board that this is the budget built on the funding that was authorized by the state legislature in June for our district based on in ADM we had at the end of last year and folks may have heard about the aggregate expenditure limit which is still in effect which could in fact mean that we would not be able to spend the entire budget that we have been authorized to have for this year so if that's a question that somebody wants to ask about too that you know that's open for some discussion for us that would mean that we would have about 3.5 million dollars of this 18 million dollars that we could not spend so um and that can be uh that can be changed by the legislature they can have they can vote to override the aggregate expenditure limit uh one year at a time because it is established in the state constitution but that change in aggregate spending is not our district that's a Statewide that is Statewide every single School District in a public school district Public School District No it might it be in this situation thanks for pointing that out Corey um every single Public School District in the state would be affected by that cut um and uh and it's not even really a cut it is just here you have the money but you cannot spend it and uh so that's 17.5 percent for every public school budget in the state foreign mm-hmm all right with uh no questions from the public at this time we're going to move forward with item 2.3 I need a motion to adjourn our public hearing I'll make a motion that we adjourn the public hearing I'll second that all in favor aye Corey Burgess hi Amanda amen aye Charlene Diaz aye Anna Boyd I'm Melinda sabrowski so I moved all right City Elementary School Board on Thursday November 17th at 6 PM roll call Corey Burgess here Amanda amen here Charlene Diaz here Hannah Boyd here Melinda sabreski here all present if you would join me for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge of the United States thank you citizens president if you please sign in in the back call to the public uh this is the time the public may speak to the governing board regarding issues in the within the jurisdiction of the governing board and subject to reasonable time space and Mana restrictions as a governing board May establish comments will be limited to three minutes per individual unless specifically waived by the governing board at the conclusion of the call the public individual board individual members of the governing board May respond to criticism made by those who've addressed the board may ask staff to review a matter or may ask that a matter be placed on a future agenda however the governing board cannot take action on matters that have not been noticed in advance as part of the agenda uh we have two calls the public three all right I think that person's pretty Siege okay right um I believe two of them are here one is just for a read to the call to the public so we'll start with those that are here Fred Russian thank you president versus board members Dr Stewart Mr Blue Soul I just wanted to share something that I experienced with my wife last week we were on a Couple's Retreat and it was hosted by a Christian Camp who used young people from their Church to help provide services for us during the weekend and one of the things that they did is they had some little competitive games everybody got points and at the end you got this wonderful new coffee cup that was uh you could refill it all weekend long for free well they had free coffee all weekend and long so it didn't matter but this uh this one Levant that that caught my attention and made me realize how important what it's done here is we were uh all the contests had to do with rubber bands you had to shoot them through various things at different targets and my wife and I did two shots each at this one particular vet where he had to shoot a little paper Target and if you hit it and it spun around the string it was suspended on then you got those points well I hit one for 80.
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thing at this time I'd like to call this regular meeting of the Dysart Unified School District governing board to order let the record reflect that all board members are present please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America okay we'll move to recognitions and celebrations B1 choir performance Dr Dean thank you madam president members of the governing board members of cabinet and our community this evening we are pleased to have one of our outstanding Elementary School choirs with us and I'll turn this over to Dr crota for introductions thank you Dr D Madam president members of the board cabinet guests it is our pleasure tonight to have Asante Preparatory Academy choir here to sing for us and we are going to turn it over to Miss Lauren melinson and the floor is yours let's hear it [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] very good job thank you so much for sharing your talent with us that was wonderful how many grade levels are represented in your choir um we have four grade levels fifth through eighth my my goodness good job thanks for sharing with us tonight thank you so much [Applause] we want to wait a couple minutes foreign all right next we're going to move on to B2 2022 ESPN honor roll Dr Dean Madam president members of the governing board cabinet and our community this evening we are very excited for this next recognition and I'll turn this over to Dr crota as well Dr kroto thank you Dr Dean Madam president members of the board cabinet guests um tonight we're here to honor Valley Vista High School the Unified sports program they were awarded a national Banner unified school so what does that mean Special Olympics unified Champion school has an inclusive School climate and exudes a sense of collaboration engagement and respect for all members of the student body and staff a unified Champion School receiving National Banner recognition is one that has demonstrated commitment to inclusion by meeting 10 national standards of excellence those standards were developed by a national panel of leaders from special education and the education Community with that being awarded that this evening ESPN has also recognized this group as 22 honor roll schools so one of the top in the nation for a special for their Unified sports program and this program is under the direction of Rebecca bar and I believe she's here too tonight she up in front I can't see great job well congratulations that is an awesome achievement I believe they have a plaque there we we have a plaque there we want to get in the picture too I think up in the back why they're taking a picture if you want to see those 10 um the 10 standards of excellence you can go on the Special Olympics unified Champion schools and they list all 10 of them there some pretty cool accomplishments to meet all 10 areas so congratulations we are proud of you [Applause] we're going to move on here to our next recognition we have some middle level athletic Champions to celebrate tonight so I would like to call up uh the K Champions softball team the surprise Cubs if they can come up for winning the softball championship the coach for the surprise Cubs is Kelly Parker Miss Parker congratulations to your team yeah yeah all right a round of applause for surprise congratulations our next championship is a baseball team the Asante Rangers come on up congratulations [Applause] the Asante Rangers the baseball club is coached by Mr Lon shears so congratulations Mr shears [Applause] Round of Applause for Asante great job [Applause] and our last championship is kind of new this year so as you know earlier in the year we announced that we are going to be part of the Northwest Valley Athletic Conference and what that means is our schools will play other district schools so this is a combined uh tournament with schools from Peoria and Deer Valley Unified and they play in a championship format and we have a baseball team that won the first ever Northwest Valley Athletic Conference and that is the Sunset Hill bobcats come on up [Music] [Applause] has a great job representing the West Valley there great job and they are coached by Mr Chuck mullet [Applause] congratulations to Sunset Hills and way to represent uh Dysart Unified School District congratulations and that concludes our presentations that's why there's people yes all right okay next we will move on to um see address the governing board audience with individuals Ms chefin we don't have any all right we'll move next to superintendent governing board update with a student update Dr Dean Madam president members of the governing board members of cabinet and our community I do not believe that our student is here this evening Mr musee oh there she is all right how are you today outstanding it's your turn welcome welcome committees across the Dysart high schools to plan it and then we also have been talking a lot about community service and the community service we've been doing at our school like our canned food drive and then planning a community service activity for the group before the semester ends and then one after the semester ends as well thank you for sharing and would you remind us again of your name and what school you attend uh Braley Ratliff and I attend Valley Vista High School very good thank you Grace very nice thank you for being here [Applause] next we moved to superintendent update Dr Dean thank you madam president members of the governing board cabinet in our community this evening I would like to start by saying congratulations to miss Densmore and Miss Drake on their success in the board election congratulations to both of you and we look forward to uh Miss Densmore you continuing on the board and welcoming Miss Drake on the board uh on January 1st I also would like to extend thanks to both Ms molica and Mr conium for their continued interest in being part of our school district and its community so thank you for all that were involved there I would like to give the board a really good update as it relates to the installation of the security glass in our schools we are have all of the elementary schools except three have been installed and those three are going to be installed next week and the high schools will be starting right after so we're finally getting this project rolling and we've received really good support and comments from our community as well as our employees so it's it's a very good project that is continuing to make our schools as safe as possible this morning on channel 15 channel 15 featured a story from Shadow Ridge High School on a financial Fitness day that was held a few weeks ago in which our students participated in events that were real life as it related to personal finance and they were given jobs and salaries as it related to their jobs and then they had to go through from Station to Station to Station learning how to budget money from everything from housing expenses to utilities to groceries and uh everything that's related in adulting and uh and very quickly students realized how far a dollar does not stretch or how far a dollar could stretch and so we were excited first of all for that event for our students it was a great opportunity for them to see math in a real life setting and more importantly we want to thank channel 15 for spotlighting both Shadow Ridge and that event it was a fantastic event we also want to let our community know that we will have curriculum available to review coming up starting tomorrow at Freedom Traditional Academy and that will be fourth through sixth grade English and language arts curriculum as well as AP economics advanced placement economics and our community can come in and review that curriculum at Freedom Elementary School both before and after school and that will be available through January the 13th if anyone in our community has questions about that they can give us a call here at the district office and we'll be more than happy to answer those also just a couple of other things we want to highlight as the board is aware we are working to start to schedule a study session related to policy and policy transition on December 8th and we believe Ms McLennan will be able to join us for that and then the last thing we would like to state is that today is Day 70 in the school year I continue to say it and it continues to be true the school year is flying by our students and our staff are doing a tremendous job and tomorrow we reach the Thanksgiving holiday and as a reminder the all of our schools will be closed next week the district office will be closed on Wednesday Thursday and Friday and I just would like to wish everyone in our community and our governing board as well a very Happy Thanksgiving and that concludes my report for the evening thank you next we'll move to governing board update um I too would just like to thank our Dysart Community for taking the time to cash their votes on Election Day based on the results of the governing board race I'd like to take this opportunity to congratulate Miss Densmore and Miss Drake I know you'll lead the district well and I'm looking forward to working with you and continuing to serve with you as well Ms Dunsmore um also last week I attended the Veterans Day assembly at Canyon Ridge school it's one of my most treasured Dysart Traditions they always do such a phenomenal job I'd like to thank the Canyon Ridge Administration and staff for their hospitality and of course would like to thank the man behind the curtain Mr Rosso who always does just an amazing job organizing the assemblies and honoring our veterans and finally I would like to just as well wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving and hope you have a peaceful day with friends and family that's all I have anyone else oh I mine's short I attended the Marley Park Veterans Day celebration and then I just want to say thank you to all the schools for all the celebrations they did to honor the veterans I saw lots of pictures and it was really very nice so sorry I couldn't go to all of them but thank you I attended the Veterans Day assembly at Freedom Traditional Academy and I just love how connected they and many of our schools are with our local veterans and our active military families special thanks to Mrs Wolford for a wonderful assembly as this is our last meeting before Thanksgiving I do want to express my gratitude for all of our Dysart staff our parents and our students and of course my heartfelt gratitude for those that supported me in retaining this seat on the Dysart governing board your confidence in my leadership has been overwhelming and I feel truly blessed to be given this opportunity to continue to advocate for all members within our community and to move Dysart forward I also want to congratulate Jennifer Drake and let her know how fortunate that Dysart is to have her leadership beginning in January I just also want to mention that running for office is full of joy and also full of stress it can and has been ugly beyond measure it takes a toll on each candidate their families and definitely our physical and our mental health at times I am truly thankful for all of those that expressed interest in serving whether they seriously considered it officially filed withdrew in some cases or fell short Dysart is a truly remarkable District and we are very fortunate to have a great many willing to make these sacrifices to serve thank you I've got the last board meeting so I got a couple of them before you on October 19th I visited with with David burn bombs chemistry class at Shadow Ridge to witness some awesome experience experiments that he had for his students it has been several years since I've even walked into a chemistry class but it was awesome experience thank you Mr B on October 20th I visited Kingswood Elementary when Arizona State Senator David Livingston held a q a session with the middle school students on the branches of government for both state and federal regarding also the Arizona Constitution and things to pass what it takes to pass a bill so thank you to also Tracy Livingston his wife and a Dysart teacher for this event it was really cool October 21st I was invited to the Ninth Annual Ace which is the Arizona Council for economic education a celebration of education for our teachers across the state it was honestly it was a very very well attended event and I wish more people would have would be able to go on October 26th attended the career in college Expo that was here at the district office thank you Mr grieshaber and all of his team for the event I actually brought my mother to the event and she was truly astonished on how many little pieces of information it takes in order to put such an a great event on so thank you for everybody that attended and the number of students that were in attendance October 26th same day but we went from the Expo over to Willow Canyon to see The Addams Family musical it was funny and engaging and just downright funny so thank you Mr Walgren and the troops 6901 for an amazing evening November 7th served as a volunteer at Shadow Ridge for the financial Fitness that Dr Dean had just said it's it's a great student program and it exposes our students to decision making stations and real world issues on financial Life Choices for critical things such as housing Transportation Insurance Health Care these are real life situations that our kiddos face once they leave high school I had also uh guess you could all say dragged I brought Dr Blossom Tandy who was a former board member with me and she thoroughly enjoyed it as well and lastly I am going to go on record for my next statement which is part of my update on October 27th at that board meeting I I was ill and could not attend and one of the agenda items was to approve superintendent contract for Dr Dean and I want to let Dr Dean know that he would have had my support at that meeting it was it would have been a 5-0 vote full support for you Dr Dean I know you've been interviewing for this since May 12th uh but honestly you've been interviewing it for this for 18 years the time that you've been with Dysart uh years ago you came on uh with Dysart as a principal and of course we experienced a major growth uh we were opening two to three schools a year several years at a time uh we just it just blew up and um for the growth of surprise I know you started up as a startup principal going around opening these pres these schools and you know the ebb and flow and you probably know where all the skeletons are buried with the district so over those 18 years principle you headed up the PR department the HR department and then this super excuse me assistant superintendent for support services but I would be remiss in my duty as a governing board member to not warn you to please watch your back we had an amazing superintendent and Dr Kellis he started amazing programs initiatives and Dysart Dysart flourished and put Dysart on a great path we have four Middle Schools teacher pay increased and just recently we had the labels that were just issued with many of our schools with a labels B's C's we really had a great movement under his Direction teams in place super excuse me principals directors teachers classified all different staff but you also had a front row seat you saw firsthand witness of how easy it is to remove from superintendent by the majority of this board through carefully crafted strategic planned moves to a person who didn't do anything legally immorally unethically or financially disparaging to Dysart he had a vision and it was extraordinary I have faith in you Dr Dean I have a lot of faith in you but just because when some folks smile in your direction doesn't mean that they're they're not helping you along you will be successful I know you will so please go with Grace go with God go do the job that you have been training to do for the past 18 years congratulations I support you and I have faith in you I appreciate what you're doing and lastly also um please dice our community have a safe and wonderful Thanksgiving holiday and come back safe and sound thank you next we'll move to motion to approve consent agenda items I move the governing board approved consent agenda items as presented second motion made by Christine printer seconded by Tracy sorosinko Tracy motion carries next we move to information discussion items G1 information on state testing data and school accountability a through F letter grades Dr Dean thank you madam president members of the governing board cabinet and our community this evening Amy hartun our director of research will present information related to our state testing data from last school year as well as our school accountability a through F letter grades that once again the the state did a good job of releasing in a timely manner I say that Physicians facetiously as we took the test in April and got the school labels on November the 1st so that being said this evening we are proud to present the information Miss hartun good evening Madam president members of the board Dr Dean and cabinet so yes as Dr Dean mentioned I'm going to do kind of a twofer I'm going to do some State Testing information which of course leads to a major component of our school labels so um just to give you a review last year um for spring of 2022 we had some new tests in place that were part of the State Testing accountability pieces so in third through eighth grade the new state test is the aasa for ELA and math it is the same standard so none of the state standards changed but the vendor changed so some of the formatting and question type pieces changed and then fifth eighth and 11th grade we have the new AZ SCI test um the Arizona Science test and then in high school brand new test for Arizona was the ACT Aspire all ninth graders take that and then the 11th grade we as a district have been giving the act for the last few years it was an optional Grant um but it is now the official state test and the 9th and 11th grade test new for many of our kids is it a timed test where they under um the one and third through eighth grade is not so um that is something we're definitely working on as a district is getting kids used to um taking time to tests for that part all right so I'm going to start with Elementary um you see we have our district results for ELA um and math and um District average and state average we were above the district average in every grade level um above the state and then as a district we grew about four percent in ela from the previous year and in math we also grew four percent from the previous year azizai as I mentioned brand new test um and the state um our average was again above the state average in all categories in all grade levels and then our high schools um the ACT Aspire um measures theirs on the percentage of students that are at ready um or exceeding Readiness um in preparation for being successful in the act so um in all areas we were above the state average um much higher than the state average in our English score so that was the one that we definitely outperformed and then definitely some work to do in math and science are act data our composite score and all categories except for science were above the state average um of course in science we have the challenge of our 11th graders are taking the AZ SCI test and they're taking the ACT test and the tests are not alike so um you are preparing students to take two tests um the ACT is obviously really important because that's part of our state proficiency and the AZ size test is also very important because that's part of the state accountability part so um the the science teachers have a challenge because they're preparing kids for two tests when we talk about activities and things that our teams are doing this year to ensure that our student achievement continues to grow and improve um I have a couple of slides for you the first one is really focused on what we're doing with district and school leaders the academic Services teams are continuing to support our Title 1 schools through focused plans and Focus grade levels we are supporting nine schools this year our team worked with the principals to write goals that support improving achievement at our Title One schools and then those teacher or those principals selected grade levels for us to really hone in and focus on um so we are continuing to do that we have data focused sessions at all of our monthly principal assistant principal and specialist teams meetings we brought on a new assessment platform so a lot of our training in the first quarter was really getting everybody familiar with that platform and how to use it how to use the data reports and those types of pieces um we regularly provide those content and instructional practices updates at our principal and assistant principal meetings and then continuing to work with those different specialist groups the data specialist and then a really nice addition this year is Achieve3000 which is um both the reading and math Intervention Program we have a dedicated project manager from the vendor who is just works with Dysart and comes and provides leadership meetings with the principals models lessons lesson plans with teachers and goes from school to school she works with us full-time and then she comes and meets with um the directors and Dr assai and Dr croto to give us updates about where we're seeing improvements in the reading scores and math performance for our campuses for instructional supports um we have a new K3 and a new 412 math program so we've really focused our Monday PD time um from the district level on providing supports to those so that we have a successful implementation we are really um also for those who are not part of those two groups trying to focus on providing good instructional practices for our El and ESS students so that we can continue to provide um supports for all sub-populations and obviously what are really great best practices for elness students are great best practices for all students there's a math leadership team that our math specialist Kami Bernard leads so there's a member from every school that comes and meets with her regularly and then they go back and are able to support their teachers on their campus with the implementation of our new math curriculum and we have as part of our Focus for literacy we are doing both um a literacy team for ELA and social studies that the middle school and training on Jane Shafer writing 512 so that we're using a consistent writing program in all grades and they're able to use that not only in their English class but in social studies and actually in other areas as well so that they're able to apply that in different subject areas and continue to improve our writing skills we are doing all kinds of academic Services walks for different groups and providing feedback and supports to tier one tier two and tier three um teachers and different programs and then the last one is I'm going out and doing data prep connects with teachers with leadership teams and providing those follow-ups to make sure one that implementation of our new program and then really making sure we're honing in them on the right pieces when we're having our data meetings and then with that we have our new state accountability um just to give everybody a background because it's been a few years since we've had State labels the Ada F accountability system was introduced in 1617 prior to that instead of it being a to F they used like exceeding and highly performing those types they used it it was a phrase we had labels issued in 1617 17 18 19.
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Becky can you hear me Vicky can you hear me Vicky can you hear us things [Music] Nikki foreign history all right before we start tonight I invite you to go to Regions um are there any modifications to the agenda an item for the recommendation to approve the resolution regarding supplemental payments for the Brown County Education Association Master contract do you have a motion to accept the recommendation to through the resolution regarding the supplemental payments for uh Master Company I still live thank you one second any discussion welcome Carol yes Amy yes definitely yes Steve yes uh motion Gary um next I have the recommendation to approve the first round of Transportation contracts for 2023 through 2027. the relationship set the recommendation should approve the first round of Transportation contracts for 23-27.
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not have to tell the parents where minor children are involved this is a clear violation of parental rights third also to insist that one individual has a right to intimidate 20 other students is absolutely ridiculous a girl can change in a boy's locker room saying says this policy what about the other boys don't they have rights the lawyer says the boys can choose to change somewhere else this is bullying by The More by the minority parents have to wake up about this I can talk more and more about this issue I went to the board meeting and I took a lot of notes but I don't want to continue totally about this but I just wanted to be brief but let people know that this is an issue that has come up okay thank you very much thank you um are there any other um is there anyone else from the audience who'd like to speak okay we will move on to committee reports um and first up is curriculum sorry sure so the curriculum committee had a meeting on Monday November 14th we had one piece of new business and four pieces of informational items so the new business was um as we do every year we um are presented with the program changes at Cheshire High School so Dr Maureen Reed provided an overview of the recommended changes to the 2023-24 Cheshire high school program of studies and the changes include additions of the following courses experimentation and Discovery in the chemistry lab exploration of science phenomenal uh ECE course popular music and diversity in American society beginning guitar Advanced CNC Manufacturing which is a um Community College course as well Naugatuck Valley AP pre-calculus ECE course if you love it teach it and advanced theater oh and fundamentals of theater which both are CCP courses other changes include combining two semester courses into a full year Child Development and human growth and adding an ECE option to AP Calculus BC uh also opening up web and app design to ninth grade students and courses deleted from the programs of study include Algebra 1 CP3 Algebra 1 CCP and that goes back to what was was added for algebra for math class and also deleted his math analysis and American Sign Language and healthy ballots so that's all that's all listed and easy for people to look up as well informational items the first one was um Ms Solano shared an overview of the Connecticut right to read legislation the overview included the current timeline established for districts to indicate what approved instructional materials they will Implement beginning in July of 2023.
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it's a practice round and if they want to come up sometime if they're at your interest that's all any other questions Michael thank you you are dismissed but yeah if you'd like sounds good Happy Thanksgiving to all as well thank you um okay well um we'll move on to our presidents and things um the first presentation School partnership award for admittals and this states that the parent teachers Administration part of every school and support contribute parallel and appreciated have the wonderful assistant definitely items and experiences the PTA has gone above and beyond during the American and teacher different times throughout throughout this year okay has coordinated several events make sure that feels imported from snacks and treats throughout the years that one business and Specialty coffee to each other has made staff who appreciated it and value out of you first and dad Middle School thanks to carry your extreme thoughts on the mechanism of Staff Mary was nominated by Mr Woods Middle School principal principal [Applause] thank you [Applause] foreign then the next is the school partnership award I went to school so the recipient for the school part for school I I it's not Jeffrey Cecile has volunteered in in the Highland Library for the past four years she's just been an independable member of the Holland Community by by providing support to our staff and our student student Highland Elementary is great for cecile's contribution that helps helps keep our library organized and animating for all always students find great books congratulations to see Wilson [Applause] foreign thank you [Applause]
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eating Adam grippo Vice chair Pavilion for uh chairman prayer Genie this evening I called this meeting to order Miss sadinski please please call the roll here again here here all right pledge of America foreign all right thank you Mr Gribble so start us off very successful fall sports teams uh fall Sports season four that's your high school seven as an SCC gym Championship wins for Cheshire CHS is in the Houston division of the scg along with with the four other roles and along with this EHS girls all support team consisting of soccer field hockey volleyball swim and dive cross-country it's every girl girl for at CHS won their SEC Championship this means um this means they were championed the entire ssdcc Boots the four divisions of him NASA Housatonic oronoke and Quinnipiac Chester high high is the school and the SEC history top won every single false girls support team have won their FC title with a score of two to one goals were scored by senior captain and registered by my senior captain the CHS girls had just reached their first state final since 2000 the play of State final final game on Sunday at the tree Health Stadium Hartford Staples at fpm boys soccer won 3-2 over here in the last L's in the finals you're captained up in samishnika had two and an assist senior captains cabins the poor boys like at 6 30 p.m the girls are playing versus Xavier Chester girl swimming second in class L finals and the football just beat Xavier and we'll play Huntington in the Apple Valley class I think this Thanksgiving beginning Junior cross country star Alexis is sick in the state opens on number four and fifth in the between last Saturday in history for referrals this country by earning the highest CH finish at New Orleans several student athletes athletes and a leadership supportive conference from high school was awarded Michael's cup for sportsmanship and participation in athletics per year right before right before Thanksgiving the Junior and senior participate in a flag football game with your girls going against the senior girls this will this take place plays X Monday right after they're both Educators close Clan National Society until the food truck food pan peer health health educator class top and lead with its themes of and community service being at the core National National is a group of highlights who possessed together they worked to organize my market take a look at the word out through this two-party participate the students participating handicap bags of their neighborhood for the neighbors to build if you think we should donate and to see a teachers also got the opportunity and fall sports team participated as clubs and together we raised over 5 000 pounds yeah come together to give back to community in addition Pure Health has going to Elemental School periodically engaging students and and just recently had had the sub conference at CHS the annual senior leaking took place on Saturday each year senior citizens who are eligible can sign up the archery rig by a group of high school students this from sports team seems eight clubs to rake in your citizens you see our heart some groups due to Saturday's rain throughout the this past weekend and many helped clean up after they leave Play Lost Girls will be what we keep and we'll bomb tomorrow on Saturday Monaco has actually changed it because she's and she wanted me to Hype the play up and really really get some more um motivation going for it and the cast cast has been looking extremely hard on the production and it's highly recommended we'll see performances will be at 7 30 a.m at Chester School Thorp Auditorium through of the Senate recycle bottles and cans on the football game of October 221st and 28th other Business Leaders leaders leadership conference on November 1st at the University of harp they learned how to give an effect interview s and the importance to see best of the Buddies Club held a friend friends giving a giving event today in the CHS each buddy brought in in food items to Interchange the distressed children infants Club have helped make abolitionists on Monday results from that will become shortly lastly utterance Day Day breakfast was held at on November 11th students with veterans brought brought them breakfast and and assembly posted by Bravo where's the club integrated honoring veterans the brief Department team happily welcomed them into chest and that's all I have for you to do today thank you thank you for that report I think the longest here a lot of information um the dates that we're talking about right now today is what the 17th Thursday or 17th it's going to be will be what day the dates is what I'm wondering about so completely lost girls will be the auditorium um at 7 30 and September 19th and 7 30.
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[Music] thank you [Music] what's up guys [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music] stop the time [Music] thank you [Music] thank you for being here we're gonna go ahead and reconvene our meeting and I'm going to start off with the Pledge of Allegiance and moment of silence I'm going to invite omkar let's go ahead hi everyone please stand um put your right hand over your heart ready begin I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all and now for the moment of silence so start off um I would like to dedicate this moment of silence for what's about to come in the next week Black Friday and amazing new deals on your favorite Brands just kidding just kidding um but Thanksgiving um I'd like to dedicate this time to those that make the ehsd the ahsd the teachers The Faculty the students furthermore I want to dedicate this time to the people we care about our co-workers friends families and so please join me in the next moment of silence to show gratitude to those that have made our lives a Wonderful Life to Live thank you all right thank you home car and uh having talked about gratitude um I just wanted to say thank you to all of you uh this is my final board meeting um so I'll leave my speech for the next one but uh this is my final board meeting I just wanted to thank the Anaheim Community for giving me the opportunity to serve them for the past nine years as a board member and I can I can't tell you the amount of joy and honor I had while serving our community and I've seen uh Anaheim Union High School District really grow in the past nine years we've been through some ups and downs uh mostly ups and I am very proud to say that I'm part of this board and uh I want to congratulate the rest of the board and thank you as well I'm sure I will save my words for the next board meeting when I come as a guest so thank you very much now I will pass it on to Kathy Smith for the closed session report 4.1 4.1 no reportable action taken regarding anticipated litigation 4.2 the Board of Trustees unanimously approved the settlement agreement in oah case number 202207-0633 resolving all issues in students due process complaint by amending students IEP and providing reimbursements 4.3 the Board of Trustees unanimously approved the settlement agreement with student providing funding for tuition and fees in lieu of students IEP 4.4 no reportable action taken regarding negotiations 4.5 no reportable action taken regarding personnel 4.6 the Board of Trustees unanimously voted to dismiss employee hr-2022-23-04 4.7 the Board of Trustees unanimously voted to accept the agreement with HR I'm sorry with employee h.r.2022-23-06 4.8 the Board of Trustees unanimously approved the agreement for the stipulation stipulated expulsion of student 22-04 and lastly 4.9 the Board of Trustees unanimously approved the expulsion of student 22-11 and I just want to add that I thank you it has been a joy and a privilege to know you and be a friend and a colleague and you are going to be missed and I just hold you close to my heart I tell Al I love him and I'm going to tell him publicly I love you thank you Kathy I love you too [Applause] thank you Kathy and and we'll go on to our number six which is recognitions and uh now we go into kindness matter Awards celebrating kindness is a valued quality and a priority of the Board of Trustees it is acknowledged that even the smallest acts of kindness by a single person have the power to change the lives of our students and our community with this in mind the Board of Trustees began this recognition in 2011 honoring students parents District employees and community members for their acts of kindness in the community all individuals recognize here were nominated by students staff members all community members and selected by the kindness matter committee and I would like to invite uh Celeste Kruger to come in and help with the awards thank you very much I'm so excited to be here tonight to hand out these Awards and they go so well with the moment of silence that we had just being grateful for our colleagues and our students and our community and being part of the kindness matters is just really a great experience and I really am excited about the group of people that we have here tonight as our recipients so again my name is Celeste Kruger I'm Director of Human Resources and I want to introduce Scott Jensen who is also a Director of Human Resources he's going to be assisting me tonight Scott and I are honored to present the recipients of the kindness matters awards for the 22-23 school year uh so recipients when I call your name please step forward to receive your award and what we will do is when we're all done we will have a photo opportunity with all of you together so uh with our first recipient is Zanae Abu khalaf so Zanae is a bilingual instructional assistant she deserves this award because she is an Arabic bilingual instructional assistant who also serves as an Arabic interpreter translator she goes above and beyond the call of duty by acting as a translator interpreter for Arabic for the entire District though she is only a bilingual instructional assistant she also helps promote the Arabic World language program within the community thank you Zanae our next recipient is David akala [Applause] Jason David serves us David serves as a senior administrative assistant at for Cambridge Virtual Academy and [Applause] and obviously David's very popular with the folks uh he's so popular that he would kill it with Ryan he was David was actually nominated twice this time around so uh David David is always helping organizing and supporting school projects but never forgetting to care for others he has food on Fridays to bond our team he's a good listener and loves to provide good customer service he is thoughtful and always looking to brighten someone's day he goes out of his way to meet make people's Day special for example acknowledging someone's success challenges loss by getting them cards for the entire staff to sign he comes in early when is needed and he's always willing to stay after his work day if necessary he brings such a positive and caring attitude to our site and work environment thank you David our next recipient is Terry Burdick [Applause] so Terry is a custodian at CVA and Dale foreign and even though Terry began with them about a month ago he has jumped right in and made us all feel like we are part of his family he is a truly kind thoughtful and amazing individual we are so glad he is with us he brings in a small treat for staff almost daily he's always asking what needs to be done to make our spaces cleaner and jumps right in to get it done he could go about his day on his own terms but he chooses to be sure to check in with staff thank you Terry foreign recipient is Jennifer Coleman Jennifer is an English teacher at Kennedy High School her nominator says Miss Coleman goes above and beyond actually let me start again her nominator was a student and the student says Miss Coleman goes above and beyond to make her classroom a safe and welcoming room she's a teacher that cares about her students at lunch her room is a place you will find many students showing how welcoming Miss Coleman makes her students feel she's the person that you can go to and feel comforted by the advice she will give you to better appreciate yourself and be kind to yourself thank you Miss Coleman thank you our next recipient is Sharon Coffey Miss coffee is an English teacher at Cypress High School so miss coffee after many years in Northern California is only in her second year at Cyprus still she has taken on many responsibilities such as El student monitor Apex teacher and she even spearheaded an effort in our English Department to celebrate meals together and recognize birthdays on a monthly basis it's just a more pleasant atmosphere to work in since she arrived on campus thank you Miss Coleman Miss coffee connection our next recipient is Lisa Cruz Lisa is a senior administrative assistant at Savannah High School her nominee her nominator says I am constant gratitude for This Woman's compassion I am a substitute teacher and love Savannah high school I have subbed for several classes there and early this year I became seriously ill she knew I was unwell and out of her own funds had delicious soup delivered to me that is kindness Beyond kindness I wasn't all that special I have seen Lisa tree everyone she meets with kindness compassion and understanding not losing her professionalism why she does while she does it Lisa is an outstanding person and always kind no matter what her personal life may bring her thank you Lisa foreign recipient is Melanie Crystal Garcia Ramirez Melanie is a student at Anaheim High School her nominator says throughout the year I have received many new students in my class Melanie has always welcomed them into the classroom by helping them through the difficult math concepts she introduces herself and is even offered to show these new students where their classes are many students feel intimidated and do not want to approach nude people but Melanie does it without hesitation this helps the newcomers feel welcomed thank you Melanie [Applause] all right our next recipient is Caitlyn Garden Caitlyn is a speech and language pathologist at Cypress High School Caitlyn's support and kindness with her colleagues and students goes far above and beyond her job description Kalyn has an open door and a listening ear when teachers or students need her beyond that Caitlyn goes out of her way to stop by classrooms daily to check in to see if there's any way she can be of support to teachers she maintains a growth mindset when it comes to the potential of her students she has a profound respect for students feelings and needs and she encourages students to speak their mind she's a fierce advocate for protecting students dignity and everything she does for them as a teacher I have never felt as supported as I do by Caitlin thank you Caitlin our next recipient is Craig Herrick so Craig is a teacher at Cypress High School his nominator says Craig is a kind person and shows kindness around the Cypress campus every day there's no one more deserving of this award than Craig he helps students learn and maintains high standards while being positive and nurturing he is collegial he picks up his colleagues male when it went in the office he gives out cookies during the holidays hosts lunches in his classroom expresses his appreciation of others and is a Dependable co-worker I consider Craig's accent actions to be a shining example of living the meaning of kindness matters thank you Craig our next recipient is Natalia Nguyen so Natalya is a student in the adult transition program at Cypress high school she's a brand new student to our school district and our adult transition program but she never fails to agree all the staff and her peers in the morning Natalia is very compassionate and worries about any student or staff that is having a bad or a sad day Natalia always initiates interactions and offers her assistance and will ask what can I do to help to make that better for you she's a little piece of sunshine in our classroom and a true representation of a kind person thank you Natalya our next recipient is Araceli Portillo Araceli is a teacher at Savannah high school she consistently attends sporting events for Savannah high school and support for all student athletes throughout the year additionally she stays late nearly every single day to support students who need extra tutoring after school she builds connections with parents and community members especially those in the makondo dance program to make sure they know they are a special part of the Savannah Community Miss Portillo embodies the warmth and family atmosphere of Savannah High School this feeling definitely is felt during her classroom instruction but is apparent in the extra time she invests outside of the school day thank you Miss Portia foreign recipient is Paula Rosenberg Miss Rosenberg has gone above and beyond to show kindness by her nominee has to number them there's so many different ways that she demonstrates kindness so some of the things that she has done she coded and created a method in Google slides for content to be auto-translated to multiple languages she brought and prepared two of her previous Saturday Language Academy Scholars to the district to be part of the California School Board Association Golden Bell validation visit she missed part of another meeting to be a part of the validation visit as well she went above and beyond to help new Saturday Language Academy teachers she shared her expertise at Cal State Fullerton in person and webinar professional learning sessions to help pre-service teachers and she goes above and beyond at Kennedy High School as a teacher leader to help colleagues in her various teacher leader roles she sees Miss Rosenberg sees a need and she wants to serve she does not get extra pay for most of the extras she does she puts relationships and Scholars first thank you Miss Rosenberg our next recipient is Valerie salsay Valerie is a teacher at Savannah high school and she has a contagious passion for students learning for them to discover their own passion she teaches our ELD students and she does this with care and kindness she goes out of her way to offer after school support for students as well as sets a time to visit her students in other classes she meets with teachers regarding student learning and she's always looking for creative ways to enhance student learning she's a veteran teacher who is part of many committees and is a strong advocate for students thank you Miss Aussie foreign next recipient is Haley Smith [Applause] Haley is a student at Kennedy High School and she is the kindest Soul you will meet she has 11 passion for special needs students and has chosen the path of a special needs teacher for her future she currently Tas for the classic Kennedy that teaches students with special needs she cares for the students like they are her own and her love is pure and genuine it's rare to see a young student at 16 or 17 have the passion and drive that she has to help students with special needs and the love she has for the job thank you Haley foreign [Applause] recipient is Amanda verzani [Applause] so Amanda is a student in our adult transition program at Cypress high school and she's a new student in the program this year from the very first day she has gone out of her way to make all the students and Staff feel good about themselves she never fails to thank the instructional aides for their Assistance or thank them for teaching her new things Amanda cheers on her peers and offers them her support She's always telling them good job or it's going to be okay if they are sad Amanda is part of our classroom greeting committee and makes always makes everyone feel welcome her kind heart is greatly appreciated thank you Amanda foreign our last recipient for the evening is Linda Wong and I don't believe Linda's with us tonight Linda is a parent at Oxford Academy she has been the pure symbol of kindness as she has been serving as a PTA leader and as a parent volunteer for a number of clubs and events on campus for the last six years at Oxford she's well known by her Savory and delicious baked treats that she makes for this staff by giving her time an amazing talent she makes sure that the staff feels appreciated and loved every time she brings treats everyone feels so energized and motivated to go that one extra mile serving the students her smile kind words are our Pure symbol of kindness at Oxford Academy thank you Miss Wong these are your kindness matter recipients for the fall of the 22-23 school year thank you to the nominators who took the time to show appreciation to our staff students and community members and a big thank you to the recipients for all you do your kindness does not go unnoticed and it really is contagious so thank you so much [Applause] so we're going to ask the recipients to come join us right in front so that we can take a picture group picture with all of you thank you tonight it's weird that was really well thank you [Music] foreign [Music] two three [Music] times ten years 10 years I've been asking for a problem here thank you nice to meet you hi everybody [Applause] thank you so much thank you congratulations thank you thank you very much [Applause] [Music] [Applause] last two board members [Applause] [Music] you got three feel good different topics I mean he's going to be there for the agenda item anyways so maybe I'll I'll just ask him to right before the item yeah uh they turn off I think after like 15 minutes of being idled no they didn't have one this time where is Anne Marie entertainment [Music] [Applause] up there yeah Miss Piercy and Miss Randall Trail I need a box all right we go to uh 6.2 which is our perfect uh perfect attendance award Anaheim Union High School District values and appreciates perfect attendance of employees it has become the district tradition to recognize and applaud on an annual basis staff members who have perfect attendance consequently a red Apple award will be sent to each employee of the district with perfect attendance for the 2021-2022 year a golden apple will be sent to each employee with three consecutive years of perfect attendance I'd like to congratulate all the employees who were who actually earned this coveted recognition um I know employees are not here but I'd like to request that maybe we resume this as a in-person recognition starting next meeting I know I'm not going to be here for the next meeting but I'm sure that the rest of the board members would agree with me as well right and I was expressing the same thought we want to make this a little bit more special next time I realized that we had to cool it during pandemic but we need to get back to the hurray and make it extra special congratulations all my years in this District I never got a gold Apple I got a lot of red ones but I didn't get a gold one yeah please please convey that to Brad and Mike as well and I want to thank all of the employees who are who've earned this because uh your service is well recognized so thank you hi we go to uh 7.1 student representative report in omkar cartrade go ahead hello I'm back um so let's start off so start off with Anaheim so they had recently they'll be beyond the grave and ghost tours where they actually had a dance beyond the grave dance and they also had a tour where students were like terrified from other students acting in the library and Auditorium um moving on to uh CBA CBA recently had multiple moments in bonding where they held a great gratefulness tree to a game night a Halloween game night to bond with other um or faculty and students moving on to Gilbert High School so Gilbert High School actually went to a musical called actually sorry an opera show called Omar and 17 students attended the Opera along with many staff members from Polaris and Gilbert and from what I hear they had a great time um Cyprus held editions for their talent show which we would love if the board would come and we also held a district-wide mindfulness Saturday Academy there which was a huge success um looking forward Katella headed pink week which celebrated the fight against cancer and it ended with a basketball game between the teachers and students where the teachers actually beat out the students moving on to Kennedy they actually had a Socratic seminar on October 10th on AI teaching and implications and it was held with the seniors from the IB Program loera had held its first blood drive which attracted hundreds of volunteers as they came out to join the effort to save a life Magnolia had the state superintendent visit the Mac which is a Magnolia's Agricultural Center and it shows how the agency is battling food deserts in the agency and they're trying to present that to the government it was huge for uh agency and Magnolia Oxford's Orchestra a band and choir joined together to perform the musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and when I hear it was a great success and Savannah recently had their homecoming game and assembly where things like struggles of Excellence were celebrated and short speeches were given by many student leaders and finally Western held a mock election for the social science department to teach students about Civic engagement which I know is huge from the age of state and it's one last heads up um tomorrow is game day for CIF for both Western and Cyprus who have both reached the semifinals so a huge congratulations to both those schools as well thank you all right all right well I'm sorry I want to congratulate that this is a report that you put together yes right I wanted to really thank you for this because this is one of the first times that we get this type of report from a student so thank you for doing this and we appreciate it so thank you [Applause] all right next is student speakers and I don't think I have any student speakers who are who have turned in there do I have any student speakers who would like to make public comments see none okay we will go to reports of associations and let me start out with go ahead go ahead good evening Board of Trustees uh cabinet and everyone out here in the audience tonight um this is the first time I think ever that I've come out come up here without any words written down because I actually had to rip up my whole speech from tonight uh for tonight thanks to the work that the Board of Trustees the cabinet and the bargaining team of Asta did this week we are so pleased to announce that we have a tentative agreement reached for the 22-23 school year it was a relatively quick process this year with some quick movement between the parties this is an agreement that we feel shows the the Gratitude and appreciation that the district feels for all of its employees and their value to The District in everything that they do I just wanted to appreciate uh asta's bargaining team and our executive board that have worked so hard to bring our members together it wasn't just our members this year we had csca members we had asked me members who came together in appreciation of each other to work together as one kind of bargaining group to look at what it is that we felt was a reasonable agreement this year and the uh District the trustees and the district leadership came together with us and agreed with what we thought was a a reasonable affordable agreement that showed appreciation and value to everything that everyone is doing so greatly appreciate that I would also like to say uh trustee Jabar you've been on this board for eight years and not only have you been a representative to your area and to the entire District our schools and families and Community you are also a true Ally and friend of Labor whether it is organized or just working class folks doing what they need to do and that has always been greatly appreciated from our association whether I was president or we had leaders before you were always there to be a voice that made sure labor was heard and that our concerns were being addressed so greatly appreciate your time on the board and look forward to our continued community school work with you and the County Board of Supervisors we know we're going to continue that relationship and do whatever we can to support our students families and communities so with that I conclude my report thank you thank you grant all right um I do I have APG Hilda I don't know if I saw apga I don't think I see a PGA is coming up killed it hello everybody all right good evening uh president jabarb or trustees executive cabinet students and parents and school community in person and online um it's a pleasure to be here this evening I want to give you an update of the month of November sites have been gearing up and looking forward to the Thanksgiving break next week since they have been incredibly busy with the athletic bappa ASB and School site events such as Dia de los Muertos festivities bound spectacular CF matches which are still going uh tomorrow so good luck to our teams Tupac Spirit Week college and FAFSA application workshops on-site events with our local Anaheim collaborative Partners such as Cypress College and Cal State Fullerton so polar 10 Saturday Academy RSVP Summit and state even State visits to the max so it's been super busy out there this month I would like to highlight the work done by our site administrators with their SLT teams to build community Empower student voice particularly around the student Capstone actors and at their school plan for student achievement students how I mean teams have been digitally working on systems structures and support for student learning School sites are discussing performance task assessment student engagement 5Cs implementation and developing the second semester student Capstone showcase that help everyone will go including people here and online and parents and students if you get the chance to do that I also want to share with you our continued Collective effort for student wellness physically and mental emotionally administrators have been working on school safety conducting drills training and also attending workshops in terms of student wellness as omkar Focus we are focusing on raising our student awareness of well-being and belonging and so this month their student mindfulness Representatives which are new this year along with the student ambassadors with the support of ASB presidents held their annual first semester mindfulness workshop at Cypress high school thank you so much at Cypress High School the workshop was conducted in collaboration with the illumination Institute and was all student-led we have some great ugly karaoke and other activities uh we have it we had a total of 60 participants discussing learning and practicing ways of self-cares and ways to be present I want to end this month's report by expressing our immense gratitude for our administrators time and their unwavering support for students and school communities our school leaders are always willing to go above and beyond we are grateful to have such exceptional leaders that are committed to Excellence and lead with passion and purpose and we also would like to thank president Jabar for his commitment and his leadership thank you so much and that is my report all right thank you I don't I don't see anybody else from our APG or csca okay perfect so we'll go to parent teachers Student Association PTSA report good evening board cabinet um so today we actually just hosted just across the building our Reflections um Awards and art gallery um so that's why I was just like running in like did I miss my report um so um we had eight of our schools turn in um had participants in the reflections art program we had over 230 our entries across our schools 25 of those were Award of Excellence at their sites and got turned into us at Council and we will be submitting 11 Award of Excellence to fourth district at the county level um so a big thank you to the district for always fostering Visual and Performing Arts across our schools our students are amazing artists we had some really beautiful artwork some amazing visual Film Production music and dance choreography some amazing writers so we had a really tough decision to award our Award of Excellence and we're hoping for their success at the county level so we'll stay tuned to see if any of those receive any Award of Excellence at that level but so thank you for always being strong supporters of our visual Performing Arts across the district at all of our sites my son is a band incident so last week I got to go to band spectacular so I know how important it is to you guys at the district and so we really appreciate that our students um really showcased you know all of their creativity in in really beautiful ways so that is my update for this month thank you so much thank you all right so we go now into presentations and 8.1 is the North Orange County Regional occupational program presentation yeah so thank you board president Jabar and per the request of the board we invited uh Gail kyrus who's one of our friends and partners with the North Orange County ROP and she's going to actually lead our presentation tonight on some student testimonials uh in terms of great work that we are doing as a district in partnership with our friends at ROP someone turn over to Gail who'll introduce our students and lead us through the presentation thank you well good evening the mission of North Orange County ROP is to work in partnership with the Anaheim Union High School District to equip and empower the young people of our community for their career and ultimately their life success in the 21st century we do this fully aware that in such a rapidly changing and advancing world there's no way to know exactly what where the jobs in the workforce will look like but what we do know is that when we sow the seeds of innovation entrepreneurship and purpose into the fertile soil of basic technical skills our young people grow strong ready and confident recently superintendent Matt suda has been sharing with the district and Community leadership the work of Raj Chetty he's a professor of public economics at Harvard and Professor chetty's research says what's on the screen here exposure to Innovation substantially increases the chances that children become inventors he cites research that Innovation is widely viewed as the engine of economic growth and we know that economic growth starts with an individual first and then fuels the economy of our communities so this evening we have students speaking from three of our Innovative entrepreneurial programs entrepreneurship and self-employment biotechnology the iLab Mac summer internship first we have Christopher and Chris is in the entrepreneur and self-employment pathway at Gilbert High School so using the Knowledge and Skills that he gained from taking this course of study and with the support of his father Chris designed and created an original clothing line filed all the paperwork with his dad and opened an online business so this is Chris's story [Applause] um at the age of 15 I had to relieve my family behind due to family reasons and financial reasons I came here with my dad and I had a mission in Canada which was to help out my family and start a new business the background was tough so that's what gave me a boost of motivation to not let my parents down and to not give up I heard about this program at the beginning of my junior year of high school I I was in pass I heard it through announcement the principal came up to me and he told me about the program that I can help you design stuff start a business and knowing the situation I was in I for sure took that decision and that was the best decision I ever made I remember one of the first times I entered the ROP program we had a guest speaker talking about how he started a clothing brand and how well it went for him and I took that too hard because I wanted to always do something big and for me a clothing brand is something that if I get somebody to wear my clothes I want them to feel special confident and stylish in a way in this program I learned everything how to start a business how to become a entrepreneur and how to start designing everything you need you learn the basics of how to reach your targeted audience how to do marketing how to get catchy um products so people can start buying it and from there on I started my brand I started helping a student here do marketing and you know I started doing my own stuff and I made lots of deals it gave me lots of you know a good financial aid for my family so during the program I learned how to create my website we started learning how to do entrepreneurship you know speaking in front of people how to prepare for marketing how to create logos how to create slogans mission statements how to do our website aesthetically pleasing and overall how to Target our audience all that I learned through the program ROP Business and Entrepreneurship so this program means a lot to me not because it helped me help my help my person they can also teach you how to overcome your fears how to not give up you know if you're not feeling it's because you're not trying and this is what we learned here that every path you take every failure you take is a step so if you we can't give up and I encourage lots of new people that want to take all of these to give it a shot because you never know and if it feels scary for you that's when you want to take it or else you'll end up staying that moment in your whole life so risk not the regret on this program has helped me a lot and this is you know the examples I made have had lots of coding projects coming in soon and you guys can hopefully see them and try them on thank you secondary education but he was uncertain as to what that would be he found Direction in biotechnology at Anaheim high school and this is sukavirus story I don't know biotech was a thing but my grades were they were decent but I didn't really have much ambition and the way I actually heard about biotech was through my girlfriend she was in the third period and she was telling me about it and I was actually very interested I was actually very excited when I joined the class I sort of took a a leader role in the class my grades suddenly were increasing because I was like okay I think I actually have a plan for my future before my thought was take two years of a language take two years of a major and whatever College I want to go to might want to go to a lower ranking college but I started thinking a lot more about my future once I actually joined biotech I became more enthusiastic I I actually started caring about my grades I started looking into dual enrollment started looking into summer schools I'm trying to get college credits seeing and seeing what I could do for my future when it comes to the class itself I actually I'm always very excited to come in like I get in the class first thing we do we put in we put on our protective equipment we go on over to our station have our notebooks ready when it comes to working the actual buffers themselves we make the chemicals and of course use them and it feels like an actual professional lab I feel very fortunate and lucky when it comes to the programs and all that the school offers because I have friends from other schools and I tell them about the programs and all the different opportunities that we have here and they're like what we don't even have a half as much as you guys have I feel like I made the right decision when it came to the school that I joined I now believe that I'll have a good future at least I hope a lot of people call me ambitious but I think that's a very nice personality trait to have all in all I think that this program has actually helped me a lot and it's made me think it's basically it's given me a different perspective hopefully maybe I can get a job in the biotech business later on during my future [Music] if you're here supporting sugavir would you please stand up thank you and next we have Monty and Monty takes full advantage of every opportunity and that was including the iLab Max summer internship where he's grown tremendously in his communication and Leadership skills he's also discovered his desire to make a difference in his community by pursuing a career in public and Community Health and this is Monty's story my name is for short and I am a student at Magnolia High School and this is my story so back in 2010 my family and I immigrated here from Iraq um for them to for them to to provide me and my and my siblings a better future for ourselves so one thing that really took a huge part in the person I am today is the school district at Anaheim Union High School District if it wasn't for the district if it wasn't for the different opportunities that they offered for the students I don't think I would have been the kid who who was going to go speak to the capital about the concerns of our community over the summer I was able to be an intern at the Mac where we collaborated with the with the Western iLab to create a business plan for the Mac the big Garden we have in the back of our school um not only were we able to create a business plan we were also able to to educate students families and community members on different health issues different ways to be healthy and also on different ecological issues to make sure that people know that in Anaheim there's a lot of food deserts and there's a lot of there's a lot of areas where where it's really hard for people to to get access to Affordable fresh food so my biggest goal in life was to make my parents proud and let me tell you this I can for sure say that my parents are really really really proud of me um before before I was able to join the internship at the the Magnolia agriscience Community Center also known as the Mac I was a person who was really confused of what I wanted to do in life and confused on what I wanted to major in but after after going through these different these different job training skills and these different um the just different educational opportunities that the Mac provided for me and the iLab provided for me I was able to to kind of put together my life in a way and be sure on what I want to do now I want to I want to major in public health foreign if you are here supporting Monty would you please stand up [Applause] so so as we were saying um Professor chatty's research says that when young people are exposed to Innovation they begin to invent and these students are proof that all those those future Einsteins that might otherwise have been lost can be found with opportunity our young people have the ability and the freedom to invent who and what they are and what they want to become they find their purpose and you know purpose is something that runs deep in the heart of a person and it takes insightful strategies and programs such as these and you know as as I was watching the videos and looking around the room and seeing drone technology Savannah Medical Academy we're hearing about the Mac lab biotechnology iLab all of these off the charts Innovative programs that are being offered it opens the world up in in just huge ways and so um according to all the research that's what makes the difference in the lives of our young people and again these students are examples of that and so um purpose the purpose that comes from this readies and fortifies our young people for the 21st century workplace whatever it ends up looking like and it opens the door to their future so gentlemen proud parents you've joined the ranks of Einstein's found president Jabar we're going to miss you trustees and Superman attendant mad suit I'm sure he's watching online thank you again for the opportunity to partner with you as inventors and innovators ourselves as we create student-focused real world cutting-edge experiences for our students such an amazing amazing journey and we are so grateful for being able to take it with you and we really appreciate that thank you so much all right well I'll open up the flow for comments from board members if you would like it's phenomenal I is that working okay um you're gonna be congratulated you guys young men have done really well it's and we do have some great programs and I am so proud that we work together with the North Orange County ROP and have developed some phenomenal Pathways and we're known for it because we're giving our kids an opportunity and you know they're taking advantage of it and they're really learning and we're having more and more and it's just great so thank you and good luck young men very much so foreign we had a chance to hear Christopher's testimonial there and and other students in the entrepreneurship and it's just um that's just one example of the the many as you mentioned Pathways that that ROP is partnering in and a and auhsd what I love and what what I feel is that the theme in in what I heard tonight was all of you are doing this in some way to help you know to help your families to help the community to help the greater good and that really to me is powerful in the work that we're all doing and and Gail without you my goodness we need to apply to you um the work that that you you provide um in getting the the medical by by otechnology yes and you were in the room as well and getting that going um working on collaboration with the folks at Anaheim High School I mean to get that up in the time frame that that got up was phenomenal uh do um greatly to your work um and and Robert you were there too um just uh is amazing this is this is the future we were talking about this a couple years ago the jobs that um that are being inventive as we as we speak and we're on top of it their labor and so congratulations to you thank you so much for coming and giving us well good evening I had the pleasure of serving 14 years with ROP and it was 10 years ago that I terminated the 14 years and I am stunned tonight to see what a different world ROP is today than when I served on the board when I say different world I don't even know how to put that in frame that because it was a new world I enjoyed your presentations I wish you well really I would say exciting for you to go into fields that you love and are enjoying and sharing with the public what you did tonight and all you wonderful folks that run ROP I want to thank you and to your loved ones and your family members and friends that are here to support you I just high five all of you thank you for being here foreign that they say but um I think Christopher I I was just amazed I'm glad that I bought that t-shirt now I could hold on to it when you become uh very famous I come back and maybe sell it for even more right no I just wanted to congratulate on your success and uh I wanted Echo I don't think people caught it but he was one of the folks who actually did the marketing for one of the students who actually came here last year to present and he actually presented uh when he was actually when he designed bookmarks I remember purchasing some bookmarks from him as well so the story continues right you helped him with his marketing but then you went on to start your own product and do this and I was amazed listening to your story about you selling the products in Mexico and how it became a success story so keep on telling your story so that you could motivate more of your classmates and come back and talk about the story because I think that's what the dream of Anaheim youth is going to be so thank you for doing what you're doing foreign I'm glad that your girlfriend told you about the class but you know that's that again that's a success story right yeah for you to be hooked on to um a a program that you're really passionate about and got your grades up and wanting to now pursue this field so again come back and talk about your story because that's how we're going to get most of our youth to be engaged in our education I'm glad that auhsd has given a platform for our young young people to do it and Monty man um I know you're going places um I can tell you from the time that I saw you first interacting with me to now interacting about everything from not only our farm but about iLab I know you're going to be very very successful and you're going to not only make a uhsd proud most importantly you're going to be making your parents proud um and I I can tell you that um one day I will sit there and say that I shook his hand and he I knew him so uh just keep on talking about this and thank you Gail for actually spearheading this for ROP as well I'm so sorry that I missed the last board meeting I was sick so I couldn't make it send my regards to all of them but I just wanted to be very Frank I think you guys are doing some amazing work not only at auhsd but all over in other partner districts as well so thank you for your service as well appreciate it [Applause] sure at ROP meeting the students that were showcased with the entrepreneurship they raised money and that money that they they raised they gave back to the Gilbert Community for their their Pantry so I just wanted to applaud those students they they did that yes it they raised the money and then they gave it back to the school so um it's just amazing wow amazing all the good work that will go around so thank you all right we're going to go into 8.2 and work experience opportunity at Magnolia agree science Community Center take it away Dr Jared I am excited to bring up this next presentation as well which will actually be a great extension of what we just saw with our partnership with ROP but I'm going to bring up our director of innovative programs and instructional systems uh it's Amy Quan and she's going to do a team but a lot of great work that took place not just this summer in partnership with the city and the great programs that we have but it's also continuing into the school year and and hopefully even going beyond that so with that return over to miss Quan thank you it's very fitting to go right after Gail and the presentation you just saw but good evening everyone good evening Board of Trustees president Jabar executive cabinet and auhsd Community as Dr freed said my name is Amy Kwan I'm the director of innovative programs and instructional systems and I get the great pleasure of working with amazing groups and organizations not only in auhsd but all across the city and today I get to share with you about an awesome opportunity to auhsd students that started this summer where 10 of our auhsd students were employed by the city of Anaheim at an hourly wage above minimum wage for 30 hours a week for eight weeks their summer job was to help solve food insecurity climate change and provide economic relief in Anaheim and they got to do that right here in auhsd right from the Magnolia agriscience Community Center and iLab before we talk about the experience I do want to share the context in which made in which this was all made possible this is truly a reflection of our Anaheim collaborative at work so not only of our Anaheim collaborative working with ROP that you just heard about today you get to hear about the very well established and amazing partnership that we have with the city of Anaheim that we were able to give our students this incredible work-based experience so last year Governor Newsom announced the youth job corpse Grant designed to help youth find employment and gain critical skills while making a positive lasting impact on their communities Marco Lucero right here Workforce Development manager for the city of Anaheim knew exactly who to reach out to he made a call immediately to MJ cook a uhsd's aim program director and Scott Rendell the coordinator of 21st century Readiness career Readiness and MJ and Scott both immediately thought about the mac and iLab and with the leadership of Dr Sabina giacomis the science teacher and Mac coordinator at Magnolia and Doug Noah the iLab teacher at Western and together we were able to come up with a proposal that was accepted and now I would like to invite Marco Lucero to come talk about the parameters of the Grant and what solidified his decision in choosing auhsd students to be recipients of the grant uh good evening auhd auhsd Board of Trustees auhsd leadership and the auhsd community my name is Marco Lucero I am the Workforce Development manager for the city of Anaheim also the executive director of the Anaheim Workforce Development board and it is my pleasure to be here to talk about this opportunity uh just something to know that this is really the the the latest and latest example of the great relationship the city of Anaheim has enjoyed with the Anaheim Union High School District I can recall day my days working very collaboratively collaboratively with the school district when they provided the jobs training Partnership Act summer program and year-round programs the workforce uh Innovation I'm sorry Workforce investment act youth programs and so now I'm really pleased to talk about this latest iteration of what we've done with this Cal Californians for all youth job score Grant this was an opportunity that was presented to the 13 largest cities in California late last year actually around this time and there wasn't a lot of definition around what we had to do with this grant other than we had to provide meaningful work experience to youth which as you can see are Divine very broadly on the uh as far as the parameters go from 6 to ages 16 to 30 but but really focused on engaging them in public sector work or work that affected the community in some way to instill this idea of of becoming a public sector a worker a civil servant and contributor to the community part of that was focusing on one of three issue areas that was as Amy mentioned tied to either addressing the impacts of climate change addressing food insecurity or the recovery from the from the coveted pandemic and this is one of one of those projects when we looked at what was submitted really fit within all those categories but just about just a bit about how that came together because that's really what's important here is I think because of the relationship because of my knowledge of what was happening in in who to contact at the school district it really meant for something to happen very urgently and quickly for something to be put together really it was I was given this opportunity to apply for this 4.8 million dollars in grant funding uh which was really outstanding for us to receive this but then I had a month to put together the application and to gather input from parties that would be capable of doing something like this so my first call was to to MJ to find out is what can we do and here are the issue areas and I want to say that your team should be very proud of them within a weekend they put together a summary that was very it was it was a very brief summary but it hit all the right points and told the story of what could be achieved and what I didn't know at the time was that this wasn't something that was already fully formulated and ready to go just an off-the-shelf program this was something that was really just a dream I'd say and that was really impressive to me so just give you an example I submitted this we I said I got the application in late November pass that on to the team your team here got the proposals back we we fine-toothed it a little bit words missed it submitted at the end of December so this is all and it's the holidays this is literally a year ago and if you look at the pictures here you can see that as of January of this year there was nothing in the field that later became the Mac Garden and you can see that's just six months later what a tremendous effort was accomplished by by the whole team and particularly by these youth so it was my pleasure to be able to to come in and fund that aspect of it right because I I'm sure that there would have been youth who would have volunteered to be able to do this kind of activity and and participate but really you know this this was an opportunity to to get a work-based learning activity in front of these Youth and provide them with some with some with some some spending cash I hope for the for the summer time so if for our for us it was it was a win this was the first project that we initiated under this grant it was the first project that we've completed under this Grant and in fact the other projects have just barely initiated just a few months you know several months later since the summer so just truly remarkable how quickly this all came together to talk more in detail about the program itself and I mean what what the what was actually accomplished I want to introduce now uh Sabina jakovis thank you [Applause] good evening my name is Sabina jokmus I'm a science teacher at Magnolia High School I've been there for 16 years and this year I am a teacher on special assignment working at the med as the project coordinator of the Magnolia agriscience Community Center so this summer I had the pleasure of working with 10 of our auhsd students and thank you there we go thank you um and so when we started to think about what we wanted this internship to look like again within one week we knew that we had the resources and we knew that we had the expertise to give our students a meaningful work opportunity and we knew that we had the Mac farm and we knew that we had the iLab to be used as an asset so we interviewed and we offered the opportunity to attend auhsd students many of them who are in the room with us here tonight from Magnolia High School and from Western High School and we selected specifically students in their interviews who showed passion for solving Community issues and wanting to learn about Urban farming practices so we chose three 12th graders who have now graduated three 11th graders who are now seniors and four 10th graders who are now Juniors so our objectives for the job position was to allow students to solve food insecurity to think about ways to solve climate change through Urban farming and to provide covid relief through using food as medicine eating healthy in Anaheim using the Mac in the iLab as assets so we set up a structure we're under the guidance of our two agricultural Engineers who work at the Mac Farm Jackie Perez and Jose moscada Doug Noah the teacher at iLab and myself the students spent two days a week at the at the Mac farm and three days a week with Doug Noah over at the iLab so um see is there anything special I need to do you use a keyboard thank you [Laughter] so in order to ensure that our students had a meaningful work based experience we centered our proposal to Marco around our cpsf drivers and so we included elements of 21st century skills technical skills and youth voice and purpose so at the Mac our students were able to gain technical skills of regenerative and organic farming practices they were able to learn about irrigation systems crop rotation seasonal planting harvesting agricultural impacts and at the iLab they were able to do research on social financial and political impacts of living in a food desert and I think this is part of the piece that was that was really changing for a lot of us to see our students go out into the community and to be able to see what the issues were and how are we going to use the assets that we have in the auhsd to solve some of the issues and needs that we have so they were able to create an awareness campaign pain to the community they were able to develop and deliver a business plan of their produce boxes which many of you have have received and they were able to develop and conduct a market research to determine the demand and affordable and access to Affordable and accessible food options and they also since many of our schools are California democracy schools they also prepared soapbox speeches which I believe you will hear one of them tonight with a personal connection to the vision of the Mac so as Marco said we kept our job description very broad because we wanted to see what our students could do when given the opportunity to solve issues in their own community so next I'd like to invite one of those students that worked as an intern at the mac and iLab this summer Amanda Jacoby foreign when we first joined I didn't really know what to expect to be quite honest I was just jazzed about the fact that I was going to be getting paid um working at my farm at my school our first project was research everyone every one of the interns was giving different attendance areas and I got Katella and South as you can see on the screen you see this is the statistics that came from the high school in junior high I was immediately shocked by the Numbers considering the surrounding areas like Disney and Angel Stadium being just minutes away as you can see the 81 and 87 of low income it showed me that food deserts were issue were an issue greater than just the Magnolia community on June 9th is when we had our first harvest um excuse me we knew that for we knew that food desserts were a big issue but we had the great resource at the Mac going into our first harvest was very rewarding for all of our interns at the end we were told that we would be able to decide what what we do with the produce at first we were overwhelmed with all the produce that was given to us um but that we then realized that it was very cool to be able to figure out what we wanted to do rather than being told what to do we used our first harvest as market research this led to some trial and error as in if you were there you would know that we had our wet paper bags that had water leaking out with the produce but from that we also got research on how much people would be willing to spend on our boxes because of the market research we wanted to move forward and do some sort of um giving back program which led to the get and give initiative this is a way to solve food deserts and provide affordable and accessible produce to families as a donation that comes with each purchase boxes were priced at twenty dollars with the retail value of 32 dollars with the idea of the produce boxes along also came all the logistics such as ordering boxes figuring out a branding plan inventory and packaging solving food deserts isn't just about making healthy food options available it also includes educating our community so they can choose healthy food options as well part of the get and give was a way to connect and support our community to make healthy food options a part of their regular routines at the iLab we created iLab kits that included a kitchen tool to encourage healthy food practices such as a leaf stripper recipes and stories to celebrate the diversity in our community students also wanted to celebrate our culturally Rich Community by adding in personal story stories and recipes that related to their cultural dishes that ran in their family for years as you can see on July 7th we had our first Green Goodness packs and that was when our business officially got started now you may be asking where do all of these 400 boxes go well over 3 500 pounds of the food was donated to family was donated to families in Anaheim through the Ponderosa Park Family Resource Center Project SAFE auhsd communities and straight to students through our nutritional service program with such a successful business it inspired other local non-profits in Anaheim such as Katarina's Club to be a part of our Mac movement Katarina's Club has dedicated has committed to purchasing 10 boxes a week that they can donate to families in Anaheim another part of our summer internship was to create a soapbox Beach that we made personal connections with and next is your colleague Monty to share his story thank you [Applause] kind of tall okay um right now there are 23 and a half million Americans including six and a half million children that live in what is called a food desert which they mainly exist in inner cities and rural areas for those of you who don't know a food desert is defined as a geographical location where where families or residents have little to no access to Affordable fresh food hello everyone my name is Monty for sure and I live in the food desert in fact I am an immigrant who left Iraq and and ended up in Anaheim California the same Anaheim known for the happiest place on Earth in Disneyland and also home to it also just miles away from beautiful Southern California beaches home of the Anaheim Ducks and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim why my family has benefited from the land of our opportunity and have been able to make the life that they envisioned for us one thing that we left behind um is access to healthy and nutritious food I lived on a farm in Iraq and grew the food we ate but now my family I live in a modest apartment on one of the main streets in Southern California called Beach Boulevard will take you to Disneyland Knott's Berry Farm Pacific Coast Highway and many other attractions however in order to get to these attractions you may need to pass by to many hotels motels and Corners in which illegal activities are publicly displayed such as prostitution and drug sales in addition to these many vices the one Vice that often gets overlooked is ignoring the healthy food crisis in poor neighborhoods like my own in the words of Ron friendly the gorilla Gardener from South Central like he says food deserts are where the drive-throughs are killing more than the drive-bys this is because at least neighborhoods there's an abundance of fast food restaurants convenience stores and gas stations rather than the abundance for grocery stores and farmers markets in fact I live next to a Taco Bell what I say next to I mean literally right next to we actually share a wall and the closest grocery store to my house is a Food For Less almost two miles away so if my family and I get hungry it's much more convenient for us to walk 200 feet to the Taco Bell rather than trick the two miles to the nearest grocery store we know consumption of unhealthy foods can lead to health issues such as obesity diabetes and heart failure because of the because of the high sugar salt and saturated fat and processed ingredients in these Foods some may be quick to blame families for allowing this diet but are never quick enough to help fix it fast food places have attempted to provide healthier options however have you guys ever ordered a salad from McDonald's Burger King or even college junior well that's kind of a trick question because they actually don't offer salads on their menus however a healthier option such as Subway actually does I'm sorry instead of paying oh the other day I walked into Subway and I wanted to get something a bit better than my normal 16 sub I wanted to get a salad instead of paying the 5.29 for a section sub a salad cost 7.78 an additional two dollars and 49 cents for substituting the bread for 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 die from a heart attack becoming obese and suffering from high cholesterol what should I do when my family can't afford a 50 markup in the price the only way this will change is if we all collectively call for a change that is why in the Anaheim Union High School District we focus on student engagement and student voice as a student ambassador of Magnolia High School I get to represent the students the student embody their concerns their needs and their assets it was because of student voice that are that our district took a site took a took an empty lot in the back of our science buildings and created an urban Garden called The Magnolia agriscience Community Center or known as the Mac if you guys didn't know that the Mac is more than just just a two Acre Farm it is actually a movement the vision of the Mac is to nourish our 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 hide from a food desert to a food Healthcare and Civics Oasis I'd like to end with giving you all a food for a thought imagine if fast food restaurants had burgers or had salads a lot cheaper than burgers imagine being able to solve food deserts imagine being able to see vending machines stocked with with snacks high in high in fiber and nutrients imagine being able to solve climate change and health care now instead of imagining I invite you all 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 students and families like my own together we will make big changes thank you [Applause] [Laughter] [Music] thank you to the city of Anaheim for helping invest in our students and for continuing to invest funds for auhsd students to continue to solve the world's most pressing issues what Marco didn't share earlier is that the parameters of the grant require that students work or the employees 16 through 30 work 20 hours a week so that's difficult for our current students to continue that work during the school year but just too good of an opportunity for auhsd to pass up and so together working with the city of Anaheim we wanted to expand the work that our 10 student auhsd students started over the summer and the city of Anaheim has agreed to hire three of our recently graduated students to continue the work of expanding the Mac through our community schools and I'd like to introduce the three right now with Sebastian Mata I I up is easy and Penny cortazar all three of them all three of them are from the class of 2022 and are currently working for auhsd while being employed by the city of Anaheim and going to college and with their help they've been able to help us with the next iteration of how our students are solving the food insecurity issue in Anaheim and that is with this this new collaboration between biotechnology the mac and iLab uh right now we have 12 students today uh literally right now at the iLab six from Anaheim and six from Western working on the essential question of how can biotechnology be used to solve food insecurity that is why Mr Noah is not here with us tonight he is with the iLab working with those 12 students under an aim opportunity I think Dr Pham made a quick appearance here but he I think it went back to the iLab to continue working with those 12 students where you will see the next iteration of how our students are going to be solving food insecurity in Anaheim and I didn't know but if you were part of this Summer's internship if I can ask for you to stand to be recognized because you were really the ones who started it all so some of our students from this summer [Applause] um so I just want to remind you 16 to 30 year olds so we had four 10th graders as part of that group who started it all and Mr Lucero just politely reminded me that we are looking forward to next summer where we are already talking about how many programs that we're going to be able to put together so that many more auhsd students for their summer job will be continuing to solve food insecurity climate change and how to provide economic relief in Anaheim foreign and thank you to the Board of Trustees and executive cabinet for trusting a division and putting this together and providing an excellent opportunity for our students [Applause] thank you that is amazing and I am so so proud to say that we're doing this work at auhsd I mean just imagine how can biotechnology be used to solve food insecurity I couldn't have even dreamed of doing that when I was in college so you guys are getting some really awesome experience doing this uh congratulations to everyone and congratulations to our district leadership for thinking through this and putting auhsd on the map so thank you [Applause] all right so and I have to say something yeah I I visited the farm several times and it is amazing and I'd love to see the kids out there working and they are so proud and they um you know they guide you through it and they talk about it and it's just phenomenal and and I just I am just so thrilled with the fact that the land that was just a pond during the winter time that would gather water is now this beautiful green you know section of farm and kids are learning and they they just you know and I because I attended one of the the meals that they did with just the farm produce and the kids were all serving it and preparing it and it was just great I mean the amount of stuff that they are learning is phenomenal and it's just great I mean what an opportunity we have given these these students and and I think it's just wonderful and I and I want to tell everyone that's worked there I hope you enjoyed it tremendously and learned a lot and I know that Sabina does a lot and you know the the ones that we've hired it's just great and I continue to go and see everything and I just love the very section so all right thank you I just wanted to say Sabina thank you for dreaming big I mean look at look at this now you know this was your your thoughts and put into action you must just be bursting at the seams and students thank you so much for your hard work during the summer it must just be you know you saw that first slide empty and then the six months dude created all of that in six months that's amazing and um Mr Lucero thank you for making the call we know how special our kids are but thank you for making the call to give them the opportunity and thank you I know you're going to take this and and and let the world know just how wonderful they are because we know they're special but thank you for highlighting them and thinking of us we appreciate it [Applause] Learning Journey for all of you and I think of when I moved here this was really more rural and then world became different and just to see a part of rural come back to what we used to be in this community is just to Joy and thank you you'll never forget your experiences you'll you'll take all of this with you for the rest of your lives thank you for what you do all of you all right well congratulations to all of the students who participated I know you guys have uh had some really valuable experience and I know you're going to move forward knowing that you had this experience and utilized for others in the future so thank you [Applause] Paulina can we take is she working on it okay okay all right so we'll we'll move forward with our public comments uh I have three public comments in Mr Rana I'm going to ask you to do the comment when we take the agenda item per se okay all right so we'll go ahead and start out with Linda Martinez thank you good evening um I want to thank everyone in here for all that you do for our students um and I my name is Linda Martinez and I'm a parent of this District um I have three graduates of this District a current student at this district and two that are coming on board on to this district and I am a proud product of auhsd so um with that being said I want to publicly thank council member abelino Valencia and Steve vessel as many of you know you probably watched um you know the city council meeting I went and I advocated for our Sycamore band and they were working diligently you know to help our students with twelve thousand dollars which was the gate the to pay for the gate to enter the the the park to perform in February and Mr abelino Valencia I really want to thank you abelino for all that you've done for our students he donated a thousand dollars out of his kind heart and I appreciate that from you know just people that stand up to be in leadership um that's one thing the second thing that I want to talk to you about is that we need more academic counselors and social workers in our schools there's a high need as you know with mental health and number three is one of the main concerns why I'm here which is I believe you guys are going to be speaking about it which is item 10.9 and 10 10.
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if you would like to address the renters commission please press star 9 if listening by phone or use the raise hand feature in the viewing through the what if viewing through the web link I will select callers that have raised their hand using the last three digits of your phone number or by name if available you will 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 sound so that way we may hear you clearly you can say something like please state your name at the beginning of your comment if you feel comfortable doing so if not that's okay do we have any callers um caller Elise you have three minutes to address the renters Commission hey guys it's Jordan Sarah in case you do another meeting um last name is else so uh landlord most of you know that um I just wanted to chime in that I'm already getting stories of parents um about you know things with um other landlords asking students to sign one side of a lease and then saying they will not sign their half until March and I just want to lift up this concern to the commission because it's really uncomfortable um and I don't think that any of us should be okay with that kind of thing happening but nothing is prohibiting it these parents call and try to make a complaint to Janet and they're told that it's you know as long as the student is doing it it's okay um so I just want to lift that up that like we still really need to get this figured out and students are still being put in Jeopardy um at this particular situation just bothers me so badly because we have now essentially five months when that student thinks they have housing but the other side hasn't been signed so it's still not guaranteed and of course it's still not really legal and they shouldn't be signing but they are and um I just wanted to lift that up I'm telling every parent to try to write you guys but I think everybody's hesitant to get involved and I've heard a lot of I'm worried about retaliation for my kid and my kids worried about retaliation and um trying to get you know the students themselves to write but of course my contact is mostly directly with the parents so just wanted to keep on pressing that we there are still things that even even with um right to renew we still have some some loopholes that are are being found I know right to renew isn't you know in effect yet but um I still think students and tenants deserve protection for this year so that's all I got for you thanks guys I just wanted to chime in and say that uh right to renew is now in effect uh I think what uh Jordan was referring to is that it probably doesn't apply to leases that had already been signed before it took effect but it is in effect uh currently would anyone else like to address the renters commission for three minutes please raise your hand okay seeing no additional speakers I will close this portion of the first public comment thank you very much Sarah um so with that we will move on to our business uh first point of business is 7-a which is the fee report um or the wait list report um this is just a draft of a report that we had talked about a little bit in this commission we said that we wanted to gather more information about what's going on with the waitlist because that's one of the main ways that um the intention of some of the you know the ELO and the at least the early leasing ordinance was not really taking effects because uh we have these wait lists around so people are not necessarily signing leases before the the date but they are being put onto weightless and in some cases those do have fees so I know Gail uh Richa and I had started working on this report anybody else is welcome to help out writing it like I said this is just a draft but I thought I'd share this with the whole commission um uh Gail or Richard would you like to talk a little bit about what we've been doing I can share on my screen as well the report uh well wish I don't know if you want to start as you've been sort of primarily heading this up at this point sure I can do that uh I will clarify this was a collaborative effort it I would say in effect started off sometime last year when organizations take the Ann Arbor Tenants Union and The Graduate employees organization also City staff started receiving complaints about uh various ways in which the early leasing ordinance was being interpreted by landlords and was being circumvented so just uh now that we have the report in front of us in our Zoom Windows the way we've structured it is that we wrote up a quick like rationale or purpose like why are we doing this uh just to refresh our memories uh this was part of our work plan quite high on our list of priorities and it's also come from a lot of interest among tenants a lot of concern among tenants around the this practice of wait list policies that came to our attention around last September so uh we've I'm just also reading because um just want to make sure I'm not I don't misspeak but yeah basically we were also getting the feeling that uh now that landlords like at least in the past year have been asking tenants to join wait lists in the fall uh we we feel like firstly it's kind of connected to the early leasing ordinance because and that's why we went into that in the background section uh We've written that in August last year the anniversity council passed ELO uh and this came from this widespread demand among tenants to move the leasing timeline from what was in place for several years before August 2021 that was that landlords could ask tenants if they were willing to renew their leases 70 days into the leasing period so there was a lot of demand to push that timeline and therefore ELO was passed and the intention of Elo was to prohibit landlords from showing apartments in person to or signing new lease agreements with prospective tenants before 150 days were remaining on the current on the current tenants lease um we've written a little example here a lot of Lisa started start at the end of August so for release that kind of or leases that start in September and end on August 31st of the next year a landlord should not show an apartment or prospective tenant in person or sign a lease with them until March of that year so we count backwards this is all in our housing code uh if people want to go back and take a look please do uh but yeah as as I mentioned a few like a minute ago or so we started hearing about uh these wait list policies around September or so last year which was also around the time when the Washington area Apartment Association had filed a lawsuit against the city of Ann Arbor trying to overturn the ordinance uh despite uh this you know kind of collective requests from tenants to move the leasing uh timeline we found that through this wait list policy tenants were effectively still being pressured to renew their leases early so in September or so tenants were receiving emails from landlords uh kind of asking them or reminding them that they would still have to share some kind of renewal decision with landlords by the huge as per the usual timeline that used to be followed even before ELO and if they didn't they would be added to a wait list for that apartment that's just the context of it uh but in this report we used a few sources to just dig a little deeper into what specific cases looked like these and these sources included complaints that Geo had received through email uh I would give a lot of credit to Lucy for compiling all of those complaints and responding to tenants about what to do in those cases which included reporting it to the city it is filling out the ELO Complaint Form we also know that Student Legal Services received some complaints that that's something that Gail can elaborate on and now we have access to the complaints that this city received uh so this is something that Kristen had shared with us I think a couple of months ago so we've also looked through those forms specifically to understand how the wait list policies uh were drafted by landlords and were being implemented so there's a lot of aspects to ELO enforcement but for now this report just focuses on the wait list policies I'm going to stop here and pass it on to Zach or Gail yeah you can go ahead if you have anything to add no I just want to say that that I mean we're seeing and have been seeing um or hearing from a bunch of students who are getting just a tremendous amount of pressure to either sign leases now to as um we should referred to um or actually and Jordan as well sign um leases that then aren't in effect until um until the landlord counter signs in March and we're also seeing um you know heat fees that are being charged for tenants who want to be on these wait lists so this is really concerning to us it's it it puts the tenants in a really tough spot because while they can file a complaint if they don't do anything and to secure their lease they're really going to be out of their out of the property for next year because the landlord's going to go ahead and sign to somebody else so it's really concerning um for us and we're trying to figure out best ways to address it so go ahead Zach um I just wanted to highlight that at the end of this report of course this is just a draft we did compile a lot of information well Gail compiled a lot of this information by just calling I I believe uh a lot of these landlords and trying to figure out what their policies are regarding um waitlist fees and whether or not they're refundable I think there was some information about whether or not uh false information out there about whether or not there were non-refundable fees there most definitely are um yeah I don't think I have anything else to add except for the that we're going to try to finish this report hopefully by the next meeting um presented to the uh the commission again but there was one thing I wanted to uh open up to the entire Commission on which is the purpose um I wanted to make sure that the commission feels comfortable with what we wrote here for the purpose of this report because that's pretty important as we continue along here and I just want to open up and see if any anybody has feedback on it criticisms or that disagrees with the purpose that we've written yeah Nick Zachariah is I would like to like have this and review it and sort of absorb it um and you know I'm happy to give feedback now just based upon what's up on the screen but um and we get sent copies of this of course now the draft is uh the draft is in our agenda that's as like oh yeah that's my bad for not seeing it I had a crazy no don't worry it was updated today I asked Sarah to do it uh but I can send you the the Google Doc link which is you know obviously we're going to be working on it actively and you can see the most updated version there and I can do that uh send that to anybody in the commission I guess I'll just send out to the entire commission I mean my first blush that purpose paragraph just looks factual and straightforward looks fine to me thanks we'll see yeah thanks thank you guys for putting this report together this is really useful and especially the chart at the end to see um the different ways that this is going about that's really useful to see like that I would if other people think it's a good idea not not us taking too much power or whatever I would I would like us to expand the purpose to be for specifically the purpose of recommending a remedy to the city council I'm not exactly sure what that would be or how long that would take for us to come up with but um I'm thinking you know we should we should recommend that this um this practice be um made it illegal in the housing code if we can do that and maybe some kind of punishment to stop it from happening because it is it is incredibly serious and I really like how you've um emphasized low-income tenants in the purpose that that's absolutely true I mean when we were going through all of the ELO stuff something that was commonly said but which was actually very misleading was that students were signing their leases early because they that's when they wanted to shop but it's really because of of the the pressure of the timeline nobody wants to go into a financial agreement eight months in advance especially if you're a low-income person or you don't have a parent who can back that so um this is is one particular way that that policy that we have in place is um weakened so if we can recommend to the city council that we add this onto the existing early leasing ordinance or make it some kind of separate thing I think that would be really an important recommendation for us to make thank you for those comments Lucy um I have asked John Reiser to to look into the legality of regulating these fees um and hopefully we'll have an answer soon I did confirm with him I think he understands um uh what you know our request is there so I think that if there is an obvious remedy I I'm not opposed to adding it into the report any other comments or questions about the the draft report so far okay Ohana go ahead yeah sorry that was a little late um yeah I think this report looks great I it was really helpful and very clear for me as I look through it um just a clarification question because I know this is like we're also going to talk later in the agenda about some retaliatory practices just about like signing early right now I'm just like to clarify we're keeping this separate right like this is just about weightless fees to figure out if we can do something about regulating that and separately things about like uh will increase the rent that we're starting to see if you don't sign like these are separate things that wouldn't be part of this report correct that's a really good question I would initially say yes that those are separate things but I guess if you if you're being pressured to commit to signing a lease early on that might be a form of a wait list um but I'm not positive Gail well I guess the other part of that too is is the idea of signing um having leases that are signed by the tenant but not countersigned I mean I sort of think these are all subcategories of the same thing and maybe we should kind of address them as such because there's there's quite a few things that fall under the category of you know unfortunate things that have come since the early leasing one and so yeah I wonder if we can rethink the scope a little bit in terms of maybe it not being about weightless just wait list but like early signing or or early commitments to Lisa's I guess not sure I think we can talk about that in our subgroup does that sound good Gail Mitchell yeah no that sounds great okay and yeah Hannah if you have any ideas for how that you know if that should be incorporated or how it should be incorporated please do let me know any other questions or comments on the draft report okay with that I think we can move on to 7-b discussion of our committees I know that we previously made a town hall committee but I think that since we're putting the town hall off until spring I don't think that's going to be meeting anytime soon I know that there's interest in maybe forming some kind of you know other smaller groups Among Us like um a committee on education for example to educate ourselves and maybe renters two I know there's a distinct ideas but I'd like to open up the floor for discussion on any sorts of committees that you all think should exist because it is helpful if we have smaller groups among the commission to do work to bring it back to the to the commission during our these meetings Anna yeah I like the idea of the education subcommittee assuming that's like the subgroup from our work plan about like I don't know the education resources and I assume Town Hall might be within that maybe that could be a good idea um I like that because um I don't know we have a lot of policy stuff going on which is great but I think having an active education subcommittee for all of those resources so that's ongoing and you know doesn't get sidetracked from new ordinances and policy writing would be good Nick is there an enforcement committee there isn't currently but I do think that's a very good idea considering the fact that there are a lot of laws that aren't enforced in the city I was recently in a group of tenants uh just like I think Tuesday and I asked them if they knew what the rights and duties of tenants handbook was and only two people raised their hand out of probably around 25 or so and I asked them you know you you should have received this when you moved in and vast majority did not and I keep on seeing that again that's just one example of a law that's not um doesn't seem to be enforced so I do think that's a good idea foreign hopefully we can schedule it some future meeting a invite some of the people from City staff as to how the um housing department is going to implement you know how they're going to take complaints what are they going to do our complaints about this ordinance even going to go to the housing department are they going to be routed the City attorney or to perhaps even a Human Rights Commission or something you know and right now I'm not clear on any of that foreign yeah um I have a question about kind of the The Envision purpose of the enforcement committee simply because I I also want to make sure that we don't give folks the idea that that the body has power to do enforcement and so I I think that's that's also um a component to consider as well I think there are pieces of enforcement that that we can recommend improvements around but I also want to make sure that we're clear about kind of purpose because enforcement would would remain the responsibility of kind of the administrators perfect Travis I'm expecting a badge you know Lucy yeah I just want to add to this because I really do think this is an important issue for us to weigh in on just going back to the example of the Complaint Form from the early leasing ordinance which because it wasn't uh constructed by renters it really wasn't usable for renters and those are the kinds of things that we as people who have contact with renters would be able to refine help the more information we can gather the more we can pass that along to City staff to be more competent at enforcement um a lot of enforcement issues have come up not just with ELO but with the fair housing act that was another one of our um uh priorities on the work plan and I don't think this is something we've talked about in this commission but it's a big problem in the city is the short-term rental enforcement issues and uh I don't know if this was a Geo thing or something else but we had been in contact with City staff and City staff essentially said that they don't have enough hours to spend on doing the work that it would take to be able to enforce those laws so I think some volunteer hours from the renters commission would be really useful in getting the city to actually be able to stand behind its its rental law so I think an enforcement commission is a really really good idea foreign Travis we're not talking about us having enforcement Powers but we should be able to direct people to the resources that will help them and to you know work with the city to find out I mean this is a new law that the city is on paper uh enforcing and we want to be able to find out how to educate tenants about these uh their options I agree with that um I think that we should definitely try to avoid any confusion about whether or not we're the people who are enforcing the rules or not because we're we won't be but that's a fair point uh maybe Improvement of enforcement committee or something of that you know that nature or it could be explained on the website what the purpose of the committee is and I do know I I did recently talk to John Reiser and he did say that uh it probably would be a good idea to form some kind of committee like that to work with the administrator on the rental Housing Services office in creating a system for right to renew complaints because I it seemed I I don't I'm not I don't think that such a system exists yet for right to renew so I'm hearing education and something about enforcement but I'll pass it over to Gail I was just wondering if um when you're talking and we're talking about right to new right to renew if there should be somebody or a subcommittee that's sort of talking about how we're gonna or if there's a way to roll out the right to renew so that we're in the process educating tenants about this right educating landlords about what's expected and sort of being on the same page because it's only my understanding is it's only effective now for leases that were signed after um October 16th so it's it's going to be it's going to be an issue you know in another by the fall and it would be helpful to have you know a clear plan on on how we're going to roll that out I mean how it's going to be rolled out so just a thought maybe we could have an education committee that's uh whose purpose is to educate uh renters and landlords about the law and be a research committee if I don't want to go too overboard with the Committees but it would be nice to have some subgroup that does research on uh both the housing you know the rental market and also proposal you know proposed um legislation or you know initiatives to try to make it better because I I know that some people had expressed interest in like right right to council for example and that that requires a lot of uh research um so potentially like an internal research committee and enforcement but I uh you know stop me if that doesn't sound like what we're uh what you are interested in yeah just just saying it does it sounds on the education side it does I agree it sounds like there is sort of like the internal research and education of our own commission that we can work in small groups and bring brick to the whole and then also maybe it's a separate uh work group that's focused more on preparing for and an education and engagement activities foreign yeah um I like I know like this idea of the research committee because I'd want to be on it but also I guess a question I have is like uh someone like a research committee my concern is like would then just everyone on the different committees still want to do their own research like for whatever they're working on like would people are we okay passing that off to a separate commit like I'm trying to think if that would be a lot of overlap given that there's research that goes into all of these things um if not that would be great if people are like I want to do education and plan events and don't want to research at all then that would be great but if everyone wants to do research I don't know if a separate committee would make sense Lucy I think that's a good point though I think we would need if if our goal in some for some projects is to propose new tenant protections that seems to me to be its own kind of separate research at least with like early leasing ordinance and right to renew like we did a lot of like reading other housing codes and Consulting with Nick about uh if it would like contradict I can't remember about the torments but if it contradicts state laws that kind of thing and that I don't think would overlap with the other committee ideas uh yeah I think that if the research committee is focused on researching uh proposals like new like new measures to improve the rental market specifically okay it seems like it wouldn't have a ton of overlap with enforcement or um education but we'll see yeah sorry I just wanted to expand because in the work plan we have um as some things listed and I don't know if I'm looking at the most recent version now but housing ordinances aimed at slowing gentrification and displacement affordable housing for seniors people with disabilities and low-income households um evictions as uh rent control those are all things that I think we would have to spend some time uh getting our information together and Consulting with um different groups and things like that great job I had a thought and I feel like it overlaps with a few things but uh something like housing quality comes up all the time or like things like maintenance and repairs uh and other issues with people's apartments that they suspect uh basically violate the building code and things like that so I I feel like that might require some level of either coordination with rental Housing Services or some system where we can request to look at the status of various complaints something like that so what worked with us pushing for like more information on Elo was that Kristen got us the list of complaints that everyone filed and this status um I just feel like housing quality is a lot of work in itself firstly coordinating with rental Housing Services also looking at e-track it just our stream just understanding how all of that works and how it can be a little more seamless for tenants if they actually want to you know complain and resolve things um I don't know how to like I don't have an immediate like clean idea but how to address that but I feel like it might Merit its own subcommittee that just regularly looks at the various complaints that come in yeah just check in on those things I don't know what others think about that Lucy yeah I just want to say I think that's a really good idea especially because there's already City staff who uh or yeah staff hired by the city who do inspections so if we could build some relationships with them and kind of figure out that situation that could be a project we take on that seems doable important and there's a lot of it's already being done because we have this paid staff so you know we could find out interesting things like maybe maybe they're under staff there and they need more people doing inspections things like that that would be good for us to know okay yeah well we talked about having people come and talk to us as a group it might be nice to include the inspectors in that group because they can provide us the information and perhaps come up with a way that we can best access that because some sometimes the information on e-track and stream is helpful and sometimes there's there's pieces that are missing um so maybe they can help us understand the best way to access the information we're looking for and then from there we can figure out you know what to do with that so it sounds like um in order to learn kind of how our city functions it might be better to have guest speakers come in and present about it in order to make those connections um I'm not sure but Richard if you had an idea for like a particular committee or Lucy on on those issues uh please maybe repeat because I I was a little I'm not positive about that yeah I just listening to what Gail said I feel like maybe there's some steps to this I agree that maybe we ourselves need some like info session of some kind to know for sure that we understand the scope of these plat of these portals like what information can go in there how what's the extent to which dick tenants can use that and understand learn more about their own apartment units and from there like the continue to engage with City staff there's something Lucy mentioned that since they do this work is there a way to check in with them about if there are any gaps there any challenges I'm just quoting Lucy at this point she mentioned maybe asking if they're understaffed or something like that um and also I feel like this feeds into tenant education as well like once we are sure we fully understand how this works we can with a lot of confidence tell tenants so these are the various things they can do because for now for instance we received a complaint Through The Graduate employees organizations housing caucus about attendance uh like heating system not working and they it seems like they weren't aware that they could file a complaint with the city about it so like that part I could tell with confidence that hey there's a process you can you know complain and good luck let us know how it goes but if you know there's some lag in that like what's the next thing to do like if if we fully understand uh the ins and outs of that maybe you can also educate tenants better go see yeah I feel like this is kind of a tangent from the committee issue but I was just remembering from our first meeting that somebody had made uh what I thought to be a very powerful public comment about uh the the various maintenance issues in their Department which were um violations of of the housing inspection I don't know what to call it I'm sorry it's been a long day uh you know what I mean though and um despite the fact that the apartment wasn't up to code it wasn't fixed so I think investigating this line of um these these kind of problems with maintenance like like Richard had mentioned I don't know if that's a committee or just a project we can take up that seems crucially important given that we've gotten public comments about it given that we have staff who seem who probably know a lot about it it's just an area where I think you know it's it's ripe for improvement I don't know if that's a committee though so I'm sorry that that we've been having this conversation and it's not on the agenda yeah well let's try to bring it back to the topic of committees I do think it's a good idea to have to invite maybe Brandi Lewis from uh the rental housing office to come in as a guest speaker at their next meeting or maybe the meeting after that uh or you know someone from that office would be great potentially an inspector if Granny's not able to make it uh is there before we continue with the um uh the conversation on on committees is uh are there any objections to inviting Brandi Lewis um from the rental housing office to come and speak at an upcoming meeting uh Lucy it's not an objection more just that I'm I would like some clarification of why Brandy and not one of the inspectors who goes goes to the apartments I'm I'm not clear on what Brandy's job is but I don't think that she's one of the people that goes into apartments and sees the issues uh that's a good point I um I'm not I can ask Brandi in particular if if she can specifically bring a um maybe an inspectors as well um I just thought Brandy since I think she's in charge of the rental Housing Services um uh go ahead Gail uh I was thinking Janet again not an objection but uh thinking maybe Janet Farrell who's been doing this for for a really long time um I'm not sure what Brandy's role is I thought Lee should turn her Tobit I can't say that was the head um but but I'm not sure but but I I think hearing from people that work within the um the mental housing department as well as the inspectors I mean I think they have two different kind of um pockets of information that were that would be to hear from someone from each of those groups yeah I believe that they just added new inspectors to their team I could be wrong about that but um I know Brandi had said that she was trying to get that done it looks like there are more names on the website now but I might be wrong there I guess that's one thing that Brandi could could help us understand uh but yeah I totally agree on that that they're two different two different roles uh so is there agreement that uh we invite Brandy and an inspector to um to our an upcoming meeting or meetings Lucy and and if we could invite Janet I think that's a great suggestion from Gail Janet Hears A lot of the tenant complaints it'd be great to talk to her okay yeah let's see if we can schedule these people on separate or on you know spread out a little bit so it's not all at once but I I totally agree that sounds like a good plan let me um I'll write that down but going back to uh the discussion of committees uh I think it sounded like we there was at least some interest in research committee and education like an Outreach education to tenants landlords committee and um an enforcement committee that would investigate um enforcement of the existing laws and how the the enforcement processes could be improved any uh comments on on those three ideas uh or do you not think that one of those should uh be created or is there something that's missing I think those three sound good to me okay um all right well then that would mean that we would probably need to like a point person for each committee and uh people who could maybe serve on those committees if it seems like we've you know bitten off more than we can chew and we have too many committees three committees maybe might turn out to be too much uh I don't know uh Travis do you think that three is too much too many for a commission like this um I think it's up to what you guys are willing to take on I think there's a lot of work that you guys have identified for yourselves so this probably is the right approach um I don't know that a lot of my commissions have standing committees um they have kind of committees as the work comes up and then it dissolves and then they might create the next one and so um you know I think if these are the top priorities I think and you guys are willing to take it on I think that works for you yeah okay yeah I guess that does make sense that it would be like issue based and temporary but um yeah considering how much work each of those committees might would likely have I think that um be safe to just create them and see how it see how it goes in the beginning uh so go ahead I think there's also room I mean there's nothing stopping you guys from making adjustments as you go and as you learn um you know the human rights Mission as I'm thinking has has kind of one standing group that um they do have a bit of a a complaint process they they take complaints about the man discrimination arguments um and so they have a standing group that reviews those complaints um but even they kind of rotate through people as as folks get burnt out and so I think there are opportunities for you guys to really just figure it out as it as you go and be okay with making changes because you're in a group okay um well do we have I guess let's start uh going down the list here um we have education is there anybody here who would be interested in heading up the effort to educate tenants and landlords on different um uh on the existing laws Travis I was also going to say given that I think we're missing a couple of people and if if folks are maybe nervous about being put on the spot right here this might be another thing where folks can kind of sign up um afterwards and let people think about where they want to dedicate the most time um let's do that okay uh Gail well it also might make sense for us you know not not in this meeting but to just really sort of clearly delineate what our expectations are from each of the subcommittees so that when people do have time to start to con to review and decide if this is something that they can take on that they know exactly you know what our what our expectations or hopes are so maybe that's something we can do before asking people to sign up that's a really good point I got ahead of myself all right um education research and enforcement all right well before we find Point people on there I guess that does make sense uh do you all would you like to um go over expectations for those three committees today or do we want to take until the next meeting thinking about what um what what how these committees should be structured and you know what they're their scope should be Richard I think it's a good idea to spend some time out like after this meeting to think a little more but I just wanted to share and remind everyone that when we set up the work plan priorities we did like classify some kinds of tasks under these buckets specifically tenant education so maybe that's we already have a starting point for tenant education things like creating or improving online resources uh tenants rights resources things like ELO like newer laws we have a section called commissioner education and what we just discussed about a potential info session or is within that so how does the inspection process work uh other things so yeah I feel like my suggestion here is to look at that work plan draft because it it is a good starting point and certainly we can go back and fine tune about expectations I totally agree I think people to hand off a lot of the the items in the work plan to these committees as we create them um yeah I would I would assume that the tenant or sorry the uh commissioner education would basically be the like the research I guess um committee that we had discussed those ideas and sound very similar than the tenant education would just be the education committee we mentioned um yeah a lot of this would fall under those three committees any other thoughts about the about the creation of committees before uh we move on and I think that we can I can send out an email uh actually uh Travis I have a question for you uh would it be allowed if we have a Google doc uh that's editable by everybody that everyone has access to or is that a violation of the Oma I don't think that that would be an issue if you're just asking people to sign up for something um but my suggestion would be to just go through Kristin and have her lead that process and that way she can make sure it's all by the book okay thanks Lucy yeah so it seems like from what you just summarized the the topic that isn't really covered is enforcement which is a bit concerning to me just because a lot of the conversations we've had have been about that including the public comments especially around early leasing ordinance and what Gail was saying about we want to anticipate enforcement issues with right to renew so and so I feel a bit um I wouldn't feel good if we waited until next month to talk about enforcement again so I wonder you know if we could just hash out some next steps here it doesn't have to be forming a committee but you know maybe there are specific issues that that um people are interested in thinking this through want to take point on or something rather than just leaving it for later well I do know that John Reiser did ask us to create or He suggests excuse me he suggested that we create a committee on uh on uh creating a system to um field complaints for the right to renew ordinance that sounds a lot like enforcement so if we could at least create as you know a committee on that today that actually might be a good idea that would first start focusing on um yellow enforcement right to renew enforcement um and I know you mentioned the other instances um with you know lack of repairs Etc I don't know if that should be implemented into this committee uh if we're uh or I don't know if we should give that task right away to to the committee I'm not sure all right Gail it is is generalizer suggesting that he's going to be part of that or that we're going to have meetings with him what was his um involvement could it be because I already have some I mean you know I think as Jordan spoke of you know the idea that these their releases out there that tenants are signing in landlords aren't um I I think that's a pretty clear violation in my opinion of the early leasing ordinance so if he's going to be part of that committee or not necessarily on the committee but somebody that we can regularly communicate with about that as a committee I think that would be incredibly helpful so that we can get some of these things done because I think it's too late for a lot of students well a lot of tenants already I think a lot of tenants have already signed these leases and and gotten onto wait lists and all that kind of stuff but if we can you know as Lucy said act on it pretty quickly then maybe we can prevent additional uh tenants from from you know signing leases or putting money down or what have you yeah his suggestion was to communicate with the administrator I know though that Travis you were doing that about ELO enforcement and right to a new enforcement I think I want to misspeak um I know that discussion of resource allocation and potential staff needs are part of our budget decision and conversation um for the upcoming budget and those we are having with the administrator about um rental enforcement okay um I know the suggestion that I received was that we communicate with the city attorney and the administrator do you think that that would be proper Travis um yes I I mean I think I I think again that that is something we might it might be most effective to channel through staff um to get a quick response but um yeah if there are specific questions that we have there we can get answers to them okay we'll see yeah I'm not sure who this is a question for but Travis's comment made me think of it uh I I'm wondering if the city staff has a perspective on if some of the lack of enforcement of rental issues is because there isn't enough budget for staff to be tracking it or if is that what you were saying Travis in terms of budget allocation like is that is that something we should be weighing in on as renters commission or is there some information that we could get as renters commission like what exactly is the issue with enforcing these laws and doesn't have to do budget yeah not necessarily at this stage I think one of the the um points that John brought up as we were drafting the ordinance um was uh specifically around you know the current staff have had full-time jobs before we've added this additional these additional couple of layers to their plate and also they are not necessarily the the staff who are Fielding these complaints right now are not attorneys and so if we need an additional attorney for example to be Fielding some of these complaints and reviewing them is that something where we need to make an additional um allocation in our budget for Staffing or is it something where the administrator is saying actually we've got some savings over here and so we're not going to need an additional allocation as we look towards you know the next fiscal year um and so I think when we potentially have some budget recommendations that might be a time for you guys to weigh in if there's uh an allocation and we want to support it or there's not and we feel like we need one um but but I don't know that there is something necessarily to weigh in on right now because I'm still waiting to kind of hear back from the administrator from the question I asked him which is hey what's your respect foreign okay so could he let us know then like how many staff hours are being spent how many staff attorney you know what's the breakdown who's spending time on rental enforcement then like who who has time for that that would be really great for us to know Nick yeah we have said it one of our early meetings that one of the things we wanted to do was have some kind of um presentation from staff about um enforcement and it's frustrating because what I'm hearing is that we've passed an ordinance that the city doesn't have resources to enforce which is concerning for me which means we're getting you know all of these emails and complaints that are coming in and we have attached to our agenda I feel powerless to do anything unless somebody comes to me as an attorney and says I want to be you know file a suit or something that doesn't sound right to me perhaps yeah I just I want to be clear that if that is the um impression that I am leaving it is it is not necessarily that is not necessarily the case that is kind of my question to the administrator right now is can you please now that we have passed these additional pieces and we we have some additional enforcement that needs to take place and and considerations that need to go into it can you please make an assessment as to whether or not we do need to allocate additional resources um there is currently staff assigned to them um and so so I don't want to leave the impression that staff is not paying attention to it right now I don't know that to be the case and it wasn't necessarily charging that I'm just not hearing that anything positive about enforcement that's taking place I'm not far be it for me you know I know staff works hard I know they have a lot to do and we passed an ordinance that just adds to their workload I get all that but we still need to find out what that path is so that we can educate our public and so that they have a means to um address these violations of the law that we help to pass I think um following the suggestion of John Riser and and what Gail pointed out uh I think it would make sense if we can put the Education and Research committees on hold and kind of think about those and maybe uh develop uh a written scope and like you know assign priorities to those two committees um at our next meeting but for this meeting if we could create an enforcement committee whose first task is to work with John Riser and the City attorney um and if necessary you know the administrator on uh figuring out what's going on with the current the pending ELO complaints and how right to renew complaints are going to be processed but I would love to hear your oh hey John I see that sorry from Court day three of a multi-day tax Drive annual case and then I went to another meeting and now I'm at this meeting so my apologies for my tardiness uh we picked a bad time to show up John Riser we were talking about you I don't care what's one more thing to do oh geez yeah well sorry to give you one more thing to do but uh we were wondering about uh you know I know you suggested that we should consider creating a committee on you know reviewing the enforcement of Elo and right to renew well I I think that is would be a good idea obviously it's up to Milton and department heads on to how it's going to be done because it's a it's an allocation of resources do they have the staff do they have the training uh the bandwidth of the funding all that kind of thing but um we could do I think a better job of getting enforced with respect to transparency uh feedback to people who've made the complaints whether a ticket was issued whether it was uh insufficient proofs to to charge it that type of thing um the ELO enforcement is going to be one thing and now it's combined with the uh right to renew which makes a little bit tricky because there's the interaction of right to renew with ELO and the right to renew relies on whether or not the summary proceedings act constitutes a good cause not to renew so uh what was tricky last year becomes even uh at least as tricky uh going forward once that kicks in but I think making recommendations to the administration um as to how the process might be better for those who um make the complaints and how they get the feedback and maybe some suggestions on how the city might process them could be helpful and I think that's what you guys are talking about probably yeah exactly thank you for saying all that I mean you guys aren't going to shake the calls and decide who gets a ticket or not uh and you're not asking to do that I appreciate that but um you know just how does the process work now all that kind of thing well I know Nick does want a badge okay Gail go ahead John I guess one of our questions that we were just talking about just before you popped on um is that right now is when things are happening with the early leasing ordinance students are students and sorry I speak for I mean I work with students but tenants are being asked to um sign up for wait lists or put put uh holding deposits down where they may or may not get the apartment and if they don't get the apartment they're gonna they're gonna lose their their holding faith and then you know one of the more significant and frustrating ones I think is that and we had someone speak on that earlier is the idea that tenants are being asked to sign leases that uh landlords don't counter sign until March so the tenant is bound to the lease pretty much but the landlord isn't and you know as much as we want to put together an enforcement committee and we want to see you know especially as we move forward with the right to renew all of this stuff is happening now and so we're I think wondering what what we can do about it because I mean we're sort of at a bad place now where tenants are really they're roads are really being jeopardized okay and I see hands up all over the place I don't wanna jump on Lucy's hand who's up uh but we're kind of limited right now to infractions that are embedded in chapter 105.
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8th graders are 12 13 and 14 years of age schools are teaching detailed sexual and in some instances graphic content years before they can legally consent to sex and as described in what I said last time a minor is not capable of making these life-changing decisions until their mid-20s because of their brain development and Beyond teaching eighth grade there's sex is scientifically age inappropriate the elementary canal also known as the gastrointestinal tract begins at the oral cavity and ends at the anus the anus is biologically designed as an exit not an entrance this is its function and design teaching that the anus is sex okay thank you is there anyone else that wishes to address the board foreign things Marsha said yeah apparently last week when the kids had off two days for the teachers convention that's what the teachers are going down a trend to observe and participate in and it's you know and it was also an agenda and a flyer that was being circulated on the internet that had a whole bunch of uh left this ideologies that they were discussing and teaching to the teachers so I know we've been talking about days off I don't know maybe we you can discuss it later on but do we really need to have those two days off for the few teachers that go down there to learn about the the crap they were learning about I mean I like to say a couple of other words but you know I don't want to get thrown out by Mr Smith so um I mean it was disgusting with what's being floated around and what we're hearing from certain teachers about what's being taught they actually want to present that to the first and second graders and apparently they're planning to do it for next year in the schools and I know Clifton gets all nervous every time the state says you have to do something and there's no dialogue with parents to help out and ward off the state so I'm hoping that we're not going to implement the drag queens and other perversions like that Marcia says a lot of good stuff so I'm hoping that we have a meeting sometime in the near future but we can all talk in that beautiful Auditorium of yours um Italian Club I know it started one class in September my son loved it teacher was fantastic he said and then he was promoted and there's been no Italian Club so I like to see hopefully see an Italian Club before he graduates um the tennis courts are beautiful beautiful um and everything else she did back there was really nice so it's really good but I would really say somebody should really listen to Marcia and try to organize a meeting for the parents I mean it's not going away you just sent them on tax dollars I don't know how many teachers go down to the convention I don't even know if it's worth it to go listen to that nonsense with drag queens and uh and there's all a bunch of other stuff too 1619 project a lot of anti-American stuff then that was during Veterans Day we still don't have Veterans Day on the calendar listed just the word Veterans Day even if we're not going to have off it still should be mentioned hopefully you'll mention Christmas day in December sure I missed the robot tells you can do that as the boss just put the word in can read the agenda no I didn't I'm sorry if you did thank you but um so but it'll be nice to have those days back and a little respect for our history because that's what's lacking and also this time they spent on the drag queens and everybody we heard tonight here speaking about the issues that are important maybe if they weren't so inundated with that nonsense that they want to teach our children they would spend more time focusing on different kinds of opportunities so thank you take care foreign good evening to everyone my name is Lori lalama and I'm the president of Clifton Education Association which includes our power professionals so as you heard earlier we're hemorrhaging paraprofessionals and we read really really need them in the district and I know it's very difficult to find them but to listen to the words that were spoken earlier and they are they're the backbone for the teachers in the district so please come up think about it away so we can get them in for our students our special ed children they truly need them nurse shortage and I don't know if the public knows this but according to state law the districts only need one nurse per campus so I would advise people in general to send letters to their legislators and try to get that changed Clifton is doing impossible task right now due to the shortage so I would advise people who are nurses out in TV Land here to please consider coming to Clifton and be a nurse for our students all right I've been going to the NJEA convention for 20 eight years the only time I didn't go was when Sandy hit and there wasn't anything down there and when I taught in Ecuador so I've been going there forever I must have 2 500 PD hours from being down there everything from every subject from the paraprofessionals from the custodians from the secretaries and there are people that do go down now the drag queen story I was there I was Manning the technology booth for the NJEA committee for technology because I'm on it so yes there was a drag queen Story Hour it includes inclusion and diversity for our children whether you whether you agree or disagree it's not on you or I it's on keeping the stories about the lgbtq Ia plus Community we have to have inclusion with our kids and with our staff members this is not on your eye and I would really like to sit down Marcia and Al and we can sit down and we can have a chit chat about what is going on so I just want people to understand that teachers do go down custodians go down administrators go down so if you have any questions on what went on down at NJEA convention I would be happy to answer anybody's question thank you very much [Applause] anyone else wish to address the board seeing non-motion in order motion I'm Mr Roberto second second by Mr Awad um Natasha my apologies I I wanted you to go before I wrote Tiffany I said Natasha I can't Tiffany see it says Tiffany right on my thing but I said Natasha yeah I'm sorry um I wanted you to go before public portion so I apologize I used to sit there okay Tiffany go ahead okay events going on the CHS fall play the ball the Bold The Young and the murdered opens tomorrow November 18 at 7 pm are the chances to see the show or Saturday November 19th at 7 and Sunday November 20th at 1.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above