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CPI actually came in this year at seven percent but because we're part of a p-tel county which is like basically tax cap if you've heard of that that reference it's the lesser of CPI or five percent so CPI was higher than that so we were capped at the five percent this slide is one of my favorite slides to show just because it kind of shows where we rank with other schools in Kane County if you look at the Central's always at the end over here we have 37 million dollars canelan has 60 million dollars in commercial this is for commercial Revenue whereas like District 300 and 303 they're at 517 million and 444 million with respect to our tax rates with all these surrounding schools we tend to be second third highest tax rate but it's because we have no commercial so if we know businesses and we can get them to come then this will help us and we can shift over someday it'll be here um so this is my fancy spreadsheet not that I created it but I've like continued to add things to it and it has a lot of numbers on here but this is where all of the percentages and the calculations come from um basically lots of numbers kind of overwhelming in the top left corner you see all the existing numbers those are coming from the prior years Levy all the numbers that we actually got those are all known numbers um then you'll have your estimated variables off to the to the Middle top and that's where the 25 million 600 new construction and the eavs is where I projected it and then all of those numbers feed into the formula that's in the middle and then it calculates down to all the different percentages rates So based on my projections of getting the 25 million 600 new construction eav going up to the 922 million which is a seven percent increase then we're anticipating our tax rate going down 18 cents um and this like I said earlier this is the first year that we're over the five percent for the truth and Taxation we're at 8.83 um doesn't mean that um obviously we're not increasing taxes even though I'm asking for more I have to ask for more to be able to capture all the new construction amount otherwise I would probably I would leave money on the table which we never want to do that so the recommended Levy is 51 million 268 000 which is the 8.83 increase and there's the truth and Taxation requirement um we're expected to only get 50 million 876 million which is going to be an increase of 3.7 million dollars um our bonded interest Levy next year's payment is 8.7 million dollars which is about a four percent Inc 4.39 increase so total all fund increase would be um four million 134 759 or 7.45 increase um and with that requirement for the truth and Taxation we have to have a public hearing so the public hearing will be before the next board meeting on December 19th at 5 45 and that's that will be right yeah right before this meeting so this is our anticipated tax rate um that I mentioned earlier kind of breaks down your operating rate which pays for all your like salaries and your supplies and services and then the bond and interest rate which is just for strictly Bond payments um that would cover the 8.7 million dollars that we are we have to pay next year so you can see it's 664 to 646 looks like transposition of numbers but um that would be your 18 Cent decrease so if all my calculations hold true this is where it's going to land if eav goes up our tax rate will be lower or if it goes the other way it could be higher and then this slide doesn't change from year to year but basically um we usually get half of our half of our payments in the spring of 23 fall of 24.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
thank you okay that's all I have beautiful thank you uh a couple of things uh Dr give a talk about Matilda so that's good uh congratulations to our unified basketball Unified sports teams on the banner that they received uh week and a half ago the day before November 10th the day before Thanksgiving uh the Veterans Day I should say I was fortunate enough to be here and boy what a great time to see these young men and ladies uh participating and the students that helped them out there it is uh just wonderful to uh to see these students and the smiles on their face and the students in the the high school students you know they had all the students and and you know cheering them on was just just wonderful to see uh I went to sports teams that were going to kick off uh Monday after right after Thanksgiving to move from one end to another so good luck to them and last but certainly not least congratulations to uh girls volleyball team for their semi-final run this past year they lost to Westborough last Friday night but they had a heck of a season and my hat's off to them and again to their coach Rachel Lassie for being uh coach you know into the Hall of Fame so congratulations to her you know it's Miss Wade yeah so the only other business I had is um as you may well know Heidi Brooks was our um is oh is our excuse me school committee rep along with me on the charter Review Committee and just a few things have come up so I just wanted to and I I did send that on I apologize for like the lateness but just I just wanted to gather like opinions since we are your you know Representatives um should I read like that okay so one actually uh and again in this group the charter review actually um reflects whether or not there's a proposed change in the current reading in the current language So currently the language says and it's about coordination between um really like multiple member elected committees as well as a select board so it says notwithstanding and I'm going to skim down notwithstanding their election by the voters for the purpose of coordinating the work of all Town agencies the town officials named in this section shall be subject to the call of the select board or of the Town Administrator at all reasonable times for consultation conference and discussion on any matter relating to the respective offices or multiple member bodies now at one point there's a part talk that that we would accept the school committee I don't know where do we land again hiding on that it was that something we were still coming and I'm sorry um yes at the charter committee we're going back and forth does the school committee belong as a part of a multiple member body should I get up through the town I think your primary or um are they exempt and one of the things we talked about is the school committee has always worked with the select board and the other boards finance committee when you need to or the Board of Health so we felt that you were already doing it but do we need to have it formalized in the charter so it is currently it again the question is do multiple member bodies like again they were accepting school committee at one point so again does that I think that was the question too like are we like referring to multiple member bodies with the exception of school committees or are we removing that exception I think somewhere else we're removing it so we were and Heidi is also the chair of the charter review Community that's right I thank Mr Oliver for suggesting um me to the committee now two years ago I know our terms were supposedly up in September yes I also got that so I need to look at that but we are really being quite thorough yes and um what has come about is is the charter does the charter reflect how we're doing business or should the charter reflect how we're doing business and that's the struggle that we're having now what does it mean it was what we're looking at was written in um 2010 and I mean our first struggle was everything was still taught uh putting you know being posted on a bulletin board you know paper and Thumbtack as opposed to you know we're trying to incorporate what does it look like in this digital media world but we do want to make sure that in the charter that we reflect um the work of the school committee and the work of the school committee working with other boards yes Shannon so I'll just know it I mean I think we had a little bit of this conversation last time about this allows the select board to call the school committee into a meeting but it doesn't allow the school committee to call the select board into the meeting it allows the select board to dictate the terms of the agenda so oftentimes we go to meetings where the agenda is not entirely relevant to us and so I'd like to see the charter reflecting the select board and the school committee is co-equal branches of government and giving us the authority as well to to call the select board and to meeting with us on occasion where we set the agenda and the things that that we may perhaps want to talk about with the select board and that was my feedback and the committee as well I mean my two my two senses you know usually you know we know for a fact that most of the time we're gonna have two meetings a year with the uh the select board and the finance committee and as I've said before sometimes no disrespect ID it's you know not beneficial to us because whatever the board and the finance committee wish to do uh you know you put those two groups together we're outnumbered so you can say it's black we can say it's white and we're going to lose type of type of deal so that's the problem that I have sometimes is that you know whatever you want to talk about has probably already been talked about and discussed we don't get the information until that night so we're Flying Blind that's been fast practice so maybe things will change maybe things will change so but that's my two cents Chris yeah so under the authority of the child Review Committee I don't know if it's possible but I do agree that I think it is important that the school committee has a mechanism to invite the select board into a joint meeting with us where where we set the agenda I do agree with that because there are certainly been some times throughout my tenure here that that would have been very helpful instead of sitting through a lot of back and forth on topics that really don't pertain to us yeah yeah yeah just like the conversations I mean what some of the language they actually for me like actually was a little concerning was Shelby subject to the call because again I think it put us in a um subservant role like a bit you know and again I and again to your point like I think you know we shouldn't be expected to work together but again subject to the call was you know something I I felt you know stood out for me and then again the question is it says of the select board or the Town Administrator which is another I think we were talking about taking removing Town Administrator from that statement um but again I that was why I wanted to bring it you know it could be the Town Administrator at the request of the board of Selectmen too so right if you through if you threw that and it might not be too bad because the Town Administrator works with a board of Selectmen but I do agree with you you know I mean if we know far enough in advance we you know if you had sat here and said if the selectman said hey we want you guys here tonight we've got a packed agenda you know and we both meet on Monday nights and we both meet on Monday nights and sorry that doesn't work you know so all right so I think we so clearly we need to revisit that and then you know if we can you know and again we are anyway but I just want to yeah no thank you we need to speak and then you know so we'll revisit that work on the language if if that works for you Heidi and then um you know I mean if there's other language that we come up with maybe at our next meeting we can address that and then I will bring it to the Charter review and then the other issue is the mode of election and um you know again this came up in our last meeting so there was a lot of discussion around the fact that whereas no select board you have someone running for a particular seat that's not the case in the school committee and if we have two seats up for election it's and we have three people running it's the two people who have the highest majority of course like when those two seats um so the conversation was about you know should we change the mode of election for the school committee to be in line with the select board and other groups so that you would run for a particular seat and that formula of you know how they'll be done like c one two two so if there were two seats that were you know up for you know election and uh you know and I was running against John John could be the non-contested seat and someone would run against me so that that was the other question about whether or not that's something that we should go through as a change now that would be a change so just to clarify real quick the first piece right now is the current language okay so we'd have to adjust that to be more reflective of what we think the second piece is a proposal for a change from the current Dr Jenkins so I'm a political Scientist by training and political scientists have things to say about modes of Elections and particularly multi-member districts which is essentially what we're talking about versus single member districts so I went today when I got this and I dug up some of the research and there's there's some mixed findings but essentially multi-member districts increase the diversity of the representatives who are elected to government generally speaking it's positive for electing women women are more likely to be elected to office in multi-member districts it's a little bit more mixed for candidates of color but multi-member districts single member districts have advantages for candidates of color Over multi-member Districts when minority voters are geographically concentrated so when you have a majority majority minority District those and those sorts of districts will be more likely to align candidates of color we do not have sort of a geographic concentration of minority voters in Dartmouth so at best I would say that that multi-member districts are Awash for the representation of minorities and the research is pretty clear that it's positive for the election of women I just want to put that out there for you because there has been a lot a lot a lot of scholarly research about this question I'm happy to come talk to you all about that if you wanted some meeting but this is not sort of just opinion this is let's look at when we make changes from multi-member to single member or back and forth or let's compare electoral systems like in some State legislatures there are multi-member districts some that are single member districts we can compare and so it's pretty clear that multi-member districts leads to to the increase in diversity of of people who win elections so I would say I'm a fan of it I think multi-member districts are good so I would be opposed to changing that okay anybody else I'll give you I need some time I need some time to do some research my my thought on it is leave it as it is because other than that you know if you put if there are two of us running all right it's two two and one type of deal so the one possibly can have somebody more than one running for that position for those of us that are two and two type of deal he's got a personal opinion you stand on your merits okay it's not a popularity contest and such or somebody that's been here a long time or a newbie or anything of that nature I think what it is is somebody that has to stand on their merits so to leave it the way it is and we all run we're all equal it's perfect we'll take that information back to the committee the committee then makes a decision about which warding they're going to go forth but the process is not done at this committee we then need to present it to town meeting it then goes to Boston to the legislation review and then may or may not be able to be going to uh a full-time election on these changes so and just you know when I was thinking about this too is that if my memory is any good it's the select board and does uh the only ones that have staggered terms per se of more than a possibility of more than one person running for re-election you bought a health your planning board you know Parks and Recreation Library Etc you know I believe they're all separate you know one at a time because of the length of terms my memory is any good some five member boards serve five years some five-member boys serve three and those are the boards that we're looking at right we're also looking at the number of boards should boards continue to be appointed I mean elected or appointed and that is not something that we're looking at at school committee school committee by stature is an electrical position thank you Mrs Brooks appreciate you very welcome yes thank you for all your time thank you so much I would you know it might be helpful I mean it would be very helpful I think to have her you know perspective again just as coming in as political science because we've been looking for you know at the research for some other pieces too and I'll send you if you don't mind I'd like to send you a few questions because again we're struggling with some other you know components of mem like the amount of um people in town meeting you know membership so thank you thanks a favorably all right that being said anything else from the new business okay our next meeting I had sent everyone an email uh regarding uh our next meeting on December 12th if we could start at 5 or 5 30 because I've got my grandson's holiday concert which only which is here but it works for me at seven o'clock does it work there's fine with me five o'clock work for you Chris I know you're coming from born uh yeah that should be okay five o'clock okay so let's do five o'clock boyfriend I thank you very much thank you all right so our next meeting is going to be December 12th at 5 p.m I know we have school choice on the die cut that night so in Capital Improvements in capital Improvement look at that huh money we don't have and hopefully the town does very good can we put a new school or a new roof a new roof wouldn't be bad what's that night too yeah okay that's fine very good all right so our next meeting is December 12th at 5 p.m uh with that the chair we'll entertain a motion to endure into executive session uh for an update pertaining to collective bargaining with Union personnel and to discuss potential litigation so moved moved by Mr Oliver's second by Miss weight on the motion any discussion hearing then roll call vote please miss Gunther John news yes yes [Music] yes yes thank you very much everyone have a Happy Thanksgiving and be safe [Music]
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
so I misspoke so I didn't have my glasses on earlier there's two meetings on my calendar one was an original hold and the other one says game Brew teaching 5 30 teaching pipeline 5 30 to 7 30 in the boardroom but we could stop that at seven if we need to yes of course before 6 30. [Music] person or can we continue our okay so how about that Tuesday the 13th I don't have a board meeting four chairs um what time today [Music] we assume when do you want to have this December 13th work at six o'clock meeting good jobs okay Mr Austin we have negotiations in here until 5 30 that night is that okay it is okay on Tuesday because movies okay that's fine thank you thank you [Music] okay so Finance Tuesday December 13th at 6 pm on Zoom Pipeline and the pipeline is the following day here at Beaver Grove 5 30 to 7 30.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
yeah so if you get one last item that I want to um bring up and um yeah and Mark may join me and the careful Improvement list there's two uh scoreboards one from North and one for South um I estimate 200 000 that might be a little high may not be I know that the schools have been looking into some that are you know quite nice that could cost that much certainly would want the bus for our school district for the right price we talked internally we want to ask the board if you're comfortable with us spending some time looking at POS possible alternate Revenue sources to fund these two projects uh I personally I'm a yes and I will also say that this is something that I mean we so 16 years with the previous board or with the scoreboard 2007 so 16. so you know keeping in mind too that this is something that you're trying to as much as possible have it's going to make sense to buy a nicer you know the better boards because we're going to go another 10 15 years again before protect I mean this this needs to be something that's going to last so it doesn't make sense to cheap out now but if we could get some alternative uh financing resources on this I'm not so I know we've had some discussions about this in the past so some may at this point we're just asking is the board interested in us coming back later and presenting some options around alternative Revenue sources such as advertisement or branding or those kinds of things for uh a scoreboard especially with local business and what it is no I'm yeah we'd have to work through the processes but I'm saying do you want the administration to spend the time to put together something some options to bring the board later this year kind of a delay s it wouldn't be wouldn't be gonna affect that no no that shouldn't you know I we've had discussions in on passports about that I an opportunity for local businesses to potentially help offset costs and it benefits I mean I it seems to me to be a win-win I know we've been concerned in the past about advertising and this sort of thing but there's no agreement these are just this is just do you want to judge options to you with some options anybody who's opposed no no no okay well then the administration will start working on you know bring you what your options are and what we'd have to change in policies and some other what other local districts have done just to give you some ideas of what's out there and then we can kind of shape uh if there is something District 99 would like to do and if so what well wouldn't it be nice to take uh some of that two hundred thousand dollars at salotted and put it towards other things where we don't have opportunities at that sort of with that sort of cost sharing so well let's but then I guess of course in the details so we'll put together the details come back to the board with what some of those details and options are and then we can have a more robust discussion about that once we once we're ready thank you for asking sure yes we're looking to be creative to try to cut that down to one million and just a reminder as the board is aware there's going to be other significant athletic improvements including Fields flooring scoreboard inside the gymnasium spaces and the stadium spaces that are all you know staged to come in the in the near future as all of those current well you might be able to package some of that together you know that would be a possibility so yep for future all right so that's any other questions on thanks Jim hello thank you all right uh Jim has another one for you again hey this is an action item later on with me okay so on November 7th we had our bid opening we were thinking that we'd get bids out early so contractors would be looking to get something before the holidays to get on the schedule for next year uh and overall pretty good uh outside of me reading 92 Beds which took me an hour and 10 minutes pretty good uh 92 bitters which is great and to get that many uh we had 23 different packages so roughly you know four to five per package um I know I listed in my memo all 23 um contractors that were the low acceptable bidders again the timeline for this work is starting in the spring and completing by the start of the 23-24 school year leading up the construction we have closed on the house you already know that and the Tenant that's living there and he's anticipating to be out by March of 23.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
that's kind of been holding true we're back on track I shouldn't say it's always been true but we're back on track to receiving 50 50. and then in the spring usually around spring break is when we get our final numbers and then once I get those I'll report those out thank you all right any questions over there pencil yes Nolan yes Henner yes Rabe yes nothing yes both yes Gorman yes we need a motion to discuss and approve the overnight trip for Central students who participated in the ihsa state cross-country trip in Pekin Illinois second Mr Jessica will update the board on his report later in the meeting alrighty then we will go we'll hold that motion we need to vote oh no you can you can go ahead and prove that because it was already right yeah Nolan yes Center yes Rabe yes a thief yes Paul yes and Phil yes Gorman yes the motion second to discuss and approve the affiliation agreements including the four pack to provide externship opportunities for students seeking Veterinary and assistance certification so moved second memos included in the board packet um one of the agreements is uh established Veterinary Clinic and then we have two new ones that are coming online to provide externship hours for our students all right Penner yes rape yes a thief yes bulk yes oh the second required to discuss and approve the intergovernmental agreement between central 301 and Northern King County Regional location systems so a memo is included in the board packet plus uh director Strow is with us tonight um in our this these are just updates to our original agreement due to changes in the Illinois school code doesn't have anything else to deal with individual member district funding or if it was like that it aligns us with changes to the score code yes and yes Nolan yes Henner yes Gorman yes move on to information items and uh with respect to everyone's time we're going to switch around things we're going to start with uh Illinois State Scholars so assistant principal Gorski is here so I'm happy to report that we have 53 Illinois State Scholars the Illinois State scholar is a list of students selected using the ISAC the Illinois Student Assistance commission and essentially how it's calculated is we give them unweighted GPA test scores from their sat junior year they look at class transcripts and then they upload that all up to the state of Illinois for every student in the public school so roughly speaking you have about 16 or 10 percent of the state for us we have 16 of our class and the highest number that we've ever had so it's a big celebration for them foreign Dr Stern Dr Monaghan our district our building Administration hosted a breakfast last week where we had students come in uh gave them Donuts juice milk had a little breakfast celebration got a group picture with them we sent out a communication through Mr voterwald our director of communications to kind of celebrate that let everybody know and also because just like with our athletes when they qualify for State we do a drumline through our walls or through our Halls we also that'd be weird that would be really impressive some of them yeah some of the football players might be able to do it we do a drum line and walk them through and celebrating them that way at the end of our first hour into our second hour that's awesome for the sake of time I have the names here I can read them or we've already we've signed up communication as well who do we have here which Student Center technique standard yeah attending students stand up there [Music] [Applause] that's it for that part I'll stay up here though yeah the second award we have is for our FFA Award winners so if I could have those students stand up right now we have Samantha Alvarez Olivia Ray gray and Haley poznick so these four students last month when we had our parent teacher conferences they went to Indianapolis to Lucas Oil Stadium to compete with FFA Future Farmers of America competition all four of them standing before you are part of our top three chapter in the country for the model of Excellence award and that is out of 8 000 chapters 650 I believe are chosen to compete and they were awarded the top three Awards that's a huge secondly Samantha Alvarez was named the national award winner and I'm a butcher this probably environmental science in the field of Agriculture for her competition foreign national award winner and also present is Mr Robinson teacher representative and just so you know we did have fun streaming and watching dirt not during every conference but we had him out in the background in some rooms I hope the board will not be upset by that so remind you Brian would you mind coming up and just explaining a little bit about how you got placed third and then a little bit about the environmental science yeah yeah so um a little bit about so they called the model of Excellence award as a part of our national chapter award essentially we take all the activities that we do in a given year it's uh we go by April to April just based off the application and we rank our nine best activities and then we put down an application there's a rubric that is scored and then they choose out of that one start to start in a three-star chapter from there we get a top 10 finalists award that's when these students found out in August that we were going to be a part of national commission and that competition from there we have a 15-minute presentation and then a 15-minute round of interview questions afterwards too talking about a little bit about our chapters history some of the activities that we've done why we choose certain things you know to fulfill certain needs in the community and then they rank them from there and we were ranked obviously in the top three then we went to National Convention and competed on stage in what they call the finals Hall stage uh and in front of a ballroom full of people and then they announced the top one unfortunately we weren't first place but they don't announce second or third um so we'll we'll go with we were second place right so yeah that's that's a great thing right and then um to go on about the the agriscience fair um this is actually Samantha's second year doing this um last year she was the national finalist as well too and uh they she unfortunately didn't win last year but she came back uh better and never and then uh competed and they announced the top 10 on stage so it was kind of a live event from 60 000 people Lucas Oil Stadium where the Colts play and uh we kind of kept going down and I think we got to like fourth place and we couldn't hear quite well on the stage you know we're like is it us is it now you know and then somebody else step forward we're like oh we're still in it right and then eventually obviously Samantha's name was announced as being the national winner so it's our first national winner that we've had for FFA and um obviously she was a part of the Moe team too so she had uh you know obviously a very good convention overall for herself and for our chapters so something to be proud of so that's awesome and I got two future FFA members here today all right we have Athletics and activities hey good evening um again long time listener I think this is fifth or sixth time calling again just want to congratulate FFA and Mr Robinson on the supremacy that they achieved out at Indianapolis with with FFA they're all the great kids and seeming involved in a lot of different things and again the Illinois State scholar breakfast that uh Mr podgorski and the rest of the administration put on was phenomenal uh with pancakes you made secret ingredient cinnamon there you go so congratulations and great work with that I'm excited to be here to introduce um four of our our athletes submitted to uh state for various activities the first two I'd like to uh kind of showcase here are two cross-country Runners the first one is a Ryan crease Ryan is a uh a junior who went down a state this year I think you'd be the first one to tell you may not go into the way you wanted to but to watch him run and compete all year and that despite the conditions down at state was uh was phenomenal great kid uh great cross-country and even better kids so uh Ryan if you want to stand up [Applause] uh the next Runner we have is uh sophomore Abby Burke Abby again was another one when you watched his beginning year you know depending on the event or the meet we were at watching her kind of improve and then watching her run down at state in the conditions that they had I think it probably was one of your best races you've ever ran um at the end of the day but I believe tops give me top 60 in the state for uh for 2A girls so I almost said 30 so it was going to be even better but thanks for catching me uh but again if you were uh if you were out or around Detwiler park I think it started with 60 and rain and then it ended up being 30 with you know nor'easters and they ran through it and found a way to make it work so happy if you wouldn't mind standing up congratulations we're going to transition it's kind of like cross country but in a pool we have yeah Hannah Johnson Hannah Johnson is a sophomore swimmer for us we do have a few individuals that compete in swimming Hannah was out at the Saint Charles East sectional and qualified in the 500 freestyle I don't know if you've ever seen the 500 freestyle but it's quite a few down and backs in a pool and uh she did a great job going down to the natatorium and competing with the likes of Barrington uh Hinsdale a lot of the other you know bigger schools but she did a great job representing Central in the 500 so Hannah a few weeks thank you I'd also like to recognize the coaches I know coach Neil and coach Morgan are not here but I do have uh coach arneson who decided to help out with swimming and uh between the Fox Valley Conference the ihsa sectional and down the state she did a great job kind of organizing helping out these young ladies get there so we get up and then we do have one more I apologize I as I see him sitting here um Angie's got a brother Danny yeah Danny Danny qualified for State at the junior high or at the middle school with CMS and he made his way down there so if you'd like to stand up to him I'd like to congratulate all these individuals on a great season again thank the board for all the support I know the Falls done we transitioned right into the winter and uh I think that that's something I can fill in on the winter stuff after we recognize them but thank you appreciate it [Applause] great we'll hop back up to the beginning to uh with our enrollment report for coming out tonight you're welcome to stay but I also understand all right again thank you for coming out so our enrollment report is attached of course in the board packet kind of ties in with part of the reason why we talked a little bit later on about um our focus group meetings as well but our enrollment report shows that from this point last year we're up 135 students so our district continues to grow across all grade levels and there you can see in our schools year over year on the right hand side our growth has occurred Howard B Thomas shows a reduction but that's due to the boundary shift uh that that occurred at the start of the school year but you can see that um all of our schools uh continue to grow in enrollment those folks missed out foreign so with the focus group we ran uh three focus groups uh we ran two that were in person and then we ran a Google meets uh kind of online version last week with that we had 315 families that signed up for those three focus groups and about 164 that actually attended so a pretty good showing for us is Central we don't generally get a lot of people that come out so that was a good thing in looking at those numbers uh we have almost everybody said that they would like to see us move forward with the high school New High School in one of the other options that we had provided the other big piece that I think the Board needs to talk about a little bit is we had a lot of questions about is there a reason why we're waiting until next spring to put on the Belt can we get it on this spring so we did check with PMA which is kind of our Financial Consultant who's helping us a lot with this and then she did say she did fill we could still make that deadline as part of our survey that we put out to the individuals that showed up at each of those focus groups we did push a survey out and asking for frequently asked questions which we're filling out right now to make sure we get that back out there but we also ask if they'd be willing to either assist or lead a referendum committee if we so went that way and we did get quite a few people that were willing to step up and do that because if you're aware if once the bond votes if you were to vote to go forward with a referent immune no longer can participate in actually doing their in front of work and so as an individual in the community you can talk about you really can as a board and we cannot do that as Administration either so we do need outside members to assist us in being able to help that we can go knock on doors and give them Pampas but we can only say please vote we can't say anything else or do anything provide sexual information about the referendum so we would need community members to assist so that's something the board can consider in talking with Tammy from PMA we wanted to make sure could we even hit that deadline what that looked like for our bond debts and where we're currently sitting she felt like we could restructure some bonds to make sure that we could go ahead and move forward should it pass that we can go ahead and move forward and begin the construction to get out a little bit earlier in talking to our construction management firm as well as Larson and Darby our Architects you're looking at around two years to two and a half years to actually put up a brand new high school the other big piece that came out of the focus groups and all three focus groups is one of our recommendations was to have the current High School change over to a 7 8 Center it currently is not large enough to house six seven and eight Beyond about 4 years in terms of our production at three percent if you look at the enrollment last year a little higher that's actually a little lower 7.3 if you look at our school report card a percent increase last year this year we're on target for that three percent which is what we're basically saying we're running at is about a three percent increase uh if we were to do that one of the things we talked about and we did look at our current dollars that we have back in terms of um you know our growing fund balances we do believe we could pay cash out of our growing fund balances to put up the 20 classroom edition only at the high school if you recall uh part of the focus group we looked at what would be the cost of a 20 classroom Edition plus an auditorium a parking lot at the high school to go ahead and get us to like 1900 students which wouldn't get us out too far but would at least take care of this if we couldn't get the high school approved you know to get a referendum passed so we could put the 20 class Edition on for around 8 to 11 million is the estimated cost to do that we do have enough in our fund balance We Believe to go ahead and begin to do that to put that 20 classroom Edition on only we could shell out the top and that would say was somewhere between three to four million if we wanted to just do 10 classrooms shell out it would save roughly three to four million I did do an estimate of just a three percent is increase over time it really would be beneficial just to get her done at the 11 million dollars it's much more cost effective and much more fiscally responsible I believe for the board to move forward in that direction versus piece Milling that into two sections does that have to be on the because we have dollars we could begin that if you recall um we're at 90 percent right now in terms of our total rooms for capacity and when I say 90 that means if I could take all of our students and just evenly disperse them across all seven buildings we're at 90 90 percent uh we have many high schools the lake is at 100 plus but we're definitely using those mobile units uh CT is currently at 95 percent knowing that most of our growth is coming into either CT or hbt uh CT is going to definitely be in trouble uh we're gonna have to do a boundary shift or something if we don't figure out something to do with that if we could get the high school going I did talk to Josh Campanelli who was with our construction management firm he felt like going out for a bid would be in the fall not this not now in the spring because he feels like we get better pricing people are looking for Winter works we might be able to get a better bid price in the fall go ahead and start construction sometime in the spring if you recall our high school has been going to be at capacity next year so we hit it we we have about five rooms right now um room for our kids will be able to be creative next year we should be temporary we should be good next year about six kids over our 100 capacity so I think we're okay there we can manage that one more year in though we're graduating another small class coming out of the junior year and a much bigger class coming in as eighth grade is for a freshman year so the following year we'd be in trouble we believe we'd be close to having at least a portion Edition you know at least 10 classrooms if we had to the bottom section and maybe it shelled out to be able to move some kids and we could still manage to get them here without mobile units currently our estimated cost for mobiles was do you call it that was Dana at the high school I think it was about four million total we were going to need though so if you take the cost of us to put in Mobile units at the high school to be able to accommodate for the growth and you deduct that out of that acre or to 11 million dollars for the addition it's much more fiscally responsible to do that addition and then it would allow us one of the things that our focus group was asking for was that six eight building everybody goes there it would allow us then to go out quite a while uh for that six eight Senator to remain together as a full Middle School that would allow CMS which could become an Early Childhood Center it could become maybe even early childhood K which would be would give us some space at the elementary as well as would open up pkms which then gives us another school for elementary so that pretty much takes care of us as we start to roll out to the high school but we still have some time frame in between uh we're going to figure out something to do with our elementary and we do have the mobile units they are small classrooms and we're hearing from staff but I hope to get out there I'm actually going to run a I'm going to ask the fifth grade teachers to come on a Google meet to talk about some of their concerns it does sound like there's some concerns out there relevant to just capacity Comfort some of those things out I mean I think the fact that at HBC they had to do the Halloween stuff in the cafeteria because they didn't think there was enough from any sort of room to have the 20 21 I think kids might we have in each are 20 or 22 at hbt but they just didn't give us enough room to even have like a party to even like apps that stuff up while we're in the cafeteria not a lot of extra space obviously for there's that the teacher especially right I have a question if we got this on the referendum for the spring and for some reason it didn't pass could we still do it again yeah it gives us three but what I call three bites at the Apple so you have this spring and then then following one year later we have a spring election then we have the fall presidential election so you kind of get three bites at the Apple uh to continue to go at it um if we can't get it you know passed for the spring it'd be a it'd be a tight timeline for us this spring but definitely something that we get community members asking about that we could consider but I think that's something you'll want to kind of talk about figure out you know what you're thinking about that because it will look to vote for something maybe in December if that's what you want to do otherwise we could push it off so we could have more conversation December look for an action item or I thought we just opened up now for some conversations I was a little intrigued I didn't think so I was there Tuesday on Thursday I didn't think that it was mentioned and Tuesday night a couple times about the Middle School in a single building it was definitely after I talked to you after Thursday nights I didn't stay for the discussion that night but obviously it was more prominent even the room that I was in that night we combined a bunch of those different things together um so I thought that was interesting um have we heard the same complaints about PK and CMS so when this was done seven years ago six years ago because I wasn't on the board because there'd be essentially the same thing but flopped right right now we don't have one big Middle School we have an eighth grade Center in sixth seven which is like a Sixth Grade Center and a seven eight right so do we feel like this is being maybe brought up differently not because there's actually an option and people say or do we hear the same thing when this is being discussed six years ago when the middle schools were separated well remember what happened in our district was when we opened up perennials we opened up as a six eight Center no I knew we had two six eight and what happened was because of enrollment growth we ended up seeing programs being um kind of we didn't have enough staff we were shifting staff all the time so it wasn't good for the morale of our staff and programming at SEPTA Middle School doing our bondering and also our size we could figure we couldn't get we couldn't make everybody go to PKS it just wasn't an option it just wasn't an option because we really had to put just eighth grade at CMS they were not happy they were still not happy because I remember Lane moving them as much as we could so there was still they had to go to CMS still in the community because my kids were that age when they all got moved so they were still closer people would have liked it all did it all together I think if given our choice but everyone understood we had no option I mean eight to eight to 11 million is very different than the 54 million when it was including everything else like that's mind-boggling to me based on what that 54 or whatever that was well I think it's because the auditorium you know a lot of uh site you know site work that had to be done without the bigger football right you had to do something with the parking we had to do something else with Middle School eliminates the need to change anything for parking right obviously correct so I mean that's huge no parking and no but you still have cafeteria issues we still have cafeteria issues we have to figure out because right now we're at capacity at the high school but the community members liked the idea of when they're looking at the facility of our current high school if it was at all possible to house six eight together that would be their preference that was very clearly stated Thursday evening and in our response is back from surveys because what we had done is we talked the night of the focus group but then we gave them some time to think about it and then respond back to us in a survey independently with some other questions and when we saw the questions are the responses coming back we saw six eight a little bit more coming through on those survey results and what we heard even in the evening presentations or on the Google meet so I mean I think one of the biggest questions we're going to have is that Bond Levy doesn't drop off and we add something else on top of it what is the restructuring of the bonds potentially look like so there isn't such a huge Spike for these for even just the one one tax year or two taxes Tammy it won't be a spike we can push it out we can push it out so basically she'll refund the bonds a little bit kind of stretch it out a little bit so it's going to cost us more right over time because you have interest you have to pay but she can restructure it in a way that we would stay with what we've talked about currently with our increase in the overall tax rate I I would still be interested to see what would happen if we just if let's say we go in April and it were to pass first pass which based on the feedback that we and you all got I mean it seems like at least the people that participated are clearly very interested in that so by that's the issue so we asked her to give us 195 million uh one of the things we said was that we really wanted to say what if we only gave us 20 million the first year because we have to go all the site that's right all of that stuff so if we can do the site work first and the 20 million which is a lot less money than take because remember we have five years to expend this and so as you get that you can to take it out over those five years and kind of keep only take it when you need it so we'd want to work closely with our construction company as well as our architect to kind of lay out what's that going to look like so we can take lower Bond debt push it out as far as we can but still keep working on that building to get it completed she felt we could do a fairly much you know pretty much same for our tax payers but it does definitely pushes out a little bit more and will cost us as a district because of the interest so that includes refinancing the current debt and then just structuring the different debt not all of it I don't know if it's going to be really refined she's basically going to just restructure and pull it down and extend the time frame okay kind of extending the debt there's a couple but you have to go out and sell the bonds again or you just no I think like the 2013 bonds there's two big payments left she was just kind of spread them out into like she'll take instead of 8 million maybe do like five million and move three million okay three years a little bit more somewhat of what the new Bonds were and then the five years we've got to spend I mean is that second have dozen the other way if it were to pass and we just had bigger tax bills for two years and then we went back down exactly I think we're trying to keep I mean we could I mean if that's the directions important wanted to go but as we were talking about how great we're trying to keep field we're trying we're trying to keep the tax rate as flat as possible I mean I understand that well remember we have a five percent cap that's on our operating funds that then you have that bonded interest dollars so when we're talking about taxes if the value of your home goes up taxes go up just because the value of your home we're talking just about that bonded interest debt that we're taking out that we can say this is going to be how much this is going to cost you but we can't even guess what the crystal ball is going to be in terms of what the value of your homes will go up and what that does to your tax rate so it's important for our taxpayers when we explain that but it's important for taxpayers to understand that differential which and what could happen with their tax rate now they're inversely proportional yeah change that and they're going to follow and um families with kids versus without strict do we know that because I know we did a lot you know there was a very targeted way the last protected people you know we had a lot of information about all kinds of stuff like I know birth rates in our district so we we know what the birth rates for our ZIP codes are but even like 610 64 really picks up as part of no 60 yeah 610 224.
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I'll have my office in an invitation to it we will have sexy beverages
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in addition to that I attended the village plan commission two weeks ago I believe where they voted to approve this project and move it towards Council and that's for December 7th and we're expecting that to be approved by Council as well so we did a scope review and all of these met our proposals again I just want to go over the budget with you um I know that that was presented uh maybe a month ago where we had 4.9 and some change uh that included the purchase of the home so this bid with our costs for architectural construction and the cost for the home were slightly under a right at our targeted budget number that said in these contracts all 23 of them I put in a mount that equaled 360 000 which is 10 percent of the overall Construction to be in there as well for contingency so with a 5 000 square foot building add-on in a parking lot I certainly think that we won't even remotely go through that so I feel confident that we'll have some money come back so we'll be under budget but um all in all I I think pretty good and so tonight out of these 23 vendors the aggregate amount is three million five hundred seventy nine thousand one hundred thirty seven dollars and that's what I'm asking you to prove so that for me the shocking thing is just knowing that site utilities and excavation are is the most expensive part of this project okay okay and and that's a lot of that's I'm assuming some things we need to do with storm water well if you've been out there there's a pitch plus we did some borings and we have we're gonna have to put a lot of Stone in so we already know that and I'm glad that we know that's why I do those testings here too so we don't start digging and say oh my gosh you know where am I going to find another 500 000 uh so we're we've we've got to level it out because there's such a pitch going from South north per Village so that's part of it and some of the stone will be every bit of six to seven feet that we're gonna have to add so that is a lot and this yeah and I I know there was there was like a strike at a quarries not too long ago that drove up the price of stone and and so we're feeling some of that I'm sure still um yeah and I did see that that um what there were are there two bids in here that were from um companies in our district I think more than that more than two I know the electric is Richmond and signage yeah with Signs Now basically from Ogden Avenue um but a lot of the neighboring ones there's not many that are really far away right but it's nice to see some of the some of the money going to to businesses in our district so I'm happy for that so if my memory serves me correctly we had a lot of trouble with the ground when we built out t99 there was chemicals it was like a lot of chemicals yeah that was in the back of the building yeah do you remember so we got all that out of there there were no unsuitables in the borings that I took on the side of the building because obviously we're tearing that out as well uh so we could put the building there uh so it was all in the back we took care of that those came out good the ones on the side came out coated everything on this property came out pretty good this property has just always been a house it wasn't industry like but just imagine what the number would have been like for saying improvements if oh all right any other questions for Jim this is an action item later on this evening thank you thank you for your requests we've received them we've responded to them and as always they're posted up on our website so we'll move on to the consent agenda um before I ask the board for the motion I would just like to once again recognize District 99 Education Foundation I believe there's six grants in here yes there are let me see I got the interesting total um six thousand dollars in Grants yeah but they're but they're six I think it's like five teachers six grants yeah yeah so I just like to once again recognize the foundation and thank them yeah they're being so supportive does any other member want to pull anything out of the consent agenda for discussion hearing none we need a motion for the Board of Education to approve the consent agendas presented which includes the Personnel report leave of absence classified transfer of position classified appointments classified the Personnel report retirement certified resignations classified the financial Pages the intergovernmental agreement for reimbursement of nursing services with Hinsdale Township High School District 86 student tours and acceptance of donation for the District 99 education hi Chris it was Chris yeah I know well you know okay okay Espinoza Jerry pavisich aye Joanna Vasquez Drexler aye Mike Davenport aye Cheryl Fuller aye aye Jenny hagstrom aye and Nancy cupka aye incentives approved we'll move into the recommendations for Action first we need a motion for the Board of Education to approve contracts for the t99 build out 2022-2023 to the specified vendors for the aggregate amount of three million 579 3 million 579 thousand one hundred thirty seven dollars so moved second Mike and Joanna thank you Mike Davenport aye Joanna Vasquez Drexler aye Christopher Espinoza aye Cheryl Fuller aye Jenny hagstrom aye pavasich she stepped out and Nancy cupka aye the question carries next we need a motion for the Board of Education to hold the December 5th 2022 board meeting entirely in closed session for the purpose of the appointment employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal of specific employees specific individuals who serve as independent contractors in a park recreational or educational setting or specific volunteers of the district or legal counsel for the district including hearing testimony on a complaint lodged against an employee a specific individual who serves as an independent contractor in a park recreational or educational setting or a volunteer of the district or against legal counsel for the district to determine its validity so moved Mike and Joanna thank you very much Mike Davenport aye Joanna Vasquez Drexler aye Christopher Espinoza aye Cheryl Fuller aye aye Jenny hagstrom aye and Nancy cupka hi the motion just as a reminder to the board um it is entirely in closed session so it is not a meeting open to the public nor will there be any action taken at that meeting okay we'll move on to the second reception of visitors this is the second reception of visitors which is intended for audience members to address the board on any topic pertaining Community High School District 89 comments will be limited to three minutes to provide all visitors and equal opportunity to address the board individuals needing more time should submit their thoughts and writing to the board secretary Mrs Knightdale visitors addressing the board need to submit a come and slip to the board secretary yeah that one will be invited to the microphone prior to addressing the board audience members should State their full name the proceedings are being tape recorded for the purpose of producing accurate meeting minutes and they are being streamed the board's presiding officer which is me reserves the right to modify these protocols if circumstances warrant audience observation of these protocols is appreciated all right we have one comment slip for Laura hoist good evening everybody and thank you for giving me the chance to speak my name is Laura hoyce I want to First say how happy I am for the boys cross country team that they took third in state I see them running all the time from North High School past my house and they are charged up and working really hard so that is great news thank you for that I'd like to ask a series of six questions tonight that I'll follow up with an email I understand that in these settings there's not back and forth dialogue but these are things that are on my mind and and I think many parents and students Minds number one what is District 99's plan to improve student math and reading scores I believe during the pandemic the state reporting of District scores was waived or postponed and um would like to know whether those school performance grades will now be back up post-pass pandemic I guess that's question number two number three it's been said that JB pritzker and the State Health Department may be planning to impose covid-19 vaccinations as a mandatory requirement for students to attend school this is perhaps under discussion phase but it has been brought up and on next door neighbor I saw one parent receive a comment oh no please be assured that that's not going to happen but in any event we're pleading with this District to please get that word out as soon as someone hears whether that is a true statement that those vaccines may become part of the mandatory vaccination schedule for students number four have District 99 administrators and superintendent been fully vaccinated and boosted to date a lot of information has come out since that occurred equal to teachers and number five if a mandatory vaccination requirement is imposed on students will the same requirement be imposed on teachers administrators and the superintendent um I I don't understand that's yet to be determined if such a thing would come to pass and finally has District 99 continued with white supremacy and anti-racist teachings and classes classrooms at Downers Grove North and South as they did last year or has this been continued on further consideration based on the objections that we made in the past that's all I have as I said I'll follow up with an email looking for answers to those questions I do appreciate you thinking about those thank you okay no additional comments okay moving on to Communications and announcements uh report of the legislative legislative education network of this page I don't think there's anything from the last no we met with local legislators yeah I wrote that down that was November or October that was since the last time we met yeah I think I already read read yeah but maybe and really uh they don't expect the veto session to be much going on so we'll Circle back uh lame duck session will be the next time when we could have fireworks happen with the legislature excessive okay um adds acid we continue to discuss the impact of lower enrollment on tuition costs concerning Financial structure deficit and it's a Cooperative cost and the sustainability of current programs and services at present enrollment levels the board was provided with an enrollment report that tracked the enrollment numbers from the school year 2018-2019 to the current school year District administrators will be provided with a weekly enrollment dashboard report for the reviews starting in mid-november so that may have already started because we're behind teams uh the dashboard will assist with conversations around District needs and how sansad can serve each student and district sassad will monitor actual and anticipated student enrollment referrals and anticipated needs to help facilitate the discussion for staffing needs and program efficiencies before the January budget meeting Terry um well as we just approved the six thousand dollars in Grants and um so that's what we were working on and we're going to be doing some may and may is mental health month and we're going to be working with a group called Grit 2.
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except picks up Elgin and so when it picks up we're not sure what piece that's picking up so I can look at overall birth rates that are coming through our district from kindergarten up but I don't really know what the percent of student age children are as captions see people but there's a lot of people with that yes and that would be my life there's the information would be out there yeah for long enough in order and then you have the people that do go folks we know not many people going forward in April the people that do are going to see 195 million dollars and be like what the heck is that and wording it and then what happens if it doesn't pass do you just put a bad taste of all those people I mean I don't know well I think if if the board so desired to move forward our recommendation would be we'd be going out to do focus groups at every building with every PTO to try to get in every single building in the evening to me to see if you could connect with each building separately versus how we did it with the whole Community as well as we're going to try to do some kind of a podcast so that we get information on our website on that we're going to try to do some kind of we're putting our presentation out there it's already out there pushing it out through parent Square it's about you know it's been on Facebook so we know it's been seen through Facebook people took pictures but there's always people that are going to not know but I do think you have to do a lot more foot work in terms of making sure you're getting out to every single building we did that when we did the last rough run and we went to every building we spoke with knocked on doors so all of that would still need to be done yeah um it just been a lot shorter time frame ultimately and we did have numerous people say that they'd be willing to read or volunteer for a referendum committee and should the board decide they'd like to place us on the ballot it's really energizing those folks and then that means weekends walking neighborhoods and getting out factual information to people so they can make an important decision and then they cost money to do it too yes we need somebody to help us with that someone you need funding because I know the foundation but I know how much less but but what you said is true you need to be able to get information out to people factual information and you know through various forms and it's just it's just another amendment that was on oh my God that wording was so confusing and I knew what it was about people don't know you know it's really no matter how hard you try to educate the best you can yeah what do you need from us this evening nothing this is information for you but I think um definitely you don't want to be thinking where you want to sit for December so we know we want to put an information or action item again on December yeah I just looked at the votes from the year that the three of you were elected so 784.
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and um working on some webinars and different activities and we're bringing in District 58 and we're going to be seeing what 66 and 68 have to say and bring some of those students in because a lot of it is Junior High and um you know if we can you know maybe catch students that are having issues and worried about things at that age then it's easier for us to you know deal with some of those situations when they get to the high school level and also we've decided that our next year on the foundation we are going to be focusing on building our board we need more people on the board so if anyone wants to volunteer for that you can talk to Julia Beckman and um it's all on the website and we want to make a plan for our board and where we're going to be going in the future so we're going to be focusing on that for the next year so um you know we we do need help right now we only have seven members on our board and um to do some of the activities that we enjoy doing we need we need help so I'm going to be very honest if you have someone yes reach out to Julia she'll be talking with them and explaining what their responsibilities would be well we have no deadline on that oh yeah yeah it's all on the website let's try to get it yeah yeah so um uh you know if anybody knows anyone who would be willing to step up and and that I know it's a tough time for that and um so we're really not bad people we're kind of fun and we usually have cake or cupcakes every meeting well we do we do our thing Chris iasb yeah so I attended the delegate conference the assembly this weekend the highlights were Simon kemporth Jr the president was re-elected as president of the ISB Mark harms was the voted as a vice president so both serving uh there were in the continued to serving all the recommendations that we looked at by the ISB passed accordingly based on the recommendations so good amount of dialogue back and forth there was some issues with some of the rules during the convention there was a procedural like back and forth where some of the members had issue with figuring out how to how to vote on certain things but other than that it was a pretty smooth conference did anybody want to share anything they learned at the conference I will oh yeah you want to go ahead Terry well well it's not our muscle for it yeah I mean does uh so the first General Session um I was uh that was pretty terrific um seiku Andrews spoke he talked a lot about yes and um you know it's good to say yes but then you know and here's what I'm going to do here's what I can do talk about telling stories to Foster commonalities and purpose and identify the things that Bond us together so that second generation the second General Session does anybody else who was there want to say something about that yeah yeah um that was Amanda Ripley and she talked about conflict entrepreneurials entrepreneurs and uh who basically As I understood it people who like to humiliate others for their own gains and humiliation and fear are at the root of most conflict so talked about dealing with that and encouraging empathy and identifying the root cause of a conflict and not overly generalizing about people who you don't understand and think differently than you you know we all have a tendency to do that and you really she made a point how you really can't generalize about 75 million people you don't agree with you know I mean all on you know the country is pretty split and you know those are it's so that's a big mistake we make uh what else do I want to say i i attended a few I attended several several workshops one about post-election covert recovery um talking about dealing with uh more issues with unfunded mandates funding for special ed outplacement some people brought up issues with supports for migrants in their communities and what a what a what a tremendous challenge that is and how wonderful it is for the communities you know that are stepping up but one of the things I didn't understand is that that these migrants have to be here for 150 days before they're allowed to work but the money runs out before that 150 days gets here and there's people in the community that would love to hire so you know it's so it's it's a real it's a real problem um and uh yeah so uh also uh the state superintendent Ayala was actually in in attendance at that meeting didn't uh didn't uh participate in it at all but they acknowledged that she apparently she just announced her retirement so it'll be interesting to see um you know who lines up to fill that spot so um I attended another Workshop called you can't make this stuff up so it's a legal review about crazy things that happen and uh and uh another session about right what you write and say may be used against you you were in that one you want to say a few things about that one oh I don't mean to ban this on the spot I keep I did keep one thing from that that I wanted to yeah it was an open meetings act review one thing I just I took away from it they said in the words of Norman Schwarzkopf the truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do the hard part is doing it and so you know generally um if you think you really shouldn't be putting something in writing the answer is usually pretty clear too yeah yeah I was um I was at a legislative Round Table um employment shortage came up there's 2040 open positions this year twice as many support staff openings open yeah 2040.
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okay that's how many but how many people came out of yep I'll look it up it could come back to the The Border's information in December like Dr Megan said but January is that when you have to remember January is would be the cutoff the January board meeting would be the cutoff date for the board to make a decision no it's too late yeah once again we have to get the language and everything to go into the paper so we'd need a decision Into Summer yeah so what's the time just timing I think um it's just making sure I mean I think honestly it's very much making sure we get out to every building in the evening trying to make sure we're getting as many parents you know educated as possible pushing out through parent Square you know our um information that we have whether it be the PowerPoint that we have having them reach out to us making sure they're listening to our podcast so they can at least hear it and then any questions to bring our way so there was a change like when is the when is the final date because I was under the impression talking to Tammy did something change we used to have to go to Chapman and Cutler but remember you got to get I mean you can't but then turn that around in two days you know I mean it'd be a really tight yeah I'd probably err on the side of conservatives we just have like one specific thing to do if we decide a lot to get done it's a lot to get done four months yeah because I know there were 9 000 votes because it was presidential over and over voting history targeted who you're going to talk to based on a bunch of money to do all the thing that was that's a lot the foundation gave ten thousand dollars last time we did not use a consultant although we received some materials from them that we utilized but most of the workers going through the foundation and the parents that volunteered for that the other ones they put everything together based on what we received from that um well there was training though because I remember being at that job we brought in a consultant for a one evening training and I maintained all those records so I have all of you you do that I do my other question is where did all that information I think yes I do we look at a field house and you look at how what the power the perception the community was for how that was going to help my five-year-old oh yeah yeah or my senior I think that this is at least something that everybody has the potential to switch schools everything's pivoting so I think it affects everybody more people and especially our people with younger kids more immediately so I think there's I would assume to be more buying especially given again what my experience was on the Tuesday and Thursday lots of people zero five age zero five kids like why would we do anything else right right there was only one person that said not a in either classroom I agree but this is my point is if we had 780 votes two years ago the point is we know there'd be more with a referendum but we also I think the targeted nature of that and the passive Nature by which we still got 160 families people whatever that is in the building just by do you want to participate all of a sudden if there is a goal not just at what do you think but if there's a goal based on the motivation that you saw that I felt in those rooms I think that you know we could harness that effectively I guess is a way that's the way we choose that I think all families are seeing the crunch of the right it's affecting everybody in every age differently right absolutely right building so I mean they see it too yeah it's not the in it's not the people as students that I would be concerned it's the people without students that are the ones that work that you want to make sure can get educated enough to still be in favor of it and realize the advantage of us doing this even though they won't be directly affected and that was my point one retired teacher who's reached out to me yeah and has reaching out to a lot of retired folks too to educate them no we believe that's an important facet as well you know what what does it mean to the overall long-term health of the overall Community by having um strong facilities in your school and really I would want to know it'd be great to have Township data like of the 780 those I mean if this is Burlington Township is let's say 60 people mostly all that is coming done from the Elgin Corridor were you most densely populated that's less concerning if more than half of those votes are from our rural well they're more likely so I think that's I think that is really would be really interesting to have I don't know what you can aggregate publicly as far as what data anybody can go to the county how many people voted in this election from this year to use that information so you skip yeah so last time we had a referendum we actually targeted based on voting history yeah you should kind of decide or get everybody's gut today because if we vote on this in December we have work to do we have work to do now to December that could yeah okay you can reach out to those people who volunteer and say I think the board said they're going to put this on and vote on it next month they're planning on voting I mean they all kind of feel this way I don't know if we all do but that's what we should say now and then you know we can get that ball rolling are they serious can they come to the meeting do they can't you know what I mean yeah you think that question is a little premature we have some people say absolutely no interest at all we have other said absolutely I'm willing to help we can't lean and we have other ones that said yes love to lead so that was our question yeah are you willing to lead are you willing to participate or no interest yeah and then no we and we got quite a few no's but we had quite a few I mean I was surprised many leaders we got and yeses so yeah I mean you don't need I mean you need people but you don't need like a thousand yeah yeah I would say we probably have what 40 50.
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in the state of Illinois and then there's an Ever decreasing number of teacher graduates and uh and then it was also pointed out that I mean there's employment shortages in every industry um so it's this isn't unique to schools right now however this is a problem that's been you know in the making for several years and and I think these last few years have really exacerbated that that problem and then uh third General Session oh Terry and I were at that you want to say a few things there about Chef Jeff he was it was great Jeff um is a self-made man and uh by the time he was 19 he had sold enough drugs to be a millionaire and um a little bit after that the FBI came knocking at his door Ten Years to Life and 10 years to life in prison and uh one of the things that he said is he was very fortunate to have gone to a federal penitentiary rather than State because he was there with a lot of white-collar criminals um you know the Bernie madoffs of this world and um he learned a lot and how to um present himself in a in a better Manner and he found that he loved cooking and so he worked his way up from um you know the sous chef all the way up to the executive chef at the Bellagio in um Vegas and um he wrote a book he had Will Smith produced his movie and um and he was on Oprah which was the highlight of his life he's now 58 years old and it just went to show that you have to get that out of your mind how you were brought up in certain situations and how he improved himself and um he even learned to walk differently so that he could present himself um to I'm going to say backers probably because and now he has four um shows on the Food Network and just a really Dynamic guide and he's helping um kids in the South Central LA area find what they need to in themselves and passions and um so just taking kids that are getting suspended and put in alternate alternative programs he's one of those alternative programs so he's really yeah doing a lot for the community yeah and it was just really very inspiring and um what he said was those closest to the problem are closest to the solution so you know he felt it was incumbent upon himself to you know he'd been given this gift and um so and he started he opened up by apologizing you know for the harms that he he did I mean that he he recognized that and owns that and it feels it's his life work to to try to help others not yeah not follow that same path and and he also talked a lot about focusing on strengths instead of weaknesses you know and how some students no matter what are just never going to be great at math but that shouldn't hold them back from being able to get into a good culinary program or something like that which is you know um something I I really struck me because I thought here was another example of how you know we you know just using you know we had a question tonight about sat tests again right so um you know we spent so many years teaching to the test and trying to and making that be the that's the that's the Benchmark and well the fact it is you know we all have different strengths and weaknesses and and and to hold some student back just because they didn't do so well on a test doesn't mean they can't be incredibly successful so we've talked about this before but he was just another he was he's a living example of that um but uh that that was the third General Session it was so it's a really wonderful well worth very inspirational so yes yeah thank you anybody else I went to one about amplifying student voices with seats at the board table that I thought was really interesting there was a panel of students and teacher or staff from Oswego High School District and they had um they have done a lot of you know they've expanded not only the role of the student board members but they've created a student advisory councils at at each of their schools and then those students sort of you know report to the student board members what their concerns are and they they also then on some occasions let the students vote at the at the board meetings although the vote doesn't necessarily count it's it's good to see sometimes what the students perspective is on some of the issues that we vote on um and so they just did they did a lot they focused on um I think they called it ylpar which is youth-led participation in research and tried to you know look at things like mental health sexual harassment between students and school they do a lot of surveys and gathered data so it was just really interesting to see if looking at an expanded role or you know even giving more roles to the students in the schools and bringing it to the board many others I'll go ahead I just wanted to say one thing is I think one of the most important things about the conference is is that we get to know each other much better you know we we break bread together we we talk about things that are not board related we talk about you know our families and our what we're doing and I think that um that is one of the most important things that we come away with and I think all of us you know enjoy talking to each other and and that sort of thing so I just wanted to say that as a yes I enjoyed being with you as well too thank you and those of you who missed it we did have milk and cookies Saturday night so that was kind of a nice thing just us so it's good I'm sure I'll hit something oh yeah yeah okay I went to a session about kind of digital organization so you know the administrative part of being a board member right so beyond just all the reading but how to organize and it was all around Google kind of how to use Google because we use Gmail and how to organize create folders so I thought that was a good one because we do have an administrative piece of theater board member too with all the emails we get and emails about different subject matters so I enjoyed that one in fact it sounded as if in the room quite a few people were struggling with different parts of managing our kind of administrative usual life so one of the things I learned is that could say I kind of know what you say things on our phones but you can open those a few clothes the same on the phone the problem was I I always had the hardest time trying to find it where is it where is it yeah kind of learned how to even file it once I did it kind of stored manage it from my phone as well as well Place we've got to get them quickly from my from the mobile so I enjoyed that one I my time is a question and it's one that I attended the international Global scholar and I believe it's it's a certificate um I think Naperville is a 203 uh is doing this and it's kind of similar to something we have here where the students work on their own projects this is like an independent study they pick any topic that they want it's their responsibility to contact two experts in their field um like one girl was very interested in the Ebola virus she contacted um experts who were from Africa and South America and she went to work on it now she's going to and she did everything herself but and she even went to Africa for this when she is finished with this and it is supervised by a teacher throughout the whole thing but they do all the work they just have the support of the teacher but when she graduates she gets a certificate certificate and she can go on to work now she is going to opt not to go to college first but she's going to go to Africa to work and um I I thought it was really impressive I don't know intend to do something like that here but it seemed like a very worthwhile certificate to have for someone who does not want to go college but they even can go to college with it and and perhaps even get some college credit sounds really interesting it was an interesting you know I don't know about their specific program we can look and see what they're doing but um I think you're going to see a lot of high schools in Illinois with the new College and Career Readiness and the service learning component that you're going to see a lot of schools dabbling in in a variety of different Service Learning opportunities yeah well I'll take a moment to recognize the fact that we are one of the few school districts that at some point in the weekend all seven board members attended uh portions of the con of the the conference this is you know the premier professional learning event for school board members and the fact that our board gives up their part of either a work day or the weekend or the whole weekend to to go and learn is uh you know a great valuable tool for us as a team that you continue to learn and push your skills and see what's going on in other school districts and I greatly appreciate your efforts in professional development for yourselves and setting that example for all of us in the district so thank you thank you I had a great time good learning is fun yeah yeah okay anything else upcoming board meetings December 5th will be the workshop meeting at 6 30 p.m here in the administrative service center yep December 12th will be the regular business meeting again 6 30 here at the administrative service um Center so do we have a motion to adjourn so movement Mike and Terry all those in favor aye aye all those opposed thank you
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I was surprised by the number of people who said they'd be willing to take on a leadership role yeah it's a lot I mean a lot of referendum we've probably had 40 or 50 people that were either we had a lot of support from teachers based on this is our first time that we're talking about this as a group what if we sit on it for a few days and maybe Jeff reaches out to each of us individually in the next few I mean honestly in the next few days just to to get that I think that's fair given that you know right after that I only know about it because I talked to Esther on Friday or taught on Friday so that's you know the other reason I knew about this coming in to hear so that's a good idea well you guys reach out to me perfect honestly like I gotta go downtown on Friday oh yeah thank you for reach out the time I think if we can do this we I think we should move forward with it but I honestly don't know what five months is enough time to really do it yeah you guys to supply here because you're going to get questions like crazy people well we'll be out a lot in the community but that's okay and we can join in but we can't lead the charge as a board no no so it's like really our job would just be we would all we'd be there is to answer questions just the facts answer questions yeah so we have like maybe 10 or 15 more we'll look at this time this is the communications part of it right like that is the hugest part of this where's our communication he's back where's he gone no he's gone oh perfect timing good man Charlie Brown [Laughter] do you remember how much time you had last time was it more than five months was it like how much time did you guys we started ramping up we started having we scrapped up about three or four months before because that's when you would do it because you want to get interest going you don't go too far out because yeah but I think you'd want to be ready to go the week we get back to school three 12 weeks of like so also in early voting I know that we hit some information we're doing group meetings and buildings Gathering support and then by the we were walking we're walking August September in October we were walking and that was a different time to vote too I mean that was not early voting It Wasn't So Far right it was mostly you had to show up at that you had to show up that week or that day so that kind of changes I think most of our watching occurred in September and October I think we targeted September I think you'd be the ballot question on for April be February and March going to be out that you're pushing it knocking on doors yeah it has to be February March because you have early voting early voters too so yeah I think if we have enough time I think we proceed he already had the momentum you've had all these focus groups you were excited people are talking about it you know Engagement online right but like Laura said it's it's not the people that are in the district it's the people that are out even if we can get everybody have that problem regardless don't have kids that don't vote anything that's the key exactly it's going to be regardless of all of our families how important as they get out yeah exactly it's more of a better indication too from Tammy next week on what this would look like we asked you to lay it out for us on the high school and if we were going to restructure the debt what would that look like so we can give that information to the community members as we're meeting with them that's good okay yeah a lot of ducks like from us like uh like a straw hole or something I think that's what Jeff had said but I think Eric said to wait let's touch base with Jeff for one of us on December that Monday okay guys before that all right we'll move on to the draft calendar we have a direct calendar for you it should be in front of you uh it's just a draft for information we're just trying to get some numbers on the books uh we did try to line it to Mid Valley Co-op which we work with closely as well as the regional pathway districts which is you know both Saint Charles u-46 in District 300 and our Fox Valley Athletic Conference uh you can see our recommendation is to have teachers start on 9th and 10th a little bit different this year uh half a day on the 11th and that's because when we worked with them last year they wanted their half day at the end in May uh primarily they felt a full day was too much on that last day so we split it up a half a day on August 11th they would leave in the afternoon and then they would finish up a half day on May 21st we're looking at conferences uh before the end of first quarter so October 5th and 6th to try to get some information prior to that and that what's up against the Columbus Day holiday which is on that ninth of that Monday this year the three-day weekend a four-day weekend and a four day weekend all in the matter of five weeks was a lot of days off yeah and just too close together that was like we tried to spread them out we did pick the 20th of October and the reason we picked it is because it's a Mid Valley everybody's got it off and so we tried to marry up against the Mid Valley because on our efe programs because otherwise our kids are missing another day of instruction we do a lot of student programs what's that sorry voted on for next year it's already voted St Charles D300 had it so when we looked at there and came when we looked at their calendars 20th for some reason it was a date they all picked and instead of having our kids miss out on instructional time because we share so many programs at the high school level that's why we have the 20th there uh November Thanksgiving holidays 22nd 20 and then if you see the holiday on that Thursday and then Friday which is similar to what we do now uh December you can see the holiday break is the week of the 25th and the week of the first and then is there any pushback do you think there'll be any pushback going to the 22nd of December probably a little bit I mean I think this year they've got uh what two we have weeks in two days right because of wearing Christmas fall um so you're up right up against the holiday for 23rd you've got one day before you got to get ready for Christmas Eve if you have holidays I think the only option I mean I love the fact that we actually have an even first and second semester by the way which I don't think has happened probably ever no um it's just the way it happens perfectly this year um I would say the only thing that you might get pushed back on especially for our teachers who don't have the luxury of skipping out a day early and finals and all that I would just imagine that that's one thing that might get pushed back on you make that a four day week and we have one extra day and then we just shift one day on each first and second semester um I don't have a problem going to the 22nd but I would just imagine going that close to a holiday weekend could be the first time uh the union will be seeing it after this so I'm sure we'll get some questions from doctors but yeah the second time I think it's looking at the 22nd right now but I mean you know we're trying to get them out early as well so it's it's a matter of whatever way they want to go I mean I I give them three weeks since we have some flexibility with half days what about a half day there our high school's already done early because of their finals there might be a few finals but for the most part no um we could do a half day usually parents don't like half days because a lot of those parents work and so it's a daycare issue for them so we try to stay it's a possibility maybe we could because it's up against the holiday weekend we definitely have enough time marked you know with our hours yeah we could do a half day so this also stood out to me we have after Labor Day 22 days in a row then after that we have another bout of 22 days and then after Thanksgiving we have 20 days in rows that's three large chunks of back-to-back school days which again we don't typically have right which I know you know especially if I said this before for my teacher friends like that many days in a row can be challenging not that I think we throw days in there just because we love to pick up extra School Improvement names but you're always working remember that's an extra teacher day of course and by contract we have a certain number of days that we have to stay within and so you can't just throw those extra things unless you're just going to have a day off for just to have a day off just stands out so I know larger sequence days pray for snow there's a lot of things that go into a calendar in terms of working within the calendar so we have Martin Luther King off on the 15th of January then uh February 2nd um just another school Improvement day uh that we break off in February then you have President's Day on the 19th and then March 1st is Kane County Institute day that we always have and then you have spring break the last week of March which falls in line with the other calendars and then we have our parent teacher conferences on April 5th or 18th and 19th and then we're looking to get on the 21st would be a half day teacher Institute day only bad thing about this is the last day of school is a Monday which is like uh but you know if you did an extra day in December who took the 22nd it would push them to the Tuesday which might be a little bit better half a day for the teachers on the 22nd no I'm sorry so I've missed it so the spring break that aligns with East area yeah Mid Valley so 300 yeah try to make sure that we limit again the number of days our kids miss out on so we also saved days with no election Tuesday off right because Easter falls the second weekend there's no unofficial Good Friday off right um but what about the idea of conferences 20 school days before the end of the year we can move it up but we thought was spring break that's why you see it the third week yeah there's a good option right right there wasn't a whole lot of space there and also we have AP testing going on and we have a lot of high school testing spring testing that's going on so we're trying to match up against a lot of these assessment windows that we have in the spring utility to attaching that to let's say that that Friday March 1st and then we have you know that's 40 That's 40 days into the into second semester and then we have fewer we don't have a hat you could put a half day before that again just how are you saying like the fourth and fifth no it's no no no no I wasn't I was going to say before that like Wednesday Thursday Friday students have a long weekend there after of which days of March so March 1st is a Friday that's off currently if we attached evening conferences somehow to that weekend because again I'm just thinking practically I have a second grader and I'm talking to my teacher 20 days before the end of school what is the actual utility well you've got the third quarter ends on March 8th and March 1st is King County Institute today oh that's right that's right so you could I think you would lose people I mean that's a quick turnaround time with the quarter rounds on the eighth you could have the the 21st going into the evening the half day on the 22nd before the spring break but I wonder how many people we would lose from current people just we don't get many parent did you captions in spring anyway that's what I mean so I mean again and maybe that's something for for the union to kind of the 21st 22nd you're talking yeah is dead I mean that's that's what we did this year because there was a half day before spring break this year right it was then you go all the way through April and most of May without any yeah again I don't care about the half day in April I'm just thinking about the utility again of conferences just like we talked about the utility of conferences this or previously was this week right Thanksgiving week yeah so it's meaning if it's early like right now they're written the week right now they're the week before the end of the first quarter and so what would it look like again maybe not at King County Institute like something just yeah I mean something a lot just as a consideration as we think about what's most useful for the teachers most importantly I would think if I was a teacher I'd like the half day off before spring break but in the 21st 22nd right so just something I don't know but that would give you all of April May which would be better for our assessment elements because having those breaks disrupted up right so it's disruptive especially if you do makeup so that's one continuity at the end of the year then but it is that's okay so multiple options to consider but again uh we go to school all day on the 18th so we give up two instructional days with Mid Valley and I don't know uh I'd have to go back and look at their calendar some schools didn't have spring break for high school middle school and high school I mean parent teacher conferences only for elementary they chose to teach keep teaching oh interesting we only have Elementary in the spring we've never done that that's been what's that those were unit districts as well yeah yeah they just don't have middle school high school conferences in the spring because I assume they had low antennas like we tend to do in our at our high school I don't know about our Middle School I think they usually meet with them especially kids that are not doing so well yes but if the high school doesn't have finals anymore so worried about ending before Christmas break I think it's the semester classes I mean it's just easier to have a nice clean break than to have a kid take two weeks off come back and finish up a class because it might be only four or five days so they it's just nice to have a clean break they go off to winter break and then they start back up just ease of shut my brain down do winter breaks come back start first day of schools August 14th and ending May 20th which is comparable this year which is pretty comfortable yeah it's kind of crazy this year too it seems like we're getting earlier in August shifted back to Alec if you've shipped it back it's primarily because Mig Valley has done that it's everybody else that we're trying to establish because we have shared programming yeah and that 303 drives that they drive that's where our special education students go we work with a lot of that in Partnership you know we have some of their programs they have some of our programs and so all of those students that we're sharing between there lose out on instructional time because every minute every day we're off they lose a day of instructions so we try to align as closely as possible those programs for all of our students with special needs for our students you know their shared programming that's why you see it because we pretty much are driven by District 303.
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we need them to push back God you've sat with them as a superintendent so I mean they I don't even know what made them go that route do you yeah that means they've established their calendar they do a two-year calendar um I mean I I do think things are going to start to swing back more towards the middle of the month but we'll see because they can only readership mm-hmm okay just as an aside first day of early voting for April election is only 15 days before oh is that right okay first day of early voting is the 20th and the vote of the election is April 4th so there's a tighter window okay just that's for those purposes good to know yeah okay I don't see anything about first day for mail when just the first day for early voting and all designated early voting polling places which is uh March 20th election is April 4th so it's just 15 requests earlier yeah looking at the calendar would you like more time to come back with an option that looks up parent-teacher conferences on a different date well I think we'll look at uh the March 21st 20 seconds see what that looks like compared to uh 303 as well and then the other thing is did maybe consider having 22nd either a half a day or move a full day there and push us to the Tuesday I'm not digging on Monday student because probably not going to show up but maybe it might be too safe they will and if you put conferences the 21st and 22nd points one day well that's awesome maybe two full days it might be two full days it'll be Monday Tuesday and potentially half day half day three teachers is that's better yeah I'd be a full day of 22nd and a full day 21st and that the teachers were gonna have to half day on the 22nd yeah all right thank you all right thanks all right Roe compliance update um our Roe compliance was completed beginning of the month um they did they came in and are looking at how we are implementing legislation as well as any mandates across all systems within the district so they're looking at policy governance staff Personnel students instructional programming and health life and safety so that audit was completed we everything is done there's a there's one area that they're continuously looking at which is going to be subject to a workload committee that's going to be working at the end of this month and that we will report out after that point but all other areas we were compliant and completed those components um the big piece for this this component is really about transparency in that legislation so as curriculum is coming alive and resources and materials we really need to have that out we do have our system Embark we really need to get that out and so that our community can have access to it that's definitely a goal that we're working on and what like to get them out in the near future but in regard to the compliance we have have completed all those work all that work and and we're good for this year questions you have for me regarding compliance it was a lot it was easy no it wasn't so easy the complaints on it takes numerous numerous hours um to gather down and artifacts and have those together yeah um uh Miss Burke Meyer Mr books did a great job of mixing I apologize it's okay no no I get it yeah it's a big piece of peace Appliance piece which would be a big shift uh where we have been working to get Embark done yeah our curriculum um materials that we put online that couldn't go out to community members and we've been working on for quite a while uh we will have a heavy hard date this year to push it and we'll hit the go button for community members and try to get as much done as we can get and then we'll expect that they continue to work on that to get that completed it does provide for our parents opportunities to know which classes they can uh which content they can opt out of and which content they cannot opt out of it's on it's in Embark we went through a marked that so parents are aware of that as well as it tells them exactly what's being instructed within the classes for transparency purpose so let parents know what their kids are learning coming out of unfortunately covert that's one of the big pushes that you're seeing and that was one of the areas of the audit was for transparency compliance well it was it was good it was nice to see a learning experience for the curriculum Department to really dig into multi-facets of across the district we we crossed all those t's and down to those eyes so it was very an interesting activity for us to be able to be engaged in and and to know that we have many of our systems are in place in fact all of them are there's there's that legislation piece that uh for transparency we have systems now let's let's have them work for us so it was it was a great exercise for us so how far along are we on Park out of curiosity how much curriculum is in there like if you were to say a percentage I can't give you an accurate percentage to be honest with you um I wouldn't want to misspeak on that we have various systems like our our social studies department at the high school level um they're in a much better place than let's say another content area so we have various levels of completion done what we're seeing through this compliance is that we have the right to get that out and that parents in our community have the right to be able to see it and so that system is working for us and we need to make sure that that's alive and there will be some work to get to get that done um I know this has been in place for over a decade to get this work done so we now really need to move forward with getting that now so chances are we'll put this forward but then social studies will be out but if I go and look at science at Walmart and then I'll be like I will be able to see you it just depends on which grade level it is done no correct but we'll continue to evolve to get it so you're saying there will be a date when everything will begin the date will be out for communities to be able to have access to and that's urgency to get that work done through various committee Works staff meetings curriculum meetings working together Wednesdays at elementary team time across the district that will be the expectation so there will be a definitive time frame now yes it seems like it's opening up it can't work yeah that's good okay well thank you okay thank you thank you so we'll move on to committee reports and CCC here back up so CCC this evening we had a carryover from our previous agenda uh really asked for team members to come back with what uh the conversation was at their building level with their colleagues so focusing on grading practices what are the strengths what are the areas of concern what are things that are motivating regarding grading and so we had a very transparent and open Dialogue on what those things are out there and where what our staff are sitting at and so it was we really didn't get further than that other than just some continual dialogue our high school science department has really done a phenomenal job of adding phenomenon and opportunities to engage students in their own learning through the assessment process looking at formative and various performance task assessments same thing we had some challenging conversations regarding the traditional aspect of grades and what do we think we can do differently so that's it will be a continual conversation as we move into we do not meet in December but as we move into January we will continue that dialogue thank you yep thank you thank you Happy Thanksgiving thank you I think um I think that had some more stuff on Athletics you want to finish up activities Oh do you have I just wanted to give a quick update sorry included our fall Sports we just started all of our winter sports with the inclusion of boys and girls bowling now officially underway as it stands right now we've got about 238 winter athletes participating in that as we're starting to really dive into our activity numbers uh we're roughly around 750 kids participating in activities overall so when you look at that number to see that out and about but uh the purpose now is to try to do a better job of just finding and getting more accurate with those numbers um I know a lot of our activities we haven't been able to pinpoint that number but with Skyward five labs and different things like that and the records we have we can do a better job pinpointing that but as it stands right now that's kind of where we stand with winter Athletics and our activities with some more activities like scholastic bowl and some other ones really kind of getting underway in December January and February so um just want to give you an update numbers wise there on top of introducing our athletes but I didn't want to keep them here any longer than we had you so questions about any of that right now in the comments concerns again can't thank everybody for the support I know seeing a lot of you had whether it's a Friday night football game or different events whether it's volleyball just nice to stop have some conversations so if you ever need anything like I said you know where to find me but thank you thank you thank you before we move up information I want to share a Friday um Mike and Sarah came to Mike posseck and Sarah Nolan came to the Mid Valley Mental Health Partnership meeting which had not happened in person since like a week before I think the pandemic got so it's been almost three years um and so I was there as Creekwood Associates I've been going to those meetings for years but one of the things that came so we had all represent us from the five Mid Valley Schools there and a lot of community people uh but Mike and Sarah did a great job talking about kind of what we're doing on the scl side um and you know me sharing my perspective as a board member and as a community person and psychiatrist and there were multiple people after the meeting that came up to me and was like that 301 Corner when you guys are doing like really great work so like the feedback from other people at the community level and other schools was really really positive just kind of us talking about what we have done and continue to do in the districts that was kind of nice to be a part of that and see some really positive feedback uh to Mike and Sarah about driving a lot of our stuff in the district here EPC so um we're combining our emergency preparedness committee and our threat assessment committee for the district so we had our annual meeting in November we had two law enforcement agencies for fire protection agencies uh we're in the process now of reviewing uh validating our current threat assessment protocols and then also our comprehensive plan for emergency response and then tweaking any details for our classroom plans all right it's Freedom of Information we received uh two Freedom of Information requests one was for uh smart procure and that's the the one that we received quarterly related to purchase order information that we're able to respond to provide that to them the other was from a District Parent Teresa Taylor asking um regarding uh Prairie View budget information um an electronic copy of the building budget was provider which is included in the packet foreign thanks everybody thank you
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foreign [Music] please [Music] [Applause] [Music] um [Applause] [Music] what's up [Music] yeah that's true yeah [Applause] foreign [Music] all right oh I I don't notice I think because it makes a record like when you move this thing I didn't know what he was so Britney is singing naturally okay can she take like off a few meters the closer she is to hear the closer people who are watching the live stream we'll hear it so if you so he's recording it on a live stream so if you take the mic off you just stand close like if you're standing here I can hear you you can take the mic off and put it back I'll still hear you okay so she can take it off yeah just stand up I just want to make sure it doesn't that should be fine so if she's standing here we're good yeah not over there got it okay thank you thank you [Music] foreign thank you yeah [Applause] thank you okay thank you foreign welcome and please stand for Brittany to sing the national anthem I'm sorry can you see father dawn's early [Music] twilight's last week whose brought stripes and bright stars [Music] eyes that store Spangled [Music] free [Applause] welcome we would like to extend our thanks to Benjamin Bedford for playing piano as you were walking in [Applause] and to Brittany hardlicka for singing the national anthem [Applause] I would also like to give special thanks to Kayla Ochoa and Kara Petrie for Allah are there excuse me all their help with invitations certificates and programs for tonight [Applause] I'd like to thank the custodial staff for setting up the auditorium [Applause] and to Mr Page for his patience with me while organizing this event as always [Applause] I would also like to acknowledge our honored guests Mr Gordon Smith superintendent of schools [Applause] Miss Elizabeth marjian butcher school committee Mr Frank page principal miss Ann Margaret Blaine assistant principal [Music] Mr Gary Wright assistant principal good evening and welcome to the East Longmeadow High School's National Honor society's induction ceremony we are so glad to have everyone here to celebrate this impressive accomplishment this year I would like to extend my congratulations to the students who will be inducted this evening on behalf of those who are currently members we welcome you to the National Honor Society at this time I would like to acknowledge the current members of the East Longmeadow chapter of the National Honor Society please stand when I say your name so we may acknowledge your continued achievement include awang Julia Boucher Nicholas Bradley ala can get me Benjamin kangemi Nicholas carlone Lara chabadarov Lorraine Cloutier Gilda diascali Taylor deflorio [Applause] Ava devenich Brayden dobeck Connor Donovan foreign Nicholas Ferguson Jack Forsyth John Fitzpatrick Molly Haller [Applause] Emily Harris mandolin Harris Olivia Helberg Eliza yakubuchi [Applause] Bridget Jordan Ashley Kai Keely k Aylee lukasik Benjamin Liu [Applause] Daniel majera Morgan Martin [Applause] Jack marrigan [Applause] Andrew Nolan Chad O'Brien Molly Riley Connor Robidoux Gabriel savedra Allison Boyd Julianne Voight Sophia Sarahs and Lana Sue [Applause] my mom always told my brother and I not to brag because people will always see the good they don't need to be told about it well today I'm not going to hate her advice I'm going to brag not about myself but about the students sitting behind me sitting before you tonight and to your right is the best of the best at East Longmeadow High School that's right they're the best you can't argue with me many of you already know this because you see the hours of hard work they put in to earn the grades needed to qualify for the National Honor Society but they are more than just a GPA this year instead of creating a theme for my speech because like I always say English teachers like themes no theme this year I thought it important to highlight exactly what makes this year's members and inductees Stand Out amongst the rest of their peers you know brag about them to do this I want to share what the process is to become a member of the East Longmeadow chapter of the National Honor Society yes one needs good grades specific to 4.20 GPA is required to even be considered however that is only the first step in becoming a member they must all complete an application that highlights their achievements outside of the classroom a board then reads the applications makes recommendations and needs to discuss which applicants best exemplify scholarship service leadership and character I don't choose the inductees but I watch the board discuss contemplate and decide who best fits the criteria based on the applications they look at what the application applicants do beyond the classroom how they serve the community as a whole and how they present themselves to others this year's inductees demonstrate a commitment to both their studies and their service to others you guys are a really big deal okay so are you many of the students before you are athletes of multiple Sports band members club members and all-around active members of the East Longmeadow High School community while the 4.2 GPA and involvement in school activities is commendable it is what these students do beyond the classroom that makes them stand out before you you see students who have made bracelets for the operation gratitude paracord challenge to benefit Vietnam veterans a volunteer at the Mattoon Street Festival a peer mentor who provides meals for Loaves and Fishes in Springfield a concerned friend who cares for a neighbor's yard while that neighbor is deployed these are only a few examples of the community service of this year's inductees these activities I'm sure are only the beginning of what these students will contribute to society they will also continue to serve the high school community Through tutoring plant fundraisers and supporting other events in school and while today tonight we may not be filled to capacity here in the auditorium it still doesn't negate the achievement of these inductees and our current members I hope you are all as proud of these students as I am and really feel free to brag because they deserve it [Applause] I'd like to now introduce the president of the East Longmeadow High School chapter of the National Honor Society Benjamin Liu [Applause] who will officially begin the ceremony good evening everyone my name is Benjamin Liu as president I'd like to welcome you to the 2022 induction ceremony for the ISA Meadow chapter of the National Honor Society to start I would like to thank superintendent Smith our principal Mr Page Vice principals Mr Wright and Mrs Blaine the school committee the high school administration and staff and our families and friends in the audience as you have all been essential to the success of the inductees through the support you provide it is a pleasure to have you here tonight in recognition of their achievements the students here tonight are some of the most ambitious and driven students this high school has to offer they exemplify academic Excellence not only by engaging in but finding success in rigorous courses they also provide a positive presence in the high school exhibiting leadership with distinction in Netflix and extracurriculars displaying exceptional character while collaborating with their peers and committing to service within the Esau metal Community I'm grateful to have known these students to see their Endeavors and to witness them accomplish their Pursuits it will be an honor to work with them in the future in the society in high school or elsewhere and to see them accomplish goals Beyond high school which I have no doubt there will be many the membership of the USA Meadow National Honor Society has been earned by the effective demonstration of four qualities held in high esteem by the society our members will review these qualities for the candidates scholarship means a commitment to learning a student is willing to spend hours reading and study knowing the lasting benefits of a cultivated mind we should continue to learn even when formal education has ended for Education ends only with the end of life knowledge is one great element in life which leads to the highest success and it can be acquired in only one way through diligence and effort learning furnishes the lamp by which we read the past and the light which illuminates the future candidates have the charge to continually expand their world through the opportunities inherent in scholarship service service can be described in various ways and the routine of the day's work many opportunities arise to help others willingness to work for the benefit of those in need without monetary compensation or recognition is the quality we seek in our membership we are committed to the idea of volunteering our time and abilities to the creation of a butterfly leadership leadership should exert a wholesome influence on the school and taking the initiative in class in school activities the real leaders drive to train any others to attain the same objective the parts of leadership is yield one's personal Investments for the entries of others a leader has self-confidence and will go forth when others hesitate no matter what power and resources may exist in a country they are ineffectual without the guidance of a wise leader leadership is always needed us to lead to a chance of charge to each of their members character distance character is the force within each individual which distinguishes that person from others it gives each of us our individuality it is that without which no one can respect oneself nor hope to attain the respect of others it is this force of character that guides one through life and when Once developed grows steadily character is achieved and not received but it's the product of constant action daily striving to make the right choice problem of character self-control we must be in reality what we wish to appear to others by demonstrating such qualities as respect responsibility trustworthiness fairness caring and citizenship we may hope to prove by example that we value character I'd like to introduce Mr Page with a few words thank you so good evening on behalf of the elhs administration I would like to thank everyone for joining us for tonight's ceremony we are here to recognize and celebrate the accomplishments of some of our best students however tonight why they are here and why we're here is not simply because of what these students have accomplished in our classrooms becoming a member of the National Honor Society goes beyond academic recognition becoming a member is a charge to be a leader amongst your peers as a class officer or student council representative becoming a member is acting as a role model for the service to your school and community Through the Key Club or other volunteer programs becoming a member is having the character to be compassionate honest and ethical as you walk the halls of elhs becoming a member of the National Honor Society means that you embody each of the four pillars scholarship leadership service and character on a daily basis we are here tonight because these students time and again have demonstrated their commitment to this higher standard however the embodiment of these standards does not simply end with tonight's induction what is it what is so great about this group of individuals is the work that they continue together after tonight I've seen our National Honor Society do great things here whether it be tutoring or struggling peers coordinating running charity drives or sponsoring the schooling of less fortunate children and countries around the world individual work that they have been doing prior tonight will become a collective effort to better the world around them I'm proud to have the privilege to work with the young men and women every day and see the awesome things that they are accomplishing I'm even prouder to say that these young adults are now deserved members of the East Longmeadow High School National Honor Society thank you will the candidates please rise candidates if you agree with these four pillars of our organization you are welcome to join us in the following pledge pledge myself to uphold the high purpose of the National Honor Society to which I have been selected I'll be true to the principle for which it stands I'll be loyal to my school and will maintain and encourage high standards of scholarship service leadership and character when your name is called please walk across the stage to receive the membership certificate well the following candidates come forward to be inducted in the esa Meadow chapter of the National Honor Society Gabriel alsop [Applause] when do I say Sandrine alvidor [Applause] Emily Baker [Applause] foreign [Applause] Abby brunette [Applause] foreign card [Applause] Maya casiello [Applause] lilac Cushman Amelia judets [Applause] Sarah depondi [Applause] Thomas Fitzgerald [Applause] Anna French [Applause] everything Ella jarzabsky [Applause] Connor knee [Applause] Katie now [Applause] Victoria nazifero [Applause] Isabella Medina [Applause] Nolan Moore [Applause] Madeline Moriarty [Applause] Audrey O'Neill [Applause] foreign [Applause] Aaron Peter Ross [Applause] Vivian Poole [Applause] John Ruchi [Applause] no Addison Rushford [Applause] Stephanie sakin Avery Stebbins [Music] all right Emma Stevens [Applause] Maggie Stevens Nicole Vo [Applause] something Hannah Willits [Applause] Eric Wang [Applause] foreign [Applause] foreign congratulations to our new members we thank all of you who have attended this year's ceremony all right so this concludes our ceremony congratulations to all feel free to stay and take pictures and good luck going to all the other events tonight [Applause] one more thing one more thing uh my name is John Fitzpatrick I'm the president of the senior class and I'd like to let you all know that if the senior class is having a fundraiser movie night at the Enfield Cinemas we will be viewing elf at 7 15 if any of you would like to attend tickets are on sale at the door for ten dollars bring your whole family it's going to be a lot of fun uh enjoy and have a great evening thank you foreign
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okay Sue uh when you have a moment could you call the roll call for the purpose of attendance please Miss Fitzgerald yes Miss disler Mr Hayden yes Mr Cirillo Mr Lamonte present uh the minutes of November 7th and November 15th can I add a motion to approve I have a second discussion changes comments all those in favor anyone post Mr DeStefano could we get a cash balance report please sure I'm having internet problems again you want me to come back here no no I'm doing it off my phone that's fine okay um cash balance report as of November 15 2022 count balance on October 28 2022 is 2 million 185 805 spot 14. we had deposits from October 29th to November 15th of 647 425 spot 21. uh less payroll on November 10th of 1 million 130 0.97 Spock 59 less warrant number 15 on November 7th of 856 742.38 wallet number 16 on November 8th of 12 7 13 20 and want number 17 on November 8th of 198 230 leaves us with a book balance on November 15 2022 of 6 35 537 spot 18 with the corresponding bank balance on the same date of 2 million 182.73 in our mmdt account balance on October 28th was 8 million 846 359 12.
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will start our meeting until 7 7 15 but this is a special occasion and we thought we'd bring everybody in you know my uh my career as a board of education person has a has an interesting uh twist to it I I had the pleasure of hiring um Mr case and of course now Mr case I'll be here with Mr K sleeves I also had the pleasure of um working with um passports to make sure that we had that our administrative team was growing equal to that of the district and one of the things we were proud of is we went to a curriculum director and then we we went to an assistant superintendent of the schools uh back in 2006 or so and you know with with the way Financial uh situations are in town uh and going through a couple rough things there would be some um we needed to make some consideration along those lines and I understand why and um but we uh we were able to maintain that that that position that Mr Bishop held uh which was kind of a curriculum director with some other uh things to it but this board and what I'm most pleased about is this board had the foresight and and the uh in in the uh really the intelligence to uh to say that listen the district is growing and the idea that one superintendent can do all the things that he did and as I came in to see all the things that Mr Case was doing this board recognized that and said you know what we need an assistant superintendent if we needed to put that position back uh it was good for the district it was good for our students it was good for our administrative staff and so as we began to have that discussion last spring um when it came time to say yes we're going to move forward it became very apparent by this board there was no other decision then we wanted to see Mr Bishop become that assistant superintendent of schools and of course with the recommendation High recommendation of Mr Case saying that uh you know we we have the right person right here and so this board moved forward with that so tonight I'm I'm pleased to announce it effective December 1st uh Mr John Bishop would be our assistant superintendent of schools I'm so thrilled that we have that position back and we have our number two uh and unfortunately we're going to be losing our number one but we'll get we'll get that back too so I have this point thing that when I sit in this chair we're losing people but I'm glad that we're gaining uh Mr Bishop and uh both the Maggie and Kim um we we're just so thrilled and just in the year that I've been working with him and some of these folks on the board for a long time um just what a value-add he is and uh a real guidance and help to all of us so I am thrilled to say that John will be our assistant superintendent of school is effective in just a few short days so John congratulations foreign thank you so much um I don't remember how many years ago years ago it was um that I actually met John I'm losing track of time um I heard of John uh for several years as I had the pleasure of working with John's mother-in-law um at another school in another school district um she was an educator and I heard so much about John's educational career and then I met John when John was part of the University of Saint Joseph's masters degree program which I was an adjunct instructor for and um had the pleasure of meeting him knowing John's professional values professional attributes um fast forward a few years and John applied to come to Canton as our stem coordinator and we made the right decision then to to hire John so he came on board and was our stem teacher and coordinator at the middle school and high school level and then moved into our director of learning and Innovation position and has done an outstanding job so again John congratulations thanks for all the value you add to our school district much appreciated to your family thank you for your sacrifice to support John to do all that he does because I Know It Takes a Family to really support what we do here and I'm grateful for all of it I think uh the the best thing that I can say about the Canton Public Schools is that it is a family um uh coming here uh within two years I knew that I well immediately I knew I wanted my family here I wanted my own kids here and we moved here within two years after that um to be one of canton's own and have an opportunity to have broad shoulders to be able to to do the lift that's necessary to support each and every kid to support every one of our staff and and to support our community I think that's a really great opportunity and a challenge it's not something that I take on lightly um you know I go to bed sometimes concerned and worried but uh always know that I have the opportunity to be able to do something great in the next day to be able to support our community support our kids support our staff so um I'm grateful for the charge uh I'm excited about the future and I really appreciate the collaboration I have onto this board our our staff who are amazing in our community so thank you all I want to let you down thank you so what do you never let us expounds we're going to take a five minute break we have some cookies uh and we could kind of mingle and talk to Kim and Maggie and uh just glad that uh glad that we got this off the ground I'm gonna call this meeting daughter of the uh November 21st meeting at the Board of Education welcome everybody thanks for coming tonight uh we have a great agenda um the way we've re rearranged some of the things uh we now give the reports up front so to give you something to think about and then we'll go to a public forum uh tonight we're thrilled that um Dr Kidwell and Mr dippo's here they're going to give the report on the high school um Miss Swagger is going to be here also I think unfortunately so oh all right knock off 15 minutes um anyways uh so we're gonna have a a great meeting in uh before we start we and everybody was here for it but we're thrilled to have our new assistant superintendent schools here tonight so with that I think I'll uh we don't have any experience here for the student report so we can take their candy oh they are all right we'll see if it's there at the end of the night if you'll stand and join me into place I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic and which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for God okay thank you uh we'll uh delay the student reports and uh Andrea and Julie are here tonight so thank you for coming we appreciate it we'd like to go first um we're gonna to get a tag team all right now you know you know you have to sing it so yeah tonight tonight you're singing um and why are you doing that I want to say hi to Ryan Ryan's on the screen tonight hello Ryan hello everybody there we go sometime okay so we prepared a little slide to go with each of our pieces of our updates so you can have a fish and we'll look what we're playing um first of all thank you to the board of education for the opportunity to update the community on the Canton middle school PTO a few recent events we'd like to share first of all with the student versus staff soccer game um we organized our second annual student staff soccer game on November 3rd at the Turk field under the light we had over 40 students as well as 17 staff members play in the game staff members included not only teachers but Mr John Bishop District administrator the principal of custodian and it and it and Food Service staff member can I ask a question though was he was he partied I heard there's a rumor again he got a yellow card in the game did that happen there was a card called against someone who came out actually my son um as well as two teachers that recently left BMF but still feel that connection um the 8th grade band played the national anthem and student council member sold confessions we invited everyone to play a game of thrivia at halftime local Girl Scout Troops 6655 go into 154 non-perishable items of admission for the camp food bank we had parent volunteers participate as coaches Russ and DJs and although the staff team dominated the first three quarters of the game and were up four to nothing a fourth quarter comeback left the students with a 5-4 win and bragging ranks until next year we love how this event brings the school Community together promote school spirit creates lifelong memories and allows students staff and families to have fun and fun together site we will see some pictures from Halloween so the tradition continued this year where The Kindergartners came over to CMS and did the parade in Mexico and then buildings and we wanted to support that with some fun decorations we had a moon Arch when they came in we had the entryway decorated up to the first stairwell um so that was just a fun way we got to see the converters which is super fun from us and it made it just a memorable positive experience for them coming into the building that they will come someday attend and then we took the balloon arch we really got our dollars worth of it we brought it into the cafeteria so if the lunch waves could have a little fun Halloween spirit then we even repurpose that later in the week when students came that's right the orange so so first um the next dog you'll see we are um happy to share that we passed our uh budget for the year the PTO budget and we increased funding for the DC trip from 3000 which was I think historically kind of budgeted for up to five thousand um sort of anticipating there may be some were me and want to be part of helping to ensure that all students that want to go um we also during the first meeting when Jeff has shared with everyone the plans for the trip one a parent had asked if they could contribute to the scholarship fund and so we took that and thought you know why not so we just have that out there no pressure but if somebody's interested in helping another student attend um we are accepting donations that will be through the PTO we're not of course part of any of the decision making we've got no knowledge of who it's just a lump sum that'll be requested by Joe inside your CV also concluded our puzzle in game collection and that was for the the library the Middle School library that was something they had piloted last year the public library it was a hit so very bus time I think they can sign up for once every other week um for some time if they're up to date uh their homework or their grades are good standing and so across the month we've watched over 60 Kings and puzzles that were either brand new or Alive new and we encourage great feedback that the kids are having a lot of fun and a librarian had shared some photos of the kids in action so I wanted to share another this is just recent last week um the PTO the right conference week um in November and then again in March um helps to purchase or provide a meal one of the days and so last week on Monday we stopped the stop lounge with items purchased with PTO dollars as well as some parent donations and she's had all week long to try to keep all of our staff people for conference days and some fresh fruit and bars and nuts and um chips and just some some trains coffee and tea we replenished it um on Thursday kind of restock and then also had a catered lunch that was delivered individually about lunch and found it all over and some great feedback um well we assisted the middle schools in Tampa Bay with a Veterans Day reception a breakfast reception after the assembly um basically just logistical support for them the students really ran the show they they serve they welcome they escorted the veterans in so we just for kind of like a little support role when we you know we capture some beautiful pictures of the of the family um we're also planning to assist the student council next month with idea but finally um the final thing we'd like to share it was something that came through as a teacher request from school psychologist Amy Nadu um this has been Street challenge which is something that we didn't even know existed at Canton middle school but um basically students with with significant special needs are have this job of stopping the tree trolley with you know chips drinks um Candy and they deliver it to staff around Camp middle school so um if they do was very appreciative and she just kind of further explained that it helps the the students um with responsibility it helps them interact with adults that helps them feel effective responsibility so it was something that we felt really strongly that we surely wanted to support such uh such a worthy effort um so thank you for your time tonight those are those are the updates we have and we appreciate being able to share the glimpse of how the VTO it's a fantastic update I mean what you guys do and I've said it before in the whole board feels this way they've done we we couldn't do all the things that we do without you I mean you just add uh so much just not not just from a um educational standpoint and how you support but just just morale I mean you you lift the Morales but you did for the teachers for those lunches during uh during uh the times of what was uh they had conferences yeah thank you so during the conference week I mean that's just fantastic isn't it so thank you for all your hard work and I wish we could freeze you in time because I know what happens it we cycle through but uh uh what you do is fantastic so thank you very much is there anything the board can do to help you is there anything that you want to ask of us that we should be focused in on or a way that we can help you [Music] um I think we all feel that the teachers are just so deserving of whatever support we can give them so um they would just ask that I think you would support the teachers however you can when we deliver when we deliver the adventure to my neighbor and that and and they walked in the door and they're like can we help what can we do to help we're like no you are the guest you come in and you will serve you you enjoy like you you take a break they're so hard working and we just you know we we enjoy so much what we do because we see we just we just feel that they just deserve whatever whatever little thing we can do that their spirit that makes their makes their day a little happier we're going to talk about that a little bit later right we um so you should Uh Kevin and I were the cave convention in my comments are going to mention something about that but thank you for that we will we're gonna we continue to think of ways uh that we can support our teachers better so thanks I know Ryan I don't know do you want to say anything for Whitney I I sometimes you're her yeah I I well I think she sent in something that someone was going to read um oh okay oh yes I'm sorry she did do you want to read it do you want me to do it I I don't have a copy a seasoned professional was going to be reading it right yeah then I Gotta Give it to Mr Case um so uh actually the the CIS uh PTO another phenomenal organization and I was at their fright night so it was Felicia um I think and Kim had Kim had just like it was a Disney World thing over on Kim's side but uh it was just unbelievable what they did that night and how they put it all together and I think uh Brian was in there scaring kids and we got DCF kind of checking him out now but uh not the first time but no you were you were you were great so the uh I'm not gonna read the whole report but um Whitney goes on Whitney Jen and Amanda and Allison go on to say about what a great night that was in the haunted house hallway and all the things that they did um they did talk about the field trips and about supporting Mrs Cortel on the field trips they did they are going to be hosting a student staff basketball game in February which is always kind of fun that was always a a tradition at least when my kids were in the school and it's actually fun and funny um so that'll be a great night there's a movie night coming up and um they also supported with the teacher and staff luncheons they provided salad fruit cookies bread and Avon Prime Meats so those sandwiches must have been pretty good I don't know how to get an invite to that but in any event they stocked the staff Lounge similar to the uh the goodie cart that goes around they also stacked the stock the staff lounge with beverages granola bars uh on Wednesday they did a crock pot cook-off I mean it's fantastic what the parents do and um on Thursday they did Cherry Brook Pizza how did I miss out on this fun food in fact this was like a fun Food Fest oh my gosh it was great um and on the fundraisers they have their catalog fundraiser that's going on right now uh 39 students participated and they raised I guess it's over they raised over three thousand dollars at CIS on the catalog fundraiser uh in October they raised 350 dollars from the Chipotle fundraiser I remember that uh in March 2023 they're going to be hosting a readathon fundraiser to coincide would be read Across America week which is just fantastic so um they have Spirit we are spirit wear going on we're PTO member uh and Amanda Garza will be looking at new vendors for our new spirit we're aware so I think we'll all be loaded up for the Memorial Day Parade I think we'll challenge the Board of Ed members to wear something from every school uh when that happens but another you know very active um this this PTO is very active and would you thank Whitney and the team too Ryan let her know I did the best I could but um it's clear that there's a lot of work going on out there so thank you thank you uh student staff basketball game and February it just says February on here I don't know if they said it yet um yeah just just February I bet they have it set and we can get that okay so thank you for the reports PTO thank you Ryan anything else Ryan and you can you can mention to Whitney if there's anything aboard if she can think of anything she'd like to bring to the board she's got kind of an inside guy that she can yeah yeah I guess you know that's all I'm good for these days not a problem thank you thank you okay so tonight we have the superintendent report Mr case thank you chair chair Daniels good evening everybody it's great to see see you here and those of you at home and to our guests attending tonight thank you for being here um just to follow up on PTO um I've been spending a lot of time at Cherry Brook primary school and I want to thank Jamie Nieman who is PTO president along with uh the Cherry Brook pto's executive board as well uh staff truly appreciated a couple of things that uh the PTO did for them over the past few weeks uh one of the initiatives was to adopt the staff member and uh family sent in gifts for every single staff member at Cherry Brook Primary School it was like Christmas with staff members getting gifts each day what a great way to have staff feel appreciated so I thank the Cherrybrook Primary School Community for that as well as providing meals during the conferences again you'd walk into the Teachers Lounge and it was a buffet every day and how great at all of our schools for teachers not to have to worry about preparing meals so thank you to all of our ptos for supporting our staff in that way what you do is just unbelievable and just know it's very much appreciated I want to let you know that um you may have read the article in the Hartford current on Friday about Canton being one of three school districts um according to the article that is retaining that Native American imagery uh I just want to clarify that uh we have eliminated all Native American imagery you'll recall that um about a year ago the Board of Ed decided to eliminate all Native American imagery but to Rebrand the warrior name and currently our student representatives are coming up with ideas for establishing a new mascot to go along with the warrior name I just want to let you know that uh no reporter reached out to me as the superintendent so I was not able to give any clarification um so I just want to let the community know about that where we stand yes we kept the warrior name but uh I mean we I should say several community members and several board members at the time felt that Warrior meant much more than just being associated with a Native American Image so I did just want to clarify that and if anyone has has any questions or concerns they could feel free to to contact me yeah absolutely so um we were at the uh the cave conference when this kind of hit about the uh the warrior image imagery and uh actually the Hartford current reached out to me it was at 5 17 to see if I wanted to have a comment and we were already in a breakout group I didn't see it till later that night when I went on my computer however I did respond back to the reporter saying that uh we had retired all Native American imagery I said it is all all sportswear all banners all indications of of that is off the property and we had done a pretty good job of that and I also emphasized that we spent I believe it was I used the term uh forty five thousand dollars if I recall in in buying new uniforms uh to have that happen the reporter thanked me for the comment and and that was it he's not going to uh I asked him if he would go back and retract it or at least clarify and he said he wasn't going to be able to do that I understand we're also on the news that night and uh therefore I put together a letter that's going back to the Hartford current that will be in or for current hopefully it'll make it in their common area and I've also done a letter to the um uh for John Fitz for the um Valley Press just to indicate that we've done that however I'm going to take full responsibility for the reason why that happened is because I did not follow through with what the previous board had voted on there were certain actions that they wanted to see happen and we've kind of slow walked that so uh in my comments tonight I'm going to talk about setting up a committee I'm going to take it out of the hands of the students and I'm going to put together a committee with a with a start and ending because if we did have if we did Rebrand the mascot we would not have been commented on well I mean we would have been a warrior or something else but uh because we had not had anything done at that point or in place I think we kind of got dinged for it so we're going to fix that but I apologize that we haven't been faster uh to the draw on that but we're going to get that uh the mascot done with the help of Administrators students public board members and I I also have a I'm not going to impose on anyone on the board to be the chair I have a chair or two that I have in mind well I'm going to ask the board to do is to approve that we've moved forward with that and that we do appoint a committee and we finalize the mascot so I'll ask that later on in my comments so I just wanted to make that clear thank you chair Daniels um other items in my report tonight um I did want to let you know that we had very successful Veterans Day ceremonies at each of our schools the high school had veterans come into the classrooms to talk with the students about their experiences on Thursday November 10th and then on Veterans Day Friday November 11th there were three ceremonies held at the middle school at Canton Intermediate School and at Cherry Brook Primary School all very successful and I do want to thank our administrators and the staff for all they do to support our veterans and for honoring them on that day we had uh also successful parent-teacher conferences since we last met uh those were done in a hybrid way where teachers were able to meet in person with parents if they chose to or virtually so I thank our teachers for their ability to adjust to that hybrid environment that's not always the easiest thing to do but it seemed like it meant parents needs due to the number of parents we had attending conferences either in person or online last Monday night um we have a wonderful presentation from Justine Ginsburg who is our Public Health liaison for the Farmington Valley Health District Justine gave a presentation that was entitled navigating teens hybrid realities students in their relationships and um both Lou and Kim were in person that night at the presentation and we had several people join us online we've recorded the presentation and we'll be sending that out shortly so that everyone in the community can view it Kim not to put you on the spot but do you have anything to say about the presentation since you were there no I always loved hearing Justine speak she's very real and honest and transparent with what's going on um for our children and community and technology and I hope parents can watch it find time to watch it and then the next sequel Clipper one I've attended that before elsewhere that's really a different one for parents of any age child with them so thanks for you know having her speak to Justine always gives great messages for both Educators and also for those of us who are parents and grandparents and I said to Justine afterwards I want a do-over as a parent right I'm always learning more and more how to be a more effective parent um so I would encourage everyone to view her presentation and we'll be working with uh Justine to set up three more presentations for this year and we'll make sure they're publicized well I had the great opportunity to accompany our educator of the Year Lori DeVito our district-wide I should say Lori was our district-wide social worker at one time our only social worker now Lori is social worker at our middle school and high school and the only social worker to be honored this year as teacher of the year so I was really proud to accompany her at the Connecticut teacher of the year ceremony that was held at the Bushnell uh it's the only time I get to walk across the Bushnell stage so I'm very appreciative Laurie and I got to walk across the stage and I have the program I'll pass around for any of you that would like to take a look at it um and Lori's mind flew up from Georgia to be present that night um and it's it's just such an inspirational ceremony um to hear from the teacher of the year and past teachers of the year you really leave feeling so inspired like we are in the right business there are so many outstanding Educators in Canton and in the state of Connecticut so it was a great ceremony when you see Lori please make sure you congratulate her I also want to let you know that uh last week we held a meeting with all of the bus drivers through Martel Transportation once a year we hold a meeting with them just to review protocols procedures mandated reporting requirements and to allow them to ask questions over our administrators and I thank Mr depipo and Mr Moore our Middle School principal for being present um it's just a great way to communicate with our bus drivers how we can make things better for them how we can support them and we really are so fortunate just on the news this morning you may have heard that in the City of Middletown four bus routes had to be canceled today and maybe even for the week because of a shortage of bus drivers and that's happening in several towns in Connecticut we really have been fortunate uh with Martel transportation that all of our drivers are so loyal to Canton that they've remained at the job and we are so fortunate for that my job is so varied I also want to let you know that I had a meeting about recycling food waste at each of our schools prior to the pandemic we had a program going on where we didn't let any food go to waste from our kitchens and also food that students did not eat we were recycling that and that was prior to the pandemic so I just want to let you all know that we're starting that up again post pandemic we are really working with the students to teach them about how to be more environmentally conscious and how to how important composting is for the environment so we have a true advocate in Diana Heiser one of our teachers at Canton Intermediate School who started this this initial initiative I'm trying to say she um formed a club for the students known as the Green Team and she trained students how to train other students how to separate their uh food because certain food is compostable other food is not so it's a training process that begins at CIS and we're working to um again bring that up to our middle school and high school and to begin training our Cherry Brook Primary School students this is an initiative the town is starting to focus on as well so you may be hearing more in the Canton Community about households how Heist households can begin to recycle food waste also so I do like to let you know of those different types of activities happening which are very educational for our students finally I just wanted to wish all of you a very Happy Thanksgiving with your family and friends this week and to all of our students families as well it's at this time of the year we think about what we are truly grateful for and what I am truly grateful for is continuing to be able to work with our outstanding staff and also to serve all of you and our Canton families I'm so grateful for that curriculum so thank you so much and then I just want to let you know that the town Board of Finance is meeting right across the hall so I do need to go over and communicate with the board of finance and and make sure that we're all good with the board of Finance so Mrs mizakowski who's over there right now will text me and I will go and if I happen to leave that's where I am and then I will return as soon as I communicate my message so thank you so much thank you and thank you for the card and then the chocolates that was very nice thank you okay any questions for superintendent anybody have anything you'd like to say Ryan you good all good okay thank you for um Veterans Day Mr Case didn't give himself credit he emcee two of the schools Veterans Day it was my pleasure yeah you did a nice job people with comments how nice it was so thank you Kim and I did uh forget to mention that under my report on the agenda it does say mental health support for middle school and high school students I have a program I'll be recommending to you um but it won't be tonight it'll be at our December meeting so I'm just holding off on that but you will hear more about that thank you thank you very much okay hearing no more questions thank you Mr Case all right so my report my report there's a few things I wanted to go over number one is uh we went to the cave meeting uh Felicia uh the cabinet myself it was a it was actually a fantastic event we picked up a lot of great pointers but the most important thing I think we picked up was on student safety and we uh we attended a presentation on safety and there's some things I think the Board needs to know about that are in place that you know that may have been communicated in the past and we haven't really talked about so I've asked Mr case in our January meeting I'm not sure if it's going to be the first or second he is going to give us a thorough overview of some of the things that are in place of the things that he can talk about as far as safety goes um for our students so um I thought that was really good you wanted anything you want to mention on that or no um what was stressed about I should say yes I would like just add a couple things um what was stressed was um the importance of the Board of Education knowing what the safety plans are that we have in place so um in our district Mr Bishop takes the lead um to ensure that our safety Protocols are updated each year in partnership with our Canton Police Department and other Homeland Security officials every school district needs to submit a safety plan to the state by November 1st we were one of only 24 school districts that met that goal this year it's so important that school districts have that plan in place um what was stressed at the conference is that as board members you need to know uh as much of the specifics of that plan as possible so that's what we will bring to you in January in executive session uh because we certainly would not want to share all the protocols in place in case there were any Bad actors out there so you'll be learning more about that and they mentioned that the number one safety issue we all should be concerned about is cyber security and um at our cabinet meeting this morning um cabinet our our central office administrators uh we talked with uh Jeff delmastro our instructional technology administer administrator about all the uh prevention tools that we have in place and so we'll be reporting to you on that in January as well thank you okay um the next thing I want to mention is space um I want you to know that uh Kevin and I attended the leadership meeting which is with the chairman of the board of Finance the chairman or the first selectment myself uh the Chief Operating Officer along with our chief administrative officer along with the superintendent schools where I laid out my uh concern for our space at the board of education level that we are shoehorned into the basement of the Town Hall that our it group is somewhere else our accounting is somewhere else our um our pupil Personnel director is somewhere else and we we just can't function yet we're two-thirds of the town and uh so I laid that out to them I said that if we could come to terms there may be a way and this was only an ancillary part of it because really the main part of it is that we need space we we don't look like a functional Central uh district office down there and I've looked at a lot of different off of Board of Education offices and quite frankly we don't we don't show very well especially at a time when we're trying to bring in a new superintendent but the but the answer that if it may be that we don't need a building uh project that we may be able to work through that bubble if we are able to maybe in what I was suggesting was right here in the um in the community center right where park and rec is that possibly that we can trade park and rec or um for the basement of the Town Hall consolidating Town Hall functions and Board of Ed would all be on this side or functional we're close to our schools um and we could even move our our pre-k program here which would save us some space so I'm going to formalize that in a letter if the board will allow me to do that I would like at the end of the meeting tonight to allow me to create a formal letter asking the town to look at space generally and potentially that that space that I've just identified so um I know at the time Mr Humphrey who's the boy or to finance chairman he said anytime we can avoid a building project that could cost Millions it's something that may just cost a few thousand dollars to handle uh he'd like to look at that further so that's that's something I wanted to make the board aware of so at the end of tonight as we get into recommended actions I'd like to see and that's okay to submit that right for the board to uh for the board to give me the okay to uh to begin a uh looking at space for our Board of Education um the other thing I would like is uh I mentioned about the the mascot and the warrior mascot and I know we've been talking about having the students take a look at this I think we've been talking about it for months but what I like to do is formalize a an actual committee that starts in January and brings back to the board in April uh one or two options for us to look at from a mascot perspective so that as we go through the budget cycle if there's some things that have to be ordered they can begin uh we can begin moving forward with a new mascot now I did mention I may have mentioned to you all that I was at a Girl Scout meeting where a very fantastic Girl Scout uh in a middle schooler she went up on the Whiteboard and she Drew this Roman Legionnaire helmet you know back in the um 600 800 BC maybe or uh at the time of um you know with the feather and with the nose guard and she put a c on the helmet now that's a warrior helmet but I thought it was pretty fascinating that this girl could just go up there and say how's this one and it was it was pretty pretty cool so um what I like to do is formalize that committee and at the end of tonight a number uh f g or possibly G authorize the chair to organize and advertise for a committee that'll come before the board for the board to um for the board to a point and to let's let's put this one thing behind us I think Erica did a wonderful job Russell Kim Ryan the the previous board all the work and time went into this and I'm sorry that we haven't followed through uh with some of the things were recommended by that board I'm also going to ask Mr case in January to give us an update on where we stand with the other recommendations that were made and directives that were made in that vote as we move forward okay um so that'll be another uh that'll be f and g that will add to the recommended actions um also I want to mention to Mr case that in six uh February or January actually marks the six month Mark of his goals to us and in the first meeting of February I'd like to see if we can have a update on where we are relative to those goals um for the board to review finally uh I would like to say that Justin Ginsburg was a fantastic speaker and I understand there's going to be two other sessions one is going to be in January and uh actually there's two more things this is one of them um I was wondering you know our teachers have continuing education all the time I'm wondering if we can substitute if they were to attend these sessions could could they opt out of a uh a train you know because to give them a little bit of a break but if they chose to be part of this either by Zoomer in person and I just want you to think about that but I'm trying to figure out ways to maybe lighten the load for our teachers and to the point that we were talking about earlier last year we we gave the teachers kind of a free afternoon to kind of kind of a day for their head a little bit a half a day for their head instead of uh I'd like to see us do that again this year uh I'd like to see us I know we sponsored a lunch last year I don't want to get away from that one of the things we heard at Cave from the superintendent of the year and she was out of Old Saybrook she said remember our teachers our teachers are a little bit overwhelmed they've come through a very difficult time and and they need to know that they're appreciated and what the PTO does I think is fantastic you're actually acting in some ways as a surrogate for us for us to do some things but I think we have to as a board of education also let them know that uh hey our staff is important to us not teachers Staff office workers the custodians that keep our buildings so pristine and clean um so we need to think about that and I don't expect you to have an answer but we do have uh you know one meeting in December when we come back in January what's your slogan refresh renew um hey I'm in my 60s all right give me a break I'm doing pretty good I want to say refresh reboot reboot rejuvenate we do but I don't know if that's it all right it's ours I want to come back to the RS store I want to come back to the RS in January and come up with something for the spring uh Claudia and I also talked about something that we might be able to do you know towards the holidays maybe that's when we sponsor a lunch at each school and maybe the Board of Education members are there to maybe serve that lunch or something along those lines I know Kim will maybe share that for me so so uh anyways so that those are the things I wanted to mention uh to you folks and um I think it's important if the board can make Justin Ginsburg I mean I'm a grandfather I went through this with my children but what she said was just fascinating I think she's going to really drill down into the cyber bullying component at the next at the next meeting and how much time our kids are spending on electronics and what that can do to them I went home to my wife and just went fascinating thing I'll say is um you know I forgot when I was a kid if if you were made fun of or whatever on the bus that ended when you got off the bus and you went into your house because you didn't have Electronics to keep that thing going so it ended and the next day you went to school and who forgot it we didn't forget it but with electronics kids stay on that they hard so if they're doing some bullying in the schoolyard that continues on the electronics through dinner and at night and it's something that's on their mind so it's it's those types of things that add to this stress and the anxiety that our children are experiencing and that that stood out to me and I went home to my my wife and I said um we're going over to the grandkids house we're taking all the electronics that we're throwing them away so that was an overreaction but the fact of the matter is they need a break because some of that just carries over so I thought Justine did a great job on that so board members can attend uh those next two meetings and give her the support of being the audience that that would be great any questions for me on anything that just said concerns thoughts what did I overdo completion usually you couldn't kick me anymore oh committee reports right right you're not helping me out at all there's so much help you can give this guys all right committee reports I I the the work of this board of education has to be done at the committee level and we've got to really drill down I think what Erica does curriculum and Technology phenomenal Joe Joe scheidler my God what that man does on policy is just unbelievable Russell would Finance it he's going to be pulling his hair out over the next three months you know I I appreciate all the work that gets done in all the support that you put in on those committees so we we need to really drill down on those committees and be supportive I don't know Erica if you wanted to make any comment about curriculum and Technology tonight if you have anything you want to report yeah um we met last week and just a couple of things to highlight that were discussed Kim Felicia and John and I met with Mr depipo Mr Moore and Mrs schwager and um we discussed the need to convert algebra 1a1b into a new class called conceptual algebra one with an additional support class starting with next year's ninth graders which would be in the class of 2027.
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we had interest uh in October of 29 454 spot 43 um and um additional interest uh in November of 24 338 81 leaves us with an mmdt balance on November 15 2022 of 8 million nine hundred thousand 152 spot 36 and an overall total operating cash balance of nine million 689 spot 54.
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uh what is that what does that entail by doing that is that is your also a budget implication to that or no no no it was it's kind of reorganizing the math schedule too I mean you could probably speak better to this but um to better prepare the kids for applying to college um cover material before the SAT um taking junior year and then there's a group of kids that were not getting into certain schools because they didn't have uh was it algebra two four years ago four years of math based on the algorithm that those schools um were drawn from students were taken out to 1A and later on 1B in schools were looking at that as one one course but we were doing it over two years so essentially instead of splitting the algebra over two years we're going to have an algebra one for all in ninth grade but for those identified struggling students will also have a support class that will meet every other day so it's accelerated um in terms of like the norm that we've had but the support it's almost like one and a half years in their freshman year so that opens up Geometry Algebra 2 in a further stem opportunity to them for seniors who are opening up all kinds of doors on the back end and not limiting them to algebra two which was our case for some years for some success so it's a it's a different approach that we think will benefit a segment of our population um that hasn't had that opportunity on the back end so really excited about that um that starts your freshman in freshman year right so to be for next next time right but there's no is there any support at the eighth grade level that seemed to be where we were we were struggling so this is this is the concept of being able to know where our kids are at right now and knowing that we want to be able to provide additional support that goes on through through the high school and then the the conversation at the middle school just after that was around the schedule yeah yeah so that leads into the next the next thing we talked about was revising the middle school schedule moving away from a block schedule to a straight seven um with an additional x-block period for flexible interventions okay which is something that has been needed and also would allow for team meetings teacher teams which has also been a struggle and that would involve a little bit of an ask for point that you know another tutoring for art graphic art teacher point and then having week two social studies in seventh grade yeah we're working to be able to get those finalized numbers I'm asking Mr Moore to be able to bring those To Us by um prior to our winter break so we'll have a really defined sense of what that would look like for us going into the new year with that but you hit it straight on well well done there providing additional time to be able to uh support the intervention for students to make sure that there's additional time to support our students who might need to have um uh special education services as well the whole concept for this then allows kids more kids to be able to have access to a world language program to have more kids who have access to intervention in sports for more of our teachers to be able to take what we would call a tier a tier one tier two support where we can say Hey you were struggling with this today let me flexibly give you what you need to to better support you right now to make sure that you're in a better position so it's it's uh it would expand our tutorial support and our tier one teacher support for our students as well that's great we're really excited it's it's taking some of the things that have worked well from our uh our K3 and our four through six program with this Flex block and intervention time we'll move some of that into the middle school and then the high school is embracing some of that with that uh conceptual algebra one for some students um at least algebra one for all are we mirroring another school's model on this side how do we pick up on this was this something that um came about through some form for the map well this whole rejiggering and then moving away from block because we were we're wild for a long time we've been in Black that was studied once before Middle School was never prior to copen middle school was never on a block schedule they were always on a staggering yeah it was on a straight seven yeah it was a fun it was really a function of of covid and needing to be able to be in line with the high school to be able to support that the the study to this point has um made there be flexibility that will would allow there to be a different um structure for our middle school students should be able to have but still give the resources that they need so yeah uh Mr Moore worked with a consultant over the summer and worked with a team he's continuing to work with his team um to refine some of the the remaining elements on Mr schwager there was continuous work to be able to look and Mrs HSN continuous work to be able to evaluate what are the programmatic designs that are out there that are successful for math so we're going with our own particular flavor but not without some uh some core recipe from uh our friends out out around us and the last thing that we talked about was similar to what the reconsider consideration the books and learning materials so how that's going to work with policy curriculum together Joe's going to give a report on that next time and we spent quite a bit of time on that I think we've we're on a pretty good track for that thank you and I don't know you did great there okay any questions for Erica I know Finance is meeting next time so Russell I'm not going to put John's popular report and by that time you should have the uh the grand list we should have some type of indication of what the growth in the town has been um okay um any questions for me okay so we will now go to public forum so we listed we've kind of gave everybody a taste of what's going on in the district anybody have anything from public forums right on yeah I just had uh one thing just say your name and address for the record that's all my name is Paul Merino 157 High Valley Drive from Canton thank you um I spoke with Mr Case briefly before the meeting and again I understand there's a lot going on at this Lancaster class at the chair of the primary um you know some of the I guess concerns I have as a parent were really um not at all how Mr Case is handling it but how it was handled prior to it got to his hands um I felt it was slept under the drug as regards to what is going on in that classroom and how these kids have been evacuated since basically day one and first I heard about it was pretty much the end of September or mid-september um which I felt was you know not being in in great communication with the parents right so a couple of concerns that I have in regards to to this issue is essentially you know um and I know it's being documented now Mr Case has been in the school which is fantastic um Miss Lancaster is unbelievable she's done a phenomenal job um you know with these students and what's going on and again I understand the struggles I'm not direct via anybody or any student it's just a tough situation in general the biggest thing I wanted to just kind of figure out is is there something in protocol that we can be communicated to as parents as to you know here's an update um they were evacuated a couple times last week it was this this and this is that something that can be looked at as uh possible you know just to be able to talk to our children you know my son uh he'll talk to him about what's going on is kind of something that I'd like to instead of having to kind of weasel it out of them every day just to know what's going on um so that was one thing and and you know again I don't know if there's been any sort of board certified behavioral specialist that's been in the classrooms to study and observe I know you've been in the classroom that's that's great I just don't know if that's an option um you know something that can be looked at um in the future again you know here we are going towards the holidays and you know the years progressing and I've understood it's gotten a little bit better but again I just kind of wanted to see if there's anything that could be done further on that so I really appreciate your time and all that you everybody does appreciate it thank you for coming tonight thank you I'm sure the superintendent get back to you on those things thank you anybody else if not we'll go to uh the big board sure so if you're joining us online tonight you can go ahead and use the raised land future Zoom if you'd like to make a public comment and I'll call on you by your Zoom link okay thank you Carol thank you uh thank you for the comments thank you everybody that is attending the meeting tonight okay with that we'll we'll close out public forum and we're very fortunate to have uh Mr Pitbull and uh Dr Kidwell here and I'll leave the introduction to you um thank you chair Daniels as you've said um we're excited tonight to hear from Mr dipepo our Canton High School principal and Dr Ruth Kidwell can high school's assistant principal and uh the goals that have been established uh for this school year we've got so much going on so much so many wonderful things going on at Canton High School and we're preparing for our New England Association of schools and colleges the seniel visit in early December which I know um we'll talk about tonight so thank you both for being here tonight thank you Mr case I'm very happy to be here tonight to share our plan with you for the 2022-2023 school year and before I uh get going um and I just want to um thank the board for a couple of things as far this year the um the professional calendar that afforded staff time on our Tuesdays have been highly valued by staff and ourselves we've been so much going on um it's been integral and we've been part of our development this year and I just want to let you know we feel very supportive I know you listen to the meetings we we hear how concerned you are about our staff and and you know student well-being so it's very apparent to us um you know how much you're here to support us so we do appreciate that we're going to try to be concise there's a lot to talk about you've seen these you know we're the fourth meeting through so I think you know some of the jargon you know some of the the sort of a process pieces here so my report will be much different in staying in line with you know with the other other administrators have brought forward everyone share some data from your past that helped us inform our plan for this year our plan is pretty brief um similar to others but but maybe less data overall just based on it being a high school level so I want to share those two things and I want to talk to you a little bit about our priorities and successes as well and also so as Mr Case mentioned to give you a flavor for the ass presentation that's coming in a few weeks um briefly touch upon your role as well as give you kind of the big picture if you're interested and just go to seeing some of the things that we're prepared for that we're excited about so as we get into the the presentation um I think this board has seen the first couple of slides so I feel like we could probably move to the slide four where um it has different areas of focus perfect thank you Karen so um you've seen this I believe sky before and um for us you're moving forward you know our fears of action and our goals are really center around two things both climate uh as a goal overall culture we're looking for people to be kind and feel connected to the school um and our staff to feel um connected to the to the students as well as as um you know the things that they deem important and clearly we want our students to grow academically and Achieve to the best in these two are Sterling intertwined um so those are really our Focus points and those you know obviously Drive our goals so uh where we get to our goals those of you that have been on the board in the past this is um a goal that um we've carried for for years and um I want to share the data past performance um in the next slide so um basically a major goal for us or undertaking has been our process for Preparation preparing our students for the PSAT test um assessment as well as the SAT exam and what we do over time because we take this yearly we do have um you know a coherent set of data for a particular group of students so what I shared in the presentation is is where our sitting seniors are or how they've evolved I shared this briefly with you last year um last I want to say um June um and in the in the broader CIP plan I I had other data about all all the classes all the cohorts essentially you know students are assessed in writing reading and math and there's a cumulative score based on a myriad of types of questions that mirror our curriculum in terms of our skills and you know the goal over time is that they should be growing about 20 points per um iteration so that is always sort of our Benchmark that we move forward and what I've indicated on this slide is is students who have met met that bar in terms of meeting the state assessment um goal um at means or exceeds level so to look in in when you see red those students have not met um those in yellow are approaching and those in green have advanced um interviews or exceeds level so it's always hopeful that we would have students trending towards green and away from the red but another thing to keep in mind is as they age forward the proficiency levels also raised too so it's not like if they get 451 year and they stay you know they get to 470 then then they automatically say out of yellow that might stay with them so it really is a measure that um forces us to do a great job so um you know this is this is the story of of the last few years and it's their sitting senior class so I'll say this out loud that you know we would like to see those red numbers below it and um you know especially um in terms of where they start where they finish so you know we gain some red over the course of the four years like what those numbers signify so like if I'm looking at that 512 the numbers underneath yeah 9 17 yeah I'm sorry so yes of course character so 19 students did not meet gold in that case seven students were approaching gold and 86 students Medical of the 512 or um the average I'm sorry the average score for that back class in that City okay so the 112 students that took that exam their average score was 512.
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okay Jared would appreciate a motion that to approve his given discussion all those in fact all those in favor aye and you want to pose thank you very much Mr DiStefano there's a handout for the Consolidated cash Reconciliation Report evolving funders in your packet and budget reporters there any questions or comments on any of those documents okay moving on best part of the meeting uh student report Murray everyone I will be discussing our recent Student Activities clubs and our upcoming Sports um so over the past two days students have been competing at the skills USA fall leadership conference this is the first normal overnight competition that students have competed in since fall of 2019 so it's been a while our students competed with over 500 other students from around the state in areas of leadership workplace skills personal skills and community service so we're glad to report that each student who attended left with a positive mindset and skills that will benefit them in many ways so students from medical Metal Fab electrical HVAC Cosmo and dental have received their leadership awards so we have a new dance club that's starting they're going to be meeting on Mondays from 2 45 to 4 30. they will learn different dance styles from different cultural backgrounds such as salsa modern and Hip-Hop this club helps focuses on dances and helps students become involved with glts to increase student engagement and school spirit they hope to perform at glts events and other community activities and most importantly have fun students don't need any Dance Experience to protest to participate only commitment to learning to dance so our GSA Club will be attending a regional meeting December 8th from 9 A.M to 1 p.m at Whittier Tech it's a great opportunity for people in the club to create a community with others in the Northeast region as well as learn about topics like how to create an inclusive GSA and more during student council's meeting today we decorated boxes for a food and toy drive so there's going to be a bunch of decorated boxes placed around the schools pretty soon so be on the lookout for Creative boxes and donate if you're able to so to participate in sports students needed updated physical being good academic standing and register through family ID with a parent or Guardian so we offer girls and boys basketball from November 28th to March 11th we have girls and boys indoor track from November 28th to March 11th we have cheerleading from November 28th to March 18th ice hockey from November 29th to March 5th swimming and Diving from November 8th to March 11th and today is the last day to get your basketball Reggie gear they have some awesome items like long sleeve T-shirts joggers shirts hoodies and more you can visit the link at the bottom and you guys also have it on your paper copy if you'd like to visit it later we have our Thanksgiving game coming up so we're hosting our annual Thanksgiving game here at glts it's Reggie's versus Wildcats it's tomorrow at six there's a pre-game ceremony for our senior football players as well as cheerleaders at 5 15.
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got it and then individually 19 students do not meet in this case it would have been um in this case 400 was the proficiency score seven students who are between 400 and 420. and 86 students were above 420. now you can see our average score is 100 points above the proficiency level so do well but but we're really honing in on those kids who are struggling and I do want to get to that in mind today certainly in particular the math right you're going to go over that correct specific project so um so that is just a broad Rush of things that we've done over over the years and we continue again and show all of our courses to uh sorry all of our class sizes the cohorts to to mirror that process and again the goals and indicators will spell out exactly what we're looking to do another bit of data to move forward is um what we look at is is our ngss which I know you've heard about our next Generation science standards there's there's an assessment taken in fifth eighth and 11th grade and the results are we received last year would say that about 66 percent of our students met or exceeded the state of goal in our average test score on scale school was uh 111.
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