Reader
Browse passages, annotate evidence, and export with full provenance for citation.
so they are very the numbers I give you as of 11 15 so they're very fresh numbers now I know that that you have mentioned that um our guidance counselors don't have anything to do with social workers or active social workers or anything like that um are they can I put this are they assuming the role in different situations as mental health or social worker capacities um I would say yes at times they're not going to turn away a student that needs help obviously if a student needs help or comes to talk to them sure they do you know they're not going to turn away and say sorry I can't talk to you but they do find Avenues or refer them to the other people needed and provide those services to help that student out so there are times are they solely responsible for the net no but like I said there are times I'm sure they are presented with that and many different things but they're there to help find the Avenues to to best suit that student and I know everybody that's in the school district teachers classified directors including counselors there are things that have been placed on their plates and we make do um with counselors do we are they getting too many things put on their plates and that's a loaded question but Madam president member siren pill I I'm happy to answer that question and and I would say that we have been very cognizant of the responsibilities of our counselors and I I would take just take this second to State publicly and and I hope they know this because we try to tell them when we can our counselors are fantastic we have great high school counselors but we have been very intentional in our approach with our high schools to not pull them to sub um and not Place additional duties on on their shoulders their role is vital to our students being successful in graduating and so we've been very cognizant about that as we move forward as the board is aware in the last several years we have had issues with with shortage of subs and those types of things high schools have different opportunities to address that than Elementary's schools do because they have many teachers on prep that can cover a prep a time here and there and so we've worked really hard the last two years to not pull our counselors to sub or place a lot of things on their plate that aren't related to their job responsibilities I just want to make sure that each and every person that's in within this District I want to make sure that um they don't feel overwhelmed and even though that our counselors are trying to get students graduated from high school um and off into whether it's a career whether it's College whether it's military whatever Avenue um that they have the opportunity and the number of hours during the day and the week in order to help our students be successful when they leave this front door Madam president Member Service I would say with confidence that the answer to that is yes that they do have that time we all wear a lot of hats the key is to make sure that we can still get through the door without knocking the hats off right but I you know but we try really hard to balance to make sure that if any additional hats are worn it's not impacting any employees primary responsibilities as we move forward and and we certainly have been very cognizant of that with our folks in the high schools has there been any discussion on getting that ratio down from 375 to lower Madam president member sorry sink Bill we actually celebrate that number compared to other schools districts and compared to what's happening Across the Nation you all know me I'm a straight shooting guy we have not had any conversations about lowering that number any any additional counselors that we would add would take away from teachers that we would add in the classroom and could potentially raise class size and so we we are happy that we are well below the ratio number that that we have established with the board at about 375 as opposed to 440 and right now we're just in a mode where we'd like to keep that going as long as we possibly can all right thank you Dr Dakota Madam president and member Sawyer stink bill you were right on your numbers I read them wrong so yes Willow Canyon is five and Shadow Ridge is six I believe that's what you I just want to go on record saying you were correct sorry thank you if I could just ask a quick question about this um you I think you mentioned it was Willow that has a granted position Madam president miss Densmore both Willow Canyon and I believe Dysart High School have Grant funded positions yes and I'm assuming I know that we look for those opportunities whenever they are available I'm assuming that we would look for those opportunities if as they are presented Madam president miss Densmore yes absolutely as a matter of fact the state is getting ready to release opportunities in January for additional Grant funds that you can write for for school resource officers counselors Etc Mr musee is ready and waiting to submit those applications and we are excited to submit both for school resource officers and other possibilities as well thank you the um the 440 to 1 was that through like the mou Madam president yes and uh for the best of my recollection as long as I have been an assistant superintendent back to my HR days we've had that ratio at 440 to 1. and it is in the mou and it is um in the Staffing standards the front office staffing standards that you approve every year as part of the HR package assuming there's a there was a counselor probably that was had the opportunity to give feedback or be a part of that process when that decision was made I don't recall that directly however I will tell you that it was a couple of DEA presidents ago when I recall that when I was an assistant super HR that that number was was created um knowing that person I would have assumed that she would have had conversations with them as well but to mrsinkbo's you know point we would love for all of our ratios to be lower across the district in every aspect that we have you know we are thankful that we are well below that number right now with our counseling ratio but that number has been I'm trying to think when I uh went into HR it may be as long as 12 years old that's that ratio at this point in time okay thank you that was fast math just just a point of clarification so I know that we it was previously stated that that is something that the board approves each year but prior to it coming to the board that is a decision through the IBA process correct which the board is not necessarily a direct partner in Madam president missed ends more the answer is yes in terms of it would to lower that number that recommendation would come from the IBA team in order to lower that number something else would have to give with IBA and so that's kind of where those come from and you know there are different there are several discussions that occur every year in IBA that never materialize um you know this is one that we haven't talked about for some time thank you Dr Provo all right next we move to item I executive session we have a call for executive session pursuant to ARs 38-431.0382 and oh I'm sorry do we have any requests for future agenda items thank you thank you for reminding me now we'll move to item I executive session we have a call for executive session pursuant to ARs 38-43.1.0382 and E3 and ARS 15-843a for the purpose of reviewing and consideration of the hearing officer's recommendation to expel a student in the student discipline matter hor 2223-015 and receive legal advice from the attorney for the public party regarding the same so at this time I move that we adjourn to Executive session motion made by Christine Pritchard seconded by Don Densmore sorry I started and then she finished okay what oh until it doesn't work yeah right can we watch oh foreign you ready okay at this time we'll reconvene the regular meeting and move to item J action discussion J1 recommendation to expel a student a matter of student discipline hearing hor 2223-015 and at this time I move the governing board expel a student in the matter of student discipline hearing hor 2223-015 second motion made by Christine Pritchard seconded by Dawn Densmore motion carries next we move to item K adjournment I move that we adjourn the meeting second motion made by Christine Pritchard seconded by Tracy sorcingfield quite good that's the plan Okay so motion carries word Sharon thank you have a good night
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
so we're in year I believe three of five of that contract so we look we forecast it out needing 10 potentially growing to 40 and we looking at the traffic we really felt last year now is a time we really need to start moving so this is um kind of the the the the last item in terms of uh of having approval the other items we have to also coordinate with the County Office of Education where they increase the the bandwidth on their side we've already had those discussions we have to have a conversation with Spectrum to turn up from 10 to 20 we've already had those conversations and then the other items are already in the process of being upgraded okay thank you for the explanation I appreciate it thank you I have a question um for the content keeper is that also the same thing that keeps us from accessing our like our personal accounts on the school computers the content filter it's probably the firewall that would be blocking any personal accounts potentially the content filter basically categorizes the internet and um and then we either block or allow um content by by user type so teachers and employees have a little bit more access like social media as an example to what students have access to so the best content filters only have a fraction of the internet categorized and then there's an uncategorized component as well that we open up and we have to create a series of rules of to open and close things for those uncategorized items um the reason I had the question is because in my computer science class we were told to sign in with using our personal emails since the school email blocks some certain senders and then that was the educational website we use so there's like a class of students that before my period that just can't access the educational material and me personally I was working off a Chromebook instead of using any of the devices available to me at the school so is there any way to like incorporate that website into or incorporate personal accounts for now until we can access our educational materials during class foreign that particular item is with G Suite so with Google we have something set up called a Walled Garden so we have kind of a tight loose approach to uh to student email to prevent um you know inappropriate uh like spam and other emails coming in to students and so teachers counselors administrators basically just requests that that we open up domains or specific email accounts so we do that for instance when we buy a new software product if there's a support email or a reply email we add those to that white list we've had we have over 1600 domains and email addresses that we've added through teacher and other staff member requests so it may just be a matter of we need to know who's trying to reach the teachers and and then we can add that email either domain or email address to uh to the white list okay thank you you're welcome thank you that's a great question all right um I have a motion and a second all in favor aye aye any opposed motion carries unanimously 11.11 I think I made the error it was 11.7 17. oh 11.17 okay so moved second all right I have a motion in a second so uh my question on this um will um data be collected um in these five years um this late at night when I wrote this question sorry um so we have this partnership right with the span of the five years um with all of these schools and they're receiving the the literacy coaching professional learning is system support so what I was just thinking um is if they're going to start with maybe a baseline data because they're targeting the students achievement and so I was just wondering if this group was going to collect data to see or if we are going to collect data to see if this is even yeah so so Mike Switzer want to give him a big shout out he's overseen our Cali reads Grant and he's been working the sites and they do click data there's a baseline the students take an assessment I cannot remember what this assessment is like a close it's um it's like a five minute assess real quick and then it gives the teachers instant information in terms of where they're at with literacy and if there are challenges or issues with their literacy it actually can point to through the assessment where those might be whether it's fluency or you know maybe it's their their phonemic awareness so there's things they can do to Target interventions and then we actually had a meeting um I don't know if it was a week ago with all the calorie teachers where they're now looking at the the rewards program which also collects data and provides um various targeted strategies to help students with their literacy so they are tracking the data not only what they do with the Baseline assessment but then through the through that process and we have a number of teacher leads at each site who have been trained and I know our goal is to be able to take what we've learned from from these teachers who participated in the grant be able to expand it to teachers who weren't a part of the grant because we are already seeing um positive impact with literacy okay so yeah I don't know if Diane if I capture that there's anything else I should be missing okay but Mike switcher should get a lot of credit he's been doing a fantastic job leading and working with all of our teachers who are part of this and the coaches that are part of the Kelly reads Grant so this is a teacher it's going to be a coachable yes yeah training model I love it all right thank you so much all righty oh um I have a motion in a second all in favor aye aye Indian post motion carries unanimously we go to uh 12.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
okay any questions yes okay so with the report that we're getting from um the education committee which I just Googled in my I mean I searched I didn't get I didn't get an agenda I got one for policy so if uh maybe I'm not on the list I don't know um there was a there's a conversation about behavioral issues it keeps on coming up with the presentation in this I hope that in this board's next budget we put money aside for this because this is really going to be an issue in the next couple years we with the effects of covid and everything else going down how are we going to address this so this board coming in 2023 we have some serious issues and as Mr Daley had stated that we have some uh programs that we're going to ending funding on so you know financially yes we're great in great standings now but in a couple of years we you know we're in trouble because if the boat the boats the hole is going to get bigger in the boat and you know our fingers can't plug the hole much longer so I hope that come 2023 in January this board starts focusing more on addressing the behavioral issues of the students in this District because you see it across the board across the state when I was the convention most people were talking about their issues of having behavioral problems in the districts thank you okay any other questions on education okay seeing none we'll move on to uh unfinished business any unfinished business um okay we'll move on to um expression of condolence Mr abadravo did you read that please thank you president Smith excuse me whereas on October 21 2022 the community noted with sorrow the passing of Mr Frank T gashion and whereas Mr gacchiona served the city of Clifton as a councilman from 20 from 2002 2006 Sebastian lent his support to the city of Clifton serving on the parade committee that organized the Memorial Day and Veterans Day parades volunteering with Clifton's Avenue Flags supported the Clifton football booster club of which he was a member the Clifton Little League Clifton Major League Clifton Recreation Department other organizations throughout New Jersey now therefore be resolved that this resolution be forwarded to his Berry family to serve as an expression of the great Regard in which Mr gacchione served the citizens of Clifton be further resolved that the con I'm sorry that the contents of this resolution be noted in their entirety in the official minutes of the Clifton Board of Education for future generations to progress dated November 17 2022.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
superintendent and staff report uh so first of all Happy Thanksgiving that's one report and then secondly I know our superintendent was unable to be here tonight but on his behalf and I think on behalf of our cabin I just want to extend a heartfelt appreciation gratitude towards ul and your leadership um you know I know you are a tireless Advocate on behalf of our students and our families and our communities uh but but what makes you so unique is despite that incredible advocacy you I've always I think made Staff feel supported and like you've had their back while advocating for the needs of the community and celebrating the assets their Community Rings which is a which is a unique skill not all folks can do that so we're going to miss you I know you're not going to be on the dice but I'm quite confident we'll be in touch over the weeks when things come up or or you have you're going to continue to provide us services and bring different agencies and supports to our district I'm confident so we appreciate you and we'll definitely miss you serving in this role well I also want to Echo the same thing as Dr freed um and you can always call me still um you have my number and so anytime we can use that word begins as well it's okay you can always call me um but thank you so much for all your support you've been just um super amazing to work with and you always find a way to support everyone and you can see it from all sides and thank you for basically impacting me as well personally and that just that you always bring a different light in everything and thank you for getting me to many places where I could not have been before so I really appreciate you and um please be back here at any time thank you thank you and and I share the the same sentiments um it's been a really good year having you be the president and I appreciate everything you've done in the last year um and we are going to miss you but I know we'll see you in about three short weeks so that's good news for all of us and Happy Thanksgiving to everybody else thank you yeah where do I start um I I think you know I I speak I know can you can you start that please Carl um I think I I know I speak on behalf of our Anaheim Community Anaheim Sycamore Community our staff at both Anaheim high school and Sycamore that you represent all of our neighbors around around those two schools including my family that lives in the community and just on behalf of everyone just your your leadership your kindness your compassion and your passion to serve has has meant everything to us and I I know that a lot of the success that we've seen not only at our district in our district at all of our sites because of the you know the support of the board but in particular at Anaheim High School is is because of your your leadership and support so a lot of gratitude and and uh definitely won't miss you but I know we'll be we'll continue to be in touch all right and Happy Thanksgiving to everyone hi first yes yes okay um for this month um I did make the Mac visit when the U.S department of Agriculture came along with the California Department of Education and or um the Food Services got to put their best foot forward and we really impressed them it was a beautiful display um you you did a great job everything was beautiful we I mean they were impressed they were totally impressed with what we are doing at Magnolia and what the uh you know cafeterias are producing for the kids and what you know and how we're using the food it was really really uh a good showing um I think we made a quite an impression on the people from Washington so uh and I also attended the Lexington Junior High School's Fun Run and watched all these kids you know take off to raise money and run through the streets of Cyprus they were having a ball it was some of them were so funny they were dressed up in costumes and you know they were just all hyped up they've been doing that for a long time they have for a very long time when I was still teaching there we took it over rather than have the magazine sale that you know that that the company would come in and PTA would get this company to do magazine sales and whatever they decided one of our teachers there came up with the idea of us as a faculty handling it and not having to pay somebody else to do it and we made it first of all into a a fun run it was you know you know first it was the inco uh in coordination with the um physical fitness and so that was you know everybody was out there doing the physical fitness test and whatever and the PTA came out and then um at the end of the day there would be this thing where there was a pipe throw pie in the face of the teachers and what have you the kids loved it and and but then the monies that they raised we you know they had different levels and they would get prizes and so we spent the money on prizes to give to the kids who brought in the money and at one time the school brought in 125 000 and then we would take them to Disneyland you know and that was when we could do it we'd take a day and take him to Disneyland and then things changed and we couldn't do it and then we went to Knotts this year the reward for bringing in 125 dollars if the kids bring in 125 they get to go to Dave and Buster's and they have a trip to Dave and Busters and that so but kids they did I don't know what the final total was this year but they did pretty well considering because things went down after that as far as the amount but then it's how much I think it was like seventy thousand seventy thousand so they were hoping to make a hundred but I I don't think they made it pretty significant yeah but at this time of the year with what's been going on I think that was really well I mean um with the increase in prices and then okay and then I made it to the Drone ribbon cupping cutting which was postponed but then debt started again and that was very well done it was really good um the scissors didn't work very well but um they did a very good job of explaining everything about the Drone program and the Fullerton College had brought their their drone truck out and that was really interesting and then we went into the the room where the drones are and these drones are not cheap they're big they're beautiful and they are expensive and there's a lot of money in those little drones and but that is the future I mean you know we're looking at maybe Amazon delivering with drones is the drones are doing a lot of uh photographing and like the right now if you've ever seen one of the Thomas Brothers map guy out on the road and they got this car at the thing on top making pictures well pretty soon it's going to be all drones doing this you know mapping out things so that was really interesting um and then I have one thing I would like to say too is um I saw this on Facebook and this was the Sycamore Fishing Club I you know one of our teachers is sponsoring that club and he took these kids and their parents fishing on a boat and for a lot of them it had been the very first time they'd ever been on a boat or fishing and it was just phenomenal and then they you know cleaned them but these kids were out around the lake and they also went around some Lake and fishing but it just goes to show what some of our teachers really put out extra effort and do some great things with these kids I mean there are kids here who had never touched a fishing pole and they learned and the parents went along and it was great and I just you know I I have to say kudos to that teacher for doing all that because that that is a superb thing for those kids to learn so and then Al nine years of working with you it's been fun okay um it's been you know I didn't believe it was nine years where did the time go well then part of it though you your daughter was little and now she's you know in junior high or is she even in high school now she's sixth grade so what is she sixth grade sixth grade well she was at Dale's thing I thought she was junior high already oh okay looks like she's a Jewish she's beautiful she's gorgeous yeah and really smart young lady um well anyway good luck I do know I'm gonna see you I'm sure you know so you're not leaving you're just changing position you'll be sitting out in the audience so but uh congratulations on good nine years of service you put a lot of energy and a lot of thought and uh sincerity and commitment so and I applaud you for that because you really dove into it and did a lot for the for your area so that's it I'm done I notice I can remember something else and then I'll remember it afterwards my short-term memory is pretty bad all right Miss Randall Trail okay so I did as well attend the uh the lower loera ball no crop auhsd uh ribbon cutting drone Tech pathway ribbon cutting and that was really um just amazing to see um the kids they couldn't wait to get back in that room you know they didn't care what we were saying they just wanted to get back into the room but they all um really are appreciative um spoke to a lot of the students and they're grateful that they have this pathway and they're there after school and you know they're going to be the future they're going to invent some new way of using these drones and it's just exciting to see and I'm so proud of a district that has the ability to offer that and excited to to see floor 13 College I guess it was the interim president Perez Perez yeah yeah I I hope she becomes the the president um she's the president already she got appointed not Monty Perez but um doctor I forgot her name but I know she's the president so she was there she was the so the interim that spoke no that's not the interim the interim was uh Monte Perez Dr Perez [Music] okay so I hope she she was very enthusiastic about you know the the the teacher and and I I really was enamored by her uh enthusiasm so I hope in some way um that she she projects that and and we continue to have the the success um with that pathway I attended my uh gazelpa meeting um last night Cynthia Olivia no I'm sorry Cynthia Olivio um Dave pirate doesn't ring a bell she's there she's a new president she's a new president okay okay I don't I don't remember her name that's terrible me I liked her she was great um the uh the Mac presentation was spectacular Orlando you're back there um fantastic putting that all together the food was awesome um and uh it was really cool to uh to find out that the kids had go through they go through all the food that's put out the produce that's put out the product that's put out by the um by the Mac garden and the kids love it they say the lines are so long and they were going to try to show the the folks from Washington um you know what the kids are eating but it was already it was already gone and done yeah but the kids love it somebody talked too long I know we all talk too much but uh but it was it was an amazing event um and so proud of you um to to be up in front to uh to give that that presentation and to um be able to to buy the product from from Magnolia from the farm and uh put it into the to the food that we service just it's mind-blowing all right I attended the band spectacular it was a really cold night um spent a lot of time with our ambassadors um they're so cool we really appreciate you um you guys did a spectacular job as well as all of the Bands I'm very proud that you got to have a little moment out there too to shine and represent uh and shout out to um I'm not quite sure who the maintenance crew uh was if it was the city of Anaheim or if it was our crew but I heard that they were out there because it had rained the day the night before and they weren't sure if the the event was going to take place but they said the crew was out first thing in the morning um drying the field and uh they put uh you know layers on in the track area so the kids drums and percussion wouldn't sink in and so uh thank you whoever did that for our kids so that um that night could take place it's always a a nice event uh for the kids to see um each other's shows they work so hard and then unless you're in you know the same um group uh it goes to 1A to 6A I think um and unless you're in that group you only you only get to see like one or two of our of of our our bands and and so I whoever invented the spectacular was just a genius so that all the directors could get together and steal each other's ideas and stuff but I know they do a great job and they collaborate and work together and um uh Steve Graves uh one of our um give a shout out to him he wrote the music that the junior high school band uh performed that night so how proud is he and I believe they're the other bands across the state are are buying it and playing it so and it was and it's called Spectacular so so um kudos to him I hopped on the Hope principal virtual chat with the parents I was driving and so I said I'll I'll hook up my phone and listen in and so I got to listen in to really uh wonderful questions from our parent from the parents at Hope and it was a good it was a good turnout uh of course the no crop meeting and it was really spectacular to hear those testimonials from um the Gilbert High School business educate business entrepreneurship uh clubs and those kids were so enthusiastic at the college and career fair if you walked by the the students that were all in pink and they were doing the lashes I think I mentioned them this time I bought some so they'll have to give me a tutorial on how to do it but they gave their testimonials at the no crop meeting and they're just a delight and there's they raised about 200 and I think 17 dollars and they donated that to Gilbert's Pantry so our kids are just amazing the teacher of the year um is always a wonderful event yeah and I always say I turn into a five-year-old I know Mickey's coming and Minnie's coming but I still get really excited and I know our deserving teachers um had a really good time there uh the um Halloween parade this year was really fun um my the person that was going to drive me got really sick that wasn't fun for her but I had to think really hard how I was going to find a car because the the convertibles are really hard to to come by when there's a parade and so um I decided to enter my my orange car and I got on top of the roof on top of the the Roof Inn my kiddos actually where I I I work in the area all recognize me and so it was really fun um I told him that yeah Mrs Trejo was being naughty got on top of my car but it was really fun to to see the community and and experience that and and the Katella band boy they had a day they were doing the the tournament all day so they had just been finish their their performance and before that they have to do some I I don't know exactly the term but they have to do they get judged in formation and but they really wanted to be part of the event and so they were they were right behind us playing and the the community absolutely loved it um Happy Thanksgiving and I have a lot of gratitude being um a servant alongside my colleague I think the go back to the first time that I met you um you were helpful then and you've always been that same helpful human being I've watched you um just makes such an impact um not only um in the community but your home you have wonderful children um an excellent excellent excellent wife um and you're just a really inspired an inspiration to a lot of us who watch you you have so much dignity and um I'm gonna miss you but I know that our paths will cross I know this isn't goodbye this is see you later I thank you so much for all the work for all the advocacy that you've brought to this Deus and in your job capacity just wherever you go you know the labor you know I don't think that anyone could have a negative word to say about you um if they do they don't know you um honestly you have a tremendous heart and you lead with that and I'm honored to know you and um and best wishes to you thank you Emery well I don't have a lot to report my husband joined me to at the ribbon cutting at Laura high school and our superintendent Mike matsuda gave a lot of credit to Gary Brown the principal because he apparently had pushed that and people came away knowledgeable about drones and of course I've seen them on television and I watch what's going on and uh in Ukraine and they used drones there and so putting all the things together that what drones are doing now and what they will be doing is just going to change the interdependence of different communities and the way our lives go and some of it's scary and some of it is well it's here and we just need to understand it I had a a teacher and then one of the students walked my husband and me through the process and explained it all the technology and it was very very beneficial and when we went outside there was a drown right up there taking pictures of us down in the courtyard so I was very appreciative of that and I don't like goodbyes I've told Elle for years that I love him and it's deep in my heart and it'll never change your family I love them and I'm just grateful thanksgiving's coming and we've had so much going on in our world in the last four years with covid and politics and mental illness and homelessness and sometimes it's hard to remember how really fortunate we are there's a country in Africa that they're starving I can't even remember which one it is now and um Thanksgiving is coming and we have a lot to be grateful for wonderful leadership people that have integrity and honesty when they say something to me I can believe it I don't feel like I have to question it and people in the community that come and and share your concerns and your desires and your love and people that work in ROP and all the wonderful things you're doing to change the world and I'm just grateful and I wish everyone a safe loving Thanksgiving and I don't use the word goodbye thank you Kathy and I understand that Mr O'Neill wants to make a yes I have the board report for Mr O'Neill so Mr O'Neill wanted me to say Al thank you Al for your devotion uh to your board position you have made a difference as a trustee and I salute you for your dedication to improving the education of our students I look forward to hearing from you in the future that's Brian thank you Brian if you're watching thank you I know you're watching so thank you um yeah I I uh attended the the event at Mac with the superintendent of public instruct instructions so that was a awesome event to again yet again put a uhsc on the map and uh Orlando your team did a wonderful job of presenting and I I love the fact that you highlighted the staff so thank you for that I appreciate that I also attended the Fall Festival Parade it was nice to see our our kids and our parents among the audience I also attended the something that I wrote down which I can't read and but I wanted to thank Kathy I know you had sent me the information for the Drone program unfortunately I couldn't attend it because I was sick right after the election I got sick so I couldn't attend some of the events um but I um again I know a lot I'll have a lot to say at the next board meeting but I wanted to thank each and every one of you especially my colleagues I know sometimes we've had disagreements but at the end of the day we always done the work to make sure that our students are front and center and we all have a passion so I'm I'm honored to have served with each and every one of you um I know I'll say more at the next board meeting uh but thank you we're going to limit you to five minutes I know what but I wanted to uh thank you and um and I appreciate all the work that everyone has done so I know Brian's not here but thank you Brian as well so all right well we have our future board meeting is uh December 13th at 6 pm and that will be the board meeting where we will also um so we're in our new board board member trustee elect and old one and old ones too who are going to be re-elected or re-elected but our new board members especially wanted to highlight a board member like Jessica Guerrero she'll be here so uh and congratulations to her on a well-run campaign yeah suggested agenda items 14.2 I would like to ask Mrs Martinez that spoke about the bathrooms at Anaheim high and I didn't understand she didn't clarify if it was dirt and filth or if the bathrooms were old technology her daughter's at Sycamore Junior High he asked for a close was that correct she did and it is it is a close camera I was gonna say I thought all of our campuses are closed campuses well if yeah okay no I'll let you ask I just I forgot to tell everybody Happy Thanksgiving Happy Thanksgiving that's right today's her birthday Connie let's wish her a happy birthday happy Birthday Connie [Applause] this would happen without Connie oh yeah Connie and Pauline and Pauline okay and okay so both of us we have a question yeah what is what are who gave us these yeah who gave us these to you a long time ago oh yeah information about oh nice and we get to celebrate another Golden Bell in a few weeks right a couple weeks I hope to be there too so I'm hoping to be there at that Golden Bell so right awesome thank you all right uh if there's nothing we'll go ahead and entertain a motion for jimin so moved second I have a motion in a second my last meeting board meeting at Jared I
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
second by Miss basford um anyone that did not know Mr gashion um he had such a kind heart he was always willing to help and um and his time on as a city councilman he was always dedicated to education um it was very important uh for him and for his children as well so uh Frank uh Frank was a a leader in the in the community specifically for veterans he was the chairperson for the Veterans Day Parade that takes place each and every year goes out and gets funding for that so that the taxpayer does not have to pay they get all those bans to come into the parade and all the groups uh participate in the parade but uh he was a founding member to the veterans parade committee and worked very hard for it so Frank will truly be missed in in that area as well any other discussion roll call please Mr abadravo absolutely yes Mr Awad yes Miss basford yes Miss Beltran yes Mr Canova yes Mr Paris yes vice president daily yes and president Smith yes okay we'll move on to education and administration Mr President yes just as a reminder uh if we can pull six seven and eight and then I skip those no before we vote on edge oh okay six seven eight need to be pulled before we go to the back gotcha in here right so we'll uh a motion to do ea1 and then 9 10 and 11.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
motion by Mr abadravo second bite Mr Awad is there a discussion for the school calendar are we that change isn't made here are we making that just on the Fly I probably have to make a we have to make a motion the changes I mentioned in my report right just to amend it to to include those items yeah so do we have to say that again or no yeah and the motion is anyone have an objection to that with the changes that the superintendent is going to make to the calendar we all know about the changes [Music] okay any other discussion roll call please Mr abidrabo yes Mr Awad yes Miss basford yes Miss Beltran yes Mr Canova yes Mr Paris yes vice president Daley yes president Smith yes ocean security uh just for the Public's uh uh knows that six seven and eight are uh student matters for executive session okay we'll move on to uh Personnel we have uh P1 through p41 motion motion by Mr drabo second second by Mr rawad Mr Smith yes Paul P 21 22 23 for executive okay 21 22 23 pulled for executive session uh those are um uh contract negotiation managers right is that the category yeah oh personal okay so those are pulled for executive session for personnel okay [Music] roll call please Mr abadravo yes Mr owa yes Miss basford yes Beltran yes Mr Canova yes Mr Paris yes abstain on 34 and 35.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
vice president Daley yes with the amendments president Smith yes excuse me I need to abstain on 34. sorry no problem okay make that adjustment sorry all right next we have finance and Facilities we have F1 through f11 motion by Mr avidrabo second by Mr rawad discussion seeing none roll call please hold on oh I'm sorry yeah I have three items that um they deal with the attorney's bills that I'd like to discuss in executive session it has to do with um a client privilege there was three entries I don't have questions on all right so just uh just those items yes we'll prove the rest yes I'm going to prove all of it I just have questions on what what what transpired there was a conversation I'd like to know about okay any other questions okay roll call please Mr abidrabo yes with the potential f-11 Mr Awad yes Miss basford Miss Beltran yes Mr Canova yes Mr Paris uh yes abstina 12.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
vice president Daley yes president Smith yes motions Carrie okay we'll move on to uh board member comments foreign Okay so last week was uh Dana so uh this week I miss basford you lead off no Dana went first last week yep foreign with me all right so congratulations to the three new Commissioners um for being elect commissioner elect you have a lot of work in front of you and I hope I'm an advocate for training and what New Jersey school boards has to offer take advantage of it it's a very very good resource for you to learn the do's and the don'ts and the rights and the wrongs and plus you get to meet a lot of people through the state and the county and you have a good resource with people from other districts that um have passion that other people don't understand why we're doing this but uh it's it's okay uh personal note um to the guession family um I was I was raised in a democratic family DieHard Democratic mom who instilled uh voting and everything like that so I I'm friends with Frank gacion for a long time and his family and he asked me to help him with his campaign this is Fast Forward years ago so he wanted me to vote for him and I said I can't vote for your your Republican at a meeting we had a committee meeting he made me call my mother and get permission for me to change parties just for the vote and then I changed parties the next day Frank was like a second uncle in my family um to Chrissy Joey skuch and Jimmy and Joanne especially to Joanne my condolences to all of you I know how hard this is Frank was a good guy and he always we just say everybody runs for a reason what's your reason and make sure your reason sticks that's what he used to say to me so God bless you and God bless you that you find it uh some peace through this very difficult time I have some questions about where the Student Art is I haven't heard anything follow up on that um to all the speakers your concerns have been heard by this commissioner I do not speak for the board I speak for myself but you have been heard by me I have questions for the superintendent I write down everybody what they say and I put little notes by them little stars I do follow up with him I drive him crazy but um I do not represent the board but I I speak from my heart and I speak as an individual I have questions about the nurses about the power professionals which are the backbone the backbone of this district and I know firsthand what a power professional can do and have an effect on a human being's life so I hope we find money for that we find money for everything else so I hope we find money for that um Dr Robitussin you didn't tell them about the fun part of convention about the wingman about the the ability to use your feet to move a can around the room and I'm gonna hope that maybe that we can have that team come in in January and do a team building exercise with this new board it was fun every time you dropped that can it came back two people to me so I'd have to pick up the can again and move it and it went about 10 times so you know I'm not as agile as I was young but I learned how to swing the hips to get that can over there but we had a lot of fun that day and the kids were amazing your son was amazing how he led the group and you should be very proud of your son and what a terrific young man he has developed into I hope the program can come to this District because they really were helping each other and it was about teamwork so I'd like to see maybe that come here um console condolences to the brunsiak family on the tragic loss of uh Mark's father-in-law um condolences to you and your family um let's see what else I have I have so much to hear uh Italian Club somebody brought that up so maybe we can look at finding somebody that can come in and and facilitate that so we can advance the Italian Heritage of that group because password I was told that we do perfect okay good I scratched that off the list I'm sorry I'm a little disorganized but with all the distractions outside that's what happens to the ADHD brain um I want to say something I said uh and it just bothers me that there are many different kind of peoples in this world as there are colors in the rainbow everyone offers value to our world it's about respect and celebrating our differences I was going to leave you with a Thanksgiving poem but I think that's the best way to leave tonight there are many different kinds of people as there are colors of the rainbow everyone offers value to our world it's about respect and celebrating our differences have a very wonderful and bountiful Feast on Thanksgiving if you got a lot give if you don't have a lot and you can give somebody else needs it I will be sharing whatever we have in my house and my house is always open if anybody needs a dinner come on over God bless you okay Mr Canova all right good evening uh first time we just want to give congratulations to school number eight um I want to give my sincere condolences to the Brunswick family on the loss of uh of his father-in-law um the nursing shortage and the power is an agreement with Ms bassford I think that you know those are things that we need I think we should find money for those uh so we should probably speak about those um someone mentioned School nines traffic's uh situation we I remember the last meeting I think we even presented it we spoke with the in the municipal Alliance meeting about things that we could possibly do they were putting up uh something that looked like a speed thing but it really wasn't it was going to determine how many cars were were driving in that area or something like that so there is something in the works um I don't know that that's really any more that we can do other than to provide maybe some some crossing guards or something else you know some but really that's more of a city thing so I would say instead of waiting for the next meeting because I only know I know we only met met like once this year instead of waiting for that meeting maybe we should just contact the city manager and see what we can do and you know report back to the board um so other than that I do want to congratulate everyone that got in oh the new Commissioners coming in Anthony Richard and Mark on their election at the board of ed while this is not the last meeting unfortunately it's my last meeting my brother's wedding is the same night I'm In conflict of the next meeting so I won't be here so while I love you guys he has an open bar and you don't so I'm just saying um but congratulations to everyone that won um this this position is a position to represent the town and guide the students to success while it may not be a paid position I promise it's a rewarding feeling to know that your contributions are helping kids succeed and to the people who didn't get on I would advise them never to give up failing is necessary in life and appropriate when you and appreciate it you appreciate it when you succeed I'd like to thank everyone who supported me throughout this whole experience well I want to thank the voters for my time on the board of ed thank you to my friends and family who are understanding of the time commitment and to what it is we do here so how did I get involved I have to rewind back to my daughter's attending school and I wanted to attend the Board of Ed meetings just to see as a dad I was interested in what was going on in the schools and I found out that my daughter didn't have a music class and I brought it up at a board meeting and it snowballed it to a bigger issue of a budget concern and I found out that Clifton had been underfunded by 50 million dollars yearly for the past 10 years from the state so at that point I created a website for our our community and petition our elect to our legislators and rallied with Clifton students on a martian Town Hall I joined other towns to petition the state for Clifton to get our fair share in funding that fight Was Won and it opened up a 50 50 million dollar Revenue stream to be phased in for us since that fight Clifton now has 115 million more in funding from the state going forward from that 26 million and this year 68 million and soon to be 76 million going forward at that point I ran for Board of Ed I didn't even think I would get it in because I'm not a politician I was just the dad trying to help a community and give my girls a great education and Future but I was humbled by the community who believed in me and voted for me in the first place I was ecstatic and knew that there was a long way to go but was excited for the challenging experience since a lot of what we do here power loves my job at Berkeley College our first order of business was to hire a superintendent and we knocked that one out of the park we have an amazing superintendent who changed the dynamic of the district his communication style is the right fit for Clifton he continues to put the right people in the right places to continue the path forward and I couldn't be happier with our choice our board reviews that reviewed the schools together to get an assessment of what we just needed and found that many were in terrible state our board reached and found out it researched and found out that a referendum was a way to get a discount where the state pitched in for our facilities projects so long as it was approved by the voters Clifton voters showed that our refs around them vote that our schools were priority by voting in a two to one for a historical referendum to get us back on track and take care of and take care of I jumped here yeah and I am the technology chair um mm-hmm hold on hold on okay um so as long as it was approved by the voters they they voted in a 2-1 historical referendum to get them back on track for our facilities we implemented many security enhancements most of which I can't speak about publicly but they make Clifton School safe and that's a top priority in the climate we're in at njsba I was attending the county meetings and interviewed it first and selected for njsba board of directors that was also an honor serving on the state level for kids in their education then we got hit with a global pandemic but there was always light at the end of the tunnel we got to go 101 with technology we learned how to operate remotely for both student learning and our meetings and parents got to see our American how amazing our teachers really are as a parent I was initially worried about sending my kids to middle and high school what I learned was that Clifton teachers really cared greatly about our kids um a mother tonight shared her story about a teacher going above and beyond the father about principles going above and beyond these stories are not unique our staff really does only all they can to ensure our kids are taken care of and and my daughters are currently attending school three and CCMS but the best feeling of all in this board is handing out the diplomas and watching the families so proud of their loved ones which makes this all worthwhile in the end each one of us strives to make our district better than where we left it we all bring something to the table a special unique skill that allows us a different perspective when looking at the situation at hand when I came on this board I said it takes a village and it does I'm proud of what we accomplished and I want to thank my fellow board members for your support as well as the board members I sort of served on this board with through my tenure they work very hard to ensure we are doing everything possible to ensure it could succeed while I may not be on this side of the the day is next year I will be just as active from the other side as I have always been if anyone needs my help or support in any way feel free to reach out that goes for the newly elected board members as well and much like me I'm sure you will continue I will continue to see all of you even Jim and Dana as people like us can never sit still but I wish you all the best in everything you do so what's up next in my opinion continuing evaluating our security keeping pressure on the state for our funding needs lobbying our elected officials for lunch to be included in school so there's no impediment to success retooling the mission statement to fit the district continuing relationship building within the town evaluate the space we have and we what we need to lower our classroom ratios completing all the referendum projects and coming up with something similar for our academics where we Baseline what we have and dream where we can be as we pave the road to get there I'd like to thank everyone for your your time and opportunity to serve it was a pleasure working with you have a Happy Thanksgiving Happy Holidays a merry Christmas and a happy New Year thank you [Applause] uh Joe well we know that you'll be um uh attending your brother's wedding uh for our December meeting um we will um ask you please to uh attend the uh the January 6th uh meeting um so [Laughter] so the board could officially uh thank you so um thank you I just wanted everyone to know that he won't be here for the December meeting um next Lucy's not here so Mr Parish here next thank you Mr Smith huh uh just a couple of uh activities coming up one was mentioned earlier on Wednesday uh November 23rd uh the Mustang band is performing there under the lights program at the stadium at 7 pm it's a free program um and it's a great one which kind of highlights everything they've put together this year on Saturday December 3rd at 4 pm the community band is having a free holiday concert at the CHS Auditorium um I think we're supposed to have a surprise visitor there too I won't say who it is that's uh Saturday December 3rd at 4 pm um congratulations to the school 8 pbsis team um thank you to uh Joe Jim and Dana I've only had the opportunity to work with you this this one year but I know the great work you've done and and the kind of time and effort and dedication it took um and you made this school system a much better place for your for your actions here and I I we'll we'll miss you sorely to our new uh board members congratulations and I'd like to Second Miss passwords comments that uh the New Jersey School Board Association uh is a great place and this is coming from someone who just went through a lot of training in my first year um also the county uh meetings you get great information expert speakers um it's very helpful to get yourself planted and and some knowledge under your belt to help Be an Effective board member so I would encourage you to take advantage of that um and lastly just a happy safe and wonderful Thanksgiving to everyone enjoy it with your family your friends um and we'll see in December thank you uh next we have Mr abujabo thanks president Smith uh I want to start out by saying congratulations to our new colleagues Richie Mark and Anthony um Richie since you're here being the first of many in various aspects and being youngest means a lot but also means nothing when you don't do anything with it and that what does that mean that means that you're going to have a lot in your shoulders in terms of what to learn how to process how to understand things quickly by hitting the ground running and doing the best you can for district keeping in mind that you're doing it for the district and for the district only so congratulations to you and good luck and I look forward to working with you um didn't know Joe's last meeting was today but joking um thanks for the service of the district you really did have the district at heart um not because just because your daughters are in the district but you really saw that everybody in the district really was really a part of the family and you you truly meant it and it was uh an honor working with you School nurses and paraprofessionals um salaries recruit and retain is important and finding the money to recruit and retain is is a hard process but the one thing I don't agree with is agencies in agencies of paraprofessionals Outsourcing and the super said that there's a long-term solution and I I trust them and I trust them and I look forward to hearing what those long-term Solutions are because they are the backbone you know hearing the father talk about his son you know being a split second away from er um and I'll say in a second why but it it gave me chills through through my spine because to be honest it's true and I hope we can figure a way to get one nurse per school and to miss Salama that's going to be on the legislative agenda and I'll talk about that in a little bit as well uh code blue the superintendent mentioned Cole blue who for who do not know what code blue is cold blue is a federal mandated um thing that municipalities have to have Patterson Clifton do have it uh and I know this because that is my day-to-day job where if there are that wasn't it so you if there are 10 or more persons who are homeless there is something called a point of time count at the beginning of every year and the count is to see how many homeless folks homeless people there are in your municipality Clifton has 14 foot 14 people who are known by name by the health department and because of that the city of Clifton gets funding from the government in order to have a cold blue Sanctuary place and that is going to be the old Recreation Center on the corner of Maine and Washington Avenue um and cold blue means when it's 32 degrees or lower or colder should I say the county calls for a cold blue where those Sanctuary places are to open up to make sure that our persons who are homeless have a place to stay and it's a warming a warming Center Patterson has it again Clifton hasn't so does Passaic and there's a couple of County as well so that's a little educational tidbit uh congratulations to all our students on the accolades and again that is because the backbone of the of the district who are our teachers and paraprofessionals you know I've gone a lot out of this district and I have the most up most appreciative appreciation for our teachers and paraprofessionals for what they do and they are truly our unsung heroes uh prayers to the Gaston family Frank was a true mentor to me when I used before I was on the board when I served Congress in pasqurell um we have coffee and you tell me a whole story about Clifton and I got on the board it became a little more personal to me and definitely was a true loss uh prayers and thoughts with the adabo Kiefer and brontiac family on the deaths of the family that actually happened on Election Day unfortunately an individual who was not making was making a turn and not seeing the bike of Mark's father-in-law um and unfortunately he's not with us anymore so prayers I was talking to Mark earlier today about this um the past few weeks for me have been pretty rough I found out my son's diagnosed epileptic um had his first seizure a few weeks ago and I want to thank everybody who did reach out to me um keeping my son in his prayers um it's not easy and that's why the father who spoke I can resonate the scariness of not knowing when that next thing is going to happen to your kid and that's why it's you know choked up here but that's that's why it's important to have a nurse within a school because I'm calling my kids school every day how is he today what's going on they yell at me stop calling but you don't know when that next thing is going to happen um so Danny I'm gonna say something but I know what it really is every child's your child and I know it already is and I'm not going to question it it's just a reminder uh legislative is to be determined I have phone calls out to our legislators for a meeting President Smith has made sure that I asked for one before the end of the year the nurses are on here Lori if there's anything else please do the superintendent and through Jim Smith other president let us know so we can put on the agenda sooner rather than later uh Joe you mentioned this and I put it on here it won't forget because uh lunch is for school for all um I know that's something that you've been big on I'll make sure to continue that stays on there as well Thanksgiving is people wish a Happy Thanksgiving but we don't forget our you know I'm gonna say this people are not gonna like it but it is what it is our indigenous people um what this country was based on what was built on built on literally who was built on but it's more important where we remember the sharing and giving when you pay it forward volunteers at Food Kitchen and sharing your time not just your food but sharing your time and the value that we give to our communities to our soup kitchens to the people around us the people who are less fortunate enough um to not have family to not have one another and to not share a meal together I take my kids to soup kitchens at least two uh during during Thanksgiving week um just to remind them that what it means to give and pay it forward so I ask that we do that with all our kids it's important it instills an embodiment of them of who we are as a country and particularly again what this country was truly built on thank you okay Mr wad no comments foreign vice president no did I miss somebody I'm sorry Dana I'm trying to follow it from this list misspelled John I'm sorry okay I just like to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving um it's gonna be exciting in the schools because you're saying there's tons of um new immigrants coming in and that's one of the best parts of owning my Supermarket is teaching everyone how to make a turkey because so many people will be coming in even to the schools for the first time never experiencing Thanksgiving um so Thanksgiving is not always turkey so it can I own a Hispanic supermarket and the number one thing we sell is pork shoulder pernil um so that's what they said they give for Thanksgiving so it's like all different cultures coming together to make a Thanksgiving feast doesn't necessarily need to be the American style of mashed potatoes and turkey but they always want to have like something so we'll sell like tons of stuffing and a million turkey basters but they have no idea what they're doing with it you know it's the boxes aren't in Spanish or in Ukrainian or any other language so it's all the supermarkets or especially around here and other places are going to have to go through it and be like okay do not leave the bag in the turkey take the bag out don't put the stuffing in it's dangerous like it's just a very fun time especially for immigrant communities like Clifton is as well as where my Supermarket is located so I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving I obviously work Thanksgiving it's one of the busiest days of the year um because of the panic of the last minute things and what you forget and instructions and there's always someone that comes at 3 P.M and says can I get a turkey so we leave them defrosted so that we can bail people out of emergency turkey situations um so about the nurses um I was a frequent flyer in the nurse's office I don't know if they're still called frequent flyers but I was I was one of those um due to bullying and things like that it was just like a sanctuary to me so I really wouldn't know what to do if there wasn't a nurse's office because it's not just what they you know it's not just for a Band-Aid sometimes you just need to sit somewhere that's not the classroom for whatever reason um I don't I know we've talked about it before and um Finance but is there any way we could use EMTs to cover because if if principals are doing emergency medical I don't know how it would be different to have someone you know who's just an EMT trained um or some sort of Medical Training in general to to be at least a substitute for these types of situations um or if it was possible to move the extremely fragile students to a school that does have nursing staff because I couldn't imagine um I don't have children but I couldn't imagine sending a child to a school knowing that they're extremely medical fragile and knowing the only line of defense is the principal which I'm sure does her best job but if like this real type of emergency you know you'd hope someone would be there um I know the fire department is close by to school nine so at least that is helpful God forbid something happens but you know maybe we can look into because EMTs unfortunately are also used to being paid less um they only really make around 15 18 an hour um so maybe it might be a low-cost solution um to try and get some of those places covered also it pertains to the traffic um I don't Clifton did not go for this grant I don't know why um because many towns did it was called the street smart pedestrian Grant and it just came out um and it basically focused only on crosswalks and mostly around schools so they did one right in front of my supermarket and all day long a police officer would just cross the crosswalk and plain clothes and pull people over on both sides for a week so that really kind of reset the whole neighborhood to know okay this is a crosswalk this is what you do otherwise you're getting pulled over so they would pull over hundreds of cars a day and it was really entertaining for us because we would just sit and watch be like oh my God they got another one and West New York did it with a clown they had a guy dressed up as a clown and we had them walking back and forth so I mean you know it's it's not you know unfortunately we didn't get the grant but I don't see how it really cost too much money um so maybe something we can bring to Municipal Alliance to do at that specific crosswalk because it really has changed the environment in front of my Supermarket from one illegally parking and also using of the crosswalk properly just because you see people constantly getting pulled over for an entire week you pretty much capture everyone who would be using that road and it just kind of reiterates you don't know when this is going to happen because it's plain clothes cops on all sides and finally I would just like to say thank you to the Clifton voters even though we're all a bunch of losers up here um I'll speak more next meeting about my experience that I've had on the board and I'm really gonna miss that Joe isn't going to be here next meeting because he remembers all my passwords how to get out the computer on I'm gonna be like really lost next meeting um but don't worry though I even though I won't be on the board next year I'll still be staying engaged and I'll be using my virtual option that I fought so hard to keep all these years to make sure that it stays current even if I just pop on and say hello and that's all I have thank you thank you now Vice President Daley thank you Mr President um first of all uh to our student reps Mr Maxwell and Tiffany thanks for your reports they were it's good to keep us up to date and hear directly from the both of you um also uh congratulations to our newly elected board members um I say to pretty much everybody that talks to me about being on a board or something you really don't know what's going on until you sit in one of these seats because the information is voluminous and complicated and it does take some time to get acclimated but I'm sure you will all do your best and get up to speed as quickly as possible but it is a challenge um on the nursing and the Paris um we are well aware of the challenges that you all face and and me in particular I'm not too wordy about things but I'm very aware of it uh and also you just if you listen to this crucial average's report the need is growing exponentially in a very rapid manner so this is not only a present day issue it's going future how we address these and money is one component and contracts are another component and that in some ways it handcuffs what you know I mean you everybody's asked for raises and things like that uh and like I say unless those two components and they go hand in hand and I know the superintendent is working very hard and his staff and working uh with the Union to find ways to do things that could help out here but it is a huge Challenge and we don't have uh unlimited Avenues or resources to address it in a sure fashion that doesn't mean we don't want to address it but it's going to take some time and effort and some changes and some additional funding to get where we should be I don't think anybody on this board are are comfortable with the current situation in any shape or fashion but we I think we all understand that it's it's nothing we can just flip a white light switch on to correct it it's going to take several different things to happen before we can get where we need to get um let's see where he spoke with that again um my condolences to the frenzyak family um that was very tragic I heard of it on that day and of course I was very close to Mr gacchione for many many many years and um he and both not only him but his entire family so uh I was very close to them my wife and I so um it's it's still heartbreaking um traffic um when we need to be a partner with the city we don't have the jurisdiction or resources to do what needs to be done but we need to Advocate strongly with our partners across the street um things have changed over the decades when I went to school my my parents never ever dropped me off or pick me up my father worked and my mother didn't drive so no matter what the weather or the conditions once in a while my good friends parents had the opportunity I would get a ride in really bad weather but uh but now a lot of our schools were built many decades ago and they're not designed nor are the streets designed to handle traffic volume and this is not only particularly the Clifton you can go to any uh District in any part of the state that has is fully developed like Clifton is and it's like a nightmare around schools part of this is uh and I've witnessed this many times in many different places not just School nine some parents and people who pick up their children are really pretty um and sometimes inconsiderate and uh and and are not they don't help the situation let's put it that way so maybe we could do uh can coordination with the police department a little uh refresher to parents who do pick and those who pick up the children from school to understand what's what your behave that number one your behavior and what you can and can't do so you can't drive to the front door of the school and have the your child jump in the car drive away that doesn't happen it's logistically not possible both on school grounds or the way our streets are configured and the absolute volume that's increased so much in front of schools so uh and I think I'm a lifelong Clifton resident and we're all cooked in Residence here you don't want to be driving near a school when they're when it's when you're when they're coming into school or being dismissed it's a nightmare you you avoid that like when I try to avoid all the construction on the streets that are going on so we have to realize that's the environment and we also have to do our Behavior a little bit better than we do to help the situation um see um outside of that I've already spoke again reiterate parents I always said many many many times from sitting here your education to the children is a three-legged stool it's not just the teachers it's it's the parents and the student so those are the two components need to take take part in the education both of yourself as a student and the parent has a big responsibility here it's you cannot drop your child off at the front door and say it's all on them we we do an excellent job here in trying to educate all our students but the parents are an important component to the child's education and just that the parent needs to understand that so as again I said during the Miss Kush love its presentation don't expect uh if you're if your child has issues please bring them to the attention of the people in this District we have the resources at this time and don't think it's you drop them off and they're going to come out as Einsteins so they're all all these students many students have challenges all students really have challenges of one sort or the other and the parents need to take part of that with that Happy Thanksgiving and we'll see in December and also all the best to Joe I know will be seeing him off the board but uh he was a great addition to the board and I really enjoyed working with him and I'll say more about you Dana later on so you'll be here at the next meeting thank you Mr President uh yes um again uh wishing everybody a Happy Thanksgiving um just to take a few moments to reflect upon um what we're thankful for and uh in Clifton we are so uh thankful for so many things in our school district um starting from our teachers to our paraprofessionals to nurses to secretaries to custodians supervisors administrators we are so thankful and blessed to have a great group of dedicated people that are truly here for the kids and I kind of echo that same remark to this board has worked very hard over the last year to first thing we had just about every bargaining unit come before the board and we were able to settle our negotiations with each of those bargaining units that is a tremendous um a challenge at times in this board was very um trying to think of the way it were but um they wanted to make sure that our negotiations were done in a fair process and I think those that sat on the negotiation team can say that we were very fair and open to uh to every bargaining unit and it was a tremendous success to be able to settle each of those contracts when you negotiate it it becomes very difficult because we are caring people here and we know that our employees do a tremendous job and we would love to go out and pay everyone tons of money uh because of the the work that they do but that's just not reality and uh it takes no credit away from uh any of those employees um that they feel that the board is not helping them this board has done a tremendous uh work in looking at the budget going to Mr Lucy and saying you know where what numbers do we have what can we negotiate with what do we offer these groups and um each of us here and I speak as a board that we truly uh think about our employees uh when when we're doing these these negotiations um we truly want the employee to know that this board supports them um and we'll continue to support them so the paraprofessional issue yes it bothers it bothers us tremendously bothers me tremendously we know that those people are such hard working individuals and in no way do we not want to help them and I think Administration tried to do the best they can by going out to uh this ain't private agency just to fill positions it's not the answer it's not what this board wants but it's a temporary band-aid and um I know my dedication and I know the rest of this board will be dedicated into trying to find ways um to fill positions that aren't and every one of them are important to our district last year Administration came to the board and said listen we cannot get substitute teachers on what we're paying them and again there are districts around us that pay a lot more money on things because they get a tremendous amount more funding for those things um but the board was very Cooperative with the suggestions from Administration and we knew that we had to go out and increase the substitute pay and um I know that it has helped us somewhat um but we continue to strive and find ways it's just the way that the the world is in right now I mean um so many districts that I've seen and I spoke to people uh down at our convention um they can't get bus drivers um some groups down there had Parents driving buses because they couldn't get bus drivers to bust the kids um there is a you know a problem in uh not only in Clifton but all over to be able to find people for these uh positions um nurses you know what what nurses went through through the pandemic I'm sure was very challenging and many of them that I worked with when I volunteered here in Clifton they were there every week they were there helping the community and they're so important to us and important to um schools especially we heard some comments tonight about principles stepping in and yes that is not ideal and that's not what we uh would like to do so I know this board will continue to work hard to find ways to find funding and going to rely on heavily to Mr Canova Miss Beltran and Mr Daley because you Mr Canoa specifically you went out and found a way for us to get some funding when you first got on this board and we're going to rely on you that maybe you can go out and uh continue to do that work even though you won't be on this side of the the table uh to all my fellow board members that will be leaving um just because you're not sitting on this end of the uh of the table we know that your heart and your dedication is to Clifton and I hope that you will continue to support and help the education process and I know each of you will do that so I wish you all the very best I know we have one more meeting and as I said Mr Canova will invite everyone back on January 6th um but uh a way that the board can officially uh thank you for your service to the to the board uh so just to remind everyone on January 6th is our reorganizational meeting at 6 p.m uh here in the Board Room um to the new board members that were elected um I say congratulations uh I Echo the remarks of uh some of my colleagues here that um yeah you have a lot of work ahead of you um just to get yourself acclimated to the procedures and the policy that the board uh does is it is a is a lot and um but you have allies you have uh the administrators who will help you through any board member uh we'll be glad to sit down with you and answer questions or help you um it's uh it's going to be a new challenging um opportunity for for each of the three new board members um I tried to look back over the last 20 years and I didn't see anywhere where three board members were new you had two maybe at one time one another the Jim or Judy remember at the time there were three three new Lucy and Arlene agresti oh at the same time so and when was that what year 2011 2011.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
so yeah and you're a first term okay so it doesn't happen all the time but um again we welcome uh the new board members and with their uh with their ideas and and concerns um my condolences to uh Mark brunsiak and his wife Robin for the sudden death of Robin's father um you may have seen in the the newspapers or online that it was a terrible uh accident he was on his motorcycle which was a uh a hobby of his that he loved and enjoyed and um our thoughts and prayers are with all all of the family um as Mr Paris had stated about um the community band and uh our high school band and uh uh the under the lights and there's so many different programs that will be coming up we'll have tree lightings that will be coming up um so a lot happening in the district and in Clifton so I hope everyone will take a look at that and uh and get involved the presentations tonight again miss virgosa and mslevich uh again a fantastic job to uh to you I just hope everyone understands you know when this presentations are made it's just not you know pressing a button and and making it all happen they have to put these presentations together and it's a lot of preparation and we thank them for the time that they do that not only for the board but for the public to see so we thank you again for that and um I remind everyone that our next meeting is the seventh of December yes Thursday December 7th um at my room anyone know I thought it was the seventh sorry the eighth uh December 8th is our next meeting we only have one meeting in December um so uh that'll be our last meeting of the year I ask my Commissioners and all committees if you would get your committees to me one more time for the end of the year even if it's just a 15-minute meeting uh to wrap things up and and any other outstanding issues you may have so if you all could get those dates uh to me and to the superintendent and we'll send it out to the full board so everyone knows the dates that they're meeting and if anyone cannot attend the meeting if you please uh let the chair know or let myself know and we will fill that that spot with somebody that is not on that committee so if you can't make it please let us know and uh that's about uh well I have all right we'll move on to uh new business I have something yes um I have to make a correction I'm sorry to education I did get it but it went to spam uh the October meeting I checked while we were uh people were talking so I apologize for saying that um just wanted to make Rectify that yeah can we check maybe so it doesn't go to spam I didn't even I got it I gotta redo it I don't know what happened I had uh 3 000 emails at one point about three weeks ago I had to clear them all out so I was just swiping a lot um reorg what time is it do we have a special time because it's not usually set seven so six pm yeah okay and the other one is who is the designated Delegate for the state for New Jersey school board from Clifton because I'm going to be attending I'm going down with a group where we're going to the D.A for New Jersey school boards but um if anybody from the board's going then Clinton gets a vote um I'd have to look that up but I don't know and was a packet delivered or sent to the district if nobody else is going I wouldn't mind reading it and representing I don't think there's much on there did we know we haven't received anything but okay thank you but when we do thank you uh yeah because I'm going down with a group of people we're all gone now and also there's uh um the state is having its legislative meeting I'm I represent 34th so if you want me to bring anything to them uh I I'm more than welcome to do that yeah there was one thing I left out um my comments um Dr Danny's not here but um Municipal Alliance that's a um a committee where um board members in the city uh sit down and try to see where the city could help out in areas of Education facilities whatever it might be that committee met twice this year um and basically the last meeting was strongly about the traffic safety uh Traffic Safety at the schools so many ideas that you brought up people brought up to the microphone tonight they were brought up at that meeting talking about um we talked about the signs and the flashing signs around schools we spoke about with the city about putting in the street the the template in the street to say slow down school zone whatever can be done and we we ask the city if they could look into that so the first step that they agreed to do at any school that we feel there's issues they will put a um a sign up and basically that sign is also collecting information for the city so how fast people are going how many cars come through there one time and the city said once they get that information and evaluate it then they can implement it um into schools so into school zones so we we emphasize to them how important it is um that we we want them to be able to move on that um so I I just want the public to know that the board is working on that with the city um and the city manager told us that these are the first areas that they would start with those signs get the information that they need um and um and Implement things in the road or signage um if it warrants it you know the committee kind of just said you know why can't we just do it at every school and the city city manager said that's not how it it's done so um we're working with them and we'll keep the public updated on that um going forward so I wanted everyone to know that is there any other new business I have uh one item um I'd like to um with the board's approval um at our next meeting as everyone May well know our mayor of 30 30 plus years is retiring as the mayor and council person and um over the years our mayor has been very dedicated to education always supported things that we had in education um and I think it would be nice for this board to invite um the mayor at our next meeting and have a resolution prepared thanking him for his service and dedication that he gave to Clifton as well as to the educational process so if I could have somebody make a motion on that that would be great motion by Mr abadravo second by Mr Awad any discussion okay seeing none roll call please Mr abadravo Mr Awad yes Miss basford yes Miss Beltran yes Mr Canova yes Mr Mr Paris yes vice president Daley yes president Smith yes motion carries okay yeah of something else maybe when we reorg we can also have we still have a sit down with we they used to put this big little table and it was the board members on this side City Council on that side and we used to all openly remember Jim we used to do that those were usually budgets right yeah budgets yeah but like why can't we do that as an open board with all the issues that we're having around the city I think that would really because we all we all have concerns maybe if they hear it from the collective group maybe it'll have more power we could we could look into that for sure Mr Smith I just want to Second Miss basford because I feel like with Municipal Alliance from my experience of it is a lot is said so fast and I want to say two-thirds of the situations get swept underneath the rug and we kind of get ignored for example like the safety with school issues I don't know why you go to Montclair you go to other towns there's speed bumps literally near every single school if you can't afford to have a crossing guard or a police officer because you know resources are tight I don't think it's going to cost millions of dollars to put a basic speed bump at every single entrance especially by uh Market Street people do fly near Allwood and Market Street so I don't get why we don't have on each side of the road just a basic speed bump and we need to kind of hold them accountable because sadly throughout throughout you know if it's on Election season people are voicing you know their frustration everything goes election season come comes and goes people tend to quiet down and you know with all the voices I've been hearing for the past couple of years you know results where the selections results were one thing and sadly it's the same old same old and how do we expect to actually get things done if we don't hold them accountable and if you know they're not listening to the citizens maybe they listen to us face to face but you know I feel like a municipal Alliance meeting should be in person held either on our turf or their Turf and for us to have a healthy discussion and hopefully we can resolve certain things because what are we going to wait we're going to wait for God forbid someone to get hit by a car we have to wait for a life and death situation then everybody wants to jump on board and they want to start resolving issues because I know on our part all the commission is here voice their frustration a lot but I don't see the the urgency on the other side and we need to basically Advocate and basically not quite down till they kind of speak up okay so we'll we'll get in touch with them present it to them and see if that's something that they wish to do um and we'll keep the board updated on that all right any anything else from new business all right uh so executive session uh sorry guys but foreign the board is still an executive session uh we believe we're going to be about another 15 minutes so um if not I will come out and update you again in 15 minutes thank you Mr mcconey we're back foreign executive session to discuss student matters contract matters an illegal matter all right we need a motion on P 21 22 and 23.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
and the ba6 7 we can combine them an eight six seven and eight sorry Mr Roberto second by Mr Awad any discussion roll call please rabbitravo Mr owage yes Miss basford yes Miss Beltran yes Mr Canova yes Mr Paris yes vice president Daley yes president Smith yes motion to adjourn second Mr Robert second by Mr Awad eight minutes no objection Happy Thanksgiving
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
all right first thing on the agenda this evening is the Pledge of Allegiance and do I have Mr hartner or Dr Arthur tonight thank you president Alexander Dr arkanov members of the board I'm proud to introduce Middle School noise student 8th grader Joshua mukes Joshua's that model student that every teacher wants to have in their classroom he's a leader who contributes to class discussions and helps other students without being asked to do so he goes out of his way to greet his teachers to thank them and make them feel appreciated every single day without fail Joshua is a member of our National Junior Honor Society and his mother and father are here with us today they are both army veterans and his dad is still serving we thank Joshua's whole family for their service to our country and we're thrilled to have him here to lead us in saying the Pledge of Allegiance so if you would still please stand and join Joshua as he leads us I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice and for all don't go anywhere [Applause] next thing on the agenda is the adoption of the agenda do I have a motion to adopt the agenda go ahead okay I move that the agenda for the tonight's date regular meeting to the board be adopted as presented second all those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye all those opposed motion next up this presentation of the outgoing president Mr Hubbard come forward Joe I think I was not legit so it's been the board tradition for ever since I've been on the board since we always present a plaque to the outgoing board president because when you're the board president you take on a lot of extra responsibilities that year I want to thank you for your four years that you spent on the board it was a pleasure getting to know you and I learned a lot from you and I wish you luck in your next endeavor [Applause] next up on the agenda is public comments we've had five people sign up to speak this evening um just a reminder anyone any person or group wishing to place or any person wishing to speak this evening has three minutes and we have five people that have signed up I had a conversation with Mr Lawson he was a sixth person to sign up when um if everybody uses all their time we won't have time for Mr Lawson to speak this evening um each participant needs to give their name and address any group affiliation if and when appropriate the agenda item to be addressed and first up is Mr Collins I didn't see Mr Collins [Applause] next up was Nicole Kim thank you president Alexander Dr arkanov and board members my name is Nicole Kemp I'm a graduate of and a parent of a Center Grove student I'm also an advocate for public education and most of all I'm fiercely protective of those who do the educating our teachers as most of you know I stood at the polls for a little more than 30 hours during the elections I did this to protect and ensure that we did not lose one of our educators I also did this so we did not lose any of our board members but now it's time we get down to business it was so disappointing to see the approval of administrative raises on the agenda tonight I know that the school board and the utacg reached an impasse yesterday I cannot comprehend approving any use of educational funds until this is resolved this takes away the ability for fair negotiations to be reached we cannot keep prioritizing administrators and letting the true heroes of our district go unpaid the superintendent of our district has had an increase of 72 thousand dollars in the past seven to ten years the teachers have seen less than a nineteen thousand dollar raise and that is not across the board this year we also use money that could have gone to them to remodel a building I find this unconscionable that money needs to be invested in the heartbeat of our schools and that's our teachers as a district we take pride in what we invest to ensure the safety and security of our buildings and children but let's not forget our first line of defense is our teachers they're the ones who see firsthand when a child is withdrawn or angry they're the ones that know what's going on with our children sometimes before we do they see when a child needs them and they are the ones who can comfort and de-escalate situations before they become dangerous they will also be the ones standing in line of fire if God forbid anything should ever happen in our schools yet we can't find a way to compensate them fairly against other districts teachers make so many prayer juices out of pocket to make their classrooms better and enrich our children's lives in Center Grove we love our Sports we have some of the best program programs in the state the long game is how we win titles and championships if we do not invest in the long game to retain teachers we will lose them like our sports teams our teachers are the best in the state our test scores prove it everyone in this room knows for a fact no one will win when we start losing teachers without a raise the question is not if but when we start losing them our district will suffer all of us parents students and our test scores and why are they not getting this respect they deserve what they're asking for is more than fair a wage worthy of the work they do and what when it comes down to it the board will be to blame if we lose anyone I'm asking you in good faith to cancel the administration of raises tonight and if not we will have no choice but to see we don't have a funding problem the board has a priority Problem [Applause] thank you [Applause] next Up's Missy spitler I'm Dr Misty spitler I'm a licensed clinical psychologist and I work with in Johnson County full-time serving active duty soldiers Garden reserve my husband and I have lived in Center Grove nearly 20 years and our Three Sons attend Center Grove Elementary we were disappointed to see approval of administrative raises on tonight's agenda the Optics alone are quite ugly a school board that has yet to settle the teacher contract with the Teachers Association officially entered impasse with bargaining and therefore has to move to mediation chooses instead to prioritize administrators one week before Thanksgiving it certainly doesn't seem in the best interest of retaining teachers to approve use of any part of the education fund where the teacher contract hasn't been settled it will be challenging for utacg to maintain a fair leg in the fight concerning bargaining as the board continues to pull funds that could be used to improve teacher salaries when a superintendent's salary is increased by seventy two thousand dollars in 10 years but the average teacher's salary has increased by less than nineteen thousand a clear message is sent as to who the board holds in higher regard board approval in May of more than 450 000 to renovate and redecorate parts of this building a building that's Young by any standards and looked quite nice prior to renovation reflects a prioritization structure inconsistent with teacher retention even if renovation expenses come from the operations fund we know money is moved out of the education fund to cover budget shortfall in the operations fund year after year Trends in spending for administration and lack of teacher contract with move to mediation are certainly a black eye for our district and not consistent with values myself my family and other families in this District hold I'm fortunate to have engaged in volunteer activities for years helping in my son's classrooms on committees and on the PTO board like many moms I do a lot and I am tired a lot but nothing wears me out like volunteering 45 minutes in a kindergarten classroom you practically have to peel me off the floor I watch Mrs Natalie with 17 years teaching experience manager classroom like the exceptional professional she is this year's kindergarten cohort is certainly not the kindergarten class my oldest son entered into five years ago or even last year's class of the year before behaviors are different level of Readiness is different class sizes demands on teachers are increasing overall and yet in the midst of all these challenges and put upon teachers and more and more asks of teachers the board is poised to reward administrators handsomely tonight we Value Center growth teachers their teaching strategies creativity energy classroom management compassion their Supreme management skills and their commitment to our students is unmatched I'm keenly aware the qualities I see and admire in our Center growth teachers are qualities that many employers are currently seeking because they value all the teachers are in due I respectfully ask the board not to approve administrative raises until the mediation fact by any process is over [Applause] next is because Amanda ship [Applause] good evening members of the board my name is Amanda Shep I am a lifelong resident of Center Grove graduated in 2002 and now I'm a mother of three students two at Walnut Grove and one at Middle School Central I came out tonight in supportive teachers I'm Gravely concerned about teacher turnover and and the district's strained relationship with teachers right now during the recent campaign for school board it came to my attention that our district lost 63 teachers last year since that time I've heard that even more teachers have been lost and numerous others are actively seeking employment elsewhere at first I wondered is this due to budget strains Workforce challenges that we see across so many sectors right now but upon further digging that does not seem to be the case in other schools in the area of Brownsburg Plainfield Carmel HSC all paid their teachers more while receiving less funding than Center Grove our teachers are truly the backbone of the school system and they have to be prioritized and I understand the impact firsthand of how awesome and amazing our teachers are I am a first generation in my family to attend college let alone law school and I credit that to the deep personal connections that I formed with my teachers during my time in this District many of which I still keep in touch with it's the type of quality relationships meaningful relationships that only can be achieved through longevity and through reasonable class sizes it's what allows teachers to push their students and hold them accountable long after they leave their classrooms it's that longevity of the relationship and teacher retention has to be a priority it is the Hallmark of this this community and the strength of our teachers so really to that end I'm just asking the board to really think about this not approve the administrative raises until the mediation in fact finding process is over because actions speak louder than words if you prioritize teachers if you prioritize teachers think about the impact the message that that sends they have to be a priority [Applause] thank you Amanda next to speak is Becca Smith on the teacher appreciation Grant 2010 the Indiana legislator has provided money for the teacher appreciation Grant this grant is paid out to teachers who are effective or highly effective the state mandates a 25 differential between the two ratings last year Center Grove teachers who were rated highly effective on the teacher evaluation rubric received money for the tag Grant equaling 1.25 of their annual salary and effective teachers received one percent teachers rating below effective did not receive the grant the board has a history of striving to treat all School Employees equally and a 2019 board meeting while discussing the distribution of the tag Grant and how we can ensure that all employees would receive a stipend one board member stated we want to treat all of our employees the same we want our custodians the bus drivers administrators everyone to be the same it is similar when we give raises we try to do the same thing for everybody so that it's consistent with the board policy that we are all one team because the tag Grant is specifically for teachers who are employed in a classroom the board has made it a priority to give our administrators a performance stipend of equal percentage with money from our cash balance assuming the grant will be paid out and the same percentage this year the superintendent stipend will be 3 375 dollars assistant superintendents will receive 2138 dollars with 25 years of employment at Center Grove and a highly effective rating I will receive one thousand three hundred fifty dollars I only teach fourth grade math but I'm confident these numbers are not equal Additionally the differentiation of the classroom teacher tag Grant is statutory but we do not believe there is any differentiation between administrator performance stipends the money was set aside by the state to encourage Highly Effective Teacher performance should our board who's making a priority to our pay our administrators double and even triple the amount that a 25-year veteran teacher will receive by pulling money from our cash balance the board Prides itself on equality but the actions of the board do not make teachers feel equal public documents reveal that administrators can receive over ten thousand dollars annually in retirement benefits some advice is guaranteed and without employee matching from the corporation while teachers can only receive 825 dollars a figure that is remained constant for several years there have been years when the association bargained for another 25 dollars of matching money for an annual matching total of eight hundred fifty dollars but the offer was rejected by the board recently several people in the community have said to me that at least one board member has responded to their email supporting teachers stating that they do not know what teachers want teachers want to be respected we want to be addressed as professionals and valued we want you to acknowledge us we want to be a priority please show us Respect by not voting to approve using funds that could be used to retain teachers until we have settled our 22-23 contract foreign thank you Mr Smith next up is Mr Lawson wants to talk about the admin raises my name is David Lawson and thank you again Mr Collins I appreciate that um this month we find ourselves at impasse with the board in bargaining because our members rejected the board's one and only offer of increased compensation in the amount of 5.65 percent in the coming weeks we'll engage a mediator and likely in a process called fact-finding which will include a public hearing during which we will lay out our reasoning as to why the board can't afford to offer larger increase in compensation to teachers in an effort to retain them and the board will either justify why their proposal is in the better public interest or lay out the reasoning why our offer puts them in deficit financing or in the red for all the accountants in the room tonight the board will vote to provide an increase of 5.65 percent to level A and B administrators in addition to whatever other increase in benefits contributions they will also receive in part this is happening because the board adheres excuse me the the board adheres to the practice of providing the same percentage increase in compensation for all employees despite the fact that both the board and the district leaders have acknowledged that this practice perpetuates an ever-widening disparity between administrators and teacher pay it's also happening because providing the increase before the beginning of fact finding will commit additional money from the education Fund in less than the amount of tuition support available for compensating teachers making it far less likely that fact-finding will yield a positive outcome for teachers and by extension for students certified classroom teachers are still not the priority despite the fact that we continue to lose even this semester our certified staff to other districts and other professions and despite the fact that we will still have an abundance of Administrators the Board needs to prioritize retaining teachers before we find ourselves in a situation where kids suffer the loss of qualified classroom professionals nearly 90 percent of our membership rejected the board's offer clearly that is a harbinger of difficult bargainings to come we ask the board to wait until after mediation in fact finding to approve any other increases additionally we ask the board to seriously study additional ways to increase revenue for the corporation be it by running a referendum or by increasing local property tax levies which have remained static since 2008.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
with additional Revenue the board could find could fund adequately all priorities rather than risk the quality education the students of Center Grove deserve thank you Mr Lawson next on the agenda is the consent item do I have a motion Mr President they have a motion in a second all those in favor of approving the consent items signify by saying aye aye all those opposed motion passes 4-0 I just want to say this evening you've recognized Mr Proctor's resignation as principal at Walnut Grove I think Mr Proctor's been with us for 15 years yeah and so just want to wish him well he is moving into the private sector and I don't think he made it tonight but his position is posted and we'll begin that process soon and Mr Proctor's last day is December 31st yep yes is that correct yeah thank you next action items 7.1 to prove the teacher appreciation Grant stipend and performance stipend for other employees Dr arkanov yes thank you Mr Alexander tonight I'm recommending that the board approved the employee stipends and Mr Taylor will provide you with some additional information thank you Dr arganoff teacher appreciation Grant or tag provides 30 dollars per student in the school districts throughout Indiana and it is the amount given to each district is paid to teachers state law requires that the board policy for the distribution of the tag and we do have a board policy in place for that it's 32 20.01 which outlines the distribution of the tag each year the grant totals total will be used to pay stipends to teachers who received a final Effectiveness rating of either either effective or highly effective for last school year the Indiana Department of Education has not released the tag amounts for 2022.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
We Have Heard they'll be in tomorrow's update so we should get that information tomorrow therefore the percentages and the amounts below that I'm going to share are based off what our internal estimates are of the amount we should receive tomorrow once we receive the final amount we'll adjust the percentages accordingly to spend all of those dollars and the amounts below to match any changes to our estimates as they become actual amounts from the doe the final amounts will be included on the January Personnel report for the board's final review as per our policy and statutory requirement stipends will be differentiated by 25 between highly effective and effective rated teachers I've estimated the tag stipends per the current qualifying teachers and approximate approximated the grant dollars we shall receive tomorrow teachers will either receive a 1.25 stipend no less than 750 dollars if rated highly effective or a one percent stipend to be no less than 600 if rated effective for the 2001-2002 school year again those could change 21 22 school year thank you we're also asking the board to approve a stipend for all eligible employees and levels a b c and d as well as one level or as I'm sorry A B and C as well as one level D employee who meets the evaluation requirements the level a and level B employees will either receive a 1.25 percent stipend if rated highly effective or one percent stipend if rate it effective level C and D employees will receive a 1.25 stipend across the board no matter how their evaluation came out they don't use the effectiveness system as much employees assigned to work less than four hours a day will receive a minimum of 250 dollars and those are in that level C and D categories those assigned to work four hours or more per day would receive a minimum of three hundred fifty dollars and if an employee had to change an assignment we will use the most recent one for the calculation pending your approval and payment from the state the stipend will be paid to all eligible employees by the end of 2022 we do have to disburse it within 20 business days of receiving the funds and that concludes my presentation thank you thank you Mr Taylor do I have a motion Mr President I move that we approve the employee's taxons as presented discussion all right all those in favor of approving the teacher appreciation Grant stipend the performance typing for other employees second five is saying aye aye all those opposed motion passes 4-0 7.2 approved statement of benefits and compensation Dr arkanov thank you Mr Alexander this evening I'm recommending the board approve the update to the statement of benefits and compensation for non-teaching staff and Mr Taylor provides you with some additional information thank you Dr arpanoff um this is something that we have brought in past years after approving raises we did that in September for level C and D employees and so we're bringing it back at this time some of the other changes include a salary increase of 5.65 percent for level A and B employees also a change to health insurance premiums our health committee has met and recommended a premium increase to get us back to the reserve level needed for next school year the up we updated those premiums to be in a total of 5.10 and that will be paid by the school corporation however the employee premium would increase by 2.06 percent uh we hope to maybe I'll set that someday with a holiday as well next year that works out but it's a modest increase to get us back to where the the revenue needs to be and the reserves need to be so that would apply just to level a b and c employees we don't have any benefit employees in Level D we do have some name changes in the document as well tonight some changes to holidays including New Year's Day at this point um sign on referral bonus this is new for the Food Service employees we have great response to this for our bus drivers and we're adding that in our food service area where any Center Grove employee can recommend someone to work for food service and receive that referral incentive and there's also a sign-on bonus for folks who come on and stay on for a period of time finally some changes to the technology certification and some changes just in language for our transportation employees and Level D so a lot of things to match correct also include some increases for the substitute teachers as needed so I believe that covers all the summary do I have a motion Mr President I move that we approve the revised statement of benefits and compensation as presented to have a second I'll second just stop act like grown people any any questions or discussion for Mr Taylor all right we have a motion in a second all those in favor hang on I gotta make sure I read the right thing all those in favor approving the statement of benefits and compensation signify by saying aye aye all those opposed motion passes three to one next 7.3 additional Appropriations for teacher appreciation Grand stipend new employee salaries and staff raises thank you this evening I'm recommending the board approve the additional Appropriations for the teacher appreciation Grant stipends new employees new employee salaries and staff raises and Mr Taylor will provide you with that additional information however I will say this is a public hearing this evening and it is will be turned over to you at this point thank you Dr arkanov this evening's board meeting has been appropriately advertised as a hearing on additional Appropriations I now open this public hearing I would like to call Mr Taylor to provide information about the additional Appropriations thank you Mr Alexander asking for additional Appropriations in the operations fund and the education fund Appropriations follow on the budget creation and any new staffing needs or salary increases it's key to note that the appropriation we're asking for this evening assumes that if we were to settle a contract by the end of 2022 we could also spend that money in 2022.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
there is a limitation from the dlgf on Appropriations they must be advertised and they must be approved by December 15th and so we're bringing it this evening to get well ahead of that date so we can put this on public record you'll see the amounts listed on the screen that Ms Howard's sharing this all goes to new employees new positions that were created in both funds including 13 new teaching positions four classroom aides two full-time custodians two part-time custodians and two bus drivers the amounts are also reflected on the screen individually by the programs these would go into this money will come from a combination of cash balance and new formula Revenue as student growth has taken place in this in the second half of the calendar year 2022.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
and there's a resolution attached that we would ask the board to sign this evening following the meeting so we may upload that to the dlgf thank you this is a time for members of the public to comment on the additional Appropriations or information presented on the additional Appropriations this evening are the members of the public present who would like to comment on 7.3 okay seeing none I now close this public hearing are there board members who have any comments or questions okay I need a motion I move that we approve the additional Appropriations for teacher appreciation Grant stipend new employee stipend and staff raises do I have a second I'll second all those in favor signify by saying aye all those opposed motion passes four zero next up 7.4 approved certified staff handbook Dr arkanov thank you Mr Alexander this evening I'm recommending that the board approved the certified staff handbook and once again Mr Taylor will provide you some information on them oh thank you Dr arkanov just a lot of language changes we have shared these with our utag leadership for their input we're bringing this this evening sometimes we get this done by October this year it took till November we have quite a few language changes you'll see there a lot of informational things changes like our workman's comp location definitions of serious health conditions um and then some new policies that we always like to add to make folks available as policies have changed to make it a priority the summary is provided on the screen thank you Mrs Howard um and that's it I believe just some corrections like to health care and things like that some Lane change I'll entertain any questions if you have any on specifics but go through all of them yep thank you Mr Taylor any questions from Mr Taylor Anita motion do I have a second second we have a motion in a second all those in favor signify by saying I all those opposed motion passes four zero 7.5 authorized two 2023 tax anticipation warrants Dr arganoff thank you Mr Alexander this evening I'm recommended that the board approve a resolution to borrow money from the Indiana Bond Bank and Mr Taylor will provide you again some information thank you I won't belinger on this one this is one we do every year um it stinks we don't like it we have to do it this basically allows us to loan money from the Indiana Bond Bank which is controlled by the state government in case our local property tax revenues don't come in time for us to pay the bills that we need to pay on our debt service and so you can see the amounts well within line with what we've done in Prior years again this is something just to make sure we have enough cash on hand when the bills come due so it's just a bridge loan exactly the money yeah and in this case we typically would do this in May or April in lieu of ahead of a June disbursement if we see it's running behind possibly in November if we don't think we'll receive the December disbursement as well thank you as I've stated on numerous occasions this is one of my three least favorite motions that we make on every year do I have a motion I move that we approved the resolution authorizing tax anticipation warrants and authorize the president and secretary to sign the documents as needed do I have a second we have a motion in a second all those in favor signify by saying aye aye all those opposed motion passes 4-0 thank you 7.6 accept bids for 20 22 23 food service thank you Mr Alexander this evening I'm recommending that the board accept the bids for the 22-23 food services for our new food service Co-op HPS Dr long will provide you with some additional information let's let's take a take a pause recess to let it quiet down so we can hear Dr long okay it's not bad at all I've never seen men like children thank you sir thank you tonight we're asking the board to approve the bids from our new Food Services Co-op HPS we had previously belonged to the West Indy Co-op and recently changed to this new co-op and we now have their bid prices even though we belong to a purchasing Cooperative that handles all the bidding requirements the State Board of accounts requires that local school boards approve the bids from the co-op tonight I'm recommending we approve the bids from the HP HPS Co-op thank you Dr long do any questions for Dr Long is there a motion I will do the acceptance for the 2022-2023 services for our new first food service Co-op HBS we have a motion in a second all those in favor signify with saying aye aye all those opposed motion passes 4-0 7 accept bids for soccer parking lot and maintenance Road Dr arkanov thank you Mr Alexander and this evening I'm recommending that the board accept the bids for the soccer parking lot and the maintenance Road and Dr long will provide you with some additional information thank you on November 10th of 2022 we opened bids for the sucking soccer parking lot uh how's that for the soccer parking lot located on Morgantown Road just south of the Emergency Operations Center and we also open bids for the maintenance roadway Improvement we had nine bids for each project and after a d-scope meeting with AECOM hunt and Crossroad Engineers along with the low bidders we're recommending the board approve the following bids for the soccer parking lot the bid from Fox contractor contractors Corporation in the amount of four hundred and six thousand six hundred dollars and for the maintenance roadway Improvement the bid from sub Services subsurface of Indiana in the amount of nine hundred and twenty one thousand dollars including accepting the alternate bid number one which is a deduction of eighteen thousand dollars to build a berm rather than haul away the excess soil the the parking lot project is expected to begin in early March and should be completed by July 31st 2023 and the maintenance roadway Improvement will begin later this month and should be completed by June 30th of 2023.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
thank you Dr alone any questions for Dr Long time um the the parking lot is almost right at what we had budgeted um and then the the transportation parking was was just a hair above but Mr Thompson has money in his his account to take care of the difference right yeah I think we were really pleased I forgot to introduce uh Chad Peters here tonight um Jim Jim Gully couldn't make it he was afraid Scott would ask him when we were going to start and when we were going to finish so he didn't come tonight but Mr Peters is here representing AECOM hunt yeah I thought we were very pleased that we had nine bids for each of the projects and that they were really fairly close together the one thing that we are hoping to see is to see the contractors do a combination bid where they would you know do a bid with both of the projects but none of the nine did that so we ended up with two different contractors for two for both projects the last time I saw Mr Peters he was dressed in a disco outfit so I thank him for his support of Encore which I know his son participates in India in the show fire but I almost didn't recognize you without being aware tonight all right any other questions for Dr Long do I have a motion parking lot and maintenance Road in the amount of 1 million 327 thousand six do I have a second second all those in favor signify by saying aye all those opposed motion passes four zero thank you 7.8 approved new high school course proposals thank you Mr Alexander this evening I'm recommending that the board approve the new high school course proposals and Dr Hooper will provide you with some additional information okay thank you each year the high school makes course proposals to add courses to that would be available to students in future years the course requests are vetted through Department chairs as well as the high school administration and this year additional courses to support and expand Next Level programs of study in both the business and fax departments are among those that you'll approve tonight there's a chart below this chart summarizes all seven courses that are up for your approval tonight and below that there's actually highlighted you can see which ones which are expanding our next level are in LPS courses um this year the high school would like to add those seven descriptions for potential courses at the high school in the future these courses match the course descriptions as outlined by the Indiana Department of Education we don't have a lot of leeway in that these course requests include from the following one in the art Department one in business one in English three in family and consumer science and one in physical education a decision to actually offer these courses is determined through the scheduling process based on request numbers from students Staffing student needs academically and instructor availability if any textbook or resources are needed in order to offer these courses those requests would be brought to the board for approval in the spring semester during the textbook adoption process as a reminder during the implementation of next level programs of study approval for additional courses may be requested in the spring or summer and the board's understand and flexibility is appreciated and I can already tell you there was just some very recent doe additions and changes that we would like to probably take advantage of next year in our course catalog so I will likely be bringing things to you as early as we can get that information together so we can get those offered to students but for tonight it's just these seven thank you Dr Hoover any questions or comments no not this time so the only um as I traded emails with you about I understand it's an idea we requirement on that I.T class and that's how it's written at Ivy Tech but I would encourage us to find a database other than Ms access so the kids are a little more Workforce ready um access is enough necessarily an accepted scalable business database but I I get it it's it's it's the way it's written with the idoe it's really it's written by Ivy Tech we need to get them with the times so if um if you were to scroll down to the pathway pieces that's the second course in the pathway oh no farther up sorry second page um in the business pathway there that's highlighted so that's the second of three courses right so in that third course they may have some opportunities to go into additional databases and that of course is going to get even more specific so we'll see what we can do in that one and also um as we can offer that third class as the Capstone see what other opportunities we can have for students okay I appreciate the input thank you Dr Hoover and I know I owe you a contact number all right anything else on 7.8 do I have a motion do I have a second all right we have a motion in a second all those in favor of approving the new course proposals for the high school signify by saying aye all those opposed motion passes 4-0 thank you 7.9 first Mr Robinson at a point new board member to fill the board vacancy thank you this evening I'm recommending that the board appoint a new member to fill the vacancy and with that I know the board has received a number of letters with interest we received a total of including Mr Robinson's nine letters of Interest three from former board members three from former board candidates and two from the public and Mr Robinson and we're going to appoint you know based on the results of the election so uh thank you to all those people that have reached out to do that and with that I think all we need is a motion Gary Robinson a second we have a motion in a second all those in favor signify by saying aye all those opposed motion passes 4-0 just as a kind of a matter of record keeping Mr Robinson is also going to fulfill the vacancy at Central nine as well as he comes onto the board so we're anxious to let him get started on that and then we will do the formal board reorganization in January welcome aboard [Applause] all right announcements um quite a few this evening Thanksgiving break no school for students November 21st to the 25th for Thanksgiving break the December executive session and regular board meetings have been canceled as as we don't have any current business for the board no school for students December 19th through January 2nd for the holiday break our next regular scheduled meeting is January 5th 2023 we have an executive session followed by the board reorganization meeting Then followed by the board of refinance meeting um any board member comments this evening uh Center Grove Knight with the Pacers this is for the Education Foundation uh it's Friday December 9th and I think you can get those tickets online uh their trivia night is scheduled it is a new date for February 3rd 2023 that will be at the barn at big horse and then the gala for the Grove April 22nd 2023 so make sure that you have those um dates on your calendar and their board meeting last night they approved all of the the teacher grants and professional development grants so I know that they're eager to get out into classrooms to to get those presented so do you know how many won how many grants and two kind of the aggregate dollar value so I know that this is the biggest year that they've had they had 33 applications 74 000 requested and I might be stealing during Thunder I don't know if she's out here yeah she is I was sorry am I allowed to say this Jen okay okay I was like am I stealing am I ceiling or thunder I could just leave it at that too um but they they did approve just that I I think a tad over it was about 40 000 I think last night that they approved so it was a significant dollar amount and the events that we talk about are the events that raise money to provide for those teacher grants so um you know please get out there and and sign up and do those events and do the silent auction things and everything else that Jen has has put together they work really hard on it and thank you Dr arkanov nothing this evening all right then we are adjourned
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
so I'm the senior service officer for the national nurse Society I'm also in the executive board for the women's leadership I mean we go Global I'm also in an Iraq Club OS club and international Club [Music] I really appreciate how there's like something to do for all people like there's a bunch of activities and clubs that you can join for everyone to like be a part of in the school I would tell them to stay dedicated to what they want to be when they're older stay focused and have fun [Music] I want to get into biomedical engineering when I become older I'm really interested in math and science and I really want to help people my name is Ximena valenciano and I'm the October student of the month [Music]
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
good evening roll call please Mike Davenport here Christopher Espinoza here shirelle Fuller here Jenny hagstrom here Terry pavisich here Joanna Vazquez Drexler president Nancy cupka here Luca plauskas here and Caitlin Vincent here thank you thank you let's stand for the 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 start off with some recognition yeah we have several recognitions uh this evening uh the first is that uh last week we had a school board member appreciation day which recognizes our volunteer board members and for all of their service that's greatly appreciated by all of us here in District 99 and of course our two student board members for all of their time uh volunteering as well so there's a little token of gratitude there for you that is designed to give you all the calories you need for this evening but uh thank you all for all that you do well thank you also our board members received a variety of recognitions recently one is from the board leader recognition program for the Illinois Association of school boards and this is for professional development that board members engage in so Dr kopka received the established board leader recognition and Terry also received the established board leader recognition thank you I'll get my steps in here and uh my Davenport received the distinguished board leader [Applause] also uh this past week was the joint annual conference uh and their District 99 was very well recognized we received the as has been shared at prior board meetings the award of Distinction for our Master facility plan projects at both North and South High this is the highest level of award that is offered by the Illinois Association of school boards for architectural projects for excellence in the design of educational environments so the board received this award last Friday along with white and Company for that project and our own Julie nydek received the Holly Jack award which recognizes uh the most outstanding board secretary in the state and was well deserved and in wonderful things to say about our team and our district so congratulations [Applause] all right with that uh we have the opportunity for our students perspectives so I don't know who won the arm wrestling match but Caitlyn oh student oh I'm sorry student perspective it says it right there student I Courtney they'll give them time to decide who goes first everyone if you guys have representing North High School so a number of years ago bass fishing was made in ihsa sport and as ihsa recognized and so I'm here to introduce Ethan Mia and Jack um and our sponsor Mr Chris guerreri um who are going to talk about bass fishing at North High School so guys go right ahead all right um I don't know if you guys have any questions but come up to the mic please so we kind of have a slideshow back there and kind of what bass fishing at North is all about um so this is our bass fishing team and Club at Downers Grove North High School just tell me when to advance here um so basically anyone can participate if you're freshmen seniors anyone who loves to fish is Welcome to our club are we open to all uh Diner North students um so some of our notable achievements uh we are the 2019 and 2021 ihsa sectional champions um we are the 2019 and 21 2021 and 2022 ihsa state qualifiers uh this past year we won the ibfca state champion chip and um we got a bid to the Bassmaster national uh Championship as well and these are just some of our pictures so this was uh me and Jack at State uh we won this one with a two-day total 29 pounds where do you fish at State I was like okay yeah it was uh roughly 66 teams out there representing teams all over from Illinois so it was pretty cool experience for us um so this was Nationals down at Lake Hartwell um it was a basically a whole week experience where we got to showcase our talents and our abilities to everyone Across the Nation so it's like just a big thing oh really cool and these are just some of our sectional pictures these are two former students who actually kind of really helped uh bring this club up and found it so these are Max Netty then this is with them with their second second sectional trophy um the photo on the right is from this past year this past sectional this is Mia all the way on the left oh it's me and Jack all the way in the right that's Spencer Eli and Danny um we managed to get second and third in our sectionals and all the way on the left is our first sectional win ever for Downers Grove North and these are just some more pictures from this past year at sectionals me and Jack are on the left Spencer Eli Mia and Danny are on the right and um yeah [Music] is good [Music] yes that's pretty much it if you guys have any questions how do they um determine winning numbers of fish or pounds of fish so it's your best five fish she'll fish all day and you get to keep five fish in your liveo so they stay alive we're not trying to harm them or anything and then at the end you bring them in and you weigh them and whoever has the most pounds all combined so it's pounded winds yeah it's poundage yeah and then also they usually give an award out for the biggest fish caught as well so that will help you out a lot as well okay and then do you have any uh sonar um things to find the fish yeah so usually on the boats that we fish off they usually have the graphs and stuff that show the fish and they're starting to come out with more and more technology where you can actually see the like blurs of fish moving around and stuff so we do use that yes during the tournaments but it's regulated you can't just use whatever you want they they monitor what you use uh you can kind of use whatever you want there's no really regulations on it because there's only so much technology that you're allowed to use basically whatever you could what kind of bait do you use oh that's a hard question there's like a bunch of varieties whatever the fish are biting yeah yeah so do you make your own flies or do you use uh like I I used to fish a lot yeah yeah yeah so we usually just like go to the store and buy the lures we do have some friends that do like handcraft lures himself but yeah mainly we used to go to the store and pick them out yeah they're pretty cool yeah so but no it's how did you get interested in fishing uh for me personally it happened during covid quarantine that couldn't do much anything else so went out fishing I've always liked it but I really started to get into like the whole High School fishing thing during quarantine for me my whole life grew up fishing because my dad's side of the family fishing and hunting was just the thing to do in Pennsylvania so I've just been salmon fishing bass fishing trout fishing my whole entire life fly fishing too just everything and when I got to high school I realized that other people around here actually like fishing and stuff as well so that's when I started getting more back into it because I didn't really have any friends growing up who liked it but yeah I've been a fisherman my whole life really so very good all pretty much similar to both of them I uh I pretty much grew up fishing with the fishing rod in my hands and as uh I got into Junior High in the high school I got more serious about it and it was really cool to see that it was already a club started for me to uh just be a part of and just get to know other people who share the passion and um yeah share the love for the sport like I do so if we have students who've never fished in their life can they come out for that oh yeah absolutely and how many students are in your group .com usually and then on the team we have about like 10 solid people that could like that want to fish tournaments and really have like a desire to help other people out and learn different things fishing wow that's really great you guys are doing really great because it's not always easy to fish patience patience patience yes Ethan what is the fishing season for you guys um so kind of our fishing season would be a majority of the fall and spring obviously the winter it gets too cold out here to do any of those tournaments on the open water but in the fall and the spring we compete in various tournaments all across Illinois and that's kind of our season very good they have a very robust Instagram too all right yeah so all right well thank you thank you thank you all right now student board members do we decide who's going first this week you can go first all right so at South we've had a lot of exciting new changes um starting with we've heard from student like opinions on access and resource periods so instead of just having straight up presentations during resource it has been changed to be more of a free time for students and there's been a lot more activities added for students to make it a little bit more fun um over the past few weeks we had a time where students can make paracord bracelets celebrating Veterans Day and we watched a whole video about Veterans Day and was I think we were able to write letters to Veterans serving also which was really a great thing to do for our veterans there's also an opportunity during French week to watch Ratatouille in the auditorium people if you wanted to so nice the brain break in the day just watch a movie with your friends and with the World Cup going on there's going to be some activities doing Resource as well just to give students a nice fun thing to do but the nice thing about it is it isn't mandatory for all students so if they want something fun to do during the day they have it for them but they also can still have that student um like autonomy with how they spend their time which is really nice we also had a lot of Celebration with sports we won conference for football which was really nice and a nice thing for our players and we had a lot of State Runners for our cross-country team that did really well for state so that was a really good thing for our school just some school spirit in that winter sports is starting up which I'm a little bit biased but is my favorite season because I am a basketball player so we have our first home game tomorrow so we're excited to have more basketball games and kind of shift into that season of things and we just had our snowball Retreat this past weekend which is a really fun event for students to kind of get away for the weekend and have some team building um I wasn't able to go but I was a leader last year and it's just such a fun event for students to kind of meet other people in their school that they may not already know and have some pretty cool keynote speakers there and all in all uh people are just kind of getting in the groove we also started Coco in the Commons every Friday so there was in the morning there are staff members handing out hot free hot chocolate on your way to class which is really nice it's a nice way to start off the morning and we're just in a group at South and it feels really good I know people are really excited for Thanksgiving break kind of a good point of the semester to have a little break from school so it's been good Caitlyn yeah so I couldn't help but notice I think Ethan's shirt in the sticker on the back of yours so are you into fishing as well um my dad more so is into fishing okay but I want him to take me like all in the winter like ice fishing that's what I want to get into more wow but we'll see if that happens I tell you I I've done that before yeah too cold stuff so I want to use it but I know we have a bass fishing team I don't know a few I know a few people on it but I'm not that serious about fishing very good um so starting off with all the fun stuff that have been going on um I want to give a great a big congrats to our boys cross country team for getting third in state um I know there was a celebration this morning for it um I saw Miss demet with our Trophy and it was great to see it um some other fun stuff I know that obviously previously we've had some issues with Wi-Fi but to try and cut that down we try to incorporate it in a fun way so instead of having all the students on their phone watching the World Cup today we had it on a few of our TVs so that people would instead watch the TVs provided instead of using their phone so maybe cut down on the issues during other class periods um also like going back to Halloween um we had fun stuff like a pumpkin contests and um there were definitely some very cool projects that people came up with and it was nice to see that people actually enjoy um incorporating themselves in those type of activities in school there's also celebration for a macho man who graduated from Downers Grove North and there were different um surveys and Gifts such as Slim chips um cake was passed out socks shirts and stickers just to make it a little more fun during the school day and then for our coffee shop for breast cancer awareness month also taking it back we were selling um pink cupcakes to help bring awareness to that once again and that was definitely a big seller because people obviously like the way they look but also the taste was quite amazing and then bring it to I am on the student advisory Council team so I was able to listen to a few people's feedback on the schedule and how they're adapting to it and according to everyone they're very enjoying the autonomy days because they're able to get their work done and obviously with sports starting up once again the winter sports people are able to get more of that time to focus on other things after school than their schoolwork so that was definitely a big win are you into fishing is the night of fishing I I like fishing I'm not once again I'm not like the person who would joined the bass fishing team but I definitely I've gone fishing during the summer with my dad and that's definitely been a part of me but I definitely have other hobbies that overtake that it's the worms that get them every day [Laughter] thank you both thank you thank you thank you okay we'll move on uh to uh the minutes we need a motion for the Board of Education to approve the minutes of the October 17 2022 business meeting and the October 17th 2022 closed meeting the November 7th 2022 Workshop meeting with action items and the November 7th 2022 close meeting so moved sect Terry and shirelle thank you thank you Terry pavesich aye Cheryl Fuller aye aye Jenny hagstrom aye Joanna Vasquez Drexler aye Mike Davenport aye Christopher Espinoza aye and Nancy cupcuff hi uh the minutes are approved do we have anybody for first okay was there anybody who did wish to speak during the first perception we have no slips okay hearing none we'll move on to five Labs overview oh you're getting there all right yeah so I'm uh I'm happy to go over an overview of how we're using five Labs which is our kind of data warehouse um uh overview how we're supporting students so I think you can go ahead and so the first thing we're going to kind of look at is um we'll talk a little bit about how we're currently using five Labs we'll go over the data that we're pulling to help support directly students and then we'll kind of talk a little bit about how it aligns to this strategic plan so for current uses you'll notice on that you can go ahead one more you can notice on the left hand side we have so five Labs we basically build pages and so these are the different pages that we have these are some of them um and um all these Pages then on the right hand side is our staff that who have access to five Labs so for example um and I'm not going to go through each one of these of what they are but we will show you a little bit later some kind of case studies and how we're using it but like case management pages to give you an idea we we have a page that our counselors our social workers psychologists even our special ed case managers can load on their computer and it kind of gives them their caseload so if I'm a counselor I can see my 260 students that are on my caseload and get a lot of different information it kind of synthesizes that information so you can see we have a lot of staff on the right that are involved in there you can see like Mustang weight and positively North coaches have access to a certain page that gives them data for what they're doing but on the next two slides I'm going to show you a little bit about our individual student report so on there if you notice um there's and these Pages obviously have a lot of data but the top arrow is kind of pointing to just an overview of a student I did obviously gray out so we you know don't for confidentiality reasons but you can see the different areas in color up on the top shifting your focus more to the the Third Kind of red areas the tenants and discipline the right side far right is the activities and GPA kind of a summary of a student of where they're at so a quick look so the middle Arrow we identified some key things that we wanted to look at quickly so for example if a student was failing a course you would see that number show up on the far left this student happens to not be failing any courses currently we're building all our College and Career ready so right now you see those as not applicable but those will be things that we're building anything from e-school that we have there in our student information system we can build them out into five Labs so this this is kind of a continual process of what we're doing the bottom Arrow points to achievement data that we're putting into five Labs so for example if you look at the Blue Bar the first one is um the SAT reading score that's the student score so you can quickly see a visual compared to the collective group that took the assessment so you can see that the student actually visually the blue bar is obviously taller than the gray bar right so this student in Reading is actually scoring higher than the average and then if you look to the to the right you'll see the math scores there you can see that if you quickly just look at the visual the students comparing right to the to the average of of the student body so again that's comparing you know Juniors last year all the Juniors that took the assessment that's what you're comparing to that student was a junior last year that took the assessment so and then the next slide um Still Still I had to divide it into two screenshots for you but still on the same page of the student report um a lot of it's grayed out but I'll give you kind of just an overview of what it all means but the the top arrow is pointing to our notes which we use as kind of like our interventions so you can quickly see how many interventions have been provided to students I left two on there the first one was administrative contact and then the second one down is a college plan so we have different note types that we use that are part of what our interventions are and so they're all listed in there so teachers also have the ability to add what we call as tack notes and then they show up here too so imagine if you're a counselor you could look at this and kind of go through and see quickly how many teachers engage with students who other in the district is in great engage with students all through that top Arrow kind of box area and then this the middle arrow is all the grades so you'll see current grades of students so quickly snapshot of students and how they're performing and then the bottom Arrow looks at the activities and remember as part of you know our College and Career Readiness we want students to be in activities so this student happens to be in two activities and that was on the slide before up in the top right but they would list what the activities are so another area to if a student wasn't in activities we'd be able to see that quickly we'd be able to do things to try to engage students to get involved you know we're we're about belonging and being a part of the school system and schools so and then on the next slide we are fortunate to collaborate with our partner schools what we did with that is we have an intergovernmental agreement to share data so um and I'll just kind of take you through the example this is kind of what you're seeing up there is a a visual of what our partner schools can log into and see they're looking at District 99 students but how they're performing from their school so there are current students but it gives say um if you're looking at say Jefferson Jefferson would log in they would see how Jefferson students are doing in District 99 so our current students but they get to kind of see various data so I think if you go to the next slide it kind of outlines they can look at freshmen on track or the you know Grade 9 on track they can look at attendance they can look at GPA they'll look at just like you saw the blue and gray bar they can see how their school district and school is performing against the collective Elementary District just to get a sense of um you know how they're doing and then obviously course grade distribution so again it's all based on current d-99 students that attended those schools but like Jefferson cannot see you know Herrick students or anything like that they just can see their data they each have a page oh so they can't compare whether their students are doing we only see their students oh so they can't see that you know their students are excelling in math over all of the other um senders but they can actually see their students names that's that's our integration right but they just see an average okay all right that's a man you can see their students so anyone from Jefferson of Jefferson's logged in they can see actually The District 99 students that attended from Jefferson so they could see John Smith as yeah because like I meet with them three times a year and we talk about different things about articulation um you know what kind of data do they want to see I know Jefferson reached out a while back and they were looking at um they were looking at data to decide if they should um they currently teach Spanish for two years but some of the other partner districts only teach it their one year and so they wanted to compare some data to the collective so we ran some data for them and shared it out so I mean it's been a great relationship and we're continuing to build it this year I'm going out to each school if they would like me to um to just kind of work with them about their data we meet obviously three times as a collective but we're also now going out and meeting them individually so we're excited about it it's a great thing there's been a a lot of you know good feedback about it and so we're excited about the future with our working with our partner schools and then kind of looking at the data we value these are where I'm going to take you through a little bit of a kind of a case study of what we're doing um so we have a page that shows up that's a dnf grade report and you know Dr thiele's been obviously talking about you know strategic and systematic of how we support students well this is one way that we can quickly identify different demographic of students and then we have access to Administration to Department chairs our counselors have access so it's something that we can run a dnf report we can look at different groups of students so the one I'm going to take you through on the next slides is looking at the dnf report and then I'm going to show you how we drill down to say ninth graders and then students that have a disability and when I ran the data we have 46 students that are identified in that so I think if you want to go to the next slide so I would go into five Labs I'd go under the dnf report I would click on you can see the blue bar on the top there is ninth grade I know it's hard to see if you actually click on that on the screen it repopulates the page just to be the ninth graders and then if you click on over here is special education if you click on that bar graph then it repopulates ninth graders and special education only and so you can drill down to see those students and as I mentioned there was 46 students when I ran it that were getting a drf in the district that are specialized but the positive on that is that we now have really quick ways for people to just look at the student list I'm not showing you that part of it but this The Next Step would be we could run a list just by a click of a button and so we can then sort and filter things like that um and then the next um kind of case study or the process that we do is um and you've seen the reports that we've given to you I know Dr thaly's presented you with kind of a at the end of the year all the student um you know at what uh Athletics and activities students are in um obviously part of College and Career readiness we again have a quick way to identify students so this year we we had um the previous years we had we were looking at students that were in activities this year we've created a new system to actually identify students that are not in activities as well and then we can obviously look at the different uh demographics and then we can make some decisions on how we might intervene with those students that are not in activities obviously we can look at those that are in and see the different demographics but our goal is to obviously have students belong and be a part of the school and engaged so what I'm going to show you on the next slide is kind of taking you through this what the Student Activities page looks like but then looking at it from those that are not in an activity that are also qualified for fee waiver so just kind of adding variables to show you how quickly we can get information so in this case we ended up when I did it running it through that with a couple clicks we ended up with 343 students but the nice thing is again we can export those lists to get the actual student names and start to work on how are we going to get students involved so we have like our athletic and student directors you know working on that to see who we need to you know work on and market and and get involved in activities so the next slide again you would load the Student Activities page um you could see in the red rectangle it's not an activity so I can again click right on that bar graph it'll repopulate the page then over on the the right you can see there's a filter called Low Income if I select it's basically our yes or no when you click on that you would select yes and then that would repopulate your page again to be students that are not in activities that are part of our fee waiver so we can get a generated list and if you remember that was 343 students so we can you know then quickly engage with those students with that um kind of aligning to our strategic plan if you recall Dr thiely and Gina talking about on the left those State indicators if you remember we were talking about the state has those percentages for um um giving us kind of our our score so we have the SC sat if you remember was the the English language arts and math they were seven and a half I just combined it just for this slide sake we have graduation rate the ninth grade on track the absenteeism College and Career ready all those percentages that the state's looking at we've aligned five labs to run data on all that and we're building out the graduation rate right now for for longitudinal data so we're excited about the fact that we can really carve anything out to start looking at data um in a meaningful way and how to really directly impact students on a different level so we're you know excited about that obviously there's many more ways it aligns the Strategic plan I just wanted to show you this to start with so and I think the last one is any questions that you have right and how are you doing yeah like our so both John and Mark and both buildings have access so they can run reports I mean you can even do filters like if you want to look at say the students that are experiencing homelessness you can do that as a filter under Student Activities and then you can drill down to that but yes then what happens is that our team is then um you know working on doing different things to encourage students to get involved um it you know could be as simple as just identifying that list and then sending something out to the student and the parents right to say Hey you know is there clubs and activities I know like our counselors have access as well so they can see under the student page if a student when they're meeting with the student if they're involved in an activity real quickly and so they can actually then encourage students to become involved so it's these are all pages that our staff are are now able to access so kind of we're working through all those things of how are we going to then engage the next question I have yeah no it's a great question yeah those are right that's absolutely as a leadership team uh we meet about every other week and one of our opening activities all of us have certain uh questions about what's going on in the district Trends patterns uh you know is something we're doing actually making a difference so each administrator in the district has one of those questions that they're pursuing and every two weeks we partner together and Report out in it report out on progress we're making either towards understanding that issue or improving whatever that the thing that we're working on so for example all fall my project has been around ninth grade on track so every two weeks I have a data sheet I update the whole leadership team on you know what progress are we making on getting students that aren't on track back on track in the buildings they're tracking that information as well and they're working with their counselors on those specific students making sure that we understand why they're not on track making sure that their parents are informed you know intervening with individual teachers so that's kind of but finding them and isolating that group and making sure that we're you know keeping track of it and it's not just falling through the cracks is what you know this kind of tool allows us to do very quickly and as you see as you saw it puts it in a way that's very visually you know able to understand you know so it's not just tables of data it's interactive and it's easy to digest and it opens up the ability for both us to have conversations about what's going on but also then to identifying intervene with students as we need to yep sometimes the data will tell it to us before something elsewhere so is this partitioned internally can everybody see everything or no like okay no we have a security role-based yeah yeah well um I was like four or five years ago that you brought this to the board and and I've been excited about it ever since learning about it at the triple I conference I think in maybe 2018 or something they had a you said hey go down and look they'll be there and so really powerful tool tool um are we so the the data that's getting in there is that a I'm assuming it's a like a living document so we're not just looking at grades and things at the end of a marking period as so it seems it's it's it's pretty dependent on those inputs getting in there right away so um the you know so important that teachers are getting that data in uh I know that's been something in the in the past yeah that's it but that's been an expectation for right really strongly for the last several years and it seems to be working in a good time because this is I mean now it's really important um so that we've got the right data and I'd be interested um going forward in hearing more about those um you know the progress and the outcomes uh from our feeder our partner districts um how this is being you know how this really leading to really good outcomes for them it's it's pretty easy to imagine in ways that it would it would just be great to to hear some even at just you know four examples um to help emphasize the importance of of the impact that the state is is making and so because that's I mean it it seems like a Great Loop right it helps us deal with what we're dealing with in the here and now and how to help those students forward but helping our our partner districts better understand how their students are performing as they as they matriculate to our to our high schools helps them better you know align their programs and and so the students can be even more successful in the future that's just it's a win win-win yeah the the bridge is a gap that usually exists in school districts where K-8 is in separate districts from 912 so this allows us that the data Insight that a unit district would typically have yes so and to me this is just this is a a piece that is really needed because this that's a major disadvantage of these diff when we have these different districts like this and so so exciting stuff thank you yeah all right moving on um Capital Improvement plan uh Jim's here tonight to provide some of the overviews of this this has been developed over the fall the board has seen some draft versions of this moving along and uh Jim's going to explain how some of the projects are going to remain in capital and some are going to move into life and safety that we need to do good evening everyone one thing I do know is I'm not going to be able to top bass fishing tonight but I'll try okay so we have capital for 23.24 uh there's the Matrix and as Hank just mentioned we have some Life Safety I'll get to that after I go through the capital Improvement uh remember that these numbers that are estimated costs are really concept budget numbers we will go out to bid and the true numbers we'll come back to you for approval so just to to remind the board these come back project by project for approval large RMS is repairs that we have district-wide that come up throughout the course of the year that we uh and in the summer we also do some concrete and asphalt repairs that are smaller so this is a line item that we put aside for the school year the next three are annuals bleachers we inspect them and do repairs accordingly each year and ffne is for furniture tables student desks chairs and turf is for our grounds at North and South for turf field and green spaces next up is the girls softball field I was at North when we built this field in 2011 and many of the ADA requirements were Grant fire grandfathered in at that time uh it changed a few years later yeah so we noticed that we've had this on the list for a couple years now we want to get this work done next summer so including this will be improved elevations uh some storm water control sidewalks to the bleachers and dugouts and 88 bleachers on both sides and last but not least we're gonna have a batting cage on the right field line so these will be improvements and all of them will put us ADA Compliant good deal the roof at North this is 1994 just a small section about 3 300 square feet it's on the southwest side of the 28 Wing So Right Where Prince Street is on that corner uh it's a tear out of the and removal of the single ply new insulation cover board and membrane to be put on next is the roof at North as well this is a part of the roof that was not replaced with the mfp that was from 1993 again small area 3 500 square feet again bringing it down to the roof deck and then providing insulation and cover board and membrane next is the billing automation systems for North these are new controls for outdated obsolete controls they uh there's two big Air Handlers that these are are for they control classrooms and office areas on second third floor of the school so a pretty large area and Jim the key change from this is moves from monitoring what's going on in those areas to actually controlling that is a croissant in those areas so the vaos when you put controls on it when you first get a system if you don't have the controls everything's manual you set up 72 degrees and that's where it's run you can't really look at it throughout the course of the day Winters the seasons change uh air flow obviously we've been putting more airflow from outside air into our our schools so this helps control it right from a computer pool scoreboard at North I actually put this in as well in 2007.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
can you a thief here bulk present temples yes Nolan yeah in a motion a second to approve tonight's agenda so moved second feet Yes Yes handful yes Nolan yes yes Ray skorman yes all right please join us in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance 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 Patrol I'd like to thank everybody for coming out tonight thanks for those at home uh tuning in on YouTube uh Dr Stern uh we have numerous visitors tonight thank you uh Kathy notchin for joining us uh for our audit you'll be presenting the audit report um congratulations to CHS principal Chris testone for recently earning his Doctorate in Education so he's with us tonight we have we also have Rebecca jurors who also just recently earned her Doctorate in Education and that later in our in our meeting will be recognizing members of our FFA team and our national champion Samantha so look forward to that with Patrick also recognizing our Illinois State Scholars some of those are with us tonight as well uh thank you for joining us I'd like to recognize the board of education so many times people do not realize that board of education members are elected but it's a not paid position um and it's really just service to the community so as we celebrate American Education week wrap it up I want to thank each and every board member for for your service on the board to the community and to the students of central 301.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
if you'll please join us in the Pledge of Allegiance should have to go I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which State Nation under God indivisible with liberty and Injustice For All Welcome to our Monday November 21st school board meeting I will move on to our agenda approval deletions additions Dr Morocco thank you Mr sues you do have an agenda before you that have no additions from last week question by Dr Medlin second by Dr Malco any discussion hearing none all in favor aye aye motion passes Miss Kelly is there any correspondence this evening there is none to report thank you we'll move on to our liaison committee updates and we'll start with Mr Marshall thank you at this point there's been no activity on the interview committee thank you Mrs Kelly and I have nothing to report on the Redevelopment or The Parks at this meeting all right Dr Madeline nothing to report with the uh to Redevelopment commission um The Wellness committee um there seems that there's been some interest from teachers to um get the wellness committee rolling again so um that's in the works as far as I know thank you Dr Malco correct with the Lake Central Education Foundation yeah they have just been very very very busy and I think I shared with you the last time that they did the Portillos the day after the big 5K race so I don't have anything new to report on that although we are very anxious to receive our financials to know where we can go we really do want to change our model a little bit and be a little bit more Community oriented and get more Community involvement so Saint or I mean the dire parks department it's a cute group of people and they're very very energetic and they are making progress and they're working on this Central Park and which as I said before we'll have that nice veteran Focus as all of our Lake Central communities have we love our veterans so I will keep you updated on great thank you and I have nothing for Dollars for Scholars nor the Saint John Redevelopment commission so we'll move right into our official School Board business topics consent agenda Dr Barraco thank you again seek board approval for the minutes from our last meeting on November 7th and seek approval for the claims payroll and extracurricular expenditures that you received in your packets last week motion to approve those items motion by Mrs Kelly second by Dr Medlin any discussion hearing none all in favor aye motion passes there are no public comments regarding action items so we'll move right into our official School Board business topics regular agenda Dr Morocco first recognition this evening we'd like to invite Mrs petrelia forward Yolanda is she reading this or yeah sure sure free whatever okay so Miss Michelle snow was chosen as the Indiana Association of School principal's academic coach of the year after receiving a nomination from one of her bivitch peers who is also here Eleanor Roark [Applause] thank you thank you thank you Michelle Michelle oh that's right one more now I always have to give a few shouts about Michelle because she's real quiet about it but if you remember and I remember this so fondly when I took over the principal ship at bibbage after I'd been at Lake Street School in Crown Point there was no spellbull or math bowl in the Lake Central School corporations so I went up to Michelle and I said Michelle would you would you sponsor a spellbold team she didn't even think twice she was just right on it so she is the reason and I swear I this is no exaggeration when I talked to the lady in the office down at the Indiana Association for gifted children or that's not the name of Indiana Association for what is it i-ase what [Music] anyway Indiana competition for excellence yeah the Indiana competitions for excellence what she told me Diane told me the secretary is that this area up here in the region has the strongest response in math bowl and spellbow and she said I think a lot of it has to do with the energy that Michelle snow brings so I thought I'd share that with you you're and I always like to remind the students when they're here that Michelle was a risk taker you know she took the risk she said yeah I'm going to try it and that's the type of attitude we need to have to get through in life so okay I'll go back up you're welcome and for my second item this evening is to seek board approval for Mrs Susan I to attend the isba legal seminar on December 9th in Indianapolis move to approve motion by Mr Marshall second second by Mrs Kelly any discussion yeah if I could I would like to amend that as a possibility that I would like to go also on December 9th I tried to clear my calendar I don't have it totally cleared yet but if we could amend the agenda so that it would include me also to go okay and I will take care of the registration or talk to Val about registration are you going to ride with us we're leaving at 5 15.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above