um staff and students get in for free and our concession stands will be open due to rain on our original date October 14th we've rescheduled our pep rally for tomorrow November 23rd and fifth and sixth period so there's going to be a ton of Reggie Pride recognition for those in sports and clubs and games like musical chairs tug of war and a relay race so it'll be outside on the football field and it should be a ton of fun and this concludes my presentation um thank you thank you thank you very much any questions uh for Murray yes Mrs uh Fitzgerald will be nice I have uh two questions two different items on the dance club um is it a faculty or staff member that will be doing the teaching or students such as yourself um yeah so it's going to be um I believe it's two teachers from Cosmo that are going to be the advisors for it okay thank you and the second question was about the toy drive in particular are they looking for new wrapped toys unwrapped obviously in the package whatever do you know um I think that they don't need to be wrapped but they should be new thank you very much of course any other questions yes um not necessarily a question I just wanted to comment I received an email um father s thank you for dancing and so um shout out to the students that actually petitioned and advocated for themselves and shout out to the staff members that stacked up um not working um really excited for the pep rally and I will just do a little commercial teaser there's also going to be an exciting surprise from staff tomorrow so stay tuned okay anything further Marlene do you have any oh I'm sorry um yeah um the pep rally is fifth and sixth period and then we have our Thanksgiving game at 6 pm okay thank you anything further you have any questions for us for me have a nice Thanksgiving oh yeah um one more thing uh we are um taking any volunteers for a second student rep so there might be a new face in here pretty soon um we have gotten a good amount of people interested in the position so along with yourself though right yes yeah um good all right thank you very much okay [Applause] uh donations done articles uh great Lawrence Technical School uh students honored uh Commander sergeant major of uh Franklin Del Velez no public participation this evening has seen them uh on the school busing we had asked the uh excuse me the busing update we had asked the uh the CFO CEO of the busing company and he did acknowledge but is out of the out of the area it will come on the 6th of December 6th so he's not he wasn't able to come but he did acknowledge that he will come superintendent Capital Improvement um for we got the also on the bus to English course well sorry just just one touch base on that sure we have we um we have uh had some connection with them your microphone John please uh we have had some uh conversations with them uh regarding this course and I think we're pretty close to coming to a contract agreement for offering the course to uh 30 to 40 people from the bus company that are interested in taking this course so we're working on breaking it into the different levels of uh abilities as speak English so uh looks like we're very close to finalizing an agreement with them to start this program so we're happy about that uh Frank you can't answer this question but um just perfect even get that result um [Music] yeah I can I can get a I can meet with the superintendent from Whittier and take a look at their how they uh Implement their bus program there and see the financial cost and the other kinds of responsibility that come with it and I can do a report for the school committee on that any further Capital Improvement fund oh I'm sorry pardon me let's go back there the god service Mary Mac Valley so we got a um we got a we met with the uh company the Merrimack Valley guard Service uh Tony who owns the company they are closing up shop and as of uh December 15th they will we will be no longer provided their services I mean December 13th uh we they no longer will be providing services to us so Melissa and I have been meeting to to look at ways to uh figure this out so number one uh reaching out to Tony to meet with his staff to see if they would uh work for us part-time on temporary basis until we can put out a new RFP uh to provide different Services also looking at there are companies that are on the state business so we're looking at that as well because we might be able to get a Service quicker but yeah regardless we are working on a situation because December 13 is just around the corner Mrs Fitzgerald did we have much warning about this well they only have to give us 30 days notice so they notified us uh looks like November around November 15th or so November 13th uh yep anything further okay now John to the capital Improvement funds please so when the capital Improvement committee met the other uh a couple weeks ago one of the items that we didn't bring to the committee on last Tuesday because it wasn't as urgent they also approved for us to expand the roof system over the garages out in the near the football field there's six garages up there and what the plan is is to raise the rear and the rear side of the roof and put a dormer in and with the front uh Gable Dormer on the front end of it that has six foot window so we can move items we're desperately in need of more storage space for all kinds of items and in order to provide get that space what we're looking at is expanding that space up above with the way of accessing and putting stuff up there we have a new fork truck that's come that's due Jane the first week of January that will allow us to utilize that space back using our new Ford truck and moving things into there so and it also gives us a project for our seniors and juniors and carpentry as we don't have a house project this year and the cost of the material to do that project is forty thousand dollars so I just need a committee to approve the spending of that forty thousand dollars with the capital Improvement committee voting uh to move to to the full committee we have a recommendation from the superintendent so moved discussion yes Vivian have an understanding okay I'm sorry did you ask but that's okay so if you if you look at the front uh for you know where the garages are out near the football field as you enter just before the fields on the left of six garages out there do you know do you know where they where they are calls who are left to the left to the left of the fields there's a there's a fence and there's a whole bunch of garages in there yeah so if you look at that those garages and you look at the roof basically what we're going to do is take the group The Garage uh roof was slanted at a 10 10 12 which is about a uh probably 35 degree angle we're going to reduce that angle of the garage roof and make it about a 10 degree angle and then what that allows and then we have to put a wall in front so it raises the roof so now we have space underneath it and above so we basically make a second floor out of the garages and that way we get more space to store stuff so it gives us an enormous amount of space that we don't have right now so by doing that so the kids will what they'll do is they'll Shore up the game will end take the roof Rafters off the roof and rebuilt put a new wall up in front of it and then put new Raptors on top of that and then that'll make more space and give us more space okay uh Frank everything will be done by students is for them all the materials yes we did on the lumber we got three quotes on the lumber yep are you awesome this is Fitzgerald yes this has nothing to do with the Dormers but the three mics over there seem to not be working at all is there any Tech person that we can get I will address it let's just get through this issue okay thank you request support yep okay all right now back to the back to the Dormers any other questions comments no I think it's just her but that's cool all those in favor any word opposed okay out of state travel uh out of state travel for the senior class of 2023 to travel to uh Brownstone exploration and Discovery Park in Portland Connecticut on the June 1st uh 2022 at a cost of three buses which is four thousand two hundred dollars grab a motion on that please I'm sorry okay it was just I think the funds it's just you can see the money that's that's in there okay back to the out-of-state travel have a do we have a motion second discussion questions comments all those in favor and you want to pose a mission reports uh are in your packet you have any questions on the admission reports report I'm sorry yes okay until this is just our first admissions report for the new admissions uh process uh and it but this report was after it had been open for two weeks we already had 766 applicants so we're going at a record Pace in terms of applicants fast a lot faster than we were at this point last year we had way more applicants than we had at this point last year Vivian [Music] um is the influx of applications would you say that it's due to any improvements of Halloween where um conducting business with other guidance counselors from uh from this from our exactly from sending communities of middle schools because I know we discussed Improvement plans um in regards to how guidance counselors and the students from 7th and 8th grade I'm not sure if that's currently the practice now with seventh graders or is it just eighth graders um but I'm just curious if you would deem that um that the results of the applications that we are receiving now is due to the Improvement plan of how we are communicating with our with our middle schools I think it's various reasons so yes one of the uh reasons for it I think is the work that our present guidance counselors and our director of guidance has been doing with the sending Community guidance counselors and principals the other thing is the visits we've been making to the schools I think are video and our presentation is much improved and that's having a big impact in it as well the open house I was a big success and I think that also made a difference and I think probably what's making the biggest difference is the quality of our programs and the reputation that we have amongst our communities in that the school is a safe school that students are performing well in the MCAS and that students are graduating with great opportunities for different careers we're placing more and more kids to work so you know combination of all those things are making a difference so I mean we actually have 977 applicants right now but we haven't processed all of them uh the numbers I gave you were basically how many we've processed but right now we're at nine almost a thousand applicants and we just started are we currently doing tours uh like the middle schools are they creating any type of appointments um with um with us in having students come visit um during the school year around their seventh and eighth grade and if so I'm also curious as to you know what is this what are we doing now that we're having an influx of applicants but yet our school has not expanded um so do we have a plan in place and how we're going to mitigate um this this many applications and we're not going to be able to take every student so we we had a team of four people or a committee of four or five people who spent the summer um and into the first couple of months of this year looking at our admissions policies and process which I presented to you to try to build better to ensure equity for all students who apply that was one thing we've done to try to make sure that all students have Fair opportunity the other thing in terms of expanding each year for the last 10 years we've continued to expand including this year we took in more students our plan to expand is based on the new we are trying to get three new programs approved and that's part of our expansion plan because that'll allow us to take in over the next four years another 300 students but that also means we need more space so we put in five million dollar Capital skills Grant if we get that Grant then that'll allow us to put on three minor additions which will give us more classroom space allow us to build another cafeteria and allow us to develop three new spaces for our program so that that will then allow us to bring in those 300 students and make it so we're not overcrowded but that is the what we're actually working on last question is and based on the the five million Capital skills Grant what like where is this projection where do you see this um when do you see this happening so we're going to know um the first we expect to know I should say these uh first week of December is when the uh Awards will be uh presented or announced uh so we'll know in a couple more weeks we're going to know if we got that Grant or not uh and I feel very good about that we'll get that Grant I really do because I think our application was outstanding there was a lot of time and effort that went into that application with a lot of people putting effort into it CT directors coordinators teachers and of course suamano did an outstanding job developing it and writing it with all the input of people so there were several meetings so I think our application is extremely strong and what makes our application very strong too is the number one criteria for getting the grant is expand number one having a lot a large wait list which we have probably the largest wait list in the state second a plan to increase access so we're increasing 300 students which is a lot of students for a five million dollar capital investment that's a lot of students to increase so I think those and then the plan itself of expanding in career areas where there's a job need where the where there are Industries looking for for help also makes the grant strong so I really feel good about the grant that where we should be very I think we'll be very successful I would be surprised if we weren't so I feel I'm feeling good about it it's only a couple weeks away so once we know that so with that if we get that Grant we've also Revisited our Capital skills Grant we haven't spent some of the money we expected to spend on certain projects because we've been able to do the projects for less money or and we've been able to move money around from other projects so we are projecting we to about 1.5 to 2 million dollars left in that that we can also put into the 5 million for seven million dollars we had an initial a set of drawings done by an architect for the three areas that we want to expand uh and we got a quote they he sent it out for a quote with uh with a reputable contractor and we got a price that came in about 7.8 million to do those particular projects which is in the realm of what's possible for us so if everything works well then I think we'll be in a good position to increase our population to 2 000 students yeah but the question at hand was um once the the the grant has been received you know that'll be the the best news ever when would be the completion of the expansion when do you uh see this completion happening to it's a five-year projection plan no it won't take five years so if the grant gets five years is a long time not when it comes to an expansion if well this is not our this is not a msba project so it's a lot different msba projects take a long time to get get done and get through this is a lot different process so if the grant gets approved then we will immediately hire an architect to do construction drawings for those three projects we'll put it out for an RFP and see where the numbers come in and then we'll do a schedule once it is so the hope is to break ground this summer putting in a foundation and get the project started and and we would expect the project should take about a year do you mind remind me one of the three programs so the three programs are Aviation programming and child care child care and child care space is already going to be is almost already there programming we need the extra new space to uh to be able to bring in the program uh and we need the extra space Also in order to move a few shops in order to be able to put in a new cafeteria and so that's a it's a major plan and it's not just impacting the expansion for new programs but also moving some programs around and re-uh allocating some of the space to in a in a new way that will allow this all to happen so we've worked with the architect on all these plants to figure out so we have a plan in place that I can um if once we get to Grant I can bring in the drawing I think I gave you the drawings the preliminary drawings already I did that we sent in I didn't okay so I'll I'll bring all that together after the um after not the next meeting but after the holidays I'll pull all those drawings together and lay it all out for you where all the changes are in the building space Mr solo because no she didn't but go ahead Mrs Fitzgerald way earlier anyway I think we were still talking about the admissions and then got off on the um grants and so on but I have to totally agree with the superintendent when the original question was asked what do you attribute the large amount I think the reputation of the school over the past years has grown to the point where now it is almost an automatic that there are many new families considering this for their children but I also remember seeing I think in the past week or two the report on the middle school guidance counselors coming here and that it was successful I could remember the years when we had to pull teeth to get them to all to come and we would go to them but it from the looks of the report that I saw or the it was on I believe I read your website it looked like it was very successful and the timing of open house and then having the um breakfast I thought was very good so I I'm looking at Sue when I say this because I'm assuming that that came out of your office thank you Mr Cirillo you have to wait a year for 20 years come in here app but quickly Dimensions um numbers of um we have to look in they're moving in that direction um the aviation originally originally there was five programs there was um Aviation there was programming child care there was um uh postgraduate for metal fabricate I mean for Machine Tech and then the fourth one was I want to say low voltage electrical I'm trying to remember the name but that's basically was we pulled the low voltage electrical program because the department of Ed was not comfortable they felt as though the job market wasn't strong and we were getting the sense that they wouldn't approve it and so we pulled that one so we could focus more on the ones that we really thought were critically important and the reason we pulled the postgraduate program one is because we are meeting with Northern and we we were supposed to have a meeting with the Provost from northern Essex to look at postgraduate programs that align to associates degree so they would get 30 credits of vocational training and then 30 credits of of academic uh college level programs and come out with not only with a postgraduate certificate from great Lawrence but also in Social and so where working on that for Robotics and automation right now and we wanted to tie Machine Tech and any other postgraduate program moving forward so we're trying to start a new paradigm where we can offer kids coming out of the high school and our own students another opportunity for more growth Within These career areas at a higher level and so that work is just beginning with Northern Essex so we felt like we're not ready for that yet and we really wanted so that's one of the projects that we have going and I've got one of the main players in that is Eleanor's working with me and and Lauren Jones director of CTE on this initiative and along with particularly guidance director Brenda Richardson so we have a plan in place and we'll present that plan to you as well after the holiday so you can get a better understanding and it's part of our five-year strategic plan that we're working on to move the school forward in in another direction that will offer great opportunities for all of our our our high school graduates in particular ly because the last time I was there was like yeah so the automotive project has greatly improved the uh they've doing amazing if you drive by there you'll see almost all the block is up now and they'll be starting the brickwork and getting their actually some of the Steelers coming in and they've opened up the space between a new space and the existing garage and put in a large piece of Steel in there and so we're waiting for the uh roof joists the rafters and ceiling joists to come in which is steel we're they're supposed they're due in early in December so they once that's in they can start laying that so the Project's moving much better started anything further okay see none okay uh in the past it's a customary that this committee uh goes down to one meeting in December uh we would be having the December 6th meeting and we would be tabling or canceling I should say the December 20th is that the wish of the committee or would you like to do I need a motion on that second discussion all those in favor and you want to post okay uh Sue principles report please thank you good evening um this evening I just wanted to share a few updates um uh first I'd just like to update the committee on uh quarter one quarter one is behind us and as you know this is our first year of our new schedule with some new elements including the seminar and Wind Block so I just wanted to share with the committee where we are so um in terms of quarter one results I'm happy and proud to report that we have a large number of our students on honor roll both High honors as well as honor roll almost 800.
um we don't have we don't have um cohort we don't have cohort data because they only take this test essentially you know every third year and because of kovid there was a iteration of time when this test wasn't was above one so I think what we're excited about is is now we'll have some comparative data to kind of look towards but it's very third comparison to those things yeah so um we are high in the dark we're high in the dark um we're kind of lower end in the valley we feel like we can do better um I will say that out loud what we have to do a major part of this world forward would be for our students to be a little more connected to the exam they get a little test fatigue that that seems to occur you know when we're taking these assessments so we've the the pre-data versus the post date was very different meaning we had interim assessment opportunities with our our groups so that they swore it in a 70 75 and then when we when this score came to fruition we went well you know we'll look back we feel like we didn't probably show like publicly like what we would like um but you know again that's that's more of what we'll be working towards this year I mean they had like a test Sprite or something oh I so for for well not test Pride I I would say that for many students this score doesn't impact their rate it doesn't impact their college acceptance it doesn't impact their SAT score it's kind of a standalone assessment some people might not have put their all into an exam answer I'll just jump in for it hits the 11th graders who are and it happens in the spring just as they're coming off a couple weeks after SATs so there is a little bit of testing you can see coming in there yeah scores too okay so there's a lot going on so there's a window that we can maybe choose a better day earlier there are some things that we can do to entice students a little bit differently so we're going to be looking at that as part of the plan actually so so the information is not credible then right I mean what are we doing with it because we can't right we can't really say if it's good or bad that's part of the frustration tonight but without a doubt okay I don't want to dodge and say I think part of what I want to say a little bit later is we want to hone in on students they've given them more money than in terms of um what we look what are we looking to do that this year but next year was tied to a graduation standard and that would I think enforce the idea that this is a valuable Endeavor for them but it's more about a school Benchmark than with an individual Benchmark okay and that and that lends it something maybe not the level that we will hold but I'm just trying to be transparent with what we're doing I think we're doing really good things in our science classes and you know we're really tracking students and training students in the phenomena areas that that potentially affects examples right I I don't I don't mean to be a pastor again but the latest but what can an administrator do with this information that what what do you take back from this I mean it's I hear what you're saying about the kids but what do we what do we glean out of this and how do we improve from it if the information is not credible you know how do you how do you act on it as an administrator that's right well I think there's there's probably like a pre-step meaning when I was just sort of kind of working backwards into that is we have to we have to make it more uh meaningful for students right I think the idea is to tie it to something that's meaningful meaning students um would um a graduation standard about a certain assessment level a proficiency level okay connecting to this would make it more of an independent opportunity for students to um to do better but the other piece of it too is you do have some data that's not public that says that we're doing so there's two reasons why we might have this you want to look at student outcomes we want to look informing our curriculum construction and receptional process pieces so those pieces seem very sound based on the internal I guess right so I feel like I can glean that we're doing a pretty good job but yet I'm a little disappointed that we can't represent that the way we would like look at it okay thank you drew sorry to be here no don't worry I'll go ahead about it okay and a third piece of data that that we technically or uh yearly look look forward to just seeing is how many students are willing to involve themselves in any advanced placement tests how many would want to be in advance place of course and generally how well we do um in those particular areas so I've shared this with you before but I'm excited to report that we continue to have high levels of AP students in our school um that um over 60 percent of students who graduate end up taking an AP exam that um about taking an AP course that um we continue to have you know a wide range of students in these courses and to me the most important numbers how many students actually sit in the course so this year we have 134 students in the courses last year we had 123 year before we had 132 our population is a little bit less so that makes me feel good and that um you know this opportunity you know students take multiple courses so basically there'll be about 257 individual opportunities to take it uh to being seated in 18 in AP class so those numbers you know are are particularly I think encouraging and strong for for Canton um and you know we continue to Value students stretching themselves they've done better on the exam um of late but less people are taking the exam we've explained some of those reasons last year at this time that um universities aren't looking at it the same way families aren't looking at it the same way because um basically it was for advanced placement credit and those are further and far between in terms of opportunities for students have you seen more of a decline I remember you making that comment last year and then you have to weigh the the cost from the expense of providing the AP or should you just be providing more honors type programs I don't know what do you think well I think think we continue to well I think it's it's simple I think um I think advanced placement courses are great they're great for um again putting stretching students into um you know the highest level of learning um there was people who are highly interested in particular subject Arrow you know chemistry allergy physics you know World Language so okay and then there's maybe another segment of students who say hey I really want to extend myself in a particular way I want to I want to get a college experience and so those students have been signing up that's been a few years ago that was our big push to offer more advanced physical courses to get more students involved in the process for so now again the result of certain world we have all these students in this interim process of teaching and learning learning learning in a more rigorous setting they're doing fine they raise are strong they're learning they're reading their writing they're presenting they're doing the things at a more rigorous level so now comes to taking the exam some students are opting out of the actual exam again similarly what's the benefit for that if there's a distinct benefit especially for juniors they end up taking an exam what you know if we put a little pie chart out is is as students get second semester senior year that AP government exam might not benefit them at all personally they're already in a school um they already know their major they might not that that AP World credit isn't even going to be accepted where they're going so why why might I sit at the exam what benefits so so that's a family decision I don't think it's a school decision I hear what we offer right and we just need to understand the option yeah that's like this past year 71 of our kids are taking the test they get a sign up in October so we know this last year was about 77 of the students actually took the test it's still pretty good you know seven out of 10 kids we're gonna say good all right so this is what we look at is what we look at and then question on that street as well so on 2021 and 2022 the numbers underneath the number of exams were what's the differentiation between the two and what's the asterisk stand for yeah thank you so much so I think that was the first year I denoted that um that was the first year students begin to opt out of the exam so what I I want to let the board know at that time we actually had 228 students in courses but I can't read my number oh 228 kids took the exam but they were 267 students who were in enrolled in Classics and then the next year was 193 out of 254 and then the little numbers to the right say moving into this year we have 257 seats out of enrollments with real no 184 people will be taking it so it's kind of a you know a decline overall thank you that's not in specifically yeah thank you for bringing that word Erica yes I feel like they're probably doing better than that okay um so specifically then that those those types of drivers help us think about what we want to what we want to support in terms of very specific goals so there's five bullets here and this is really our academic goal we want students to achieve and what we're going to measure measure in terms of of a true limit is is how we will measure is through the state assessment scores but we want to be a little bit more specific than that general information that they gave you so you know there's some um Global growth and there's a specific growth so getting back to a schema with the psatsat we want students aggregate Sports to grow as I mentioned earlier 20 points in each test area from iteration to iteration so what we'll do is students took this test in October we haven't got those scores back yet we will get them soon and then that goal whatever that number is when I present to you in in June we want it to be plus 20 at least for for each area your W and Matt but more more importantly frankly is that we want to to look at individual students in in as as a ballpark number eighty percent we want 80 of our students to actually grow from one iteration to the next so that now speaks to all of our students we're not just looking at numbers like 5 or 12 or 463 we're saying Johnny got 492.
we also have students with a one or more failing grades so I want to share that and um I can say in comparing it to former years the numbers especially for the ninth grade and quarter one are pretty similar one of the things that we're noticing that a lot more of our students are failing just one course some of the students that you see that may have multiple failures we are already working with pretty intensively in different ways I want to highlight our grade 10 we have a lower number of student failures in the grade 10.
and we'd like to see Johnny make sure that student gets you know an approved score based on that and the link uh the link yet database will help us with that all of that being shared with staff so we're going to be very cognizant of all the student scores and be able to work in our star data will be very helpful in the iterations because then it's not that just Johnny struggled maybe a little about PSAT but the start date will tell us specifically the skills that are deficient and that we can work and then we can compare so you're going to do that for every student we will that's that's fantastic I think that's fantastic did we take that individually and we create a plan for that so we look at where he's deficient how we're going to get them to move maybe that 20 points or correct right those teachers will be like surrounding around patterns okay like in algebra what do we mentioning okay because we have a group of kids we seem to have these themes right it might be lacking okay and then when it really pulls down to and these four kids over here let's get them over here for a little bit that's the beauty of a small school it's the beauty of coming to Canton right that's great so we're excited about that goal and I do think it is absolutely the most important one here I think um okay so that is really our academic goal and I guess I I sort of jumped jumped the guttle over here the indicators that we would we will we'll be using that um you know is in the next slide so you know we'll look at the the comparison scores between um you know the psh and sat we'll look at the release scores in upper ndss we will also um you know use star data to help monitor students to uh inform our own practice and I think again that's a real linchpin in this plan working and so the board is aware um it's really an important bullet evaluation of teachers student learning objectives each each teacher has an academic um SLO it's called which teacher um creates a goal themselves based on their student population it could be around writing it could be around reading it could be around math it could be around [Music] lab growth opportunity it's a particular academic focus of the class and you know they're measuring students on a rubric and they're you know infusing their instruction to to help that evolve and grow so you know those those teachers are rated and discussed you know throughout the year or those plans are discussed throughout the year and that ends up being sort of a linchpin to again the independent work that happens in classrooms so that that we feel like it is core to to making sure that the academic goals are reached so that's how we'll look at our success at the end of the year and you know our many plans are sort of built in that so as I mentioned many plans it gets us to strategies and there's a lot of words here um I don't you know I'm happy to answer any questions on any of them but the first three talk about a little bit about [Music] um General teaching generalized teaching you know what we're doing in the classroom like that's part of our strategy good teaching every day help students achieve so it's about strategies meeting times massive maximizing instructional time effectively using class time and that's all part of the evaluation process that our department shares we administrators work with staff on you know the fact that we use good assessment practices and common in bricks you know are really important for humans they they become able to verbalize new works and understand their own process and growth that's really exciting you know what I have next is to talk a little bit about those next four bullets talk a little bit about how we use data you know how we'll use Link it this year to you know um compare students and student growth and psh and sat to look at the skills through star um we have some other software Khan Academy and IXL which helps students practice these exams um or practice skills so you know that's kind of how we use our data and then we have a student intervention team that might help our supporting students our our students reading a little bit more support and then we have our support for students who are struggling and we have a couple outlets for students who are struggling um we have Resource Centers and we have student um study center um that helped you know pull out students to to get extra support um and then again we will be using observations a little bit more with our ngss students to Target those most at risk to help them with specific strategies to motivate them um and so you know this is Again part of our daily practice our daily work um in order to help help students along so Drew let me ask you um there's this uh in management they called the Chinese ping pong Theory Chinese always had this great people if you ever watch the Olympics how great they are and it's really their backhand so they say that when they interview them they say they practice their backhand ninety percent of their time and they only practice their forehand ten percent of time because the best thing they do is they're back in what do we do to support our best soon so how do we continue to challenge him because I hear these I hear um when we sit through these things I'm really proud of how we we take the lower end and we're continually trying to push them up but what do we do I don't hear enough about what are we doing to challenge the top end too how do we get them you know to really Excel yeah so um so the point I feel like we spent a lot of years talking about that and I was sort of like you know um back here but I so I I think almost where we started like the 13 AP classes that's good yeah you know it's a hard it's a high number for a small District you know and we've extended that into uh environmental science we can send it out to music theory so music theory is a great one you know though that's a very sort of distinct group of people who have a particular passion and gift that is a small AP Gatherings right um physics is is a small one it's usually because so we continue to offer and have small class sizes to bring those passions forward you know I think some of our elective areas while it might you might not seem like academic per se but when we have errors like um Theater Arts and we have ceramics so we have opportunities for um you know drawing a painting three which is like an advanced art course so we're trying to extend into the Arts as well um well I was just going to say too some of it I think to support that population students also happens outside of the classroom so any of these opportunities we have for new clubs and new activities that are student-led instead of created whether it's coming out of the camp classes or whether it's ninth grade students grading different kinds of clubs um you know it allows them to to hone their skills and push themselves in more of almost a organic and realistic kind of setting that's a piece of it too there's also this might take a slightly different spin but um there's been an increase in Awareness in anxiety and stress levels and some of our highest achieving students too and so being able to focus more on that and having some of our just social support services be working with kids at that range too and not just assuming that everyone's fine because they get straight A's but how are we helping them actually feel good about those grades and and push further that's great I I forgot but I think the 13 AP course isn't the same we have something in Music Theater music theory and Theater Arts I mean those challenges allowing them to be creative and I think that's pretty cool so also any uh if a student is interested said I'm going more into in class that's not offered I can to take it through virtual high school I should take any AP class um you know like psychology computer science and so they can really go in depth through the VHS and it's a great thing thank you yeah we had 20 students at VHS since last year wow so it's a little bit lower this year but you know that's we've maximized that [Music] um to maximize that support that that we buy into it but as part of Consortium so it's so originally it was set up for years ago when we didn't have that many electives and it was like hey we want to take an elective and do an offer and we build it in and now it's been a bump out on the bump bottles we still offers many but just things that are smaller I forget about I think we remember you mentioned that I guess you know back in I think I listened to it in the spring before I even got elected I heard you mentioning that so so like we had a but we we have we have AP calculus but there's a calculus we see that a few Advanced students can get to and they they take the BC through that because we don't offer AP Psychology but a few people have taken it in Psychology and with that Court board yeah how many students AP students are in multiple AP classes so it's a great question I I don't know if I have an absolute answer but if we have 123 students to 134 students in an 18 class I'm going to say about 80 to 90 take a moments does that decrease a little bit because I remember a few years ago on the floor there was discussion you know some are taking his names they could it was like overwhelming and stressed up they couldn't do some of the other activities they wouldn't produce or some thinking with that change some of that well I think a couple things happened I think um also the better I I really didn't examine that five or six years ago and Mr Schrade was supposed to be here tonight but I really feel like we balanced ourselves as a school and a community like what's most important and I think what we came to understand is we didn't need 12 AP classes but stretching ourselves in a few errors and How We messaged that through the through the scheduling process hit right for most families feelings a few students it was it was great that they would take six or seven or eight eight courses while they're again High School but for many students two or three or four had helped them meet their goals and and got them exactly and it hit just right so the stress levels went down when people came to understand really what it meant on the back end and I think we were able to articulate that much better about five or six years ago and it really did bring down um that concern that was traveling at the time but it was really just getting communication with students and you mentioned it was that one-to-one conversation with the school counselor who really knew that it was a kid and knew sort of where they wanted to be it was like you you want to take oap classes how many take these two right focusing on these two honors classes and do a great job on your college application process and you will be fine and that was exactly sort of process start to Kind of Wonderful so the last thing I would just mention that we're really focused in post-cover is attendance as and I include this as an academic indicator it's also a control indicator um but you know Kobe really broke down attendance processes policies um all together so we we reinvested in that I'm not sure I feel like uh Rebecca talked a little bit about it in in her meeting with you so we've sent letters home early to kind of reminds families about dealing with what the policy is and what structural cases did to remind families and there are some meetings coming up to ensure that but I just want to let you know like that toss is a huge indicator and kidding to be in school to be at their best right we we like this so we're we're you know it connects to our culture which drill is going to kind of jump into in the second phase here um but I did want that to sort of segue that to let you know that you see any Trends in attendance lately or anything yeah I mean we we definitely still see some students who are who are struggling um and I think it is sort of the perfect segue to it talking about our next goal of climate culture because it's truly you can't do any of this you can't make any of these academic goals you can't get in the building if you're not feeling comfortable and happy to be there um and so that's that's kind of where we're jumping into next okay um so really [Laughter] um this is kind of a big picture shot of some large areas related to culture and climate and this is you know this is one of those areas and again you've heard this from Egypt at school so I don't know you know how dissimilar it will be but um there's a lot of stuff here and there's a lot of different directions we could take as a specific School goal and a lot of different ways that we can work on these things and they do go hand in hand with the academic pieces with policy pieces um just trying to make sure that kids feel safe and welcome and ready to learn in each in that learning so we always are going to want our scores you know these numbers are indicating how students um you know responded positively towards these things and some of them we just want to be higher you know and and we've been working on that for years working on school culture and and connectedness is not a new thing not a new thing at all even prior to covet and that Kobe came and made everything worse and so now we're climbing back out of that as well um so there's a lot of pieces that are going to kind of go hand in hand with some of our goals but that gives you just some some big picture data and the third bullet the respect for diversity across that line there I'm going to come back to that because that's where we really end up sort of honing in for for some of our goals okay um but really you know what we end up looking at as a school culture and climate goal is this idea that if students are feeling included and welcomed um then they're going to have a better learning environment overall which is going to lead to their stronger overall well-being as well as being able to be more academically successful in general so our second goal really focuses on strengthening our own commitment to equity and diversity and there's a couple of big things here by increasing programs curricular revisions and Student Activities and this does as we're going to speak back to later connect to our knee as goals as well and the ask recommendations um and it's worth mentioning I think we'll say it again later too that our Nia's recommendations come out of our own self-study and our own dissolve reflection so it's it's what we were able to over the last few years say this is something that we need to work on so how are we going to figure out if we're improving or you know making any gains in some of these areas of culture and climate we have the survey data we'll continue to use that that allows us to look at school-wide approaches and how all of our staff and and administration and students are working together to improve some of those numbers that we're seeing um we're going to be you know paying more attention to and trying to kind of get into some details of exactly how many students participate in all of our extracurriculars we know it's a ton but who are the ones who are not and how are we servicing them and how are we making sure that we're we're kind of grabbing everybody um part of the overlap for both the academic goals and our cultural goals is um another written yes recommendation of creating a more consistent and cohesive written curricula and our curriculum has has long been in place and teachers are constantly evolving that and working towards it um but what we've been kind of looking at is how do we get that into a formatted template for the purposes of mass but mostly for the purposes of being able to have a better bird's eye view of curriculum and then how do we Infuse pieces that might not have been a focus area in our written curriculum before such as vision of a graduate looking through cultural lenses and these types of pieces that end up um you know having us look at the whole broader picture together and then as Drew was mentioning for the academic piece our teacher goals our teachers professional evaluation goals we also have a couple of specific areas that are really explicitly connected to school culture and climate as well and I think the next slide kind of highlights a piece of that so this was the survey question that we really wanted to focus on because what do we want more than anything we want students to be nice to each other to be kind to each other to learn how to get along despite any kinds of differences and for all the good that we see related to this area some of the patterns that we've seen have been about students who have differences and who may be in Conflict learning to problem solve with each other and to move forward and how do we how do we communicate better how do we have a better discourse you don't have to be everybody's best friend but how can we make sure that we're accepting and understanding of all the different backgrounds and everything that um you know make us who we are how's that question worded is it where did just like it says right here students new school respect should you be rated just like that so that is the question that's the question and and how what are the choices for a student to answer and it's a micro scale yeah so that 60 is is um the higher to an electric scale um so and then you know when that's the 61 that is it was sort of on an uptick for a little bit and it was doing well and it's come back down and so that's the one we really do we know what the bottom was on this I mean like this 20 says it's just non-existent or is it 10 or because you get the middle this is the high and you get the middle and then you get the load you know what the low was for chance thank you no I'm just wondering how many kids felt that it's just not there yeah that 53 is pretty low yeah I understand is there something inherently um about the adolescence um sense of Independence and growth they're like psychological um that sort of maybe makes them less Community oriented more focused on their independence or their their own self-development it might be in contrast with kind of like the Kumbaya thing going on I used to be a high school teacher I'm just wondering if maybe yes is the short answer to that yeah yeah um it's definitely and it is it's it's kind of an interesting Paradox of we want students to embrace their independence and learn who they are on their own and their own identity and then at the same time we say but except that person's identity as well and all their differences and and it's not and I think it is it is a hard place to come to but I think it's always going to be worth the effort and I agree but I just am looking at these numbers thinking maybe there's another thing that's going on absolutely yeah absolutely what is that five percent indicate under the school-wide so um this is actually a good question this is actually what's connected directly to teacher goals so I don't know how are people mostly Familiar of how each individual teacher creates their professional goals so let's give you the short version um so each teacher creates one or two student learning objectives and so they really think about as their professional role what am I going to do as a teacher that's going to help students that have a particular outcome you know and they're going to do better on their written assignments that sort of thing um and one of the other teacher goals is essentially what can I do in my practice that's going to help the school as a whole perform better or increase in some way on a particular idea so for us we chose this as part of we want our school-wide goal we want students in general to be working towards this idea of respect and we've spent time as a districts and as a school over the last couple of years doing different types of equity training and people digging into different ways to promote discourse and just communication pieces and so we said to teachers you know think about that as a continued goal It's A Small Piece honestly of their professional evaluation plan but all together as a community what are teachers owning and embracing in their own classroom to help desk or go up so that's that's what that five percent means so we've got 45 for the the SLO this student learning indicator five percent of the teachers evaluation then comes from this 40 is from their actual observation of professional practice and then 10 is on uh engagement communication but this is five percent isn't taken away like the 61 isn't five percent less correct okay the five percent is connected to the teacher goal thank you yeah sort of a random so you can get information as to what's behind the score there it varies um I think you get captions of students I don't know if I could pinpoint as one specific answer but I think for me that sense of and maybe it actually comes back to your point um students having a difficult time sometimes owning any negativity that they may bring and just looking to sort of blame others as opposed to creating that open communication and just acceptance about learning about one another um that's it's interesting it's something we're working on in terms of like different groups of students that we are talking to this year trying to get our um our student Equity team out of more engaged in the conversation so it's something we'll keep exploring a little bit yeah all right thanks bye so in general again a lot of bullet points there this is how we're trying to do that and we see sort of a couple of different pieces of it um we have school Improvement groups that every teacher at the high school is a part of one of these different Improvement groups we have five different groups but two of them are sort of focused in this Lane so we have a committee for Equity of academic programs and a committee for Equity of school culture and we have our student Equity team it's small But Mighty so we're working on getting some of those pieces going and just just embracing some of those conversations and some of those questions um we've mentioned the adl's no place for hate as a program that we're working on bringing into the school and I'm happy to talk more about what that looks like but essentially it's just a framework it's a framework for um how do we have students and staff Embrace this idea of we do not accept heat we do not accept we stand up for each other we learn about each other as a school we're working on some process and systems pieces that would actually help contribute to a more positive culture looking at some of the digital pass system uh again being able to have some data on that still using our Canton High School advisory our chat times to have different lessons come through um the teacher professional goals around the surveys what we were just sort of talking about a little bit um discipline and our policies and what we're seeing around that is also a huge part of climate and culture so we're working on different Avenues to help students again collaborate and communicate better with one another whenever possible our curriculum writing is also a piece of the overlap of our making sure that we have some of those structures in place um our vision of a graduate is is huge for us this year and that's an overlap of everything right that's a district-wide piece so teachers are also incorporating some of those standards from the vision of a graduate collaboration communication um being a good citizen those types of pieces into their everyday instruction and assessment practices is also part of their professional goals and then again using some of that professional time that we've been given as a district and that we've also structured throughout students teacher school day to be able to just talk interdepartmentally about different practices related to you know reading and um and just looking at some some different pieces academically as well so there's a lot there but it all sort of leads to how do we start to embrace go ahead so how often um typically would like the school Improvement groups meet and what type of systems are in place to implement some of the changes that they'd like to see in the school Community to help with the culture and climate um about once a month for the actual groups so it's part of our we have meetings as a school every Monday faculty department meetings and those groups end up meeting about once a month to have some of those so it ends up being a slower process but we work you know we work through some of those pieces so one of those groups is also getting acquainted with the no place for hate framework and so they'd be working towards helping students be able to roll that out just kind of understanding what that looks like a little bit more the other groups are looking at with some resources um because this has come up before our grading for Equity practices and and how we're working on some of those pieces every day in the classroom and they have Opera the students that have opportunities to give feedback to you also Implement things that would help yeah so that's the goal the student Equity team and I'm looking to recruit more um and we've also been holding at least offering the option for grade level open Forum meetings so any 12th grader wants to come talk any 11th grader they haven't been jumping for that necessarily but I'm still trying to recruit a little bit more and keep that as an Avenue of just open Voice mailing thinking we have about 10 minutes so maybe we can I know the niask is important so sure I'm happy to jump back yeah so um the priorities here that we have listed really do embodied in the assets accreditation visit and I think to spell out a little bit differently about the the first slide here that talked about priorities really you know talk about you know um the priority growth areas that we have we have outlined with uh with the support of the ask so the things that we've been talking about here for 45 minutes strength and commit impact of their diversity revised curriculum um to understand our invention intervention strategies you know are all part of our focused areas and then to move forward um you know other things that we are prioritizing this year um you know fall under some of the things we've discussed but you know the utility of data um you know especially around star and our Universal screeners um to look at our literacy coach and understand how best to use this position we I think it's been an incredible help and support to our staff and our agreements much more than we could have could have hoped for um and we'll continue to work that um as a as a priority um and um you know again we've implemented a new course this year so those are our general priorities it's true how about math though I mean what are we going to do about math I know I I see all the stuff on what we're seeing I think I mean it seems like it's a district where we're lagging behind in math yeah so I think couples have thank you a couple of things have come to a Forefront in this meeting I think programmatically like in so we have our students so we have our students so we can the supports I think in Star are going to be incredibly helpful in our literacy coach though she's on the learning literacy side has strong organizational skills around how to infuse um these test outcomes into a plan so when we talked earlier about independent plans every teacher's already implemented the STAR testing in October so they're getting kind of a road map for kids where they're struggling so this is a work in progress all year long at whatever level math they are in but really it's for 9th and 10th graders in the algebra 1 and geometry to really focus on those who who haven't fully developed skills yet to to understand the deficiencies to move forward so in in and of itself that star data and I just you know it's not a magic pill but it's what you do with it so we didn't have this last year this is the plan like we didn't have to know where Lou was in this particular schema so now we know and now we can attack it a little bit differently so do you need are you going to need support are you gonna you know the math tutor or you know so so yes and no and what I mean by that is what Eric had talked a little bit about before I I really feel like that is the best thing we've done in a long time to shift for that group of students who are struggling the most to give them a different avenue to increase their skills at a quicker rate at an earlier age I feel like those excuse have always lagged behind and now we can try to catch them up almost two years in one year right so that remediates a bit of a concern we will be bringing a bunch of proposals together to around Staffing to attempt to get other tutor level positions to free up our certified staff to support students who are struggling in our academic Resource Centers okay so those are three things that we've thought about math for the next year that's great thank you you're welcome perfect okay so to jump in and you ask I know I I would be happy to move it along I we could talk about this as little as much as you are um a few minutes a few minutes will be great so just to to give the board an update the the there's a six person committee coming December 5th 6th and 7th and you're a team of Educators three uh two are central office administrators and for our um to our building level leaders and to our teachers and you know they are our peers in some ways and they are they're they're going to help God and Shepherd us into um you know thinking about how we can improve but this process is in a gotcha process the process is we've been working with this group for a couple of years we've been a South report two years ago we've identified and self-reported on areas that we can improve upon and um therefore we have priority growth areas that we've been working on and you've seen in this plan so they're here for two days to basically look at all of them they're gonna they're gonna be in classrooms upon classrooms upon classrooms to see students learning to see students work to to meet with staff about um you know areas that they're focused on so that's that's like 70 of the time they're actually in classrooms we have meetings set up um what we call Priority area growth meetings where we have small committees where they'll come and meet with a group of people who are working on curriculum or working on tier two interventions and things that we've redeemed important um they'll look at student work they'll meet with students as well they'll be the leadership team they'll meet with the department chair they'll meet with the superintendent in central office and they'll be meeting with members of the Board of Education that is sort of the Arc of their visit um the third day they generally um you know use it for writing their report and asking questions that they don't fail with they don't feel have been answered as of yet and also during that time we are going to give them opportunities to see some of our our meeting times in action they'll see us writing curriculum they'll see us in a Sit team meeting so they can see how we're addressing some of the areas that we we've talked about as concerns so I want to give you that update I've given Kevin the schedule um and asked him if certain people can be or if members of this group can be ready at a certain time it is someone flexible if we can't make it work but we need to work with Mr Daniels on on that time so I'll let you know right now yeah um December 6th uh between eight in the morning and ten in the morning I don't have the specific hours drew the intervention but right that's the window we would love to have all board event members participate in talking with the committee the committee has certain questions they ask for to bed members and we can get you those questions ahead of time so you're prepared uh but we would we would love to have all of you join us for that if not everyone can come certainly we'd like our committee chairs to be able to uh to be there and speak along I know Lou was our chair will be there as well that's December 6 between 8 and 10 in the morning and we'll refine that but if you could look at your calendars and try to save that time and this would be an in-person meeting at our high school thank you foreign thank you okay so in our last minute um here maybe you could just jump to the pictures I I you know we're gonna wake up a little bit we are having I'd say a loud success this year I um it's been I'm kind of clinical in my thinking but it's really felt great it's really about the way people have been spoken to I really feel like you know not you know when you're trying to work through covet and trying to kind of recapture the vibrancy of the school I really felt like our heart because we're so based on the things we do and when so many things we couldn't do we're just going to stop and I just feel like the the retrieving or recapturing of opportunities for students is really again what makes our small school great it's just and I've said this in front of the world I mean it's giving kids opportunities to be involved with it so we've had our spirit week we've had our whole football games we've had um opportunities like 60 of our kids last year played uh uh on a sports team we had Alice in Wonderland this year with 40 kids were involved in this play we have a you know our music program is is growing yet again and obviously the the there was a concert tonight we're back to having field trips um model yuan is going to Yale in January thank you for your support there we have like 26 students going we have our Disney trip is that 80-something students our pool trip was at 17 students it's it's happening you know um we've had programs in school we had a great mock election around in early November um we had Veterans Day in person we had a homecoming dance um our clubs are the highest participation I'm actually I don't have the numbers I was trying to get them before tonight but um like I said our model event is up to 45 again our Dungeons and Dragons Club it's a new club 30 plus students we're trying to get an ambassador group to go to CIS to work with RCs oh I mean [Music] so um again we had Halloween we saw some of the pictures from middle school but that also tell the work of the high school our camp projects are up and running again we want to have a camp Expo this year January 9th we're going to do an evening opportunity we used to do it in school but we're going to kind of provide a public Focus for some of the great work that our kids are doing some of those Camp projects help the community or help another school um so I I just really you know feel like there's been a wave of positivity around being here in high school again and you know our good work you know has to be in these other areas that we've talked about I think we've really laid out but um you know very proud of the fact that it's been resilient through a very difficult time our teachers it kind of come full circle to kind of have that energy pack in um that was just really tough to offer during times of struggle um and I think the kids have reciprocated well so um you know I'd like to say as a school Success you know uh first and foremost is really about opportunity and connectivity I think amongst the students and I think you know in time it's really short but I I do want to mention our literacy coach that you all supported here you know I think we've talked about it a few meetings ago but um really what um that position is offered it's just uh opportunities to professional development for staff and we need to understand reading patterns and deficiencies that's huge come to us with and I help for students specifically doing and a whole opportunity for us to understand data more so this position itself has created an information flow that we just didn't have last year and it's really helped our staff and our students but those are two real success questions for yeah or Dr Goodwill Ryan are you good so it's an impressive presentation and you know your our Flagship really our high school when it comes our Flagship and you're doing such a great you're a great team I hear good things from parents you know you know I walk the sidelines and I'm always asking folks um so if everybody seems very positive and upbeat about the high school and like you said we're clicking again what can the board of education do for you what's what's the ask what do you mean yeah so continued support with professional development days and Canada I'm not sure you're on that process have really been on hell what's the recommendations I mean we have a yeah are you asking for more or I I think we're I'm gonna call it a sweet spot but we've hit three areas of curriculum writing you know data collection and student culture components and and I think you know the 11 to 14 days that are sort of balanced between the school seems to be about right another example that plus we have contractual days as well we can build on it and a beauty that you might not realize but because you have a contractual day on Monday and the day on Tuesday that's a half day we can blend meetings and we really use our time effectively that way so we do that often so we can not just take the two hours but almost certainly to a three-hour iteration of whatever number two there will be a few um in working with John and Kevin a little bit around um some some support positions at the high school again the goal wouldn't so much be a um necessarily a certified staff but some more support staff to potentially free up um some of our certified staff so those are two real opportunities I I think would be of help it's our next little bump out um that we need to keep our work going okay how are facilities doing yeah so I get I I feel like we have um I want a shout out to Andrea tune you know Luther Stone in um you know he has very high standards and he's a great communicator in our building is always you know the best it can be in terms of what we have you know the building is old it's in you know 1950s construction you know some of you know some of the work that that I just wrote down about some CIP work um you know in some of the you know foreign um in in the basement areas around the shops around those bathrooms those could use an upgrade for sure um and again I've been working with Donna on the CIP in this that should be presents and okay great okay anything else they're a really good reporter I'm sorry I missed the beginning of it and we missed it really really good the band continues I didn't say for all of them the two-thirds yeah great job for everyone thanks for taking time out we'll see you here tonight and I also want to thank you both and what I really see as an improvement is um celebrating students voices and empowering more and more students have a say as to what their Canton High School experience is all about I thank you both for that I've also noticed how excited our students are about their Camp project which is the Canton Mastery project which is a graduation requirement I was in a restaurant this weekend and two of our students happened to be servers in the restaurant and they both came up to me and said Mr Case will you attend my or will you be involved in my Camp project I'm having a jog take place on December 11th and then another student mentioned yeah another student mentioned another project so they are so excited and it's great to see that right because this is a project they're interested in they're applying all this 21st century skills they learn in this project and I'm not seeing it with just the two students that I met this weekend but but throughout the school there's that excitement and that was part I know Drew mentioned the January 19th date that you came to us from really good teachers as well so say we need a there's a better way to highlight and and put some good pressure on the students to celebrate so we're actually going to send that and save the date at some point very so great that's great well thank you both thank you good night good job putting it together okay we'll try to move right along Donna how are my friends over at the board of Finance tonight oh they were wonderful they're still our friends you came over and I you were smiling so I said oh my God she was in there for an hour what could have happened I think it was like two hours so your report tonight my report I don't have the financials um right is right I mean you don't have to yeah I mean I don't know I saw I was on for budget but I don't know just every meeting you're going to be on a budget for this point you don't have to if you don't have anything that's fine I understand you'll be on for the first meeting December 13th you know Russell will have his community Awards yeah is there anything you want to alert us to or any concerns or I was just going to tell you about the process or what we've done so far but I don't me too is that right yeah I think what what we can share with you is that very very very preliminary health insurance costs um Donna was looking at that today coming in at about an eight and a half percent yeah we hope that will come down over the next couple of months before it's final it'll be six okay that's that's what we hope Lou yeah I said six to eight so they came in tonight they came in at the high end absolutely because they bought the business and Don is also working hard to project our utility costs which we're hearing electricity we're just hearing that right that our electricity cost for our homes is going up so we're looking at how much of an increase we may expect next year along with gas um gas and oil prices as well so right so that was in the middle of that analysis that was going to be offline with the board of Finance they knew that they were gonna they were going to um accommodate the town Nanos because of that it's a it's an unbudgeted an unforecasted expense right right yes but even looking ahead to next year yeah right that's what we're looking at yeah okay uh just to update you on what uh Donna and I just had a conversation about with the um Board of Finance just as we look at our um reporting procedures you know I wanted to do a check-in with them are you receiving enough information want more information would you like and it was just mentioned that when we present our monthly financials if we could talk more about the grants while we provide them the grants we don't necessarily talk that much about them so we will talk more about what the grants are and what they're offsetting within our budget and to make sure we're reporting on food service every month well for years um we reported to them on food service and so we will get back to it while we provide the financials again it's there in their packet they would like Donna to speak to that and fair enough they didn't ask anything about um special ed or they didn't because they know we do a great job of reporting them so I just wanted to make sure with the entire you know board uh that we knew what they wanted and uh so more about grants make sure we talk about food service talking about special ed is something we do anyway and they appreciate our communication on that exactly um to that point um Mr Lavery brought out the fact that he would like to bring in our state legislators in December to talk about fully funding the excess cost Grant so just now the board of Finance proposed that we have a tri-board meeting on Monday night December 19th at 6 pm to talk with our state representative and newly elected State Center um about special ed issues and anything else that I actually think that's a great idea we got two billion dollars sitting in the State Surplus and even at the cave meeting that's what everybody's clamoring about you know if we're only with 74 on the excess brand right I mean even if you took us up to 85 or take us over 80.
so part of our response to this is as we're we're moving towards instead of being reactive to failures we're really moving to be kind of proactive with some of the supports we're putting in place but we are right now working with students out of our special education office out of our English office of English Learners as well as in the academic side to kind of dig into the data to find out you know the root cause of some of those failures we're really trying to partner with students more because we want students to have kind of a voice and a say and we want we need to hear from students so the administrative team is working right now on getting to the root cause of a lot of the failures and partnering with students to see how we can support students in moving forward we also as you know have the seminar I think I reviewed the different seminars that we have each grade level has seminars in all the content areas this is a placeholder for elective and so we I had the students surveyed after first quarter of their seminar to find out what they thought about the seminars we also surveyed staff that are facilitating those so I just wanted to share some highlights that the assistant principals put together all of our surveys all of our courses you can see received overall high ratings from the students all courses received a rating of over a three out of a five experience in their seminar course which again is brand new for students overall out of the 614 responses students are reported that they had a positive experience with their and again this is the first quarter they had an excellent or a good experience in the survey some of the responses that we got because what we really wanted to get to is some of these courses where they're aligned to standards and aligned to content we wanted to ensure that they're engaging interesting and students had an opportunity to work collaboratively which we feel is a great soft skill so you can see for the most part of the respondents the students found the matters interesting engaging and they had opportunities to work collaborative and also they highlighted Choice um so some of the things that we pulled out of the survey which I think is going to help us work towards developing electives in the future what student what students really and these are responses that were repeated they liked working in groups completing projects they liked writing um a lot of them did shout out their teachers films choice and collaborating on different topics um we also asked them what they would change and some of this data that they reported about change really aligns with the idea of building electives uh students reported that they would change having just a seminar for a quarter they wanted to have it run longer like a semester they also want Choice like this year because it's a placeholder each student has a seminar in all four academics but students are reporting that they really like to choose throughout them they want more projects and one of the things they changed they said the class sizes were large I did check in today the average class size of a seminar is 24 but that just goes to show that students are used to smaller classes and we also found this interesting these are the ones that we put here also repeated students reported that the seminars and additional offerings that they'd like to see are art drawing creative arts debate criminal justice forensics current events world world cultures and foreign languages so this is the voice of the students after the first quarter um so um we thought that was encouraging and we plan to in order to kind of keep moving with our plan we will look at quarter two we'll also be working with our teachers in the next professional collaboration day each team is going to get their individual results so all the 9th grade math results will go to that team they'll kind of look at it a little deeper and that way we can move forward with both student feedback and staff feedback and how to build electives at greater Lawrence um another thing that I've talked about is our win what I need um one of the concerns last year from both families and students was well what if I don't need anything like what if I'm up to date what if I don't have anything to make up what will I be doing in that so we're really trying to ensure that the Wind Block number one is for supporting students and for students to get direct instruction learning they can do it supervised the other offerings that are listed here are all being offered by our guidance and Social Work team I'm pretty excited about this there is meditation movement journaling there is stress managing stress there's all kinds of different offerings there is also um some strategies for success we're also going to be adding to these with our we have additional staff in the Special Education team social workers that are either going to be developing even additional offerings so if a student is caught up on all their work and they don't need to go see one of their academic teachers there's some choices built in some services that they might need around all these topics so it's pretty exciting good hold one second Mr Cirillo you have a question of course yeah it's not linked the survey the um where you head up there oh yeah that's just a link here yep I can send that to you thank you and put them on some of these some of the conventions make sure he's meeting the thing how are the parents reaction or collaboration with the school on his according to someone else because I'm looking at the um students um yeah that's great so we're definitely wanna and that's my next segue so thank you for seguing into family involvement um so anytime a student is in danger of failing or failing a course parents receive a letter from their guidance Department this year we've updated it to talk about the wind the wind opportunities also out of our special education department as well as our um language English learner Department they're actually offering like meetings whether a parent can join by Zoom um where the the student is at the table the parent is at the table the director of special ed and any other people like that really kind of talk about like what is the plan um so anytime um that even a student is in danger of failing there should be contact with a teacher um the teacher should contact the parent um in terms of partnering with win one of the things I think a goal of ours is to to have more information about it so that could be a conversation at home like what are you doing with your win block because again we're trying to use when as number one a support for students that can make they can have during the day we want students to be able to Advocate and choose for themselves where they need to go we also know what's new and that's a level of maturity so we have to as staff members every staff is a win advisor and their job is on is to kind of look with the student okay where are you going to go this week where do you need to choose to go well let's look at your grade it looks like you have maybe an opportunity to increase your math grade let's select you with math so we're it's all new for us but I feel like it's getting better as we go making sure um also making sure you'll be holding the kids accountable work um I'm looking at that right now um can you give me the numbers from last year for the first quarter on affiliate rates I can send those through the superintendent's office I didn't have a chance to like I didn't block them I can tell you they're very similar um of course our hypothesis with win is that numbers of failures would would be reduced however there's also many other failures and I would say they're very similar but I'm happy to provide that comparison so you can see it by grade level and by number of failures let me do my subject if that's what you're requesting yes and I'm looking at these Support Services I love this because a lot of kids might have already completed their their classes but definitely can use somebody supported on Services yeah yeah I'm pretty excited about a lot of these I think that um you know even you can see and it's not anything that they're locked into for like forever right but they can go like one of them like the strategies for success that's going to help students um um and I love it it's like join this group and be your own superhero right how to manage stress how to stay healthy how to resolve conflicts how do you fight I mean I might have to sign up for this not a fight procrastination right um but there's um I also love how the team that's developing these is also um trying to integrate a little movement because sometimes that's what kids need and we found that last year with some groups that we did so this one here strong on the inside strong on the outside um 10 spots available you're able to you know lift weights do some journaling and sometimes that might just be what kids need so yeah thank you for the questions nope so these are and I should have segued in this so the seminar classes are quarter long courses that are in English History Math and Science and I think I discussed those last month I'm happy to share also the topics so we have a six period day so all students take the four content areas they have a quarter long seminar and our sixth Block it's actually our fifth block is called when what I need and it's a shorter time it's on the academic side only right superintendent yes yeah tried but that is where students go they have a choice of where they're going to go um they have a choice or their teachers choose for them so if I have a student in English class that has um that I think needs more support or maybe has missed a test I lock them and they come see me on one day no the seminars are the um that's called when all of these are win win blocks yes okay so these aren't the seminars these are seminars here the seminars are by and I can share the list of them um yep I think it's in the last I brought them to the last one but I can repeat it I I could have um so um in grade nine there's like a poetry unit there's a spoken word one but I'll send the list of them because some of those classes I'd like to take as well um sure um you're saying that they look the same the same but I think they were lower so thank you yeah no I and and I'll say we're not it's not that we're not concerned because again like um I think everything is going to take it take its turn um but we're looking at these numbers um by grade level like your microphone thank you please oh there he is okay so it will be nice to see to dip into these failure numbers and see where the majority of the failures are because you know we might need to tackle them differently than um I can share through the superintendent also our plan because they our administrative team met last Thursday and the only focus was um this quarter one data and there we we all have they're all searching it but we can do that man I'm surprised that you didn't bring the compressor because you're very good at that yeah my apologies anything further bring it continue one please thank you um so the final thing I just want to report which I'm pretty excited about because I do think that um it all kind of works together is our family and Community engagement um we know or I'll at least I'll say for myself as a principal I feel like this is an area of opportunity for growth for our school and for me as the principal um our administrative team participated in a two-day workshop and the team actually selected family and Community engagement to work on and we're doing a lot of Universal Design for Learning so they we learned together we looked at resources on how to ensure the events that we offer are designed and planned around University design principles of Engagement representative and presentation the whole idea of that is how do we improve access for our families and how do we get them to engage because like if we keep doing the same thing and getting the same results we're not moving um so they choose they chose the topic to learn about the first session was like learning and then the second session was more about applying what we learned into planning um so what was great this was last Friday and um our leadership team they're currently working on a lot of these events so they were able they're able to try to apply the learning so it's a special education parent advisory Council the English learner parent advisory Council we have Middle School Parent presentations coming up we have these connect parent and family engagement events just today the athletic director was working on a winter sports family meeting and we have in the fall in the spring coming up our shop selection parent meetings so really trying to to as a leadership team we're trying to take the learning that we're asking our teachers to do and apply it um so this was one of the things that we looked at and the consultant that we worked with asked us to kind of look at us look at where we are so in terms of like kind of saying where are we in terms of family engagement it's one thing to inform like you're just informing you're providing information which I feel like we're leading towards Proficiency in that but we don't want to stay at perform we want to move to like getting Consulting involving with the ultimate goal of Empowering Families so we're at the blue and we're going to move but I just wanted to share that in terms of our work that we're doing in um I also want to share that we had a parent connection organization um and excuse me for one second had another question before we go oh sure if you don't mind I'm sorry no Mr solo sorry I didn't see you Frank that's okay um family and Community engagement a little bit um it's great we'll bring families to school business and I want to kind of going back to one thing the um fundraisers bringing the schools out to the communities that week there was a parade you have to win and over I think that's what I have my parade and so forth or um events like these are opportunities a week bringing the schools to these places I've been walking into parade and hanging out fires or whatever um great time to really connect with um communities I don't know if you guys are thinking of that or even looking at that but I think that's something we should really start looking at we've only been that's a great suggestion so the last thing I just want to talk about is um as I mentioned we had a parent connection group um it was running strong we were developing it we had a lot of senior parents that were this was prior to the pandemic we had a lot of parents that were involved that actually their son or daughters graduated we had the pandemic not that I'm making that as an excuse but one of our goals this year and one of my goals is the principal the superintendent I agree is that we really need to kind of like go back to focus on how we engage parents and families and so out of the um out of the office of discipline until we change that name I have uh Krista Gillis partnering with our new student engagement officer Glenda Cruz working with members of our teaching staff our support staff as well as our administrative staff and um we are there they've come up with a new Mission and they've renamed it instead of parent connection to the glts parent and family engagement their first event was the family game night they have an upcoming they had a zoom last night with parents there was not it wasn't a large group but we had a couple parents come and they gave some great suggestions on December 1st their next update is a X2 or Aspen training so we're going to have I believe over 20 staff members teachers coming and they're going to sit down one-on-one and make sure that family parents can sign into our portal and that they know what they're looking at whether it's grades whether it's other assessments we're going to be offering dinner and we uh they that group got a Chromebook donated and so we're going to be raffling off a Chromebook for uh someone there we also have an upcoming event on February 9th around drug awareness and prevention and this group plans to offer two more events after that so one of the great things is that instead of us deciding what programmings that we're offering the idea of last night's call was to ask families or parents what type of events they want so we got that input so I'm hoping our ultimate goal would to be have to have those families those parents actually help plan the events for the rest of the year that would be what we're going for and then finally because I feel like I'm long-winded tonight I mentioned that um we are in the process of doing an equity audit and we are on step two step one is just a data collection step two is a panorama survey that we surveyed students staff and family members and I just wanted to share so far the survey results we get a pretty good student sampling we have 1300 students that took the survey in English 38 that took it in Spanish there was an option we have 92 family parents that took the survey in English 32 that took it in Spanish and we have 146 students I call them students but they're not faculty members that took the survey so we I would like to see the family surveys a little bit higher so we kept that open for an additional day or two and we actually just sent another message we've sent it out a couple times we sent out a couple reminders so we're really looking at different ways and how we can get the results one of the ideas of like actually doing the survey when we have families in for some of these events that might help but I just wanted to share that and I'll be keeping the committee through the superintendent updated as we go through this Equity audit which should take a couple months um you mentioned that most partners that participate in the family engagement are seniors patterns of seniors did you say that I think what I what I meant was the parent connection group we had a large number of those parents right before the pandemics and they were parents of seniors so they graduated and then we had the pandemic so it was much more difficult to engage like freshman parents last night I'm happy to report that the parents that did come were freshmen parents so what we're trying to do we want everybody we want senior parents Junior parents sophomore parents but if we can get parents at the Freshman level then we could have them for all four years that's exactly why I'm asking the question yeah because it is it's important to get the patterns involved at the beginning so they can go have you know involvement with their child and through this all these school years yeah yeah so that's really our goal and I'm pretty excited with the new team because it shouldn't be one person's idea but now we have a team that are really coming up with some great ideas and the ultimate goal is is we want to have parents introduce like meet other parents and that way they're connecting and we want parents to be kind of help telling us like what they need to learn about so we're moving towards that thank you anything further yes uh superintendent yeah so I I just want to take your Mike Jones please I want to take a moment to point out and recognize the uh tremendous growth in the use of data due to the our principles hard work in making change in the school and as a result of this data we're being more informed to make change both in how we work with students how we work with parents and has increased and improved the collaboration of months not only parents but staff within the school with administrators and teachers and I think her leadership in this particular area is making a difference in the school so I want to recognize that just so that um and thank you personally for the thank you tremendous work that she's done in such a short time can I close out on a positive note as well sure all right um I also on behalf of the superintendent want to share um I think we mentioned it some of you may have seen it at the open house just on the screens I want to share our new video that we're using and now that I say that hopefully it will work um I should have tested it first but I want to share the new video with the committee that we're using at the guidance like for our admissions [Music] um people and students have not only two different educational paths with vocational as well as academics but opportunities to grow and learn and become leaders on the fields in clubs and after schools activities so there's much to offer they really afford them to explore their career and ensure that that's what they want to do and whether or not they go on to foreign thank you test test test test [Music] test testing test test testing well the Lights Went Out test testing medium backing session please okay um District committee priorities policies uh section B section BDF advisory committees to the school committee any motion on that please hope your second discussion questions comments all over the favor and he would opposed new business table matters she's nothing here to come off nothing's coming off the table Personnel considerations no resignations no leave of absence no retirements appointments Ms zorita's Jordan executive assistant to the principal effective November 28 2022 and Mr Kurt Madison uh a comptroller effective December 5th 2022 uh the following a job postings which need to be voted on John let's take the first four right here special LED down to the ell paraprofessional please okay so we're looking for a special ed a special ed transition microphone John please special ed transitional job coach uh the rate is 35 to 40 an hour it's part time it's a new position you should see the attached job description um then the evening adult carpentry and HVAC instructor this is an annual position evening adult Advanced manufacturing instructor this is an annual position and ell paraprofessional for evening adult manufacturing annual position does that have a motion please so moved give a second okay questions comments all those in favor and you would opposed Kate John the last four please ell teacher-free ell boot camp annual position OSHA 10 instructor for evening Advanced manufacturer training annual position a math instructor for evening violink bilingual Advanced manufacturing training Event Annual position Advanced manufacturing after dark substitute instructor replacement position have a motion please discussion questions comments all those in favor anyone opposed future agenda items ongoing projects do you want to touch on those John or what um I can touch on uh some of the projects just um where we're at quickly on the ones that we've been continuing to work on so the cosmetology project pretty much wrapped up other than a a small list of small items that have to be completed the Four Winds and the Reggie Cafe the Reggie Cafe we're just waiting for the uh pastry refrigerator to put that in and waiting for the glass wall movable glass wall that's coming in the middle of December and then that's totally done then that project's totally done uh and then the Four Winds new restaurant the doors came in Monday those are in process of going in that was for the new bathroom in the new storage room it's in that space and we're still waiting for the outside exterior door once that comes in that project will be complete we had our first event in there the uh the guidance counselor breakfast we had last week in there that went very well was really it was nice to use it it worked out very well and we're actually very soon there we were inspected by the health department for Andover was were approved to open and utilize the space for serving people is and we're only waiting I think probably after the after Thanksgiving we should be able to open up the Reggie Cafe and start serving the staff again it's you know the balls in the uh in the programs Court when they feel ready to do so they're it's ready for them to go ahead and open they have everything that they need to do so we did have to put in five new boosters on all the sinks in uh in the kitchen because they weren't meeting temperature which in the last 40 years I've never had a problem with that but I don't think they ever checked it but in any case they checked at this time and so we had to kind of really kind of rush around and get it done so we could have the guide to breakfast in the building but thanks to the electrical department and the plumbing department electrical department in particular for doing a great job making it happen wouldn't wouldn't happen without them so a big thank you to uh Charlie Kennedy and his students for doing uh really going out of their way to make make that job successful um and then the child care center um they've pretty much are wrapping up the ventilation system uh we're just about ready to do the ceiling so the goal really um is to try to open uh for services right sometime in January at this point so everything's in we had the crane here and we put the new ventilation and heating system on the roof with the crane on Saturday we're working on the playground as well so everything looks good for sometime in January opening um we'll we'll put I'm actually meeting with John archenel tomorrow to put a uh a a time schedule together so we can give an exact date to the staff when it will open so next meeting I should be able to share that time schedule with you on that particular project so those are the major projects that we've been and then of course I talked about uh Automotive project already Mr saral you have a question yeah okay I want to make sure for free to generate items that we add the um comparison of the what what it does for their busting uh for next for our next meeting and also the financial impact we receive from having kids here um almost two hours because I know we have to pay for lunches for the our dinners for them in staff for our next meeting okay do that uh yes one second Maryland okay yes you want to comment on that I just wanted to say that um we did get some reimbursement for the month of September on busing not a substantial not I would say enough so it isn't I didn't meet with our attorneys in his hands he's looking at uh strategies in ways that we can uh he's looked at the contract uh and he's looking at ways in which we can held them more accountable for uh if nothing else more financial gain or a reimbursement for non-services so um I'm still waiting for his final report but we are on that aspect of it as well excuse me Melissa not to put you on the spot would you know what the amount of that reimbursement would be by any chance would that come through your office you don't okay thank you Marilyn yes going back to projects um during the break I made use of the women's locker room facilities and on the way by I saw a lot of construction material plus cabinets outside and everything what is happening down there is that heading down towards the pool okay so um in the weight room we put a new we expanded the weight room we actually did that over the summer we took a wall down and what we finally uh were able to get the floor finally came in so we put a new floor so that the weight room is more than twice the size it was before so the company this week we painted it we just recently finished painting it it's coming to put all the equipment back where it belongs in the reopen and it'll be a lot larger and more spacious and we have some new equipment so the weight room is going to be uh much improved as well so that's why that stuff's out there I thought maybe you're putting a three meter board or something in the pool thank you very much okay anything further on any of those items get this time the chair will appreciate a motion to go into executive session for the purpose of collective bargaining all those in favor and if you want to post uh Sue would you call the roll would you have a minute please yes Miss Fitzgerald yeah miss disler Mr Hayden Mr LaMontagne yes we will be coming back here to adjourn oh [Music] um foreign on that
what a big difference that would make in our budget but the fact of the matter is state has those dollars and they're talking about where they can spend it well I can tell you to help us help the towns out because that is a way to lower taxes okay they talk about you know how they want to lower taxes do that because then we're not we're not uh shouldering the uh that large amount that happens that we can't even forecast sometimes because it's so fluctuates and Katie Kenny just spoke to that perfect yeah those exactly she made those exact same points great well I called um but they also shared with us in preparation for a budget uh you know one board member said we received too much detail in the budget we don't need to know how many pencils are bought for every classroom okay another member said we like the information we're getting so we'll have to uh we'll have to we'll have to look at that just give just give it a pencil and then they'd like a five-year comparison of our budget expenditures per line item which we will look to our Software System to to see how we can put that together again I think that's a good thing absolutely because uh we can we can then begin modeling did they mention anything about that Granby I still talk about the Granby forecasting model that that the town and the Board of Education uses so they call it the long-range planning sheet and um I'm sure they'll be using it as we approach budget well the only reason why is because we know our fixed is about 3.5 now you're going to add the uh employee benefit cost to that so let's say we're going up to 375 just on the fixed if we begin to model that out for 20 to 20 24 25 25 26 based on the contracts because the contracts I think end in 2024 25 that's when we're going to try to bring it that's when we'll be up for renegotiation so we should at least take the Contracting out on the fixed we should try to forecast out the um the oil uh the electric and all that other good stuff and try to put that in some type of format that we can model so we can see where our fixed is going out um that gives us an idea of what we can play with based on other needs that we may have so so I know Bill and Donna will work I appreciate it okay thank you okay so I believe that it was there anything else that uh was shared that I missed no I think that about Governor was is in he was not there tonight okay because I understand I heard that he resigned I'm not sure so I know he resigned from the Republican Town committee um so I understand he may have I heard his second hand and there was no other member there it wasn't a new member yeah sure no yeah that's that's important financing what do you want to do so the next thing that we're here so are we done with the business anybody have any questions on the business manager okay let's go to uh John thank you sir uh I'll be I'll be quick and to the point tonight a couple things that we are are excited about that have that have happened and some things that are going to be happening for us I wanted to to let you know that in partnership with uh Frida Collier dickerman and our seven uh 7 through 12 program that we were able to host a family gathering for a number of our uh open Choice students we talked about that last time it was a small But Mighty group really good feedback to be able to have we'll be looking to be able to scale that out to our elementary families as well they appreciated the the location um I appreciated the opportunity to have some planned conversation and the opportunity to grow for that I also had a chance to join uh first select with Bob vessel and the Canton Historical Society members over at the Canton Historical Society so uh you'll recall we've moved to uh a program that we're piloting for social studies at CIS this was in partnership with them to be able to develop some more experiential authentic learning opportunities that resonate around the history of Canton and looking to possibly move Sam Collins Day from the fall to more closely coincide with the research that our fourth theaters would be doing to be able to generate some real Buzz around the work that our our students are doing so we're really excited about that further conversations are going to be going on with them um was there Sam constant in the fall exactly it's it's stated it's it's it's it shows up as basically a tweet from the town but we don't have any way to really be able to celebrate some of the some of the founding of the Town itself and then also to a wider extent an understanding of the history of this place that those you know even farther back um so we're looking at opportunities to be able to continue to look at what does the uh the stewardship of the history of this area look like and how do we improve upon that as Leaders within our community so we're trying to bring back that Festival I think that's great that's great but we haven't had it for a few years um things that are upcoming for us I'm excited tomorrow we've heard a lot about star uh over the past few weeks this has been part of the you know part of the desire that we have to be able to have a better sense of who our students are academically again the concept of well-known equals well-taught so we're um uh having folks from Star uh Renaissance coming in tomorrow to be able to do Perpetual development for uh some of our key staff to work on the analytics and better understanding how to be able to maximize the uh effectiveness of this tool but we're not going alone we have started to do more with sharing resources and supports with other districts uh just recently we had our feeding Department go over with Simsbury to be able to do some professional development so in kind we're inviting Simsbury to come over and do some of this professional learning with us we're also collaborating with Granby and bernalin with a number of folks coming in to be able to work with us as well so we're all trying to be able to work uh within the resources that we have leverage our Collective strengths to be able to be in a better spot for uh our own communities and all of our kids and then um you know as we as we move forward you heard a great report from the principal and assistant principal at the high school as we moved through this budget season you will hear information about our program of studies and you'll hear information about upcoming changes that there might be as a part of the the textbook adoption process as we continue to be able to renovate some of the practices that we have through um through policy at the board I just want you to to know very clearly that work will continue to come through our curriculum subcommittee to be able to have conversation service around this and there will also be the opportunity for the board at large to be able to hear and review our um our program of studies for our high school and any major curricular changes that would be coming through any questions for me you know that's it take it what's the communications report oh thank you thank you Communications reported um can I uh I'm thrilled thrilled to have Kira Lafave working with us as our Communications coordinator our Communications and audio video coordinator so um we have been working together to be able to put together an implementation plan moving forward and care I don't want to speak solely for you but I'm going to give I'm going to give some of the highlights for this year um a lot of what we've talked about is being able to bring back uh brand standards to to who we are what are the colors that we want to use what are the thoughts that we want to be able to use they're small details but they go a long way toward um conveying a level of professionalism I think you'll see that as we continue to uh work on our website which you know all things willing from Houston when this upcoming Wednesday after break is what we're hearing from them so um but I will keep the board updated through this week if we if we find out anything else uh from that but brand standards with that uh you know part of this too is is helping us to be able to have a better sense of who we are with like a view sheet a new book part of what we need to be able to do in attracting the best candidates uh for um for teaching within Canton and helping folks whatever their background might be and wherever they might be um they might be studying they need to be able to see themselves here as a possibility within Canton and so one of the things that we've talked about is being able to develop a view sheet that would review the um uh the the profile of Canton for uh for upcoming Educators but it would also be a a resource that potential families might be able to look at as well um we also want to uh pull forward uh some improvement with our social media um my thumbs were too slow on some things with Facebook so here's going to do a wonderful job uh building upon that and also launching an Instagram for us as well I'm excited about that I haven't been much of a grand person but I'm excited to learn from her and see her be successful with it we also see an opportunity to be able to improve the regular timing of on communication that comes up from the district office as well with monthly notes that care would help to be able to produce and then have go out in a really nice published manner as well as an early winter Community update as we start stepping into budget season we want to we want our community to be able to know the state of our state and all the things that we have to celebrate but we'll be able to do that in a hybrid some print but also mostly digital Edition for folks to be able to access for us um and then I think what I'm really really excited about as well with this is Kira being being located right now at the high school because she does still have some local responsibilities where she supports teachers and she supports AV um but her skills in the communication piece will allow us to be able to have her go into the digital media and communications class and leverage an assignment from our kids to be able to improve student voice to be able to go into our um our video production class give them an assignment to be able to work on and have them be able to produce for us as well so these are things that are are added benefits of being able to have somebody like well not just to have Akira in the position to be able to do this work here is there anything that you want to be able to share of anything that you're excited about with this too follow us on Facebook we've only got like 200 people following right now and could you share too about your thought on LinkedIn oh yeah so when I was in high School resources how I found this job that in Facebook um and I want I want to establish a LinkedIn profile so that our past teachers our past staff and even our graduating seniors have this platform they have this background or they can say they were at Canton CT schools and you have our logo and you have all our information so that going forward we're creating this like base level for them and you can be proud of where they started and they can be proud of where they started that's great where are we with the website so we are we are 99 set the one piece that we don't have set right now that we're waiting for the um the the webmaster to get back to us we had wanted we had wanted a board of ed update and a district update so all those updates that we would be able to post and be able to clearly see Board of Ed meeting information from the chair um information on bus route changes they have been really struggling to be able to it sounds very it sounds silly Claudia could attest my assistant Lynn who had done an amazing job trying to work through with these folks can a test as well it's been very challenging to be able to get them to understand that if they're not able to get that set by um by tomorrow we're going to condense it into one piece and we're just going to try to launch and we will make them get that to a level that we want it to be at at a later date if that's what it needs to be okay how does the board use care for communications I mean what's you know how do we promote any any Communications you would like to send them through John she'll do the update right okay and then you know what I would welcome too is is some periodic planning that we do to be able to strategize about the type of communication that we want to be able to put out there and make sure that the right information is in place we've already started learning about uh an early winter newsletter but would love to be able to have board Insight on how we would go to put that together okay great thank you foreign [Music] okay for your consent agenda tonight we have the approval of minutes from November 7th and the special meeting of November 9th for your approval tonight we'll take care of a motion on consent agenda please Felicia second Ryan of Pop any further discussion on consent agenda all those in favor hi Brian unanimous ly okay um Joe do you want to give an overview on the uh on the two policies we're going to approve tonight sure we did last week uh last meeting and the first one is a opioid overdose prevention it authorizes the school nurse to keep Knox along Narcan on hand and touchdown uh rules about the U.S access safety security training that sort of thing uh it is uh authorized and by state law for about a year and a half now second policy is the health assessments and immunizations it updates our current policy would help me out what are the changes I forget the religious oh the religious objection uh is uh that expires for folks starting the last last April and it codifies that for our problems okay can I have a motion approved policy 5141-213 opioid overdose prevention solution second thank you Joe the children yeah Joe seconded okay any discussion any questions for Mr scheidler all those in favor opposed motion carries unanimous you can have a motion for policy 5141-3 revise the current policy of the health assessment and immunizations and the first thank you Peggy Second Joe any discussion on that any questions for Mr Scheider further clarification okay all those in favor aye you opposed what opposed to a post to a post Ryan uh Ryan were you a post opposed so three opposed so it's a um five three in favor of any extensions do I have that right five three podium okay so it passes five three okay what we uh failed to do last time is uh we went over the uh approved the superintendent leadership profile with Mary uh Broderick and we should accept that uh we should accept that profile so may I have a first for that thank you Russell second thank you Erica uh any any discussion on that and why we're doing that okay all those in favor aye proposed eight zero okay thank you approval of the financing and authorization is schematic drawings for HVAC Grand I'll pick a first and then I'll have you describe it in your discussions oh I'm sorry Mr Case board event meeting is sure so in exhibit six of your packets um what Claudia and I did was to list the draft of our Board of Education meeting dates for the next calendar year um Claudia do you recall when we need to adopt these days bye um what they would like is to have at least a draft um and then we've been maybe vote on the final a draft by December 1st a draft yeah yes okay so you'll be able you will be able to vote on these as a first reading pending our discussion tonight so I just want to highlight a couple of the the dates we currently will meet on the second and fourth Tuesdays with some exceptions in January January 17th would be a meeting just related to the budget where administrators would present their budget proposals to you we would do that in one night as we have in the past unless our finance committee decided to do it differently but I thought it was important to schedule that date and hold that date for that purpose I scheduled additional meetings in February because of the budget um one of those meeting dates will be the public budget hearing I would present my budget on the 14th then the public budget hearing would be on Wednesday the 22nd following the long Presidents Day weekend ask a question absolutely so on on the budget meetings we don't need to start at 7 15 because there's no prior meeting so we can start those incentives that become thank you as my budget proposal [Music] I don't remember four I normally had three but I couldn't figure out another way to provide a meeting for you to deliberate and [Music] tell one of these that are safe than sorry so the board had time to deliberate and consume the budget sure we would be adapting the question on the 28th correct it could be just a whole day too Joel [Music] okay what have we done in the past we've had you presented your budget at a regular meeting that's great and so you just don't you're thinking [Music] no I've always presented around February 12th 13th well sometimes on Valentine's Day the 14th I've presented and then the following week has been the public budget here everybody's hearing my budget for the first time in the board and the public the next meeting which is following President's Day on that Wednesday would be when the public can come and give them more their impulse and what they thought of my proposal then you would have um I think in the past there's been a only one meeting where the board could really deliberate thoughtfully about the budget before voting on it I wanted to give the board another meeting to do that but it doesn't have to be on these dates it could be other dates as long as as soon as the board adapts the budget by Monday March 6th March 6.
did I say first no I can't wrote down Mark six to be clear Monday March 6th is when we send the budget to the town okay does anyone have I I did attach a calendar so if anyone has another date they would like to uh propose tonight we could do that I mean I don't know how other board members feel I personally would rather combine two and and have a week off yes I agree that's what I would vote I just think for for you know something everyone that's a lot to ask I'd rather have a longer meeting than an extra room Kevin you don't think you'd be ready to present the budget to us on the seventh yeah I would make as we're discussing tonight I mean as much as I would love another week I can be ready on the seventh yes what if we eliminated in the seventh and we could just do it on the point so can we do the 14th and the 28th or you have to do three we need we could uh yes we would need to do three because we need a public budget hearing and you wouldn't be able I don't think to listen to the public and then make decisions that night on the budget I think you would need another meeting so I think we can uh I think we can get it down to three meetings right the 14th or we could do the 14th 22nd and 28th and that way you get an extra week or we could do the seventh I don't know if people would come out on Valentine's Day if that matters to speak about the budget I don't know I don't know that could be our public budget hearing and then we could meet on the 28th Institution [Music] what do you guys want to do you want to go four you want to go 7 14 wouldn't you say 7 14 22 7 14 28.
you got to have three I guess pick your poison man I heard me at that point 7 14 27. a million on the 28th okay there you go okay 7 14 22. 7 14 22 Kevin and so when does that mean the Board of Ed would adopt the budget because we had that as the 20 it would be the 22nd the 27. the public hearings public hearing on the 14th 2014.
Erica does that meet your needs yeah three I mean you said four yes okay sounds better okay thank you all right in May those are our regular board meetings um I know we're going to talk about doing Canton celebrates in a different way this year so we didn't put that down yet as a board meeting until we talk about how we want that to be done but those are the schools so it won't present too much of a problem okay Linda okay um jumping down to November uh November 6th is a Monday because of the next day being election day and then um a year from now November Francis looks like a Sunday yeah I don't have the 2023 November calendar November 20th is a Monday yes November 20th is a Monday yeah um but we want to avoid what happened tonight with the high school concert taking place traditionally that's always taken place on Monday doesn't mean they can't move it to Tuesday um so we either meet on that Monday or Tuesday the 20th or 21st of Thanksgiving week next year why don't we just stay with our Tuesday the 21st and I have caused the ban to move their day okay then of course of course we plugged in meetings for over the summer um it's at your pleasure when they're not you'll need to yeah those those are the those are the draft dates that's my love [Music] all right everybody's good um and these could be changed uh between that you know for the next meeting if you go home check your calendars so is this the first reading first reading okay may I may have a motion on dates that is provided thank you Russell second thank you Kim any further discussion on this it's only a first reading we can finalize at the next meeting yeah if not all those in favor aye opposed we lost Ryan because we lost internet so okay okay so that passes seven zero okay um the next exhibit has to do with the HVAC grant that you heard about uh previously that we are completing that after we're completing that applications to send it in by December 1st and then I know you needed approval for a couple more items I did I did uh has to be submitted in the meeting in meaning minutes from the meeting whether you were approved has to be submitted with it with the grant so uh these items we figured out that we need uh is one is the approval of the financing for the HVAC project at Canton Middle High School um I think we've all had discussions that it's going to basically uh come from CID because we can't use arpa funds to right so all that is is a movement between CIP and RFS so um I think um no we approved applying for the grant we have to approve the funding for the grants yeah so we just walked through the board of Finance about that right we did yeah and I had a previous discussion with Mr Skinner uh so basically we're saying that the uh funding has been approved and it has been from the CIP that will be paid for so what's the motion sound like uh the Canton Board of Education approved the financing of the HVAC project at Canton Middle High School you have a first on that thank you Peggy II thank you Erica any further discussion for Donna questions not all those in favor aye opposed seven zero okay and then the second piece of that is and this wouldn't happen until after really that the if we get the grant or if it's approved uh but yet we have to have permission by the Board of Education that we will in that event prepare a schematic drawing so the emotion would be that the accountant Board of Education authorized the preparation of schematic drawings for the HVAC project at the Canton Middle High School remember first on that thank you conclusion thank you Russell first and second any further discussion on that all those in favor aye opposed at 7-0 okay and then the uh app would be to authorize the chair to organize and to advertise to create a committee to uh finalize the mascot the warrior mascot you know Birds yeah we'll do it not discussion okay so first second thank you Russell so first and second discussion Erica well I'm going to be brief just because of time but um I just want to make sure that the you know where the previous board left off was that it was handed back to students and administrators to take from that point forward so I'm just a little concerned about putting together a committee bringing all these people in and turning into something else that's a good idea you know when you when you talk about people from the public and town officials and teachers and this and that and and I just hope that we don't get away it doesn't have to go that way then I just want to get it done sure and this where it was initially supposed to go so you have the history and I appreciate what you just said so what we're saying is that what what what the last born asked for was to go back to the administrators and the teachers I mean the administrators and the students right to come up with the vote the vote was to turn it back over to them and that if they didn't want to do anything then it would be left with the Block C and if they did want to do something they would it would be up to them all would be in there or and so I just I'm concerned and taking it down a road that it was never intended to go I just want to fulfill with the last board wanted so if that's what the last board did then then the motion would be to direct the superintendent to be back to the Board of Education by April using the administrators and students to come back with a couple options for the board to decide is that does that make sense that that was my obsession too yeah good let's do that then I just want to fulfill what was voted on before yeah so I I so so we're not gonna so I would draw would you would draw the motion who was the first [Music] what's a reasonable date Kevin get back to us I think at our April board meeting the first board meeting in April okay so so we're gonna make a motion to direct the superintendent to task the administrators and students using maybe the student reps yeah to be back to the Board of Education by April with some options on the mascot they'd fit the warrior that was voted on as a warrior is that Russell yep okay yeah everyone's up to them okay I just want to get it done that's all yeah is there a discussion part of this we didn't make the motion we're gonna we're gonna and then there'll be a discussion so can we make that emotion Kim yes okay so Kim Farsi Erica second now it's discussion so is was the fact that we were like cited in this article is not having moved forward do they have a problem with the idea of the warrior the word Warrior just the word Warrior they have a problem yeah and they clearly stated they clearly stated that not only with imagery but the name Warrior so if we use Warrior but we have a c let's say or come up with something they're not going to like that either right no so we have to change the warrior but we don't um in order to be eligible for grant funding from the mash and Tucket Peak wads we needed to abide by that we do not you know it's a separate track but we don't get grant funding from them anyway yeah we've never been eligible we've never received brand funding so that was the purpose of every District having to report whether or not they still use Native American imagery or they use the warrior name okay so we reported we still use the warrior and are we going to still keep using the warrior name according to the last board the voted on it yes that is the somebody that that voted in favor of using the warrior name has to come back and say that they would like to rescind that vote that has to be seconded by somebody that approved it and the vote the board would vote on it and it has to be by I think Robert's was two-thirds not that we're expecting money from these this organization right but are we being toned at like saying we're going to keep the warrior named regardless of what these Native American this Native American organizations I mean my personal opinion we're doing half the work that we got rid of the imagery but we still have the name so yeah I don't know what are the Golden State Warriors are they like just Warriors are they Democratic process that we went through with all this for a year or two in the committee and the teachers involved the staff the students the parents the lengthy process that it was very 50 50 after like yeah a thousand meetings hours and hours and hours you know so I should just say we're going to open it up and change it right now as I'm doing I believe all work that was done in people or whatever I don't feel comfortable with that I wasn't you know on that committee but I was on the board that voted to keep the name remove the imagery and move forward with and turning it over to the school and the students we acted in very good shape that we removed all the imagery all references to Native Americans and we spent thousands of dollars to replace uniforms some of which didn't need to be replaced in order to remove the imagery from those uh uniforms and when the process of redesigning a mascot that will have nothing to do with Native Americans they don't have an era well I mean that's thinking about like an Archer you know I was thinking about something that wasn't yeah anything to do it zero okay well I I know this board is I'm not in favor of myself of the name Warrior but it's what was already passed like you said it was a democratic process we went through it uh I think it's going to be divisive to open it up again and then go through that that comment at a time that there's a lot of other things to do so what does the board want to do Peggy yeah I don't know I guess send it back to the the kids you know or the schools and say come up with something Kim yeah send it back to let them finish what was asked of them Erica yeah Joe yeah finish what we started Felicia I'd like to see what they have to say Okay Russell better shortly start finish with this started okay so then the motion is to have the superintendent put together with the administration and the students to come back to the board by April with options to look at for a warrior mascot so we have a first and second we've had our discussion all those in favor aye seven okay so Mr Case all right was there was there anything else that there was something else but then I think yeah oh the space would you authorize the the chair to put together a letter just describing our space issue for the basement and seeking some type of relief uh to work with um the first selectman and the board of Finance Felicia first I need a second thank you Russell any discussion all those in favor I 7-0 okay thank you uh board member comments any other comments for tonight's meeting is there a need for executive Senator Mr case there is not okay okay no need for executive session um then I'll take a motion for Germany Peggy Peggy somebody else all right forget the discussion okay get out of here
foreign [Music] welcome to another amazing episode of dhnn I'm your amazing Hostess for this week Elegance we have a special Spirit Week homecoming and pep rally episode for you you will see all the fast Highlights today but remember you can order all of the complete videos in a triple featured DVD for only ten dollars from the best Dharma High media content creators DHS TV media simply scan this QR code for to get your order form and then submit to either the TV studio or the main office this DVD will feature the complete pep rally any extended cuts from both spirit week and homecoming you're not going to want to miss having this now on to the show dhn starts right now [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] please [Music] stop listening to what others have to say and believe in what we knew we could achieve as a team [Music] Harmony [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] one point for the seniors one point for the seniors [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] I gotta leave [Music] I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all [Music] here are this week's very important announcements [Music] [Applause] thank you [Music] time for the weather here's a look at your seven-day forecast [Music] hi I'm Kyle Silva with the weekly weather we are covering the week after Thanksgiving Monday it's going to be sunny skies with a high of 41 and a low of 27.
Tuesday the sun's gonna hide a bit partly cloudy with high of 46 low of 29 Wednesdays more more clouds with a high of 48 and a low of 30. Thursdays it's going to be rainy high of 50 low of 40. Friday we're going to have more rain with a high of 55 and a low of 41. Saturday and Sunday it's going to be a pretty rainy weekend sadly we are going to have a high of 52 and a low of 34. Sunday we are going to have a high of 49 and a low of 32. back to y'all in the studio spirit week was a blast as well as Homecoming in the pep rally to order your complete Extended Cut here [Music] foreign here's this week's lunch show [Music] a double grilled cheese sandwich sweet potato waffle fries Tuesday meatball marinara sub roasted green beans Wednesday buffalo chicken and cheese wrap cheddar cheese sauce roasted chickpeas Thursday General Tso's chicken fried rice roasted broccoli and a fortune cookie Friday classic Stromboli marinara sauce and tomato basil salad for this time on dhnn next week we will have an in-depth look into our phenomenal marching band make sure that you like and subscribe to our Channel don't forget to order our amazing Spirit Week homecoming and pep rally DVD it'll be so good I'm Ella Gates and thanks for watching foreign [Music] foreign
[Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] Josh do we have a thumbs up are we ready to go all right good morning everybody hopefully we are now streaming live to everywhere around our school corporation as we welcome all of you back from Thanksgiving this is the 28th day of November and we've had a long Thanksgiving weekend I know that it can be hard to relax sometimes during some of these holidays however I hope that you're able to find at least some time for a little relaxation eat some good food find some quality spend some quality time with family and friends and perhaps get a few things accomplished such as shopping and putting up a Christmas tree or two but most importantly I hope that you were able to take time to truly consider those things for which you are thankful one of those things that I am thankful for is you I am thankful that you have chosen us and that you have chosen to commit your careers to the development of kids I can think of nothing more important than spending time developing our children so thank you it's hard to believe that there are only 16 student days left until winter break so we do get a few more days coming up pretty soon that begins on Wednesday December the 21st and goes through January the 5th Thursday January the 5th with unless teachers have already if they have not waived that day we do have some teachers that will come up back on Friday January 6th meaning that we will not have students back in our buildings till Monday January the 9th so as we look at the next month or so another amount of time there that's pretty big with a gap that we have for winter break so be thinking about that as you're looking at the next month or so today is our fourth PD day and believe we have gotten a little bit better each time that we have done this as a reminder we did file a waiver with the state of Indiana to be able to leverage the amount of time we already have instructionally in a day so the number of hours that we have and each day both at the elementary level and secondary level are more than what the state requires and so we asked the state for us to be able to count our year in hours instead of days that allowed us to take a day like today and use it for PD so we can try to get all 2000 of our staff members aligned to the Strategic plan to which we have put together I do want to make sure to recognize our community and especially our parents for the sacrifice that they're making today to have their children to home one more day while we take advantage of this time without them being here to do some professional development and I think as we utilize this time and as we get better each time that we use these PD days it is going back to what I thank you for taking time to work learn be better in the development of our kids before we jump into our keynote address I just want to remind you about today it will be different for again 2 000 staff members so look a little bit different for all of us but as we go to the keynote address our keynote speaker will go to about 9 15 this morning and then from 9 15 until about 10 45 school buildings departments programs will be doing some specific professional development tied to the keynote address that we have today which is about equity and then from 10 45 to 12 30 basically there's a free time or lunch time built into there and then 12 30 to 3 o'clock is back to buildings and departments meeting again that'll look a little bit different your department leader supervisors will have hopefully given you some specific Direction already about what today looks for looks like for you individually our strategic plan contains the word Equity Equity or Equitable many times Equitable system Equitable access equity and academic achievement Equity cultural responsiveness and sustainability equity and outcomes in order to ensure that we provide Equitable access to opportunity for each of our students we must first better understand our students and the community in which we live work and play Jack Hess is here this morning to deliver a keynote address that will help us do that I know that many of you know Jack and it is an honor to have him helping us out Jack is the executive director of Civic lab a local non-profit Institute that is a part of the Community Education Coalition and housed at the Columbus Learning Center at the Airpark post-secondary campus on the north side of town Civic lab is dedicated to advancing the practice of Civic collaboration and teaches collaborative Community teams how to better approach complex social problems by redesigning the way they work together complex social problems like ensuring that each of our children have access to opportunity since the founding of Civic lab 10 years ago Jack and his team have served more than 300 communities across the country including this one and trained more than fourteen thousand leaders and Community stakeholders including several of us Within bcsc I worked with Jack prior to my coming back to Columbus was thrilled to get to work with him again when I arrived here and I'm grateful that we can benefit from his continuous assistance with us ladies and gentlemen Jack Hess thank you sir good morning everyone first of all good morning to everyone here at Columbus East High School and also to all those on the broadcast and the simulcast we'll just call it the metaverse if that's okay I were delighted you're all here I too hope you all had just a fantastic uh holiday and had some time off I hope you had a lot of coffee this is a pretty heavy and dense day to do right after a pretty major holiday that all of you had but I think you're going to be interested in the topic and let me tell you why today I want to tell a story and that story is actually going to be about an ambitious body of work that's taken place in the Columbus community over the last several years I called BC or before coven and that particular story itself I think will interest you because it's about the future of our youth in Columbus Indiana and Bartholomew County Ash and I know that's life's work to so many of you here in this room today and in the metaverse in the community here that we speak with going to try to address four questions a question number one starts with a what what are we learning about equity in general and what are we learning about the state of our families and our youth in Bartholomew County here we're going to present some compelling research that many of us have found very meaningful in the work that we do in advancing that goal and then we're going to share with you some data and that data is going to be related to that research to see how are we doing where are we at as a community question number two is also a what question which is what are we doing now that we've kind of learned some things what it is that we as a community are doing and here I'm going to present to you a very ambitious community-wide Vision around Equity a moon shot if you would it's brought in scope and it's brought in scale and then we're going to finish and conclude with two how questions how are we going to get there because I think any time you lay out a pretty big ambitious Vision you owe people kind of a sketch or an idea and a reminder of just how it is we are going to make that moonshot happen there I'm going to try to remind you that this community has a long and proud history of achieving really big things together across the public the private and the social sectors and then we're going to conclude how are we doing we said we've been at this now for a couple of years so surely there's some directional evidence that would at least be afforded to us so we can see are we headed in the right direction and how do we know and I have some results that I want to share with you here today about just that fact so that's where we're headed we're going to tell a story that we think Equity works it makes a profound impact for families it makes a profound impact for Youth and makes a profound educational impact for all so they're going to start off as promised with the first question what are we learning and here I want to start off by introducing you to this gentleman this is Mr Raj Chetty very gifted Economist does his work out of Harvard University and his family immigrated to the United States from India and Raj was fascinated with the American dream and in particular one facet of the upward and the opportunity for Upward economic Mobility which he said was unheard of and really quite different in India where he came from in terms of temperament and attitude and even process and approach and so Raj wanted to study exactly what made kind of American exceptionalism as they called it and told him it was called and really upward Mobility work so in the course of starting to do his research and study he put together this data and for those of you especially in the Multiverse this is actually showing the percent of children who earn more than their parents on the horizontal axis here just vertical axis on the horizontal axis we have the child's Birth Cohort year starting from 1940 and going all the way to where Mirage did his research around 1987.
getting to order with the pleasure to lose thank you America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all right well we can tell you guys have done this before yeah all right welcome to the regular November meeting of the Greencastle School Board first item on the agenda is adjustments to the agenda we do not have any adjustments to the agenda for this month okay easy enough next item public comments regarding agenda items is there anyone in the audience that has any comments concerning our agenda tonight okay hearing that next item is recognitions Mr gibbity yep let's go ahead and begin with TZ this month and Mrs Rhodes if you'd like to introduce yep so it's my honor to introduce our fabulous TV choir made up of fourth and fifth graders led by Mrs Hamilton around here [Music] foreign [Music] before you are all foreign [Music] his grace [Music] would you sing with us forever [Music] same way [Music] America God shared his grace [Music] thank you for having us tonight it used to be I worked for this Corporation for 17 years now and at the beginning of my career we used to have this big holiday gathering back at central office and each of the choirs from every single building would come and we'd have lunch and teachers would take breaks throughout their day do you remember that and they would come and have and the buses it was a nightmare to bus everybody and get everybody in their car their outfits and it was just but it was such a wonderful time dedicated and so I'm just thankful to come tonight um and share the group that I have um they are small but we mighty Mighty and we perform these songs and we have five that we performed we're only doing one more tonight for you um for Veterans Day and we invited veterans to come to our school and we honored them and TC choir is such a great time for kids to come after school um they come twice a week for one hour after school and they get to learn how to raise their voice but specifically the Veterans Day Choir they're raising their voice to honor others and so it's not like they're competing um they're just unifying their voices together to give gifts give a gift back so we hope you're blessed tonight and again thank you for this time time and share thank you [Music] it's time to see [Music] your pleasure religious singers [Music] all of the grace [Music] [Applause] for the land of God friends [Music] brother ly love me [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] to follow hot dogs thank you over your nose is it just one magicians I'm pretty sure it is good yeah too hard okay we'll see you on yeah see I'm recognition yep continue on with recognitions I guess start with rib path all right I have the honor of having Miss Harper Ford ice with me tonight she's a second grader at redpath and she was nominated by her teacher Mrs Hayes and I'll read a few words that Mrs Hayes shared Harper is a great all-around student she works hard she's kind to others she's always listening and following directions her smile is infectious and her overall positivity brightens up our school we are so thankful for Harper so join me in recognizing this heart before yes foreign I'd like to introduce you to Eve Miller Eve is a kindergartner and Mrs Burnham's class and she is our October student of the month and Mrs Burnham writes I love having even class she follows the rules and listens the first time I ask she was kind to others she's always being friendly to kids in the playground lets them join in on the fun she wants to learn and grow I can't wait to see the progress she'll make this school year keep up the great work Eve Eve Miller [Applause] Mrs Rose so I am proud to introduce Miss Lucy Greenwell she is a third grader in Mrs inlow's class and Mrs inlow wrote Lucy has one of the best worth of work ethics of any student I have ever had in 18 years of teaching Lucy works hard she is one of the most outgoing and friendly students in my room and one of her favorite hobbies is telling jokes in front of the class Lucy leaves a room two or three times per week for a pull-out program yet she manages to complete all work that she has missed efficiently accurately and without complaint she is a joy to have in class Miss Lucy Greenwell [Applause] this cup for the Middle School good evening we are proud to introduce you to Levi Hostetler stetter sorry eighth grade team nominated him which is a huge thing for all his eighth grade teachers say Levi works so hard he's helpful to his peers around him and extremely kind and thoughtful he's an independent creative thinker he works hard to achieve his goals and is able to arrive at solutions that are both unique and appropriate he's very considerate of both other students and his teachers he's polite friendly and always has a smile on his face we are so lucky to have Levi as a student and his other teacher says Levi's such a kind and caring student he's always willing to work with others and very Cooperative he's always has a smile on his face he's extremely polite and considerate he's a joy to have in class congratulations [Applause] [Music] Mrs good pastor we have a photo display set up for the backdrop set up in the other room for photos it doesn't appear that our street is here um for the month of October it was respect and our student was Emma Smiley um teacher said Emma is a great leader in many respects she has been a member of the Key Club for the past two years and has impressed the teachers with her ability to follow through on everything she gets involved with she has so much respect for the students that she works with on any project and make sure to include everyone so we have Emma smiley [Applause] foreign okay thank you everyone next item on the agenda is approval of the consent agenda which consists of meeting minutes from a special meeting from October 19th executive session meetings from October 19th and regular meeting minutes from October 24th the allowance of claims the financial board and Personnel reports part one and two which are posted on the door and on the website this is Roman yes um this month you'll see that all your reports are with our new software so hopefully you had a little time to acclimate yourself with them so I'll briefly just kind of go over what we've got in our packet tonight we had two regular payrolls in the month of October 2022 our first payroll was October 14th for a total payroll of 474 000 223.50 and as usual we've got some retirement and payroll taxes these reports look a little bit different and hopefully I'm going to get these a little bit more curtailed for the for the future but it's all kind of tell you how I went about doing things you'll see some highlights there for the payroll taxes and then you'll see highlights for the turf that's for the teachers retirement and then for public retirement funds so I've just highlighted those for you the total on those for the October 14th payroll was 846.37 in the second regular payroll was dated October 28th total payroll of 385 471.66 and that was a little less than normal because that fell during fall break period and again we have the payroll taxes and we've got retirement so total for the October 28th payroll for uh payroll and retirement 109 892.48 and then next in your package you're going to see a list of prepays the only thing that would be unusual on this this list would the would be the corporation third quarter contribution for valik we do that every quarter and that would have been on this October prepaid list was there any other prepaid that is on the list that anyone had a question about nope nope okay so total for pre-face for the month of October 2022 873.67.
I think you see a trend almost without exception in most years a child's ability to earn more than their parents has actually began to fall that data point today is below 50 percent on that so now we can say less than half of American children will actually go on to earn more than their parents uh during the course of their lifetime the second second piece of data that Raj came across was something that happened in the 1990s I had no idea this has happened maybe you did but the government 1990s actually paid families through vouchers to move to other communities other neighborhoods within their cities there are 15 American cities which they did this to and they measured the results in many different ways but this was an example from Seattle and what this graph shows you is the lifetime earnings effect on the vertical axis again for children how much money they would make and this is the age when the children were actually moves so two years eight years 14 and so forth and where do they move them from from the seattle-centric district which was a place that wasn't very amenable for raising and nurturing children to a Shoreline District which had much better outcomes from safety nurturing education and so forth and look at the impact the sooner a child in terms of age was actually moved the much more substantial the results were on economic upward Mobility that Trend every single year they moved to begin to fall and fall and by the age of 23 most of those effects are gone so what the research said in a number of bodies of work confirmed is that the community of child reason has significant impact on their ability for Upward economic Mobility so Raj got really interested and conducted probably what's been one of the largest kind of ever study done on upward mobility and he actually looked for five years of all children born 1978 1983.
and then we've got a list of claims that are dated today October 28th again there's really nothing unusual on this list other than the fact that it's a very long list which is not unusual because we try to finish up any expenditures for the year and um in November as much as we can we'll have a few residual things in December but total dated today um uh October 28 2022 440 701 21. and then if you're ready we can move on to the finance report okay all right um you've got a fund report there uh education fund the end of October 2022 3 million 127 173.50 and then operations and again these should be highlighted in your packet in green or maybe yellow I don't remember what color I used it would be fun to 300 the balance at the end of October is one million 155 965.54 one thing I did want to bring to your attention on fund 41.25 I don't know if anybody has noticed this but it's exceptionally in the negative and that is for Title One all the title grants we're still still waiting on approvals and that has never happened and as anyone that works with the state knows they're kind of struggling with help so that's why that is in the negative it's not that we're not trying to be reimbursed we just cannot be reimbursed yet so that's why that's a bit of a negative on that Title One Fund and if you've ever had a question about any other is please don't hesitate to ask and I probably explain why they're in the negative so total for all funds the end of October 2022 is 8 million seventy three thousand six ninety three fourteen so we'll go ahead and we'll keep that that there and then the next report that you're going to see kind of takes the place of what we used to call our depository statement this is a report that's run out of our new software which basically out of the software will run what is our total fund balance and what is our total bank balance okay but there's a little niche just like there was last year with our migration there is still an issue with two of the banks they do not have them balanced to their Penny but our overall Bank balances do balance that's good but they're still working on what is the actual bank balance for Bank two what is the actual bank balance for bank 10.
20 million American children 96 sample size and research you call that a pretty good thing and what did they find well they what they really found was something quite extraordinary and interesting I'm going to tell you the end of the movie now because you won't be probably surprised by this but how it comes about is somewhat surprising barrage found that the neighborhood in which a child grows up has substantial causal effects on his or her prospects of upward income Mobility even more then the income and socioeconomic status of the parents themselves now Raj and his team Drew this map it's called the opportunity Atlas you get online at opportunityatlas.org and what this is is a median income of chilled those children at age 35 how much money they earn and if you can't see the scale in the upper right hand corner blue is good yellow is about average red is lower than average so you can kind of get an idea of the level knowing what you're seeing here this is the income that they earned at age 35 mapped back to where they were born and raised not where they lived when the income measurement was taken so they measured how much income then mapped them back to where they actually born and raised in communities and you can see substantial differences not only in the Upper Midwest as compared to the South across the national level you're going to see as you'll see in just a moment substantial differences here in Bartholomew County in the rural Midwest you'll see substantial differences in urban areas like Indianapolis especially around Urban centers and cores Manhattan is a tapestry almost looks more like a a quilted quilted cloth and variation changing block by block but even if you go out west Tehama County where a lot of the car fire and a lot of the fires that hit very rural very agricultural if you look at Redding and Shasta even in those environments you'll see extraordinary differences in economic outcomes so if you look at Bartholomew County here's the data again this is median income blue is better about average and yellow and lower is red you can definitely see differences especially around the central center of the city the center Central core there and you also see some variation remember this is where how much children were making maps to the neighborhoods they were born and raised but what rajan's team found out was something pretty important these effects happen at a hyper local level six tenths of a mile so the effects are about six tenths of a mile after that those effects begin to actually Trail off in other words they're able to predict kind of upward Mobility begins to fall off drastically you can no longer look at surrounding counties and try to predict a child's outcome from that data so the effects of Community are intense and at the same time they're hyper local at best if you can kind of see there's a little circle in the middle of that kind of char that's six tenths of a mile to kind of give you an idea about the size we're talking about in scale on that map there's some other things because if you look at some other kinds of effects that happen here here's a map showing the fraction of single parent household darker meaning higher concentration of single-parent households in this area again a strong correlation as you might imagine to income shown here but here's something kind of extraordinary that the team kind of came to and I want to read this because I think it's important I get raja's wording right it's not the direct effect of your own parents marital status it's again something about Community level factors that are associated with the fraction of single area appearance in the area that's predictive of kids outcomes it by the way was the number one predictor of upward economic mobility and the important thing there is it doesn't matter about your own household or family situation it doesn't matter if you were raised in a traditional nuclear two-parent or Guardian household or if you were raised in a single parent household it's the fraction of single parent houses it's the kind of households around you that have a stronger correlative effect about your upward economic Mobility pretty kind of counter-intuitive result there's also something else that was really important in the study and obviously race plays a huge factor in this if you shouldn't think of place as presiding a uniform set of conditions for all people race ethnicity and culture and having cultural competency matters this is the income in Bartholomew County for black African-American biracial families again you can see wide variances north to south these are those same variances on income for Hispanic families and then this one's interesting here's Asian so here you would see much lower meeting household incomes for the children born on the actual East Side of the community as opposed to the west side in that area it's almost choosing the neighborhood even for that particular race had substantial causal differences there's also something for me coming out of economic development that I think Raj pointed out was really important even having a booming economy does not actually substitute for Upward mobility in fact as you can see up there in the upper left hand corner a booming economy is not enough to even guarantee upward Mobility for children here are a bunch of cities and how they performed over a number of years shown here and if you look at two of the highest gaining cities Atlanta and Charlotte they have one of the highest areas of job growth in the entire country during those years and yet at the same time they produce some of the lowest outcomes for youth on upward economic Mobility the two things they kind of thought about that was funny the correlation there they said what predicts upward Mobility is not proximity to jobs but growing up around people who actually have jobs and the other thing is they found the values that promote human capital development what you do are very different than the values that markets value and so even having a booming economy is no guarantee that children will have greater opportunities for Upward economic Mobility or other factors that are important so what explains the difference there's six things so number one the more segregated a community is by any Factor whether it be type of housing whether it be race whether it be income doesn't matter the more segregated a neighborhood is the worse off everyone does not just those impacted by segregation or harmed by the effects of segregation themselves all Races and all ethnic groups and all people do worse the second thing here is places with a smaller middle class uh tend to do worse in terms of upward economic Mobility you're missing that important transition stage makes pretty obvious there this one I told you is extraordinarily important the family structure of the neighborhood not your own family but the family structure around you it's six tenths of a mile highly predictive of your chances of moving up that economic ladder more Social Capital stronger glue tends to have better outcomes as well as look at their better schools you play a really important factor enrolling this and then again I can't emphasize enough race is a very important variable we can't assume all communities produce equal outcome for all people there are cultural effects within place that are very important as well and sometimes you have to come up with unique strategies for people who are situated in those systems and places differently so those were the six kind of factors that this research this largest body of research conducted on American children kind of told us to look for them some people walked away very depressed from this but Raj said you know I think we're asking the wrong question because I kept saying well Raj is the American dream dead then look I showed you some data that was not very compelling and saying that it's still alive and vigorous and he's I think it's the wrong question you know we shouldn't be asking about the American dream America's too vast and well too different having too much diversity and an array of difference in variation rather we should think of more as the Iowa dream or the Atlanta Dream or the California Dream and I think that's right we need to ask what we want the Columbus and the Bartholomew County dream to be that's the question because these effects are important and they're hyper local so one question we might ask ourselves then is just how unfair and Equitable on those six factors is Bartholomew County and so I want to show you some data quickly that I think complements the research that we just saw many of you some of you may even came over this bridge today the Robert Stewart bridge and if you know that kind of your your geography these cars are coming from the west side of town over 46 and they're coming over the East Fork of the White River into the actual downtown itself most Census Data uses barriers like Rivers as a boundary and that would be completely true in this case that is the boundary and it separates two areas of geography they call census tracts in a census tract is about 5 000 people so when you go across that bridge you're actually going across 109 and you're coming in to 101 and for those to help you now we'll just kind of map out that picture right in the middle of the map where you see kind of the dotted Circle that's where that bridge locates and again there's census tract 109 the car is coming from the west and here's census track 101 where they were actually leading to that bridge is somewhat almost a portal to two different worlds in many respects whether you're looking at income education or even lifespan in fact if you look you can see some of the days of 23 poverty rate about 37 000 annual median income you can see the educational attainment rate which means anything beyond high schools about 30 percent and you live to be about 71 years in terms of life expectancy uh in that 101 area conversely those cars were coming from an area has a four percent poverty rate a hundred and four thousand median income 80 percent of those have something Beyond high school and look at the life expectancy it's 83 years you essentially lose 12 years of your life crossing the bridge now if you kind of look at Bartholomew County besides those two there are 15 census tracts in Bartholomew County again it represents about 5 000 people they're all different sizes because whether the people are more dense in the city center they should be smaller and the county that are bigger but they still represent a proportional relative amount of people that explains the size different on the tracks here if you don't need to see the data basically red means you're below the national average on those metrics yellow about average green you're doing better than the national average themselves now if you take the 15 tracks and would line them highest to lowest what would you find what's the range difference well on poverty there's a 20 range difference between the highest and lowest tracks in Bartholomew County now for youth unfortunately that picture picture is much more bleak there's a 42 percent difference in poverty rate between the lowest and highest tract when you're looking at tracks there's a 66 000 difference each and every year on media and family income between again the highest and the lowest and the educational attainment rate is staggering 60 percent difference among those tracks our community goal is to try to get everyone 60 of our adults to some credential Beyond high school we have a 60 variance between the lowest and the highest tracks and the one I think most people always find surprising is there's a huge life expectancy range in Bartholomew County from the highest to the lowest of about 17 years Hope by the way has the highest about 89 years the water must be great there as opposed to the lowest which again is around the central core of the downtown which we saw is about 71 so there's a substantial life expectancy difference even within our own County based on where you live here's the other passionate plea I'm going to put out to you big lesson for me uh the poverty rate itself most of us use data at the county level or the city level but remember what Raj told us effects on children are actually at a hyper local level these numbers don't actually mean too much because they're averages and their Aggregates and their medians and their averages of averages and there's no such thing as an average kid let me show you quickly just how quickly you can see that there's before covid the actual poverty rate in the United States there it is for Bartholomew County we can Pat ourselves on the back we say hey we're doing better off than the United States on average but we'd be missing the point the real point is in no census tract in Bartholomew County is 10 percent the rate not even close remember it's an average it's a median and we tend to forget that in fact if you look at again at the big variation let's put up here the lowest poverty rate up kind of near the airport is actually three percent the highest in the downtown at 23 percent and if you're talking about youth on the east side the highest rate is actually 42 percent and the next census tract over which is only a two-minute Drive the youth poverty rate is zero so in a two-minute ride you can go from zero percent youth poverty rate to a 42 percent uh youth poverty rate in a very very short amount of time please note nowhere up there does it say 10.
but you'll see on here we want to be looking at our grand total for all funds and our grand total for all banks and you'll see and they should be highlighted at the end of October 2022 those both matched to the penny and if you actually go back to the last line of your fund report you'll see that the fund the bank balance report and the fund report all match they're all the same number and that's exactly what we want and then we have the fund transfer report this is a little bit different this month normally I don't have these show up but the way we have this set up in the new software anytime I do a transfer from one bank to another normally you don't see that you've given me authorization authorization to do that through resolutions that we run every year but for some reason these are showing up on reports which is absolutely fine with me but it's basically me transferring money from one One bank to another bank to say to cover um not necessarily payroll but the claims checks does that make sense okay so I just want to kind of give you an idea what you're looking at and signing off on here and then we have our usual education Ops transfer and then we have our school lunch 8400 which is the prepaid account um but moving that to the school lunch account so the total on those transfers is 703 excuse me 708 394.85 and then lastly we have the bond expenditures first we have Bond expenditures for um 2021 running from July 2021 through October 2022 our balance forward you'll see there at the top and then you've got the expenditures for Bond 2021 through like the second half of October so our total through the end of October expenditures for Bond 2021 is 10 million 759 855.40 and then we've kind of jumped down there to the bottom you'll see expenditures for Bond 2022 and we just started that Bond so our balance forward from September 1st 2022 through the beginning beginning of October 2022 with sixty thousand nine seventy two sixty three and then through the remain October we just had a small expenditure for legal fees so our total balance for expenditures from Bond 2022 is 61 254.89 and that's all I have okay thank you you're welcome so can I get a motion to approve the consent agenda okay a motion of the second all in favor aye full opposed motion passes next item on the agenda is reports and first from assistant superintendent Dr French good evening good evening so we're in the middle fade on that so we're working on reading for kindergarten through sixth grade and math for sixth through eighth grade um so we have the principles involved in the part of the committee and what at least one teacher from each grade level so right now with reading we've got that narrowed down to four and by the end of the week we should have that narrowed down to two curriculum with math they've got that narrowed down to two and so then the next step in the process is to do what we call field testing which is basically like test driving the car so it's not just like looking at the pamphlet we're actually going to try it and so the teachers will each select a few different lessons from both of the curriculum to implement with their classes so that's really how they get a good feeling for what it's like to teach it what information is there and the teacher friendliness of it um so they'll work on the field testing part through January and February and then we'll reconvene and they'll give all their feedback and their input we'll make a final decision from there and then we hope to bring that to you for approval in March so that we can start the purchase just and the training before teachers leave for the summer so that's that's the goal when the timeline for both the feeding and the map so any questions no no okay yeah it was good thanks next item is superintendent report Mr Gibney yeah so I just have a couple of items first wish most people in this room probably received a phone call from me this evening and that's just the reminder with winter weather upcoming and to make sure we have good information but also wanted to communicate with parents with the uh the general assembly general assembly in the legislature and the doe essentially adding additional restrictions and limiting the amount of traditional e-learning days or virtual learning days that schools can use limiting us to three unless we provide live instruction 50 of the day for all of our students so we've talked and we are just going to stick with our three what I would call more traditional e-learning days and anything after that we would have to add on to the end of the school year and um as you'll see tonight in next year's school calendar and then moving forwards unless things change adding back in some built-in snow day so that way we don't have to tack on to the end of the school year so that was shared with families building projects moving along we had a few noisy days at the middle school but overall I think the staff and the students have done a tremendous job and things haven't been too difficult to navigate there they're making some making some good Headway in some of those spaces and actually all the most the demo if not all the demo in the first area is so the office the media center um and the newly refreshed classrooms are going into the former office they're starting to put things back and starting to put in back in mechanical we're kind of earmarking or looking at right around March so right around spring break to occupy those new spaces at the middle school and hand over the science lab so things are moving along really well there at the high school I think the same thing same thing can be said we've had some bumps in the road with a big hole in the ground you know trying to get up out of the ground but but that uh that's moving along well the first uh kind of the the front of the school kind of that back hallway in the media center those spaces are moved along too they're starting to actually put in some of the finishes so some of the casework flooring final paint so we're expecting turnover of those areas right around Christmas break or shortly thereafter so we're going to be working with teachers on the next phase of of movement of classroom so everyone's been doing really well and definitely appreciate everyone being flexible with that because it's it's not it hasn't been easy just to be completely honest but everyone's been tremendous and then the final thing that I have for you tonight um we received our 1782 notice from the Department of local government finance and it's probably the most exciting thing I love the budget um but we received it and probably earlier than I could ever remember and um so what we received back um we actually sent back to them and made cuts on our proposed rate so this top sheet here has our historical tax rate comparisons advertised on the left hand side right hand certified and so we know that we always advertise higher and when it comes back certified in our av is higher and so you can see our rate for 2023 1.32.36 and then you can see the two different funds that we do have a have a rate for Debt Service want service fund 0.6199 that's actually the same as our 2021 certified rate because when we move forwards with issuing Bonds in the building projects we promised our taxpayers that we would not rate our debt service tax raise our debt service tax rate and so actually the first 1782 notice that came back from the dlgf the rate was listed at like 0.67 and some change and so we instructed them to make cuts to that rate and that'll bring the levy down obviously also but we plan for that in working with our financial advisors and cutting into some of the operating balance and Debt Service and so yeah total rate dollar 32 36.
the thing that you and I do so often when we use data and averages and Aggregates and all of our work is the fact that we tend to hide variation we hire differences we hide contrasts and these contrasts we saw from the research are extraordinarily important we cover these up right we actually cannot see what is right in front of us because of the kinds of data sometimes we use so that led us to these questions Bartholomew County we figure is not actually one homogeneous place and that's okay instead we have 15 glorious ecosystems that are all different that need to work in a sort of balance if you will and that's a good thing but here's the big question that we asked from Ross chetty's work is this if we were using data though at a hyper local level would we make different decisions in different places on the map would we have different conversations with families at different places on the map and to us the answer was I think we would in fact we did a lot of work in this community on food insecurity and we were using county level data but then Purdue Extension Center helped us actually produce track level data and as you might imagine the effects were staggering it was so Jagged it ups and downs was no flat average and we asked ourselves had we had this data when we started might we have done things differently and our answer was yeah where we located things policy changes Transportation routes right a whole different set of strategies all of a sudden became available to us that weren't there before and so I think if you put those two things together you kind of say what are we learning some great powerful research about the powerful effects of what creates upward mobility and Powerful communities and the way of looking at data in a new way that could help us maybe make different decisions so that question leads to this you know what are we doing about it so I want to share something that's kind of is called the moonshot vision it's not the Community Vision it's a very important Community Vision though and it kind of came across in a coffee shop when some folks from Cummins were saying you know we have a big Vision called Planet 2050 we want to be carbon net neutral by 2050.
and uh we've taken care of that getting things signed off with the dlgf so I wanted to share that with you for your reference thank you all right thanks no dude yep okay next item on the agenda is old business there is no old business so we come to new business excuse me first item on the agenda or new business under new business is an approval request for 2023 overnight out of state ghs band in choir field trip to Florida yep so as this customer anything overnight or out of state requires school board approval sponsors have submitted the necessary information in the itinerary guidelines chaperones all of that which is in your board packet and so my recommendation the board would be to approve this good opportunity for our kids [Music] I make a motion to approve it okay we have a motion in a second any questions hearing nut all in favor aye all opposed motion password next item is an approval request for the 2024 overnight out of state GMS trip to Washington DC yeah so kind of similarly uh uh it was discovered that there's a an overnight or excuse me overnight an out-of-state trip being proposed for Greencastle Middle School and again I just think it'll be a a good opportunity for our middle school students they've submitted all of the necessary information itinerary chaperones this trip doesn't take place during the school year either so it's not going to impact instruction but just think it'd be a good opportunity for those that would like to go to Washington DC to have the chance to do that with our middle school so I would recommend that the board approve this opportunity making motion will be approved so what are the dates on that truth question June 24th yeah I think it's just right after school lets out all right so the cost of the trip is a shy two grand so I'm just but it doesn't look like but some of the others that there's fundraising excuse me fundraising or anything like that available so is that something that is possible or that I think it's one of those things where they work with the families to to make the payments um and you know it's two years and well all right yeah it's two years in advance so there's a long time to kind of chip away at that but it's an external excuse me it's an external travel travel agency okay um but yeah they work with the families to make payments okay looks like it'd be a good trip it's a good opportunity thank you yeah it's nice to be able to go back you know move forward and have this kind of opportunities again for sure foreign I believe we have a motion in a second so all in favor all right all opposed motion passes next item on the agenda is an approval request for bus trade in for a part service labor Credit of two thousand dollars to curling Bus Sales yeah so we have a bus that is no longer pass safety inspections it's older it's not worth preparing essentially we'd like to to trade it we have a partner willing to take it and give us some some credit towards Parts service and labor which we always always need so I would make the recommendation allow us to do this can I make a motion we accept second okay we have a motion in a second all in favor aye aye opposed motion passes next is an approval request for the 2023-24 corporation calendar yeah so um in your packet excuse me actually I printed a new one for you because in your packet summer school it said June 3 through 8th obviously that's incorrect it's June 3 through 28 but I've spent some time working with um the superintendents in the neighboring school districts that we share area 30 career center with um having discussions with g a and our ministers on a suitable calendar the best we can for 23 24 and essentially you have that proposal in front of you it was a kind of a there's some minor adjustments through our conversation highlights the kids would begin on August 4th which is a Friday um we tried to push kind of push that push back the starter school um but rather you know there's a lot of not wanting to start with a have the first uh week of school be a five day week so liking starting liking that we started on a Friday um and then we have a day off and then and then and then continue um fall break is back in alignment with the county schools and also Covered Bridge the coverage bridge festival Christmas break is you know very similar to what we have currently you can see on there there are three those three green little boxes that's the return of the built-in snow days to allow for you know in addition to the used to be learning to allow some flexibility should we have some not some nice weather and then um spring break is the the week of the 18th through the 22nd which aligns with the other three three County school districts and then we still end the week before Memorial Day so end on a Tuesday have graduation on that Friday so there's some flexibility there as well so um yeah so I would recommend um that the board approved the 2324 school calendar so that we we can post on our website and share it with families because this is probably one of the most frequently asked for documents so just to verify commissioner with our spring break and our fall break we're going to fall back in line with the other schools correct because that is the most thing I've got in my backside shoot on this year for yeah I'd like to eliminate that if we can yes all right fantastic I like it someone so I I guess I have a more of a question I appreciate the brakes lining up but it didn't so it looks like other County Schools the only ones I can verify is North Putt in Cloverdale are both starting on the ninth um I don't understand why we're maybe starting on the fourth going for a day and then I don't know we we've done that before and I've always question why go starts go on a Friday tip like this year yeah so this year I think we started on Thursdays on Thursday so getting a couple days in getting everybody a break is the start of the year is taxing rather than hitting the ground running with a with a full week um that was the feedback that I got from our staff because I had shared a proposal of where we started on the seventh but the feedback was not as positive and receptive to so so what is the process you you come up with the Quasi thought process and you send it over to the teacher and Associate Teachers Association yeah so typically there aren't too many really major changes it's pretty much corresponding dates so come up with a couple of um a couple of calendars and then we meet with gcta we talk as an admin team we have we have discussion on what the calendar looks like like we know there have has to be 180 days we know there are only so many ways to get that with the start date and an end date and having you know having a week at the fall having a couple of weeks that you know at Christmas and having a weekend week in the spring um so and we know there's multiple different obviously viewpoints too and so there's not exact science to do it um um just do our best to put together a complete calendar that kind of satisfies all those things like you know for instance from the first draft of this draft um rather an ending on December 19th we're ending on December 20th because High School wanted to have three full days in the same week for final exams um yeah okay okay so so I'm sorry I was just gonna say I'd like the the snow day built back again I appreciate that I just I don't understand why we're starting from my perspective and I may be the only one on the board but from my perspective I don't know why we're starting five days before the other schools I guess yeah because I mean because we have the we have the built-in we have more days we have more teacher days and um we have extra time at winter break right a winter break seems to be a little bit longer than some of the other schools yeah yeah so I just don't like the Friday start date I mean I think it's just screws a whole family out of the week for the summer because if you know if that's the only week let's say a family could take a vacation and get back right before school starts while they can yeah you know it's it's it it kills one kills the final week of summer for families all right thank you if I if I'm understanding that Friday students in um get our little office to school thing and then um okay and then give everybody a couple days to breathe and then come back exactly the ground running right right yes oh I get it I just don't think it's fair to families to well we're starting later than we did this year and if we start if we start later excuse me if we start earlier we're going to finish earlier too and so I mean I don't know how late we want to finish it at the end of the year I mean it's it's you know it's 50 this it's 50 50 that it is it is so this is the one at the teachers and administration won okay all right can I get a motion to approve I make a motion that we approve okay I have a motion second all in favor aye all opposed you're opposed Dale so very none motion potion passes okay next thing on the agenda is an approval request for the teacher appreciation Grant yeah um so we were just notified by the state I believe sometime next week we're going to receive our teacher appreciation Grant um stipend funds for our teachers and so I've been working on those amounts to distribute those to teachers on our December night payroll but while it's on the why it's on the agenda is as is customary in the past the doe specifically excludes administrators from receiving any of the stipends from the state so the recommendation in your packet is to provide um the stipends uh the same stipends provided in the same month to the administrators as the teachers and um the revised version was printed and left because we mistakenly included one teacher that left on uh on the spreadsheet and so by adjusting that it adjusted those by a few dollars as well I make emotionally approve the teacher appreciation Grant as presented okay Motion in a second all in favor all right well opposed motion passes next item on the agenda is an approval request for permission to advertise and RFP for food for a food service management company yeah um so Mrs carrico is going to be retiring in February and we just uh kind of took a deep dive into current structure our food service program and made the decision that is best at this time to look at Contracting with the food service management company and Mrs scarecrow and I met with the entire Food Service staff today to share that with them that we would be releasing an RFP but also to assure them that it's our goal and that we are sharing as part of our it will have to be part of the proposal that we expect on the Food Service management company to take on our staff because they're Greencastle people we want them to continue to to work in our cafeterias but they would do so um as as an employee of the Food Service management company so I've been working with the Department of Education so we have an RFP um that we have an average we're going to advertise an RFP on December 2nd or second not and Ninth or potentially the outside chance if the fifth or the 12th I'm waiting for final approval from the doe on that but having a proposal due date of December 19th um at 10 A.M to have the open the bids and review them and analyze them through a small committee and then work to award a contract the first week of January so we have time to to review those reboot those proposals so um for seeking permission to advertise the RFP for Food Service management company just to clarify you have maybe not everyone knows what RFP means yes request for proposals good so move second okay we have a motion and a second any questions or discussion it's a well-deserved retirement looking forward to seeing what we come up foreign all in favor all right all opposed motion passes next item is an approval request for furniture for Greencastle Middle School so built into the building uh project itself and that the budget was some updated furniture for the classrooms the media center the updated office spaces and the science labs and so we are ready to order um phase one and phase two so phase one and phase two that's uh the uh the office the media center the updated classrooms and so we have quotes from Ki that's the furniture provider for phase one 214 760.45 phase two fifty one thousand three twenty eight thirty eight from hail manufacturing which is primarily for the shelving in the media center in the amount of eighty three thousand four sixty six sixty four for a total cost of 349 555.47 so we're bringing that to the board for approval so we can get those items ordered so that they can arrive in time and also avoid any price increases I make emotionally buy the furniture second okay I have a motion in a second all in favor opposed motion passes next item is an approval request for some donations first being McDonald's to Greencastle High School's inkpot newspaper in the amount of five hundred dollars into the Putnam County Community Foundation to the Sonic is intermediate in the amount of two thousand seven hundred eighty six dollars and Thirteen Cents Putnam County Community Foundation to Deer Meadow Primary in the amount of three thousand two hundred and fifty dollars Putnam County Community Foundation of ritpath primary no matter three thousand seven hundred and twenty dollars RSQ fire protection LLC to Greencastle High School wrestling team in the amount of one thousand five hundred dollars as always very nice yes yes thank you very much I make a motion that we accept all donations as presented gladly okay motion is second all in favor all right well opposed motion passes can I interrupt for a minute do we have our student of the month in the back recognition come on up Emma's a great leader in many respects she has been a member of the Key Club for the past two years and has impressed the teachers with her follow through on everything she gets involved with she has so much respect for the students that she works with on any project and she makes sure to include everyone this is Emma smiley [Applause] I thought maybe they didn't want to listen to New Orleans join the club all right next item on the agenda is everyone's favorite part of the meeting Jeff's going to read all these as being all apostles I don't know about that um this is this is the second reading of the of the Neola policies that are listed that are shared with you last month they were shared for discussion as well but really most of them are resulting changes of state or federal law so unless requested I'm not going to speak specifically about each of them but they have been have been shared with you and it would be my recommendation that the board approved them on second reading so that we can be current estate in federal law and I will also have some additional ones in the future I did not have any questions I didn't either most of them just look like change of verbiage here and there yeah a lot of technical Corrections and cleanup this and and again for uh for the law they're really weren't major that was adjusted or recommended to be adjusted I make a motion we adopt the changes to the Neola policies listed below second okay we have a motion in a second all in favor aye all opposed motion passes next item on the agenda is other business do you want to have any other business to discuss I was just going to ask Jeff how he thought the concession stands for going with the new yeah um why because I was stuffing my face with nachos the other day how was everyone else like that well the stain on my shirt from the barbecue no um I think for the most part I think they you know they're they're learning they've only have a couple of games that are under their belt but I think they've done a good job I think they're all I think as the season goes along a little they'll get better and get quicker but I think the food I mean they think it's tasted good I see people buying it um and uh so I think it's working out well for them and working out well for for us and then obviously you know we're continuing to operate I think it's what the Key Club there's the junior class or maybe it's both at the high school they operate the other concession stands so I think overall it's gone really really well something else okay next item on the agenda is adjournment make the motion uh second then give a motion in a second all in favor aye all opposed motion passes and our next meeting is December 12th 12th yes December 12th at 6.
and we got like a John F Kennedy moonshot between now is 2020 and 2030 of where we want to be in one decade and it's bold and it's ambitious and they said does the community have anything like that you know it kind of looked each other I don't know you know could should the community have something like that through a lot of thought and effort and I'll tell you the work that you do and this school corporation was a major I think influence and effect as well as many others uh the council for youth developments but we had so much energy in the youth space so many great collaborative leaders and so many great outcomes that we decided hey if we're really going to kind of put a stake in the ground about a big ambitious moonshot there is one there and it's this you know how could Columbus Indiana become the most Equitable community in for children in the nation within a 10-year time period and to know that we'd have to know where we're at how we're going to get there and how we're doing or how are we going to know that we're making progress toward that big moonshot vision and that's kind of where I want to kind of spend the rest and bulk of my time figuring that out with us what are we doing where are we going how are we going to get there and where do we think we're at today so let's take a few thoughts about that for more than two years now since September nine of the largest I think organizations that are responsible for serving families and youth in the community have been getting together showing kind of up there where it says guiding team on that line and they're the ones who I think really are the stewards of the biggest systems that impact so many of our families and it does have a list of supporting partners that have been there for numbers of reasons of technical assistance and support and expertise and Monies and we've been getting together every two weeks 90 minutes it's always on Thursday and we've been having a discussion about that research and looking at this data just the way that you saw it here this morning and asking ourselves you know what could we be doing better and what could we be doing different and thanks to the Ross Chetty work we kind of realized what's Raj kind of telling us well it's not one thing okay it's got to somehow be a multi-faceted kind of approach we don't want to create just another program it has to be really a community level effort we call this the layer cake and we thought there are three layers to this cake number one the systems meaning ourselves we decided we'll look in the mirror and look at ourselves for our systems need to be better coordinated and better aligned they need to fit the realities of our community today and our youth that's there and there's many improvements that we on our own could begin to make on that to make sure that these systems are best aligned and coordinated as they could potentially be two as we saw from the data Place matters and it matters a lot these systems show up in different places within the community and because the effects of place the outcomes are different so unless the systems are somehow aligned to the places in Bartholomew County it's kind of always hard to get to those outcomes that we want and then if you recall race cultural competency ethnicity there are differences culturally within these places that have to be respected and understood and specific strategies develop for people situated in the community differently and if you look at that kind of on the layer cake it's really about people at the top places in the middle and the systems that serve both of those things Lane as a support underneath so that's what we're trying to tackle so let me give you just a couple things in each one of those layers of the cake that's going on because I think it's important you know it's important for all of us to be informed one because I think there's a role for all of you to play and two the more horn informed and communicate the more and better we can collaborate so systems building this is our Battle Cry here there's no Silver Bullet there's no program that's going to get us into this set of results that's going to make the moonshot happen it's a system stain not a single thing I can't say enough about the Strategic plan that Dr Roberts had mentioned earlier today he's right there's equity and Equitable all over it and all we really need to know is we're just trying to create more opportunity and create better outcomes for youth in a fair way I mean that's really what we mean and when we say that and I applaud you for applying it not only to accessibility to all opportunities but even your Pathways that's tremendous so so much great work has went into it and we applaud the efforts that happened there so I first want to acknowledge that but there are other fantastic I think things going on you may not be aware of the juvenile justice system at the county level a few years ago decided it wanted to turn its whole system inside out and upside down and so instead of being this reactive deficit-based reactive support system they decide they wanted to be an asset based development support system and flip the whole thing to asset based development you know before they were called the juvenile detention center it doesn't sound very asset based so they actually renamed and rebranded all of their efforts around Youth and Family Community connections and they actually in hosts with the other stakeholders came up with these principles guiding principles for positive Youth Development based on the guiding kind of assets of asset-based development and also trauma-informed care crosswalked all that and came up with a pretty cool set of guiding principles so much in fact the equity Works team just adopted it because they love the fact that the youth voice was actually presented and accounted for in that vision Council for youth development's new master plan fantastic up at the top you can kind of see across it recognizes the importance and diversity of place and it talks about those are our concerns and you'll see again The Guiding principles for Youth Development you know all over this and you'll see the concern about creating more opportunities and uh for advancement and for equity on youth written all over the plan brand new plan that's just come out and will guide their efforts until 20.