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um calling the meeting to order we'll have a moment of silence followed by the Pledge of Allegiance led by Dr Charles Santa Cruz please join me in the pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you Mrs Wilson could you please do the Roll Call Dr Charles Santa Cruz here Mr Bill Parker here Miss Sheila eugetti here Miss Jill Humphries here Miss Laurie wood here miss you jetty you have all board members present you have a quorum thank you and thank you Mrs wood for being here telephonically um we'll go to 2.01 approval of the agenda do I hear a motion I moved to approve the agenda thank you Mrs Humphries II second thank you Mr Mr Parker yes any discussion okay all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye none opposed Dr McCord superintendent's recognition recognition Awards thank you madam president board members if you join me in front of the diocese we'll go through our recognitions for this evening foreign [Music] good evening everyone how are you good thank you for being here tonight I hear a lot of uh laughing Smiles on faces this is the best part of the meeting I'm just telling you right now this is the recognition portion and it's when we get to recognize our students our staff folks in the community everybody who makes Gilbert Public Schools what it is and so thank you guys for being here tonight we're going to kick this off with some student recognitions and on the athletic side we have Highland High School cross country coach Monty come on up [Applause] foreign coach is like a Mainstay at these meetings this time of year it seems like Highland continues to win state in Cross Country for boys or sometimes girls and sometimes both and this year Highland High boys and girls won division one state championships so give them a hand and because no one can say it better than him I'm going to turn this over to their coach and let him talk about the season and his uh student athletes coach thanks appreciate it so yeah it doesn't happen very often when you win both it's you know I've been at this 35 years 26 years in Gilbert it just doesn't happen very often so it was kind of a Dream Season to be honest our girls we kind of knew were going to be good uh our boys you know we had some injuries we had some kids quit but we continued you know that when the gun went off with these meats both teams were just dominating and in Cross Country you uh your team score is where you place it's the ultimate team sport a lot of people think oh it's an individual sport it's not where you place is your score so at the state meet the girls finished with 20 points they tied two other teams in State history with the lowest score and then the boys had 43 points and was interesting the boy the girls our top seven made the the last our seventh girl it was 15th our seventh boy was 24th I've been at Meats where we in 2011 we won the boys won State and we had five runners owners in the top 30. so now it's this whole so much more competitive and so much so tough to make it and do it so um I'm just thrilled that you know we're able to uh to uh be here and uh 80 Kids come out for our program we had 80 kids they show up at 5 a.m um we have coach Hall our girls coach and Coach Hagan I don't think is here coach coach Resendez I don't think is here but you know we we're you know no matter how tired we are they show up 80 kids in the hallway taking attendance at 5 a.m and we did it all from June all the way through well when it got cold in uh in in end of October November so these are very dedicated individuals running from 25 to 45 miles a week and um you know I couldn't it's just I just sit there and why I look at that this mind blown that they show up at 5am and um you know and they all most I think the majority of them have a 3.5 grade point average or higher in and even some on our team have 4.5s as I've said before they're a lot smarter than their coach when he was in high school are they here yeah they're here so guys come on up both girls and guys teams come on up that's like oh that's funny I'm glad I can't and yeah so I'm gonna just let them say their name and the place they were at State on both and both girls and guys you uh the top seven are the team five score the sixth and seventh Runners displaced so what's interesting is that we had both boys and girls top seven first team and they'll they'll need their names will go up on the Hall of Fame at Highland and they'll be there forever so uh so when they're old like me they can walk in and see their name they'll be kind of kind of cool so let's start with go ahead Emma tell us who you're in what place you were so she was a state champion yeah she's the first state championship uh individual for Highland ever and it's very hard to make we only had two boys do it and now she's the only girl I believe though she's the only girl to ever do it in any Gilbert High School to ever win a state championship in Cross Country it's so tough so next next so yeah you got to see man the two sisters and Chloe's been kind of our number one Runner and Emma's been number two three right in there and uh he kind of switched roles at State and I asked him I go hey Emma when did you know he had it once he goes I know I didn't have it one because my sister was right on my tail so she uh she had to book it in to the Finish because Chloe uh was coming on her so uh Emma is a senior and just signed uh with uh Utah Valley um up in uh up in Utah so she just sorry I know a little nervous sorry uh and then Chloe's a sophomore so we have Chloe coming back next Cameron is a freshman yeah freshman next [Applause] so that's your girls team and they definitely dominate all year our number two team would have been top three at State also and I'm going to clarify so we only get kids from Highland Junior High it's just been so now we're getting brothers and sisters and it's just been a revolving door now that we're getting these these great kids and like you said they show up to work pretty hard so all right go ahead next guy Josh Howard nine you think Kingsford 24.
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yeah does anybody have feedback as far as the priorities sure and uh here you have for um let me see it's pretty short school and um more oh no no it's not more restrictive Neil Rich I'm sorry my apologies as a marriage and budget I know that you have it as a 65 5 000 for replacement of playground equipment but we received an email if you think this is something that could be done or is it added um somewhere in the budget for replacement of playground equipment so so Julie that's a that's a great question uh what were what what this budget is trying to do and John please jump in and help me um if I'm not explaining this properly this is sort of above and beyond the sort of day-to-day repairs piece this is this is sort of what is it five years John the the capital budget so these are sort of projects we want to tackle those little projects are still fitting into our sort of our current maintenance budget and the you know the current back and forth we have with the city and in working through some of those so this is sort of like the you know the bigger plans and okay okay yeah and it raises a really good point too because I just want to clarify this is sort of above and beyond our traditional budget right John this isn't yeah I'm sure things we're going to be talking about you're going to see a whole new list everybody's going to see a whole new list when we come to budget season and we're talking about you know how much money we're going to spend on maintenance this this is going to be money that sits outside of that uh that the city is going to go after and we're just telling them these are our priority projects so sorry we should have clarified that a little bit on the front end perfect thank you thank you for the information yeah so okay I kind of have a follow-up to your question Julie so how did so like the haze Town bathroom remodel is on this as a priority so how does like how is that a priority versus like emails we've been getting about other schools like concerns Mill Ridge and I know other board members have been getting you know concerned about Great Plain bathrooms and stuff like that so how come the haze Town one is a priority on this and like Mill Ridge problems and and I understand that those are still in the budget but if they're not being fixed how come they're not a priority on this list versus like restriping the parking lot which I understand is also something that needs to be done but do you know what I mean might can I and I understand exactly what and I know their last meeting um we talked a lot about um specific repairs and the process of who repairs what whether it falls under us in the city and I and um I know we had an extensive conversation about that so can you maybe give us an understanding as to where where something falls under repairs where something falls under a capital Improvement and how we're defining the two and how this is moving forward with the city on you know based on the discussions we had follow-up to the discussions we had last meeting sure I think that's what the I think that's where all our board members our brains are on you know where we're being you know asked about all of these imminent problems that we have so you know how how is all of that falling into this and how do we how are we separating that Mike could I take a try at just the definition yeah absolutely yeah so um Capital items generally uh might have a a unit cost of or a cost above twenty thousand dollars and have a useful life of um at least five years or more um you know there's the bricks and mortar kind of things that that last a long time uh whereas uh repairs are are just exactly that ongoing uh maintenance and repairs uh that you have to do day in and day out um the other thing though uh we we've heard loud and clear too about the bathrooms and we've uh started I guess Rich about a month ago uh with a blitz uh to take care of all of the um bathroom issues that have come up um we uh we just don't want to wait for the city uh given the the seriousness of of the condition and um so we're underway uh Richie you could probably tell more I know we've done some of that work and there's more planned uh this month sure um yeah actually I met with the contractor uh this morning to look at um AIS Magnet School in West Side Middle School and and the the bathrooms that I'm targeting are are outstanding work orders have been out been four five six months or older uh in the situation of West Side those bathrooms have been like that for over a year um so I'm working with a contractor to to get some of these older issues taken care of and as an example of deciding whether it should go on Capital as opposed to just repair AIS magnet school it's about 12 years old so I don't think we need to renovate the bathrooms but there's definitely some sinks there that are in need of repair yeah and I'll just add to that you know rich and I have been talking about this a lot John as well um over the last few weeks I mean more than that even and you know in a lot of the repairs you know when the plumbing um you know it's it I mean it's it's not going to be over twenty thousand dollars it's significant but you know it it's digging into a wall and ripping out a few pipes and then putting some tile back into place it's time consuming and it is expensive but you know to Rich's point it doesn't need require entitle uh an entire bathroom renovation so those those things won't make the list you know the the bathroom in haystown for example I don't know the exact one we're talking about uh rich but I I think this is a pretty dated bathroom with um you know and it just has an old look feel and smell to it and it just needs uh it it needs a refresh yeah excuse me Rich hi y'all I I dropped out for a minute and I am back on something uh looking into my phone the the one I believe the bathroom that Julie I believe was referring to the complaint came in October 21st for Mill Ridge Primary School yeah um yeah okay and yeah I checked in with the head custodian today um and and I'll probably take it right out there tomorrow but uh he seems to think that that was repaired but I I don't want to say that until I see with my own eyes well the emails like I said is dated October 21st so you know I don't know what's happened you scared me yeah six months behind on repairing bathrooms um I think that's actually the email from from the day uh rich and I met um with uh uh some of the city folks over at the mayor's office and they they had actually after that meeting I was on the phone with uh miss tarcy the principal at Mill Ridge and she said that the bathroom had been repaired so I think that one is taken care of unless something else has broken since no I just Julie and I received the same email and I I did just do some research and dropped off my phone and yeah it was the 21st of October that the complaint came in but okay no great thank you yeah that one should be all taken care of so great I would consider this a living document also so in other words as we go through the year we're going to reevaluate these priorities and conditions change in various buildings which might you know prompt us to change something you know put it higher up on their priority list depending on how much the conditions worsen so right now Ellsworth Avenue School isn't that old is it no it's about 12 14.
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so people could see all the good things happening in our district we will keep you updated on upcoming meetings and next steps um thank you to our Communications team and all involved we have a great website area now under the news section there's it's called State actions and responses and documentation and update is all available there um are there any comments or questions from my colleagues I just have a question about of course kind of looking at the how you said they were assigned by the board and we don't have any board member from 27j on that committee each board got to pick who they wanted yeah um are just questioning because it looks like most of them have at least one board member yeah except for them and that's the okay yeah it's a little odd but per statue each board got to decide who nope that's why I asked I just was looking at that so all right well we have a long night ahead of us um we have our Retreat coming up so may I ask for a motion for adjournment a motion to adjourn thank you thank you Ramona Brokaw Please Mr Amador aye Ms Estrada aye Ms Lovato aye Ms Molina aye is Zubia hi great thank you we are adjourned the board will now move into part two of our Retreat on policy governance after a short break and drive safely everyone if you got to go home thank you for joining us a little bit no
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Ben Alexander 23rd Jack Brian Holt 10th Austin roof 22nd so I believe both teams from one to seven it was like almost 43 seconds 34 to 43 seconds right on there that's insane how close they are the more grouped up you are to the front the more you're going to win meets we were undefeated uh we did they both teams lost 10 to 10 schools one was at Desert Twilight with over 250 schools came from Colorado Utah and the altitude training just doesn't have an advantage so my girls were fourth boys were fifth so they got beat there and then they went to Mount Sac I don't know if anyone's everyone around Sac it's like 80 years old at race out in California and they all went and they both teams are fifth so that's the only time they lost all Arizona they were the number one team in Arizona never lost one meet they were the number one team all divisions this is really special this doesn't happen like I said every year but please give it up for these kids they worked a ton thank you [Applause] congratulations ladies and gentlemen and coach coaches and if you guys would shake hands with the board and stay here we're gonna take a picture is that all right all right so I don't know if you guys know I'm a runner I did a Turkey Trot on Thursday a mile and a half I came in sixth out of seven people in my neighborhood I don't want to tell you who I beat because I got to go home to her in a little bit so congratulations to you guys once again um coach Kyle Johnson are you here anybody here from Campos swim and dive they're principles here what place did you come in say so nobody's here but I will talk about them Campo Verde girls division two State runner-up in swim and dive for the state Arizona congratulations to them and Gilbert High Lauren tolber division one first in the hundred yard back backstroke and second in the hundred yard fly um she can't be here tonight they're having their swim and dive banquet tonight so give a round of applause for her I'd like to call a student Landon line are you here Landon come on up buddy how are you tonight can you stand right here with me and smile at everybody because they're gonna take your picture can I read some words about you you are currently in third grade at Settler's Point right yeah I like it let me read to you what has been said about you from the folks at Settler's Point it's good stuff Landon has been a student at Settler's Point since kindergarten during his kindergarten year he faced some challenges if we fast forward to his third grade year this year he's a model student he's very polite with adults and his peers and he is patient and always willing to help and his academics have truly taken off from his the beginning of this school year his assessments to the end of the year Landon's growth was Second To None on the settlers Elementary campus here's what they want to tell you from settlers keep working hard Landon the sky's the limit for you congratulations please give Landon a hand [Applause] Landon did you win a state championship no did you have to land is a great example of some of the people we want to acknowledge up here he's one of our students who works extremely hard we have 33 000 students in this district and it's not just about getting Awards and and anything else like that it's about being a good person doing the very best you can for yourself in your school and your community and so that's the reason why you're here because you stood out at Settler's Point Elementary so please give Landon a hand one more time foreign Jenny are you here come on up Jay feeler Aguilera Mesquite Elementary and Gilberto sorry sorry [Music] um so I've had you up here before huh how come you like to write books and stuff yeah yeah Illustrated she Illustrated some books she's she's something else and let me just tell you why she's here she received the Arizona 2022 Jay Eugene Grigsby Jr comc Award presented by the Arizona art Education Association is that correct that's correct what is that it is a long title yes so basically it's for Multicultural education wow Global art education that's awesome is Bethany here come up I still have some of the artwork in my office yes it's good stuff Bethany is are you just at Neely I'm just sitting here okay just wanted to make sure I just you never know I know I I'm wrong all day every day so I just wanted to make sure um Bethany Bergman is an art teacher at Neely and she received the Arizona 2022 art Education Association Elementary art educator award please give both of these folks a hand congratulations foreign so I just want you guys to take some notes we've we've honored Athletics which is near and dear to my heart we've honored students because they're just phenomenal students now we've honored some phenomenal Educators in the world of art which art is huge in terms of where we're at and what we need to do to make sure our students move forward academically and so these two are just two examples of what we offer here in Gilbert Public Schools congratulations to both of you thank you guys [Music] foreign ER [Music] is it Wagner right just wanted to make sure Desert Ridge Junior High now Melissa this girl's PE teacher Desert Ridge Junior correct yes one more time louder there you go it's all good that's my girl there you go can I read what they wrote about you oh yeah all right Melissa is a girl's PE teacher at Desert Ridge Junior High she's outstanding and always goes above and beyond Wags as the entire campus likes College I was going to say that but then it probably wasn't appropriate for the moment was asked by Administration to take over student council after the first quarter of the 21-22 school year at the time she was in the process of completing her national board certification had a brand new baby and had no idea what the responsibility of stuco would entail the first thing she did was talk to her elected students and worked on doubling the students involved her stuco students stucco means student council for all of you that don't know her stucco students have transformed the entire culture on the campus amongst many tasks they run pep assemblies with Wags in the lead her stucco students are leaders and they are inspiring other students on campus they lead by example the students have a voice and they are making changes for the best thank you Wags for understanding the impact one positive person can have on an entire Community ladies and gentlemen Melissa Wagner [Applause] you like student council I do I love it what else are you gonna say right when I'm putting you on the spot right up here you know I just know that the school and and they just don't hand these compliments out for no reason at all and yes you teach PE again we recognized art we've recognized Athletics now we recognize Pete but you're not getting recognized for PE you're getting recognized for what you do on a campus and more than anything that's what our campuses need we need a lot of Wags maybe I should put that on a bracelet more Wags in all of education and thank you for making such an impact on what you do every single day appreciate it thank you oh picture and that was my son that was my new baby oh yeah I'm gonna cheer you on in my own way one more time thank you guys congratulations last but not least can I have Michael edgman come up there he is hello sir how are you so this gentleman he's not a student well I think that's good right yeah he's not a student he's not we don't employ him he doesn't get a check from us every other week parent he's a volunteer let me read to you what Gilbert Elementary had to say about him Michael is a father of a student at Gilbert l over the past two years Michael has coached basketball and football through the Gilbert Youth Athletics at the school but he's not just a coach he's a mentor he's a positive role model in the lives of many young men at the school and can be seen on campus bringing lunch to the players and supporting students he has also donated clothes and snacks for the students in need Gilbert Elementary thanks Michael for his commitment and dedication to serving the students at Gilbert Elementary and so do I there's a few of us in here that are Gilbert Elementary's near and dear to our heart I don't know if you know Sheila eugetti she former principal my wife my kids went through Gilbert Elementary and I know the type of influence a parent can have and he's just a perfect example of what a few minutes a week several minutes a week means to our students means to a school it means to a community so for that we're very thankful for everything that you do appreciate you Michael nice to meet you thanks Michael before we take pictures you have a I mean he brought an Entourage it's awesome do you want to introduce these guys sure we can how about we have them come up and introduce themselves what's up Kaden come on up come on guys come on so yeah these are the guys I code um my son's on the they're these are all sixth graders at Gilbert Elementary and um so I actually used to be the varsity head coach at Mesquite High School I kind of started a Mesquite Junior working my way of a basketball seventh grade up to the eighth grade and then up to Mesquite High School uh JV and then eventually became the head coach at Mesquite High School a few years ago um one of my foreign players here he's actually coaches with me now uh Jordan Wallen come on Jordan uh we'll recognize him too he's helps out a lot he's a phenomenal guy here too so may I got the head coach and I've coached a lot of these guys all for six years up all the way through and eventually um my son was three at the time when I started and when these guys all graduated that I had like they're like kids to me like my own Sons they graduated went off to college I looked over at my son I'm like whoa where'd all that time go and so I made the probably the hard decision I had ever had to make but I stepped down from being the head coach so I can coach my son and now his buddies so we do flag football we do basketball we do a lot of training anything we can to keep the kids involved and try to use the knowledge that I've had up through all those um all the the coaching experience that I've had bringing it down to this level sometimes I forget they're only fifth and sixth grade um I sometimes treat them like they're in seniors I have to really sometimes rule it back in but I try to bring that what it takes to get to those levels at this age um all the dedication it takes the sacrifice the training um the mentality of it so I try to get that to these guys so that when they get to those levels they're ready to go prepared so anyway wouldn't let them introduce yes all right just say name and great great uh Caden now in sixth grade Albert Valley a sixth grade Noah buys a sixth grade Kate Edgeman sixth grade Mason Capilli sixth grade Christopher Montero sixth grade Gabe Preston sixth grade I think a lot of my coaches yes Mr shrimba Mrs here the principal lets me kind of come in and do what I can to help all the kids well in Europe here because of him because he recognized what greatness looks like and again the impact you have on on these kids is phenomenal so thank you for everything gentlemen will you shake hands with the board and then we'll all take a picture one more hand for these guys thank you okay take a picture with everybody here good morning guys kind of get up front the ones are taller than most of us okay thank you guys thank you to all of you for being here tonight you know we're definitely not perfect but I'll tell you what the people we have here tonight get us closer to perfect every single day so thank you one more time for all of you appreciate it that concludes my recognitions for this evening foreign [Music] thank you they're out the room in a hurry up okay thank you very much and Dr McCord I would absolutely agree with you this is the best part of any meetings that we have so thank you for doing that we'll move to 4.01 superintendents report Dr McCord thank you madam president governing board members first I'd like to introduce Taylor Perry wave at everybody Taylor they're all gone but we're clapping for you Taylor is a student at Gilbert Classical Academy and she's also part of the superintendent student Senate and part of their obligation of being on that committee is to attend some sort of district meeting and so thank you for being here tonight appreciate it again good evening to everyone and thank you for being here Gilbert Days parade we just had that March down our street a couple weeks ago and once again our school district was well represented in the annual parade all 39 of our schools were in attendance and marched down Gilbert Road our governing board members rode on the float which was constructed by our very own Gilbert High School student council a huge thank you to ghs stucco the float was tremendous and your hard work and dedication to make it possible is greatly appreciated again for those of you that know me a little bit know that that parade is is extremely important to me Gilbert is here and thrives primarily over the last hundred years because of a school district like Gilbert public schools and we are part of that history and I think it's important for us to make sure that everybody still knows that so thank you guys again for your participation I'd like to congratulate our current board member Jill Humphries on being elected to another term as a GPS governing board member congratulations Jill thank you I I look forward to serving I'm very excited along with Jill I would like to welcome Mr Chad Thompson who will serve a four-year term and Mrs Rhonda page who will serve a two-year term the board and I say term because that's I don't mean like a sentence term this is right the board members who won the election will be sworn in by the Maricopa County schools superintendent Mr Steve Watson at some point before their official term starts in January 2023.
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and and the roof is least years old do we have any recourse with the contract original contract or is it just gone beyond what they would warranty I think it's gone beyond yeah perhaps with the with the company that did the solar panels if that is in fact the cause of it there's suspicion that when they bolted them in that the the holes weren't sealed properly and that's what's causing it but we need someone to go up there and verify that so um that's a TBD it could be well thank you by this I mean I don't know if if you or if somebody else can answer well this um this budget this five four year five years project um budget we'll cover some of their um findings um that with um the audits on the audit that we have yeah you know it's funny as we were going down the list that's exactly what I was thinking Julie um so there's a few things in here that would overlap um the parking lot striping oddly is one because uh one of the recommendations was that we have um uh assigned parking and this way we always know which teachers are in the building you know that was a sort of General recommendation so while we do our striping we could do things like number the spots and then assign you know assigned spot so there are a few overlaps um in that but if you um you know when we when we looked back through the audit um a lot of that stuff was was sort of smaller repair maintenance stuff so um yeah there's there's probably a few things in here and to Rich's point this is a living document um there are a few things which I think I think we could talk about offline which which we might still want to tuck in here um under under a sort of security um about a security concerns thank you that's a great a great suggestion Julie thank you any other questions from committee members or other board members right just to clear up in my own little mind that this is uh these Capital Improvements are from the city budget and the only reflect our budget because the buildings belong to the city and so this is a wish list of what they want we want asking the city to fund for 20 2023 correct and I mean yeah about leaking roofs the bathrooms it all's got to be done right well um we'd like them to put them in the capital uh plan um I think if they decide uh something is better done in year two uh for the for example they may say um we have something in there where we're gonna uh study first the need for air conditioning maybe they'll say okay uh you can have the money for that this year but let's wait for the study and do the air conditioning the last project there in year two something like that they may take some of these and put them yeah we have to have them all this year it is our our opinion that it yes but will there so they will pick and choose or we will must pick and choose not priorities well um they will um they will decide what year it should go in uh well first they'll decide should it go in and then what year and then they'll decide whether they want to finance whether it's a project should it should be financed in the mayor's operating budget or something for the bonding that goes on every several years well yeah we really and we don't care how they raise the money um as long as they do the work so yeah it and now there's certain projects that that they're going to have on their priority list that you know we we won't really even think about you know things that you know venting the boilers you know in the high school out into the field and running those tubes and pipes out there I mean those are things that aren't really on our radar because we don't really deal with boilers right so to them that's an important job because that's that's critical maintenance so things like that are going to get tucked in and they're going to say sorry guys we got to do this it's key maintenance so you know maybe we're not going to get you know the you know um exactly right you know so so there is going to be a negotiation in the end this is just what we're saying out of the pot of money that's going to go into Capital these are our preferences okay there's one or two projects that would typically be done by the board event for instance I'm looking at the replace flooring at King Street primary typically uh we do the flooring replacement but it was above that twenty five thousand dollar threshold so I'd put it in the capital same I mean I remember that um Mansion Ridge um that the roof weekend that you have on Ellsworth um you're not sure if it's due to solar panels so um and then the warranty is pretty much um outdated but is there any way that we can find out moving forward and looking forward to the future lineup I mean find out if it's due to solo printers because I understand that it's the main interest of some of the board members to install more um solo panel on different schools and if it's caused by solar panels how can we prevent them for the few future well typically with the installation of solar panels we like to uh time it along with the roof replacement so in other words you don't want to put a a solar array on a 20 year old roof because 10 years from now you're going to be replacing that roof so um you know I think the city has looked at that and and we will continue to look at that um you know as as we replace roofs is is this well you know whatever school it is is this a particular is this a good fit for a solar panel so we will definitely be looking at that thank you no more questions okay I think that's it for us all right so item number two um I've got 15 minutes till bath time so I'm gonna move fast on this one um this is the HVAC Grant so as you all know this is a grant that came out um I believe it was about early to mid-october um it was announced by the office of State uh Construction Grants review and um it was a very very short timeline um to where a lot of school business officials were kind of talking and emailing about it kind of scratching their heads saying we're not really sure how to how to go about this this is just too fast um we John myself Rich uh all got together and we're just thinking what can we do with this originally we wanted to put air conditioning in some of the schools we called up Friar our architect and said uh Glenn um can we put AC in a few elementary schools and you know can we get some plans to do that and put it in the grant and he said there's simply not enough time these are you need to drop Blueprints and plans and specifications and it's simply not possible to do a project at that scale in such a short timeline so we we're thinking about things we could do that were essentially plug and play and uh turns out that we came up with a very good project idea around air purification um we learned about some air purification units that were ceiling mounted hardwired into the electrical system and had um up to 10 air changes per hour now the the air changes per hour is sort of the the standard for how effective a air purifier is and those little Standalone units that you would put in um you know in the corner of an office or something they could be one or fewer um depending on how powerful they're blowing and how big the room is um so at about the average size of a classroom we found a unit that goes up in the ceiling like I said it's hardwired it'll uh it has a sensor on it so it shuts off when no one's in the room and that allows the filter to last up three years which is another a huge part of this because the maintenance on these can get really expensive um and we've found some units that were actually rather cost effective um to the tune that we would be able to do this at a reasonable price throughout an entire School the way the application works for the HVAC Grant is that you have to apply for one application per school so we really wanted to focus on one school and do this well and we decided to do this at Danbury high school for about 200 units there's just about 200 classrooms these are units that are really designed for a classroom space they're too powerful you really wouldn't need one in an office space really or or a sort of work room and they're really not appropriate for hallways or cafeterias or gyms those are going to be different technology these are really about getting Quality Air in the classrooms where kids and teachers are spending the majority of their day and we decided to put this project through and work with fire architecture on getting specifications in place that would get us a really solid application for this HVAC Grant so uh you all would have received the education specification last night it's just a four page overview of the project and our approach the way we're thinking about it our rationale um the need is obvious um you know the the I heard someone say we're talking about clean air today the way we talked about tap versus bottled water about a decade ago the idea that we're not going to have purified air in in crowded spaces today is is going to seem just as strange as as you know not having purified water in a home or in a work workplace as that was about a decade ago so you know the underlying logic here and of course with covid and and ongoing concerns about air quality um this really seemed like um the the right gauge for this project um so a little bit about about the sort of units we're looking for so uh the way this will work is we'll put the um the application in and if we get approved then the project will go out to bid but the specifications we're looking for in these units are essentially units that will provide about 10 air changes per hour and more importantly we want them to operate at a low enough volume so they wouldn't interrupt instruction some of the units we found operated about 55 decibels so we're saying below 60 decibels that's about the sound your dishwasher makes um if it's a dishwasher that's made in the last 10 years uh we want to make sure it has HEPA filters which it with um to the highest quality filtration and they capture over 99.9 of particles uh with a minimum size of 0.1 microns um that is the sort of gold standard for um for these units and more importantly we wanted to make sure that they were low maintenance they weren't going to require constant changes um of of filters and and um that there would be also a good warranty on these things too so whether it's solar panels or roofs or whatever it is if something goes wrong we can pick up a phone and um have the company come out and service them this new cooling as well as air purification it is not cooling it's true so it's it is just air purification but it moves a lot of air and um it'll it'll probably have a similar effect to uh to a good fan okay and you say we received this last night uh this would have come in yes from uh Carey Pompano last night attached to the agenda I think it's in the um the calendar invite it's attached as a PDF uh behind the agenda all right that's probably why I lost it okay thank you for the clarification no problem um so that's kind of the the the the big picture here um we want to do the full High School uh we uh based on some estimates and quotes that we got from uh fire architecture and just sort of looking at the cost of these units in the field uh this full project cost is about one point uh one million seven hundred and sixty six thousand dollars the HVAC Grant is a reimbursement grant our reimbursement rate is about 72 percent which means what we would be responsible for up front is about 495 thousand dollars um I will let John talk a little bit about our plan for how we're going to fund that 495.
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again congratulations to all and thank you for choosing to serve our students staff and families of the GPS School District congratulations to them once again and lastly this Thursday at 7 30 a.m in this room we will honor approximately 40 of our employees who have worked for GPS for the past 25 years we will serve breakfast and say a few words about each and every one of them and I personally want to thank each of them for their dedication to education and the students and families of our school district so we're looking forward to that Mr Jetty that that is my report for this evening thank you Dr McCord and we'll move to 5.01 request to speak to the governing board yeah turn it up do you want me to read it yeah you want to read it here we go make an open call to the public during a public meeting subject to reasonable time place and manner restrictions to allow individuals to address the public body on an issue within the jurisdiction of the public body at the conclusion of the open call to the public individual board members May respond to criticism made by those who have addressed the board may ask the staff to review a matter or may ask a matter be to be put on a future agenda however members of the board shall not discuss or take legal action on matters raised during the open call to the public unless the matters are properly noticed for discussion and legal action during the open call the board requests that speakers refrain from voicing complaints against School Personnel or any person connected with the district as it may impact due process rights policy k e k e b and k e d are provided by the board for disposition of legitimate complaints including those involving individuals forums required for use of these policies can can be obtained from the Gilbert Public Schools website we have one call to the public tonight and it is Mr Thomas Allen [Music] good evening governing board thank you for the chance to speak I'm here to talk about an issue as a parent that I've seen that I wanted to address and bring to your attention before I want to talk about a requirement that the school has right now that all students wear an ID badge at all times while they're on Campus number one and if they forget their ID badge they've been required to pay a dollar to have a temporary sticker to attend school that day before I go too much further though I do want to thank Dr McCord assistant superintendent Marcy Taylor and assistant superintendent Jason Martin they have been phenomenal in responding to my request for information and questions and uh we're really lucky to have a staff like that working for the community so thank you so uh I think it's been a policy for a while that students wear an ID badge when they go to school but I think something changed in this last year where now uh I think the administrators are enforcing it maybe a little bit more strictly as a parent I've observed my my children experiencing some uh anxiety and and just difficulties with this and so I wanted to ask the board to perhaps reconsider it now I understand this is a policy that's already in place one guy coming up here is not going to change your minds but I just want to have you consider a couple of things I I think this policy creates a bit of ill will between students and staff kids show up and they forgot their ID badge they report getting yelled at um and then there's this policy that if they want to attend class they have to pay a dollar to get a sticker that they then wear I don't know if the the governing board approved that fee but it just something about that doesn't feel right to me as a parent um so I understand that there are safety concerns but the school has to do something to make campuses safe but I feel like this is more in line with safety theater uh we're doing something but but does it really achieve results um I understand that there's now going to be a policy that that Elementary aged students have to wear their ID badges at all times but what does that really accomplish are we really concerned that the bad guys are going to send nine-year-olds to infiltrate campuses that they're not supposed to be at um I don't think that's what we should be worried about um I don't think your staff wants to have to enforce this and I know the students don't want it and I think it just it creates a lot of uh stress on these students that don't don't need that so I just want to throw out a proposal uh I know that policies are what they are and those they're already in place but maybe instead of a dollar fee for our students to attend could we have like um maybe temporary badges that are at the front office if a student forgets their ID and they come to school um lend them out of badge make them return it the next day and if they don't return it then maybe charge them I think that would be a better policy and might you know achieve those results we're looking at without creating these problems for students I know my time is up I'd love to talk more about it if you have any questions I'd be happy to answer it but uh thank you for your time thank you Mr Allen we'll move on to 6.01 reports the at fiscal year 2023 monthly financial report for month-ended October 31st 2022 Dr McCord thank you madam president governing board members we will turn it over to miss betz our associate superintendent of Business Services good evening governing board members Dr McCord Mrs eugetti this is a an update that we've created you're very quiet okay so I was a little bit sensitive to the mics how's that better um I wanted to let you know that this report is a almost a full report it has all of the funds reflected except for the bond funds we've spent a great deal of time over the last couple of months going through the bond funds and the status of those as well as The Debt Service funds so these are really in-depth um uh grids of all of our funds that we use on a regular basis here in Gilbert Public Schools the report though will be very short because I want to just show you some highlights so to begin these are our district operating funds our largest funds you can see the maintenance and operations fund highlighted in yellow as well as the unrestricted Capital outlay fund at the bottom highlighted in yellow please know that we have completed the process of creating a pending revised budget number one so we have a lot of data now in our system regarding our student accounts if you recall we are funded on current year student counts you can expect that these pending revised budgets will change every month because our student counts change every month I wanted to share that due to our estimate that we would lose about 400 student counts going into the 23 school year I'm proud to uh to share that we've only lost 250 student accounts so we've actually won so we we have realized some additional budget capacity in the current year than expected and so that 300 million dollars reflects that additional budget capacity in addition this revised budget number one does account for the annual financial report that you approved last month so it does reflect the new budget balance carry forward that represents the spend to budget capacity for fiscal year 2022.
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um John yeah uh as you know there are some uh reserves on the city balance sheet that are dedicated to uh for school purposes um right now um we we the reserve amount is something upwards of 700 000.
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same situation with the unrestricted Capital outlay that the budget reflects the annual financial report results note that it's a minor increase over the adopted budget recall that in unrestricted Capital we are funded based upon prior year student counts so even though we gained from projection on student accounts in the current year it did not have an impact on our unrestricted capital so if there's any other questions about that okay thank you so these are just the notes that talk to what I just shared with you the Federal grant funds were pointing out specifically idea Part B and the ARP idea ARP is the American Rescue plan so these were additional resources provided by the federal government for our special education funding so a note that the pending revised budget number one does include awarded carryover amounts as well as the new amounts for the new year the ARP idea does not have a new allocation for fiscal 23 so that just represents the carryover going into fiscal year 2023.
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uh seven million I'm sorry um so we think drawing down 500 000 would still leave uh plenty uh for any unexpected needs or Insurance things that come along uh that would be our first choice um that can can be done um on the signature of the city Director of Finance uh does not go to this city council a drawdown of reserves um and if that doesn't seem to work out uh our next uh next choice would be uh we have some a number of unfilled positions still in the school bus 30th for that so um that that those are the plans right now thanks John so a combination of savings um from staff we weren't able to fill and then whatever is remaining on that balance of 495 000 and that's what we would ideally go and uh request from the city to access from our Reserves any questions are we going to need debt 495 000 uh next September if we can fill those positions but we'll just ask the city for that money um well for for salaries and wages and positions uh we um put aside 12-month uh Appropriations or budget lines so come June 30th if we haven't spent it um it reverts back to the city Surplus now just right now we're building our budget for next year and we've put those vacant positions in because uh we need to fill them but we wouldn't be able to use I'll call it prior year money uh for salary type things okay and I know you're not supposed to say this when it comes to construction projects but um we we built in a healthy cushion um just to anticipate possible increases in price um you know just all the challenges that are coming with construction right now so it's very likely this project could come in lower and we're very hopeful about that okay anybody else have any questions um I do Louisa the city thank you the city is okay with us doing something like that they would okay with us taking money that was put aside for Paras and using it for a to fund a grant well I think we would at a minimum consult with them um uh this grant um by the way is being treated like a full-blown construction Grant even as small as it is and what that means is um there are two or three things you might remember from the last board meeting we asked the city council for permission to do one is uh we asked them for permission to apply for the grant and that will be on the city council agenda next week one of three resolutions uh the second one is um there has to be a building committee uh to oversee the project uh so the city council appoints the building committee happens to be a standing committee here in Danbury and the third thing the council will be giving us permission for is to draw up the um the specifications the drawings that Mike talked about so we'll be armed with three previous position resolutions giving us permission to pursue it doesn't negate the need to consult them um so that's where we're at and I will say there's one little feature that that was built into this grant because of the way these units are installed they're not actually attached to the HVAC system which by virtue of the facilities agreement that we have in place they would actually fall under our control for maintenance and upkeep and that's actually intentional because we want to be able to to manage the warranties and and make sure that we get the filters replaced and we go in and do whatever we need to do to make sure they're working properly and we did that again so we can maintain control of it we also didn't want to bombard Sean and Antonio with another job to do of maintaining these so um we thought this was a great way to take care of some air quality problems without adding more to their their workload too by not doing that now we have to hire maintenance people under our budget rather than use the city budget correct for the first three years the maintenance and upkeep would be covered under a part of the part of the plan is is to have a warranty in place with the company um and they would maintain these for the first three years um and then at that point we would we would figure out how we're how we're going to go forward with them um it could mean um you know if it's just as simple as replacing filters you know then that's something we can just work into the preventative maintenance schedule for the custodians at the school it's more complicated than that then potentially we would have to bring on more staff yeah no and the high school wouldn't need like electrical or any further updates to handle this new system uh according to Glenn uh there would be a little bit of work including that would uh involve some fireproofing and Rich you can help me out a little bit on on the technical part here um just some fire proofing um and and I don't believe there's anything extra that we would need to do um for the electrical system they don't uh have a huge electrical load um and you know one of the companies we were looking at it and it includes the uh installation of them including the electrical so we should be good with that and like when you mentioned Glenn I I think everybody knows uh Glenn yakel uh with Friar Architects uh they've done uh several projects for us before at the high school uh they're also the architect the city's using for the Cardis project so um they're uh they're very good now did you need an approval or vote from us tonight on any of these issues yes so there's there's actually two approvals that we're requiring the first would just be an approval of the education specs um that that document that was emailed uh for this grant so that would be the first one and then the second one uh would be an approved approval to request um the access of the reserve funds um of the city when that time comes so those two approvals would would need to be part of our application uh before we send it in so we're we're going to request the reserve funds first before we go into options so that's we're we're going to exhaust all of that first sure yes okay okay all right do we have any other questions before we move on to our action items from the board nobody okay uh all right so then why don't we move on then let's uh do I have a motion to approve the education specifications for the HVAC Grant proposed at DHS more now so moved do I hear a second Al second okay moved by Lauren seconded by Al all those in favor aye okay perfect um the second item action for tonight uh do I hear a motion to approve the request to the city of Danbury to access Reserve funds to finance Danbury Board of Education share of the Connecticut HVAC Grant oh it has to be Aller Lauren sorry moved by Lauren Al second second all those in favor [Music] okay I think that is it for our items for tonight thank you everybody doctor do you need anything else from us as a board Mike before we uh just your signature on the minutes and um I think that's it and then Rich and I can push the button on this tomorrow fantastic all right thank you all so much I appreciate everybody thank you for coming out tonight I appreciate it thank you oh I am
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easy on track summer camps we utilize these monies for our summer summer school process this past summer note that there is a balance of about a hundred and eighteen thousand dollars we do not know the status of how we can spend that or whether we can spend it but we are expecting that the governor May provide additional funding for summer school for the summer of 2023. I wanted to share as well we did not use Arizona on track summer camp monies for our intercession that we just had over fall break but it was a very successful first intercession and and so we've used I think we used Esser Monies to fund most of most of that intercession and it will get better and better every year and are planning another intersession for the spring break the 100th day in person we have allocated out those Monies to our Flex Subs so that year-to-date expended encumbered is estimating the total cost for the flex Subs note that there's a million dollars outstanding and in this particular Grant we are obligated to spend that money at the school in which it was awarded so each school was provided a specific allocation based upon the ADM or student count at that particular school so we're working as a leadership team to determine how best to get that those monies spent they need to be spent oh Jackie help me out here by the by the but by the end of May so we need to have it spent by no by the end of June on the right it's the I think epu is by the end of May yeah so the asean I mean the 100th day in person we have until June 30 to spend and then the final fund I wanted to share with you is sr3 note the adopted budget was nearly 19 million dollars but we did spend more than we expected and note that the revised budget represents 10.4 million dollars going into fiscal 23.
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a note that we still have that 20 set aside we have spent a sum of that 20 set aside which represents the um money that's designated for learning loss and we will keep you apprised of the spend of that as we go through time as well so that's our federal grants Mrs grants could you just explain what we spent those sr3 funds on so sr3 most of it was spent last year on the um three we had a three percent uh one-time stipend for all employees that we utilized sr34 in addition we did go ahead and procure the um online tutoring we did use utilize the uh the set aside the learning loss for that and again the summer school as well as the intercession was meant to address learning loss and so the learning loss I believe we used for the intercession this past October as well of the Esther monies thank you Mrs suspense I just want to make sure that Mrs wood doesn't have any questions oh you bet thank you Mrs wood do you have any questions no thank you okay thank you okay great thanks State funds I'm just sharing the information about the Structured English immersion as well as the vocational education the adapted budgets were based upon prior Year's allocation but note that we have seen approved greater allocations for fiscal 2023 and those are reflected here as well our Enterprise funds so we are separating out the Department of Economic Economic Security child care Grant and the department of academic security Workforce Grant that's associated with the Community Schools note that the estimated revenues along with the beginning balance is over 2.5 million dollars we are using the workforce Grant addressing all of our employees and the child care Grant is used being used to upgrade equipment in some of our vik and preschool classrooms there's a couple of large projects that Community Schools is putting on regarding adding access points electronic access electronic access points at our vik entries as well as preschool entries at many of our schools throughout Gilbert public schools that that that program we have submitted a request for proposal that's out on the street right now and we will be evaluating proposals over the next couple of months uh finally the other District funds and the school student-based funds these are our cash funds wanted to share that in both of these circumstances the beginning balances do reflect the end of year activity so these beginning balances do reflect the ending balances from fiscally 2022 based upon the annual financial report again that you approved in October please note that the year-to-date revenues are very comparable to what we saw back in October of 2019 which was fiscal year 2020 which we would consider normal operating levels so it appears at least from from this standpoint that our our auxiliary operations our tax credit gifts and donations are on par with what we've seen in a normal year prior to the pandemic so it seems that we're close to being back to normal operations and that is all I have unless you have any questions okay thank you all very much thank you Mrs Betts we'll move on to the consent agenda do I hear a motion to approve the consent agenda um I would like to I make a motion that I approve the consent agenda and remove the minutes for October 25th 2022 and then I'll just make a motion on the minutes there's just a couple of um items that need attention on the minutes and I wasn't able to get to those uh before it was before they were posted 7.02 yes yes okay Mrs Humphrey um made a motion to approve the consent agenda items as presented with the exception of 7.02 pulling that one is there a second second thank you Dr Santa Cruz yes yeah stuff didn't have a chance to get through there yet okay could I we have a motion to approve the consent agenda item with the exception of 7.02 all those in favor please significance before the vote can I make a comment you sure can I'm sorry yes I should have given you that just uh just for The public's information there are a variety of policies listed on the consent agenda and it should be noted that all of those policies have been reviewed by the policy committee uh twice and augmented as necessary edited where necessary and the board has with along with the committee had a chance to dig into each of those policies as much as possible and so it is not just a perfunctory vote as it relates to those policies they have been reviewed by the board and the policy committee thank you Dr Santa Cruz I actually had made a note this afternoon to say that so I forgot and I appreciate that you remembered okay all of those in favor please signify by saying aye aye yeah all right okay so it it any names so a 5-0 vote Mrs Humphries um so I'd like to make a motion to approve the minutes for October 25th 2022 those were the ones I removed um just in I think it was 9.05 there was just uh we need to reorder um we in the minutes it was that Mr Bircher came up and spoke before we took the vote and we just need to put that after the vote was taken and that's the minor very minor thing that um because it was already posted I needed to remove it and state that so just the one the one okay just the one is there a second thank you Mr Parker is there any discussion hearing none I'll call for the vote all those in favor of the um change that Mrs Humphries made to the board minutes from October 25th it was October 25th or November October October 25th okay well but please signify by saying aye aye aye bye thank you it's a 5-0 vote we'll move on to action item 8.01 2023 2024 course description books for high schools Junior highs and Gilbert Classical Academy Dr McCord thank you madam president governing board members today we bring before you the annual course description book approval and our committees that we've had working on this have done a phenomenal job and I'm going to turn it over to Dr Cox our director of curriculum instruction and assessment for secondary and she's going to go through some of the changes that were related to this Dr Cox thank board and Dr McCord I am here tonight to discuss the summary of changes that we are proposing and recommendations that we would like to make for the 23-24 course description books I will go through kind of each of the major categories of changes and just summarize them briefly for you the first category would be the recommendation of new courses for Gilbert Public Schools this is going to start with our CTE programs we're making a proposal to add internship opportunities for every single one of our CTE programs we have students that the programs are two and three years to be considered a completer and we have found that our students are very passionate about the CTE programs and so by adding internship opportunities to each of the programs it allows our students to stay within those CTE programs a third and fourth year so that they can continue to pursue something that they're passionate about in addition to that there are several IB courses that we are proposing to be added to support the continuous growth of Gilbert's IB program that is hosted at housed at Gilbert high school and college board did propose and approved a brand new course for the first time there's going to be an AP pre-calc course that is offered through college board Gilbert Public Schools currently offers all college board courses within our course description book so we are very eager to get this one added in as well and over the past several years we've really pushed to increase and encourage our students to engage in the AP programs accelerated options and different Pathways that they can take advantage of so the final course that we would like to propose is a prep for Success course that is targeting our accelerated students and helping them with the time management and study skills that are required to really support them and being successful in some of these very rigorous courses the next category of changes are a change in course credit and these are all summarized by adding access and opportunity to dual enrollment AP and CTE credit opportunities I will share with you that um culinary is one all of our culinary programs will now be offered for dual enrollment the graphic design courses that are offered at one of our campuses a teacher went and pursued CTE certification so we were able to add that CTE credit for those students and then our AP seminar course is aligned to the sophomore English language arts standards and so therefore we're proposing that that class B allowed to be taken by sophomores for their English credit and then for juniors and seniors as an elective credit to encourage our sophomores to engage and join the AP program at an earlier age so that they can take advantage of taking even more courses without having to sacrifice or give up an extra course the next section of changes is just to the descriptions themselves uh at this point I I'm not going to outline each of them but I will share that that can be summarized by each year we really review the descriptions to make sure that they read smoothly that they are truly aligned to the Arizona academic standards and any updates from the state or our department chairs and sites so those are the changes that would be within the descriptions the next category is changes in our course titles the committee uh really last year and for a few years it's been the goal to really clean up the course description book and make sure that it is there as a tool that is clear for our students and our parents and our counselors all stakeholder groups and um there are pieces in there that end up being added that make our jobs easier for scheduling purposes and so we've tried to mainstream and align some of those pieces to make it more clear and then focus on the scheduling piece behind the scenes so that we don't make things more confusing for our stakeholders and so some of those include our Early Childhood Program last year we took all of the CTE programs in to make it more clear what the completer programs were we kept with the same name scheme for each of the courses and the Early Childhood one was one that we just needed a little bit more time on so this year we are proposing that each of those classes start with the same or Early Childhood title so that it's very clear on what the years one two and three are so that there's no confusion on what students need to take for the sequence of that in addition to that we would like to create consistency with our year-long courses for scheduling purposes and reduce redundancy so we have if there were replicated course descriptions we have cleaned that up and um and uh maybe tweaked some of our names to make sure that we're not repeating ourselves in there for example our PE classes those descriptions were the same so therefore we just have one there instead of having that duplicated and then the final course name change is some title changes that allowed us to better align the course with a title that is specific to the technique and skill for appropriate placement and an example of this would be our choir section so if there's a student that has a certain technique or skill or voice if they apply for a course and their sound and voice is aligned with that course they would be permitted to take that course moving on to courses that we are proposing be removed there are two uh programs and it is computer science and computer refurbishing we would like to see those classes removed they're no longer used over the years AP Computer Science is actually the pathway so it's an AP program and that wasn't there when these classes used to be proposed and offered and then when we added in AP Computer Science we continue to offer both really they're all the same standards and or the more updated standards that are more applicable to our students in in today's day and age so it also helps for some of our students who the courses were the same same standards they were doing the same things if we can encourage students to feel confident that they can join an AP class and receive college credit for doing the exact same course that they're doing we just thought that that was such a rich opportunity to provide our students we were very thrilled to share that we will not be proposing any new course specific fees for the 23-24 school year and the next category of changes is in regard to our novels on the within the course description book what you'll see is the entire page of uh novels looks like it's been deleted we really were just changing the formatting of that we felt like it was better aligned with our new Adoption and so with the way that my perspectives curriculum is outlined it's by units and so therefore you'll notice that the novels have been set up by the units and then by the grade levels for the ones that don't fall into the units and with that you'll also notice that it's all the same books that were there before so we haven't removed any books we're not adding any books in that regard and you'll there's two additional pieces with the addition of our new Adoption there were some grade level changes that were recommended to support appropriate reading level so for example if there was a novel that is considered a seventh grade reading level and it was at a different grade level we wanted to make that move move to make sure that it's supported by the standards and the appropriate reading level those will just be in blue and then there are two books two novels that were proposed to be recommended as new novels those books include Pride and Prejudice and The Count of Monte Cristo both of those books were requested and went through the committee review process came to the course description book committee for approval as well and we are now bringing them for the board in hopes to have those approved and they did come as recommended as a part of the current adoption of the curriculum as well so that was where the two novel titles were initiated from at our junior high level we have several course description changes that's very similar to what took place at the high school level those course description changes are maybe if there was issues with maybe the sentence fluency and or changes with the Arizona academic standards and then the major change that you'll note at the junior high is that our Spanish 1A and 1B typically and historically have been over a two-year span what we have found is that we have students that are showing extremely high proficiency on that exit exam for that Spanish one and what we're also finding is that more students are coming in with that opportunity at the junior high over a one-year span and so the more we expose our students we found that we really believe that they're capable of doing that within one year and giving that opportunity to them there this is similar to how it is set up for the Mandarin one and two that came before the board a couple of years ago and so we would like to make that recommendation as well for Spanish at this time that concludes the summary of changes and recommendations that we would like to propose to the board and I think the entire board for your attention and for hearing me out and I do want to just take one moment to thank the entire course description committee I know I voiced it last year but it is an extensive process and a lot of people spend a lot of time on that and so just while I'm at a board meeting and I'm sure all of them are watching I just want to say thank you to them because it truly is a team effort and it takes a lot of time to go through this process so I'm thankful for everybody that's been a part of that thank you Dr Cox I would like to have a um motion so we can discuss have discussion or questions please if I move that we adopt the 20 23 24 course description books for high school junior high and Gilbert Classical Academy thank you Mrs Humphries is there a second I'll second thank you Dr Santa Cruz it's been moved and seconded which will allow us for uh to discuss and ask any questions so you can't go Dr Santa Cruz yes Dr Cox just wanted to and I've mentioned this to Dr Newman earlier thank you for the summary that was sent to the board in our packet that was very helpful in getting through that and and you uh reviewed that quite well as we went through that I was pleased to see minimal changes mostly editing issues and uh more of an organizing of the of the course offerings under appropriate categories so that was a pleasure to see as well uh the other question has nothing to do with the course description booklet as it is but can you speak to you or Dr Newman speak to any efforts that are underway at any of our campuses be they junior high or senior higher Gilbert Classical Academy to recruit and encourage kids young people to uh extend themselves academically where they can or to look at Pathways what kinds of efforts are underway in those regards taking the start of that and Dr Newman can add in at any point I know that that has seemed to be the main focus from our leadership all the way down our cabinet is constantly finding ways to promote and work with the different programs that we have at our different schools if that be the new Gilbert accelerated Middle School rib program there's a lot on social media newsletters are being sent out so I think we've done a really nice job there I know that at our high schools and even at the junior high level they go out and do even recruitment visits where they will go our Charters will invite us in to come and present and welcome our opportunities to the students there and I know that we are constantly having meetings where we're outlining different ideas and so it's not a one and done I think it's a cyclical process where we're continuously finding ways that we can do exactly that thank you I think one thing that they've done exceptionally well on the campuses is they're starting to invite students too please they'll send a letter inviting them to try to take an AP course or based on the data that they have with that student for example at the junior high they see them as a great potential and opportunity for them to take an AP course so it just opens up that maybe they never thought about it before but it's kind of nice to be invited and and and kids are taking that opportunity good well I commend you for those efforts as well I I think it's important if not imperative to let all of our students know that yes they can absolutely and uh encourage them either by way of an invitation or some recruitment effort and really ratchet up for many of those underrepresented populations who heretofore have have have not ventured down that road for a variety of reasons so the recruitment I think is really healthy and important [Music] comments this is not pretty question um when we work with the students to register them what are some suggestions for students to help them find the classes that are a good fit for what they want to accomplish our counselors are absolutely integral and amazing this is exactly what they do so the course description books are there and available but our counselors take time to meet with our students one-on-one and go over all of the opportunities that are there at their campus but also highlighting kind of back to Dr Santa Cruz's point the different programs that our camp our district is offering last year one of the recommendations that we shifted was we used to just have spots that denoted only at this campus and so we've really tried to take any language from the course description book that may come off as having a negative connotation I don't think that was ever Our intention but if a student sees certain things they've given feedback like well I didn't even know that that was an opportunity and so by using student-friendly Language by the Recruitment and promotion of different programs and then with the counselors doing that our teachers are a huge part of that as well we really educate the teachers from their lens on what they can do to promote and so even in math classes don't let the student take the easy path do they know what the more rigorous paths are do they know what college opportunities are in front of them and then we have been using a lot of data to really drive a lot of that as well and so our administrators currently are continuously looking at how students are performing on different metrics and then are making shifts even at the semester where a handful of years ago we were waiting until the end of the year and kind of leaving it up to the students where now we're being a little bit more like you can do it and having them try it out so I hope that answers that that is helpful I think it just can be overwhelming especially if you're new to registering a student for high school or Junior High to figure out what courses would be the best for your students so I would encourage the students to meet with their counselor but also communicate with their parents about what they've talked about I would also encourage for our community to also know that we do a wonderful job of Hosting our freshman preview nights where they get the opportunity to explore all of the opportunities that we have and we also do our school tours where we those are very individualized to where we can answer questions and really get to know the student and gear that tour toward them and so if students are interested in seeing the different opportunities and hearing more about those opportunities they have those um at their their fingertips to be able to do that and I think sometimes it's just making sure that our community knows that those opportunities are there all right thank you appreciate it I appreciate all the work that has gone into this I really feel like this year we've we've done a lot to improve the course catalog I was going to suggest one thing we've got the links to different areas we just need a link at the bottom of the page to get back to the beginning so that we can go to other areas because it is a lot to scroll through any other questions or comments uh I just had one um in the event that we have classes that are offered particularly at the secondary level at one school but not in another one to students have the option of taking those classes at another high school that's a great question and the answer is yes so we as I just shared instead of limiting that we have opened it and there's a couple of different ways that that happens so if it is a class that requires a lab for example maybe a welding we encourage those to be scheduled first thing in the morning so that students can maybe attend and then have that time to have a release time to get back to their campus and then a great opportunity that has allowed us to do even more is the distance learning with the BenQ boards and so at this point I know Marcy works with the administrators and they collect numbers very early on and if there is a shortage of a teacher or if it is a specific class that's just offered if we even have a couple of students at each campus and it's a class that can be taught through that modality we have set those up and we've seen those surface a lot more frequently in this just in this last year and I think the more comfortable our staff become with the technology that we're going to see even more of those opportunities thank you you're welcome I'm Mrs wood do you have anything thank you Dr my question was about the um from the course descriptions you said change just to help the titles kind of be more uniform so I wonder does that change the actual classes like for instance are all of our pe's going to be co-ed now or how does that work actually that is more of the scheduling piece that I was discussing so no it does not require that all like for PE for example as you used as just there it would not require all PE classes to be gen Ed on the scheduling side of things they still get put into Infinite Campus in the Wizard as female male and they still get scheduled that way for supervision or whatever the needs may be depending on the class that we're discussing okay thank you anything else Mrs wood nope that's it thanks thank you any anyone else hearing none um I'll take we'll go ahead and vote about the um approval of the 20 2023-2024 course description books for high schools Junior highs and Gilbert Classical Academy all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye so on a 5-0 vote it is has been approved thank you Mrs Cox thank you for Dr Cox I Pro I apologize for all your hard work okay the next item is 9.01 request for future agenda items if anybody would like to have an agenda item please talk to Dr McCord or Mrs wood and we'll get it on for the next meeting or whenever it's appropriate we'll move on to two 10 board committee reports 10.01 Gilbert Education Foundation Mrs wood do you have anything to report tonight nothing to report tonight thank you thank you 10.02 city of Mesa liaison and legislative Representatives Mrs Humphries I just want to share that I was invited to go down to the Capitol this morning for a press conference set up by uh a friend another board member in another District about the aggregate expenditure limit encouraging our governor to call that session and put it to the legislature that they waived that limit this year before the end of the year before the new legislature is seated one of the reasons is because everyone in this legislature has been educated already about the importance of that and it would be so much easier and so much better for us to just be comfortable that we aren't going to have to make some huge cuts in March or April so I participated in that and that is all of my report thank you Mrs Humphries town of Gilbert liaison Dr Santa Cruz I have nothing to report thank you Dr Santa Cruz Mr Parker finance and audit committee we did meet and the audit committee did agree to provide oversight of the employment benefit Investments thank you and for the insurance trust representative I don't have anything to report we are going to be bringing some things to the board I believe at the end of December correct but at this point I have nothing else meeting dates Dr McCord thank you Mr Jetty governing board members our next meeting is December 6th it's a board work study and brief board business meeting we have a policy meeting scheduled on December 13th I don't know if we'll actually need that meeting because we've updated so many policies in the last couple months and I don't think there's anything pressing so I'll let you know and then a board business meeting on December 20th that's it all right thank you Dr McCord do I hear a motion to adjourn I'll make a motion to adjourn thank you Mr Parker is there a second second thank you Mrs Humphries it's been moved and seconded that we adjourn all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye all right 5-0 so thank you very much for everybody for being here and thank you Dr McCord
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[Music] um even though we can't officially start meeting them you know the official words we can start with our students of the month I hope we have some some younger children you ever get along Nancy so we're going to start with that and recognize those students at this time and while we wait for the other members to arrive good evening everyone and Welcome to our meeting get started um so to begin we have our students of the month from the outstanding job for the month we are going to call Dr s up to announce these students so good evening congratulations to Diana Jose terbino um Lamont's Annex student of the month Diana enjoys playing an art blocks and the toys and Game Center she likes playing with her stuffed animals and Dolls she also likes to go to the park she likes to play and talk on the phone career plans is she wants to be a secretary congratulations Diana student of the month is Regina Wang Regina um Blake's going to the library she likes to go to the park on the weekends and play the guitar when she grows up she wants to be a singer congratulations Regina foreign [Music] hello everybody so I'm presenting these Awards on behalf of principal Clark and Lafayette school so our first student I'd like to call up is Antonio Troya you're the most experience I'll tell you a little bit about Antonio here um Antonio was nominated by his teachers Miss way and Miss Fitzgerald did I get that right all right keep me sharp here if I mess anything up you have uh you have a brother Sonny right who is a first grade age and your favorite subjects are math and science favorite hobbies is collecting crystals that's pretty cool and your career plans when you get older you want to be either a scientist or a builder awesome [Music] thank you and our next uh representative from Lafayette lyanna Ramos Liana are you here I'll tell you a little bit about lyanna lyanna was uh referred by his teacher Miss sandor and her favorite school subject is morning meeting I kind of like that one favorite hobbies are playing uh with pet hen timus and a little brother Jefferson wants to be a teacher that is awesome because we need teachers when she grows up and uh Miss let me see Miss sandor just wrote a little blurb I'd like to read Liliane is extremely hard-working respectful and an enthusiastic student she cares about her learning and always tries her best Liliana is kind helpful and works hard to solve problems both academically and socially she's a great uh with working together with others and has a great part not only that but Liliana also speaks English and Spanish and helps her friends in both languages what a star congratulations to Liliana [Applause] okay good evening our first recipient from Miss hattersburger's class we have Nathan Acevedo and a couple things about Nathan come on up y'all thank you so first off uh his siblings Guadalupe sister um his favorite subject is math because it's important and his sister helps them out favorite hobby is collecting Pokemon cards he thinks he has around 800 or more that's pretty good money right there in the future and career plans scientist because since he was five he always loved experiments so congratulations thank you right okay foreign okay our next student is Viviana Navarro come on up Viviana [Applause] okay uh she has siblings Jocelyn and Diana viviana's favorite subject is math she loves solving division problems her favorite hobbies enjoys playing soccer playing video games with her cousin and Viviana wants to be a professional soccer player she wants to play on the FC Barcelona team thank you [Applause] almost done okay our fifth grade student is bayabano where are you come on [Applause] and her siblings are Justin Ryan Sanchez abano favorite subjects art and math favorite hobbies your drawing painting playing with friends and basketball and future plans graphic designer I love it [Applause] thank you [Applause] [Music] next up for Community I think schools I think school is John Lopez here I think I saw John he's our sixth grade winner uh John his siblings are Andy Lopez at Spaulding favorite subject is math to help with future careers finds it interesting and it comes easily because they had he has a math brain his favorite hobbies are non-fiction reading Walking hiking in nature especially Canal Walk and soccer and his career plans John would like to become a doctor in the medical field so congratulations [Applause] [Music] okay the first recipient from the Community Middle School for student of the month is Ann Sockeye and come on up so a few things about and first of all Anne was nominated by her language arts teacher Miss Kasabian and has siblings Anthony Antonia and Annabelle right there we go favorite subject is science which is pretty awesome got nominated by your language arts teacher her favorite subject is science who loves reading watching TV and wants to be either an actor or a doctor when growing up a couple words for Mrs Kasabian and as a heart of gold she's a she is phenomenal in the classroom and extremely helpful always eager to learn and truly a pleasure to have in class congratulations thank you absolutely our next recipient from the Community Middle School Lanny Morales land there you are I knew I saw you come on up man good job so Lanny also uh recommended by his language arts teacher Mrs Diaz uh you have a sibling named Alex and once again favorite subject is science I'm starting to see a theme here so language arts teacher science is your love very good loves playing video games and Taekwondo and wants to grow up and become a biologist a little bit about Atlanta from Mrs Diaz I recommend Laney Morales as student of the month he's always underlined always eager to learn and not afraid to help those around him Lanny does not hesitate to participate and he constantly puts his efforts to succeeding academically finally Lanny has a positive attitude that is contagious to both his peers and teachers alike congratulations to Lanny for his outstanding work and efforts [Applause] thank you [Applause] okay thank you [Applause] [Music] all right leaving Bambrook Community um our first recipient is Jetman free um jet was nominated by Mr Gould he has two half Brothers um both around a decade older than him his favorite subjects are English and history he enjoys playing video games acting and playing Airsoft this is airsoft gun um his career plans are to work a simple job like retail or the post office um that's probably about that's about it right post office or retail that's the direction that you wanted to figure out something bigger yep okay very good [Applause] foreign sure should I wait for all of them or one individually one okay 40.
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[Music] foreign [Music] I'd like to call the regular meeting of the Brookfield Board of Education to order please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance 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 okay we have six of our seven board members present Bob is feeling well under the weather hi Bob we hope you feel better okay um next is public comment we have four people signed up um but they're just general public comments so that will be Revisited at the end of the agenda fortunately we don't have our student representative Ms zezza so we'll be skipping over that next written correspondence okay Ron Jaffe wrote with a policy question Deb cassase wrote regarding FERPA Chris Divino wrote regarding special ed Aaron sclera wrote regarding tonight's agenda Nick Schmidt wrote regarding library books and Irene Korea wrote regarding school safety failures okay approval abortments I will move that the board approved the minutes from the budget Roundtable on November 16th and the regular meeting on November 16th second all in favor hi any motion passes next up superintendent's report update all right thank you Mrs Greenstein so I have two relatively brief updates and then I'm going to turn it over to a brief presentation from Mr Lasser from the Brookfield Craft Center regarding our after school Grant in just a second so a brief security update uh checked in with Chief puglisi the high school afternoon armed school security officer position is still in the interview process and background check process so that's still going on hopefully we'll be making so they'll be making some decisions soon in regard to that at the high school regarding security we also just hired our daytime security Monitor and we are working on continuing with interviews for the evening security monitor that would work in concert with the asso um in addition to that just a reminder I think we talked about it with the task force report at the last meeting that all of the sros are in place and adjusting quite well to their school settings the next piece is the Task Force meets next Thursday morning the other piece is at our next board meeting on December 14th I will be presenting the budget for next year prior to that I believe we have two Finance subcommittee special subcommittee meetings scheduled where we'll be vetting the budget in preparation for that presentation and then continuing to vet the budget as a board through as a full board and as a subcommittee throughout the remainder of December and January before submitting it to First select woman Carr at the end of January so that's coming up and obviously a lot of exciting times and also managing inflation and Rising costs at the same time so we're working on that any questions on either one of those updates all right Mr Lasser I'd like to invite you up again Mr Lasser is here representing the Brookfield Craft Center The Craft Center is one of the places where our middle school after school uh Grant students are spending a great deal of time learning who have signed up for that and he's brought a slideshow and going to talk a little bit about it floor is yours Mr Lasser [Music] told Keith we breathe so I will start by just saying if you have questions I would just encourage you to give me a call or send an email and or come visit the Craft Center if you haven't already one of the things I wanted to be sure you were aware thank you one of the things I wanted to be sure you're aware is we are very concerned about safety at the Craft Center so when we have kid classes with kids we have assistance in the classroom and our education director Valerie Culbertson has recruited several volunteers from the high school to be assistants in our school and in our classes this is not just a safety thing but it also allows the artist teacher to focus more on students one-on-one they get more time that way they don't have to worry about who needs to go to the bathroom or any of the other issues that would come up when you're dealing with 12 year olds um but here's an example you know some pictures here uh the assistants are there at the bus when it comes to drop the kids off they align them up in the right places and then they walk them across that dangerous crosswalk that everybody complains about uh to the various Studio Studios that are on the other side of the road we've had in this first session we had 47 kids in eight different classes I've got a brief some pictures of each of the classes here's our uh in our weaving Studio the kids did felting where they made felt dragons and you can see obviously they enjoyed themselves the picture of them with their dragons on their heads um they they all had a great time in our jewelry Studio the kids made Rings they made pendants uh just to tell you how great the kids felt about the program um one of the jewelry uh teacher sent me an email um about the class and she said they were the nicest most thoughtful group of girls one of the girls gave her grandmother one of the open lockets for her birthday that we made in weeks one and two she told me she glued a picture of her and her grandmother in the locket from when she was a little when she was little and her grandmother cried when she opened it I mean you can teach the art but that's you know you just can't can't get that feeling that was that was just a great great feedback and we love to hear that the kids are having a good time and I think you know just you know the teachers are having a good time too um here's our actually that's Valerie um teaching uh the old Master techniques and drawing and when we can when the weather's nice uh the kids went outside and and Drew some really wonderful uh pictures uh one of the things that struck me when I went over there to take these pictures is one of the children was drawing the building the mill building that you're probably all familiar with if you drive by and the perspective from an 11 year old was just amazing to see that I mean I'm no artist I do I have taken our history and so on and it just being able to get perspective uh in a drawing is is incredibly difficult to see that was really really gratifying um in our Clay Studio uh we had Joseph Heller teaching the kids and Joseph is a great teacher and he's great with the kids they did slab work where they rolled out the clay and made hand uh hand bowls and things and then they also worked on the Wheel we have a center for modern craft where we have 3D printing and CNC routers this particular class was fundamentals of digital photography and again the kids were very much engaged as you can see in working with Lightroom the Adobe software which as as Terry the T the artist teacher told me you know when I complained that I could never get into he said Howard we had these 11 and 12 year olds doing it so you need to take a class um in our Forge unfortunately I had a video here but we didn't come across when we transferred the pictures but this is the in our blacksmith Forge and the kids made um you know Forks they made hooks uh this particular time they were making triangles you know dinner triangles um and um you know again this is one of those classes where it is uh you know I'm not going to say you know it's challenging because of that we're working with metal that's been heated but the kids had a great time and um and as far as I'm aware there were no injuries which is always a good thing oh wait here the video is working yeah look at that so you can see they first had to indent where they're going to bend it and then they back and then they uh they bend it into um into their triangles uh and then on a glass studio the kids were making pendants um and again this is an area where we're really cautious and like to have that extra pair of eyes because they're dealing with torches that are at 1200 degrees Fahrenheit these are oxygen and propane torches and again we've got a little video to show you I actually took a class size when I when when I saw them doing this in one class I said oh I got to try that and it's a lot harder than it looks but the kids had a great time and they made some really beautiful pendants you know you heat the glass and then you form it with colored dyes and so on and they make pendants that look like that and then finally in our wood turning Studio we had the kids making Shaker stools and again you can see the final product there and the kids had a great time and David who is the teacher there really enjoys working with the kids and we're looking forward the next session actually started today another 30 kids we have six different classes going this time David's going to be teaching making a baseball bat as well as probably some other projects so that's it for me I appreciate the time I think I kept it under the 10 minutes yes and again I would really enjoy if you would come and take a take a tour show you what what we're doing and engage the community Howard really thank you for thank you for your time is there is there any questions from the board uh no thank you thank you for the update start is it the second session started today oh okay yeah we have 30 students uh today in the rain um I was going to set up a tent but uh With The Wind that wasn't an option it didn't it worked out I'm sure but you know Howard we really appreciate it and working with the grant the opportunity for the kids uh and using a town resource you know when I when I first I think you all know I volunteer and when I first got involved I understood that the Craft Center had a reputation of being really I identified as being working with high-end uh artists and the mission of The Craft Center is the preservation of fine craft and I came to it saying well you know you can't just be dealing with the old folks where else are the fine Craftsmen going to come from if we don't develop a youth program so we're really really happy to be able to do this I understand that we're going to get a visit from somebody from the Department of Education sometime soon and hopefully we'll encourage them to continue to help support it because I believe me I know I know how stressed the budgets are so thank you thank you Howard appreciate your time are you guys still doing the vaccine mandate to go to go there excuse me you have a vaccine mandate yes we do okay yes we do the other um thanks Howard thank you the the other community agency the YMCA is also part of the after-school Grant so we can talk with our friends over there and see if maybe they can come and give an update as well and that's all I have for the superintendent report okay okay subcommittee reports the first one is facilities that would be me so we had a very brief special meeting on November 14th and discussed the security task force recommendations it's important to mention that they will be funded by Capital project money or already approved and there's no need to add it to the proposed Capital plan we also discussed the proposed Capital plan specifically year one which was Paving and restroom renovations and we unanimously approve the capital plan to recommend to the full board and we'll further revise the capital plan after year one when the building condition study is complete I'd say it was very quick meeting special meeting any questions we approved that last last meeting so yeah okay thanks Troy Finance okay so we met on the 21st um we discussed this year's budget deficit which continues to creep up um we are looking at just over uh 740 000 due to the same issues that we've been bringing up heating oil diesel fuel special education tuition transportation and Professional Services and in addition to those we recently obtained cyber security insurance which is something that we hadn't budgeted for initially uh no surprise most of these will also be the biggest budget drivers for next year's budget which the finance committee will start to do their annual Deep dive in the coming weeks and just so that everybody's aware maybe the public and just a reminder for our board members when we do that as a committee we we meet more frequently weekly we scrutinize every single line of the budget and we go through how it was budgeted we clarify the rationale for changes in either direction and it's an opportunity for us to look really closely and maybe even get creative with some cost-saving ideas never hurts to have sort of multiple eyes and ideas doing that so that is what we will start in the coming weeks um and as Dr Brill said we'll probably end up having two stabs at that before the full board even gets a chance to see the budget um as a board we've heard recently a lot about special education so Mrs D Nicola Hickman was at our meeting with an idea to use some Grant funds to hire an IEP compliance teacher and that will help reduce some human error as well as inefficiency and teacher time away from students for PPT meetings we also discussed the cost implications for hiring multiple bcbas as District employees that would eliminate the need to use expensive outside services or contract with our risk um it would also have the added benefit of having BCBS in the district to build those relationships with students and staff we did discuss some creative ways to utilize our ABA Paris who may be interested in obtaining higher education and eventually their bcba so that would be a win-win for us so it's something that you know we talked about in terms of how it could potentially save us down the road and that was it any questions no okay on to the consent agenda I'll move that the board approved the items on the consent agenda which are new hires resignations and retirements second may all in favor do we want to say something I will actually uh yeah I'm going to say something too so I just wanted to say it's sad but congratulations to see Ken on here but congratulations on your retirement yeah we have a long exit ramp but we've teased Ken with his retirement which won't be till the end of September next year but um he gave us plenty of notice um and I can't thank him enough for all he has done our director of business and operations in really by the end of his tenure here it'll be seven years here long time uh employee he's led us through some difficult and dark times uh starting about eight or nine years ago in terms of Financial and Regulatory control and really led us through that and done a great job also with the town we're on the munis financial platform together that was a major Endeavor as well as many other uh things um he's also taken over the supervision of our benefits coordinator um and obviously that has a lot to do with uh HR and leaves and of course health benefits and the like so we're just really proud of them and uh Ken's setting up his timing um it really is in favor of the organization because he's making sure that that time of year we start the year-end audit we do year-end reporting of the the year to the state department of Ed but we've also got to convert and we'll be talking about that through the budget process this year is consolidating the center school and the Huckleberry Hill budgets into one Candlewood Lake budget as well as taking in the fifth grade obviously so that that's a major undertaking and then of course the physical trans transition into the school Ken's a part of all of that so Ken thank you for your service and uh we'll celebrate you along the way thank you appreciate it thanks for the opportunity okay new business 2023 2024 school calendar so it's just an action so we all received a draft copy of it proposed by superintendent if anybody has any questions so Joe's thinking I do a couple of quick highlights sure um again it's an action to receive the calendar and then contemplate the calendar we certainly could talk about it at our next meeting and if we if the board decides to want to take action to move forward on it or ask questions in between uh we certainly can do that or even tonight um so a couple of things with the calendar relatively pretty traditional um it's got the professional development days in there but one thing that is a bit different is starting the first day of school after Labor Day that was intentional and it was prior to knowing that we were we were developing this with the internal committee we're developing this prior to knowing that the January 3rd transition to Candlewood Lake has at this point been delayed and we'll get information on that at our next meeting uh starting after Labor Day gives us another week of Summer and with all the landscape and driveway and parking lot work that has to happen in addition to the the early demolition of Huckleberry to make that all work when I talked to the project managers managers at any any opportunity for us to have additional days is going to be helpful you know we could always use those and what's nice about starting after Labor Day we still end having 182 school days on June 13th last day of school so it's still very reasonable it doesn't push us deep into deep into June which is helpful in case it's a rough winter so those are really the big pieces we did take a look at the April break Lisa did some research around the region and talked to different districts we are in a place where the majority of districts that have shared are taking that same April break some are not the same that have shared with us but right now the majority so we're trying to you know just be as consistent as we can with the region um and I think we're in a good place in general um I don't know if there's any questions but I wanted to let you know that's the question are there any um holidays or school closings that we had to Omit to move the start date to after Labor Day I was curious what we no everything everything falls the same including professional development day uh on Columbus Day as you can see on October 9th but it's a work day for staff but a day a non-school day for kids so the last day of school would be June 13th but if there are snow days then it gets added on like I said traditional so what we've done we would we would add them to the end of the year um if it gets to a certain point I think it's more than more than five days before February we start looking at taking them off of April we have annetta activate that and the whole point um and it's been this way in Brookfield and and with the superintendents I talked to around the region around Connecticut we really those who have the shorter February break in the April break we all try to keep the April break very you know sacred for families so they can really count on that vacation time we don't want to be tapping into that um have we do we have any data on the utilization of fall conferences um I'm just curious how many parents because I know it's obviously not a mandatory thing and I was wondering just how many parents actually schedule them um because you know it is um you know half days consecutive days so just wondering if there was any we could have if there was an opportunity to squeeze in more we could have we could ever come back on that take a look work with the principles on that so it means adding more um like if um you know like for Huckleberry I believe it's like three consecutive half days if there's not a lot of parents doing conferences can we squeeze it into two days um but I mean if people you know if if the schedule is packed and that's what it requires then you know so be it but I'm just kind of curious sure again okay so we'll just um so I think if there's uh we have one question you know follow up on the the utilization for conference uh parent conferences if there's any questions if we maybe by Tuesday if you could have them to at least in me we could then take them and do our best because we if we're ready as a board we can take action on December 14th to move forward with this okay thank you okay we'll move on to Devereaux student strengths assessment is that did I say that right Deborah [Music] just an action so so as there as Amy and uh Ann are setting up just as a refresher for the board one of the um in my year-end valuation the board had asked to have a focus on taking a look and getting some sort of uh Benchmark or assessment on ruler and on SEL in the district and how it's going this is an opportunity for us to do just that all right good evening thank you for the opportunity okay um just to present briefly to you an overview of the Dessa as it is as the acronym is known the Devereaux student strengths assessment system and really this is a preliminary overview as we are learning about this system and as Dr Boyle said one of the requests from the board not only to Dr Brill but also to me through Cape was to kind of have an opportunity to reflect on and review our investment in the ruler program specifically but also our social emotional development of our the the work that we're doing with our students and so fortuitously the state has also been interested in this information because um they've there's been a lot of investment across the state and so uh Misty Nicola Hickman at the beginning of the school year was contacted or found out through the State Department of Education that they are actually sponsoring a pilot of this of the Desa aperture assessment system and so we want to just kind of run through a preliminary presentation about Dessa and kind of show you the alignment that it can provide we think we're hoping it will provide to us for um for ruler and also the work that we're doing as with ruler is a part of that so um again we're kind of you know ruler as a reminder is a specific uh kind of framework um that it was is focused around developing student social and emotional learning um it was developed at the Yale Center for emotional intelligence through Mark brackett's work and it supports the entire School communities and entire districts right so as ruler has been around for many years here prior to the pandemic and through the pandemic um and it really allows us to work with the students and work with each other to understand the value of emotions and how that plays into our learning environments building the emotional intelligence of ourselves and of our peers and of our students and kind of working toward that overall positive School climate the program of ruler or the framework of ruler is aligned to the castle standards which is the collaborative for academic social and emotional learning it's essentially kind of the school counselor and support services standards that are national standards and this Dessa assessment is also aligned so that's the kind of connection um here is the acronym for ruler recognizing emotions in oneself and others as they are understanding the causes and consequences of emotions the U the L is labeling emotions with a nuanced vocabulary which is age-appropriate e is expressing emotions in accordance with cultural norms and social context and then are the final R's regulating those emotions with helpful strategies so really that skill based development so again these are this is all just a review of what the ruler framework is um and then again this just kind of speaks into um existence what I mentioned earlier that the State Board of Education is also making this a priority and they have identified through their pilot through their designation Dessa as a pilot program to give us information on that so Dessa is um from aperture which is again a national assessment uh platform and uh it is being supported by the State Department of Education so districts that signed on to do this pilot are receiving uh the platform for free of charge this year and through next year are you going to talk about this okay we're going to do a little dance we're doing a dance sorry um we basically went over all of this but we have they have uh state has partnered with aperture education it is at no cost right now the 81 districts uh were participating in the last cohort and the cohort for that starting now is what we will be participating in so again uh benefits for districts and schools um obviously social emotional skills and habits contribute to a positive School climate um uh the social emotional skills are all the skills that support our academic engagement and performance it always improves post-secondary outcomes with positive social emotional skills for students there are improved attitudes about school self and others improve classroom Behavior improved attendance and this is an extremely brief assessment tool [Music] when we start with strengths we end up stronger is the quote from aperture it's very um strength based this this assessment it reports on all of the positive things that children can do many assessments look at things that are missing in a student's education whether that be academic or social skills and this particular assessment really looks at the strengths that a student has rather than the skills that they are missing which is a wonderful way to look at students it creates a lot of positive teacher student relationships it measures the positive skills we said it was Castle aligned which is wonderful because that enables us to look at our ruler progress um it is research based and normed and it's whole child support so with these with this platform it also provides us activities and strategies that we can do for students who may or may not have that skill to the level that we'd like them to in that grade level so it gives teachers examples of those strategies and interventions for any child who's in the classroom which is wonderful it's data to drive our instruction um it is it's immediate and actually it is a one minute assessment so it's very immediate um and and it will allow us to look at our progress across students across classrooms across grade grade levels and then across the district these are some samples do you want to go with that I keep going these are some example questions that I was able to pull just off of the internet um it's just uh obviously for training they don't put out the exact questions for you but these are some things that we might answer uh for children so does the child remember import important information carry herself or himself with confidence keep trying with them keep trying when unsuccessful these are all things that children that children need to develop when they have adult when they're an adult sorry talking too fast [Music] um these are samples there are eight domains do you want to do this sure yep so Miss D Nicole Hickman mentioned the strengths-based piece and so it reminiscent to me of um the ACT Falls standards which are the World Language standards which are the can do right so as students are learning um uh they're working on progression through learning a language they go through the can-do statements I can say this I can use this particular verb it's similar um it's a it's a kind of a philosophical approach in um curriculum and assessment development right is kind of looking at what are the things that the student can do and then you're able to kind of see to what level and to what you know what level of efficacy um and in addition the standards aligned piece which is that castle connection is something that Brookfield has invested in for a long time our work and curriculum in our academic curriculum with Dr Marie Alcock is all about focusing on uh you know on the standards uh alignment state standards and National standards depending on the area of uh of focus and so this fits in line with a lot of the work that we've already been done been doing the needs will certainly be with training building level principles and then training teachers in order to do those assessments so just to be clear this is a teacher assessment of a student skill and so one of the benefits of it being less than a minute in terms of assessment is if I'm a third grade teacher with 24 kids I'll be able to get that assessment done in a relatively short amount of time but we are very aware of the fact that our teachers are going to need support in how to do that right we're not going to just throw it at them and have them do that however the data that is delivered through this assessment it can be really valuable from a very granular level at student at the student specific student all the way up to whole grade whole school and then we can gather information about the district so for example this is an individual student report across three years so this is data that we can keep on students to see their progress to say you know this student was really strong in resilience then there was a dip what happened with that student and then that after some interventions that student was able to shore up those skills again as an example um we're also able as I mentioned to see grade level comparison um this assessment provides up to three assessments interim assessments a pre a middle and a post assessment throughout the year based on where we are with our pilot with the state we will would only be doing two this year because it's going to take time for us to onboard people and to train we'll try hope to get a pre-assessment done by mid-winter and then a post assessment done prior to the end of this school year which again will say you know when you're piloting something you're piloting it for yourself as much as for the actual data that you're Gathering right so this is a good training option so then we can set it up and plan for next year um the areas that are am I doing this part are you doing this um the areas that are are being assessed I'll just read them aloud because I know it's difficult to see especially from that vantage point so self-awareness goal directed Behavior self-management personal responsibility social awareness decision making relationship skills and optimistic thinking and so all of these are kind of fit into much of the work again you've seen all of these things before with ruler but also the work that we've done over a variety of years of gradual release of responsibility for Learning and growth mindset and all of the things that are founded in that research-based work that we've been doing for many years for prior to the pandemic so this is kind of a where are we now in the next steps right so at this point um Amy has brought this to has brought us this opportunity and Amy and Eric and I have gone through the training that is requisite as part of the pilot um and really it's just been uh here's what it is and here here are the kind of logistics of it we have to onboard our you know we have to upload our our student information so that we can have all of the students in the system as Amy mentioned earlier um once the the assessment is completed then we can get printouts with all of our students so that they have to be within that the aperture system so that work has been done the next steps though are that the building level administrators have to be trained and there is we have a connection with one of the representatives from aperture who is our liaison who will provide that training or provide the setting up of that training um we'll also have to train the staff and let them understand what's uh what the expectations are um set dates for the pre and post assessments so we're planning probably the end of January and then before the end of May um and then looking at that initial assessment data as we go into the middle of the spring you know kind of seeing what we're what what data we're getting and also just seeing how the whole process went getting feedback from staff and from the building lover levels and then by the end of the year kind of determining next steps with not just ruler but also with any other programming or um you know even it is decimating our our needs as far as information that we would like to gain and that's a quick overview of where we are there definitely will be more information to come to the board as we gain more information but as I said we just wanted to make sure that we gave you kind of a step-by-step update as we move through this thank you very much are there any questions from the board sir I just had a couple questions so it's K-12 I assume so all the students I would think if it would be easier for an elementary school teacher to a minister we were just Pat as a middle school and high school student or what middle and high school teacher would who specifically is it their home teacher or the middle school or right well and that brings up a good point because you're not going to have every teacher assess every student because then you'd have multiple data points on every student of the same um of the same data so that's that is still to be determined we have to I don't I don't want to presume to say anything yet because we haven't even spoken with the building leaders yet um I would like their feedback and what they think is I mean I have my own ideas but well to be clear we have spoken with the building leaders right but aware of that level of decent but that level of detail has not been determined their training yeah okay our idea of who might be how we want to so who did your training we were online with aperture and went to a webinar so exchange lots of emails how come Eric I'm not not trying to oh there's a lot because the technology piece technology PowerSchool data privacy okay all those kind of things I think that's a that's actually a requirement through the through the csde that you're a technology coordinator is a part of it he was invested so that person was invited else okay so we'll never know you can't share the questions you won't you don't know the questions that are specifically [Music] um sorry trying not to knock anything down they shared some um training questions on websites but the actual questions themselves are probably worded a little bit differently um just because you wouldn't share the questions of an assessment okay what we do know is that there are you know eight seven to eight questions because there are those so they are directly um you know linked to each one of those dispositions and so that's essentially you know I would assume it's a one-to-one correlation yeah do we have do we have any data before ruler started on on this that's a great question of which I cannot answer you because I was not here I'm not sure if we if anybody knows in terms of where students dispositions and right soft skills kind of were right so like you had the the chart of hey this person right was here dipped up um I mean imagine we probably don't we don't so probably don't have that level of definitely not that scientific research based so this was probably going to be a while till we see like hey you know this is like the start of the assessment We're Not Gonna really know how this is going maybe even like a year or two from now awesome absolutely and and the good news is we'll be able to I think pretty quickly assess whether Dessa is going to meet our needs um and so if it's not then we can pursue other avenues and we'll also be able to kind of put eyes on students you know we have a lot of platforms and programs to intervene with students who are struggling academically or who are way off the charts academically we don't necessarily have um kind of really specific uh data points to point to if a student needs some intervention with the kind of those soft skills um you know you get a sense and those of us who have taught in classrooms you know you kind of understand but you don't have that hard data to really look at that is more objective now this is Teacher Assessment so it is still the teachers observations of those skills but it will force a teacher to kind of think more objectively about student Behavior based on the you know the expectations outlined with the assessment so and I think too and we look at the full District's data we're going to be able to see if there's a certain area that we were working on with ruler that seems to be off from other areas as far as the data we're collecting on that first point um so whatever that area is we can take a look back and say what what else do we need to do to make sure that we're having students grow there so that I think that will be very helpful look a really good first step and when do the teachers receive training that's a good question yes we haven't gotten that far yet okay um but I'm hoping to use uh some you know weather I don't really know the extent of the training that is needed either um and so whether we do it uh during an early release day if it if it necessitates that length of time um or if we can do it during an after-school meeting or during a um you know kind of prep time or CLT I would imagine it would take a con a considerable amount of time actually given the brevity of the assessment um it's kind of takes training just to interpret a very broad question like that in in meaning anybody could interpret it any number of ways so without multiple questions about behaviors it's that would be difficult so yeah I'd be I'd be interested in if it's a pdj that I could sit it on absolutely and the norming of um you know and making sure that there's calibration yeah that's going to be super important right is to calibrate teachers um so even if the training proper doesn't take that much that much time I'm interested in making sure that we're going to do it with as much efficacy as we can now again that might mean we have to administer it a few times for them to get comfortable with it and know what they're looking for um and so we are going to be kind of training ourselves on and and that's the nice thing about having a two-year pilot right that this especially we're working our way through it through getting to know the not just the actual assessment but even the logistics of it and then um we can kind of support teachers and take the pressure off of them saying you know you don't have to have perfect execution of this right away we are going to be working through understanding it and and norming it and calibrating it as we go but to Dr Murphy's point that it might take some time then to really get good data for us over the course of a few years yeah thank you folks thank you very much okay on to Old business policy number six one six one point three comparability of service I will move that the board approved the deletion of existing policy number 6161.3 comparability of service and adopt caves version for a final reading as recommended by the policy and Communications subcommittee first reading was on October 19th 2022.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
laughs [Music] [Applause] all right our next recipient is aheen Jones ahim has uh three siblings two brothers and one sister his favorite subject is history his favorite hobby is playing football and his career plans are to become a veterinarian I knew uh he wasn't going to make it this evening [Applause] all right our next recipient Mariana Gonzalez AKA as we know her MG um her siblings she does not have any siblings her favorite subject in school is English and she enjoys playing volleyball softball and her career plans are to study marine biology [Applause] thank you and last but certainly not least jazlyn Marshall uh who was in the ninth grade has two siblings an older brother and an older sister favorite subject in school is math favorite hobbies reading and uh jazlyn's career aspirations are to become a real estate agent so congratulations [Applause] thank you [Applause] enough about great parents families so we like everyone to come up to the stage and we can take a cool picture [Applause] [Music] okay we're coming up you taking these times all the way down you tell me somehow why you need us or how to not lied I guess is really how narrow you need us I know that's okay that's right how we doing do we all fit s um we're good okay and we should be going okay digital film congratulations [Music] and next up we have our Employee of the Month our educator of the month Mr Smith would you please come up with the announcements good evening once again this month's staff member of the month for the district is Miss Elizabeth Levering Ms Levering is responsible for developing in each student and interest in an interest in and the ability for Creative expression is to confirms using skills and techniques of artistic expression consistent with guidelines set forth by the district as well as the New Jersey student learning standards for visual arts additionally Miss leverings tries to develop and appreciations of Art in addition to discovering and developing talents of students in the field furthermore Miss Levering assists with extracurricular activities supporting the total school program the total program of the school for example Miss Levering planned to present art displays and exhibitions designed to exhibit students work for the school and the community Through the Bound Brook High School creativity show as well as the youth art month uh youth art youth art month yam uh sponsored by the center for Contemporary Arts additionally mislevering moderates the National Art Honor Society which is a program formed to inspire and recognize students who have shown an outstanding ability and interest in art while attaining the highest standards in art scholarship character and service and to bring art education to the attention of the school and Community most recently Ms Levering coordinated the art club and National Honor Society students one afternoon in painting the windows in local businesses on Maine on Main Street and down Brook window painting has become a yearly initiative in collaboration with the town of Bound Brook as part of the community's community's revitalization partnership lastly Miss Levering has served as a mentor to new art teachers as they begin their careers in the Bound Brook School System essentially on a daily basis Miss Levering proves to be an invaluable member of the art Department it is for these reasons among so many others the Bound Brook High School and the district selects mislevering as staff member of the month congratulations to this Library thank you wherever you want to be you're the boss here you are the boss baby I don't know thank you [Applause] foreign [Music] go right ahead sir we are ready for this because we were just about to read it without each other you're the boss good evening everybody and for our students and educator of the month let me just apologize for my card maintenance and say congratulations thank you uh so the New Jersey open public meetings Hall was enacted to ensure the right of the public that the man's notice of and to attend meetings of public bodies at which time any business affecting their interests is discussed in action in accordance with the provisions of this act the Board of Education policy zero one six two Board of Education at the borough of Bound Brook has caused notice of this meeting to be posted in the court office at the founder of high school and mail quarterbacks to The Courier News founder of borough clerk southbound Board of Education and any person who has requested individual notice and pay the required fee please stand for a quick linkage [Music] I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States liberty and justice foreign [Music] this is upcoming Mrs here I'm Mr genus here fourth president you have a forum present this evening thank you and it'll be my pleasure now to swear in the board member um great thank you you can hold it okay [Music] Miss Hyde please repeat after me I so I do solemnly swear or affirm do sounds swear words that I will support the Constitution of the United States that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of New Jersey and the constitution of the state of New Jersey and that I will bear a true faith and Allegiance and that I will bear to save an allegiance to the same to the same and to the government established in the United States and to the governments established in the United States and the state and this state under the authority of the people under the authority of the people so help me God so help me God I I too high do solemnly swear or affirm do swell solemnly swear or return but I possess the qualifications prescribed by law that I possess the qualifications prescribed by law for the office of member of a board of education for office of member of the Board of Education and I am not disqualified as a voter and that I am not disqualified as a voter pursuant to our address 19.4-1 pursuant to RS 194-1 nor disqualified due to a conviction of a crime nor disqualified due to a conviction of a crime or offense listed in njs 18a 12-1 or offense listed in njs 18a 12-1 and then I will Faithfully and that I will faithfully and partially impartially and justly and just perform all the duties of that office perform all the duties of that office to the best of my ability so help me God to the best of my ability so help me God congratulations thank you [Applause] and let it be noted in the minutes that miss high has also signed the code of ethics and his um welcome to the book foreign [Music] okay uh not too much nothing but uh I'm very happy to sound like broken record at this point I've been kind of making the same comments over and over but over the last month or so both formally and informally I've kind of met with some administrators teachers parents even my own students at home in the district and I just want to again pass on the positivity that I'm getting I am really excited about how positive everyone in the district has been how excited everyone has been about this school year about our new Administration about a lot of the new things that we have going on um I know that I have been really invigorated by by the last you know half year or so by the new Administration by the new leadership and I'm really excited about it so I just want to keep getting that out there in the public at things on our end and for what we're hearing from everyone else seems to be going really well and we are really excited about us we want to thank you guys again I'm at the top of the administration of the principals everybody for the job that you guys are doing we're hearing nothing but great things so thank you awesome all right Dr Freeman anything you want to add for your superintendentals report no other than the students of the month I want to thank the principals the administration essentially about this work just being very open-minded to change and they really create the videos create the positive atmosphere which blows down the teams with the kids and the parents so thanks a lot to our Administration for the central office administration and the principles with the great work that they're doing excellent all right we are up to committee reports um so we can go through those uh obviously it's been a few weeks we actually had the common materials and make sure that we have peer advice on issues that are going to appear later in the agenda for this morning so um can I keep you on a roll and we can start with education sure uh I'll just let you know that I was not really prepared to do education so I'm going to be reading off the agenda so I will do the best that I can um there were four items on our agenda on the first was that we have started in November our Extended Learning Academy it's going all the way through April um right now I think we started with grades one and two is that well we're in week one through eight right now okay I will be adding kindergarten in January okay there you go um we are also still we had talked about I don't know if this was brought to the full board or not I don't remember but we had talked about kind of as an educational Community the inability to find ESL teachers it's very hard in all districts department and we're now uh looking into other ways which we I think actually Mr Januzzi said there are really two ways you can either find them or you can take the teachers you have and train them and so we have been looking into different programs to get them trained as either or certified I should say as ESL teachers the teachers that we have I know that we've already had a few teachers respond in the apartment that they're they're interested at the end of the last time I heard was three staff members that wanted the certification so because we have not been able to find teachers elsewhere we're going to look in-house and see if we can find ESL teachers that so we're going to approach it a different way and see if that works um we are also looking at new uh new Ela curriculum it's been you know we're through the cycle on our current curriculum so we're looking at a new curriculum we have several that we're looking at I don't have a lot of updates on that because we haven't chosen anything yet but we are working through the process um eventually I don't as this was among that we're working with and each week the defender is coming in to meet with a team of teachers um to go through their products we're hoping to narrow it down to um two or three products in January and then begin piloting them in classrooms and also possibly doing some visits to other schools that are using them so things are definitely moving along on that which is wonderful and the last one was also very exciting Mr Ross came in to speak to us as a committee about a new concurrent enrollment opportunity with Stockton University so it will not replace but it will add on to what we already have so we will have concern enrollment now with Stockton as well as rbcc so everything that he presented looked incredibly positive it looks like a win-win I I really don't see a downside to it um there's going to be more programs there's going to be um hope we hope more students involved they're going to be going uh or graduating high school with hopefully even more college credits with it with an act with actual credits from Stockton that they can bring either to Stockton or another University that would accept them as transfer credits it's really a wonderful program very similar to what we have but but more but added on so so I was really happy to hear about that in committee as well and then just to tie those two items together there's actually an item on our agenda for later this evening I think it's 8.2 where we are endorsing now any questions from Mr Bowen the education committee um if it's okay I'm going to jump around to talk about getting the Outreach sure sure so we had we had a really great meeting um with uh the representative from the about Alumni Association uh we found that they are actually doing a lot to support the school including the trophy cases outside of the athletic areas they're also running a scholarship program so we're our goal is to to continue to collaborate and work with them support them by attending their meetings as well as bringing them back to meet with us further and I think you know supporting the alumni by getting students that are exiting out graduating seniors enrolled in an alumni program and building that up so that we're feeding that alumni program a little bit better than we have in the past is an objective um I think uh Dr Freeman is going to collaborate with the group to see how we can support with building up the trophy cases helping to support um you know getting some of those programs supported by the the school district and then I believe our next meeting we're going to be bringing in Agatha from the Bound Brook PTO so we'll have a chance to sit down and talk to her and I'm really excited to see the program she's working on how we can support and collaborate with them and I think really the committee's goal is to just get as many representatives from our outline community in and meet with us to collaborate and build up that connection between the school district community so it wasn't really positive yeah I would add on to that the week after our committee meetings the Alumni Association actually had their next meeting I was fortunate enough to be able to go in the tent um you know many smiling faces teachers Educators community members that we've seen in the past and I think they're still all very passionate about what we're trying to do within the community so I think there's a lot of Goodwill and a lot of opportunity and I think just being receptive to that and understanding and finding mutually beneficial wasting partner it's going to just work out really well for everybody um and then the other thing that I would add and we've talked about this after the meeting but it's an action item that we have to follow up on it's probably not feasible for us to reach every single group within the community if we're only going to have an opportunity to invite one per monthly meeting so um I think what we're intending to do with the committee is really to think hard about who are the closest groups that we have the best opportunities to partner with for immediate effect and then what our strategy could be to reach yeah because I think generally speaking our our intent is to engage every really Community member and enlist their support in continuing to make this the best uh institution of the campaign so how we do that might need to vary depending on um the the individual rules but their goal Still Remains to reach them absolutely and I think those initial meetings and those initials you know right now I don't think any type of communication has been uh has been happening so just that initial conversation we've been learning so much just from that on how to move forward normal friends yeah it's all good stuff great thanks Lisa any questions for Lisa and Community how are you all right how about uh do we have anything that we want to cover from Human Resources or is that all executive content um I don't believe there's some general um so the njs the a will review salary guides yearly at no cost see regarding new hires we wanted the district would like to streamline the onboarding process one to ensure that you know transcripts and any other credits were acknowledged and noted in the system making sure that everybody is only informed of [Music] any any impact any benefits um that may affect them and just to sign off on like if there's like a disclosed reform just to acknowledge I'll get to something um there is a new portal that um for central office or recommendations regarding current procedures and observations future in the spirit of like Middle East to identify staff needs as they occur to save time and in future for negotiations um and then we sort of generally discuss ways to incentivize and retain our employees and we've got some ideas like discounts at local sporting events um and then I'd just like to you know the thing that we are continuing to track vacancies with a with some historical perspective to better understand why those vacancies are there and how they're occurring um and the big thank you to the HR assistant [Music] thank you any questions McDonald's absolutely governance was uh actually very short this month we only had two items and they were both pre-rolling uh to be going rather boring um well they you know clearly there were the most exciting things uh one we have discussed and we hope with your blessing in the next meeting we want to condense our meetings um not quite to a consent agenda but close to it uh right now I'm sure you've all known as we say yes about 15 times per meeting and we want to cut that down hopefully and condense some of the items so we've asked Mr Gorski possibly starting at the next meeting to put to put some of those to combine some of those things together just so that our meetings run a little bit more streamlined of course there will still be opportunities to speak on any topic or ask any questions that you need to but as far as the actual yeah you're Naval we want to cut those out and the other item was just something that came up when I was down in Atlantic City at the convention um something that they recommended there was no I don't use the word enforcing but making the public aware of uh our time limits on public speaking uh right now I don't even know if everyone here is aware but we do have a three minute time limit in our Bibles or um we don't really ever have to enforce it because really people don't go over three minutes we know they have in the past and be consistent with that whether positive or negative or Mutual comments we want to make sure that everybody's given the same amount of time so we talked about ways that we could do that um down there we they went from everything from just our president making a short comment beforehand to holding up a timer in front of them as they speak and counting down so there are lots of different ways I think we kind of decided as a committee let's start with the least of those and not like countdown and have like radically numbers as we're giving them said we're going to start with maybe uh Mr janucci just making a comment before that happens to make everybody aware that they have three minutes so those are really the only two things like I said is very procedural nothing nothing too exciting any questions there foreign to everybody just in case anyone was in favor of that one of you all to have all the information but as a committee we said that's probably not the best ideas if anyone has other opinions on that feel free to share yeah and the only thing that I guess the only thing I would add is I think it's really important and I was happy that you were able to attend uh the conference because it's it really is important to have that context of what's happening in the world world right outside of our own walls and what best practices might exist because there may be situations that don't confront us today but could tomorrow and so some of these best practices you know we have the opportunity to learn from other people's uh examples and mistakes that potentially prevent those from your career so I think that's all good but as you said with moderation right and under and understanding the needs a little bit worse messages so any questions from Mike um governance right lots of discussion tonight very good all right last committee is actually operations and I will cover in Rogers absence um I'm going to stick to just the highest of the highlights uh the first one because you will see on the agenda later tonight is that we received a presentation from Mr Santana regarding the upcoming trip from the Middle School to Washington DC uh and it would potential request to uh fund some portion of the cost as necessary to make sure that it is a rewarding fulfilling experience for the students that are traveling so just want to confirm that the operations committee did endorse that request and that's why you do see it on the agenda for the team uh we also discussed the current sle uh 03 that we have uh on staff you can actually recall that we did replace uh officer Omer when he retired with a different type of officer and at the time we recognized that the cost of that was actually substantially less because the engagement was of a different car um and so now with some experience under our belts and with the administration continuing to confirm the local police force we want to revisit the opportunity for us to bring on an additional so through as the opportunity arises and again something that the operations committee did endorse it does still fit within our original budget allocation and we think we've improved our safety environment uh there is a recommendation from the business administration office that we evaluate the current software that we're using for budgeting financial management um for those of you who may not be aware we have been using Genesis for that which is the software platform that we use for just about everything at the education this year as well um they do some functions well but we've encountered some difficulties that we're all covering through our last audit as well as the administration of our 2022-2023 budget so there is a recommendation you can put forward by Administration to transfer to a new vendor I believe it is C [Music] uh so we're hopeful that we can leverage some of that historical data and Port over the information from Genesis that we recruited over the last few years and then make a seamless transition at the end of this week so again something to look forward to um for endorsement um and the last thing that I will hit on and it has to do with the preparation for next year's budget and I know it probably feels a little bit sooner for us to start discussing that but the reality is the approach that our Administration is intending to take this year is really what's called a zero-based margin and you might have seen this in Dr Freeman's weekend report uh that essentially means we're starting uh we are not inflating numbers over prior allocations that have already been approved we're going to start from the ground up with each building supervisors and we are going to enumerate the things that we are committed to spend that we would like to spend and that we think we need to invest um and in the process that's you know typically not something that you want to repeat on an every year type of basis because it can be a very time consuming experience but for budgets that have been rolled over for a period of time whether it's five years eight years ten years there are anomalies that tend to just continue to repeat themselves without necessarily and this is one of the great methodology to use to actually find those instances and potentially repurpose and established a better effect at the bare minimum it will make sure that every dollar that's in our budget is fully understood and invested with purpose and I think that alone justifies the need for us to go through the exercise so again just making sure you all appreciate the fact that the operations committee supports that and questions on operations I have one yeah just to test your alphabet soup an SRO school resource officer what does SLE stand for special law enforcement officer and it's actually a class three which is uh it recently retired officer so I think it's within the last five years I will say I left one thing out for those of you who haven't noticed or received notifications there is a major renovation going on up at Lamont field the place of turkey lights and we're excited that that's underway and we're really excited to see what the results are when that's completed in the spring just one thing um [Music] I'm completely in favor of uh helping to fund the trip I I don't remember in the past that we funded fund that in the past I don't remember I think it went I think the answer to that is you know uh pre-pandemic and certainly uh recently there is an amount that is included in the budget for the middle school that is partially subsidized there's also a significant amount of activity that goes on for this year in particular what we're finding is the costs are rising faster than people's willingness or ability to pay and we don't necessarily want that to become a temporary barrier for people uh because in a lot of ways this is a very significant experience for many kids it'll be the first time that they're away from home overnight without a parent I know even for my daughter who's in eighth grade we haven't actually been to Washington DC so um for kids who haven't actually made the trip I do think it's um important we believe this is probably a temporary thing so it's not necessarily something that we're going to have to fund on a continuing basis and certainly before we plan the next trip other moves can be explored but in the interim we wanted to make sure that the kids in the community school knew that we were behind no problem absolutely any other questions on operations Lisa did we have any updates for the Somerset County um not yet not till next month I never get the schedule right I appreciate it again it's okay that looks like it does it for committee reports any other comments related to committees that have oh only one we have to get zoom out on a committee or two awesome so for your reference the way that we tend to do that pick whichever folks who are most interested in and we will find a way to make sure that we have the right coverage yeah it is so you don't absolutely don't have to pick right now but between now and myself on those committee meetings are the first Monday of each month typically unless there's a holiday or some other reason that's what they usually and because we have to reschedule this week we're back on track for next week right yeah that's right next week is the first Monday again oh by the way which means everyone's sorry that means all charity people should be getting their attention this week good job though thank you because I would have forgotten that thank you all right and with that note I think we're going to close discussion on the Committees and move to item number 4.1 which is open for public participation or agenda items Tom do you know if we have any questions online I don't see anybody rushing to the mic in the room by all means foreign [Music] nothing great thank you sir we are at the item 5.1 resolved at the Bound Brook Board of Education approved the minutes for the November 3rd 2022 regular business [Music] second continue discussion yeah I will foreign yes it's awesome yes yes Miss moosen abstain Mrs yes hi yes we are up to item number one result that the superintendent recommends for approval the resolution is outlined the person no resolutions on your district for high school this is 6.2 6.27 I have a motion motion thank you Mr Brownell a second I'm going to give you to miss cuisine any discussion so yes Miss hi abstain the januzi yes motion passes thank you item 7.1 was all that the superintendent recommends for approval the resolutions that's outlined Personnel resolutions teams this is 7.2 through 7.6 motion thank you Mr second thank you Mrs any discussion I'm afraid from making this comment in uh second six but I'll say it in seven I'm actually encouraged by the amount of conference requests that we are receiving just like uh with Mr Brown going with the njsda I think it's really important for our Educators to get out there please exciting to see the group be invigorating it seems and going out yet can we have a walk on please Mr Bell yes awesome yes this casino yes it's awesome yes yes Mr januzi yes motion passes thank you I am 8.1 result at the Bound Brook Board of Education approves the resolution and now finding education resolutions on the District of high school this is 8.2 or 8.7 have a motion promotion thank you Mr bowel second second thank you Mr Dawson any discussion um I think the only thing that I would come out for those of you following on the agenda does say it creates 9 10 and 11.
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second [Music] Amy do you want to combine that with the next one I can yep I will move that the board approved new policy number 6172.4 title one for a final reading is recommended by the policy Communications subcommittee first reading was on October 19th 2022.
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but the recommended action is 9 10 12 which I believe the recommended action is the one that's correct since the 11th president okay all right can we even walk off yes yes it's high abstain yes motion pass thank you item 9.1 resolved that the boundary education approves resolutions is outlining education resolutions of the real and elementary schools is 9.2 to 9.11 I have a motion I give us the battle a second thank you any discussion [Applause] all right you already know can you have a roll call please Mr valve yes this is awesome yes because they know yes moosen yes Ocean passes all the developmental Board of Education approves the resolutions as outlined in policy resolutions under District High School this is just 10.2 they have a motion no oh thank you and the second thank you any discussion yes Miss hi abstain Mr januzi yes motion passes thank you item 11.1 was on the battle report of Education approves the resolutions as outlined in Special Services resolutions 11.2 and 11.3 I have a motion thank you Mr Russell the second thank you Mr Midas discussion yes yes abstain yes ocean pests thank you item number 12.1 was all the development reports the resolutions as outlined in financial resolutions 12.29 I have a motion also thank you Mr bowel a second thank you Mr midnight yes how does that happen because of this I want to just expand is this something you would enroll in yes I applied okay so it's an application that we fill out with Albertson markets and then so many applications are selected and also thank you for all the donations we've got a few again this month [Music] and I would just add that part of the reason for the length of the items in this section looks like it has to do with the fact that we are catching up on the timeliness of our financial reports so the fact that we have the October report from the Secretary of Treasurer included before the completion of the November meeting is faster than we've done thank you Mr Januzzi that's absolutely correct though I'd like to thank my staff they hustled the last couple days to get that last month completed with the bank reconciliation which we reviewed today and although we don't like to put it in the agenda of the day of the meeting we're current now so that's a very comfortable feeling thank you much appreciated any other comments or questions on anything in section 12 .
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second um so I don't really have anything else to add because as as Amy said these were presented as the first reading October 19th and I did not receive any comments or questions about either of them [Music] all right so all in favor hi hi motion passes on to Kendallwood Lake Elementary school project update okay um so actually I understand that we have some um playscape photos and some progress photos that we might be able to share [Music] foreign this is something I'm so excited about um building a new school from the ground up does not happen very often but it does present us with the most amazing opportunities to make sure that we need to meet the needs of all students in our buildings and in our communities so we are going to present to you today what our idea of the universally designed playground is going to look like I met with Dave who I'm pepsaski sorry who is ill today and couldn't be here and Rob tenza who is working on the playground itself for us a couple of weeks ago and I'm sure you want to know what a universally designed playground actually look is um playgrounds are often designed to accommodate specific types of clay or a certain age group leaving children who are unable to play in the prescribed way left out of the play environment uh we want to make sure that playgrounds um are intergenerational social connections that we have sensory stimuli stimulation that children are able to do physical exercise have some access to Nature um and unfortunately typical playground design is a problem so the universally designed playground provides an environment where children with all abilities can participate these opportunities without modifications all students should have access to the opportunities from the Inception so that's what Universal Design does is that we never retrofit we always are providing the environment where everyone can participate from the beginning thank you so the playground will of course be in accordance with all the safety regulations that we need to and with all of the AGA requirements that are necessary but we're taking a step further we want access to all playscapes and equipment for all students which provides a range of sensory engagement and alternative communication needs for students for a range of needs um this is what the playground base for two out of the three playgrounds will look like um Pre-K and the K1 playground bases I am going to step over here just so I can point a little bit to you um and I do better talking when I'm moving so um this playscape um has ramps here so that anyone who maybe with a physical impairment could go up onto the ramp with whatever Mobility device they're using they're very wide and they are slanted at a nice level for anyone who needs to go there you're also large areas up top where children can play on the top of the playscape and there's all kinds of panels here and I haven't gotten to see them all yet that students can sit and play with one another with on each of those panels the the top here is shaded area for any child who needs to be in the shade do anything medical which is also a wonderful area up top for children to be in this is a sensory climber that's at a very low level but why so that all students can crawl up or fall down there there are two different kinds of slides um and of course there are I love these they're little tiny seats for for children to sit and talk and play with one another so that you don't always have to be on the ground and that's Pre-K and the K1 thanks [Music] this is the grades two to five playground and again you're going to see those ramps you're going to see multiple ways to play whether they're visual sensory with music they're different slides and different kinds of ways to get into the place gauge and shade once again which is very very important and a lot of our playgrounds don't have swings everybody likes swings sorry everybody loves swings um this one up here in the top Corner those are round large faces more than one child can sit on there together to swing and it gives access because it's lower to the ground for anyone to be able to get on no matter height as well being so short I appreciate that um my favorite swing here is this one right here um which is a seat for a child on one side and on the other side a an adult any adult a grandparent a paraprofessional a teacher can sit on the other side and pump to swing with that child eye to eye it's amazing thing to see it's very cool the other thing here is that we have various grades two to five a fifth grader could be pumping for a second grader they're going to be swings obviously for students who require um some sort of um sorry support thank you um so we'll have swings as such so that all children can get on a swing and then this one over here allows for two children to sit and pump of course we will have some of our typical swings that everyone has seen in the past um but we are working very hard to make sure all swing all children can sway these are the grades two to five swings unfortunately the one that I love with the red seat does not come in the size for two to fives but I will keep looking because that's my favorite um we're also looking at equipment that has different sensory experiences um the cave obviously they can climb up and around there are lots of bumps and waves but they can also go inside which lots of our children like to do this is Pre-K and one we will have tubes to climb through bongo drums which are really cool this was a really fun assignment by the way and then the purple chair is actually awesome it's a spinning chair um and all of our kids like to spin and if you remember we used to have the the metal large Merry-Go-Round type things that we would spin in and everyone would fall off um and it was metal so you would burn your hands trying to hold on to it in the summer um so it's the same feeling without the danger which I thought was really cool this is for grades two to five we will make sure that we have other structures but Dave was so excited Dave saski was so excited about the drum circle and he and I are going to spend some time at the drum circle I think when that's finally installed and they have larger sizes for the spinner seats as well foreign this is the thing that I refuse to let go of and I insisted that I had to be at each of the playgrounds we have many students who require communication boards now that could be students who are multilingual it could be students with um communication disorders or it could be our very little students in preschool who can't just come out with the words to be able to tell their friends what they want and they're not supposed to yet so these are communication boards and it is a playground communication board so it has all of the pieces that they would need to be able to ask a friend to play to explain why they don't like that to ask tell people that they're happy or they're having fun and this is very very rare I've never seen it before in a playground anywhere in the area and I'm thrilled about it but I insisted we had to get that in there or I was gonna try to find another way um so right now those are all of our components that we would like they're going to be doing an informal layout for us so that we can then bring that back to you and then we will look to assess if there's any more available space for us to find cool things to put on the playgrounds and then we'll finalize the equipment choices but I'm very excited this was an awesome opportunity and I think it's going to bring so much fun for all the families different questions yes I don't know if there's any questions I I want to um it was a couple of years ago I remember one of the parents sent me an email and asked are we going to make sure that the playscapes are accessible we said of course and so we're starting to see the manifestation of that um Amy thank you for the presentation today and please stay there if there's any questions but we really um it's really exciting because like Amy said as we all know it's very rare to build a world-class school from the ground up and that's exactly what we're all a part of and the playscapes are just you know another tremendous component for the for the kids so I don't know if there's any questions for Amy or anything further no of interesting that was great yeah I just incredible wanted to say I mean I I'm so impressed with the level of thought that went into it and you know I think people tend to think of school playgrounds as sort of like a prescribed you know layout and very cookie cutter but clearly it's not and I I really appreciate the attention you put into it thank you I just want to say for my heart children learn through play adults learn through play like that Craft Center there they're learning so much more than making crafts so it's really important that the play areas enable the children to learn give them that base to do so so that's great thank you thanks Amy thank you and then Eric are we ready with the other slideshow so Rosa go walk us through that one um can you advance it for Rosa and then I'm gonna have a good answer for you and you can talk to her my care thanks sir I will just preface this by saying that these are these these photos are um two weeks old though two at least yeah at least two weeks old right um because they were supposed to be for our last meeting um so there's probably more progress um than even you see here um but what is nice and at least got to verbally report last uh the last time was um so obviously this is our front main entrance um you can see a lot of the exterior masonry work is getting completed just kind of um you can't really see it now because it's still sort of the driveway that all the construction vehicles are are rolling over but that whole front section will be dug up so that that dry bed Stream area is exposed and so there's a lot of finishing work that's still needs to go into the exterior obviously including like the the site work itself so this is where one of those playgrounds that we just saw is going to go and you can really kind of see it's starting to you know the site is really starting to look like it will eventually look um minus the playgrounds but um but that'll be really nice uh the has the stairwell gone in since the main stairwell as far as I know has not been installed yet a lot of that has to do with Terrazzo triple Treads yeah so that's that Terrazzo flooring that we are still waiting on it's kind of it's poured and it's got a lot of um you know just different dimension to it and they can add different colors and different sort of features to it so this sort of like stream that's kind of going through this main hallway past the media center there's a lot of Nature and water themes in the whole school so it's going to look really nice when it's done but um yeah we can move forward um you can see kind of the drywall in the um this is the multi-purpose space and the drywalls going in it's still a staging area somewhat but but it's getting it's getting completed can the cafeteria you can the what I noticed most about this cafeteria is the obviously all the taping has been done and some of those features on the ceiling some of those beams and stuff the architectural features are starting to become more visible so you see that here as well as I think in the next I think the next slide yeah this is the administrative area so that's getting the last time we showed you guys photos it was still down to the studs so everything's been sheetrocked and taped here which has got and then the gem the gem is probably the the lease progressed because it is still a staging area but um there's no sheet rocker taping that's going to happen in there anyways um the gym floor will probably be one of the last things to go in as well um so this actually though it looks very unfinished um there's not too much that's going to be um going in there anyways uh this was the other picture where I think you can really start to see some of the architectural features like those the big trees that you see kind of going up the wall and into the ceiling and you can kind of see those structures starting to take shape which is nice and then the um the kindergarten and first grade cafeteria is also kind of coming along um this is uh sort of more in the front of the building all the way on the left side the entry to the neighborhoods um still kind of looks it's probably progressed more since then with more um you know sheetrocking and taping and then the classrooms are really coming along they're probably the areas thankfully that are the most progressed you'll see a lot obviously all the walls and most of the ceiling grids have gone in the lighting and I think on the next maybe the next slide you can see the Cubbies so and that's really you know it's starting to look like Furniture going in it's really starting to look like a finished space minus the floors that was it we will have a further update um on December 14th I know that there was a significant um construction meeting yesterday afternoon and obviously taking a look at schedules and dates and so forth trying to schedule a meeting with Mr checo from the NBC next week as we prepare to understand where we're at and what the schedule looks like for our December 14th meeting where Mr checo and others have been invited to come and present and talk about the schedule and where we're at foreign moving on to next on the agenda's public comment so the Board of Education welcomes public comment each speaker shall have up to three minutes to provide input to the board at the end of each regular meeting time is allotted for comment on any item which is in the board's jurisdiction which also include overflow time for individuals who are not able to speak in the initial 20-minute slot discussion of school Personnel individualized students or of individual members of the board shall not be considered appropriate just please state your name and address for the record and you'll have up to three minutes so first is Andy Korea Andy Korea 45 West Wisconsin road so I wanted to stop by and discuss the event that happened at on November 16th at the last Boe meeting there was discussion regarding the improper disclosure of confidential student information and districts efforts to fix it this conversation was concerning to me because the true because of the truth behind the situation the topic was certainly worthy of a published agenda item as there was an external speaker that the taxpayers paid for to stop by and parents expressed a lot of concern my concern is that this was not on the agenda and if it was on the agenda parents could have come and spoke beforehand so it kind of prevented parents from coming and speaking um additionally there's not been truthfulness regarding the discussion of the violations the news Times article primarily consisted of quotes from two administrators most of the statements in that article can be shown in very simple ways to be false the scope of this issue was also not not disclosed to my knowledge of those recent disclosures over a hundred students have been affected and I don't know all of all of the potential disclosures so a hundred students is 30 of the special education students it's four percent of the student body of Brookfield a four percent Excursion rate is huge so by not disclosing the scope it seems like it's being hidden in discussion among parents prior to this becoming public there were dismissive comments but made by administrators belitting their concerns as well as making knowingly false statements directly to parents in writing that could be refuted by simple foiable evidence and knowingly false means lying the board of education has been informed about this prior to that meeting the six-point plan discussed uh last meeting just wasn't credible it comes across as a marketing effort with little substance that can be used to sell that something is being done when there's been evidence from the past failed efforts first of all there were only five points discussed second they included process revisions and training I'm aware of three prior training attempts and one process revision effort that were implemented because of violations in the past and I followed up on each one when the training occurred the original purpose was not stated and the underlying reason for the violation was not actually included in any of those three trainings and there was immediate violations after one of those was this past September the administrator in the recent issues told parents that perpet training was recently completed however that FERPA training was recently completed for a different item it was for a state violation by the special education department the training had nothing to do with privacy uh or the protection of privacy there were no discussions of redaction and the training occurred all before these improper disclosures happen so by stating the parents we did training was essentially functionally a lie history shows that was specific with this specific failure of organizational competency the school district should have and not have to go train eight years later that this is this reactive training as a public relations mandate to say something has been done generally the district fails to act competently in good faith and in this case line there is documentation to back that up that I've been through foia additionally utilizing technology was mentioned it essentially means PDF writer PDF writer is in use by the district a PDF is a 30 year old technology so really it's not a technology anymore and redactions just wrap it up please yeah the redactions capability has been there for about 16 years this is an issue about trust and competency right the records requests were primarily due to bellicose special education Administration uh driving parents to consider Advocates and attorneys these issues where parents do not trust the district and therefore they exercise their foi rights like the mishandling of two cases of coaches acting improperly one of those was it took seven months for the the district to separate a coach that used racist language right and all along the way there was efforts to keep the coach so you know of course there's issues about the lying with the violations right so there's there's trust loss there but it's incumbent on the board of education to address this lying and covering up thank you thank you okay Monique Matthews Monique Matthews 18 Road let me fix a lot of misinformation that was shared at the last Board of Ed meeting regarding FERPA when I received my child's file there was emails between a social worker to the guidance counselor sharing their caseload this included a list of names 15 kids to be exact who see a social worker who also have the same guidance counselor none of that information was redacted then there was another email between a case manager and a social worker 16 kids which again shared which was a list of names not redacted none of the information that I received including pages and pages of Google Hangout chats between a case manager and a social worker regarding private information about other people's kids in this District again was not redacted pages all this not redacted then my child's log entries had two other kids information in it again information was not redacted I then come to find out Administration then shared those private log informations regarding my child without my permission to two other parents yes my child's name was redacted but the situation was not [Music] that log entry belongs to my child and not for the district to share with anyone else this era and lack of care of child's private information and the district has no right to share that information yes the district self had a self-report and I get that but to disclose their child's and to disclose their children's names were shared you could have done just that then an explanation should have been told to the parent that due to confidentiality we could not share that info the situation is being minimized and the district is not making it is making it seem to the public that this was just a name or two not redacted that is far from the truth yes my child's file was large but you didn't this was not a human error this was a mistake by missing pages and pages and pages of information that I should have never have gotten the Board of Ed needs to look into this seriously look into how the administration is handling FERPA requests demand more training demand accountability and show the public and show the public that the Board of Ed takes these violations seriously students confidentiality within the special ed Department should be your top priority and currently it is not as it continues to happen over and over and over again I urge that you immediately look into this and hold someone accountable fixing the problem isn't hiring a person that is going to cost the taxpayers more money if the person that they report to doesn't know how to do this thank you thank you okay Aaron sclera [Music] Aaron sclera 5 Jackson Drive I'm here this evening to discuss the recent FERPA violations in District I was shocked that this was addressed during the Board of Ed meeting two weeks ago and not listed on the agenda there's no doubt that this was intentional so no parents were here to discuss it I also have to bring up I was shocked to hear a parent State um or saying in public that um an administrator um [Music] made the comment that um parents are requesting information to Simply get the district clearly the comment was distasteful and offensive to any parent that felt the need to get work samples and information held by the school in order in order to determine what to do with their student I had to request this information to determine what to do with my son how he fell through the cracks for all these years I requested FERPA information to help him not to get the district I'm trying to get my son what he needs when requests by parents are seen as an attack it takes on an US versus them mentality which should not take place I've always thought of my children's education as a partnership and a collaborative effort but clearly that no longer seems to ring true with the administrators with the administration's recent stance I received 32 children's names and service hours in my son's documents I immediately thought I did the right thing and contacted the district and it and it was and I received a dismissive tone in an email to boot a week later I read comments made to the news times that there was some question if a violation happened a teacher's name was not listed on the top of it so therefore it may not be a violation but 32 names were exposed in their service hours there's no excuse for these breeches and they continue to happen a letter was sent to the parents of this of the students whose information was released to me that it was somehow printed at home I wanted to stand here and set the record straight all the documents that I received it was five packets of them they were about this thick we're not talking about boxes they were handed to my husband by an administrator in TSL they weren't printed at home the breach was human error as I was given the properly reducted paper and the original that should have never been provided and that's where the children's names were visible I've been stating that communication and transparency is a huge issue in this district and it just gets worse I am not sure hiring a part-time person to deal with FERPA and fi foia requests is the answer as the immediate remedy is to find out why our children's information is constantly being breached I deal with patients records and information on a daily basis and if I handle their information the way the district handled information I wouldn't have a job [Music] thank you WK case is that the case 21 Meadowview Drive at the last Boe meeting on November 16th you spoke about FERPA in fact had a guest speaker brookfield's vet attorney I would have it would have been nice that it was on the agenda um anyway I was extremely displeased over her discussion about the recent FERPA violations especially when she spoke about it had been inadvertently done she also said that she's never seen anything deliberate in all her years accidentally or not is a moot point and a clever way of diminishing the damage that was done I know because my child was one of the children that was not redacted the district has a due diligence to make sure that any identical information should not be exposed anything less than this is reckless and negligent I actually have a twofold um with this because I reached out to the board that same night requesting um it was spoken that training had begun I reached out to the board never heard back um a colleague actually had the information I wanted to know when training was done what was done who attended in September uh 2022 this year uh training was done by a specific teacher who turned around uh regarding FERPA who turned around on November and October not even a month later October 17th I opened up my child's Chromebook um a sped director case manager and there was the list of all the children their first names and last names on her caseload so again I filed another complaint and then and again another thing that the um sped attorney didn't mention that parents who's ever watching who's ever had this you can file a complaint at student privacy.ed.gov I urge parents when their information is breached by a district to reach out and file a complaint I also have a complaint going on currently something separate from FERPA in regard to my child's IEP instruction has not been driven complete avoidance actually and to this date I had my daughter's IEP let's see uh October excuse me November 7th they have five days to issue the IEP the revised IEP to me to this date I never received it I did however receive my child I don't know if anyone knows but when your child is a sped uh student you get a report card along with their spread report card on their goals and how they're doing their goals and objectives on octo November 4th I got my daughter's goals right how to complain about that sat with them at PPT a lot of things weren't addressed things were not introduced goals were not being met and after I filed my complaint on November 20th the district received it from the state to specific complaints that they have till December 9th to address I got what I thought I was getting was my IEP and I got again a doctored on the 28th I doctored goals and objectives so they lie the district lies to you so if you're a sped parent I urge you to watch and and really look over everything that they're doing and also speaking of um a little bit more transparency in regard to when we have guest speakers having it be on the agenda also like today tonight with the finance it was embedded but it was spoken about getting additional funding for someone to come in for IEPs and I am totally against that I think that it's a systemic issue across the board in all schools within this District I don't think having it hiring anyone additional would help in fact I think that those funds should go to be educating Paris they're the ones that drive instruction they're the ones that support the school they're the ones that are always there for our children thank you thank you okay next up three main points okay I was thinking that we should highlight the Craft Center presentation from by Mr Lasser and also the Candlewood Lake Elementary School update about the playgrounds and the slideshow that Rosa presented but I'm torn on the third main point maybe the devil yeah [Music] okay I I yeah I just didn't know since it's so preliminary if it if it would just raise a lot of questions that we can't answer at this point true so then I or Dr Burrell's security update because I know a lot of people are concerned about security yeah that's it okay sounds good okay thank you upcoming events we have just a few at Center School the third annual winter Workshop sponsored by the Brookfield High School National Honor Society is December 14th Huckleberry the grade four chorus is at the Stu Leonard's tree lighting tomorrow night and they have a pajama day donate one dollar to sequoit Canada support Connecticut Children's Hospital on December 9th that is also happening at Whiskey near on December 9th whiskaneer also has a holiday toy drive going on from December 5th to the 16th and at the high school the music department Winter concert is on December 15th that's all I have okay okay executive session anticipated I will move that the board enter into executive session for the purpose of discussing the superintendent's goals second all in favor all right okay this formally ends a recorded portion of our meeting thank you for tuning in have a good evening
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can we have a roll call please Mr battle yes this is awesome yes Miss Casino yes Miss moosen uh yes but it's abstain from 23. thank you Mr midhus yes hi yes motion passes we are a couple two new business is there anything that we haven't discussed yet this evening that any of the members of the Court would like to bring to the floor I actually had a couple things one should have been actually under 11 12 but um we had 30 writing folks uh what happens does anybody have any idea because there was no one named in the report it just said 30 writing votes do you have any idea yes I compared the write-in votes that I received the Ledger from the county identifying who the writing books were and tabulated them they didn't come anywhere close to the number one two and three elected candidates so they're they're just extra votes ages would they like to join of course but I think it's encouraging to see that there are community members that are interested in doing the body I think that's something we've debated or struggled with for a bit um we've been seeing people that have an interest or at least enough interest to be written into uh the election I think it's an encouraging sign so officially unofficially if we do have uh open seats they seem to be a good place to call from um and even if not an opportunity to reach out to them and see if they're interested in engaging without being beneficial I think all those things are on the table so you know awesome thank you for bringing up and you know some people I answered another one more question please there were three seats open for the election and those were all satisfied three they're mating votes applied only to those three open seats those would have to be applied for go through the same process that this High went through okay but I think the observation though is knowing that we're not a full board if people aren't aware that that's an opportunity that's available to them it's something that I think we will move us to reach out and make them aware of direct okay uh one other thing we have talked kind of intermittently through the years and we even put a committee together a while back uh about suspensions um we had talked about kind of I know that most of the members of that committee are no longer even on the board I think I might be the only one left um but I know Mr Smith and uh some other principals sat with us and we really broke down the policy on suspensions and I don't know why it hit me yesterday I was just wondering if maybe sometime in the near future we can kind of see a report of how our work through that committee has changed what we're seeing because I think our goal as a committee at that time was to keep kids in school as much as we can we the 10-day suspension while at times is absolutely warranted we wanted to get away from that as much as we could and keep kids in school and we'd kind of like to say I would like to see anyway how things have changed since since we kind of adjusted those policies we tweaked those policies a little bit to see if they've made any difference or to see if we need to revisit them and I mean if there's a need we don't know if there's a need or not but if there is you know something we'd like to touch on maybe yes we've got um a recent diagram tissue back in the state in terms of our percentages so we're going through those things now so we'll have a complete report for you I would like to add for the next meeting but I don't think it's going to be done by this okay great thank you excellent any other comments or questions from your business okay then with that we are currently open to the public we are knowledge so I believe last I looked there were none but I will refresh the page also saying now okay we are up to item 16.1 uh resolve that we need to move into an executive session I mean this would be under items two three [Applause] awesome thank you okay thank you Mr muscle all favorite we are adjourned to the executive uh you are good to go okay all right everybody welcome back we are on item 17 plus one um [Music] Board of Education approves the resolutions as outlined in approval of HIV cases under high school this is I apologize this is a review of HIV cases under 17.2 may I have a motion motion thank you Mr Bell a second second thank you Mr Dawson can we have a roll call please Mr battle yes Mr Dawson yes this casino yes Miss moosen Christine absolutely thank you Mr minhas um yes thank you hi abstain thank you Mr Januzzi yes motion passes thank you an 18.1 it was all that the founder of Board of Education approves the resolutions as outlined in HIV cases under the middle and elementary schools this is 18.2 and 18.3 bad motion motion thank you Mr bowel second thank you Miss Musson Valley yes Mr Dawson yes yes en yes yes thank you we have exhausted the agenda for this evening so I will entertain an emotions awesome thank you Mr bowel a second thank you Miss muscle all in favor aye so moved everybody
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uh um uh Heather can you uh we'll call the meeting order Heather could you do the role sure Stephen bordsdorf we could state that where you where you're calling in from and that you hear looks like Steve is uh muted um I'm sorry I'm just trying to catch back up here I am present I'm in Ann Arbor okay great uh Alan Heber yes I'm here just back from Berkeley California I've been in Ann Arbor with a sore throat okay Ellen could you mute your phone too we're getting some background noise it looks like two he's on the just needs to be promoted to a panelist on zoom and then he can probably hang up his phone all right thank you all right I'm promoting you to panelist Alan congratulations you should be able to hopefully you should be able to connect in um in the meantime Sarah Hammerschmidt here from Ann Arbor all right uh Jeffrey Henning he was here all right maybe he'll connect back in um Rita Mitchell you're an Ann Arbor right Alice Rel here in Ann Arbor Frank Wilhelm here in Ann Arbor Adam Zemke here in Ann Arbor councilmember Briggs here in Ann Arbor and council member dish okay all right thank you very much um if we could have approval of the agenda agenda um motion to recruit the agenda Heather sent it out this afternoon it's all moved so moved seconded by council member Briggs um all in favor say aye aye any opposed okay thank you motion carries approval the minutes from last meeting um those are linked in the agenda include promotion please it looked good to me I'd move their approval excellent thank you Steve uh seconded by Rita um all in favor say aye hi hi any opposed all right motion carries uh we'll go into public comment then uh Heather are there any members of the public pushing to comment uh yes we've got Robert black go ahead can you hear me yeah I don't know if that can be changed yeah maybe somebody's unmuted or not muted um thank you can you hear me okay it's a weird thing I'll turn my volume down yeah it's still still echoing for some reason twice as an attendee so I'm not sure if that's why it's yeah there's somebody else who's got something going on um thank you for letting me speak tonight um I'm in Ann Arbor doing my annual teaching at the Steiner high school and working on some projects on the south side of town and it's very good to see you guys I went over to the uh the center of the city today and there's a lot of cars parked on that area and it's very different when there are many cars in there um but I'd like to speak tonight in particular about agenda item number eight condensing working groups um first of all let me say um as I've been talking in every meeting about alignment excuse me alignment I have seen great progress with you guys in terms of finding alignment within your group um the spirit of camaraderie and organized collaboration is very heartening for me to see and progress is is in even more so than you've been doing um I suggest As you move forward toward the RFP that you really try to continue this alignment with out Beyond just the group itself as you did with the use of outside experiences in your comparable communities group my suggestion is to work on integrating that knowledge base into the RFP in some way there's a great intelligence there available for you also I mentioned many times the report of the task force it has yet in my opinion to be harvested in any meaningful way to be organized into the basis for the RFP also to use nearby resources which you're doing a good job already with the parts department Department the prose report is very good the presentation by Jessica black and others for a Liberty Plaza was very helpful to the extent you can capture those experiences Harvest them and organize them into your basis for the RFP I think all will be better because of that the same thing I mentioned the task force report really Harvest that and I don't see that there's been a lot of work to capture that there's a great wealth of knowledge in there um and then also in terms of alignment in reaching out to other resources the initiating committee has carried on from the task force and has a great wealth of of people interest and information that can be helpful and should be useful as part of preparation for the RFP and that also includes the library green conservancy and the Outreach to fundraising which I I was a little extravagant in my factor of 10 over public financing but I don't think it'll be a hundred but I think it could easily be ten as a 10x multiplier so to include those people in your background research and have a much more highly collaborative and integrated approach to developing the RFP and that would include um Milton the you know Mr dehoney the manager who's now I understand working on the Ann Arbor 200 work you found this that the library itself is all had an over 200 project so let's get those aligned so that that goal of the major uh 200th anniversary of NR is a big deal the sesquicentennial from 1974 has a wealth of information in it which you saw in one of the RFI responses that talks about that and also the the basis of Ann Arbor parks with the Olmsted Brothers we have a great resource in Caitlin Olmsted Phillips that will bring that connection if you could emphasize those you will build a public Outreach I believe it will be helpful in this endeavor so tonight as you approach agenda item eight I encourage you to really organize the future space design under Mr zemke's chairs empty leadership and also harvest the learning from the Green Team and what other activities will happen in the current space activation under uh Rita Mitchell so good luck tonight and I look forward to hearing uh your good collaboration thank you thank you Robert thanks for calling in any other members of the public Heather you are muted Heather hello caller ending in 464 I think you are able to speak now yeah can you hear me we can oh good okay so my name is Linda barrower and I am calling to speak to your agenda item review of the pros plan the parks recreation and open space plan and I have two requests um because you're going to review it and I guess you can make recommendations back to the parks department if you think any changes are needed and I would encourage two things one I should also back up and say that I was I spent six years as a Parks commissioner and I was chair of the Parks Commission for three years and I was involved in writing two of the of the prose plan so I'm very familiar with the pros plan and in the past at the beginning you know one talks about like it describes the community and the different sections of the city and and kind of the demographics we always had a table that I think there's like there's the central area planning which includes the um which includes the um downtown business district and the surrounding areas that's one area and then you know there's Northeast and Southeast and Northwest et cetera et cetera and the prose plan discusses the needs in each of those areas but before before that more in-depth discussion it always had a table that show you could eyeball it had each area of the city the population and the and the square uh miles for that area and then the ratio of the population to the number of parks or and the pot and the square air the square the acreage the square acreage to the number of parks so you could see by eyeballing it where the deficiencies are in the different areas of the city because obviously Equity is a concern when it comes to access to Parkland so in the current prose plan I didn't see that there and I think that's very very important because when you eyeball it you can clearly see that the central planning area which includes the DDA district and and the surround you know State Street area the surrounding area is very deficient in Parkland and I think that's really relevant to what you guys are trying to do in terms of developing activation as a as a public space in the center of the city and I think that kind of background information that's so easy to see because it's in a very clear table it's really important to put back in there so I would ask that you recommend that when you send your feedback back to the parks department about the pros plan and my second request I haven't had a chance to go through it with a fine through the comb and I know but I know the center of the city is mentioned in the pros plan but I don't think it's it gives enough strong support to encourage the parks department to work with you guys the Council of the commons to put um to cooperate to get something really going there sooner rather than later and to encourage the DDA to kick in some funds for that and to encourage the park to help staff any ideas that you know you might want to develop so I think that's another recommendation you can make and it does show the survey the survey results do show significant public support for that for example out of the top 13 most improvements wanted um you know beautifying the center of the city the library lot was number seven out of 13 and that's just the top 13.
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foreign I would like to call this meeting of the Eastern Township Board of Education to order pursuant to the open public meetings act adequate public notice has been given by the Secretary of Evesham Township Board of Education in the following manner posting written notice on the official bulletin board at the Board of Education Office emailing written notice to the Burlington County Times And The Courier posts filing written notice with the municipal clerk of Eastern Township may I have a roll call please Mrs Capello here Mrs Everhart Mr physicaro here Mr tanfin here Mrs Knoll here certainly has a lot of Miss Lee here Mr Meegan here this is Ryan here we have a quorum okay at this time I will ask for a motion to go into executive session and a motion to approve items 2.1 through 2.4 whereas in njsa 10-4-12 allows for a public body to go into closed session during a public meeting and whereas the Board of Education of Evesham Township has deemed it necessary to go into closed session to discuss certain matters which are Exempted from the public and whereas the regular meeting of the board will reconvene following the end of closed session at approximately 7 30.
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