again these are all the colored bars yellow and blue are both from our demographer what sits on top of that number going back to 2122 our projection was 11 843. um I'm sorry our October one count was 11 843 that's the number that publicly we submit to and that's what you would see publicly if you would go to websites to see what the actual number was for the district when in reality we serve 12 190 students because after October 1 that number grew and so that's why you see adjustment in red 12 190. in 22-23 school year which is where we are now again the board Might Recall we reported out actually on the 12 110 students um that we submitted and that was again our October 1 count as John was referring to but as of January this month uh we're at 12 210 and and again that that is that is typical of the district uh we will continue to grow significantly after that October one count and so the subsequent years again in blue 12 189 in Blue 24 25 1288 the next year twelve thousand three hundred and one are the demographers projections but the point John was Raising was we are projecting an adjustment for every year by at least a hundred and you'll see the asterisk at the bottom enrollment is currently a hundred students higher than the highest projection by the demographer because based on our last two years and frankly years prior we've outperformed a demographers projections and we are projecting numbers at 12 to 89 for next year at the minimum um 24 25 12 388 and then the following year twelve thousand four hundred so we're just trying to give you an idea number one what a demographer's numbers are and our reality last year and this year and anticipating what next year's number would look like and so um what I like to say uh is there's a story within the story here um and it's it's all about Danbury High School uh like if you want to go to the the next slide it's um yep okay so um a couple things like the the enrollment is already here as I've said now a couple times and it's going to continue to uh increase if you look down there at the fourth line we we need 13 new certified positions at the high school just to keep up with what's going on now and and what will go on um next year it's uh been incredibly hard to staff all of our classes uh we've had to uh have teachers uh work extra periods uh we call those overloads you've heard us talk about those we've had to have a large number of teachers just give up their free periods to cover classes uh it is it is not easy uh to run that that school uh with so many kids there today so that that is the biggest increase we're looking for um next year is high school teachers in this budget the um at the top there the ESL the bilingual the special ed that's that demographic that we all know about uh but those um those kids need Services uh some is required by state and federal law others it's part of what we have to do to educate our kids so you see those laid out Middle School enrollment is also expected to go up next year we think by a hundred students as fifth grade moves in uh larger than the eighth grade that's moving out it's it's that simple all three schools will be we'll have more students next year and then uh finally uh safety Advocates we we need more we've we've talked about that a lot this plan uh would add uh five more safety Advocates uh one at each Middle School and two at the high school a total of five uh new positions and you can see the the dollars alongside that so this this really is is the story of the budget along with you know the the Prelude of Staffing going up uh this is what what's needed it um you heard this a year ago uh but I think it's it's much more pronounced today uh in our high school it's that's what's changed next slide Mike okay I mentioned this uh for us uh utilities includes natural gas uh electric of course uh propane uh you know all of our school buses are run on propane our contract with sta we pay for fuel that's about five hundred thousand dollars uh and we also have uh heating fuel all of those are going up uh I've had a number of conversations with chick Volpe the city's purchasing agent and using his forecast and and we do try and do joint purchasing as much as we can uh for these things and um but just like uh our homes and uh we're seeing the same increases uh that homeowners are and uh this year it's a budget driver so we'll have more to say on that too in the in the next month okay um right so when I we labeled it efficiencies and cost savings uh but we're gonna uh they're gonna be three parts to our uh three strategies I'll call them uh the first it looks at the current year budget uh 2223 operating project we have a number of unfilled uh positions that we're trying to fill our our preferences to fill them uh right away um different reasons why we can't do that but we we have saved money because those folks have not been here not only on their salaries but on the benefits they would have been entitled to uh had they been uh hired so what we'd like to do and we will come back to you I think in February and asked to do a budget transfer in our operating budget from some of these unfilled positions uh into the technology line and what we're going to propose is that we use that they can position money to begin to replace some of the Chromebooks that we now have with our our one-to-one ratio of computers to kids uh that this will be the first year of a continued uh program of replacing uh Chromebooks uh we think this is um a good strategy uh that instead of increasing the budget next year so we'll we'll talk to you about that when we bring back a proposed transfer uh and then uh the the two Esser grants um s or Roman numeral two and S or Roman numeral three uh s or Roman numeral two uh which ends in June uh has some uh plans that we never needed to complete although uh what's going on with students and and learning and instruction uh that's uh exceeded our expectations um as the pandemic has uh slowed we haven't needed to for example social socially distance as much as we thought we had would have to we didn't have to do as much uh cleaning and PPE and all of those things so what we are going to propose is going back to the state uh amending our sr2 grant even though it only has a few months to go amending it to help pick up some of the expenses that otherwise would have been in our budget that are eligible for um Grant financing and then we'd like to do the same thing with sr3 as the pandemic has weekend some of the things we had planned to do we don't have to do um a good a good example of a pandemic expense that didn't quite uh go the way we thought it would have to is is the move to Brookfield and the kindergartens at St Joseph's School you know when we we laid down that plan we thought we'd be doing that for three years uh we thought we had to separate student deaths uh six feet apart and we just didn't have room in our classrooms to spread that many kids out six feet apart we needed classrooms but we didn't need it for three years and as we found space in our schools it turned out to be a one-year plan not a a three year uh we'd also plan to have school buses uh go up and back every day a half a million dollars for three years it was only for one year so uh we're gonna see if we can repurpose uh that uh sr3 grant for some of these things that are would otherwise have to come out of the school budget that also would be uh called a grant Amendment approved by the state Ed department but those three sources uh as I said were turning to to help with our needs for next year now what we also want to make a point with particularly as we get to the the mayor's level and the city council if you've if you pay real close attention to the uh the state budget our alliance Grant is supposed to get a pretty good bump uh in I think it's two if not three years from now I think it's two we're gonna check where they're going to shift um some of the funding away from the wealthier schools into the uh schools with more need we would stand to gain a few extra million dollars for that uh and so what we're we're way we're looking at things is we really just need a bridge for a year if I could call it that to get us to that year where more State funding will come in and that we're we've come up with when we think Three Bridges uh to get us to that point so that's uh the plan we'll be we'll be clearer on that um in the next month and also uh we'll be seeing uh the governor's new budget in the next couple weeks but I I don't expect him to uh Backtrack on that plan uh right now the state is uh flush with money um so it's just they're not in a cutting mode so far okay next slide Mike is there one more okay uh I'd mentioned that a couple times the the Chromebooks uh replacement cycle we find ourselves with now it's a good problem to have but we also need to start uh to replace some of our copiers uh we really haven't replied and there are printers I call them copiers but we do a lot of that's where you send your print jobs to as well we haven't uh replaced any of those really other than the new schools in five or six years and uh they're they're breaking down too much uh it's it's hurting uh it's making the teachers less efficient um and it's time to uh get back to replacing those again on a smooth schedule we'd like to get to a point where uh every year we're replacing some and uh avoiding a big spike where we haven't done anything and then find ourselves behind so that that's built in that will be part of the transfer I talked about we'd like to do that with this year's budget uh so one more mic after that or okay uh sure um I just thought we'd describe uh some of the other things that are that are in the budget some you're you're familiar with um we have some new uh mandates uh that came out of the uh called the short budget last year some personal hygiene mandates we have to finance um but then the usual kind of things of just running a school system for 12 000 pupils uh on uh you know 17 or 18 different locations uh they're just things you do but that's um that said other line when we looked at the the program needs that was that bucket down on the bottom right will you'll see things in there for example High School expenses just to run this run the school non-staff and some of our technology our uh our buildings and grounds program is in there as well uh it's it's everything else for next year and I think that's the last one is it oh oh of course um so it's worth um a a couple words on on the essers and uh we we thought the analogy of a Lifeboat uh was the right one to because uh the Esser monies have been keeping school districts afloat uh for a couple years now we're not alone uh by any means uh we desperately needed These funds um but you know we you know when we I use the example of Brookfield but but you could use the example at our high school you know we we had to uh make more sections everywhere but now that we've made them they're being filled up with higher enrollment so we need to keep uh the staff uh as it says here not only to address uh learning loss but some of the social emotional needs that are out there as well as including our growing enrollment um so you know it's I I think all of the districts that have uh had the RS or grants are are faced with this problem right now they they talk about maybe extending it uh but there's nothing that we can count on uh right now so that's we thought we'd end with that um and we'll of course talk more particularly about that in our strategies as we go down the path so that's um that's the presentation Kevin a thing you want to add first or what do you think oh I'm I'm assuming or anticipating there will certainly be some questions and I'm I think I'll start there and a little follow-up from there and get reported opportunity big committee an opportunity to ask some questions here Kevin if I may um on one of the back sheets I saw a 6.6 percent rise in labor cost and four point um nine five and benefits and for a total I saw uh 5.95 total increase uh could you reconcile that for me yeah um La I think if we could if we could get that to you in the morning I noticed the same thing and I I think it's the um The Advocates that we've added uh this year that we're not in the budget uh is part of the difference but I want to be exact on that if it's okay I don't have the uh the answer uh right now because I'm I mean roughly from a Layman's point I was I'm seeing almost an 11 increase rather than like six percent okay thank you I'll balance that in the morning thank you Teresa uh question about the safety Advocates the ones you stated in the um in this new budget is that in addition to what we already have yes it would bring us from uh 36 positions to 41 positions and we would be adding one at each middle school and uh two at the high school well for a total how many it uh in the middle schools to each Mike it's yeah we're currently we're currently aiming for two each although there's there's a backstory around some of the challenges we've had with hiring although right now we're we're slated for two each at the middle school this would make three each at the middle school which I think is consistent with the conversation we were having towards uh last summer we wanted to get closer to like a three to four hundred to one student uh Advocate ratio and um and also you pointed out the high school or the academy principle will have to be hired uh I guess next spring um I thought there was also going to be a principle at the for the middle school at the uh Cardis building are we going to hire a principal for there right so the the initial planning behind is Teresa is to have a principal on board for planning purposes so that we're not hiring that person blind that person oh no that's fine it was just that I was concerned about for the Middle School the Middle School's not opening in 20 in 20 uh 24-25 and we're moving forward with our plans we're going to have 3 800 students at the high school the high school is still going to need admin support as we needed previously and so the idea was is to move forward with our high school plans as as we hadn't initially outlined that planning called for us as part of our plan it called for us to have a principal in place by the midpoint of the school year they would be here as part of the planning the scheduling because it's going to require some unique scheduling now to everyone even more unique scheduling now that everyone's going to be in one location but because the middle school principle is that building is not opening yet we don't we're just we're not hiring that person right now oh okay I was just wondering where that was in the budget right I won't be into the 25 school year um leading up to the 25 school year for that summer thank you you're welcome thank you for asking so that position is in the increase or is not in the increase I'm really confused I I want to make sure which which position are you talking about we're talking about the um the academy principle that that we're onboarding this spring for middle school or high school just want to make sure I understand which one you're asking about because Teresa was talking about both well it I guess it doesn't um specify in the asterisk inside it just says includes half full-time employee for Academy principal yeah that that's a year from now that would be January of 24.
this is a process we do for every project January 4th was the notice of the date that we had no remonstrance against this project thus giving the uh the go-ahead to move forward with selecting an architect and then in February March we will select a CMC that will build the team to work with us in order to design the project thank you Mr Smith could you remind the public on all hundreds of them that are listening this evening what CMC is construction management contractor they will oversee the actual build on the day-to-day of the project thank you very much so we accept that as information Now we move on to our action items we're zipping along this hummus would be proud of me okay so the approval of the request for the proposal for architecture of leucc project um do we have um Roger Smith would you please um make your recommendation to the board Madam president Dr Smith members of the board would recommend you approve the RFP for architect for the new lecc facility as submitted [Music] so all those in favor please say aye aye those opposed nay it is unanimous so we have approved that action item um and now we move to the approval of personnel reports that would be Miss Johnson Madam president Dr Smith and members of the board I request that you approve the Personnel documents as submitted so moved second properly moved in second it is are there any discussion points uh no discussion all those in favor of approving the Personnel reports as submitted aye aye any opposed so our Personnel reports have been approved Now we move to Ed my favorite part of the meeting administrator and board comments I am going to look to my right Miss Puckett sorry I was looking at it I have nothing to say besides oh this is huge to say welcome aboard like I sincerely look forward to working with both of you um Lawrence is a special place and so I'm excited for us to do work together to move us forward so ladies welcome and thank you that's it for me Miss Norman um first of all um happy New Year to everyone welcome back thank you for the smooth start getting our kids back and um I'd also like to also welcome the ladies it's basketball season we're a team of five we're gonna work hard for the district Dr Smith knows yeah we and we saw some good games this week um but we're also looking forward to the lady Wildcats and the lady Bears on Thursday yeah um that's all I have well I just want to know who the power forward is in the starting five it might be I have no idea what that means so you just stand under the basket I can do that I can do that Jessica you a fool laughs well I appreciate the warm welcome from all of you um you know it's been a long time uh and you know being associated with Lawrence Township Schools I'm as uh our new president um Madam president Mustin um uh mentioned I've served on the Lawrence Township Foundation committee board for many years now and I'm looking forward to continuing to serve one thing that I do want to call out is you know this is our first meeting and the first time that I have the opportunity to think publicly all those people who had the opportunity to vote for us but not just that for the amount of people who were interested and engaged in being part of this board our competition for these seats not only were some of the classiest individuals I have ever had the privilege to meet but also people who care passionately about this District I just want to thank them publicly and put on record for uh or their their you know pushing forward and their interest in helping serve this community I hope that all those that were part of this race will continue to to do so and be part of this community and continue to further um our our kids in this District so thank you all for the warm welcome looking forward to serving this community here here very well said and Miss Dunn thank you madam president yes I would like to take a moment and just express my gratitude first of all um to this board for the incredibly warm welcome and to superintendent Smith as well as tashila thank you so much for just welcoming us and embracing us with swag and all the great stuff um I also want to extend my gratitude to you all for taking the time um to really meet with us and and share with us the wonderful work that Lawrence Township is doing um as a resident of this district for the past 25 years and a mother of children who have seen firsthand the spectacular work that is going on in our Lawrence Township Schools it is truly an honor to be able to represent this community as well as to hopefully utilize some of the strengths that I have in education um to to support those of us that are working each and every day to support the wonderful work that is happening in our schools so immense gratitude um and I cannot wait The Best is Yet to Come As they say fantastic thank you very much I I can not add very much to what everyone has said here today except happy New Year and um I I will just reiterate what a joy it is to work for Dr Smith his administration the employees of this Township to give them what they need to help our children and to work with colleagues on this board who are so deeply committed to the best outcomes for our children so thank you and happy New Year Dr Smith um Madam president and board uh Happy New Year and get ready to work okay I think people don't realize the amount of time these individuals sitting here at the desk put in uh this is the formal business part of what they do as board members they're representatives of the community not just here but in the community and extending out with our legislators our business Community they have a lot of responsibility so congratulations to those of you who were elected those of you returning we have a lot of responsibility we do because we oversee the sixteen thousand children that attend our schools and it's it's a very Noble honorable but it's a hard hard job that we have to do and I just have to remind you today is the beginning of the Indiana General Assembly which means our focus is on what happens downtown on Capitol Street and we will certainly be attuned to the needs of our students in the state of Indiana so welcome board well thank you very much our next monthly board meeting a regular board meeting will be Monday January 23rd 2023 we will start at seven o'clock there will be a few recognitions but we won't start early we'll be starting at the regular time at seven o'clock here in the boardroom that having been said meeting having been concluded do I hear a motion to adjourn second having been properly moved and seconded we are adjourned yeah like for the whole meeting yeah that's yeah that's the quickest meeting we're going to have so the district in the state of Indiana she laughs
so I'll I'll clarify so the academy principle is for the high school right and so our plan is to move forward with our academic Implement our plans and our academic academic plans and we still need to plan for 3 800 students that 38 students 100 student planning requires us to be really strategic without scheduling and it also calls for us to meet the needs of 3 800 students in the building um we can't we don't we feel strongly that if whether that person was going to be ready to open up a new a new school or whether we have to do this on one campus we still need that person in place for planning purposes and to to ready ourselves for the 24-25 school year so our thinking is to have that person in place this time next year so we would be budgeting for the 23-24 school year but on a 0.5 basis because we would not hire this person until January so this person will be here with us for uh critical planning to open up next school year plus they would be here for the second half of the Year helping and understanding how to school operates okay and that I guess kind of leads me into my overall concern about this presentation um I'd really like to see you line by line um budget with the details that you know with all of these bucket amounts broken down so that we can really see what is what's making up these figures these very just general buckets I understand so we have um three and and perhaps I should have opened with this we have three subcommittees we have two subcommittee meetings planned um and then one that I'm asking to move around to make sure curriculum committee could also have an opportunity uh so what I would like to do to suggest is the curriculum committee on 118 uh switches with our community relations committee so community relations is scheduled for 2-1 I'm sorry curriculum committee is scheduled for 2-1 and community relations Is schedule for 118 and so I would like to flip those two so that Cara can speak to the request the Staffing requests to address the enrollment gains um over these last couple of years so this will allow her to speak to enrollment Staffing and any of the items that are speaking to the budget for this year um the same goes with Mike Mike has sites and Facilities this Wednesday um on the 11th and so I've asked Mike to make sure to his um agenda he has added in budget detail talked about safety talking about technology and maintenance and other any other services that might be part of um his Department's various departments presentation and then last but not least it's the finance committee we will have another finance committee meeting before our next board meeting I believe and that is on uh 117 and for John to speak to those program needs that he talked about with utilities utilities and and I believe it was gas I believe it was propane and give the more details around those things um and so we we understand as as part of our uh budget book last year we submitted line items um if the board if the committee recalls um and we also um try to give some kind of detailed presentations in our various meetings leading up to the first so just looking back to uh last year's plan out our first meeting we gave and and that was a condensed version of our finance report if you will but the first meeting was an overview in January of the budget process the next meeting was kind of an overview of the read the budget drivers and the requests um and then we jumped in kind of the detail behind it so if you know we'd like to do something different we're happy to do so uh but we've been just kind of following kind of what we've been doing the last couple of years uh but we're happy to adjust but but I did ask uh my my three Liaisons for those committees to make sure they provide that detail in their respective areas um and then of course we'll be prepared to speak in even greater detail at all next meeting Kevin and find me I'm sure I see on Wednesday night's board meeting you're going to have a your present budget presentation uh if we could switch not switch things around but give us the line by line earlier so we have a longer time to digest form an opinion and make some hopefully suggestive comments positive comments I think waiting till the last farther out we go into the shorter period of time when you have to submit this to the city uh puts us the board at a disadvantage to help out and comment and possibly change to any direction that we may need to change okay that's right or the rod is not better for for me and just my Layman's opinion sir I I am not an accountant that's fair that that's not going to require much work for us to have it ready for Wednesday so we'll just need to make it have an adjustment which may not be ready tomorrow morning uh to post for tomorrow afternoon but we can certainly have it on Wednesday all right thank you I thank you for your efforts gentlemen thank you yes thank you to Ali I totally agree I think talking in generalities is is you know it's helpful you know we always say you know we don't want to be bogged down with the numbers and just give it to us in layman's terms which is helpful but um I really need something that supports these generalities so I I appreciate that Alex and I agree um beef before our presentation on Wednesday would be nice any other questions well I just want to clarify along with the presentation right so we'll incorporate it into the presentation the detail thank you Annette and we'll be getting the book or is the book will be forthcoming yeah right so right the book we have typically as we get closer to the 14th and we make sure the board has a representative book that the council will get um you know but we typically don't have the book as until we get closer um and have that level of detail that is going to be provided there because I think some adjustments are typically made before we go to print but I can clarify with the team well even just to have an online version so we can see what makes up these numbers right and that's what we'll have on Wednesday if we're saying the same thing okay can I also ask in in those numbers um you have the uh special needs the English Learners uh those categories I realize some of the same students are all three some are all two is there any way we can break it down to see how many total students were dealing uh with those needs I'm sorry Teri So when you say three and two I don't think I understood that um the categories the special needs categories the English is a second language like what is the total numbers um they're basic some people need to uh those categories some need what was that other category um uh was these special Teresa this is Kelly if I Kevin leaves in handicap if I remember so I think what you're asking for is the total number um and we could break that down for you for sure of the students that received special education services ESL services and free reduced lunch you're talking about our high knees populations thank you thank you yeah we can certainly do that and then what we will let you know is the total number of students that fall into individually who qualifies for those um and then who um how many are in more one or more or I should say two right just curious you know it just seems to uh it yeah that's it's getting bigger than the number it seems it definitely is yes and uh John and Kevin another thought uh I saw I remember correctly a two million dollar Esser shortfall uh well some of our other Grant items be take uh picking that up a bit or are we gonna still be at that two million dollar shortfall and grab money um well the the grant that we're going to look to uh finance that primarily is the sr3 grant okay yeah we just have to make sure the positions fit meaning that they're eligible to move that but I imagine if they were eligible in s or two they're probably eligible in sr3 the purposes of those two grants is pretty similar and once again I have to ask do we have any strategy to increase the traction on uh the state money the increase that is out a couple of years to bring it in closer like July 1.
well we we do uh we share uh the board of edge shares with the city uh the services of uh uh lobbyists uh Ryan Bingham he he's very good uh we we do look to him for advice um he'll often ask us for information as he has those conversations and he um communicates back in real time and he's talking with uh the Reps and legislators so um we could ask him what uh he thinks the best things we could do between now and the next few weeks and and see what he says possibly if you could reach out to him and maybe get back to us to see if he's encouraging or or not a lot of times um that work begins after the governor uh releases his body because it's really don't know what's going to be in it till we see it and then once we see it that's that's when it starts but let's see what he has to say and I'll I'll let you know thank you all right and I'll I will also add there is already a plan to make a reformal request to the state again and I just want to reiterate again because we advocated uh with a number of other districts last year and a joint letter to the governor's office asking to expedite or accelerate the Esser funding to districts uh like Danbury we outlined the reasons why we went to a big press conference last year that may and I on behalf the city of Danbury they were certainly not a lot of other districts there as well um our request was you know that did not make it very far but that's not going to stop us from submitting a similar request again and so the city and I have already been in discussions about uh submitting a similar request as we did last year and and hoping that this year will be a little different um but that but the same request will be forwarded again and again hoping that obviously the results will be different Kevin I believe Kate had her hand up first then Terry with number second number two okay thank you Al um Mr Walston and and uh John Mr Mr Spang I just want to thank you for the presentation this evening um I I really like the the clean look of it sort of piggybacking on what Mr Russo and Mr Laskey were saying I'm looking at like the Esser funds um summary which talks about you know these numerous positions that would have been unbudgeted or non-existent and they allowed us to perform critical functions I'm not I'm less concerned with having like a line by line um for the Wednesday meeting and and much more interested in seeing sort of like you know a short list of the positions you're talking about um to give us like a fuller picture of what it is you know you're talking about the social emotional needs you're talking about pandemic related learning loss what are the positions that we've added in that have sort of you know allowed desert funding to provide this sort of Lifeboat for our schools and that will sort of help us I think get a stronger picture of um you know what what we need to focus on keeping for our kids um so just kind of taking that approach with with all of the um the slides here just to have like you know if you're making reference to positions or you're making reference to you know um under the equivalent services yeah the equipment and services you know the equipment and services there like you know if you can talk about some of the specifics in that section I think that would really go a long way to help us understand what it is we're looking at because I'll be honest with you sometimes when I look at the line item list um I have to go back and pull out the budget from previous year to sort of do a side-by-side comparison and that does get a little confusing so I would rather just have a sense of what it is you guys are specifically talking about all right okay that's true Thanksgiving give us both thank you Jerry you're up um it was at the soup meeting Uh Kevin you said that we got six hundred thousand dollar Grant yes from this was it the state yes I just thought that was a good chunk of money what did we do um the 650 000 is planned oh gosh seriously I'm sorry you caught me off guard Kelly do you remember how we playing that money I know we had outlined some things through Cara's office I don't remember and which specific one because there was more the latest the latest 650 000 Grant coming from the state oh yes that I'm sorry because I was I'm not sure I wasn't sure if you were referring to one of the previous Sr ones um that one we are working on um working towards additional uh trainings to build uh to launch our literacy program and also some additional social emotional support so those were the um to we're actually working on still finalizing the submission for that um but those are the two Focus areas predominantly in the ground right and and conditions of the grant so the the conditions of the grant were postcovid um recovery and those were identified areas both the reading um as well as the um social emotional needs of kids which is why those two main areas were um picked to focus on and help support our population thank you any other questions Rachel thanks um and going back to the um the the reallocating funds um pre-buying services for the next fiscal year are we is that legal are we allowed to do that I mean how so the uh board of education has complete autonomy or control over its operating budget um and there's uh absolutely nothing wrong with ordering uh things in May and June to be used in September many districts do that as a procedure just to make sure that they're here on time um so there's no reason not to it the reason places don't do it is is they don't have the available money to do it primarily okay did you touch upon some examples of what those Services would be and today uh it'll mostly be the uh first year of our one-to-one Chromebook replacement uh program you know many of those Chromebooks that we got some came for free from the state others came with the very first cares act sr1 as it's sometimes looked back on now but now that we have them and you know we need to manage them and then the the second piece is The copier replacement program that we need to begin uh I think that's a six-year program um and we'd be doing one-sixth of our our need there may be so there very well could be some other things as well um we haven't uh completely identified what could come uh so that that's what's in there so far so is that in addition to the additional 1 million for those things no that that is the one million we would spend one million dollars for Chromebook replacements in June after making a operating budget transfer from vacant positions primarily para educators okay okay thank you any other questions ladies gentlemen Citywide PTO at 6 30.
I would take a motion to adjourn Teresa a motion to adjourn all right I'm sorry Mr Russo close out with a couple things please my apologies sir and no no no no please um so I just want to thank everyone for the feedback on this meeting um as I had shared with the team um is really important to our overall process we will incorporate the updates as um as we heard them this evening um and get them in I don't anticipate we'll have them better close the business tomorrow all of them but we will have them by Wednesday morning and we'll be able to post the updates uh to the presentation so I appreciate the feedback and we'll make sure that that level of detail that the committee was asking for has been Incorporated so I appreciate it thank you sir oh thank you thanks Mr last call Terry Kate Louisa Michelle Julie Josh Paul George Ringo anyone have any final questions I don't have a question I just want to make a quick comment based on the budget did you guys um um you guys uh them you need to replace some of the equipment such as copiers in general have you thought about listen those equipments sometimes still they come up um a lot cheaper than buying I mean it's just a suggestion I'm not sure how much is a copier machine but maybe if you list them might be saving some money on that yeah one of the most common ways that schools and and cities and towns Finance uh copiers and printers is uh through leasing but it's uh lease purchasing it's it's more akin to uh installment contract where at the end of uh five years you there's a dollar buyout if you want it or not um so uh and there are the state has has bid many machines that way so we'll we'll be looking at those uh very very carefully great thank you ladies and gentlemen once again all right uh I want to thank Mr walson Mr Spang Mr Miranda Mr selig uh Kelly yeah I know okay I was looking at going down my list to make sure I didn't forget anybody right uh you know Kelly and and Dr casimero and everyone for attending tonight and and our esteemed Council uh Kim Thompson is he smiling but you've been quiet Happy New Year to all so I would I would like to make this motion to adjourn and I will probably see you all in a virtual world in a few more minutes so moved all right so be it if not maybe we'll see each other live Wednesday night okay great
games yeah um today oh yeah foreign got your phone specifically um [Music] thank you everybody's attention thanks for everybody for being here appreciate it uh just as a reminder this is a board meeting and to remind everybody to stay polite and cordial uh and allow us to run a meeting and get things done um if you did sign up for the public forum the same rules apply as before um five minutes time limit stay professional stay polite and those that are listening please allow them to say what they need to say agree or disagree with it they did sign up for that time and they they deserve the opportunity to speak like anyone else and so we were going to get started I'll call a meeting to order and the first on the list is election of officers so it starts with president if there is any nominations for that Brad I'd like to dominate you thank Brad I've done a very good job being fair and partial capacity around her difficult situations uh thank you any other nominations to Tamara doading any other nominations for president so I guess I'm not sure how to Hershey nominations you need a motion nomination cease and then you need to vote for each candidate majority gets the majority will become the next president so entertain a motion uh to receive nominations for president hello Chad sorry Josh [Laughter] [Music] better raise your hand motion passes okay so we will start out in the order of nominations so start with me so all in favor of myself being the president raise your hand that's two and Tim [Music] which means okay we will follow that with nominations for vice president foreign [Music] foreign [Music] excuse me Roger is clarifying that was a no okay thank you okay and moving on to approval of the Dairy Bar they're like to add item 13.
activities throughout our district including just to name a few cross country the musical student council and the dance team Aubrey not only follows school-wide expectations of being safe responsible and respectful but also exceeds those expectations in all areas of our building Aubry is an inclusive helpful and driven student she comes to school with so much spirit always bringing her a games you should see her on our spirit days Aubrey Hopkins is the true definition of what it means to be a big Hollow Warrior so I get that I get the privilege of telling them when they get the award and I had Aubry called down to my office and and she walked in and I go don't worry you're not in trouble she goes I didn't think so because I'm a good student so it's pretty funny but she uh she definitely appreciated the honor that uh her with her teachers nominating her so congratulations Aubry let's get a quick picture here with all of us here here come on over here let's move this yep I'm good you're good you sure thank you congrats congrats [Applause] all right so now we have uh our employee of the month and this month we're sharing between two so if I could call uh Jose Ramirez and uh Martha Gonzalez uh [Applause] Aubry as well we do have a plaque coming so there'll be a plaque coming so uh but I'm gonna let Derek swederski talk a little bit about why uh he nominated both uh Jose and Martha and I can also speak to the fact that these two do an outstanding job for us and our facilities team they're just amazing uh always have great attitudes they're what you would they're model employees for us but I want to specifically have Derek talk to you about why they were nominated so yeah um last year we had an event um it was a sporting event and there was a individual that lost a large sum of money large sum of money it wasn't an envelope with a check and some other stuff we looked couldn't find it looked all over um year went by we were setting up for an event um a couple about a month ago about a month ago and they were pulling the bleachers out and they were cleaning underneath the bleachers and they found the envelope without hesitation they didn't like take it and run to the bank or anything like that they went to the front office um gave it to the front office ladies the office ladies were able to find out who it was the lady came in was so very appreciative of these two for you know being you know honest and trustworthy and not taking the money that I've never seen somebody so happy um Jose and Martha are amazing employees um very loyal very trustworthy very hard working and they'll never say that's not my job they bend over backwards for this place and I'm honored to have them here so thank you guys for all the hard work you do [Applause] and last last but not least we have four softball players we want to honor this month for achieving Straight A's in all their classes while participating in softball it's not an easy feat so I'm going to call them up oh I forgot how I'm trying to quit quit Kaylee Cuellar let's get over here okay she's absent all right Nila Johnson [Applause] Katie Gardner back again this month and then uh Kaylee Brooke is Kayla Brook here yes Kelly's here I didn't see her thank you and that'll conclude our recognitions feel free to stay if you'd like but you don't have to foreign okay all right board member code of conduct review I'll just read it I'll represent all School District constituents honestly and equally and refuse to surrender my responsibilities to special interest or partisan political anybody any questions on the consent agenda please have a motion approve the consent agenda motion thank you Doug and Gary yes Peter yes yes do we have any public comments superintendent's report Mr Gold thank you um I just want to jump in real quick I know we just approved consent agenda I wanted to point out that Transportation building grounds committee meeting there are uh if you have any questions on that uh agenda I shared report just let me know I can there's a few we talked about a lot of stuff there there's some projects we're looking at that we're trying to tie into a grant this spring so nothing nothing there is committing any Financial output yet we're going to try to put in a grant I do have we did approve two things that committee wanted me to move forward two things that we do have in the budget one is a facility assess facility security assessment so somebody is going to uh school security expert is coming on campus in the next week or two that's going to basically spend a day here and and go through all of our buildings watch our procedures they're going to test some things out and they're going to provide a a report on any holes they think we might have in security so we thought that was a good idea for this year and then we're having Architects come in next Monday to do a facility study uh to give us a five to ten year plan for the board uh to know what we need to look for in our building improvements the next 10 years all of our HVAC equipment all that stuff they're going to go through everything so I just want you to know that was on the radar um with my reports I'm going to start with a um sorry we're gonna bite up Mr Cornwell and Miss walls we're going to talk about a field trip to Puerto Rico that they are in this walls is planning so I'm gonna let her share a little bit we have it as an exhibit I think it's exhibit seven in your packet so miss Walsh would you like to speak a little bit Mr Mr Cornwall either what don't look at that you can you can turn it around just face the board yeah never sure who I'm talking to yeah um so I'm going to hand it over to to Mrs Wallace here in a minute because for any of you that know anything about Mrs walls you know she's a phenomenal teacher um in addition to being a member of the community and she is you know one of the easiest people for me to manage I wouldn't even use that term but she is the person who comes to me and says here's an idea and I have it all fleshed out and do you approve so I get problems presented to me all day and Annie's like here's a solution here's something additional that we can offer to our kids that we're not currently and I have everything worked out and are you okay with it and it's like she she's she makes my job easy so I think it's a fantastic opportunity for our kids and she's put in a lot of work looking into it and collecting all the relevant information obviously if there's more information you guys need we can get that for you but I'm going to hand it over to her and let her explain the trip okay I'm very short okay all right so um thank you for the introduction Josh I just thought I would start a little bit with an introduction to our program just briefly for those of you who may not know I teach fifth sixth seventh and eighth grade Spanish fifth and sixth graders take the trimester of Spanish either in fifth or sixth grade and then they have the opportunity going into seventh grade to sign up for all year Spanish all of our other electives are semester based but because it's a language we have all of seventh grade and all of eighth grade available to the students to take it's designed as a two-year program and many of my students I would say almost all of them continue from seventh grade into eighth grade so this opportunity would be for my 8th graders that are currently seventh graders a little bit of background on why this trip has come about it's something that I've always been thinking of doing I've done a lot of traveling I've been to several Spanish-speaking countries that's kind of my thing it's my passion we spent three and a half years prior to me teaching at Big Hollow living in Panama down in Central America and that was an experience that you know just changed me and really shaped my life so giving something like this to our students would be really incredible I was approached by Mari Anto Maria I believe is how you say her last name she's a Spanish teacher in the Salem School District Dr King had connected us and she came to observe some of the curriculum that I'm using in our classes and she approached me asking if I'd want to go in on this trip together and kind of plan it all together she has done trips before and I thought that was a great opportunity for me who's traveled but never with students to kind of jump in with someone who's a little bit experienced I included a lot of information Josh could tell you I talk a lot but I don't want to talk too much for you all but I did include kind of a rationale a formal rationale explaining the benefits um how it really ties into our District's mission and vision for our students and um and yeah I think it would be a great opportunity for our students um it would really build upon what they've done in our class grow their proficiency give them a deeper understanding of the culture that they've been studying many of my students plan to go on and continue in high school so it really just gives them a more solid base of a cultural understanding adding this first-hand experience will expose them to a different culture they may not have been exposed to and a new place will open their minds about how how people live someplace else how they work in this other place what it looks like what their houses are like I can share all of that with them in class and I do and we investigate that and really experience a culture in class but doing that as a first-hand experience is very confidence building and empowering for students and that's one of the biggest things that came out of my time living in Panama it was just over and over again every time I accomplished something using the language or was put into a situation where I had to negotiate with the culture there differences or the language differences or barriers and it was really empowering and I think that would be really beneficial to our students to experience at such a young age and really open their eyes to a more world view good so all the information is in your packet do you have any questions for Annie that come came up as you read through it so I haven't surveyed parents yet because I didn't want to get all of my students excited and then not have the approval um Mari the other teacher already has eight uh families interested students and then I think some a parent because of the younger age we I believe we're planning to open it up to a parent traveling as well I'd still like to keep the focus really on the school aspect and the bonding with the students with their peers but I think it would be beneficial to allow you know open it up a little bit to allow parents to go just not having it turn into like us so we have 25 kids in the class we have I have roughly like 22 and 23 so around 45 kids total I my own kid would be in the class at that age and he would definitely go um so there's one and I suspect that I would have quite a few families interested um I have I outlined in the packet that I gave you some fundraising opportunities I met with Bob and we talked a little bit about kind of what I called work to earn to help the students raise the money for their trip I spoke with Cindy Horan as well she's like the master fundraiser right with BTO so she's helping me brainstorm some ideas as well and I also was exploring a little bit more on the website they just opened up our our portion of the website that parents would see as well and there seems like there are some opportunities for students to get financial assistance which would be really awesome I'm going to look into grants as well things that we can help our families to make it Equitable for all students to have the opportunity to be part of is a certain oh yes yeah so for every six paying kids um one person is free so the first two people would be the other teacher and myself and then the remainder of that Mari and I are still discussing it but we'd like to take obviously another chaperone if we have a large group of students but we can split that free spot as a discount among all of the students I spoke with Robin who's our consultant asking her some questions about how does the fundraising work if we fundraise you know let's say we're selling candy at the volleyball games how do I get that money to you so it doesn't get messy and she said they have an entire system set up for all of that this is something a lot of schools have done explore because one of the top I would say three companies that teachers use to travel abroad so they've got everything thought out and really organized chaperones are there to have kids on the trip like this um well so for every six kids there's a free adult so technically if we don't split that out for discounts for students every six kids we would have another so that would be one to six really I mean is that what your goal is um I would think at least one chaperone for me and if Mari has a chaperone as well so we'd have a four adults with you know roughly 20 something 30 kids um I would love to spread the wealth a little bit among the kids I wouldn't want to just take every single free spot these are kits that I've been teaching since fifth or sixth grade so I feel really comfortable with them we have a good rapport report so I think it's there's Behavior contracts that they sign it's their their parents sign it as well so I'm not concerned about um you know I'm not worried about the student to teacher ratio I have 28 in my seventh grade class right now and we do great so I'm um based on the information that they gave me it said that there would be triples or quads so three or four kids I believe everything is based on you know like the girls would stay with the girls the boys would stay with the boys they actually have included in the price and everything um they call it like a nighttime security chaperone so that we can sleep as teachers and not worry all night that somebody might you know get out um so that I think is really great for us to you know I can set that worry down for a little bit at night make sure I'm not losing anyone someone else is in charge of that they I included the um I reached out and got this the liability and insurance information I think is what I'm not I don't know the insurance kind of legal stuff but I included all that in the board packet and there's a lot more information that I can provide as well from online if there's anything else that you would like I just have one it looked like this the trip was in June of 24 so after they graduate yes so it would be June 10th to 15th of so that we wouldn't be missing any school days does it um [Music] do you know when they start their summer school classes so those kids would need to know do we have the day the summer school they usually start as soon as we're done with school okay yeah yeah because that's like two years yeah but they typically have started as soon as we're done it's usually like a week so that would be probably the first oh true so that might be their first or second week so it's basically one full week that they would miss um I'm hopeful that we could work with the teachers at Grant to allow them I mean they're coming back with this amazing uh experience there's actually I was looking uh when she opened up the whole online platform for us um there's an opportunity for students to get high school credit if they do I'm not sure I haven't looked all the way through but there's something that they can do some kind of report I'm guessing or you know papers more with the trip when they get back to earn extra credit for high school or college speaking for myself I know Brody loves your class and loves you and um I but if he's going to play sports in high school he has to take summer school so I would hate for him because once you play if you you get you know he wouldn't get a study hall unless he takes summer school classes and um I would I would hate for him if something could be worked out I think it would be great for a lot of those kids I know a lot of the kids that are in class with him are in the same boat he's in um so I think that would be really nice if something could be worked out I don't know why I have I have quarterly articulation meetings with Grant High School okay and we also are working on putting a meeting together Annie wanted to talk to their their SP um their Spanish Department specifically about the entrance exam so we already have a meeting that we're working on scheduling so we can definitely talk about it at that time but one of those meetings I think it's a great idea a great opportunity for the kids thank you for bringing that up that is not something I even thought of and since we're so early in the planning stages that's something we can definitely talk with the high school about and not surprise them within may like oh wait we have all these kids that want to leave summer school for a week so Kevin you bring up and they do their trips over spring break yes if we if we pull the liabilities all covered in the in the plan we're still agreeing to the same liability contract I'll double check on that Gary too I'm pretty sure we're good question is so the cost the total cost listed here as they do fundraising or whatever does that number can then be reduced or come down or yes so I when I talk to Rob and our consultant about the fundraising so there's a couple different options um I'm planning to have a pending approval I'm planning to have a parent meeting on January 19th um I double checked there's no other sports and things going on at our school East that night and if parents sign up by February 7th they have the 75 discount it's not a ton but it's something um they can reserve their child's spot for fifty dollars and then that will put them into a monthly payment deduction kind of system that Explorer has explorca has all set up so it divides from basically starting in February all the way through June when the trip happens which really breaks it down to make it much more affordable they can also pay in full immediately and there's a third option where they can pay a they're fifty dollars and then split it into two other payments um with the fundraising it sounds like whatever money we fundraise we would just then give to explore cut and they they handle all of the payments and the parents Financial all of that stuff that doesn't go through us at all and then they would go through and reimburse the parents however much their child had earned through the fundraising some of the fundraising options I tried to put on there so you could see some of them are fundraising that would be more whole group kind of like a no cook night or 50 50 raffle that would benefit all the students equally and then Bob shared the idea of kind of the work to earn type fundraiser so students babysitting for concerts or meeting nights other different things that they could do that would be more they would feel it personally like if I go babysit some of the kids in the district at our school for an hour then I earn you know x amount towards my trip so they they can really kind of get that hard-working what is um what's the cancellation policy I mean a lot can happen yeah so there's different um I guess like trip insurance insurances that the Pam the families can add one of them starts at like 16 a day or something there's another one that's even higher um I did not look a ton into the insurance options because it looked pretty standard like trip coverage um that's something I could look more into to share when it says 16 a day deeper like per their travel day so it would be our trip is six days so yeah um it definitely looks like they have some some things built in um and I would imagine things like that have come up before with this company being so yeah uh prevalent and used so frequently do we have any liability insurance to cover if they go down there in the trip operator all its operation now we need to get back the entire group of students to Chicago I'll have to check what's our responsibilities is now a Big Hollow trip yeah okay I'll check on that I believe they have I think their policy said they have 50 million in liability and it said um I think there was something if there was like a medical uh you know emergency something that would happen that they have coverage to fly the student to the states if needed they pay them I'm just trying to think what's our backup plan if I think this company is huge I know they do the high school Spanish trip yeah to Spain that's been going on for 20 years yeah I don't have any I mean this is a it's reputable this is a flight company I have backup plans in place they work with vetted tour guides so I can tell you like for example if you've ever been on a cruise we booked our um Excursion for cheaper not with the cruise and we showed up and the guy's snorkel boat was like not there and so we just you know it didn't work out we didn't get to go but I think this would be more like the Align along the lines of you booked it through the cruise the cruise ship says oh that guy's boat's not working today but we're responsible for this we're gonna find somebody else so it's not like things would get canceled or you know they would just they would make sure it based on everything that I've read they make sure the trip happens as planned they have multiple people that they work with there to make sure that everything goes as much as you can planned is this something you plan to do annually yeah so that's something that Josh and I um throughout a little bit um especially because knowing that I'm not going to go until those students are already in summer starting summer of eighth grade my seventh graders next year um I would be needing to start pitching this and helping them raise their money and everything so that's something that I'm still kind of thinking about ideally I would love to make this trip every year with my students um if if it gets to be something that's really stressful or a lot to do every year I think I could combine possibly and have seventh and eighth grade go together one of the things that I put in the planning on the planning page was that um that the students need to be students that took Spanish in seventh and eighth grade I don't think we want our program to be flooded with students in seventh grade who take Spanish just to take the trip to Puerto Rico which is awesome and then are not really there because they have a passion for learning the language you know so I want to make sure that we're kind of balancing things out also I think that could create a really large amount of students possibly um so yeah so for right now I think every year as long as it goes well it's exciting but you know it's it's exciting and a little scary but exciting so I would just need a motion to approve it if the board is okay with it okay please have a motion to prove the 2324 field trip to Puerto Rico for the great Spanish class second yeah all in favor any opposed I just have it thank you all right thank you oh my gosh thank you so much I really appreciate you putting your faith in me and and everything that we're gonna do good luck can't wait to be great we're back it's gonna be good yeah yeah we'll have to have you report back next oh I will I will definitely we'll arrange something Spotlight right there yeah yeah yay thank you so much everyone yeah the next item actually uh Mr Cornwell stay up there's uh he's gonna give you an update on eighth grade graduation yeah so obviously over the last couple of years graduation has looked a variety of different ways because of kovid um and I think that doing it different ways we've learned some things that we liked and other things that we didn't so I wanted to get some feedback from stakeholders to figure out what kind of celebration ceremony I guess we wanted to have going forward so I did survey parents and I also surveyed students parents actually suggested that we survey the students and I thought that was a good idea so for parents we had 161 families respond out of 203 roughly 8th grade families so really good response rate and almost 60 percent said they wanted a traditional ceremony so the survey offered traditional ceremony basically McHenry Outdoor Theater what was done previously or a hybrid of the two so ceremony here and then go over there to watch the the slideshow and like I said almost 60 percent of parents said that they wanted the traditional ceremony and then students excuse me it was over 50 as well so I did have an initial meeting with uh eighth grade parents who volunteered to help with planning right before break and that meeting evolved from let's talk about ceremony to let's talk about all the things we do for eighth grade so it's it's becoming a a big thing but um the the most important part is that we did decide that we're gonna have a traditional ceremony we're still exploring possibly uh using other locations aside from here so I've got we've got some calls out to a couple of different um facilities to see if we could have it elsewhere so that we don't have to have tickets or have an overflow room for streaming yet and there's a lot to plan but we are confident that the majority for students and and parents would like a traditional ceremony so we were returning to that and then um there was talk about a slideshow presentation and that's something that will still be included it'll just be part of the uh the traditional eighth grade lunch so Best of Both Worlds cool all right and we have great technology here looking at UMass over there can we do something this year where we actually live stream it on on our YouTube feed for all the family members who can attend or out of town yeah I haven't talked to Matt about that yet but yes I would I would like to be able to do that all right thanks thanks Mr Cornwell thank you good shape there any other questions any questions on that all right thank you uh next item is approving the calendar for 23.24 I put together drafts of the calendar I share it with the administration team and then I uh share also with the Union leadership as per our contract they have input on that and uh so I share with them this calendar actually very much mimics the current school year calendar um we what's that it doesn't mimic this year's I I don't know why we brought the kids back for a day and a half after winter break oh I didn't even realize that I was like I would have never oh let's realize that I mean we have a so we're with the winter break we're kind of stuck because we have to line up at least unless we want to vary from it but we've always lined up with Grant and great they do something stupid like that then we could just we met like line up with the brakes and spring break s the winter break and spring break is where I line up with them and they're where we're stuck is uh they're lined up with Tech campus so the whole anybody who feeds into Tech campus has to have the same calendar as all those kids go there so that that's the only thing on the calendar we've not ever varied from but I'm I'm willing to if it goes crazy it's changed for the first year next year worked out okay yeah the start of the Year Grant usually starts a couple weeks earlier than us because they have uh they get their semester done before Christmas break full winter break I did reach out to Gavin and Fox Lake to see when their start dates are because I know this year there was um for for us we felt like I know I know our start date's a little later but uh We've we've done different things where we started on a Monday with kids and or middle of the week with kids it for the beginning of the year it really has worked out best for our staff and our students if we don't start the kids on a Monday because that's a big transition first week so we bring in staff on a Monday we do a few days training and then we bring in the kids as a little start and then the next week is the full go um that has worked out pretty well with transition for kids from Summer to school so that's what we did this year again it seemed to work well Fox Lake and Gavin haven't set their first days yet Fox Lakes did tell me that they're they're probably going to be around the same day that we're looking possibly they're not sure but it'd be either the 24th she said or they could go as early as 17th but they were thinking 24th so anyway everything is the the same as far as the flow of the calendar with this year and and next year other than that winter break not having the split week yeah so my I emailed you earlier my only concern was it seems like we do start a week later than other surrounding districts um and then I know with the younger kids what we ran into is almost all of the summer programs and on August 4th oh okay so you're looking at yeah two and a half weeks of child care you've got to find and then when the high school goes back the week before that really puts parents with two yeah see I just didn't know why we didn't start at the same time as Grant if like we were to start on the 17th which I think Grant actually will start I have to I actually have that tell you give me a second Grant actually probably start earlier than 17.
and you're working with at least 26 students faced their providers 46 students within fasc how much rain have you had you're doing your higher high school teacher with five periods of food surf classes classified as 20 30.
foreign am I on I am good afternoon everyone okay 6 30 we'll go ahead and get started I'd like to start tonight's session with the Pledge of Allegiance so if you're able if you want mind Rising foreign I enjoyed those little voices back there that was heartwarming thank you okay uh tonight I think Mr MacGyver will kick us off with um we have four uh board members with us who were recently elected at each your tables you should have a couple of sheets of paper that say oath of all the volume you will go through those you'll see that they have the statement on them which is the oath so if you consider yourself under oath that is saying that you solemnly swear to support the Constitution of the United States the state of Indiana and will Faithfully discharge your duties so each of you will need to sign off on those and return them to me and then I believe we want to get some photos of everyone this evening for the website foreign once every four years I'm not sure that counts here the credit for better memories foreign [Music] yes please thank you thank you thank you okay just for everybody's sake so Mr McIver is our general counselor for our school board and went through the Oaths of office for each of our new school board members they have signed those and so are now in a place where I think we can have a school board meeting so we had a majority of people who actually weren't sworn in yet so our three brand new members are Dylan Allen Logan Schultz and Jason Major General welcome to the school board and then Mr stinner Rich has been on the board for a couple of few terms it is starting uh again here this year so we appreciate their willingness to run for office get involved in this very important process and again all of you congratulations and welcome to the school board foreign board members here uh we have a determination of Quorum and meeting will be called to to order okay um next order of business is to elect a temporary chairperson do I have any nominations for a temporary chairperson for the meeting MS wielton thank you I have a nomination for Nikki Wilden are there any other nominations okay all those in favor say aye aye is opposed okay Nick you want to step in just for a second if I may because that may be confusing from a temporary chairperson standpoint which you can see here because of the change over the board and officers that were previously here not necessarily all of them here and this is a meeting where you elect new officers and so without a chairperson we did need to place a temperature person in place and now we will go through the election of the officers here in just a moment yeah okay um so you can see always as a reminder we try to keep our who and wow Mission Vision and core beliefs in front of us as we hold our meeting um first item on the agenda is the formal election of officers for January 2023 for the remainder of the calendar year um do I have any nominations from the board Madam president you can call on me okay I for president uh Nikki vice president unlike Richard and for secretary Todd thank you Mr Bryant do I have any other nominations yeah for vice president I would like to nominate Logan Schultz thank you so we will go um we will do we'll vote on each position separately since there are multiple nominations so we'll start with president Mr Bryant nominated Nikki wheeldon as president of the school board all of those in favor say aye all right well there's a post okay thank you next we have nominations for Mr Stenner and Mr Schultz we'll start with a vote for Mr Stenner for vice president of school board all of those in favor say aye aye all of those in favor of Mr Schultz right you can tell this is my first time right okay although it is in favor of Mr Schultz for vice president um say aye aye aye okay so I believe we have five for Mr Stenner two for Mr Schultz Mr stunner congratulations your vice president okay and then for the position of secretary we have a nomination for Mr Grimes all of those in favor of Mr Graham's for secretary please say aye all of those opposed okay congratulations Mr Grimes this is your new board thank you all for your faith in us this is a little thanks for that Mr McIver any any differences there everything okay in terms of the process thank you okay appreciate it thank you okay next order of business today do we have any when I interrupt you just one second again here and just pass these down to those individuals uh so Mr Grimes if you want to slide that into your placard in front uh Miss Wilden here is one and then it's dinner as well okay thank you now I'm not sure of myself okay I've screwed up twice in two minutes am I okay you're good okay and we're good all right so now we will move on to school board member reports do we have anything from the audience from the board oh board accommodations never mind next we have board commendations that's where Todd shines please go ahead [Music] um I've uh probably got the shortest list perhaps I've ever had but uh two quick accommodations here this evening the first to Elvis Santa Claus and Betty the elf Dr Roberts Fred Armstrong and Josh Burnett for their 2022 happy holidays video and I I would only guess that I probably was not the only one that was entertained by it as I as I noticed it had lots more views than the previous happy holiday videos from bcsc and second uh Kudos accommodations to the Bulldog Pantry coordinator at Columbus North High School Tanya Cruiser I know this was a front page story on the Republic uh on January 3rd but just before Christmas Mrs Cruiser created a social media drive to raise money to pay off student lunch accounts with a negative balance across the district and in just a couple of days that drive was able to accumulate just under six thousand dollars and pay off all negative balances for student lunches across the district and when I talked to Mrs Cruiser of course she was quick to deflect credit to the generosity and willingness to give of all those that donated to the cause and and this is something that they did back in 2019 pre-covered using funds that already existed in the pantries account but this this drive was uh set up to take off from ground zero and uh you know it's just something Mrs Cruiser said she wanted to do since I believe it was the last two school years free school or free meals across the board for students that went away this year so thank you very much to uh to to Mrs Cruz and it's Cruiser at North in her efforts yes Mr Hill I'm not exactly sure how this works but commendations to Joe Steele at CSA new tech Mr Steele's creative writing class helped promote the Columbus disc golf club's efforts to get a disc golf course installed in a Columbus Park they helped promote a disc golf disc golf to me it's frisbee golf but tournament on a temporary course at Donner Park the students created a promotional flyer and the design of the discs used as Awards thanks to their contribution the tournament was a success it was announced just last week that the parks department has ordered 10 disc golf baskets to be installed at Donner Park for a permanent course to be enjoyed free to the public so thank you Joe Steele and his students commendations I'm going to try to not sound biased on this one but accommodations to Brad Branham the north math department chair the north Mass League after three rounds is three rounds of a six round tournament is in second place in the Statewide contest and when I asked Mr Branham how many students so far it's involved 198 students this year and commendations to Jennifer Hester and Dan Marsh student assembly sponsors at North High School working with students and staff they collected about 9 000 cans for the winter can drive they distributed meals and groceries to 145 families and provided additional food to love chapel and the bulldog pantry and finally commendations to Tim lacks Autumn Bowen and Becky Yates in the Counseling Center at Northside Middle School according to principal Evan Burton Mr LAX dean of students completes his work with calm confidence he goes above and beyond to help students navigate middle school expectations and to collaborate with colleagues to meet the needs of all students both behaviorally and academically Ms Bowen 7th grade counselor has worked tires tirelessly to transition students into a new building she goes the extra mile to meet the needs of her students by communicating with staff and family Mrs Yates the eighth grade counselor has been a positive addition to the north side staff she has constantly she has a constantly upbeat demeanor and is willing to take on new challenges to best serve her students she is dedicated to her students and their families and maintains high expectations for all so accommodations to Tim lacks Autumn Bowen and Becky Yates the others since our meeting uh December 12th there have been a ton of holiday programs Dr Roberts even has some photos up here Christmas programs celebrating a lot of them celebrating musical arts and commendations to all the teachers and adult volunteers to help pull these programs together at a special time of year kind of the end of the semester but also holiday celebration thank you to all those folks I I don't know what the process is for this but when I have been out there in a seat I've noticed that Mr Grimes often has four pages worth of accommodations which shows that he's very linked and attached to the schools I be new obviously don't have all those connections yet so I don't have any accommodations tonight but what my request would be is is if we could find a way to possibly create a process that as board members we each connect to two schools or three schools that we would for one quarter work with that school for each board meeting to identify commendations for athletic academic and staff accommodations that we would work with those principles from the schools that we would be the liaison for often we hear from some of the same schools and there are some schools out there that are underrepresented and so I know Mr Grimes covers a lot of ground and I think if the rest of us were able to each take a school or two that would help get some coverage it also it would be a concern that if we came in here with the same thing multiple times where I might have a list and somebody else has used up all mine so um I I don't know what the process is for doing that moving forward if we just all kind of have a handshake agreement now that we just take schools and then give you the schools up later but uh that I just think that would give a little better coverage to all the schools thank you for the suggestion I think we'll take that offline and work that separately um as long as we're talking about processes so many years ago when I was a new teacher at Central Middle School I don't remember what the Commendation was for but I got a little card in my mailbox that said I had been commended by the school board and I think somewhere along the line we might have stopped the process of actually notifying formally the people that we do come in and so I would be in favor of doing whatever we can to make sure that the word isn't just here but it gets back to the people okay good good thank you um okay any others I'm going to give accommodation all the teachers that got out of bed this morning and dealt with all of those children who have not slept enough the night before so everybody who is in a classroom with kids today probably deserves our our thanks it would be my guess based on my kids reports okay we don't have to send all of them cards no yeah yeah okay um so so next and in the interest of um of just kind of going through the agenda making sure we all understand what each agenda item means we'll go through school school board member reports so I have a list in front of me I won't go through it of all of the different committees that school board members are allocated to and those committees and various organizations have meetings throughout the year we attend those and then this is the opportunity for you to kind of just summarize any key points for many of those meetings so for new board members you wouldn't have been part of the committee so you won't have anything to share today for existing board members if there's been any meetings we'll share those and then the process will be that over the course of the next two weeks we will reallocate board members to these various committees and we'll actually make those appointments in our next meeting on January 23rd is is the idea okay so I would just add to that Miss Wilden so again thinking about how our policies and so forth are bcse policy is for the president actually of the board to appoint members then out to the various committees and so again to to Ms wilden's Point here we have a list of all these committees would love to have them in place tonight and jumping on and getting ready for the next meeting but important to get the officers established make sure that we have the president in place now and now Mr Wilson you can reach out with that list of committees which is about what we got 11 or 12 I think that are that are there that we have appointments some of those are required by Statute others are just that have been asked so for example the iupuc board of advisors IUPAC asks us to put a person on the board the library asks for appointments uh from from us for the board of a variety of others so the high ability group is a the broad-based planning committee is a statutory requirement that we have a board member on there so just a little bit of information as we're working through that process thank you so are there any school board member reports Mr Grimes thank you um yeah I was able had the chance to attend uh the legislative Action Network webinar host today hosted by the Indiana school boards Association just last Thursday on the 5th um during the webinar the executive director of the isba Terry Spradlin says that uh as usual he would anticipate in the ballpark of 150 to 200 proposed bills this this long session if you will in regards to K-12 education during the webinar we also Revisited the 10 legislative priorities that have been identified by the isba and we also had a discussion about what the governor has proposed to this point and anyone particularly school board members or anyone that's interested who has never visited the school board association website I would encourage them to do so it's it's full of all kinds of good information it's it's kind of a One-Stop shop if you will in terms of bills K-12 bills this session bills as they are introduced where they're at who the authors are it's it's chock full of good information and so just recently I've emailed contacted both representative Lauer and Senator Walker just to let them know slash remind them of the highest legislative priorities for the school boards Association and have also invited them to lunch February 21st for the School Board Association day at the State House last year representative Lauer was very gracious came to lunch Dr shed and I were able to have a very good conversation with them and when we went back to the State House Senator Walker came out and had a very good productive conversation again with Dr shed and I at the state house and and we hope that both of those gentlemen will join us again this year and on a side note I would also encourage anybody that's interested to visit the State's new dashboard in terms of school accountability that was just launched in December uh I think probably they would be the first to admit it has a lot it's a work in progress and there's a lot to be done to tidy things up but I would say it is a step in the right direction in terms of holding schools accountable for more than just a test score on a certain given day so uh and that's Indiana gps.doe.in.gov by the way so that is it thank you Mr Brian or Mr Stenner yeah Council for Youth Development Heather Carson who I think many of us knew was the executive director of the council has left that position families relocated out of the community of a new executive director is Sarah Dunlap and if you're not on that newsletter mailing list Council for Youth Development I easy to sign up and then you get the updates from Brittany gray so and then there was a Bartholomew County Redevelopment Commission meeting today so that team has about 400 Acres kind of up in the Edinburgh area that they're working with a Redevelopment commission to try to bring businesses and things in so they meet a few times a year they're just starting to grow their funds they have a little over a hundred thousand dollars in the bank now so their funds are growing today they brought in a Financial Services Group and entered into a contract with them to help them manage the funds and disbursement of that and then they also elected their new officer so Dan Arnold as president Dwayne heinz's VP and George Morales as secretary okay all right um if there are another member reports we'll move on to Cabinet reports I think Mr Phillips you start herself and there's something unique about this next report Dr Everest you want to maybe yes it is Miss Wilton thank you so um the board of Finance meeting does have to occur in the month of January so a statutory requirement for us we have Mr Phillips put all the information that is also statutorily required together for us and then there does need to be an assignment of officers and the default for that based on what is needed here would be the board president and board secretary for our Board of Finance thank you and good evening once per year we review what is Dr Roberts just shared with you referred to as the board of Finance essentially we don't maintain a separate board you all are the board of Finance each year as you will the only approval tonight even close to being related to one of the three reports that aims the rates at there's an entity at the state level run by the U.S I'm Sorry by the state treasurer's office called trust Indiana and they pull State local cities towns School corporations monies together and invest those for you whenever their rates are advantageous for us I consider moving money over there but we didn't do so during this most recent calendar year in 2022.
thank you [Music] thank you foreign [Music] foreign [Music] good evening I'd like to call the school committee meeting for January 9th 2023 to order would you please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance indivisible with liberty and justice for all happy New Year everyone I hope everyone had a enjoyable and relaxing holiday break uh just like to let you know that this meeting is uh being videotaped by uh Dartmouth High School TV media and it is rebroadcast on channel nine and also channel 18 on numerous dates and times during the week and we appreciate everything that they do to us you know they help us with is what I meant okay uh roll call please miss Gunther John Nunes yep Mary Waite here Kathleen Amaral here Shannon Jenkins here Chris Oliver here all right thank you okay we have allowed allotted 10 minutes on the agenda tonight for public comment on anything that's pertinent on the agenda if anyone wishes to speak Mr chair if I may sir before we get into a public comment I would just ask if you consider um this body having a moment of silence for the Dartmouth High School student that passed away recently thank you I space I apologize thank you I spaced that right out I apologize so yes if we could have a moment of silence that would be wonderful thank you sir thank you thank you Mr Oliver I appreciate that and our condolences and Symphony sympathy to the family okay again public comment anyone good evening school committee my name is Kendra bakerink I'm a resident of Dartmouth a parent to a middle schooler and I'm also the district's behavior analyst and I'd like to talk to you a little bit more about the student's eye service and the amazing folks that I work with in the district as well as the current complexities and the needs that we're seeing so my job basically is to oversee all the applied behavioral analysis therapy that happens in the district we use the scientific method to break skills down into small steps to teach our students and they make really amazing gains and I'm so privileged to work with some of the most talented Behavior technicians you will ever meet they make my job so much easier every day and allow me to be able to service all six schools in the school district in addition to an out of District placement they allow me to be able to hold on to a caseload of 30 direct therapy students as well as 14 console onlys my governing body recommends a caseload of 12 to 15.
second station is there any other changes to the vision evidence to approve the agenda as changed let's go second by chance on February question passes 7-0 and moving on to the resolution to establish meeting dates and places I set the normal second Monday at six o'clock and there's four I went off the last time last January so set four in Wilson for Hollywood and Ford collapse foreign States at this time and let's change by the board and there's a motion by Roger a second have I brought any further discussion in one location at the district office instead of moving it around times and dates um you know all right move to location so I know the reason that we did it originally to move it around was to have the opportunity for those that couldn't or didn't want to make the drive either direction to be able to with you know intended meeting and things like that just kind of spreads it around a little bit and so for me I not that I like to make the drive to different places but I think it works out pretty well because you just get a different crowd depending on where you are and so that is nice I do understand that and I do think things have changed a little bit now that we're live streaming all the movies on the consists and phases is there any further discussion from anybody else anymore I concur with Brad because different people in different communities yes when did we switch that maybe four years ago or five oh it has it's when Michelle was president I'd have to go back consolidated uh right time gets away from me so that's probably correct I I'd have to go back and look at them so we do have a lotion on the table on this second foreign [Music] I'd like to amend the motion to move it take it to them and so your Amendment offices thank you so there is an amendment to the current motion to change location to the district office is there a second to the amendment right okay let me see a second by chat so now we are voting on the amendment so on they were amending the Motions having a location as a district office here in Denver raise your hand all those opposed Amendment passes by the two so now the motion is amended to having all for meetings at The District's office on the second Monday of the month at 6 00 pm so is there any further the special s different game the record championship at the wreck or that could possibly be on the discussion depending on what would be okay is the right address the same as the district office yes it is further discussion today [Music] all those in favor of board meetings being held at the district office on the second Monday of the month at 6 pm here in favor raise your hand all those opposed explosion passes by the two moving on to the minutes from the regular board meeting December 12th and a special meeting on January 3rd any comments questions pages engineering [Music] medium pose is 7-0 reports so it was a farmers immersion by Brad I'll second exciting by Josh all those in favor is your name I have an approval of invoices we actually avoided a one thousand dollar check today to The Clapper golf course because we have no golf so before we get that check so it's actually a thousand lesson but it says that so it'd be 332 000.
they'll be the week of the eighth uh but yeah we like if the Institute days were to start on the 14th I mean it's a week earlier but it seems like yeah I don't know it's no I understand yeah I feel like two two years ago that's where we were and then I know we pushed it a week for covid and we never jumped back to where it was after that okay yeah let me look at the I can tell you what Grant start date is here 12th you know the grant grant will start on the 12th Saturday or late the 14th sorry 14th yeah Vince teachers coming back on the 10th and 11th I I mean if you if you all want me to take it back and I can do that too we don't have to approve it this month but I mean so get winner Gavin and um they haven't decided yet yeah they have I text them both today and reach out they haven't they haven't made their decision they're just putting their counter committees together now yeah the bottom line is more about grades child care and stuff like that you couldn't get it at the beginning or end though if you get it you say we go but we go a week earlier than out a week earlier earlier no no not the summer school programs no not summer school child so Park District stop so you've got to find Child Care somehow oh for two weeks for kids that are home alone um Gammon are going to be on the same schedule from now on that's fine too but like yeah last year we did start for us I think for I'll be I mean I'll be honest administratively we really don't we're talking about seven days yeah for some reason I know at that first board meeting we're all like wow everybody's in school but we're still I remember that conversation the uh I'm fine to go back to the we can go back and talk more about it if you're not ready to improve this it's fine we can go back and and uh um yeah I mean be nice to see what it looks like yeah um I can reach out to the local uh I mean especially selfishly I have a graduating eighth grader next year he might make it and uh he would he would at least get a week off before he's got to go to school and then maybe that could help with a Spanish trip or what I mean you may push that trip up yeah two weekends in a row three days earlier again so the more we get you're done well yeah because I mean I think when like like Connor and Riley graduated they got they got I want to say it was like a Before Memorial Day that and the uh the brothers had to go to school another week after they were already oh I don't think it was just a day yeah yeah sometimes eighth grade depending yeah depending on when it all fell in the calendar I know that one year was Spirit as a covid but yeah well let me take it I'll take your suggestions I'll put a couple calendars together and uh um we've always given the staff an opportunity to have input as well so I'll do that and then um I'll bring it back to you next month cool sounds good thank you table it yeah we'll table it yep so don't do not need some motion I think uh since we're not getting unless one somebody wants to give me a motion but let's say if we don't get emotion we'll disable it yeah I have to have a motion it says on our sheet oh okay second thanks all right Transportation update I have Mrs aren't and Jackie Laskey here Jackie's our transportation coordinator she works closely with Mrs Arden oversees the program and I just wanted to give I want to give you a a heads up on um it's not dire but we have we're spending a lot of money in transportation that was not budgeted for and it's primarily for outsourcing transportation and uh um I thought both Jackie and Christine could do a good job of explaining to you how we're designating drivers and what's going on and Jackie and Christine Jackie went ahead and put all this data together so I'm going to turn it over to her so she can go ahead and go step by step and go over all the documents with you thank you Christine okay so basically an overview with the transportation for this year we've hired six new drivers this year to help us because of the driver shortage last year so we're definitely in better shape we can continue to hire more to get us even better we do have on the first page it kind of just breaks down these first six drivers are the ones we hired for this year as you can see all of these drivers currently are being utilized for a route so they're not really right now sub drivers they are used every day due to other drivers that are out on leave illnesses anything else that may come across that as you go further down I've broken it down by bus number driver who covers it how many runs they do a day so how many times a day they're driving we do have some of our drivers that are also helping with our out of District sped schools as well covering middays for students that will come half day at Big Hollow and then finish out at an out of District school for the afternoon or vice versa on our second page is where it kind of breaks down a little bit more explaining where we've got six of our Big Hollow drivers that help out with the out of districts bed schools that we go to it shows the sub drivers that we still do have um which is basically myself Derek chalk match which is our maintenance crew as well and a couple of other subs but they are limited availability due to other obligations that they may have with our vehicles for transportation we do have 1971 capacity buses so those are the large buses we utilize 16 of those for in District routes to bring our students to Big Hollow we have three large buses that are used for backup so whenever any of our buses break down if we have sports Charters field trips any of that those are what those extra buses are used for we do have our small buses as well that run Pre-K students back and forth every day as well as they're utilized for the out of District school schools that we go to three vans we also have that also transport our sped students out of District as well so we have a total of 28 Transportation vehicles in all that are pretty much running every day give or take a few regarding Charters and field trips comparison from last year to this year we had 27 Transportation employees we now have 33.
we're teaching five to six students with Navi Shearer if you're teens take periods and it's six to seven students teacher over that time how to train that impact with that ASD how much rain like that third grade school or student services version LRT at High School in this District who are serving 143 students if you made it to high school for five years 36 new student each month where now you've got the size of 287 students the guesty have you had um if you are superintendent or admin or Board of Education matter in this District you are fasting elects the 800 number for students Jane had that you need to have dreams to begin to know what it is that you don't know what it looks like Hawaii students have been diagnosed the truth is we don't need to conversation differently so how do we recognize this as brain-based disability and how do we effectively as his word families I also wanted Bernie attention to the diversity equity and inclusion because we looked at the number of physics in our district and department at C foreign and personality um I will be doing a training very briefly at Illinois Council for children with behavior disorders um some of them are functional Behavior assessment those are allocated and really not best practice for our students challenges uh and I asked the district to ask the secret of education for support and getting this information participate [Music] about that this sister has been helpful communicative when none of us really knew what was going on so I think that for that but I don't need to use that so if you want me to be in your personal stories that combat fashion through my mind when I think if I'd only known then what I know now I'll be happy to share those videos thank you again for listening thank you thank you situation foreign um all right I said five point what is updated about progress in regards to work done with our facilities of the presentation to be able to answer any questions illegal good evening um foreign so we'll go through this and uh and share with you about the progress that we make today so uh as you call there's two goals for the facilities um there are two goals for the facilities aspect of our uh uh number one was review the need for the general maintenance acceptable for the next 10 years of work that should be done and the second one was to um the second one was to develop a high-year plan to address the physical capacity for a building program that needs uh the easy Academy transition broker and also looking at our old proper facilities indicators of success from the past year and then what IRS has been made on each indicator uh since that time so as you see we buy We Gather to be back on the far stakeholders documented their concerns evaluated their project priorities um and we end up taking that information and re-eating with building crystals building in shares to make sure that we um actually um captured all the little priorities that they had um and then we uh we aligned those building needs that our service exception dollars um for a timeline of food Sports um all those projects um have been identified we need to go look at number one is or outside contractors would we need to use for that burp and what type of work could be complete in-house so we looked at that uh that as well uh and bill has been meeting with facade and I'm working on that list and going through those priorities on um but it is definitely do versus the work that we need to uh if we detected with RV outside help in um see and then uh we we are using plans reading arguments One Word document what products are being completed for instance that we did this summer when we went ahead and we put that off of the list and we put it back on the list at the end of the schedule maintenance so that is another project that is unless but two years from now and that needs to be to wrestle keeping up with products and work we're doing what we've done and what needs to be on radio project Solutions facilities that we want to discuss um we are meeting with corporate program directors since uh current moment or their home objections how they're seeing the programs grow to make sure that we have room and capacity um we also are reporting on the program in moment Productions um continue to monitor that and also finally the last bullet point here is a review program needs based on existing facility space so comparing program needs enrollment based on what we have existing and where we where we've only taken ages so that's how do you update that the facility uh annual report like I said we're transitioning from uh this was the word that Rob and I did last year at the Sun and now that Bill had a table um we're interested in getting feedback that you may have come and just know that bill is taking ownership of that scheduled news plan um and uh doing a good job with that engaged the uh the indicators of success um reported this time next year will be how we prioritize the capital projects and uh and as CertainTeed most for the next level and also we are working with cabin right now on identifying and incorporating the district facilities utilizing Eda and old Traver and once we meet with Kevin on that um gather their feedback we're going to meet with the ELD team uh team and uh in the program writers together more input on a program facility needs for their uh their own programs and the very last thing there man is some highlighter connections to the other theories that are Envision 308 plan and the first is in terms of the finance uh taxider is really coordinating the facility grounds needs and building operation preventative Budget Car five year production as you know over the next three years we've got death certificate add in a one and a half million dollars into our operations for ongoing operations rejections as far as student learning uh the connection there is really just maintaining a safe and secure facility uh support or student learning again in case the secure facilities somewhere else for programming and Engineering Partnerships we're continuing uh share services for slaves and roundies opportunities to help us list after this one you know I am going to talk about it so I was getting friends and you're talking about um space limitations this is going to be very careful um [Music] um you figure out and and do the broker in the transition um from the elementary school and uh very Elementary ends go to one high school and you are gonna watch your high and you go to another so they're kind of starting over so um yeah so um the but um can't do that yeah those are decisions that we will be making is uh buildings um it's you're you know your team is the one that's you know finding out the space and you know the needs um looking into the principles and their feedback so I just want to make sure that that's out there and and high priority yeah very high yeah yeah and I think Bill would share the same I don't know yeah okay um I'll say this again and uh you know it again it I don't think it's a mystery that there are there are definitely those in the community who don't trust the finances of the district um and and no favors are done for us um when um apples are not always compared to Apples right just just as an example and I'm not picking on any particular taxing body but there are taxing bodies that have access to local revenues that we don't um and um so it's hard to to sit here and say okay well this taxing body holds holds a levy how come the school district doesn't right as an example well those taxing bodies have access to other revenues that the school district doesn't they also don't spend um there are property taxes on hardly anything compared to what the school district does uh because because they have access to other revenues that we don't um but a process that works in many other districts quite frankly doesn't work here um and I'm proud of the board for the first time that I'm aware of we came with five-year projections that showed us what things would look like with a levy without a levy I appreciate that with ebf without ebf should have been very eye-opening to everyone um but I'm going to tell you I don't think it went far enough you've heard me voice this a million times um and for those who pay attention they've heard me voice it a million times in addition I think what you're going to have to do and I said this a long time ago I said this years ago you're going to have to actually show people what it means right for some reason eight million dollars in cuts doesn't mean anything to anyone like I don't know why but it doesn't um I'm not sitting up here advocating to hey let's let's cut but I think you're gonna actually have to show people what that translates to um and and I and I do take it serious whenever we have to raise Levy I don't take it lightly and I think in order for us to do this process we're going to have to do all of the front work ahead of time and so show people what that translates to because again it's not an honest conversation to sit here and say raise the levy or not that's not the full conversation the full conversation is raise the levy or we don't turn the lights on over here right because all of this stuff costs money or we either increase the levy or what's the fund for our preventative maintenance what's the balance of that fund right now I'm asking you yeah it's zero zero it's zero right so um and and here's the thing for those who who for those who who who are new on the scene um you know there was there was a time you remember this Dr Sparling the bright lights and the auditorium and and and Men we sat there uh I remember um uh sitting there with many people uh very business uh oriented people who we sat there and made a lot of cuts right and that was one of the things we cut uh and none of it was comfortable so I think you're gonna need that you're going to need to show people that I'll say it I'll ask for it again I've asked for it a million times I appreciate what we've been given so far um and uh I'll continue to ask for it okay I have more I'm sorry please no go I just have one question uh and you're in the projections that you provided previously and it's just really into a comment that you made earlier that we've had to what we have here is listed the prioritizing for 10 years or 20 years out based on the allocation but from that we've had surprises obviously since bill has come in and so how has that impacted the things that we were supposed to fix this year but that that something break that was set for later or was it something brand new and now it's actually going to cost us more than what we actually projected yeah you know that's a really great question and fortunately uh kluber and the central office maintenance team put together a thrown off plan that what is breaking was on that list it's just they were on the list for maybe three years down the road okay so now we're replacing it and one that we thought had to be replaced this year well that one's gonna kind of keep going for two more years and take the place of when that original replacement should have been but but what people may not understand with that list is that each year we prioritized I think over this over the set of over the course of time let's just say that six to seven point five million dollars but if something that broke three that we were slated to fix three years from now breaks in this year does that increase the amount of money that we needed that of the things that are mission critical this year that again the balance is zero and so we if that I don't know what the thing was but whatever it was because everything on here is a capitalized project so it's it's significant so I'm just trying to make sure we understand that you know the budgets and the dollars that we have in order to make sure that our facilities are safe as we said in the presentation as one of the priorities um we have to figure out where to get this money from yeah and the nice thing about that is the The Debt Service extension so like I told Jared the money in that budget right now is zero but we do have The Debt Service extension the money we borrowed which was 18 million dollars we can spend all of that money now so we can right now if there was a project that was bid out we can spend those dollars on the projects that we wanted to do we would just we would exhaust that 18 million dollars sooner than what we had planned and the issue with that is in our second or third year here if we have another emergency happen well we've exhausted our 80 million and now we're going into contingency funds and so Justin I want to make sure that everybody understands that it's not prudent for us to spend all 18 million in the first year because if an emergency happens next year then what will we do right yeah and not only that but the 18 million isn't even enough right yeah can I can I ask how much we keep paying kluber to do all these assessments because we they in 2020 they did a deferred plan and they also did a facility maintenance and energy plan what they didn't call it was what they called it in 2022 when they charged us again and they called it a scheduling plan we also had it done in 2014 we also had it done in 2015 we also headed from not mistaken done in 2018. so we keep paying them to have these plans done and while I realize we have new people in place there has to be if you're going to be a good Steward of somebody's money you have to also know where that plan is and the other thing that I have not seen on here is we don't have we have what did we call it a general maintenance we don't have a preventative maintenance plan and some of that is just going out and changing filters so that these machines last five to ten years longer I think so that's not in any of this I think that I've seen so there's general maintenance on here but I don't see a preventative maintenance for where's that at I don't know if it's in here but I I mean I've only been on the board for I don't know nine months or whatever that's what I'm saying I'm looking at it right now where's that I so I have a question because I appreciate it was it was a shorter presentation thank you um and I appreciate the overview but where do we know like for instance from the July the big comprehensive uh scheduled maintenance plan um 23-24 uh is the 19 570 that we expected to spend at bouldered Hill has that been completed Grand Park Elementary have all these things been completed no those are those are the projects that we've got on the queue for write me rfps so um rfps we've done I think three or four of them and we have to do the rest of those for the roofs and the boilers the bigger work so we're going to release those rfps and get that work done in the summer of 23 and for the 24th School of the Year okay and that wait the summer of 20.
at the beginning of the year this is our money market sweep account at First Financial Bank you can see we were earning basically nothing um treasuries at that point in time were also earning nothing and so all the money set in um the First Financial Bank account earning very very little but of course uh over the last uh half of the year you know that that changed to the extent that the end of the calendar year we were earning just under four percent the total for the calendar year from money earned from the First Financial sweep accounts was a hundred and just under 000 178 000. um treasury purchases we did at in the spring it started to get a little bit more advantageous where treasury rates were a little higher than what we were earning at the bank and also what trust Indiana was paying out so we started to purchase some treasuries in the spring um those were still earning less than one percent on an annualized basis but as the year went along got a little bit better the first investment was one large one large treasury purchase that matured in mid-December and that earned us exactly right right at 304 000 separately from that the health trust their dollars we treat as completely independent and so any interest earned from the health and dental funds those those monies go right back into the health and dental funds so it's one of the advantages of being a self-insured entity we earn money based on the money that's in the bank as opposed to an insurance company doing so that money on an annualized basis would have earned us 2.53 percent and gain us about nine thousand dollars per year that's in addition to the money um that it was earning in the sweep accounts from the bank and then last in October we made a purchase with the revenues from a treasury purchase with the revenues from the Geo bond that we were issues when that money came in we just turned around and bought a treasury right away that matured also in December we have chosen to this point to only invest money between January 1 and December 31st you can choose to go for two years and you may or may not consider that but we've always just closed the books out at the end of the year by bringing all the cash back recording the interest earned and then turning around and doing again in January um the total from uh treasury purchases is that 341 000 amount there and then um I'm going to speak to this one here in a little bit but we purchased uh uh about 1.2 million dollar uh dollars in treasury bonds um back in November and those won't mature until March um and they'll earn us a little over 16 000 and I'll cover some of that that's that's different for us we haven't done this in the past this is a new one um so the total interest earned from Investments I have to apologize I found an error this afternoon when I Was preparing for this um that this is everything here is correct in this column and so um we used to basically put most of the money in the general fund um and then the the Health Trust would earn funds over here for the most part um we started splitting in 2019 we started splitting the funds between the education fund and the operations fund which is what the state dictated that we do and then so basically the funds go into the education fund and then on this side it's almost entirely operations fund and health and dental um and my error here is actually that this column this number here the 275 154 should be these two amounts combined I accidentally just did other funds in that bottom right hand column so that number the total interest earned for this 2022 calendar year was 519 768 which is up significantly from the 76 000 that we earned in 2021.
so I'm easily doing double that and it's because they are so incredible that being said the students we have have some pretty severe needs we've seen an acute increase in the need for ABA therapy in the district the last year and a half whether this is a factor of covid whether this is a factor if this is just what the profile looks like at this time I couldn't specifically answer but what we know is we're seeing a lot of Learners coming in both at the preschool level and some students moving in many of which have a six to nine month old developmental equivalency that means we are not just teaching language social skills pre-academics we're also teaching Readiness things like learning to sit in a seat things like learning how to wait and just behave with other people in general in addition to that I did 32 assessments last year so I'm responsible for all the skills assessments and many of the functional Behavior Assessments in District for our students with autism and at this point in time I will have already completed 21 by February I'm also managing six different students who are on Behavior plans some of which do have direct therapy with us and others who are console only and those can be just as challenging because many times there are higher functioning students who have high levels of behavior and we have to work around how do we in fact make sure that they can be in the least restrictive environment while reducing Behavior over time um I just want to highlight that the special ed teachers that we work with are amazing they work really hard the numbers in their rooms are really high in addition our Preschool teachers who don't have a program are getting many of these students first thing and they're the foundation and they're where we're going to build upon and you know children have the most brain plasticity and have the most opportunity to learn and gain new skills earlier on that's why we believe in the model of early intervention because we know that science proves that it works so I just you know as you go about your doings I just ask that you take into consideration all the hard work that we're all putting into some of the most severe students in our district and that I know that for my student in Middle School his teachers give 100 and they want 100 back for him and all I ask is that myself and my colleagues be given 100 so that we can give a hundred percent thank you foreign good evening my name is Donna Coster and I am a secretary at the middle school we are here on behalf of all the DEA secretaries Dartmouth Public Schools administrators heavily rely on us and our buildings cannot run without us we put out fires on a daily basis yet we are not valued with a fair wage we work through lunch Miss breaks and stay late to ensure all students are safely home we juggle sometimes impossible substitute coverage schedules from Bells parent phone calls to copiers we do it all we go well and Beyond because we take our jobs seriously and because we care our Cola increases don't offset the increase in health insurance costs for secretaries who take the health insurance there have been years where we have brought home less than the year before one year we were negative 13 a week and that was 2015 2016.
any other questions [Applause] [Music] so she passes 7-0 and Reconciliation the cash balance report should be in your paperless board meetings and the ending cash balance matched the treasures report which matches the bank so we are in reconcil reconciled yeah experience foreign [Music] laughs Berg and we will be I will be respectful but I will ask everybody to live here instead of five minutes online okay we will begin with Mike peshka David I'm Mike fishner y'all probably know why not and I promise that this may be the last time you hear from me it may not be last time first I'd like to thank the board members that were attentive and appeared to take notes at the last hearing Wednesday January 4th 2023.
we had to eliminate Route 13 last year due to the shortage and kind of combined routes thankfully since we are in better shape we were able to bring that back and lower the capacity on our buses that we have going so it's definitely an improvement from last year on the next slide or the next page that you have is more in detail of the out of District students that we transport on here it's breaking down the drivers that we use for Big Hollow to transport to all of these different schools and the two companies that we're using right now to help us as well to transport some of these students we have top line transportation that helps us with two students that require a wheelchair accessible vehicle we do have a wheelchair boss but we are currently using that as well to transport to two other different schools that are in the completely opposite direction Chain of Lakes is helping us with a total of nine students a top line is helping with two we share one student between chain O'Lakes we transport in the morning here then take them to Palatine and then Chain of Lakes will take them from Palatine home so we do share we have a total of 21 students total that are going to 10 different schools outside of Big Hollow so that is where a lot of the costs is coming from is the help that we need uh of course in a perfect world if we had all the drivers we needed and all the vehicles we needed we wouldn't have to be Outsourcing as much this number has enlarged a bit this year the difficult that we're having with and it also shows on the bottom of this page that we're having with the outsourced um at a district schools is all of their start times are pretty much right around the same time so if we had different start times we could probably juggle this a little bit better with more of our drivers getting these kids to and from but since they're all pretty much 8 45 and 9 o'clock we just aren't able to do that right now um and we have had four students so far so it kind of rolls on to wow that kind of rolls onto the last page but throughout the years students may get different placement changes so they may begin at one school and then certain things may change and they say now we need to transport to a different school so that may take a student away from one of our drivers and we now can't get them to the new school they've been placed to so now we have to Outsource them to channel lakes or Transportation or Top Line last year and that's on the next page last year we had a total of um six different Transportation companies that we were utilizing to help us transport students to the various locations this year I was able to knock that down to just two which is Top Line and Channel Lakes this is pretty much the breakdown for every single student I'm not using any student names but this is the breakdown that they charge per trip per day for each student and that's where the cost has gone up because of us not being able to do it ourselves let's see what else I've got on here I already broke that down oh yes yeah so the last page on this explains that we have 14 students so far this year that have returned a Big Hollow with an existing IEP to be outsourced we've had um five new students this year that enrolled that already had an existing IEP from where they came and when they came to us we then continued that on only one student so far this year we've actually had to implement an IEP to up that update that information so the challenging part with the out of District sped transportation is it is a variable every single day every single day it's going to change I may be told this week they're going to this school and then next week no we've got to change it to this and that's all we have another student starting you know two weeks from now so with the out of districts fed it is a constant juggle and it's never going to remain constant or the same it's yes and we do have students that transition so they may be full day out of District out in say Palatine and as we continue to see and improve we may slowly start bringing them back to Big Hollow so then they spend three quarters of the day over there and a quarter here and as it continues on it starts progressing to where now they're back at Big Hollow full time so there's just a lot of variables that are going on with the out of District special education that we're providing are these students spread pretty evenly across the grades or do you see a grouping at a certain lower grade higher grade as of right now we pretty much have majority of our students they are Middle School grade I would say we have probably about thinking of all the kids on my I'd say four over at Primary Elementary roughly around four but majority are middle school so some will be transferring out yes that is another thing so I know like last year we had two to four students that transferred out because now they're in high school but then guess what I got four put on again this year so they will they will transfer out as they continue on with Big Hollow and what would it take for us to bring this more in-house if we're paying 2200 a day drivers if we had more drivers drivers and vehicles easy because we would if we I've held off on buying Vehicles because we still have the drivers and vehicles just set we had more drivers we would we would we would one more just getting a wheelchair bus and if I had a driver for it we would save a ton of money because but right now we don't have anybody to drive it and uh and I've contacted all of the companies we used last year probably 10 to 15 companies looking for wheelchair accessible to help us out Topline was the only one that was that had a vehicle available for us because there are some days I know it looks like we have a large sub list there but most those are employees that have other jobs here there's some days where they're all being used too yeah but Jackie and Christine have done a really nice job of it's like a puzzle every day and we've never had to kids haven't seen a delay like as far as like double routes and things like that but we've gotten close a few times but um I if I could it makes me ill to pay what we're paying Outsourcing drivers Outsourcing some of these routes the top line one is the one that's most frustrating yeah how many drivers do we have a day what's that or how many drivers do we have we have 33 of our own so if you divided 2200 a day yeah how much would it be theoretically pay our drivers to you know yeah right it's crazy and and not to I mean we we will get this will all go into Transportation claim next year our transplaced transportation claim will go higher the state will get we'll get you know probably 70 of this kicked back so it's not like all our costs but it's still very very frustrating and it's gonna it's gonna take our it'll take our transportation fund balance down I just wanted you to see that um we're doing what we we're talking about it and uh if I can if we can get and we can even Explore I was just thinking while you were talking there's a couple of things we could explore by moving some drivers around and paying a smaller amount if I I just need to get another wheelchair bus though to get that Top Line off if we can just get rid of using Top Line I could it would help um but the uh and the the five additional students that we weren't planning this year that hit us right at the beginning of the year and I think the other thing is that we're now going to more places usually you can put more kids in a bus and go but we're going to 10 different places so they're they're students that come to Big Hollow one is for middle school and one is for the Pre-K they just know that we can't find a wheelchair bus to here yes and in order yes yes they got us right right yeah they they charge per trip they don't do like what um Chino lakes does the 222 per mile they charge per trip and we just literally I mean you've looked we can't find anybody else with a wheelchair so we said we don't have one we do so well the problem is is we're utilizing our wheelchair bus to go out to larimont and their start time is the same start time as ours we could get the middle school student here we just couldn't get that student home and then we couldn't get the Pre-K kid to school but we could get them home so it sounds like we need to see the lease yeah and the students that we use for our wheelchair boss are younger so we're going to be needing that for the next couple of years if they were like eighth grade then I'd be like oh next year will be good it's not gonna be like that for a few years and we need a second wheelchair bus which we could buy it's just uh just didn't want it to set but now that you know maybe maybe we can look at maybe moving drivers around somehow are those students do they have to be are they could they could we get a normal size bus with a real wheelchair the ones that we're bringing to Big Hollow yeah yeah no they require wheelchairs yeah yeah so these four kids that we have two for Big Hollow and two that are outsourced they have to have wheelchair I I know they have to have a wheelchair but could they because they make the full-size buses with wheelchair oh ramps could we utilize a row that would yeah we could yeah if we had enough they had to be oh yeah as long as there's a wheelchair lift that's fine yeah it could be any size yep because that could be a possibility too and then you'd be on a normal yeah that's a good thought too we will work on it I just want you to be aware of it Jack you did a nice job putting this together but you're doing uh and and I I think when I asked her to do this it felt like she was in trouble I'm like no I just wanted to be very clear but that you know this is a big puzzle and they're doing a good job with that and uh um but we're gonna keep grinding away at it so thank you very much all right thank you last item for me is just approving the Press policy second reading no changes from last time second motion motion second yes foreign
this year yeah the summer for next year you say right yeah okay okay and then my question got us then how did we get these numbers and was it before um inflation and we've seen the cost of steel and conduit and PVC and all that stuff go up are these numbers reflective of that I mean July was still probably appropriate for that but where where did you get the nineteen thousand dollars that the RFP hasn't already gone out yeah you know that was estimates through the Architects on the work that they've done so the Architects provided those to us with some inflationary figures built into those but you're right the one thing that we monitor very closely and bill will be sure to share that with you when we do a memo for the board on hey we had the bid closing and here's what we got back this is what we estimated it to be at right this is what actually came in at we've been surprised by a few some of them have been two-thirds higher than what they were supposed to be and some of them come in a third lower so it depends on the project and uh um the workload of the those people providing us the bids as well so to and I'm kind of asking these questions to make a point one of the goals that we gave the administration was to build a reserve and I know that our five-year projections and our our goal was 20 and our five-year projections we're looking at about 10 and a half percent and one of the things that's really important for the community to know is that when we don't have a reserve these things not only become Mission critical but we then have to make Cuts because we don't have an option we do not have a little uh you know purse to go back to so when when we're talking about potentially not levying not getting ebf not doing certain things it there is a compound um nature of of this of this entire process and um and Jared has said it multiple times we have we've tried to reiterate it multiple times throughout um at least the two years that I've been on the board it is election season and I hope that all of our constituents in the um Community are asking the candidates these questions about what would you do how would you cut eight million dollars what would you do about the fact we don't have a preventative maintenance fund if you aren't for levying you know and so forth so I strongly encourage everyone to ask the candidates that are doing that because this is something that the these decisions have compounded from years ago and we just continue to kind of Kick the Can down the road so not not you not neither one of you thank you I just want to make that clear but for the first time we have this um really in-depth um comprehensive program and it makes it real which is what Jared you know had said he is asking for from the cuts perspective but it also makes it real and I encourage everybody to go back to this that if we don't have some money what we're not going to be able to do on this plan and it's it is pretty um you know we lose air conditioning typically once a summer from a school and get emails from parents and grandparents you know make sure you get the air conditioning working we're talking Beyond air conditioning you know so we just need to keep bringing that to the Forefront and talking about that so thank you both so where are we with that with regard to our grant um opportunities yeah so we we did submit a grant for the um the capital maintenance project Grant which was a fifty thousand dollar match and luckily we had a project that had not gone out yet was bid out but had not been because it's not important officially out and any spending begun uh so we use that um it ended up being I believe it was like a 1.2 million dollar roofing project and uh that will get fifty thousand dollars um for that and that's coming out of debt service extension and there's two other grants right now that Bill and I are taking a look at unfortunately some of the grant opportunities our district doesn't qualify for we are not low enough in our financial State compared to other Illinois districts so we are we don't qualify for those but we'll continue to monitor those and submit for those that we can uh and the one thing that we're keeping in our eye and is something that Dr Sparling worked very hard on the past few years and that is the 40 million dollars in Appropriations that we we should be hearing more about in the near future and would really put us in a good spot if we got those dollars back so for those on the board who might not recall or those in the community who might not recall in 2004 we spent money on buildings knowing that the state was going to reimburse us for those costs and in 2004 they had reimbursing us those dollars so the district spent all of their funds not being reimbursed to the tune of about I think it was 38 million almost 40 million dollars and the state is now looking at funding those uh those uh that out out service that so we hope to see that in the near future yeah that's a big if it is it's a really big if can you talk to us a little what yeah we all do can I can I do what is what was the 1.2 million dollar project that was a uh there was a roofing project in oh it was the back the cafeteria the backside of oh we did the front side this summer I think I just wondered thank you when we don't meet our financial reserve as as a goal as well as the recommended um percentage as the state requires how does that impact us you know that's a really interesting question I think something that the community might not be so familiar with is our District's Financial profile that's awarded to us from the State Board of Education they basically give us a score of one to five and put us in States of uh Financial uh positive Financial standing or it could go into a financial warning Financial Risk and on the five elements on the rubric that they used to judge us on three of the elements are related directly to our fund balance that being number one do you have a 20 to 25 percent fund balance we don't we get a low score on that yeah number two the fund balance is directly related to how much cash on hand do you have on a daily basis well since we don't have a fund balance we only have 55 days of cash on hand and after after spending down that fund balance we need to borrow money for our cash flow so that's how the fund balance affects us there and then oh the third one is escaping me there's a I think our bond percentage right and that's another one but that's not related to The Reserve oh okay I'm sorry there was One Direction related to the reserve and it's escaping my mind right now I apologize but today yeah uh three of the areas we are negatively hit because of our fund balance one of them were negatively hit because we have a larger expenditure Revenue level than what we should have legally we we only should have a have a 310 million dollars worth of bowering capacity but in 2004 we went to the state we had that that uh level raised and we currently have about 315 million dollars so we have more money long-term debt than what typically we should have so we're hit there as well oh and the the third item was short-term debt that was the third item is uh the level of short-term borrowing well we have tax anticipation warrants every year which is short-term borrowing so because of our cash flow we don't have cash on hand we don't have the reserve and we have to short-term borrow so we have a negative um we have a negative profile for the state of Illinois that we are aware of we are maintaining and communicating and making sure that we don't fall any less than we are in the in terms of the state standing right now so these are all reasons why we should increase our fund balance correct and last time that it was five million dollars every year from the time that we didn't Levy which is compound to like 35 million dollars as of now and every year going forward and that keeps us from increasing our fund balance because of that's just one reason why yeah right I mean and who wants to have to borrow money to pay their bills right that's like a payday loan in a really big way yeah and and the thing is with that if if you're going to do that like so let's let's talk about that if you're gonna not raise the levy then you need to do your due diligence which is what ends up being outcome from that which is you got to go and figure out what you're going to cut which is why you have the auditorium full of people and the bright lights and and everything else which somehow got forgotten about I don't know how but that was pretty good house packed house but but nonetheless um like then you have to do that like you like that's I don't know how else there's no way to avoid that like one or the other you know if that's the full story that's the full narrative you can't avoid one without the other good uh I think Bill and I would just like to thank the board we were just looking at each other here I don't think we've seen uh board members having this level of conversation so we appreciate how much you know about our finances about our facilities and we really appreciate the feedback are helping to educate the community and can I just clarify because I just went back and looked at the kluber presentation I'm not talking when I talk about preventative maintenance I'm not talking about periodic I'm not talking about corrective I'm talking about what are we doing with our boilers and chillers to keep them lasting five more years which is not on here that's it's not as part of their plan you know what I'll put that down uh bill and I can talk about that but we do do for instance uh I was with AJ one of our central office grounds gentlemen he uh or a central maintenance gentleman and he ends up doing what he calls punching tubes so making sure that all of the all of the cooling water is filtering through the way it should through our air conditioning we replace filters in the classroom so we can get you a list of things that we do on a preventative maintenance I'm just I'm looking for something as a district that we're doing district-wide that will extend the life of the high dollar equipment because here's what's happening we're buying equipment from Canada because we can't get it in the U.S right now and it's still like that and a lot of our machines are out of date and they're going to have to be replaced at some point so at some point you have to build up some sort of Reserve so because they're going to go out but we don't have yeah let me Boulder Hill for example Boulder Hill was out when it was 100 degrees out so it's funny you just brought that up Ali I I currently have a service agreement that I need to go over with John for the boilers alone that's every boiler in the district district-wide to start servicing those right but we shouldn't we should have people in house that can do that we shouldn't be I do and but I just don't have enough of them so as a district we're big I have 23 locations to take care of I have two preventative maintenance that are Central and I have one at each high school so that's a total of four we've done pretty good but as we get bigger we do need to grow that pool so we've always kind of leaned on help from outside services to help service those boilers and chillers and stuff of that nature thank you very much thank you all right 6.1 superintendent report all right well thank you Mrs Hamilton and good evening board can you guys call Lori Doyle back somebody hung up on her she sung her way in oh she oh maybe she wants to listen she just said are we still on the facility presentation I can't watch YouTube they hung up let's see if we can get her back just so while she's driving in the car so we're still having uh at some kind of yeah YouTube issues I don't know I don't I wasn't really watching it to see it I just noticed it [Music] heinous but we didn't hire him hello the mute yourself oh oh there she goes okay all right what I'd like to start up my comments this evening by welcoming everyone back to the second semester the 22-23 school year and uh just before break I was informed by the national board Resource Center at Illinois State University and Illinois National Board of Professional Teaching Standards that the following teachers in our school district uh were renewed for the national board certification Robin series Christina Hernandez Brett maois Pam Phelps Elizabeth brigadich Angela sharper Amy severinsky Joyce shumate and Kelly Waldron so congratulations to each of those teachers that I just mentioned and uh congratulations for not only earning the national board certification but for also maintaining that certification because it is a prestigious certification so congratulations to each of them uh the following is an update in regards to uh what's been done we've been going on over the past couple months in regards to our transportation so as we all know due to a Nationwide bus shortage uh busing has been a significant challenge this year resulting in Sometimes some substantial delays I'd like to thank our parents for their and our students for their patients understanding and cooperation as we've received uh as we've worked through this to uh provide the best transportation service that we can under the current circumstances for our kids so over the past couple months uh the route Studies have been conducted to find Opportunities to combine stops and to shorten the routes income to combined routes over winter break our transportation staff worked hard to adjust routing in order to create more efficient transportation for our students and Route updates were posted in Tyler last week and parents were notified additionally we're working to recruit our recruitment efforts are continuing to increase the number of drivers that we have on staff we're also monitoring the changes that we've made to ensure that those those addressed the those changes have been addressed to the best of our abilities it's important to note that the changes that we've made to the best of our ability uh are been done without probably the most needed variable in this equation and that is having the proper number of drivers that we need so I'd like to send a word of thanks to our transportation staff for their hours and dedication and commitment towards improving the transportation and for our drivers and our monitors who are covering extra routes and providing the extra time to benefit our students they should know that everyone up here appreciates other other work um my final comment for this evening is to share that on tonight's Personnel report uh the board will be approving my retirement from the position of Superintendent at the end of the 22-23 school year I would like to thank this board and previous boards for the opportunity to serve the students staff and community of Oswego for the past 11 years of my career it's been my greatest honor to have served as your superintendent for the past seven years and I thank the board for that opportunity I look forward to continuing our good work together and through between now and June 30th and to support the board in any way that I can in regards to as you search for my successor so that is my update for this evening and thank you you Dr sparlin so we'll have many opportunity [Applause] opportunities to say our final goodbyes and to express our gratitude for the many years of service that Dr sparlin has provided to our district and so we look forward to several more months with him and then we will we will have some opportunities to express our gratitude one of the things as a board we hire one person technically for the most part and that's the superintendent and so in doing that in order to help us find uh his successor there are ways in which we go about doing that and one of those ways which is traditional but yet most effective and efficient is a search firm and so I want to open it up to the board to kind of share their thoughts about why um this might be an appropriate way to go um or not but I'd like I'd like to hear from you all regarding your thoughts on that which side of the room you which which side you want to start with well I'll go first a couple things then uh we're gonna come back to it we can come back and talk about busing right because I do want to talk about busting sorry but at some point I always like put the kids first and so we'll talk about busting yeah his agenda items the waiter in the agenda okay because I I do want to talk about the busing and the kids not not listen Dr spot let him [Music] gracious and or I'm sorry I'm very grateful grateful was the word I was looking for grateful for for everything and and so forth but um well first of all um before I get to your thought uh Latonya I remember running in 2015 and I remember the situation with the superintendent in 2015.
Mr Phillips yes Mr 500 000 number then reconciles back to the last couple of slides that you present yes yes when you add those numbers together it comes up to 519 and 768.
in the last eight years my gross pay has increased by 56 dollars because I do take the health insurance a number of us also work two jobs our wages are so low that we have lost good employees to better pay a long time music secretary and the registrar secretary for example left the district for a better pay our DEA secretaries have applied for and been repeatedly denied non-union jobs at Bush Street where the pay differential is significant the district has also had a very hard time filling vacancies so much that a new hire started at step seven which goes against our contract just to be able to fill the position this means that the starting secretary has the same salary as the D.A secretary that has worked here in the district for 20 years we ask that you consider us statements in your discussions later tonight thank you for your time thank you [Applause] hi my name is Gary Lauer I'm a 20-year resident of Dartmouth well 19 actually and 19 years teaching math at the high school also a parent of students that came through our schools last month when Dr Jenkins pointed out that our school for pupil spending is at the 10th percentile it got me thinking about putting that in terms of dollars rather than in terms of a rank and I also looked 20 years back so that we could see how it's changed and this information comes from the U.S Census Bureau where all public schools are required to do very detailed funding reports every year so I'd like to share what I found um so where an average school spends a dollar for per pupil spending 20 years ago we were spending 84 cents fast forward to now we're spending 82 cents so there's been a decrease where the average school spends a dollar toward teacher and teaching assistant salary and benefits 20 years ago we spent 86 cents and that has also declined and is now 84 cents on the dollar 20 years ago when an average school district would spend a dollar for administrators both the school and the general administrators for salary and benefits we would spend 83 cents on the dollar but 20 years later that has become a dollar five I don't begrudge paying our administrators fairly but to get an increase not just to average but above while the other two numbers went further below average I certainly disagree with so in summary I just want to emphasize that that's what it means to be at the 10th percentile that our students are receiving 82 cents on the dollar thank you [Applause] thank you okay it's okay we're good all right moving on next item on our agenda is the approval of the regular session minutes of December 12 2022 so move Mr chair second by Mr Oliver second wait Kathleen yeah Miss White Miss White I'm sorry on the motion any discussion chair hearing then all in favor aye aye opposed motion carries unanimously uh executive session oh yeah Kathleen is going to abstain because you were yeah please okay sorry about that one abstention I'll do I watch too yeah the executive session of uh the same date December 12th I'll move um with the usual stipulation that they be held until the matters for which they were intended are complete thank you second moved by Miss weight second by Dr Jenkins on the motion any discussion you're hearing none all in favor aye aye opposed motion carries unanimously and then the executive session minutes of uh The Joint meeting that we had on December 19th with the some of the members of the select board Mr McGinnis Mr chair I'll make the motion that we approve the uh executive session minutes of that day until which time and hold them until which time until the matter in which they were intended for are satisfied second so you moved by Mr wall of a second by Kathleen on the motion any discussion chair hearing the null in favor aye opposed fwmit abstain okay we have two abstentions uh Miss wait and Dr Jenkins good okay a lot of good stuff as always Spotlight on kids diamond high school doctor yeah I'd just like to welcome the high school admin staff I believe I believe they have some students with them so Mr Shea Captain Nyan is one of them too he's very sad she cannot be here not a Mac User I apologize people okay um so Mr York too is and Mr Lauer too our two of the coaches um we really wanted to Spotlight our math team um I think Dartmouth High does a really good job of acknowledging a lot of our our athletes our musicians our artists our our theater production um some of our unsung heroes are our students that are doing choosing to do more academic work and compete in that field so we wanted to really recognize our math team who is having an excellent start of the year and I'm going to actually let them talk about their year in a second but um I just want to say thank you to all of them for all of their hard work they have practices Wednesday nights that go into Fun sessions where I as a former special ed math teacher I'm jealous that they get all these fun conversations on it but um they're here for you guys not for me so I'm gonna pass it over now foreign so hello everyone my name is Steven we I'm one of the captains here at the Dartmouth High School math team just to talk about how our entire year goes we compete in four meets all across the year in a league of roughly 20 other schools um and basically we just compete and sort of I would say two-hour competitions and it's a lot of fun we get to meet people all across um Massachusetts and uh we're lucky to have um our coaches here Mr York and Mr Lauer for their support throughout for all of us we're lucky to have them so um yeah math team is a great way for us to find an early passion commit to it and find new interesting ways to get into that field so nothing more to be said other than it's a great Community again I want to emphasize that um the community is great um our team is great our teachers are great and you know I tell you Steven's being humble right now Stephen Stephen is the best performer in the state and according to their coaches the best they've ever had one thing that he didn't mention is that out of the 20 schools the math team currently sits at first place thank you this Wednesday yeah so this Wednesday is their next competition and um then you have one more after that right here and then here yeah so we've we have a few more competitions left to speak [Laughter] um Steven already went over our competitions but I feel like uh when you go over our like our meetings our meetings are pretty great I feel um they we not all of it's just about boring math we hang out with our friends uh we hang out with our friends uh uh we do problems together it's it's pretty enjoyable it's it's much enjoyable than you might think yeah when talking with all of them the conversation that the word that I heard the most is a family and I think that is a a Dartmouth High our goal is a home for everyone and this is the prime example of we found a really unique home for a lot of our special students and we're really excited to have them as part of our school community because thank you Mr chair I would love to hear very quickly a quick synopsis of what a competition actually looks like sure um a competition consists of six rounds um teams of five students choose three rounds preferably what they're comfortable in each round is three problems you have to solve it all in 10 10 minutes and yeah uh this it's I believe it's distributed in one points two points and three points and then at the end of the five individual rounds we have a team round um they're technically the most um challenging and with a lot of teamwork I guess but that goes for all teamwork activities I guess you could say but um with teamwork we usually get all the credit done and it's a great way because it's a great way to um sort of dive deeper into challenging fields and um with that you get a lot of satisfaction really when you come across these challenging problems and it's a sigh relief especially when you see the final results and you're placed on top [Laughter] [Applause] thank you thank you no it sounds awesome I love it thank you I'll just say that I'm um you know intimately familiar with uh someone on the math team and he can testify very much so it's a family he really loves being part of it with you guys and uh you know you're doing a great job this year so I'm excited to see what happens with the rest of your season so yeah I guess two questions well one question and a comment is how do you find who comes up with the problems [Music] the meats are written by a gentleman named George wooder from New York so even outside uh writer that we pay I'm also the president of the league so I'm the one that does all of that but we don't we have somebody on the outside to write their questions for us and the other and just the comment I have is sometime last year you were having a big Regional meet here type of deal and I stopped in I happen to be here for something and I just happened to stop and I was having a quiet conversation with Mr Lauer and it was fascinating to watch the students from all the schools working you know the problem and you know finishing it and everything else and then some of our students coming up you know and talking to Mr Lauer and went you know well I got whatever and I'm not even going to attempt because you know an algebra algebra geometry stats not my forte and to be honest with you uh but you know talking to Mr Lauer about about the the questions and everything else and Mr Lao was saying yep you're right you're right on that was the right way to go about doing it so it was it was great and my congratulations and uh good luck the rest of the year with your meets thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you [Applause] right foreign next on the agenda Dr Gifford the Desi comprehensive District review [Laughter] that you've you've had to follow the good stuff yeah so if you could just um hit the next um so just a quick overview if you recall we were acquired by Desi to engage in this comprehensive District review and I think we I told you in the past that they did have an outside agency come in and do the work for them basically I'm at the time Tracy Oliveira was on board so I just want to give her a lot of credit for organizing a lot of the scheduling that went on when the folks from the air had to come into the district so um the the review of our information took the form of many things we were all interviewed various of us whether it was virtual on site Etc they came in and did classroom observations they did document reviews all kinds of things the normal things you would expect in any kind of audit in a comprehensive review um we received the draft uh quite actually I think it was late summer if I recall and we were able to just look it over make sure there were no glaring errors and then of course they published the um comprehensive final draft itself so just the areas that it focused on Ross can go ahead um and again Ross and Katie are going to talk a lot about these in depth but they looked at leadership and governance and I know some of you are interviewed as well if I recall um curriculum instruction assessment Human Resources PD and and student support and of course Financial assets so the report then provided us with some of our strengths that they found as well as any areas for growth and of course we will be showing some recommendations as well as what brainstorming for future [Applause] so the way we kind of wanted to frame our presentation around this report was just to report out on the strengths that were identified in the report the areas for growth the recommendations and then kind of the next steps or or steps that maybe we're already well into um but I think it I you know in our discussion I think it's important that we acknowledge that these are recommendations and we'll consider every recommendation but not every recommendation means that we will fully implement it some of them for example as as we'll see um you know just maybe doesn't make sense or we're already past that point at this point but every recommendation made in this comprehensive report will be um considered so starting with leadership and governance um under leadership and government governance there were several several areas of strength that were noted starting with the high level of trust and collaboration that exists between the school committee and the superintendent the report commented uh quite heavily on the fact that school committee members trust the leadership team and administration and the superintendent in particular to do the work of the district and so that makes um you know uh the challenging decisions and that come along with running a district that much easier to make when there is that high level of collaboration and trust another strength that was identified was the district's response to covid-19 and the communication um surrounding the various uh protocols and um ever-changing guidance that that went into the covid-19 pandemic um also under leadership and governance they looked at the budgetary process and they noticed they noted um that it was dialogical and that there was a lot of conversation that went into the budget development um they also cited as an area for growth um you know using disaggregated student data to really drive the budget process which again in talking about it we do use student data obviously to make our budget decisions but disaggregating this from data is something that comes up throughout the report at different points it's not uh certainly not limited to the to the budget piece but really digging deeply and looking at uh certain data at the sub group level was a recommendation that you know we I think it's important and it's um something that we've we've started to do in various uh aspects of our practice so Ross can I I'm sorry could you expand on that a little bit I'm just not completely like could you give me an example of that like sure so when I when I read it around um you know disaggregated student data it's really looking at you know um our students of color our students who are living with economic uh challenges or disadvantage um are multilingual learner students really looking at those sub populations of students and asking how are we prioritizing them in our practice what are we doing to support all students so can I follow up do you mind that because it was my question as well I understand sort of disaggregating student data around rapid brand around studentlearning outcomes that sort of stuff I'm a little less clear about what they mean about disaggregating student date I'm looking at Mr Kylie too around budget decisions right can I you know what I mean like I can get it in certain domains of what we do I'm not clear what they mean by that in terms of driving budgetary decisions does anybody have any sense of that so I mean that's the hard part with a report like this is we don't get to speak with the team after they've delivered the report to ask a clarifying question um but I think it's looking maybe not so much a personnel certainly that would be part of it but really looking at like you know I think Mr Oliver brought this point up at one of the last school Community like our acceleration academies that we ran right that costs uh you know that's an investment of funds and do we have programs like that and how are we making decisions on how you know um what students are able to participate in those programs things of that nature again that's just my own interpretation of a recommendation where we weren't able to speak to the team and Mr Kylie certainly I don't know if you have a different take but right I mean it is difficult because this is an evidence-based review and then we get a report so um but but certainly being thoughtful about our decisions in the budget process as it relates to specific groups of kids is something that we've done um whether or not that evidence was easily seen by the reviewers maybe you know could be an issue and it's but it's certainly something that we should be thinking about right and I mean I see that in terms of how we do it in our learning out it's just I can't wrap my brain around what it means to use disaggregated student data to drive a budget process that's just confusing to me so it doesn't sound like it's very clear to any of us so we can just move on um like would be like resources like driving like curriculum you know to be more targeted I mean I'm just assuring that our subgroup needs are being met right so you can look at special education as a subgroup you can look at our you know our as Mr Timo alluded to our English language Learners as a subgroup of students and making sure that we are funding those departments making sure that we're funding goes um you know those needs in an adequate way which is certainly something that we do obviously right and um to Mr Kylie's point but not necessarily something that's really necessarily easily training you know to document on a piece of paper so I think the budget process is so intricate and I'm going to get into that a little bit on the on the last standard that it's sometimes difficult to articulate all the steps that you take in the development of the budget makes sense thank you I know I think I stopped at one point no that's all right um so one of the other recommendations was that district and school leaders should ensure that Improvement planning processes include input from the equality and diversity committee that had been established by the school committee um and so while that uh committee is not currently active at this present moment the idea that we looked through you know an equity lens is certainly embedded in all of our work including our district strategic planning teamwork which is um includes creating a sense of belonging and participating in the sense of belonging Network that's a major part of those conversations um it's also a major part of our work as we develop the portrait of a learner which will serve as you know the district's North Star and kind of guide our district strategic planning work for the next three to five years an equity lens is certainly being applied to to that work as well and again just you know it's as sometimes it's as simple as just making sure when we say equality education for all that all truly means all um you know and having that conversation so um you know this is an example of a recommendation that's made that you know there's certainly elements of it in our ongoing work that we're doing uh district-wide um that's all okay get that all right so curriculum and instruction again strengths that were identified the vertical alignment of the K-12 digital literacy curriculum and certainly uh Trish Leary and um there's a whole team of Educators from Dartmouth public schools that worked on developing that curriculum and now it's being implemented and so that was identified as a strength and we certainly want to honor and celebrate at Trish and that team that did that work some other strengths that were identified including instructional alignment across the Four elementary schools classroom organization long-term systemic support for personalized blending and project-based learning and again that was really a K-12 a pre-k through 12 initiative that was supported by the district um you know as well as through our partnership with the Highlander Institute so that was cited as a strength and then finally again looking through an equity lens here cited as a strength was the lack of barriers to enrollment in our advanced placement coursework which is in a major area of focus over the last many years here at the high school and so again um you know that's something that was cited as a strength that we should be proud of in terms of areas for growth under curriculum and instruction the curriculum review and selection process was cited as an area for growth vertical alignment rigor of the non-ap level courses in grades 9 through 12.