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sorry um and you can see here this percentage so you can see for example three percent of our students here um in that in that cohort were Hispanic students I'm sorry robots that's two or more 62 percent 62 Hispanic Latin Americans do latency and over here 15 of the newly hired cohort I can't remember that's going to be a little bit higher than your current existing Workforce so um here in the um black students seven percent of our population um and again nine percent of cohorted teachers that number will be a little lower move about our full teacher population so you know we're we're making incremental progress next slide please and here you'll see this one is actually a realistic comparison percentage of students of color and percentage of all of your certified teachers um again an incremental progress to try to get to a world where students will see and learn from people that they identify with right people who don't like that particularly from the teachers next slide please again a quick note on where we were last year we're seeing incremental change we're seeing slight increases um but overall trending in the correct direction when we compare students and color by declarative ethnicity and for Ascension to a teacher okay so um last year I talked a lot about where we were searching we spent a lot of time focused on how do we find teachers where where we get coming from we continue to see um High numbers of teachers coming to us through CT reads CT Reap is an online kind of a bulletin board of jobs where teachers go and administrators go we're seeing um as you can see here about a quarter of our folks are coming through CT Reef 33 are coming straight to our website so they may go to our Danbury public schools website they may live in the district they may know of us and they'll come directly through our Danbury public schools site and apply that way and then the places on the left are places that were generally recruiting we still continue to do a pretty vigorous business with students from UConn from Wisconsin and from Southern and we continue to expand to programs like Sacred Heart Bridgeport and NYU where we have our um our affiliation family as well so a kind of a diverse group Next slide this is a little bit of a look on this year's applicant pool by the city again heavily um white applicants and the areas where you see some movement are in the ESL World Language areas where we tend to see more teachers in color one that we do and so [Music] in a subjects so this one is a new slide this year we made a lot of offers this year that were declined we have not seen that quite a few years and so I probably talked about a little over 200 candidates have you brought in about 140 we had a lot of internal movement this year as well people change the billions people changing kinds of jobs so I wanted to drill down and take a look at the ethnicity of people that were not coming here to see if there was anything to draw from that and what I found really was that the numbers the percentage numbers really look consistent across from all of the pools how many people that offers how many people rejected offers in those very similar numbers so I don't know that there's much to conclude from that so we're going to continue to kind of explore why we think people are not taking the offers that we're making I do think that your salary scale for teachers is pretty competitive more so at the middle of top level instead of the entry level but with this new contract I think you're going to see that you're very competitive so there's something else about here that we're not we're not locking down as many as we have traditionally in the past so more food for thought as our as we start to have conversations with our hires with our decentralized hiring teams out there in the world to see um if they can leave any information about what might be an issue again I've investigated the candidacy Department you can see there okay so um let's slide is one more and that's the last slide on the left what I did was I literally looked at last year's presentation and wrote down for you copied the action steps we talked last year a lot about increased visibility and recruiting increased partnership Pathways changing a little bit or tweaking by adding new locations to go to and implementing an exit sort of thing all of those recruitment ideas are all still very much at the Forefront of our strategy for hiring so for example today we put out a new grid that went to all administrators with about six or seven new hiring Affairs some of them are kind of grouped together so there might be three or four colleges that are one hiring fair so we're putting out to our folks that go out and do the interviewing on site some new locations a little bit of a look about why the school might be interesting to you for example they have a lot of special ed candidates or they have a lot of Early Childhood Specialties so we're going to continue to expand where we're looking within kind of a hundred mile radius because a lot of the research that we've seen says that we're going to be looking to attract people that are generally within about 100 miles from here so that very much on the left on the left side all of those bullet points continue to be true we have implemented the exit survey this year it invites certified and non-certified staff to go through a series of about five questions and then invites them to a meeting if they'd like to have a special conversation with me right now we're getting some decent feedback we seem to you know people will do a short survey not everybody really wants to sit down and have a conversation with me which I want to take personally but there it is um so we're going to continue to push on the exit survey to see what we can believe what we're seeing from it is exactly what we've been hearing all along um either teaching's not for me this isn't the job I thought you know the um particularly some of the larger classes of the high school where they're teaching a lot of overloads there's people who say this just isn't the right fit for me there's people that are leaving teaching that are going off and going somewhere else to do something else there are people saying their quizlets are too high so we're seeing kind of the same narrative that we've been hearing for a little while now nothing really different about that all of which informs our conversations about Staffing for next year which it can point about for example of increasing Mental Health Services how are our PPS staff doing are they leaving higher proportions and why so those conversations are very much ongoing and they are bolstered by the information we're getting for but what I just want to take a minute for is kind of the right hand column here what I've rolled out this year is a three-part strategy and there's three words is attract recruit and retain so attract to me is um what are we doing in all of our materials what are we doing in every bit of publicity that we have to try to make Danbury an appealing place for candidates to work um do all of our materials reflect for example our mission statement do they all reflect our strategic plans our strategic goals are we out and visible so that someone will say hey I'm going to go to the Denver schools website and I'm going to apply a good job that's online so that's the attractive people that are out there that may be local may know about us and say come and look and see what you've got and I'm going to go ahead and apply for that job that's kind of the um it requires some work on from the internal for our outward facing documents but those are people that are going to look to us and see what we are in the field the recruit piece though is the piece that we continue to work on with that left-hand column what are we doing to recruit new hires to here that may not have thought of Danbury as a place where they want to work and then retain and um you know we'll talk in a minute about the teacher of the year what are we doing to affirm and validate the people that are here to try to stem the flow out of the district so what strategies do we have that are kind of HR but also kind of central office Eve about what do we do to to validate and really praise and reward um those that have chosen to stay with us so um the attract is as I mentioned um a minute ago we're working on a more curated website curated content that reflects our mission and values and it highlights what are the benefits to working here I talked about discounted student loans rates um mortgage rates what are the things that coming here are of value to you the shorter 10-year track if you have a tenure in another District recruit is we're going to continue to expand that recruitment sites list and we're going to really try to do some targeted certification area hiring so we're going to exploit for example the state department of education's lists of who's certified and what shortage areas Christy Salita did a really nice job last year of put together a letter about Rogers Park here's all the things that are really great about working at Rogers Park and she targeted people who showed certification in particular shortage areas she got a lot of loved your letter you know not looking right now but I really appreciated getting it so I think that's a real plus and I think that's something that we're going to try to really leverage as we go into this hiring season um and um in terms of recruiting we're also going to roll out for the second year we'll want to expedited hiring initiative so there are certain locations like at UConn where we're looking to to Really lock in some of those kids early we know that they're high quality really good quality candidates so we have recruiters going with letters in hand that say I like you I'm impressed with you we have set up a demo lesson for you for next week with this team we'd love to have you come in lock you down with a letter and a contract right away last year we did an incentive which was um of what was kind of a modest amount of money but given to those teachers for classroom setup so use it to buy materials you hear a lot about teachers using their own money to set up their classrooms and that will be given to you on the first day so that we don't lose you in August afterwards June which has been a consistent problem so we're looking for ways to find those candidates early but find a way to hold them but they don't decide until July obviously they're going to go somewhere else did you see you have a question as you see the phone call from the now retired professor of education at West Carolina he would like well it was his idea to put have an office either at the new Academy or at Danbury High School as a counseling position to further education any students who are looking become teachers and I told races I work with whatever you want as long as you've got like you're retired now is this what what's current your new chair wants to do so if I get any more work pass it along to you have them contact you to me I don't care I'm in one of the pathways that you know we've talked about for a long time with kids at the high school has been careers in teaching so we have a pipeline program that goes into West hunt particularly for teachers of color book we try to really Shepherd some of our kids there those kids have an opportunity to do some teaching in our summer school which is great as they go through the program so we're always working to build alliances I've talked with them frequently I know as the pathway develops Cara's folks will be walking working closely with them we also have Kelly education who does our substitutes I've got them working closely with Wisconsin as well to see if you know is there a December graduate that's looking to do some subbing that we can pull in so we're trying to get many fingers in there so I think that's a great idea Teresa I love it serious with clarification this person wants to volunteer this time I wish it was 54 years at Wisconsin I used to be chair of the department Dr Cruz so yeah it's a great resource for us yeah you know we try so hard to build these alliances with Bridgeport Sacred Heart with um with just a lot of the surrounding schools that sent us interns so we really I think that grow your own model is really the most successful yeah well I thought that was interesting that he missed out and with like the area reserved yeah I love that type of thing yeah because um and then the other retention this is kind of a new idea um and and Kara and I have been talking about this and she's been rolling out a survey talking with our staff um there is an opportunity for us to have our currently certified teachers who are interested to pursue a cross-endorsement in bilingual and tesol education it's about a five thousand dollar tuition and we've looked at some grant funding to go ahead and be able to offer funding for those students are those teachers who want to participate in a cross endorsement program and what we're talking about is probably a two-year commitment so we provide the tuition they go through the program and get the cross endorsement and then they would stay with us for two years so that's another way that I think we're trying to recognize the staff that we have and give them continued growth opportunities so that they see this as a place there where they don't want to just train and go to Norwalk they want to train and stay here with us and that's really the goal so we're continuing to look at those but um so that right column is really what you'll see in terms of initiatives here from HR to try to attract group and retain and then lastly um the other thing that's been ongoing for this year is um we have been participating in um a coaching alliance with the rest this year um and it's a I want to say it's a six-part program and um it's been Kevin and I and Christy saliva for the administrators luanelli Iglesias who you know many of you know one of our bilingual teachers from Roger Park and Terence Cunningham and we the five of us are going to this these um these coaching meetings the goal is to meet the state requirement of having an in-writing diversity increasing diversity hiring plan so that's one thing that we have to have in place for the State Department of Education but in doing that what we've done is we've been really peeling back on questions like not only what are the demographics of your Workforce but why and so what I'm learning is I'm looking through the data is where we have a bit of a Down hole is where are candidates of color falling out of the hiring funnel is it at the screening in process is it at the interview process is it at the post interview offer process so what we're going to do in my office this year is we're going to try to push all of our administrators in to do online um scheduling of interviews so Apple tracker system will allow administrators to say here's the interviewing slots please candidate go ahead and pick your slot that will give us data on who they're interviewing who they're screening in that will then be able to look and see is there anything to be made are there any Trends to be spotted among buildings or among the district as a whole about how candidates of color are coming through the process to us so that's kind of some exciting work that I think we're going to do this year we're trying to get some of my folks trained on kind of apple track 2.0 to be able to just zip that data out but a place where you know I think that our our trajectory is really good I think our numbers are looking pretty solid particularly when compared to State numbers but I think there's more to to unearth here about how we're doing and with our process and that will lead I think to Greater continuity among all of our buildings on what kinds of questions are they asking what are they doing in the demo interview or the demo lesson who is on your teacher panel that's evaluating folks so that's going to be the next place that we go to try to provide some kind of continuity among all of our buildings who do their retire that then funnels into us um so that's action steps so that's where I've been thank you Kim that was a very interesting consultation anybody have any questions okay so um [Laughter] yes just two more quick updates um we have Talent acquisition 3.2 accomplishments of teachers and today sure this is just a quick update on the teacher of the year which we brought back into real time last year we listened to some feedback about it was a great event and we finished it with a big event it brought you most of the board was there it was great all the teachers come up on stage the principal says something really nice about them and then we elect our district teacher of the year um who's then eligible to go on to the state competition in Hartford last year we ran it um it really started about the end of March early April and then that culminating event was in Middle late May kind of right at that crunch time and all that end of the year stuff is going on so this year we're going to walk it back about a month so that that event comes late in April and we'll hopefully get people at a time when they're just not as crushed with all the baccalaureates and award ceremonies and everything else happening on the district so we'll have a timeline for you guys coming up shortly on that um and all that to look forward to in April awesome yes last but not least Danbury Career Academy and just an update put a full board to make everyone aware of it's no longer a secret that I mean academies at Danbury High School at the Cardiff sites is the building is being delayed uh will not be open until 24-25 school year the physical site will now be opening 25-26 city of Danbury is playing do you already have a meeting plan for January 24th to formally begin to review well no more discuss and War the 3 800 students who will have at the American High School at that time academic from an academic perspective we still plan to move forward with our planning and so the ninth grade that was intended to be in the school of the 24 25 school year our ninth grade is now it was supposed to be going into that new building 2425 um try to work on scheduling in the way to make sure that they can receive their Academy offerings at Danbury High School right now it will take a lot of work from our Administration and physically make sure that it's going to be done last but not least I know um last but not least I know there was some discussion by the board members and I we have the Academy of course coming up really soon we have a lot of questions out there from our families and Community about how do I get in what does the what what really do the academies offer oh wait a minute I heard about this Middle School how do I get into Middle School can you tell me more about what the middle school offers would like to suggest that we have a report Workshop specifically for this purpose really soon I have asked the my assistant superintendent Dr castanero director of Academy partnership to work on a schedule so that we can get out in various quarters of the community and whether that's with our parents without families with our Community Partners and talk to them about what the at what the academies can offer our school community and before we start that Roadshow of course I'd like to start here with it for a day and then launch here before we get out to the creative community appetite for a date but I do want to ask requests if we can have one relatively soon so Cara and her team will get in front of you to start talking about all the amazing things that are about to happen we're the families so why don't we come up with a couple of date options to Philadelphia city and print Dean so now that we're postponed for two years what is he uh you know if there's someone who's doing at this workshop and can he give us show us some any progress he's made with Partnerships and uh the businesses and stuff in the meeting mean talking about I actually think um did you meet in the meeting I thought you wanted to answer that now no I'm saying he mentioned it right yes you know I certainly don't want to bring anything else out something so okay no I I mean I think the academy model with that evening would also be a great opportunity for us to speak to for its role in clarification about his role and what that means and kind of the pre-work that it takes to help pull that off all the big things and major things that we're talking about so I I think it would be a really good evening for us because we're doing things so differently um we're you know we're proposing things education so differently like I think it requires some clarity clarifications I think yeah I'm talking about we we know what it's wrong talking about progress has he made into progress and with Partnerships I'd like to have an update on that great and his role was you know it started well I'm gonna finish what you started so his role was you know started in you're supposed to have this all in play by September 23.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
you know we talked not long ago about oh soon we'll be at 12 000. better get ready all that stuff it's here it's not coming it's here today as we're talking we're over 12 000 12 210 and I mentioned our student demographic is a little different than the folks we compare to the uh we display it there numbers so when we yeah after we put all the requests together you know one of the ways we wanted to explain to you in the community why the budget was going up as we um we talk about budget drivers what drives what's pushing it out of teacher contracts whatever they are and we start to put that together um it's suddenly dawned on us it really these really aren't this year budget drivers because we really don't have enough money for all of those so we said well you know they're really program needs and you'll see us with some ways to finance these things off budget and use that word um so they're they their program needs but then at the more we got into it what they really are are pressures on our project and things that we need to do phone so you'll see them we talked about them Monday night I'll show you in a second energy and utilities is way up just like in our homes we're seeing it too moment we'll talk about that in a second in that Esther shortfall there so there were three covet grants I called it it was the cares Act first one that expired last year the second one was called sr2 that one ends this year and then sr3 is another year of development sr2 was a big Grant it was 12 million dollars we were we spent half of that on staff over two years so there's there's staff in there that's very necessary I'll show you this afternoon so that just shows us and then the next page try to add up the uh this page just adds them up mathematically and you can see that of all the things we need to do we really we need another 13 almost 14 million dollars but we need to be realistic we're not going to get that we need to do something so what I talked about those strategies like what we did last year three we have some that are going to bring the increase down to nine million or a budget of 150 meters so we have to go to the next one here the proportionary numbers this page it doesn't display 12 but what what it dawned on us was things have really changed in three years it will be three years in March since we've all shut down and things are different today especially here the um our enrollments are up above what the professional demographers said they'd be we have uh and and with that increased enrollment there are more specialized kids English language learners and so on one of the biggest changes is I think we've got a lot when we all had to go home and all the students a lot of computers that came up we've got free computers from the state of Connecticut we got computers with the cares app some of the other restaurants we're now on a what we call one-to-one ratio every student has a Chromebook and that's great we can't go back but they don't last forever we have to replace we want to replace so many a year so we don't have to do them all at once but it just tells you how how things are a lot different than they were and the other thing we're seeing particularly in this budget is inflation just like we're seeing at home or at the grocery store everything we're buying too costs more so this page just narrates that a little bit I won't throw it too much but the next page this is what we're proposing 6.4 percent increase a total of nine million dollars up from our 141 million to 159.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
emotional I'll make a motion do you want to read the date that loud or do you want to so the only real concern I have is April 10th that is the day after Easter so I don't know if people are going to be out of town oh right there is we will be here yeah again with any of these if there does turn out to be a conflict adjustments and then just uh Mr Hopkins and members of the board that did take place in this past year and we made an adjustment in December 5th and sixth board meetings we're going to be 57th we made the adjustment enough time in advance it can be done okay assistant Mr Hopkins hello this is Olson hi Mr Rodriguez is 4-0 this is the first reading of the governing board policy advisory numbers for a number 739-3743 in this year uh octave members of the board of governing boards main review and adopt policy advisory number 741 consistent with policy adoption process and policy bgb first meeting the proposal shall be presented for review secondly the proposal shall be presented for discussion in action regulations and Exhibits are optional the governing board should be aware of these regulations and Exhibits but court action is not necessary to utilize them so what what I what I've done in the past is I I will just read a summary as the first reading you have I believe uh you have this to follow as well and so I'm just going to read uh not word for word but just a summary here that asba provides the Arizona School Board Association so first reading policy advisory number 739 exhibit Iha and Bea Family Life Education exhibit i-h-a-m-b-e-b Family Life Education uh ASB created exhibits subscribers May utilizing to obtain mandatory parental consent if offer any sex education curriculum and are referring students to sexually explicit materials this policy was updated in August the exhibit conforms with the policy policy advisory number 740 exhibit ijl-e Library materials selection and adoption um exhibit subscribers being utilized to inform parents that new materials will be purchased for use in the library the exhibit includes statutory required timelines finally asba created a checklist to guide administrators in determining whether they are required to go through the public review period the policy was updated in August the exhibit conforms with this policy policy advisory number 741 policy jfa BDA admission of students and Foster Care regulation jfa BDA admission of students in foster care this policy and regulation we're updated to conform with the law that educating students in foster care is a collaboration between schools child law for agencies and Ade mandated collaboration includes assigning a district point of contact for children in foster care and notifying 80 of the district's point of contact assignee policy advise me number 742 exhibit jhdeb exclusions and exemptions from School attendance this exhibit is being updated to avoid the potential that a HIPAA violation may occur a health care practitioner notified ASB that the previous exhibit required Healthcare practitioners to disclose protected information the exhibit now indicates that the disclosure to a parent Guardian is a permitted disclosure under HIPAA because it is being requested by the protect the party a HIPAA stands for health insurance portability and accountability Act and policy advisory number 743 exhibit kbec parental involvement in education state law requires schools to provide Paris a way to request information that pertains to their parental involvement procedures required by ARS 50-102 this exhibit enables parents to request the relevant KB related information and provides the school administration a mechanism to prom to process and track requests for this information the policy was updated in August the exhibit conforms with the policy this will count as the first reading and the second reading will have I believe February 18th on this one there can be discussions there can be discussions creating a motion first no because there's no problem yeah this uh Mr Guthrie uh just don't be here in summary um policy advisory 741 updates jfabda admission of students and Foster Care to align with Federal and non-regulatory guidance issued in 2016.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
um we have and we'll talk a little bit more about this um when we talked about the DL Administrative Assistant our El our English language Learners uh we are being innovative and we have we currently have an El teacher that's being shared by uh by Del Rio heritage we have a el teacher that is doing two jobs teacher and El coordinator to high school and then we also have a an Ela not a teacher that is supporting Federal territory why why required it's a reasonable question you know you know we have we have a significant number of unaccompanied minors at the high school high school students that have a huge impact right now and that's unfortunate because we have the least amount of time with those kids on a company they come up and they live with maybe relative that's already here right don't speak any English the majority of them did not cross the border with a parental care and we have quite a few of the middle schoolers [Music] among the students who are here um are there others and your family who are waiting to come yes they already have identified who's next and why aren't they here now there's nowhere for them to so we it is this important got a very very much that's the whole state so what we'd like to do is have a teacher at each campus so we would have two El teachers a high school the the middle school would have a new one the one that's currently serving Del Rio in the middle school would be full-time at the middle school um then we have um a teacher at territorial and then we'll talk a little bit we you know we'll again later we want to add an El admin assistant to help support the uh the ideal teacher slash eel coordinator that's currently serving the high school the administrative assistant could do that so provide some student support surprise Supply some administrative support so that administrative duties are being done by Carolyn reader who we're going to lose so that would pick up some of what Carolyn's doing uh on the the administrative side but um so that's you know when you know besides the politics we need to educate these kids and we are being um rated on our education of these kids and in a couple of schools we are told that we're not doing the job that we need to be doing with these kids so this is a plan that we want to put a place to address that great kids not behavioral problems not academic but the kids aren't like very promising students who are you eager to learn doing well like hungry to learn and to be here and so that has made that is one of the reasons for the increase Demand on Rosa Maria who is teaching our students because they want to learn they seek her out all the haters they're saying they're watching their knowledge yes it was great and we you know if if you later decide to approve the El admin support position a paraprofessional uh secretary we have somebody identified in there it's a former Chino Valley grad speaks Spanish it can it has you know is a great example for these kids or what could be accomplished and um so we you know we we have put we have people in place that are kind of um connecting with these kids and we want to continue that because that's going to be the best way to get them to living and feed um about positions and we'd like even though that one of the things that we are really pushing for in our hires is the capacity to speak Spanish because over one-third of our student population come from Spanish-speaking homes and we need staff who can also speak Spanish so we've talked about 33 over 33 Spanish-speaking homes doesn't mean that they the kids don't speak English okay my question is that adequate is the proposal Advocate I have uh you know this is quite frankly this is one of the reasons for a teaching plan because of this particular population and whether or not you know are we serving it well and I would over 30 seconds yeah so one other thing that people about I thought we were at like 20 25 of our students come from Spanish speaking homes and about seven percent of our students do not speak English right now seven about seven percent of the entire student population so the the answer to your question is there's other things that we're doing outside of this and part of that could be um I know that both at the high school and the middle school they're looking for teachers that could teach subject matter in Spanish mostly I think at the at the middle school they've identified a math teacher at science teacher that would teach those subjects in Spanish um you know we we don't want the language to be the hindrance they'll be have other instruction to teach them how to speak English but this way they're not falling behind on the content of that material because of a lack of understanding of that and I think they're trying to do something similar at the high school as well so that's in addition to what's going on we're trying to identify I think um in December all of the administrators got together with a Spanish-speaking parents who were there by invite and we had interpreters present and we had Cherry Picked students who really are the most likely to pass the Christian exam in English that will be administered in February and we've invited those students to come to a special test prep boot camp for for course for Fridays between now and the examination so we have teachers who have parapro staff and then we have the parents come so we could explain this is why we invited your kid this is what we're going to be doing during that time transportation is provided we have meals provided and these are the things this is why your kid was invited to attend this because we believe your kid has a great capacity to become proficient when they demonstrate proficiency it's sort of a loose use of the term right still need a lot of support when they demonstrate proficiency though it opens other doors for you right more elective courses things like that and then we're in the process of planning with the college a tour at the ctec facility in Spanish for Spanish-speaking families so they can see if your kids become proficient and really turn themselves toward learning English when they're in high school they're going to have all of these other opportunities that language is a barrier for so we're trying to do some things to motivate and excite the parents because parents are here because they want to learn their life for their kids they need to understand all the reasons why learning English enables that better life to happen as you know you do not need to speak English you can do every single thing you need to do stash yeah the answer to your question Mike is I don't know if this is enough yeah right but I think I wanted to make sure that we shared other things that we were doing outside of this because you know we are take we are trying to be proactive we're trying to be we recognize the need we're trying to be proactive we've identified some strategies and this is where we think that we could with the resources that we have if we could put the put towards that issue yeah and I appreciate that what you're doing yeah absolutely I mean I'm like what happened it's part of that weird question maybe where you are we get more income because we have more kids right okay but then the kids need very very specific tons of support a bit more across the kid because you have to be a lot of services yeah it cost us more but by the same token I'm I am excited that we have staff that sees the vision we had a meeting at the end of the first was the first day or first it would be just full with the high schools having we called it impromptu because all of a sudden the teachers were like I got all these kids in my class you don't speak English and I don't know what to do and so like not kidding at the end of the first week of school and everybody started and just wants to go home we had what 30 teachers show up to the library right we talk about we'll talk about it all we can do which tells me to stop us yeah yeah fortunately the younger kids the language the older kids after they're 12 years old it's harder than English it's just the way our brain works and I had customers worth half the kids students speak English [Music] saying some Spanish words ABCs because it was just not what we should eat like the ABCs yet [Music] doing this nothing is really you know just single-minded tunnel brand that you couldn't even see that his child was actually learning something great about another culture unfortunately we have some really awesome kids it's a really awesome staff and first step for staff and recommendations so could you comment on the the numbers of those students you projected to that could become proficient were we this year yeah I mean we've identified a group is it a really small group medium or small less than 10 percent of the total population and we know a few decisions like we have a couple of middle school kids um who we don't think will pass the first time but they're so hungry to learn about us so to give you that example they've asked or um one of our take home Chromebooks and Wi-Fi so they can do the online language learning lessons that we do with kids on Friday Saturday offenders so we don't think they're quite there yet but it might be easier to also just are so hungry for it as well in the other comments I've got I've got one more position so um one of the things in actually I asked our HR coordinator it was actually a request from Cindy that I followed through on that to identify our staff that are not traditionally certified so traditionally certified means they get a typically they would get an education degree as a bachelor of art degree sometimes another emphasis as part of their bachelor's degree they would do their student teaching they graduate college they have a certificate they go up and become a teacher this we have people that don't have degrees here we have people that have degrees never done any kind of education classes we have um people you know then there's any we have a spectrum of people in the bill um and when you have a bachelor's degree there's an alternative Pathway to certification and you never do students we put you in the classroom and you're doing you're doing work that first day never having an education so um we have a significant number it seems like very excuse me it seems like we have more and more every year um because this teacher sorted it's either that or we have no one in the doctor so you currently have four instructional coaches one in campus I'm sorry we have four half time instructional coaches right one at each campus and what we're proposing is to have at an additional full-time instructional coaching and their job would be to help those that are not traditionally certified so that would be their focus is those those new staff members that have never had a kind of education class um you know a lot of the times the the content is typically not the issue right it's questionable um it's clean it's all those other things other than the conference and so that this person would help that that on a more intensive basis than our current instructional coaches can do we help those that are not traditionally certain so one for each of the units this is one person to be sure yes and other staff because what we've learned is the non-traditional trained people eat up all their time people yeah and they're going to be they're they're going to be people that are coming in alternative Pathways that are fantastic teachers it has come back they're going to need very little time and then we have people that come in and struggle on day one higher levels yeah and so we if we're going to invest in staff we want to make sure we keep them and this is another way to health insurance so again this is just an opportunity for you to discuss this but think about it if you have questions during the next month but you want to ask me or come see me or email me please feel free to do that this will go to see active towards the end of the month and then we will I'll bring back any comments they have to you and hopefully it might be a revised plan it may not be we'll find out in February and then hopefully we'll go through something Federal item 90 is the addition of the secretary do you feel this is the idea now right um and so this is one step we guess there's a classified employee again we think we've identified somebody a former graduate that speak Spanish to do this and so um we have the discussion I don't know if there's any further questions that you may have regarding this position um we are constantly evaluating our positions uh very few times that we had a program you know our special ed is going up our yield is going up it seems like we have more and more specialized needs but we would constantly evaluate what we need and we can adjust on in this position on apply it's not you know it's not a contract position so if the need goes away if for some reason the Ade says you don't need to have all these reports uh we can easily uh you know adjust as necessary you know there's questionable thinking but you know as an example so if you know any position is conditions um [Music] we have this discussion in October the need for this one and Julie's not here but I do want to share a incident or a story that she had it kind of reflects how what kind of impact this can happen so we do not have a fire alarm at Heritage and we're trying to get that replaced by our insurance company so the fire department absolutely a firewatch which is somebody that walks around and watches for buyers every day while students are on campus we have somebody on campus walking around with the best on the radio and they are looking for funders uh because we don't have a car um and this is just this is the fire department requires us oh yeah oh yeah so one of the one of the things that they do is they also pop up the bathrooms they also pop into places that you know may not be seen all the time by people and what what uh and then you can you can verify this it seems to cut down the number of incidences that are taking place in these places when there's somebody actually looking and that's what the hope that we're going to have with this with these these um security guards that they just provide an additional presence to help alleviate some of the the student behaviors on campus and in addition to the ability to use that um right now they will not be armed but I think that's a discussion that that you know you all need to have at at some point in the near future and that may be as part of the Strategic plan I don't know uh but that is a is a possibility but that has not been approved right now well we haven't uh the police department provides us uh student resource officer that's actually um their house at the middle school so it was officer because he's at the middle school um actually I saw him parked outside the high school today but he serves actually all four schools I appreciate what the police department does put the school district this is at no cost for us the police department provides him as a service to the district and maybe as a service to themselves because do they have one person that is addressing all the kid issues um he's making great relationship with kids um great relationships with parents as paying off but we would still maintain that but that's always at the you know pleasure of the Peace Department but that everything that we are hearing is at that we continue yeah yeah we currently have a security officer at the high school so this would be just one additional security uh that's my job um if I'm not available foreign [Music] yes I'm not arguing that I just it's unfortunate this is an action item um you have a further discussion if we could how will you give the motion um okay all we asked for him was to apply I didn't get his shirt and you know we have access to the ate database we looked he was given notice prior to the break equity and um we don't necessarily know all the details uh not that we need to know the details um we've you know we're managing this as a hardship to the middle school that they're that they're managing but not necessarily um it's not that it's not good for kids but that's you know that's your choice um yes um you're not the only one I know that and I I have to tell you I'm disappointed too because I feel like it approves things because and so I'm I just I'm when I fight anymore um I do want to say that you know she is has a great opportunity uh world I I don't think that she's going to get rid of us 100 she's going to be involved in some way with us just not in that position so um we and we're thankful for whatever she can give us because you know I I am excited for her at least she has an opportunity that she could not pass up that she did not see just kind of fell into her lap but I appreciate that what she's done for us and like I said she's not getting rid of us any other questions there's a supplement to make sure that the the supplement is reviewed as well please um thank you all in favor [Music] item 10 a contract award following issues upon a prescription services ready to go go ahead so please hopefully you've been able to review this and to summarize we discussed this since I believe in probably even shooting housing then we are in September we put the publication out in the middle of the paper Sheriff but myself and a procurement person I didn't hear with two different groups October 5th and fourth meetings you're looking at a lot of questions we've got lots of meetings we realized that we were diverging just a little bit with the definition of public lands that would come up and you have since resolved that we did get a document from the city saying this is what we're looking for nine different items it does resemble more of a subdivision status installation and these these uh before I show you these Maps we have a little tutorial layouts here you did delay this based on these discussions we were having around October 31st originally moving to November 17th we opened the bids and there were only two respondents we hoping to explore of the two one who was unable to put in a good bond in Arizona School construction if you've got a two million dollar project you better have a 200 000 the place of that only one had that so that left just with one qualified applicant and it's a it's an applicant that we've probably heard of uh it's a brand new company Nationwide it's head offices in Vegas at the atmosphere directors I'm trying to keep by 20 feet by 19 high and it would fit in our place over here uh we had had several discussions with them uh I don't think you'd like to add at this point Chris I have a special actually Lawrence if you want to run that there's like a one minute video kind of shows what what it looks like [Music] welcome home to the boxable Casita where you can live large for very little your boxable Casita arrives complete right out of the box with a full-size shaker style kitchen oven microwave a tall window right over the sink and an adorable breakfast bar for two and behind this contemporary sliding glass barn door you'll find a full-size bathroom with a shower tub a backlit mirror over the glass vessel sink and a whole lot of drawers for storage everywhere won't keep you warm or cool with included heating and air conditioning and the mood right with dimmable LED lighting for the tall eight-foot Windows under the even taller 9 foot 6 inch ceiling we've obsessed so much over the details that even our Outlets have integrated USB plugs for your electronic convenience enjoy all these great features with a home price at a remarkable forty nine thousand five hundred dollars 250 per month and ultra low utility bill on average of about twenty eight dollars per month and when you're ready for a little more room we'll be ready with more bedrooms more living room and even a second story possibles are built up with Precision from steel and concrete and are pretty much everything proved boxable dedicated to providing homeowners with greater Freedom by lowering the ownership costs with a home designed to the highest standards of quality strength and sustainability to last for Generations these ones they are currently installing these units at headlight or pulling housing there are stacking them there so that they're basically a two-story studio studio on top to be on the bottom stairs and but that that unit that was next to the bathroom door which I think is cool there's a look like a look like a dryer it's actually a washer dryer combo you can close in it washes it and then you don't need to take it out and it drives it so will have its own washer and dryer as well how many of these are yeah one would access the parking whatever and watch for the rest of these days the price they're charging is quote is 81 000 per unit episode we do know that that we've had questions but uh yeah everybody with water and you know flooded in the sealed area we believe that it was really closely with them ideology studies it's right here in the hospital summary that it will be installed correctly because we believe that if there's a problem when we may I guess the term would be brace for a change order if we're under perceived conditions to accept that but if someone would be divided for Elizabeth School is right in that same area wow you know no not completely there's there's parts of the campus that are not necessarily they have nothing to do with that they're just Advantage issues but um 40 foot tears down in this conference Services they're basically Justice well they have the I guess you could say almost like a franchise situations the design of the compressible walls is a nationwide company during the licensed authorized either from Las Vegas there's a reputable Construction Company I'll show you the easiest way out um maybe two of these will fit one at this end one of that in but they're quite large so one of the things that I had this discussion with with Mr Sheriff today one of the things that we're going to happen to make sure that we do is in the in the RFP which we've seen this before they're required to follow the rules of the Town building code along with foreign [Music] so there's foundations they're septic there's water there's electric there's fire lane there's something you know there's a variety of things that are required 48 times actually of Landscapes as John knows about this so I did go through extensively the contract that was sent out to you all yesterday and all the components of a subdivision that need to be in there are reflected in the conduct whether it's a sidewalks curves drainage Landscaping uh sticking as an engineer I'm very happy because what I have what I've seen and if you look at the site plan these are small units but because of their placement we've got spaces for increasing if this goes on in the future we could do this again and again if these units proved useless and the way they constructed the fire Lanes it'd be easy to extend those spiralings up each side right um and build more units so you could duplicate this price according to the land I looked at it well we're actually not acquired one of these things where you're it's kind of a catch me but there's courthouses in the country that are 130 years old and still have ramps they're encouraged now if you spend any federal dollars or any government dollars to meet that standard so you have one in 20 reps instead of one in 12 reps and things whether because it's still public land but I think to to please the city and give them what they're out here and kind of meet their code for a subdivision that's that would that be what you describe it as Chris that we're trying to meet their code and requirements yes after the meeting to do that we definitely want at least one with Ada access and one of the things that it also has occurred within the past week we've gotten that I received a documents to apply for the the maximum Grant which is through yeah and Oklahoma counties and part of that is we you know this money that is part of the grant is actually um Professor funds so which is federal funds and so we want to make sure that we're in line I know we have a sam.gov information that we have to provide which is a bit of grant information and so um that's important let me we can show that we're you know make an effort at least to make inclusive to everybody people that get slapped with lawsuits for non-ada compliance so that will be something that you will need to determine between now and one of these are completed which could be as early as August I think that's being helpful but it knows um I see this as transitional housing this is not meant to live in for years and years it's meant to bring somebody in let them get on their feet and maybe move to you know find a place that they can make a forever home or or at least uh while they're here at home and um so I'm thinking um maybe two three years snacks I mean do they also they're going to be right and and part of the financing so a portion of this we think can be paid use we know Community funding so that would pay for part of it in addition to that um John and I have been having conversations that I know he did some initial investigation we are trying to figure out an amount of the amount that we can Finance and then with events that we collect would you use the pay for that financing payments so with you know basically we wanted to help pay it's not going to 100 pay for itself but to pay for itself as much as possible I like the rents that we're collecting and we were talking you know I threw out 500 a month to somebody they thought that was ridiculously low um you know but we wanna you know we don't want to subsidize we want to make you don't want to subsidize what you want to make it affordable um so that's you know we there will be rent we will take it out of people's paychecks um there was a concern that that makes it sound like company housing well that's kind of what this is is company housing um and then at the same time we want it to be nice you know we want you know there'll be upkeep associated with this um the the facilities department will have to do uh there'll be people moving it out um there'll be you know upkeep that we have to associated with that but it will be we will be landlords the district will become a landlord and so we'll work with our attorney this is not new to a school district um I don't if you live in company in school district housing and you or did you drive every day right in fact yeah the average company yes right okay so you know Baghdad does it um it's you know we have a a former Yucca County Superintendent lives up in Cedar or Works in Cedar there's School District housing there so this is nothing new we have lots of resources our attorney uh we can work on this come up with like uh we have a lease um everything else and we'd have to come up with with board approved criteria that would establish you has if anyone has you know a precedent or has a preference in selection and it may be just a random Lottery so we that would be something that we have to have a discussion I believe [Music] I I I I think it's just one more tool because [Music] um this is an action item s [Music] on Saturday the improve the contract with chronborn services let's agenda item for the evening is items 11 a and it is the first reading of revised policies so um just a little bit of a a procedural issue that I want to share with you um there are five exhibits of regulation in the policy so our policy are things that you all approve and that is kind of an overarching tells us kind of how we what we should do regulations are the procedures on how to implement policies exhibits our forms that are associated with the regulation and or policy okay uh by by our policies um the only thing that a board has to improve is a policy that's done through two reasons um the board is the superintendent can approve exhibits and regulations I make the practice agreement typically bringing those things to you uh and so uh I can't remember the last time that you guys didn't approve a regulation or is it Well it can't happen and I don't have to but I choose it um I will uh we'll do two readings with this we could approve the exhibits and the regulation I want to hold that off there's some of these that we that don't apply to us for example there's uh an exhibit on Library materials selection and adoption it does not apply to us the way that we have our libraries structured that was only a height list if we have certified Librarians so we don't need to have that exhibit because it doesn't apply it and so there's a couple there's one or two other things that I want to um that I'll look at they'll kind of pull out at the next meeting uh but right now I just want to kind of give you that heads up that's what's going on there's only one policy that really is subject to the two readings but we're just going to do twofold any questions together
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now he's got an extra year so he's got an extra year of course we're moving forward so right so we're so we're launching at 2023. okay so we're and we could speak more about that in the workshop if you'd like so we're moving full steam ahead it's more complicated than it has will be if we had you know our original plans but we intend to to launch and still move forward and get creative within the than the parameters that we're working with and I can explain more about that Workshop yes sir okay okay so long for information you'll see the uh 2023 standing committees we didn't really change much except this integration amount to some that I was on um and the district committees and btlaisons that we did and change even though someone does want to move something Cara did send out a a you know uh email at the current ones so if anybody wants to jump on that or switch something around feel free so if you want to just change from for me to take care of the email yes thank you a couple things on the district committees I won't be able to make gdec you in a day now so I'm you know if you've been designed somebody else for that and the first meeting is February 6th 55.
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now when we built the budget the way we build it um what you see here is uh currently budgeted positions so we went into our software we looked at who was working here on December 6th that was the payday and uh pushed them up a year in their labor contracts meaning if they're on step five now they'd be on step six next year and if there are any vacant positions that we haven't filled yet we put them into the starting salary so because we want to fill all the tickets but we just so this is for the budgeted positions no more but this is who we have now what will cost next year and it's you can see just for that it's 3.7 million so right out of the gate we're looking for nine to do 3.7 of that just for people who are hearing about their salaries another million not a big increase this year for health insurance four percent but it's still a big part of our cost structure so those two things alone are five million I've got a good question so on the increase of salaries is 4.6 on the contract a uh no no um the the salaries of well you got to look at I think certified differently than uh up on the classified non-certified um the teachers have steps and um that that gives them probably I think we're close to two percent very high-step costumes yeah um and I think that the contract most definitely raised step is a raise with a gwi the steps go up too um so we settled we just settled the teacher contract at two I think or two something but with the steps yeah so overall Five Points and it's a good point because um one of the you know you've heard about this we all schools now we're having trouble maintaining staff people are getting um been away by other school districts and and we've had to keep Pace just to keep our people so the the twos and the trees are now being replaced by threes and fours another increase on the benefits is that at our cost or what they participated so uh thanks so when we did the uh the look at the payroll who do we have now um if we came with the same benefits if they were having a single health insurance they kept them in single if they were familiar thanks good question and this by the way um we had we had a typo in there um Monday night thanks out for pointing it out the number we were showing for salaries for this year um was too low we were using the actual what we expect to spend not the budget this is budget to budget we corrected it it balances with we keep walking through this the next one's important um we need some help from the superintendent Madness so let's look at this five this five years everything's going up we're not trying to show what happened five years ago or what's going to happen five years out that growth it's going up the numbers at the top are the ones that matter the flag numbers there's that 12 210 of today um and we see both going up here underneath it that's the yellow is what we counted on October 1st and so when we officially capitalized for that the blue is what the demographer is telling us what happened as recently as last June no we should expect this we flew through that so uh that's what we're projecting but it doesn't count the whole story because I keep saying it's a story there's a story within the story and that's our high school our high school we expect to go up three or four hundred kids
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the policy is amended to conform a school district required actions in educating children and Foster Care as interpreted by the U.S Department of Education in Ade the policy advisories attached were created by asba policy services to assist districts in complying with Arizona legislation HP 2439 HP 2495 and HP 2161 policy advisory number 742 updates jhdeb to address requests for HIPAA protected information so it's not law written because it's in line with what the law is that the new board members on these ones we're required to do a first reading and then a second reading for voting in a normal month we would have done the first meeting after the study session and then the development since our study session we've all delegated to the evaluations that we're doing the first meeting tonight okay next item is the request for agenda items for the next month and I just like that thank you request again that next month that we talk about Junior High and Jake is about to bring that up so um and include this tropical filter any other agenda make a motion a second Mr Hopkins this is Olson I describe again hi Mr guppy good night
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and then I also think that Michelle gave the chair outside the facility she should take my place on the school building committee I agree with Lisa still there and that takes the council has to vote on them I believe is like an extra step for that what what's the step does it go to we not not automate but we think we might have do we both do we go in the back up from the last time we did this yeah thank you very much okay board chairperson's report just like to thank everyone for participating tonight and uh presentations were wonderful a lot of information yes and I think that's it for me mentions and the other board Communications or comments from anything that went on I just have to change the finance committee meeting on April 18th a little late too uh Finance I have on my schedule a finance committee meeting on April the 18th possibly the problem with the 25th [Music] finance committee members does that work for everyone to move it on the [Music] 24th thank you yeah we're here on the 25th a day before April 26th right you could or no that would work for me if it would work for everyone else finance committee members yes no [Music] okay still there okay foreign [Music] first meeting you guys this is a lot of presentations a lot of conversation about this anyway um anything else so if we as a board look at a workshop for board housekeeping and your Market I would say March that'll give us some time to think about here's some some little housekeeping that we need to take give me like a self-evaluation like a self-evaluation no well rules and regulations and probably and that would be some roles and responsibilities I think that's a great idea sounds good I make a motion picture all right
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foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign workshop for Bullhead City School Board on Thursday January 12 2023 at 5 30 PM roll call Corey Burgess here Amanda Eamon here Charlene deals here Adam Boyd here Melinda sabreski here 1.3 Bullhead City School District budgets Dr Stewart Mr President and board members I thought maybe a good way to start especially for our new folks I'll get my microphone closer does that help okay um to do a little uh budget 101 and bring you all up to speed on uh or review for some of you the kinds of things we do for Budget uh Cass if you would get my PowerPoint up please okay so um many people are visual and and especially when we're dealing with money and those kinds of things sometimes it's really helpful to have visual things I'm visual some and lots of people are so I thought I would do it this way so Arizona public school funding is primarily based on a weighted student count so we're talking about the two big budgets that I report to you every month [Music] the unrestricted capital budget and those are both determined each year by multiplying the weighted student count by a base rate that's approved by the legislature each year there is one base rate for maintenance and operations and a different base rate for unrestricted Capital now I'm going to tell you really right now that if you multiply those numbers that I have on the screen they're not going to come out quite right that's because there are other some other factors involved but I'm trying to keep this as simple as I can for most people to understand including me so um so you see a couple of buckets there and I also have them represented here with jars of marbles on the Deus so the big jar it represents the 18 million dollars in our maintenance and operations budget and the little glass represents the funds for unrestricted capital okay so um in front of you I've also given you uh copies of some documents you've already seen and a couple of documents you haven't but essentially these budgets are determined by our weighted count so you can see I have that and our weighted student count for this fiscal year with the budget revision we did in November is 3170.205126 students um and I put the exclamation point there because I don't know very many places that go to six decimal places and I calculated today exactly what that one two six on the end brings to our district twenty six hundred dollars so we'll take it right so um this is determined by average daily membership and particularly for our new board members uh one of the things that you will hear one of the acronyms you will hear in schools and that you'll hear as a board member is ADM and that means average daily membership and that's calculated with our student information system how many students we have enrolled on all the days and then averaged and that kind of thing but the weighted count then so average daily membership the students are counted as one for each student then there are additional weights ranging from .007 for gifted students up to 7.947 meaning 7.947 students for one of the categories in special education but their weights are for our El English language Learners all of our k-3 students enrolled all of our k-3 students again for reading money and 11 categories for special education and they're weighted differently so in a nutshell that's how these two budgets are determined for each year there is a whole page of calculations and those kinds of things that I do that the auditor general sends out in the budget document but this is what it gets to um and I do want to note that um of that 18 million 1 million 107 000 was carryover from last year okay so uh we were careful in our budgeting careful in our spending and had some rollover good fiscal management for school districts says you try to have rollover in case you have some big emergency because and the reason I've used these jars is because unlike businesses we only have so much so if businesses need more gidgets more widgets whatever they produce them or if they need more funding they raise their prices we can't do that we have this amount to spend period nrmno NR capital I'm going to stand up so I'll try to try to keep on the mic so the important thing for you to know is these are the only two budgets where we can move marbles oh money process okay these are the only two budgets that we have that kind of flexibility all right one of the things that we work every year to get our St our employees to understand is that whole issue of we're not like business we can't increase prices we can't go out and manufacture more students to put in our classrooms to raise our budget if they come that's good it brings us more money but if we lose students we lose some money too but the thing is that we budget this each year and we want to have some carryover if we can so these are the only two where we can move money back and forth in the budgeting process with the approval of the board as the year goes along we spend the money and when it's gone foreign it's gone I left a few marbles because this is the year another year a second year that we are facing the aggregate expenditure limit I probably let a few too many marbles out of there in fact I know I did because if you notice at the bottom of this page in bold our payback or it's not even payback because this money would not go back to the state it would just sit there right now we cannot even budget 3.1 million dollars that is being held because of the aggregate expenditure limit okay last year I didn't know about the aggregate expenditure limit when I wrote the budget so I didn't leave any extra money in there to play with this year I knew so I left you know I parked a little bit of money I had no idea it was going to be 3.1 million Park some okay and so we're waiting for the legislature hopefully to override the AEL so that we can spend all the money that was in fact given to us by the legislature last year okay so that's why I didn't pour them all out I want you to know they're sitting there they would be sitting there on July on June 30th unspent if that is if that AEL is not overridden for this year okay um however you see that I had a million one in rollover this year if the AEL is not overridden and the money is sitting there I I won't have any rollover the legislature gave us roughly two million dollars additional money this year but the 17.1 percent is 3.1 that eats up my extra million dollars so I'm talking about not just what happens to us as a school district but what happens to all the school districts in the state so many of them what many of them can't even afford to to give back or not spend the 17 percent especially the very small districts we had a county superintendent's meeting today and a superintendent from one of the very small districts north of the canyon said I I can't I can't not spend 100 of the budget that was approved in July I need every penny of that so I don't know how I would cut 17.1 percent without closing the school okay now the impact the financial impact on districts of course on communities would be immense immense impact we are the third largest employer in this in this uh City in Bullhead City Bullhead City School District is the third largest employer the economic impact would be pretty strong on Bullhead City but when you think of Colorado City or Yucca or Owens Whitney School District which is wikiup or Peach Springs or any of those small districts they are the largest employer in that community so it's not only the staff that would be unemployed if it's a two-parent tooth parent family and they're both working and kids are not in school someone's got to be watching kids so the impact the domino effect would be pretty serious for those folks okay so that's kind of a bird walk away toward AEL but I wanted to kind of know how this affects you know how that affects what we have in our major budget any questions at this point okay did I make it reasonably simple to follow okay hopefully all right cast next slide please we have 48 other budgets so the paper that you have in front of you with the the blue and the purple and the white and the yellow stripes represent all of our budgets all of our active budgets the fuel lines that are gray we still have budgets set up for those they are inactive at this point but everything else in that list is an active budget any of the ones that are blue are ones that gen manages and that's one reason I had her up here was so that if you had questions about any of those and you also had gotten in her report today a list an explanation of how each of those how each of those Grant fund programs are used um so you can see in this slide that classroom site fund which is paid for with sales tax money and goes to teachers Food Service fund and the title one budget are all about the same size they're all in the neighborhood of 1.2 1.5 million we have the three buckets of Esser funds this is covid relief money sr1 is gone but it's still there because we had some things still going on at the beginning sr2 so sr1 was about a million a little over a million sr2 was around 4 million and it's still active and sr3 is 10.3 million so those buckets are pretty big and then you see all of those other little buckets some of them are 50 to 100 000 some of them are 10 to 50 000 and then all the little ones are less than less than ten thousand so we have some budgets that are pretty small but we need every penny of those budgets to run uh continue to run our district the best way we can I asked Tammy to be here tonight also because you see the three lines on the list that are yellow those are grants that she manages for the preschool program so I didn't know if you might have questions for Jen or for Tammy about those but I will tell you that combined all of our budgets so these two budgets and all of the other 49 or 48 equal 43 million 796 thousand two hundred thirty five dollars this year Esther II will go out of the budget it will have been spent by the end of this fiscal year and sr3 will carry over so you they will go away from this list but there are now still active parts of this so if you have questions about this page or the previous page I'll try to answer those or if you have questions for it for uh Jen or Tammy the Esser funds some of those are some of the funds that are coming out of Esther I know were just things that we've purchased but some of them are like salaries for Black Friday and those types of things you know so the question is what do we do with those extra funds are gone and if we don't have the the money exactly exactly and that's a great question Charlene so uh part of the planning process for next year because it will be the last year of essa3 and any of the things that we've paid out of sr2 so for instance we have paid uh we paid early on we paid risk compensation out of sr1 yes sr1 and out of sr2 risk compensation out of those so that you know that was money directly to our employees for pain and suffering during covet let's call it that right um and we've and and we've paid out of sr2 contract signing incentives okay so obviously those things are going to go away because we won't have the funding for that in a minute I'm going to show you uh just quickly our organizational charts not because I want you to see any of the names necessarily although I don't care that you do but I want you to be able to see what would happen well how people are paid how we pay for positions in our district and then backwards the effect of if we had to uh if we if AEL is not fixed what would have what might happen to our school school district um so one of the things we'll have to do to answer your question Charlene is we will have to make very good very close decisions next year about which teaching positions they're currently being paid out of sr3 that we will have to absorb back into our budget we we did transition classes so that we could keep class sizes very small that will probably go away we will have to reassess what size you know what our class sizes are and how many people so the reality is some positions may go away or be combined we'll just have to you know we'll just have to figure that out but those positions will go away at some point certainly after next year and um so those are all parts of the you know of the consideration and any of those decisions will come back to the board of course because we want the board to be well informed about how we are funding the positions and how we are either reabsorbing those positions or or some of them go away okay it's a great question do our new board members have any questions are you overwhelmed yet [Laughter] yeah absolutely Jen all right and and you asked specifically about Flex Friday so we try to braid our our grants which means we kind of take pieces and combine and so for for Flex Friday it is a possibility depending on the amount of money we receive from our title grants to to fund Flex Friday out of title we've done title one uh Rural and low income we can do that um title four and then we do still have schools that are on the 21st century Grant and so that does help three of our schools next year will be the last year on the grant they can reapply if they want to and then we have one school that is working on a grant right now for next year the next five years hopefully so I mean there are ways um it may mean less staff on Fridays but I mean there are there are ways we can grade funding to keep like Flex Friday going if we decide that's a priority so and we braid funding in other ways so you see the bucket here for food service we contract our food service program to Chartwells uh for you know each year there's a contracted amount that budget we set higher than that because we're hopeful that the reimbursements for meals and um uh and what used to be called Commodities although it's not called that anymore will exceed the amount of money we're paying in the contract as Chartwells so one of the things that we do is because secretaries at school sites and sunny our purchasing agent do a lot of work backend work on food service we pay a percentage of their salaries out of this budget so we braid their their salaries their contracts with mno and this what that does then is the money we're not spending on their salaries in from m o help us pay for all-day kindergarten does it make up the whole amount no but a significant piece of our cost for all day kindergarten then uh gets covered in mno like it should because we have braided those salaries across if that makes sense so we have a number of positions and actually if you can read really tiny print when we bring up these org charts you'll see that there are a number of folks who have two codes after their name and and that's for us so that we keep we're continuously reminded out of which bucket are we paying these people which bucket or buckets are we paying these people okay other questions okay next one please um okay so this is the paper you have in front of you and this is for the benefit of the audience so that you can see uh these are all of our budgets okay uh 43 million dollars this year thanks next one okay and this is from the budget summary which you all saw um in November when we did the update and I've just highlighted some things so that you can see that the numbers match what the information that I've given to you next one please and this is the one chart uh in the entire budget document that shows all of our funding in one in one table and so that's where I got the figure for the 43 million those numbers then are reflected in other cells in these pages sometimes you kind of have to look for them but they're there okay next one cast please oh would you go back to that one please okay one of the things I'd like to point out down at the bottom is our staffing summary um and just point out that it uh that our teacher Staffing summary reports as one teacher per 13 students but I will tell you that's a little misleading because we don't have classrooms of 13 but this also includes some other folks who are certified teachers and who are in specialized roles and and so uh so it's a little misleading because you take the total number of students and divide it by the total number of teachers you have and uh and that's how it works out so I want I don't want you to be misled by that the figure just above it where it shows administrative so this is superintendent's principles and others there's been a lot of word in the news about administrative costs in our schools in our state being very high perputable cost you see us there as one administrator for every 158 students the last number I saw for Statewide was closer to one to four hundred um uh so our our cost is not all that high for our folks so um uh we're good we're good there um and so anyway I want I wanted to call your attention to that okay next one Cass um and this is just more information for you to refer the numbers back to the uh back to that uh chart on the previous page okay uh we're gonna look at the on at the org charts just quickly oh wait a minute this is another one so uh that one this one shows you the breakdown of the grants on the left side so so you can see the various amounts of the grants that uh that Jen and um uh Tammy are dealing with okay okay next one okay this is the beginning of the org charts uh so this is a district that's the folks here on this uh on this property this site uh district office and Facilities uh anything that's not green uh would be the people who would be working if we had to close down because we could not use our m o money in other words the green anything that is green on this chart is paid from mno Jen and Diana and Cherie would be kind of lonely and we wouldn't have payroll I would be here I will tell you I would be here but pay or not but I don't think I would be able to get business people and other folks to work next one please this is Coyote Canyon so this is our preschool and our life Academy anything that's bright yellow and green is Eminem paid out of this jar okay so you see there are not very many that are not bright yellow or green next page please this is Desert Valley and the light blue ones there on the left amongst all the green Charlene for it to answer your question or to help you with your question those are paid out of Esser funds so those will be positions that will be you know considering what we're doing with those okay and and you can see we have a very large staff of special ed at um at Desert Valley because that is the site for our um k-4 life skills program as well as their own resource students we have 30 students in life skills right now k-4 um and and you can see we have a good staff of title one uh Paris but uh there would not be many people on that campus if we had to close down uh due to mno next one please Diamondback preschool would continue Title One Services no students in them so and once again you see some light blue ones that are paid with um with Esser and you see a darker blue slightly darker blue those are those positions are paid with classroom site fund and so they would be there because that is independent of our mno budget and our counselor would be there this is sunrise a similar situation the preschool would operate we have some we have a kindergarten teacher who's paid out of a grant and we have four individuals paid out of Esser and the folks paid out of title that are pink and one sped teacher who's paid out of some grant funding the Middle School and if you look at um I was going to give you an example this may not be a good school to do it I was going to give you an example of braided if you look at Rose Gilbert you can see her two codes for salary and and so one code is mno and the other one is Food Service so that's an example of a berated a braided salary next one please this is Fox Creek Fox Creek would get hit the hardest and the last one this is transportation the white boxes on the right are High School Employees primarily they're they're initially or primarily hired by the high school district we have them on our org chart because of course we use these folks occasionally and they are listed in our payroll I think that's the last slide I have right yeah okay so if you have any questions I will try to answer them that's great I hope so I hope it's helpful I will say if you have questions anytime come and ask us if it has to do with the grants and those things please ask Jen please ask Jen because I depend on her to uh to run all of those I don't know much about about all of you know all of those things I do know there are times when I go to her and say uh we're trying to do this do you have any money and or can we can we use some mno and some of your money so we work pretty well at braiding at braiding funding so thank you for your attendance to that we appreciate it all right with that we need a motion to adjourn our Workshop I'll move that we had during the workshop Amanda Ayman I'll second that motion Charlene Diaz all in favor aye Corey Burgess I Amanda amen aye Charlene Diaz hi Anna I'm Elena sabrowski so I moved yeah six o'clock we're ready to go all right I'll get these games are we good okay all right I called to order the regular meeting of the Bullhead City School Board on Thursday January 12 2023 at 6 p.m roll call Cory Burgess here Amanda amen here Charlene Diaz here anna Boyd here Melinda sabreski here all here please join us for the Pledge of Allegiance please thank you citizens president if you please sign in in the back present item 2.5 presentations and proclamations Dr Stewart Mr President and board members I would really like for uh Corey and Anna to step down in front with us please we're just gonna be creeping in the background oh stand our deepest appreciation the two of you for being on the board Corey for a very long time and multiple times and Anna for a brief time but a very productive time okay I guess since I'm down here [Music] so we're are we done it's been real thank you Corey Corey don't worry you'd be back if we could have Barb zarzicki and Fred Rushton come forward please and [Music] I gotta say this is one of the grandest exits I've ever seen if you all will come up here and we welcome my Kyle our County Superintendent uh to swear in our three board members welcome Mike well thank you so it's great to be here you might want to come up by the mic since we're live stream all right and uh I just want to welcome the three of you and uh where are you in and then you'll be ready to have some fun okay I bought a new tie so I'm sorry yeah all right so when I when I start I'll I'll just say I and then I'll ask you to state your name and I'll look at you and then we'll proceed from there okay if you can raise your right hand I I Fred Rushton I'm Melinda sobroski hi Barbara do you solemnly swear do so swear and I will support that I will support the Constitution for the Constitution of the United States of the United States and the Constitution and the Constitution and laws and laws of the State of Arizona the State of Arizona that I will bear true faith and I will bear to Faith and Allegiance and allegiance to the sake to the same and defend them and defend them against all enemies against all enemies foreign and then they will faithfully and then I go faithfully and impartially to discharge the duties to discourage the duties of governing board member uh government board member for for the Bullhead City School District 15.
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good evening at this time I'd like to call this regular meeting of the Dyson Unified School District governing board to order let the record reflect that all board members are present please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all foreign okay we'll move on to our annual board organization meeting pursuant to policy 1-103 and ARS 15-321 the governing board must elect a president and board clerk sometime between January 1st and January 15th every year the process will provide an opportunity for each member to make a nomination each nominee will have an opportunity to accept or decline the nomination and each nominee will have an opportunity to give a brief statement we'll move first to board president nomination and election at this time I will accept nominations for board president but I would like to start the process by nominating Miss Crystal chefin myself um I really admire Crystal's ability to hold a high regard for accountability for not um not backing down from having courageous conversations when necessary and most of all you just have one of the purest Hearts I of anyone I know and I know you lead with it and do what's right by kids and so with that um do you accept the nomination thank you for your kind words I accept the nomination are there any other nominations for board president not hearing any I move that Crystal shaffen be elected as board president do I have a second second motion made by Christine Pritchard motion was made by Christine Pritchard started by Don Densmore to elect Crystal Schaffen as board president all those in favor oh we're doing a Voice vote are we not doing it okay we're good efficiency right there good work I did not receive a prompt to vote but my vote is yes motion carries congratulations congratulations and I will officially be turning the meeting over to you so you will pick up right there to one click I notice you passed that paper very quickly thank you Miss Pritchard enjoy your free time thank you now for the board clerk nomination and election we will follow the same process used for election of board president and election of board Clerk nominations for a board clerk at this time I will accept nominations for a board Clerk I'll nominate Don Densmore all second or wait do you have thank you I accept but okay then we go I'm I move that Don Densmore be elected board clerk do I have a second okay we have a second emotion has been made by Crystal Chaffin seconded by Christine Pritchard to elect Don's Densmore as a board Clerk and we can vote thank you motion carries all right next we have a choir performance Dr Dean thank you madam president members of the governing board members of cabinet in our community I'll turn this item over to Dr croto thank you Dr Dean uh good evening everybody um Madam president members of the board cabinet and guests tonight it is our pleasure to have the Valley Vista High School choir with us to perform here and they are under the direction of Mr Preston McDonald so welcome and the floor is yours rigorous audition process so they're all uh Best of the Best of them [Applause] [Music] come fly with me let's fly let's fly away and if you choose you can lose your Blues come fly with me let's fly let's fly away come fly with me let's go down [Music] [Applause] rare is [Applause] [Music] thank you Angels here cause we're together [Music] foreign [Music] five with me let's take off once I get you up there where the air is [Applause] [Music] Angels here because we're together [Music] [Applause] [Music] how come let's fly away [Applause] [Music] Spiderman Spiderman [Music] look out here comes the Spiderman [Music] is he strong listen but he's got radioactive blood can he swing from a thread take a look over her head hey there there goes the Spiderman in the chill of night at the seat of a crime like a streak of light he arrives just in time Spider-Man friendly neighborhood Spiderman welcome friend he's ignored Ashen is his reward look out becomes a Spider-Man [Music] Spider-Man does whatever a spider can spizz away any size catches these just like flies [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] he arrives just in time Spider-Man Spiderman friendly neighborhood Spider-Man world and Famous foreign [Music] [Applause] thank you Mr McDonald's great job guys you swing pretty well great intonation and great blend thank you all right next we have audience with individuals Miss Densmore thank you this is the time for the public to comment members of the board may not discuss items that are not specifically identified on the agenda pursuant to ARS 38431.01 action taken as a result of public comment will be limited to directing staff to study the matter responding to any criticism or scheduling the matter for further just for further consideration and decision at a later date in order to facilitate accomplishing the business of the district in a timely manner a time limit of three minutes will be set for each individual or group addressing the board when you approach the podium please state your name for the record and first we have Janet LeBlanc good evening my name is Janet LeBlanc my husband and I spent 10 plus hours each pouring through the current curriculum for review although we are continually reassured that Dysart does not include CRT or SEL in their curriculum it was disheartening to discover that every publisher except for BFW specifically states that SEL is embedded throughout their materials please understand that we are not against SEL and realize that there are necessary and positive components of it however our issue is when it teaches negative behaviors a couple examples found amongst many many others are the story of the paper son the story plays on the emotions of students and teaches students that it's okay to lie cheat and falsify documents to buy your way into the United States the story is nothing sure of of today's illegal practices of a coyotes wouldn't it be more practical to teach students how to legally immigrate to into the United States the story about The Lion and the spider teaches students that it's okay to manipulate and earn the trust of your friends only to turn that trust against them to get what they want for these reasons together with CRT found we do not recommend wasting our tax dollars by adopting any of the curriculum on display but to look further into other Publishers materials if you do not take this recommendation into consideration and choose to adopt this indoctrinating curriculum we found the least of these in inquiry iniquities to be McGraw-Hill in addition please note that ARS 15721 states that the school quote make available at the school district office for review by the public for a period of 60 days prior to formal selection of textbooks a copy of each textbook that is being considered for selection end quote it does not stay on display but made available for future curriculum review periods please take the facts into consideration curriculum was not available for to the public for review for 60 days it was only available for 29 of the 60 days due to school and office closures a copy of each textbook was not available but online online only also please consider working parents for better partnership with Community by offering more than two evenings for future curriculum reviews although we so appreciate all the staff time that was made available to us to review the curriculum via scheduled appointments the above practice did not fulfill the confines of ARS 15 721 thank you and I appreciate your time thank you next we have Larry LeBlanc good evening I'm Larry LeBlanc I would like to address the school curriculum review policy outlined in ARS 15-721 to paraphrase the policy states that the curriculum to be reviewed will be made available for 60 days to the public the Dysart education staff provided only 29 of 60 days to review curriculum I feel like I'm entitled to an additional 31 days to review materials but knowing that additional days to review this particular group of curriculums is cannot be met I am hopeful that on this day this awareness will better prepare the staff in charge of curriculum review to make certain that 60 days will be made available in accordance with ARs 15-721 it is my hope to keep this current violation in-house in the future I am sure that we will enjoy a full 60 days of review in accordance with 15-721 for the very next con for the very next consideration of purchase of any other curriculum coming forth this past review had 60 plus books to be reviewed my mission for review is to instill sound learning into the system when material contrary to sound learning appears clearly it is my duty to address this with confidence that the board and staff will seriously view any concerns that is brought to your attention hopefully promptly after reading several stories provided in grades four five six Etc I have determined that CRT and negative SEL is embedded the stories teach deceit manipulation negative family relationships and flat lying we have submitted the material I refer to through the proper channels if I am wrong about these issues I will publicly deliver my apologies to whomever will stand before me to receive such I have met many outstanding Professionals in the Dysart School District the good will always outweigh the evil it is my prayer that we unite to eliminate the indoctrination of children and Implement sound learning by way of our curriculum together we win God Bless America thank you and Dr Dean I'm sure that you'll be working with the leblancer continuing to work with a little box yes we we will continue to have conversation with leblanc's address concern is that it all right thank you next we have our student update Dr Dean Madam president thank you very much members of the governing board members of cabinet in our community this evening Dr crota will introduce our outstanding student speaker thank you Dr Dean Madam president members of the board cabinet guests tonight we have our awesome student here to give us an update from Valley Vista High School Haley Crawford welcome Haley good evening members of the board Madam president Dr Dean happy New Year for their starters um I would like to start by apologizing for my absence in the past couple of board meetings as you know it's my junior year so pretty busy with ACT prep and all my honors classes first I'd like to start off by telling you what dslc is doing we're currently talking about our community service we have rescheduled one of our St Mary's Food Bank events for the 2nd of February we originally had it scheduled for the 7th of January however a lot of our community was sick with the flu that weekend and then also all of our councils are individually planning our proms I know Willow just released their theme to their school and everybody's very excited about that and then we are also planning our end of the year conference for dslc which you are all invited to per me and Valley Vista High School and I'll be sharing the date with you for that next board meeting and I really hope you guys can attend it is the wild experience of leadership so we're really excited for that also upcoming is the 26th 27th 28th of January all of our councils will be going to the State Convention for student councils where we're going to learn about leadership and where one of our Valley Vista students Emma Ramirez will be running for State president so we just wanted to tell you about that inform you of her taking on that role and we're just really super proud of her and what our schools are doing for this convention so thank you very much next we have the superintendent update Dr Dean thank you madam president I would like to wish our governing board a happy New Year officially I know we've talked uh as this new year has begun but collectively as a group let me just say to each of you happy New Year and welcome back we're very excited that the second semester of school is underway and I'll talk just a little bit about that as we go through the update I also want to say congratulations um to miss Chapin for being elected the board president and Miss Densmore for being elected board Clerk and congratulations Miss Chapin on the birth of your first son last week we don't know why you're here but congratulations on the birth of your son last week so outstanding and as many of us know children are an absolute gift and so we wish you well with with your new family and you I hope you got some sleep beforehand because there's not much to come for a while so it's good stuff this week is all or this month is also School Board recognition month and so I just want to publicly say thank you to each of our governing board members for the service that you provide it truly is public service you know for those who don't know our governing board doesn't get paid a dime and they extend vast amounts of their own time and we appreciate it because it truly is a labor of love and a true public service so thank you to each and every one of you I want to report on some very successful things that have been happening in our school district last week we did something in this District that we've never done before and that was we brought our teachers back a day early before students started for a full day of teacher planning before the second semester started and I will tell you that it maybe is one of the best things that we have done in this District in a long time throughout the year I occasionally get emails from teachers we got more emails on that day and the days that followed Thanking us from our teachers for having that day as a day of planning it allowed them to truly enjoy their break without the thought or concern of how they were going to plan for when students came back our principals did an excellent job of meeting our expectations of not calling any meetings and giving the entire day to our teachers and it was just a tremendous outpouring of support for that and to give a little preview for our next board meeting on the 26th we're likely to bring a revision to next year's school calendar back to make this a regular part of what we do for the second semester so we were very very excited about that also want to let you know that as we continue to work through a great rest of this school year we are very excited about next year's plans that are underway now and you're going to hear a little bit more about that later in the agenda I want to let the board know that our curricular review for the current curriculum that's being proposed is coming to an end we are very very excited to let you know that we have record numbers of people that have reviewed our curriculum to this point in time we have approximately 30 people who have been in to review our curriculum we've not had that number in any time that any of us can remember and so we're very excited about the the fact that our community and our parents have taken advantage to come in and do that and just a reminder to the governing board that when we have a public review of curriculum it's curriculum from many different vendors and it's then that we begin to vet and narrow down for a recommendation to the governing board so we're very excited about that also want to just address a couple of things as we begin the new year and we begin with a new board welcome Miss Drake to your first board meeting and we're thrilled to death to have you join us we felt like this was a good opportunity just to provide a quick review as part of my update on the intent of updates and what they are used for whether it's the superintendent update or the governing board update as well the Attorney General agency's handbook allows for us to provide updates to the public without being agendized as part of either a superintendent update or a board update just want to remind the governing board that the intent of that update or report is for current events by each individual board member and so it's important to remember that and we just want to um to remember with the board that that's the purpose of our updates the purpose of my update as well and so we just thought as we started the new year with a new board that's a good thing to to remind of also we want to let you know of a couple of study sessions that we are going to be working with you to to schedule in the upcoming months one I'd like to thank Ms Pritchard for reaching out on opportunities for us to provide some board training and we haven't had that opportunity for a little while and so we've looked for opportunities for board training and we are looking at a couple of different types of board training available for the board one that's always good to go through is open meeting law training and so we'll be looking to schedule that along with some board governance and those types of training and so again thank you to miss Pritchard for reaching out and and speaking with some folks on that and we're going to be chatting with you about some dates down the road the other study sessions that we would like to to schedule and we envisioned this being about two different study sessions are for a very important purpose for the district and really a vital role for our school district you know we have a tremendous vision statement in this District um we have a great mission statement we have well-defined goals and goal areas but the one missing component that we have in our structure is we do not we have not identified the core values of our school system and that is the work of the governing board and we would like to take a couple of study sessions to work together with the board to establish the four to six areas of core values that really Define what our district is about and how we best serve our community and so we're excited about that work we're excited about working together with the governing board in that piece and look forward to uh to that process and that Madam president unbelievable still that you're here this evening is the end of my report thank you Dr Dean next we will move to governing board update um I will say that this is a nice mental break for me anyone who's had a newborn eat and eat and eat will understand the joy of a mental break so thank you for your congratulations and thank you cabinet for the beautiful flowers they're absolutely wonderful and thank you Miss Pritchard for leading our board last year um it was it was a bumpy ride and I appreciate all of your hard work and Leadership so thank you and yes I had a baby that's my update [Laughter] I just went to I attended uh Luke Elementary El Mirage and Western Peaks Elementary Schools I went to all of their a ratings celebrations so congratulations to them again for their achievement sorry I also just want to thank Miss Pritchard for her year of service you um I very much admire your leadership and to miss chaffin's Point yes it was a very bumpy year um also want to congratulate Miss Chapman for the board presidency and also a beautiful beautiful newborn baby so and I cannot believe you're here either but you're amazing thank you thank you anyone else I would I'll say I want to congratulate you first of all Mama Chapman and then miss Pritchard thank you for your service thank you for a great job on the board um I just want to say thank you to our Dysart Community for allowing me to have this opportunity to sit on the board for the district I'm extremely excited about this opportunity and I'm honored and blessed to be here so thank you welcome Miss Drake all right next we will move on to F1 consent agenda items I will entertain a motion I move the board approve the consent agenda items as presented second motion made by Christine pritchurch seconded by Joe Grant motion carries next we will move on to H1 summer workshop and PLC Institute Dr Dean Madam president members of the governing board members of cabinet and our community we are very excited about as I stated not only the work that remains for the for the rest of this school year but but also the work that we are planning in the future and and we are working very hard to streamline every aspect of what we do to a laser-like focus to make sure that we're successful in all of our schools with all of our students and so to provide some information on that this evening Dr Crowder will give a presentation on summer workshop and PLC Institute Dr croto thank you Dr Dean Madam president members of the board cabinet guests tonight we're going to look at a little bit at our refocus um and what we're doing in the Dysart District so about 10 years ago we really maybe a little more but give or take 10 years we started a process called the PLC process professional learning communities professional learning communities really is a method um to Foster Collaborative Learning among the colleagues in the district with the goal of really increasing student achievement so it's a great process a very good process it's built on four essential questions uh those four essential questions you see on the screen what do we want students to know how we know when they learned it what do we do if they didn't learn it and what are we going to do if they already know it and so this is a culture that is developed it is not new as a matter of fact professional learning communities is a culture that has to be developed what I said and it's something we've been working on we need to refocus we have a lot of new employees we have not a lot of new leaders over that time of the decade and so we really need to put our Focus back on that whole process it is a way of life it's something you do every day the professional learning communities are not something we do when we get out early on Mondays and it's not something you do on Wednesdays that's not how this works it's not one of those programs again it's developing a culture around those four questions of improving student achievement so that's important we're trying to get everybody on the same page with this everybody's in a little different place so really we want to focus on that process and what we're going to do with that one of the things we're going to do is embark on a brand new process within the PLC process and that's summer workshops so before I talk about the the Workshops the Work summer workshops coming up we have a short video we're going to show you and then we'll talk a little bit about those workshops so the workshops keep in mind are going to focus on the first two questions of the PLC process in our culture in this District what do we want students to know and how we know they learned it so with that we're going to watch this video and then we'll talk about that summer workshop and there it goes hello I'm Shelly assai the assistant superintendent of educational services in Dysart without a doubt the education of our students is a top priority for Administration in Dysart we must continue to find ways to maximize students growth and constantly improve our practice as Educators to ensure every child succeeds our students and their success is that the utmost importance to us in Dysert we've been collaborating with principals teachers and educational leaders in the district on how to best achieve this I'm proud to announce a new opportunity called the summer curriculum Workshop summer workshop yes thank you Dr Dean it's a way for all of us to come together as Educators and have a voice in creating best practice I've gathered together some amazing teacher leaders from our campuses to share more about this opportunity this new summer curriculum Workshop will take place on Tuesday May 30th through Friday June 2nd 2023.
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foreign okay good evening and welcome can I have a call to order and a roll call please Dr Lopez here Carlson here Mr Hall president in the cross president Mr post could I have a motion to adopt the agenda imovie.the agenda as presented second all those in favor aye can we please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance in a moment of silence for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all real quick thank you [Music] next item on the board is item D that is reorganization of the board oh I'm sorry I'm cheating sorry Dr Streeter it's your turn I'm going to ask board members Mr Carlson and Mrs micronus to please meet me out front yes oh so for our audience the oath of office was officially administered to Mr Carlson on December 23rd and Mrs micronus on December 19th at the ceremonial oath will take place right now as a part of our regular and reorganizational governing board meeting the term of office for Mr Carlson and Mrs micronis is for four years their term started January 1st and will run through December 31st of 2026.
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this is good evening we'll begin our meeting tonight with the Pledge of Allegiance one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all I'd like to welcome everyone tonight and remind everyone this is being live streamed and recorded so welcome to those of you who've watched it after the fact and I will be serving as the presiding officer until the board president is elected so beginning with oath of office um Cheryl Miller Mary Lynn Whitcomb Amy Pettit and Travis Shepard were administered the oath of office this week by Philip Marsha notary and our first item is a conflict of interest form approval so asking for approval of our conflict of interest form for Travis and Lori Shepard a second all right any discussion all those in favor station any opposed Nikki Pat and Earl thank you thank you all right next up is compensation review so as by as per the isba legal services board members may receive up to 2 000 for a year for their service plus a per diem the state rates for that the maximum rates for 2023 are 112 for regular meetings and 62 for other meetings as established by a board resolution the board last year received 2 000 per year for their Service Plus the per diem of 160 for special meanings so asking for um a motion for what you'd like to do I make emotionally thank you any discussion all those in favor The Host all right and that moves us along to election of officers so the first office is the office of President so asking for nominations any others okay so the nomination is for Amy Pettit to be president all those in favor oh sorry any discussion all right all those in favor thank you and I will happily turn it over so moving on um to other officers and we have the office of Vice President and I will entertain a nominations for that office okay you have a motion for Chelsea any additional nominations hearing none do I have a second for that motion second by Pat any discussion all those in favor any opposed did you understand okay so we've got 6-0 calcium and then next moving on to this position of secretary um so we'll entertain a nomination for the position of secretary a Dominique fessel Mr secretary okay we have a nomination of Pat do we have any other nominations hearing none do I have a second on that um motion second by Chelsea any discussion hearing none of all of those in favor for a path house secretary six any abstain and then any opposed um so then moving on for appointments okay I would like to recommend for treasurer and Deputy Treasurer Philip March for Treasure and Myra fish vote for Deputy treasure so we have a recommendation of Philip for Treasure of Myra for Deputy Treasurer um do I have a motion by Travis do we have a second second by Chelsea any discussion all those in favor 7-0 for executive secretary I'd like to recommend recommend Debbie Andis and we have a recommendation for Debbie for executive secretary do I have a motion motion by Earl do I have a second by Chelsea any discussion all those in favor congratulations sir and Phillip [Music] um so next we're moving moving on to motions the first item would be the board meeting schedule this is for July of 2023 to June of 2024.
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as well you've probably seen Dr Solomon more you want this since the year but we haven't seen you just a joke yeah welcome on this uh rather warm evening sort of uh before we proceed Mr Speaker roll call for corn here thank you Mr sunski I asked that we stand for the Pledge of Allegiance good evening uh it's that time of the year again uh but before we actually get into the superintendent's budget presentation uh we ask that if there are any members of the audience that wish to address the Board of Education you're welcome to do so at this time you don't have to seen as there are none we're going to move on to the much anticipated 2023 2024 budget proposal and I know Dr so I'm anxious to share it as well as against Messianic so it's all yours thank you chairman perogenia when you say much anticipated I think Mr grippo is the only person I know who has a cross off the day calendar today but um the entire uh budget subcommittee is waiting so um I want to invite members of the board if you want to come down front we're going to pull down the screen I'll go through the presentation thank you I'm gonna stick down here and I think I can't see the look of horror on their Facebook yeah yeah that's a trick and um yeah I wasn't planning it it's not my first one but I'm setting it in now thanks a lot Mike um just to you know before we kick off here I I told our health director Maura Esposito that I'm not quite sure how I'm supposed to take it that on the evening that I'm providing the budget speech she's handing out to all of our uh board members a pulse oximeter uh like is it that bad uh this presentation but anyway I'm sure that we will survive and get through this I want to thank uh initially our chief operating officer Mr Vincent maciano who spends countless hours uh in many late nights and weekends to support this process refine and be able to allow us to present what we have for you here this evening after the presentation you'll each receive a pretty robust budget book that gives you not only everything outline that I'm I'm outlining today but also the history of our budget Beyond Mr maciano I want to thank his uh assistant Heather Santi our finance director Greg Gibbons certainly all of our administrators who are in attendance tonight many people have worked on this presentation in order to provide a budget that meets our fiscal responsibility but also delivers a tremendous program for our students and in our community so what are our budget priorities we have to provide instruction obviously to 4 200 students which is the obvious thing that comes to mind when we think about our school budget but Mental Health Nutrition Medical Care all of these things are important so our students can access instruction specialized Services required for students to meet their potential diverse opportunity communities for athletics and music and other extracurricular Pursuits in the arts for example transportation to and from schools and general opportunities for growth there's a lot behind our our budget the responsibilities are outlined here yours are dictated like we were just talking about by state law and they're pretty straightforward to provide adequate materials including professional development to make sure that excuse me the allocation resources as Equitable proper maintenance of facilities and of course a safe School setting I take my responsibility very seriously as do you to provide a fiscally responsible budget that addresses those four goals that you have and allows us to achieve the goals that we've outlined as a school system as a community um the goals we've outlined uh are complex thinking and supporting our students to become strong social emotional Learners it's what we have used as our filter to make decisions about what's important and how to help us continue to evolve as a school system for the last six years that's been that was reaffirmed earlier this fall and I think that they've been a strong guidepost for us I I know that um I've shown the crossroads street sign of complex thinking and social emotional learning as nauseam and I am sorry to disappoint anybody for not including it on this slide tonight because I know you look forward to it but it's um um as a Sean Kimball and I were having the conversation the other day that's when you know the the message is there and and I think our community uh fully Embraces and is aware of what our goals are um this is a history of our budget increases from 1984 to 2023 so over the last 40 years you can see some pretty significant variability certainly um from 84 to roughly 91 92.
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my name is Marcelli Mr Genie here here thank you I asked that we stand for the Pledge of Allegiance indivisible with liberty and justice for all so thank you everyone and happy New Year I know there's a lot going on and we were waiting for a couple of board members to attend Tim White who is the legislative committee chair is on his way Adam should be here shortly but we definitely have enough to get started I want to recognize our Representatives on the audience representative zubkus and representative Samson they get that right Center even better welcome senator uh thank you for being here this evening it's good to see you all uh just a note I did uh get a message from representative Linehan she could not be here this evening to do some uh something that came up so that being said I know Dr Sone has a presentation to hand out and just here we go and just for uh Leslie and if you mind me calling about your first name or I'm kind of informal um Leslie and Rob uh just a little background here this is the the first time uh I can recall that we actually have um a board of ed legislative committee assembled in Cheshire where um yeah I'm sure we'll be talking tonight you'll see this in the presentation but we have a committee made up of Faith ham Tim White and and Harrigan that collect input from the superintendent his staff Board of Ed topics that are affecting us locally from legislative other mandates other matters uh both you know opportunities and and things to work on and there's always a lot of that um about the team tried to boil it down to a handful of things that we would like Harford to kind of help us and not just us it's also other boards of education so we're gonna go through that this evening there is a presentation and I expect there'll be some back and forth some questions and clarifications but uh on that is a pretty informal process tonight so we're just happy you're here and I know there's a lot going on in Hartford and you certainly give our condolences to your colleague who uh unfortunately passed away I know there's a lot going on there it's pretty heavy heavy-hearted moment there but thank you for being here and this is Mr Tim White who's actually our legis committee chair that being said that to solar what do you want yeah you know what's a good point might as well do that now so uh before we actually get into the presentation do we have any audience members that wish to address the Board of Education and if you do please come up to the podium uh please state your name and address we have a three-minute rule but seeing there's not a lot of folks here tonight I think we're okay there we asked any comments uh while you're certainly can say what you speak please keep them civil and please no allegations to Personnel if there are issues that require administrative Insight we take that offline better than that I'd like to hear from you uh thank you my name is hap Jordan I live on Broadview Road um I'm here with a request for the superintendent and this body um a week ago in Virginia a boy found his mother's loaded handgun and brought it to school he pulled it out of his backpack aimed it at this teacher and fired a bullet into her chest she has survived physically but no one knows what the emotional trauma is to the entire class the school the community that event sent new shock waves out across our nation and they've reached Connecticut in ripples there are petitions being circulated throughout the state aimed at convincing superintendents of school districts to use this event as a reminder to parents perhaps send out a letter that Connecticut has a safe storage law on the books but it's only as effective as people pay attention to it and you can't even be certain how many people don't even know it's on the books cheshire's been a fairly safe community over the many years um unfortunately the shooter in Virginia was the same age as the 20 victims in Sandy Hook the boy was six years old um because it took place in Sandy Hook that brings it kind of close to home for many of us who have been around long enough to remember that but I'm asking the superintendent through this body if he would consider sending out a letter to all of the parents of students in the Cheshire school system just to demonstrate how aware we are the potential for something like this to happen even in a safe place like Cheshire where you at least expect it um every tragic Unthinkable event is unprecedented only until it happens that is the extent of my ask um I've put out a fact sheet on all the spaces up there with some information that I would ask you to ponder and there's lots more information where that came from a couple of you folks up there know how to get to me directly should you have any more questions or comments um but thank you for letting me speak and I look forward to your actions thank you and thank you so much for coming out tonight and sharing the fact sheet with us I'm sure Dr song will take a take a review of it and maybe by the next board meeting if not sooner you know we'll see we can do about that but thank you for bringing our attention and reminding us that safety is always important ah Mr Esposito how are you it'd be very brief um Maura Esposito I'm 30 Holly Road in Cheshire um but I am here as the Director of health and I am here because of Mr Jordan's request um as many of you may have seen in the Cheshire Herald chespercott and the Cheshire Police Department had recently um partnered with um pla uh plows what was it swords to plowshare um which is an organ a National Organization where we and Cheshire actually brought in 96 guns um and we actually paid we had to raise money to give these people money to for their guns that was phenomenal um and many of these people it's just about educating people on gun safety so I am in support of this I know Chester caught also it's about just educating people of how to keep their guns safe if they're going to have one so if there's anything or assistance that we can help you Jeff we're more than happy to help you yep I actually more I had a I'm sure the answer is always yes knowing you but um is and again just broader question is there besides what the church public schools and Board of Ed can do an awareness is there anything Trustmark and or the local our local police department can do on gun safety education and judging if it's just a couple of short Seminars the library or online just to reinforce right yeah you know about anybody else you know multiple Avenues communication will help reinforce the message um we try to whenever we do a big event we do the giant publicity St Peter's did a big giant presentation on their lawn so absolutely um and and usually we try to partner together so we all do it at the same so we kind of you know uh flood the market there so um yeah no I'll I'll send out an email um and include Chief drive and um you know ask if some things can put up on the bulletin um I do know that we are planning another gun buyback in the spring so we're going to be really trying to raise funds to to continue this effort thank you once you know the date I'm we'll try to announce it at one of our board meetings this is general public announcements I'll let you know thank you all right any other members of the board that I'm sorry the public that want to address the Board of Ed thank you so much both of you and for those of you we're gonna or so we're gonna move on to uh the presentation yes done just a quick question on the gun safety have you ever Jeff or Marlene uh Adult Ed has ever been anything with respect to gun safety in there I'm not aware of anything related to gun safety in Adult Ed but that doesn't mean it didn't happen before my time but I did want to make folks aware that we do introduce safety related to firearms in second grade where there's a unit that all of our second graders participate in and it tells a child what should you do if you find a gun and that talks about you know telling an adult and you know that it should be stored that kind of thing safely so our kids are are getting at least that message the story I've heard from my mom is so I'm 50 my sister is 60 when she was probably three or four years old so 55 years ago she was over my grandparents house and my grandfather had left the gun on his dresser and she walked into the kitchen holding it and it was loaded nothing happened but yeah just uh need to be careful that was a long time ago but I suspect there are certain situations probably like in Virginia where this sort of thing happened where I don't think any adult is expecting a kid to do that and it's good to uh keep people aware of those situations to avoid it which begs the question you know second grade really something like this happens you recognize that we could be doing that even earlier something a point to take um thank you as chairman peregini said to our folks who were here for public comment tonight I have distributed to our legislators that are here this evening and of course the board has reviewed some of the items that were of particular interest to we felt the Cheshire education community that I just wanted to touch briefly upon and certainly as Tony said I want to invite more time out actually dedicated to any sort of questions that we have for each other and more conversant than just me presenting to you because I could have just sent you this you know digitally and and saved you the trouble but it's really about having the conversation and and building some more perspective on on either side of the equation here excess cost reimbursement just to jump in for one second sure um so the quick background on it legislative committee we met unless you said this before I got here Tony yeah okay thank you yeah so the legislative committee Matt and if I recall correctly the three of us agreed that the six items that the superintendent is bringing forward was something that we all agreed on in a bipartisan fashion committee level um so just that background on it yeah I agree that's a good point to make Tim that this is something that was uh universally endorsed um through the board and you know if if you're lucky enough to get a seat to the 7 30 meeting where I present my budget it's usually pretty popular but um you'll notice that our you know special education costs have been climbing and I I know that you know I'm not alone when I I suggest that you know that's a an issue for Connecticut honestly I think that the at the heart of that issue is the burden of proof in mediation and um that's something that has been addressed multiple times is you know you guys are neither of you are new to the process and I know you're familiar with it but the burden of proof and mediation that we didn't really talk about much at the board level means that when there's a dispute between family and the school system about what's the appropriate path forward for a child the processes that it goes to mediation and Connecticut is only I believe one of two states in this in the country where the school system has the burden of proof and that's there's a lot of lobbying on the other side of this issue to keep it that way and it it really tends to drive up costs and doesn't really necessarily support positive outcomes and when that happens we are more much more likely to exceed the cap the threshold for excess cost reimbursement that's four and a half times the per pupil expenditure um and when we do that we are supposed to receive the difference between that four and a half times the per pupil expenditure and what the cost is um unfortunately we've never been able as a state to budget the full amount for that so it's just a a flat grant that is divided up among towns and while that's beneficial it certainly continues to fall well short of what we're actually paying and these aren't um necessarily costs that you can easily predict and so it has a greater impact on budgets we're a pretty big school system the impact on us is significant the impact on a smaller school system Leslie and I were talking about some of the other communities she represents being significantly smaller is disproportionately impactful on those people so and those taxpayers and that you know that school system so just something that you know if you could be conscious of as we go through this process in this next session right to read is something that I already had the benefit of speaking with these guys a little bit about too um like I said to you earlier I think legislation um really wasn't terrible legislation in my opinion it was really about the implementation of that so as such you know we'd be hopeful that perhaps clarification could be provided in this next session um oh please please later please do so I on the right to read uh only because it's very fresh for me I I serve on the cave executive committee at Connecticut Social Security Board of Education I'm also one of the regional directors now and we had a webinar with the state department education on this last Friday roughly 300 members you know representing boards events throughout the state of Connecticut or folks attended we had folks in the state department education explain uh the process and uh I think faith is also on the call I'm not sure else is on there it is recorded um after about 45 minutes of pan installs in the back and how this came to be and how to shoved down to the boards of its throats we were left with two things one is as a perception in sde that school districts that are scoring 70 percent 80 percent it's stop there and don't look for the extra 10 15 percent of kids to move into proficiency levels there's also suggestion that most Boards of ads don't know what they're doing what's funny about and this is I'm paraphrasing but if you did watch that webinar and hear the back and forth it was it was appalling my point of view there's a little bit of out of touch on the imitation of this so what's happening is out of six or seven programs that sde is mandating school districts to adopt they're mandating Cheshire and others exactly which programs to adopt that's a problem it's a problem because the program itself is a great intent we want our kids to be proficient in Reading we want to help them every child I'll tighter a lot of superintendents and District officials in that call that were you know disappointed by the thought that the Department of Education thinks we're not looking out for every child this is not the case the challenge here is some of these materials that are being proposed are not helpful they're just not helpful and there's a waiver process that they talked about which is also a bit flawed because essentially have three options for a waiver one is you need more time to be able to adopt them into the program that's another problem because this was passed last summer and has to be in place a year later in July leaving districts excluding no time to get this in place if there's a financial burden that's also an option for waiver and I could tell to our school districts in cave that are looking at 1.1 million dollars and higher that they don't have to do this and there's no funding for this and the other one is to completely not participate at all and that one to me is a little weird because folks want to support this legislation we I believe are going to follow waiver because it's not that we disagree with the legislation it's because the materials they've adopted will adversely affect our student body uh how they're collecting this feedback will not show that it will show that either districts are adopting it or need more time what's happened is whoever process took place to identify as materials it did not include local school districts and only through this process of the waiver well now they learn what's out there and what could have been used for you so it's there's a fundamental flaw in the implementation of this and I can tell you uh this is going to make even more news because again a lot of coffee reporters a lot of folks in that conversation it's a problem um I think one of the things you'll see coming from Cabe uh there's a state agenda we put together things that we you know and this is for all boards to look into was when we when things like this are pushed down at least give a year to local school districts to study and come back with a plan to Future adopt this not training so it's it's a problem um there's a fundamental disconnect from what I've seen in my time here and serving on Cabe between the Department of Education and local school districts there's almost no more two-way communication and it's a shame because we all want this to be successful this is not going to be successful so um I could talk to you more about it um but again we I don't want to I don't Tim and team have stuff but this one that's more fresh and uh we're just on a call today with some boards and you know it's something that we're concerned about yeah keep a microphones yeah I'm sorry you can just sit there or go up to what was comfortable for you and talked to as you said uh part of my district um which is you know Bethany down in there but also I was at a Woodbury I mean I'm sorry Waterbury Board of the Ed meeting and the same thing came up and their complaint is we're always brought up as the shining star of these great examples and yet they're mandating this program that is going to not work at all in our school system and the amount of money for all the reasons you you just stated um so I actually just put in a piece of legislation regarding this because first of all I don't believe any Board of Ed member or any of you were at the table when they were talking about this whole piece of legislation I think they just enforced it um and I was told by some of the superintendents that there were a couple of schools using this program and that they are not going to be using it anymore because it had a reverse effect on the school well I know one of the school districts Leslie I'm sorry to cut you off but this you should be aware of this that uh one of those school districts did alert the Department of Education they won't be using it and uh something happened where now they can't file a waiver anymore so they're going to have to use it so there's there's going to be some some back and forth but anyway I just want to let you know that thank you but they did so I've heard I didn't hear specifically from those schools it was through another superintendent that those programs were not working so um what I have done is put in a piece of legislation to kind of Benchmark so if it because we all want our students to read right I mean that's our goal we want them to be successful and I think every one of you and these other schools are doing everything they can to make that happen my point is we should be looking at the schools that are below and the students that are below and how we can help them and not just the state mandating so hopefully something will come of that um and we'll see but I hope that the superintendents speak up in the board of EDS I hope that y'all come and testify and really make some noise about this because I haven't met one person that and I've only talked to my district uh and some outside but I know one person has ever said this is a good thing yeah again the principle of it is a good thing you know and make sure all students that are reading proficient but the implementation is where things kind of fell flat just curious I apologize getting here late did they get did you get to introduce them okay the so my question is uh are you on the education committee Representatives upkis I just got on wonderful so a great place to start so it's new it's new very happy to do what I can um so I I like I said I've never that's one committee I've never served on but you'll be now well thank you I know it's uh Myriad of the journey there so thank you for doing that thank you well it might be useful for us to to do a tiny brief introduction so the folks that are on the the board um and anyone watching you know has a little better idea where we're coming from um forgive me I had a little bit of a frog in my throat tonight but first off I want to thank you guys for inviting us uh I think Cheshire is the only town that I don't do this kind of on an annual basis with already so I'm glad to see you um you know taking on a legislative uh you know initiative to the um the lawmakers in the district um what's really interesting to me is just listening to the the conversation I've been in the legislature first in the House of Representatives starting in 2011 and then uh in the Senate since 2019 and during that period of time I have been one of the strongest advocates for local control and the prevention of State mandates on towns but I do want to point out that if you take a look at this list um you can understand why these things happen um and that is because these bills are put before the legislature and there's always this understanding that if you don't support any one of these Myriad of items somehow you were against these things and a lot of legislators are bullied into uh voting in favor of State mandates on their local Boards of Education even though they might not even be inclined to to want to do it that way because of the subject matter you know G Senator Sampson are you against adult education G Senator Sampson Are You Against Child Abuse reporting gee Senator Sampson would you be against the the inner tent internet protection act for children and so on and so on and that's how they happen um and you know what we've got to do is we've got to combat that mentality that exists in Hartford where we get more and more mandates every year because they sound like good ideas um the best idea is to let sound well-performing school districts govern themselves you should be looked to as a model for what other schools in Connecticut should be doing your success speaks volumes and for you to be told that somehow you've got to follow some State mandate that says You must use a different curriculum at Great expense to the taxpayers in the community and probably at a net negative to your students is just ludicrous so I just wanted to give you a little background on that that you do have allies I am guilty of voting for a couple of the mandates on this list but I will tell you the ones that I am guilty of I am only guilty of because the alternative was much worse there was a mandate on here for sexual harassment training that is required for uh employees of the district um that was part of a deal uh to ultimately mitigate the damage that would have been done had we not uh as uh the Republican Senate went along with um the ultimate product um but for the most part uh I'm a very loud voice in Hartford saying no I I trust my locally elected School Board closest to the community closest to the parents and children uh that are affected to make the decisions on what's best for them and um we've got to send that message loud and clear to elected lawmakers across Connecticut um that you know the local government it should have the authority to make these decisions and that when the lawmakers overstep their bounds that they're going to be held to account for so I would ask just one favor of you guys and that is to stay informed as much as possible about how people vote in the legislature you know Leslie and I we come before the Town Council on a regular basis too and they always have a group a lot of asks for us and uh I without fail every year and I know Leslie the same we put in those requests for those asks every year because that's what the um the town government is asking us from the town in our district but sadly um you know serving the minority we don't have the power to make those happen things necessarily happen um but it is very important to me that the local government officials are paying attention to what the lawmakers that are in their districts are doing and how they're voting on those things so that you know when I come back to you and I say I'm not voting for mandates I am defending you every chance I want you to know that's true thank you you know I would add with respect to the mandates I I don't think anybody here would say that every bill that influences education that's passed is passed is a bad one and there are some you know certainly things that make sense sexual harassment training from an employer perspective isn't the worst thing that you could ask of us but I think you know Tim mentioned this when we had met previously and I I appreciate it I think it makes sense is at least to revisit some of these things periodically to see if is this still necessary to carry forward rather than it's on the books in perpetuity and you know we'll toil away at things that I'm sure people in the legislature would be like they wouldn't want to mandate this any further so I think there's got to be some sort of um you know reciprocity in terms of who's responsible for this stuff we have to own some of it to get the information to you and then um your end if you can try and when things are adopted put a period of time to revisit them that would be great too go ahead I was going to say uh and I listen I know it's it's obviously a lot more than just the two of you but uh you know there's a lot of folks to work with and I but I've all of us that are engaged you know I'll work with anybody in Hartford to before Things become law or before under being drafted just have folks spoken to or reached out to their local bodies to get input on how things would be impacting them I could tell you in this reading legislation that didn't happen it was done outside of Connecticut with outside influence outside experts bought to Harford and then you know and I not trying to be harsh on our education but you know I got the sense from them but they're rushing to move on this because it was forced upon them and here we are so maybe take a pause I know you two will but uh my rents out there is take a pause uh make sure you do have folks engaged and if you're not seeing um and this is for any representative any Senator if they're not seeing enough folks from the communities out there put the word out um well so anyway thank you for reminding us to pay attention it's uh we're gonna have to you know more so than ever so thank you for that I'm sorry that's on Tim yeah uh Jeff could you uh with regard to this and the any of the further items that you will discuss could you associate a dollar figure with them when appropriate do you have a dollar number for the read to write to read I don't because for the right to read um because we haven't gone into enough uh trouble to you know fully vet one of these programs the dollar is associated with that in terms of time and Manpower um you know we I could tell you it's significant and then once adoption occurs the professional development time is also significant um we just didn't feel that it made sense to invest that time when we weren't going to pursue that in the in the first place yeah I I want to just make one more point in general which is if something so an idea for me is if something's going to happen maybe you could at least influence influence the decision to the point where a transition a thoughtful transition is considered because just railroading it through and saying hey do this tomorrow is just ridiculous it's transitions are even when something a program is good the transition can always mess stuff up I remember correctly we would think they said just for the software was 785 dollars a child it's often priced based on the number of students you have so right you know in a smaller District include the training and all those other things that you just mentioned but for some reason that sticks in my head yeah that sounds fair Leslie you know yeah it's a good chunk of change before you worry about the the real work of implementing it um the next item is teacher shortage and I want to be respectful of your time and so I don't want to spend forever on this but anything that can be done legislation legislatively pardon me to um make the profession more attractive support uh candidates to become teachers there is this uh real concern in Cheshire um we've seen smaller applicant pools um thankfully you know we we do uh I think still have a strong draw and we do have applicants for most positions um but across the state this is becoming an issue and I feel guilty when other teachers leave other districts and come to Cheshire I don't only feel guilty but now I'm not hiring kids out of college at 50 Grand I'm hiring seasoned people at 100 Grand which there is a financial impact for us in that respect too you know sometimes we rely on turnover where we can get talented young people to come in um where we have that cost differential and that's part of our budget process when that no longer really exists because of the pool being um not quite what it used to be so anything we can do to support a path to certification and drawing new people into the field is great teacher evaluation um this is there's a committee working on this right now so when you know this ultimately comes forward we would want more District control the standards just like with teaching and and you know the uh standards are defined by the state I I think that's a good thing the standards defined by the state for teachers is a good thing how we evaluate people that work for the Cheshire Public Schools we want more control in that process I think the state CSD is moving in that direction but love to have conversations with you guys if if that or as that draws closer as it relates to what we do and our beliefs and how we evaluate our teachers um virtual learning this isn't the same as you know some of the legislation that went through last year around dual teaching but um we would appreciate the flexibility if we had unfortunately a mold issue in one of our buildings and had to close for several days or we've had other issues that force a closure of a school for multiple days rather than tack those days on to the end of the year just to have the flexibility to say all right we're going to do three remote only days to address this issue to make sure the buildings you know safe to return or at a building I know that you know geez we have an absentee rate of 48 percent at the peak of flu or whatever it's probably within our kids best interests and our staff's best interest if we close this Friday and do a remote day instead of bringing everybody back in to spread this virus some more so um we'd just like to have that flexibility we're not suggesting that it you know be it um in perpetuity that you know would do as many days as you want but you know maybe up to three days a year um the other thing that we'd like to have is uh Regional uh collaboration to the point where you know like Aces could run a Latin class this dovetails with our uh shortage area issues we have two tremendous Latin teachers in in the Cheshire Public Schools um finding a third would be like you know I may as well put a posting for Sasquatch I mean the likelihood is probably better that I hire him so you know if we can regionalize areas that still support our student growth but also make it accessible you know we would we would appreciate that educational cost sharing um as you know we're in in the beginning of a phase-in of an adjustment but there's always legislation I see that there's already introduced legislation this year to revisit that um the uh the share of Education in Connecticut has remained static for probably 25 years around the funding level to the local community so round number we've received about 10 million dollars forever um the local share has increased substantially just an opportunity to to look at that again as we go through the process um you saw you know Rob mention the list of mandates which is voluminous but um again not everything here is terrible I we're not suggesting that but um in totality it can become overwhelming and so to re review it I know that uh what is it about four years ago guys that there was a task force that that looked at some of these mandates and took a few off I think uh uh cyclical commitment to doing that is beneficial um that if there's a committee that can be formulated maybe even on a five-year basis to look at it again and shave down what's no longer relevant or necessary um it just helps kind of to pull the weeds from the garden if you will finally our chief operating officer Ben massiano uh he can certainly follow up but uh HVAC improvements in terms of the the go forward it's the legislative requirement CGS 10-220 says in 2024 and every five years thereafter a local or Regional Board of Ed she'll provide for a uniform inspection evaluation of the heating ventilation air conditioning system which the last which should be pretty easy for us because we don't really have air conditioning but anyway um within each School building under its jurisdiction uh the list of requirements the assessment for this this is just just the cost of the assessment in Meriden was 375 000 so I mean you can have it you know cut it in half for Cheshire um because they have 16 schools we have eight you know still looking at two hundred thousand dollars when we go to to do this pretty sizable clip certainly every year we're inspecting in our heating ventilation air conditioning units but this new addition just something that we'd like to to revisit uh and a certainly been Messianic and ask him to reach out to you guys with more information on that that was the I think that was what we had gone through um and I you know before I wrap up my little piece here I just want to personally extend my gratitude for you two coming out this evening I know you know you have long days particularly now um to sit and listen to me drone on is not the highlight of the day but I hope it provides some perspective and I appreciate you know the constant open door that you've provided and I look forward to more conversation in the coming weeks thank you um it's interesting because all of these were the exact things that the other superintendents hit on I mean everything HVAC all these things special ed costs all these things and before we left the room this one small town the superintendent was already at like an extra two million dollars in his budget so I I know the pain I I feel it for you guys um so hopefully we can get something done to help but I would encourage for the superintendents for the board of ed for Cabe all these people get be vocal you have to be vocal appreciate it so you know I I'm I'm going to turn back to Tim and the rest of the team I'm sure there's some questions back and forth you know on the cave side of things um cab is trying uh I again I've been here for probably too long 14 years uh I first the last um three or four years uh prior to it used to be that cave wood uh be able to approach the governor whoever was in the governor's office uh or Department ahead or in some cases certain committees on the legislator that's uh or are you in the Senate that doesn't happen anymore um you know cave is um and we're trying to figure out how to re-establish some Communications now I can't speak for Liz Brown Liz Brown's our president she's actually the chair of the Waterbury uh board of education but uh we are working to be there and try to open lands communication uh Leonard's also one of our committee members trying to you know so uh it's not for the lack of trying um so that being said is I would extend invitation to both of you if you want to chat with the kids committee we'd love to chat with you and see how we can better help you help us and everyone else and to your colleagues you know please let them know that we're willing to talk to anybody um you know we're everyone here's we're here pretty create political Souls cave or just want to get the right things done and we just need to find people that want to be you know hear us but we want to help not complain so but anyway Tim turn it back to you yeah thank you yeah with regard to I totally appreciate where you're coming from about being vocal to me I normally think of the legislature or the governor with that the elected officials do you have any suggestions on how to influence a state department like sde and it's a serious question I I really have no idea I mean you can write a letter but yeah well there's so much I could say about all of the commentary on on the panel and I'll try not to break the microphone or the uh the desk here um from somebody who is very vocal and uh I am I'm noted for um speaking up probably more so than anybody else in in the uh in the state senate and the house before that um you know it's it's very difficult in a place like that I can see that this board operates in a very bipartisan way and you have the best interests of your um uh constituents at heart as well as the school district um I I wish the legislature was more like that uh sadly it's not it's a very very political place and there is a very distinct difference between the political parties and the direction that they want to take um the state and the country uh it's just it's just a matter of that um you know you guys talked about trying to intervene on some of the mandates and maybe put a sunset or a time limit we have tried and tried and tried again um you know it's when you have and again I'm trying to be as non-partisan as I can I mean it's not because I I um I did I simply just have different world view I guess than the people that are in charge on a state level and they believe in a centralized government they believe in a centralized bureaucracy and that the State Department of Education is going to have more talent and knowledge and experts uh to make determinations about the best direction for education in the state and I disagree and I would imagine that almost anyone in either political party that serves on a local Board of Education would disagree too um because government should be close to home and that's where the decisions should be made that are most effective um as was pointed out Mr superintendent I mean the mandates they are good things and I was I was trying to make the point although I didn't think I did a very good job of it when I spoke the first time to say that's why they pass because it's hard to vote against these things they are good ideas but these are not ideas that I think should be implemented by a state government without the cooperation and um buy-in of the local government that has to implement them and that's the problem so um I have fought more mandates than I care to count and I've paid the price because election time it's good fodder for campaign mailers that you know Senator Sampson or representative zubkus is against whatever that mandate was because it is a good thing and it's not so much that we would be against those things it's just that we would think that they should be implemented by the town uh rather than the state so all politics is representative government is the answer to my to your question uh Tim I think which is that if you want to see change you have to make that change happen in the hearts and minds of the people you represent because ultimately the government that they get on a Town level or state level is who they chose and um if you don't like the direction things are going uh and this is what I live by I think it's incumbent upon each of us to try and explain the better way to do it and try and encourage people to come over to our side and elect us to make those changes um it's been tough for me serving in the minority my entire career in the legislature um I long for the day that I can be in a position to actually make real change so um I envy you guys on this board because I think you can work together and make that happen um and I don't want to speak for Leslie but but I know she's agreeing with a lot of what I'm saying here especially on the part which is that not not they weren't burden you uh the policies that you need Cheshire enable you in every way possible um the each one of these asks is pretty strong simple to me certainly the um you know Direct Portage and the teacher evaluations you guys should be able to make the determination it's on your own set of calculus the state ring uh utilize that and that's always been my Envision for the State Department of Education which is that they ought to be there being the experts that they are producing whatever they want but ultimately the final decision ought to be made by local communities on what they take from them there's a real danger and I don't mean to go on and on and on there's a real danger to Central planning and that is when you have Central planning of anything particularly education you lose the ability for individual school districts to improvise and make change school districts are all different you know you mentioned Waterbury I mean Waterbury and Cheshire couldn't be more different and therefore the policies in which they approach their schools and their students ought to be completely different too and a one-size-fits-all approach is not the answer and once one school district excels the other school districts ought to look and say hey what's Cheshire doing is that something that we can model ourselves after or that won't work here and that should be their decision and you lose all of that when you start centralizing the uh the state government making those decisions anyway I don't mean to go on and on I just I I can't say enough that we are with you 100 on this the last thing I want to do as the state senator representing this district is to um interfere with the policy making of the people that were elected in those individual towns to do it I you know I'm a firm believer in individual liberty and then local control next I think that the the federal power should be the least the state next lease and so on maximizing power back to the individual and you guys are closest to home you should make the make the calls on on what happens um basically oh sorry um thank you for coming out tonight you guys it's uh cold and rainy um you know I just thank you for what you're doing and um I as a one-term board member I want to say that um probably my biggest surprise when I got on here was finding out that as soon as I took the oath I became a state agent um and that by law I have to act according to the interest of the state and our families not our students and not our voters so in a big world I would love to see someday legislation the legislation of Education legislation of Connecticut turned on its head as you said Rob and we get our Authority back and I talked about it I think what we're seeing with this right to read Act is the manifestation of um of what you're talking about Central planning and it's a scary scary thing because we have some great people here and it really frustrates me that someone is trying to tell them how to do their job um in the meantime practically speaking because I don't know that that day is ever going to Dawn um please call me I'll come up to Hartford if need be I'm happy to testify at any point and I hope my colleagues on the board will do the same um I don't care what time of day it is I'll be there so thanks hi um yes I reiterate thank you very much for coming out and speaking with us tonight I just want to um be a little cautious about what we're asking for because I feel like we as a board of ed and board of EDS for all towns are not asking so much for specific things we're asking that when decisions are made that we be included in the decisions so that our viewpoints come across and um the same would be with mandates there are mandates that are there for a reason but we are saying there are also a lot of mandates that haven't been looked at and haven't been re-evaluated in a very long time so I guess my ask for the two of you because you're here so thank you um would be just to every time you're in the room when and you are a lot because that's what you do that's your job right when decisions are being made just to remind your colleagues have we spoken to the people in the ranks down in the ranks have we included their ideas in these decisions and that would just help a lot thank you very much I'll just say and thank you I totally agree um I I don't serve I'm not the ranking member or the chair on education but I have been on other committees and whenever legislation came through we had everyone at the table and sometimes we agreed and we could agree to disagree but we had everyone at the table I haven't seen that lately and so you know being on education I I'm just learning uh and coming in but what I have seen so far is everyone is not at the table in the education committee so when the chairs of the Committees we they have what's called screening and they go through all the bills they're not bringing people to the table and so that that is part of the issue um because these items that I've heard from other communities none of you have been at the table so that's um that's really a committee issue and I will bring that up because it's important whether I agree or not or disagree we can all learn from each other and you're in it and that's what you do all the time so that's important Leslie so diplomatic all the time you you are unbelievably diplomatic I I no I refrained in my earlier comments and and I I think my colleague here is also by telling you in much more detail exactly how the sausage is made in Hartford which is that a great um portion of the time nobody's in the room and we're not in the room having the opportunity to challenge them on a lot of things uh the vast majority of bills um you know that pass uh through the committee process don't look like they do when they finally pass in fact when bills pass out of committee uh it's you know it's a title of a bill more than anything else and ultimately the first thing that happens when the bill comes to the house or Senate uh one of the members of the majority will stand up and say um you know Mr Speaker I have this bill and the very first thing I want to do is a strike all amendment to completely erase everything that was worked on at the committee level and replace it with something else entirely um I served on both the Appropriations Committee and the finance committee over the years both sides of the budget making process and I will tell you that a tremendous amount of good work is done in those committees on a bipartisan basis I served as the um chairman of a subcommittee on transportation and Corrections both for Appropriations and we had members from both parties uh working together to find Savings in government and smarter ways of doing things and we brought in uh loads of people we brought in the guy that repairs the cameras in the prison for example and he would say I need this form and that and we would come up with a plan to solve that problem but the sad thing is that ultimately all of the hard work that is done on that committee level is often ignored at the end of the day the budget that ultimately gets voted on by the legislature is an entirely different document that was written Behind Closed Doors by the governor's uh people and a few lawyers and um most of the hard work is not even taken into consideration um I don't want to just simply be uh partisan and point my fingers at the Democrat majority and say they're doing it all wrong I don't know that the Republicans would be better but the problem is you have one party that has such a significant majority that they don't have to and they don't generally bother care with them caring with the minority says the only way we get anywhere really is to challenge them hard and fast enough that they understand that public outcry might be a difference I mean that's why you know tolls is a good example um the majority had the votes and they wanted to do tolls it took getting the public involved to push back on something like that and I I just can't remind people enough that ultimately representation is is the key if we keep reminding our constituents that they've got to be the voice for the change that we want um that's how we'll eventually get in there one question to that may I ask yeah Leslie yeah I'm just uh I think there's a few more well ask your question and we'll go around well my only question was so to the point that we're talking about do it and maybe Tim it might be you do y'all watch the bills that are being proposed and do you and you do so like like when the reading program was being proposed or all these other things do you see that and and reach out or well the reading bill was not necessarily proposed that was that was it in the implementer bill yeah that was just so you know and that's us and the implementer bill has been uh a blessing and a curse so I I can't swear on the implementer bill but um you know I know other people had thoughts before we wrap up yeah I just want to thank the representative and senator for coming to listen to us so mine is going to be really quick because we're running out of time um I know session just started it's pretty early but um you've heard our action items and asked I just want to get a sense from both of you as to going into this legislative session what are some of the agenda items based off of this list too that you're already um considering or have made moves to edit revise and you know push forward he put in a bill in a building one right on the other side so that was what I've done so far Senator yeah tomorrow is actually the bill deadline for individual legislators that's why I asked yeah so we we are really up against the gun I I certainly have quite a few bills about mandates not necessarily education mandates in particular but I put in bills every year to reduce the number of mandates on town government uh in its entirety and to make it more difficult to pass new ones I put a bill in every year to require a two-thirds vote of the legislature to put in new mandates uh I think that would go a long way to limiting the number that happened um I don't know I have 157 bills um and some of them may or may not be related to these items directly but they're all about making government more efficient and taking into consideration the fact that we may have a surplus right now um but I don't know if it's going to be long-lived and the money's got to be spent very wisely over the short term some of these could go into they have what they call Shell bills which I don't really like are aircraft carriers which I don't like so there is maybe a little bit of other time um to see what is going to happen and I don't know if anybody else has put in an HVAC deal you know so there's those kinds of things too right because I am aware of the deadline and I just wanted to get a sense just like my colleague we're we're obviously willing to go to um the capital and support but if we don't have an idea of what you're putting forward that doesn't help us either another suggestion is maybe get to us earlier and not in you know now we should be talking about this in November or December so just a suggestion that would be helpful yeah we tried unfortunately with so much going on especially referendum no but you know what this this year yeah this year will be a little more ahead of schedule I would simply ask is there a straightforward put a bill in that says X um because we still have the time to do that I mean if you want to have us put a bill in that says something about uh repealing or or modifying the HVAC requirement or these other specific mandates we can certainly do it whether those things uh you know Garner the uh the attention of the majority and we we get anywhere with them that's a different thing but we can certainly try uh Adam had a question I'm going to turn it Tim I assume Andrew might want to say something because we're uh we're bumping into the next meeting which is okay thank you for everyone being here this is a very worthwhile discussion Sam do you have a question um yeah I just I just wanted to know well firstly thank you for coming this evening senator representative um and we certainly all do work hard work together and pride ourselves on on listening to the community our parents and of course our Administration on how to best govern our own our own school system and we think we do a pretty darn good job of it as as much as we can as chairman of the policy committee we also know that the uh I'll say the tentacles of state government reach in very far to our school system and many times uh our own policies uh are dictated by state law essentially um not essentially they are um so but that being said for the right to read is the lever and I don't know maybe you all know this already is the lever Financial if we choose to not participate we we have to submit a waiver that indicates how we're already uh addressing the needs of students and applying the the tenants of the science of reading to our reading program the waiver itself is really complicated and robust um in one wonders if you know that was intentional as a deterrent but um we are going through the process and we have a lot of people working on that you know from a financial standpoint I know that somebody's been allocated to provide um to the districts who adopt these programs um but that's not where we're at at this time thank you true yeah 10.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
all right we'll bring the reading to order roll call Maria present Gary president Amanda cousin Rick I'm here and I'm here all right Amanda could you lead us in the pledge please it's over there okay please place your right hand over your heart ready begin congratulations for all right Kylie do we have any public comments we do not we have any cards for public comment no we do not all right I need them a motion to um well we have no public comments pertaining to closed session so we go to closer all right we need to go into closed session to discuss the following people Personnel expulsion case number 10 2223 expungement of expulsion case stip number four 2122 conference on litigation government code section 549-56.9 current litigation seven cases I civds 202-2956 civds 203-3366 CIB SB two one one three o c i b s b civsb220303 government code section five nine four five four don't point five and five four nine five six point nine and anticipated litigation four cases 2208 2021 2213 2022 2305 government code section 54954 .5 anticipated litigation two cases victories Sofia and the town of Apple Valley Public Employee disciplined missile release reassignment transfer leave title certificated classified employees public employees appointment resignation retirement reduction title certificated and classified employees conference with the labor negotiator agency negotiator Dustin Conrad employee organization Apple Valley Unified Teachers Association conference with labor negotiator Dustin Conrad organization CSEA conference with real property negotiation government code 54956.8 negotiation parties Matthew Schulenburg Apple Valley Unified I need a motion now to go into closed session still moved I suck it we're in barbecue prime rib back here all right all in favor aye let's go foreign thank you foreign foreign foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you all right call the meeting to order I'd like to at this time a moment of silence to pause to remember retired Apple Valley Unified School District faculty member Tanya Sartain and Apple Valley Unified School District students Danielle Torres and Chandler deese okay reports student Representatives first the setting bull Academy Mickey vonville and Olivia Nutter [Applause] thank you [Music] last night all right hello and good evening board members and guests my name is Mikey Fonville and my name is Olivia Nutter and we are from Sitting Bull Academy ASB we have been able to do so many great things in our first half of the school year that we would love to share with you every week we are taught characters strong lessons in our advisory classes our weekly steam buddies meet in our steam lab to work on Hands-On projects with upper campus students our 8th grade web leaders who have done several lunch activities to help make everyone feel included our broadcast class has done a fantastic job of keeping students informed of various activities happening at Sydney wolf we especially like the school-wide kahoot competitions and features on student interviews and riddles our high school e-lock workers help with our breakfast club and our after-school homework club in August we had our outdoor back to school night families are able to walk around campus and play games that were hosted by teachers fun was had by all we got our first Spirit day anything but a backpack we saw students with shopping carts buckets ice chests on Wheels wheelbarrows and even a plastic kiddy swimming pool students were excited that ASB was able to bring back our Kona Ice days every Wednesday after school in September our drama class put on a fantastic play mother Goose's character camp for our TK through first graders our after-school tutoring started up students who need extra help with assignments or homework help can stay after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays for an hour our Avid classes took a field trip to Cal State San Bernardino ASP hosted a social for fifth and sixth graders we set up games for the students and play music and our first dance of the year for 7th and 8th graders it was a neon dance and we handed out glow sticks to everyone as they entered the NPR everyone had a great time in October our volleyball teams had their first games our students love staying after school to support our teams our Monday enrichment classes started we can sign up for classes such as cooking chess Sports Esports and our after school ASB put together some fun activities for Red Ribbon Week that ended with door decorating contests we handed out awards for categories such as spooky store funniest door cutest most original investing show the culminating activity for Red Ribbon Week was a school-wide assembly featuring BMX stunt riders Mrs Heitman even had one of the writers jump over her our first grade classes participated in their yearly pumpkin decorating contest our 8th graders took the PSAT in November ASB held a canned food drive and our school was able to make over 20 Thanksgiving baskets to SBA families in need our Avid classes attended avid Avid night at Knott's Berry Farm and we heard that it was a night to remember we had a reading celebration for k-6 on our backfield students who had met their reading goals got to come out and play on inflatable obstacle courses for 7th and 8th graders it was a celebration for students who made Renaissance for the first trimester Renaissance is students who have a 3.0 or higher GPA with good citizenship students in kindergarten through sixth grade were recognized for their academic achievements and progress out in Awards assembly three of our sustainable students were able to work with Mr Collins and help design create or help design create and work on three NFL players cleats for the week 13 my cause my cleats initiative my my Cosmic cleats is an opportunity for NFL players to work with Charities to help bring awareness to different causes through custom Footwear Andrew Wilson xavin Harris and Harley Alexander were able to help the players bring awareness to the Boys and Girls Club and the American Cancer Society in December our TK through kindergarten classes put on an adorable performance for their families ASB was able to bring back our holiday Boutique for a week students were able to come shop for their families and get their gifts wrapped it was so much fun to be shopping elves and help our little bears shop for their families it did get hard sometimes trying to remind them that they weren't there to shop for themselves our van put on a holiday performance that was enjoyed by all our boys teams were in the volleyball tournament and we are proud to say that our boys teams took second and fourth place we also had a student-stop favorite Spirit day pajama day we had special visitors from the North Pole Frosty the Snowman and up on the Shelf who came to spread holiday cheer this month our girls team competed in the volleyball tournament we are proud to report that our girls took first and third place tomorrow our drama class will be putting on a performance for our second through fifth graders called munchkin mediation oh conflict resolution in Oz basketball tryouts start next week students must have good grades and less than 10 minutes to be able to try out for the teams Apple Valley High School paw program came to our school yesterday to Showcase their program ASB is excited to be hosting a dance next Friday we are also getting ready for the great kindness challenge coming up January 23rd to the 27th our whole school will be participating in simple challenges to help make kindness normal our school will also be participating in a cross-age activity during kindness week our upper campus classes are paired with lower campus classes and participate in activities together we are looking forward to our perfect attendance pizza night happening this month where those students with perfect attendance for the first half of the Year get to enjoy pizza with their families in our lower campus NPR for the rest of the school year we are looking forward to our girls and boys basketball games our cross-country teams competing our drama class putting on a performance for all of our classes our cross-age activity for read Across America and 8th grade activities for the end of the school year in closing we would like to say thank you for all your support and all you do for our school thank you very much and remember to be very strong good job High Desert Premier Academy Daniel [Applause] thank you good evening president Bender board members and cabinet happy New Years and welcome new board members I hope you all had an amazing winter break and I'm honored to stand before you all once again to inform you of the accomplishments and upcoming events of high desert Premiere Academy there are a lot of observances in the month of January there are a couple silly ones like National squeeze juice week and National Cowboy Poetry week but the two we focused on our high desert Premiere our national school choice week National mentoring month before winter break ended our counselor Mr Serrano helped students individually sign up for winter classes at Victor Valley College graduates who signed up started their classes on January 3rd and we are so proud to see our owls spread their wings as for mentors in my opinion we have a bunch on our campus that students can talk to but Mrs nilo is our behavioral counselor and I believe she is great at her job students feel comfortable and confide in her when they need someone to talk to at any time today was our student advisory council meeting and I really enjoyed talking to Mrs Nelson one thing I vividly remember is her word of the year which is kindness one thing I always say is it doesn't cost a dime to be kind I always appreciate when the board comes to the school and talks to the students it makes me and my peers feel validated and understood we had a discussion about how students would feel more comfortable maybe if we had more activities to really Bond over and Mrs Nelson really made an effort to get some of the activities in motion and I would really like to thank you personally for that last month our graduates went to Disneyland and I had a blast not only did we get on rides and eat a ton of food but we learned about leadership the Disney way with a cast member we learned how to work as a group and use our differences to balance each other out kind of like yin and yang you know and it was a fun experience to be backstage and learn about the history of Disney and the leaders that pushed it forward our upcoming event field trip is on February 27th and Mrs Rubio's art class we'll be going to the Cheech Art Museum and I think this will be such an amazing experience for our students to go and look at the beautiful art that people can make and learn how to interpret it instead of just looking our Esports program also has a tournament coming up this 25th and they will be in the rocket league tournament and we are all excited to see them enter a new competition we already have 14 graduates for the first semester and this quarter we have another 14 people graduating and I can't wait to see how many we have at the end of the school year Mr Serrano has been pushing our students to fill out their FAFSA to sign up for scholarships so our hours can succeed with a little bit of extra help and on January 19th from 6 to 7 30 PM we are invited to the district office to work with counselors to prepare for college by completing our FAFSA in cash for college Mr Serrano is making a big effort to encourage our seniors to attend thank you all for your time and support and I look forward to seeing you all again next month [Applause] next Grand Hills High School before we go I'd like to say that two of my kids are in town right now both of them are Grant Hill graduates my daughters come home from New Orleans where she's a clinical psychologist at the VA Hospital and my boys down here he's a deputy a director with Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation from Seattle he brought me a surprise a 19 year old 19 month old baby girl that's a new alarm clock all right go ahead they've all done what you guys have done I have two kids that graduate from Apple twins but if you go to our high schools and apply yourself there's no telling where you can go thank you good evening board members superintendent Nelson and attendees welcome back from what I'm hoping was a good break and welcome to those of you that are new here my name is Ashley Guzman Granite Hills High School student sorry governing council president and student representative entering into this new year of 2023 and new semester at our school we're taking this opportunity as a fresh start with many New Beginnings cougars finished out the first semester strong teachers counselors and administrators are very proud of our students accomplishments on their first semester report cards with 48 of our entire student body and leave earning a 3.0 GPA or higher to continue to encourage their efforts on their schoolwork ASB has even offered discounts on Dance tickets to winner formal where you can get up to a 10 discount depending on your GPA and with an ASB card discount you will we will be including an additional five dollars not only are we proud of and celebrating our students good grades last week we had a great time celebrating others of our student successes such as perfect attendance with a special lunch fun games a photo booth and a raffle for a flat screen TV that was generously donated by ptso our College and Career Center has been busy hosting guest speakers military recruitment events and keeping students up to date on latest scholarship opportunities Miss Avery has helped process over 300 work permits so far this year demonstrating how our hard-working cougars are maintaining good grades and having a job five of our 11th grade female students have also been sponsored by our local chapter of American Legion to attend girls State this summer at our state capitol this is a tremendous all-expense paid opportunity for students to learn more about politics and their inner workings of government at the state level planning has begun for uh where every 15 minutes event to take place in the spring we have received a grant from California Highway Patrol and held their first planning meeting yesterday many of the staff are excited to help with this event and happy to see it make its return to Granite Hills High School campus for the first time since 2009.
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that's the liability and investment liability okay thank you we'll do about a two-minute uh foreign from our brief recess welcome new members um we're going to start with the Roll Call of the 2023 Bullhead City School District governing board Amanda amen here Charlene Diaz here 's our ziki here thank you next 3.2 election of governing board officers Madam Clerk and board members my understanding is because we only do this once a year I kind of forget how it goes but I think the floor should be open you open the floor for nominations uh for the president and then for a clerk and proceed with your votes perfect do we have any nominations for president I would like to uh nominate um Amanda Amin for president oh thank you and if I may also Charlene Diaz for Clerk um any other nominations I'd like to nominate Melinda sobrowski for president excellent all right I will second the nomination for Melinda sabroski as president and I will also second the nomination if I may even though it's two separate for Charlene Diaz for Clerk any other discussions all right vote for all in okay for president separately um for Melinda sabrowski all in favor I Amanda amen aye Shirley and Diaz I Fred Rushton hi Bob rosarzicki all right and so and Ford enough Force yes and for board clerk for Charlene Diaz all in favor aye Amanda amen hi Charlene Diaz I'm Melinda sabreski hi Fred Rushton hi Barbara zarzicki all right now I think we'll take another brief recess so we can rearrange one more time for you all right item 3.4 of our agenda tonight is setting the time and date for board meetings for 2023 um the board members or board meetings are currently set for the third no second second I I hate to tell you but I'm calendar challenged um the second Thursday of every month uh starting with a workshop at 5 30 and uh the regular meeting at six and Madam president if I may one of the reasons that the board changed from the third Thursday to the second Thursday is that uh frequently we have things that are due to the state on the 15th of the month and the third Thursday is frequently after that so it means that sometimes we have to have we we used to have to have special meetings so the board decided let's just let's just make it so we don't have to have so many special meanings so it was kind of right yeah so you yeah you were um but so that gives you a little history on why it got changed whatever you choose is fine uh it will you know it worked but I wanted you to know the the reason for that change and we need a motion on that right yes you do can I have a motion to keep it as it is I'll make a motion that we um keep our meetings on the second to Thursday of each month um starting at 5 30.
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this is a week after school ends summer school won't begin until the following week on June 5th and will run until June 22nd the workshop will take place from 8 A.M to 12 p.m each day teachers will be paid per diem for four half days or two full days of pay for this Workshop all teachers in the district are invited to attend this Workshop our goal is to have 85 or more returning teachers participate which will allow us the opportunity to examine alignment of Standards to district and state testing to have a voice in curriculum revisions and to examine testing data from the 2223 school year additionally during this time there will be training on our new curriculum freeing up our back to school days in July and August teachers will work together with teammates in the same department and grade level across the district this Workshop will allow teachers a voice in resource development that best supports the acquisition of knowledge at the correct dok level it also provides paid summer training in our new curriculum resources such as K3 math and for 6th grade reading one of the other unique perks of this Workshop is it will allow teachers the opportunity to plan ahead have a plan in place for the 2324 school year hopefully have no stress over the summer and come back ready at the end of July and speaking of the end of July when you come back those days are reserved solely as campus days there will be no District training days I want to thank you for taking the time to hear about this incredible new opportunity for all of us to get better as Educators it's so important that we continue to develop new ways to learn collaborate and prepare for each year our students deserve Educators who are committed to helping them achieve and succeed in our schools again please save the dates of May 30th through June 2nd 2023 and we look forward to working with you thank you okay so that is the summer workshop video um with that hopefully you caught in that video uh there's a lot of important information that has gone out to the faculty and staff to promote the summer workshops sign ups right now are are awesome we have a lot of people attending uh what's new with the summer workshop piece is usually when we have curriculum revisions we invite teacher leaders but we don't invite everybody and and this really is a a portion that everybody needs to involve in you heard in there that there's a voice in the revisions Everybody Needs To answer question one what do we want students to learn and that's with looking at the state standards knowing what the state standards are in the content that you teach and pulling them apart and seeing how our curriculum relates to those these standards with that too is the test analysis so how do you you know the first question is what do we want students to know how do you know we're going to know it well we test them to figure it out in various ways and it's important that we break down that testing data and look at that are the students learning what they're supposed to learn if the answer is yes okay then what are we going to do if the answer is no what do we have to revise and that's an important piece in this process for every employee in this District because it's about student achievement and what students are learning so we're very excited about this summer workshop we think it's going to be a great opportunity it's going to be a busy four days across our whole District it will be active our administrators are going to these summer workshops they are going to be a part of those summer workshops because their presence in there is just important as the teachers they need to know what's going on in the classrooms and the state standards as well so they are signing up they will be involved in all that a few other things that we're doing to refocus is evidently nothing um up all done wrong button okay I almost messed it up Diana but I recovered all right re-centering the focus some other things that we're doing uh we are going to be visiting adelai Stevenson in Illinois analyze Stevenson is pretty much the birthplace of professional learning communities it started there it is strong there it's been many years it is a great place and a great place to learn they have provided tours they let you get into the depths of what they do and how they operate and things like that so we're planning on doing that we have professional learning communities at work there's a conference coming up that will be coming to you for approval in the next few board meetings but we plan on taking all principals and directors and hopefully some board members to this conference to figure out exactly what we're doing in professional learning communities now the important piece on this is they go to conferences all day and then we get together in the after part of the conferences after they are over and we continue to work for about two to three hours and figuring out okay how does this process look on my campus how does it look in this District how are we going to implement this and we leave there with a plan to make it even stronger in our district and on our campuses so it's a huge piece It Centers all of our principals and directors and gets them focused uh coming up for what we're doing on professional learning communities and last is our focus on the professional learning communities working using Curriculum maps common uh common formative assessments and unit assessments you can see there and using data to make real-time decision it is what our groups need to do and when teachers meet that is the purpose and the structure of those teacher meetings talk about the data talk about students our students achieving are they learning what we need to do if not what can we do different it's about learning with each other it's a collaboration effort it's not an effort to point fingers it's not an effort to make other people look bad it's an effort to dig deep into our we as a district teaching the students what they need to know and are they learning it that is the important piece of this whole process so with that I can stand for any questions that you may have thank you Dr curdo do we have any questions I just have one and I know it's I'm not sure how it would work but what about new teachers coming into the district and new teachers new to the classroom I realize they're not on contract yet but is there a way to include them because I think it would I don't know I would imagine it'd be hard coming into the coming in and not knowing what are these students what is the expectation of the team of what these students are supposed to learn and how they learned it president Chaffin member Grant yes and that will the the pieces I talked about here are the training the administrators it is the intent of this whole process that they will have a extensive training for everybody when the school year starts they will go through the process they will teach those so new teachers uh experienced teachers those that have been here for a while they will be included in this re-centering and refocus on PLC so they will learn the process yes I have a quick question um so in regard to Bullet three what will we do if they didn't learn it to me that's that's a really important piece um is just knowing like how we capture those kids and then making sure that what we do in response to that is effective so I know like we have our go-to programs and interventions but how often are we evaluating those programs and interventions for to make sure they're effective in doing what we want them to do and moving kids forward like are we going to be constantly I just don't want us and I don't think we do but just kind of hear me out I don't want to think okay this this is the program we've always used and it's it's maybe rated as being very effective but for our dicer kids or even drilling it down not just our district but in particular schools just knowing like that constant reassessment process and making sure that we're using effective strategies because otherwise just saying well this is our process and we're sending them here because they didn't learn it if they're not going to get what they need to get out of it it's really kind of a moot point president Chaffin member Pritchard that is a key thank you for saying that that is a key to this entire process is uh what are the response to interventions or the intervention pieces were put in place and are they working so we are working very hard on that right now to figure out pull data obviously you know we have Amy hartchen who does an amazing job at doing our data and pulling all that one of the focus pieces for this year and what we're currently doing is taking a look an extensive look at everything we are doing across this district and is it working to increase student achievement that is something that started already it is going to be ongoing and I agree with you that we don't just do it to do it it either makes sense or we move on and find something that does but that has to be done on a regular basis in order to in order for this process to work if we just do it to do it and because it worked it may work at one place and not the other and we need to have a pinpoint focus on that to make sure what we're doing and what we're spending money on and all that really makes a difference so that is something we have started we've done that but we've really put a focus on that now Dr assai and her team are really diving down pulling out data looking at all those pieces to make sure that what we're doing is the correct work thank you and Madam president member uh Pritchard I chuckled a little bit when you asked the question just because it's been an ongoing process for us this year and we have a meeting tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock where we're continuing to discuss this very question so the timing of the question is good thank you I will piggyback off of that because it's really important not just to pass students along um I remember high schoolers who didn't have very good penmanship or they couldn't read or write very well and middle schoolers who got to eighth grade and had difficulty writing an essay that a fourth grader should write so it's really important to me also to know that we're really focusing on student learning and achievement not just passing them along and I do want to clarify teach all teachers are invited but it's not mandatory right that is correct okay and then the focus is um however let me stress on that we hope they would want to be because the work we're going to do is important it's like inviting somebody to play a game and I didn't tell you the rules and so I I honestly tell people you need to come to the summer workshops to figure out what the rules are of the game which are the state standards what they need to teach what students need to learn it's hard to go into the classroom when I don't know that beforehand I need to be an expert in my content to know what do I need to teach students this is important to teach them and are we going to give our plc's adequate time before school starts when they come back without asking them to meet on their own to really dive into this process and really Hammer at home like we Vision it Madam president I will answer that question with the example of last Wednesday we have committed to our teachers that on the days of their return for next school year that they will remain on campus and we will not pull them for district training the purpose of that being that in the three days that they have on the campus their administrators will take about a half a day and after that they're going to have two and a half days to do PLC work to really dive in to to make sure that there's time for their classrooms we're committing to that and that's a change for this district from we haven't done that I don't believe since I was a principal in the district and that was a really long time ago I'm trying to think how old your kids are in this picture don't pull me into age right but yes to answer your question we are committing and and we have made that commitment to our teachers and you heard that in the video as well those days are going to be protected for our teachers I appreciate that and I appreciate your efforts to give the teachers those days and I appreciate Administration and our site administrators for honoring that too so thank you um forgive me I don't know if you may have said this when you responded to miss Graham but for the for teachers who aren't on contract would we offer them like a per diem rate if they wanted to come could we pay them to come they are being teachers that are not on contract are being paid yep per diem correct do we have any more questions all right thank you Dr crota you're welcome next we will have item H2 information on governing board meeting minutes Dr Dean thank you madam president members of the governing board members of cabinet in our community we wanted to provide information on how our governing board minutes are taken and we have this at the request of one of our governing board members over the course of the last several years we've been using a similar process that spans over at least two different board secretaries in terms of how we take meeting minutes and meeting minutes are typically a summary of the meeting as the board is aware we now live stream our meetings or have for a while and so if anyone wants to see everything that somebody said they can watch it on YouTube and we also take an audio recordings that correct Lisa we also take an audio recording that's available should people need it as well however there is one exception to that that we have used for as long back as as I could remember or find and that is that in the past should a board member state that they would like to make a comment for the record or to go on the record then um the the board meeting minutes then reflect a scripted um uh it's not a summary a script of what they said that that information was uh or that process was followed with our last board secretary um Miss price and um when um when Miss Brown received her training in conducting board minutes so that's how she was trained by both Miss price and asba back at the time as well in talking with legal counsel and in an effort to make sure that we try to continue to be just absolutely consistent in all of our processes we are going to make a change that begins with tonight's meeting minutes and that changes that all aspects of the meeting minutes moving forward will be summary minutes and so even should someone State for the record that there will be a summary generated from that conversation rather than the script of what that person stated we have worked with legal counsel on this and we are well within the law to to move to this practice uh matter of fact our legal counsel's only recommendation Miss McLennan stated that if you're going to make a change to your practice find a clear breaking point when that would occur January 1st and the seating of a new board is a clear breaking point to that and so or a clear cut point to move forward and so as we begin this evening and when the board sees the agenda for the January 26th meeting tonight's meeting minutes will provide a summary of any comments made and not comments verbatim I hope that that helps to answer questions or provide a little Clarity and I'd be happy to answer any questions that may exist I appreciate that explanation um so in in reviewing the the process for the meeting minutes and understanding that if we want something if in the past if we wanted something to be on the record it would be completely transcribed um that does make a little bit more sense of why the November meeting minutes were the way that they are um since this is information on governing board meeting minutes I'd also like to just discuss the December meeting minutes as well um during a board update it was documented that um a governing board member read an email from a former governing board member that was not present at the meeting so I I am curious to understand that a little bit more um since it is documented that that did happen is that an open meeting law violation so Madam president member Densmore um to answer your question directly I I would refer back to the board update or the superintendents update this evening where I um reference the Attorney General handbook right and so one of the aspects in the Attorney General handbook states that the um a member of the public body which this is the public elected body can provide report summaries of current events and those types of things it does state in there that it is to be a member of the the public body and their their um their summary or their update um so the question is I think the question that you're getting at is can can a governing board member provide information that is not their own during a summary according to the attorney general that would not be a part of the of the governing board update for the the governing board member would need to stick to the information from themselves as they move forward I don't know if that answers your question or not the question of is it an open meeting law violation um the the Attorney General's handbook goes on to state that should a um I have it I can read it that should a report that address matters other than a summary of current events or that are delivered by someone other than the proper official with the public body do not come within the provision authorizing current event summaries and must comply with the agenda requirements of the open meeting law so if the information does not if if information that is not a summary of a current events by a board member is not agendized then I think that there could potentially be an open meeting law issue thank you and um I don't know if this would be the time to discuss this um but since we're on the topic how do we do that do um do we do that as a district do we do that as a board how would we submit something like that submit for or an open meeting law violation I know in the past we've done self-reporting yeah Madam president um member Densmore the answer to your question is a couple of fold there is not a legal requirement to submit open meeting law violations it's it's not like um concerns of abuse that are that were mandatory reporters on so the first thing is to note that however that being said even though there's not a legal requirement for that anyone could anyone any member of the public any member of a public body could um could submit an open meeting law violation thank you and I do have a question um so as far as as far as board meeting minutes go they should be objective correct Madam president the answer is yes and I will tell you that by making the change that we're making this evening we're going to save Miss Brown a vast amount of time I watch every Friday um with her when she has her headphones on and uh reviewing you know the the minutes and making sure that she provides a an objective summary of what happened and when um when there have been times in the past where she or missed price in the in the years before her had to script there's a lot of time involved with that so to answer your question that's a long-winded yes okay especially in the summaries because there have been summaries in the past that have been very had very opinionated tones and we want to make sure to avoid opinions and make sure they are objective Madam President we certainly do that do you I agree with that statement we we always want to make sure that it's an objective summary moving forward thank you do we have any other questions I do okay I'm the board member that was talking about and yes I read a statement but I don't know what the difference is in reading a statement saying thank you for somebody's service that's all it was is thanking them for their service I don't know how that violates and yes maybe I could have gone to call to the public and done it that way so what's the difference between me doing that and you saying thank you to Mrs Pritchard for her service as a president no different I think as I'm thinking Mrs Pritchard for her service as president I'm not reading an email from an outside person that it wasn't present doing the call to the public herself and I should have done called to the public in in hindsight but at the time so it was just a p somebody said could you read it and I said sure I was being kind I don't think there's a problem with being kind and uh that's why I do not understand why we're even having this conversation but whatever and Madam president I I would refer back to our earlier conversation um in my superintendent update where I stated that you know we're scheduling open meeting law training for everyone and and although we're talking about how this applies to board meeting minutes now I want to make sure that we stay within the parameters of of of the agenda item and that would be a great topic for us to discuss in open meeting law training um with the attorney at that point in time and how that impacts board meeting minutes and you realize that taking away for the record all you're doing is taking it away and writing somebody can still hear or see the entire statement by watching it on YouTube or so we really haven't accomplished anything um can they take that statement let's just say it's two or three pages long and ask that it be attached to the minutes instead of putting it as for the record Madam president attachment Madam president member Grant you could always submit the board member can always submit statements that are read um you know for the record as well I understand your point we we stream on YouTube and we have an audio recording but as we move forward the meeting minutes the official minutes of the meeting will reflect a summary okay well I that's fine it's just that there's still going to be out there I think it's important to keep the meeting minutes a summary and only it I don't think we need to really attach anything I think we need to keep it clear and concise and very simple that way we don't get into somebody Waters we had a Community member at one point asked to have some documents attached for the minutes and we did not accommodate that so I I don't know that that I'd like some attorney opinion on that and as far as what the big deal is a big deal is it's a violation of the law which I take very seriously and to another point it couldn't have been done during call to the public either because call to the public is for Community to come forward it wouldn't be for the board to speak and address themselves I just want to make that clarification Madam president member pitcher will be more than happy to get legal clarification on that thank you we will now move on to action discussion item I won adoption of policies 3-204 naming facilities and 4-108 meet and conferred Dr Dean Madam president member of the governing board members of cabinet and our community this evening we bring forward to the governing board two policies for adoption and I will turn this over to Dr polling good evening Madam president members of the board cabinet and audience tonight we're bringing two policies that were from our former policy manual these ones were not copyrighted and they were our original policies and written and approved by dysarton and their attorney though one policies on naming facilities and the other ones on meet and confer goals so again these are from our former policy manual and as our first revision of our new policy manual we want to add them to our new manual I do want to note that in section one three or three of our new policy manual it says the board exercises discretion to consider and adopt a policy at a single board meeting or after two or more board meetings which is different than our old policy manual which required two reads unless it was an emergency so we are bringing these as an action item tonight if the board would like to consider that I'll stand for any questions thank you do we have any questions curious do we have any requests have we had any requests to name facilities Madam president miss denzimore it's been quite some time since we've built a school some of us remember those days and maybe renaming the hecticness of that I will tell you that there are conversations to which I am aware of those who wish to potentially name a field after someone or those types of things and so yes there are conversations that are ongoing about some of those types of things but the large scale like we used to do and we haven't had that for a while and then in regard to the meet and confer goals this just this piece of the policy is just that we have a being confirmed process it doesn't really um specify what that process looks like Madam president miss Pritchard you are correct this is uh just the it's the bigger Viewpoint for a policy perspective any other questions okay I move that we adopt and add policies 3-204 naming facilities and 4-108 mean confer goals to the governing board policy manual second motion made by Crystal Chaffin second by Christine Pritchard oh there we go motion carries next we will move to action discussion I2 Dr Dean Madam president members of the governing board cabinet and our community this evening we have an action item requested by one of our governing board members for a possible revision of the November 17 2022 governing board meeting minutes that were approved on December 8 2022 and I will turn it back to you thank you do we have any recommendations to revise the November 17 2022 and December 8th 2022 governing board meeting minutes um sorry um I would like to revise the November meeting minutes um to revise comments made by Tracy Sawyer sink Bell to include a summary of her comments why I mean you voted for it and that is the November 17th meeting is that the one you're referring to are we going to go back to everybody that has done it in the last year for the record I don't believe I've ever used for the record I've never even noticed that for any other comments I think I've been on the board two years and I've heard it used at least three times Madam president I would ask for clarification uh is there a recommendation for what the summary should say or are you going to pull up the minutes right now okay sorry oh no no worries yes we have to hunt for them a little bit this was 18th did you find it Miss Densmore I do I do have it yes governing board update it is right about there did you find it all right I would move that we edit the comment to revise and remove anything after she finished her update by going on record saying quote on October 27th at the board meeting do I need to keep reading it I'm just saying omitting the rest of that piece Madam president miss Densmore I think that that is clear in terms of the intent of the motion thank you I will second okay and Madam president I wouldn't just want to make sure that we clarify as I'm looking at the meeting minutes that are being typed it appears that member Densmore asked to remove in order to have a motion we would need a motion to remove I know it's semantics um did I did it outside motion oh you did I'm sorry I'd like to make a motion then Miss Chapman you're absolutely incorrect in the motion thank you all right I don't know okay I think we've got it for a vote now foreign I would like to explain my vote I am voting no for the record is not being done in the future I don't think we should go back and look at minutes that had for the record in it this board except for Mrs Drake already approved these minutes so there wasn't a problem in December but now it is a problem I don't understand I don't think this is something the board should have even been talking about in the first place we should be talking about kids teacher retention uh the learning Gap safety security I the list goes on and on but these minutes are already approved I don't know why all of a sudden this is a problem I vote no and you just write it to attention to everybody to go back now and look at all of these minutes like oh let's see what they're talking about chairman whether or not they're not something that would be in the board's purview Madam president member Pritchard we did seek legal counsel to determine uh if the board has the ability to revise meeting minutes and the answer was yes and do we have a motion for December 8th or are we fine with those the 17th okay okay thank you okay motion carries thank you we will move to I3 Dr Dean Madam president members of the governing board cabinet and members of our community in my last agenda review with former president um Pritchard and by the way Miss Pritchard thank you so much for your service as the board president so but in our last agenda review last week prior to this meeting we discussed the superintendent's goals and the process that typically occurs in a school year understanding that the start to the school year was not a typical start to a school year from that perspective and I am bringing forward to the board this evening for consideration the superintendent goals which include the work of the superintendent specifically as well as cabinet you'll notice in the goals that we sent you there's some different language that's been used in the past and I want to State a couple of things ahead of time the first is I would like to state that the district goals are all of our responsibilities each of the four goal areas academics culture and Leadership safety and resources are components that drive the work that we do and in and typically a study session is held in the summer in which the governing board and superintendent worked together to draft goals certainly last summer was a bit different and so that did not occur in my interim status however I want to assure the board that this cabinet has been focused and working incredibly hard at the work before the the school district we haven't just been sitting around waiting to do anything and the goals that are provided this evening and made available to the public are the goals that we've been working on throughout the course of this school year these goals reflect an increase in accountability in all aspects and again focus on the four goal areas of the school district academics culture and Leadership safety and resources and I would like to just point out a couple of pieces in each of them the first one academically we've been working very hard with our school administration to increase accountability and conduct a comprehensive review of all of our academic programs to streamline what we do so that every resource that we have and that we use moving forward is aligned to a single purpose a laser-like focus that of which Dr crota presented earlier and so the aspects that we talk about as these have been our goals since the beginning of the school year are well underway at this point in time from a culture and Leadership perspective we continue to work for opportunities to recruit and retain a highly qualified staff and to provide a well-trained qualified staff and you saw some of that in our summer workshop video that we have coming up you see the work that we're doing laser-like focus with our PLC refocus at that point in time and you notice that I'll use the word focus and not Foci because we're going in One Direction and and going very strong in that direction from the safety perspective as the board is aware we've had a lot of conversation in the first semester about recommitting to and reimagining our safety protocols and plans and certainly onboarding Mr Yeager has been a tremendous help in that process and if you have visited any of our schools recently you will notice that one of the goal areas that we have to harden the front office is we have substantial completion in almost every part of that project we have one one school left the district office and a support center and so we're moving very quickly there and then finally in the area of maximizing resources and looking for opportunities to continue to grow our resources in the school district and to be incredibly responsible transparent and Frugal with the taxpayer funds that we receive I want to let the board know that that to this point in time in the school year we have received nearly eight to nine million dollars more from the school facilities board for facility upgrade facility maintenance than we did last school year and so that's been part of things that we've been working on as well and so we're very excited about the goals that we've been working on again we haven't been sitting around on our hands however this is really the first opportunity that we've had to bring the goals to fruition in writing to the board to approve and these are the goals that will be used both for both my mid-year and end of year evaluation so with that I'll be happy to answer any questions thank you Dr Dean do we have any questions straight typically we have a superintendent goal setting over the summer where we um as a board collaborative collaboratively with the superintendent we'll talk about like goals that we'd like to um have the superintendent work toward and for the district and things and just because of the way things happened we didn't have that opportunity because of Mr Dean being an interim as well so um thank you for um drafting this and um I I will would like to thank Dr Dean and your team for the fact that knowing that this typically again happens in summer and it hadn't happened that Dr Dean and his team have just worked tirelessly to address a lot of accountability issues going out and building relationships rebuilding relationships just doing a lot of amazing things without any direction from the board just kind of taking the ball and running and I just think that really speaks to your leadership and I truly appreciate all the work you've done and I think under the circumstances this is completely fair to kind of use this because my concern was we're not going into your mid-year with with the goals that we typically would so um I'm glad that you're comfortable with these and um you can move forward with these for this year and then hopefully the board we can gather as typical and come up with some more specific or basically just reevaluated that time for next year thank you madam president Mr Pritchard I will tell you that this this is a very unique cabinet team that many districts are to envious of and uh yesterday I attended the asbo workshop with Mr Hicks and listened to Mr Hicks speak on the ways that we operate together and school just we had superintendents and other folks come up to us afterwards in disbelief of the The Experience base that we have and the fact that this team doesn't let a lot of grass grow under its feet we have a lot of work to do and we don't mess around and so I appreciate the comments thank you well I've worked under your my fourth superintendent now with superintendent and so um I will say I mean there's been some great teams but I will say and I've been telling everybody they'll sit long enough to listen to me about it there's something about this team right now that just feels so light and positive and just focused and I can't really explain it but it's just completely different and it's a breath of fresh air and I just thank all of you for all the hard work that you all are doing really appreciate it thank you okay I will make the motion to approve the superintendent's 2022-2023 goals and objectives second foreign carries next we will move on to request for future agenda items okay I will next we will move on to Executive session I move that we establish executive session to be held immediately during a recess in the regular meeting oh yes sir oh sorry call for executive session pursuant to ars38-431.03 A3 for discussion or consultation for legal advice with the district attorneys regarding wall versus Dysart Unified second motion made by Crystal chaffet and seconded by Christine Pritchard and it reaches with that we will now adjourn to its executive session
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so I will ask you both to repeat after me I get to cheat you don't I state your name do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution and laws of the State of Arizona that I will bear to the same and defend them against all enemies fully and impartially discharge the duties of the office of the governing board for Marana Unified School District number six according to the best of my abilities congratulations [Applause] all right now we're moving to item D1 so that's reorganization of the board it is pursuant to ARS 15-321 for the purpose of the organization of the governing board the board shall meet at the most convenient public facility in the school district such meetings shall be held between January 1st and January 15th next following the election the election officers the new president of the board shall take office upon election the board May then elect a vice president after all nominations are made a roll call vote is taken on each name in order of its nomination until one is elected nominations do not need to be second recommendation motion for nomination of president I move that we nominate Maribel Lopez are there anyone else for a nomination Gloria can I have a roll call Dr Lopez yes Mr Carlson yes Mr Holt yes Mrs macronas yes Mr post yes yes okay the next one thank you thank you so the next uh motion is for nomination of Vice President do I have a nomination I nominate the uh Mr Holt for vice president are there any else uh is there another nomination okay Gloria can I have a roll call Dr Lopez yes Mr Carlson president Mr Holt yes this is my Cronus yes Mr post no all right thank you all right as of today we'll be staying in our position so no one will be moving tonight all right we're going to move on to let's see item D2 re-adoption of the governing board rules and policies Dr Streeter legal counsel has advised that since the law is vague as to when action taken by a prior board will be deemed the action of the present board and after January with the board being reorganized all the policies will by definition be policies of a prior governing board it is advisable to re-adopt the governing board policies so that they so that there is no argument that they are effective effective and intended to be effective I moved out the governing board re-adopt the rules and procedures of the governing board of Marana Unified School District in second favor hi we'll move on to item D3 um Mr contorno is absent so Dr Streeter will speak on his behalf this item avoids the board from individually signing each contract and voucher cover if approved a rubber stamp for items such as certified contracts vouchers and warrants will be used for Ford signatures I moved out the governing board approved the use of Fastenal signatures of the governing board members on employee contracts and District warrants subject to use of appropriate procedures for such signatures including specific approval of contracts and warrants upon which any such Festival signatures are affixed a second all those in favor aye next item is item e recognitions and presentations Dr Streeter I'm going to head back down yeah foreign this is the fun part of the evening tonight we get to recognize Regina Lewandowski for being named the 2022 Arizona English learner Teacher of the Year this was presented by the Arizona Department of Education this special award honors one outstanding Arizona teacher of English Learners each year in the state of Arizona before I get into our bio that we're going to make her stand up here with us nothing [Applause] Miss Lewandowski displays a passion in all students she's an expert in relationship building and a valued leader among staff as an El Advocate Ms Lewandowski identifies the strengths and needs and targets both to teach effectively through differentiated instruction and focused lessons student growth is ongoing in her classroom her family-oriented environment displays passion Innovation and collaboration and she provides a special place for students to learn from her nurturing caring demeanor when asked why she enjoys going to miss Lou's classroom one of her students shared Miss Lou loves me and Believes In Me she makes learning so much fun students are visibly set up for success in Miss Lou's class Miss Lewandowski unfailingly builds lasting relationships with our El stakeholders said Mrs Colleen Frederick principal at Estes Elementary families know her on an academic and non-academic level through her personal phone calls home visits and invitations to school events parents are always welcome and their cultures language and values are celebrated in her classroom in both social and instructional settings not only does she serve the students at Estes Elementary Miss Liu also serves as a resource for classroom teachers of English Learners throughout our district the partnership that she has developed with her colleagues allows them to collaborate on a regular basis sharing a variety of data and instructional strategies that best meet the needs of each El Student please join me in congratulating Regina on this most deserving recognition [Applause] thank you so much oh gosh no okay foreign my name is Serena York I'm here tonight on behalf of the Marana education Association the Marana Education Association recently established the Marana Education Association friend of public education award this award aims to recognize community members that have acted as champions of public schools and in service to the needs of students Educators and families in Marana we are proud to have unanimously selected Mr Dan Post as our very first recipient we want to thank you for recognizing importance of a quality educational system the importance a quality educational system plays in the growth and overall well-being of the community in your tenure as a board member you have always wanted what was best for students staff and the community you have shown your commitment to providing the best education for our children by employing the best Educators in our district and the result is we are growing well-rounded involved and productive citizens your dedication to this community is exemplified by the more than 40 years you have served in Marana that type of dedication is not for the faint of heart you have always been a cheerleader for public education through your leadership and servant heart you've always been the first to ask how you can help our schools and support our students it is with tremendous gratitude that we acknowledge the time you have dedicated to Marana Unified School District and your commitment to Public Schools you've been tremendously valuable to The District in our community and the Legacy you have created will be a lasting one this plaque was designed especially for you in Honor by the Marana High School welding class along with their welding teacher Mr Fisher um we are proud to honor you with the very first Marana Education Association friend of public education recognition award please join the Marana Education Association in honoring Mr Dan Post for his dedication to the Marana Unified School District and all its stakeholders [Applause] thank you foreign thank you [Applause] I can remember the time when the Sports Association with the mea was less than uh favorable but there's two men in the audience tonight that helped change that I'd like to invite him down Andrew Wade [Applause] these two men helped me change the relationship with the association Andrew was a vice president of the maranus Education Association and Wade was the superintendent of the schools through their efforts we were able to repair the damage that was done with the teachers and developed a thing called the Marana model of the way that and other districts began to copy that so I've I'm glad they're here tonight and like to hear what they have to say about their role in that I get I get the credit but they did the work okay so thank you brother appreciate it this could go on a while [Music] thank you I'm glad Dan mentioned 40 years or the mea mentioned 40 years because then our comments won't seem so long by contrast my name is Andrew Morrill and I taught high school English in the Marana district from 1988 to 2004 and as Dan mentioned I was active in the Marine Education Association leadership and I was president from 98 to 2000.
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we are voting for approval of the dates times and locations of those meetings so do I have a motion for the I have a motion by path do I have a second second second by Travis any discussion all those in favor 7-0 next moving on to legal counsel do I have a motion for legal counsel I have a motion do I have a second second by Pat any discussion all those in favor 7-0 next we have the position for isba legislative liaison so I have a nomination of Maryland Wickham do I have any other nominations hearing none do I have a second second by Earl any discussion all those in favor 6-0 stain Mary Lynn of stains and then next the position of isba policy liaison do I have a nomination for policy liaison I nominate past 11.
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um you know you could see an average budget in the in that rough decade of about 12 percent um and then you know it's gone anywhere from just north of six percent to uh as low as in our leanest point I think that was 0.94 at one point what are the Marquee budget drivers in the 23 2024 budget it's no secret that we've seen substantial enrollment growth uh over the last two years in particular but um it's also forecast for next year and into the coming future medical benefits is a significant increase we have this conversation annually and sometimes we're fortunate enough to see a surplus sometimes we're we're not in in the last several years I think we've as a community kind of codified around this idea that we're going to fund medical benefits at the Actuarial rate and um I know the town is invested in that and that's our budget is built around that um you'll be hearing more from Tom our medical benefits specialists in the the coming weeks about what that number is how he came to that number and we'll certainly have the opportunity to get into a richer discussion with him about that uh Global energy is I'm sure you're aware has been um you know it it spiked uh certainly uh toward the end of the summer and we've seen it come back to um closer to pre-pandemic but certainly um not quite there yet uh by a by a long shot and so that is influenced in here the other thing I think it's important to be cognizant of is mill rate offsets we spend a lot of time talking about uh the prosperity in our community the growth in our community uh the number of people who want to invest in the Cheshire community um you know another token line uh I don't want to say token's not even accurate but a line that has been repeated Ad nauseam is that people don't move here for The Nightlife uh the Board of Education the uh teachers in this community certainly our administrative team and others have worked very hard to make Cheshire an attractive destination for families from an education perspective and I think you know we've been able to reap the benefits of that and with that certainly you know there's increased enrollment but there's also increased growth in our grand list and we'll talk a little bit about that later in the presentation so per pupil expenditure we often look at this as a comparative how how are we spending our dollars in Cheshire relative to peers across the state uh you can kind of see where we are here um in 2122 the the difference uh was 2600 per student so you're seeing a growing Gap um and this is not meant in any way to complain but I think it really speaks to the efforts that have taken place over the last several years to operate as efficiently as possible in the advancement of our goals um you know a budget of 10.8 million dollars higher on an annual basis if we spent the state average on education is eye-popping uh 10.8 million dollars excuse me so um I think you know you're familiar with the narrative here because it's been part of the conversation for a few years now about the trend in enrollment we hit the trough and we are heading back up as it relates to our enrollment our October 1 enrollment from this current school year is listed across the top followed by the projection for 2324 just for a point of clarification um we have not used the slam projections just to sustain our continuity year over year we continue to use the New England's uh School Development Council nestec projections that we pay for and are provided on an annual basis so they're not wildly different to be honest but um nuanced difference but what we are seeing is I think you know we've articulated in the past is is that trough ages out through our school system you see the high school enrollment declining but you see a significant growth most notably in pre-k through six and that Trend will continue in the coming years um I learned just yesterday we I guess Cheshire Pro approved more housing 50 unit accessible housing in Cheshire so you know again these numbers will continue to climb as some of the housing that's under construction or even in the planning phase comes online so internally we work with uh our administrative team and we we don't just tack on a percentage to last year we um start basically from scratch zero-based budgeting and take a look at how many staff members are we what's our enrollment and we work through the process we evaluate program requests and Staffing requests and initially the budget came in at 9.22 percent increase I guess I I appreciate that that's still three million dollars less than the average state but if we just spent the average PPE but it's still a pretty jarring increase and again I you know I'm certainly cognizant of my responsibility to maintain a fiscally responsible budget and recognize that you know that's a nine percent budget increase doesn't work so you know I kind of frame our budget process from three different perspectives three different considerations maintenance budget we want to at the very least I think is a community sustain the level of service that we currently provide um and a restorative budget uh that I think was a place that we were at a few years ago when we had made substantial reductions in order to you know address economic pressures and we had to had to reinvest in some places so the the places where that is um necessary today are certainly much fewer than in the past uh and then advancement budget if we if we said to ourselves you know we think it'd be really beneficial as a community to add World Language K to six uh K to five and we already have it in grade six but if we wanted to add that I mean that we consider that an advancement so what if you know if we did decide to go to that nine percent um certainly happy to share some of those things but I think among the priorities on that what is if if we were to go there are the items that we have uh already adopted through grant funding and that's our bounce forward plan that we adopted several years ago and I I certainly distinctly remember being asked at the time is this is this what we're going to have you know three years ago is this this is going to be our budget in 20 I guess 24 25 when the grant money runs out and I you know at that time no a lot has changed since then in terms of our enrollment um we've seen really steep incline a lot has changed in the fact that we are um currently as as we literally as we speak right now downstairs they're having a school building committee meeting um for the construction of two new buildings so things are fluid um but these would be the priorities if we were to say uh engage and quote an advancement budget but it's not necessary given the fact that it is covered so um what we've done here uh and and 6.46 in my uh tenure as a superintendent I I don't know that I've ever um requested 6.46 uh that is a a large number by my historical perspective in in this position but I want to walk you through how um we came to that number uh relative to the nine percent and relative to where we are certainly in 2223 so you know with this um without any uh equivocation is a maintenance budget uh that we seek to sustain class size ratios uh we know that that is um incredibly important to our families and the school system uh that this budget addresses medical benefits at the Actuarial level now I say that as I sit here in mid-January that number um hasn't been nailed down yet but the first pass is where we're budgeting on now uh it's my hope you know maybe uh although I'm not really optimistic that we have updated numbers by the end of our initial process but certainly I think it's fair to think that by March April when we're engaging in the same process with the Town Council that we'll have updated numbers hopefully for better that we want to maintain the same level of special education services uh you heard me speak earlier to the legislators about you know what what that looks like and the cost of special education today the discretionary accounts remain largely unchanged and I'll talk a little bit about what those accounts are and and how it really it's a small fraction of our budget discretionary accounts in 2324 this uh illustrates what percentage of our budget is dedicated to each uh line there so you know salaries both certified and non-represent 61.5 percent of the budget benefits um now equate for to 19.2 percent of the budget you know support services and instructional expense maintenance and operation I mean you can read there I don't have to articulate it but I want to give you a moment to digest the the different elements and the percentage of the budget that they command so um what budget items are coming in at a change of more than a hundred and fifty thousand dollars the teacher line item the teacher line item the increase there is driven by two things one we have a net teacher increase that is at the elementary schools in order to sustain our current class size of 18.8 we had to add four teachers there alone just to add to maintain 18.8 given the enrollment growth the other area that's impacted there is just the contractual increase which I want to say is 2.79 all in so given the number of staff that we have we are is as we've had this conversation before very uh Personnel okay so our budget is very heavy in Personnel that's what we do as an education system it's it's a people business medical benefits you see a pretty substantial increase in the cost of medical benefits 30 percent of that's a we're not getting more people for that 30 percent like we are in the first line that's just the cost of benefits going up and I know that's something that our board you know faith has certainly brought that up on multiple occasions and we're sensitive to that again we'll have the opportunity to discuss that with Tom soon so those two items alone uh account for 71 percent of the budget increase certainly the Lion's Share of of where our budget is increasing para educator support has increased the vast majority of that is para Educators that have been hired through the course of this year that would carry over into next year's budget Support Services line things like a board certified behavior analyst for special education building maintenance repair bin and I'll certainly be speaking more to that next Tuesday with along with public utilities which I don't think is a surprise to anybody so where is our budget increase allocated this is just a different visual highlighting uh the last piece of what we had discussed and um you know the bulk of the increase there is with salaries and benefits so I was curious personally my first year as superintendent was 2016-17 and where did our allocation lie then uh relative to now you can see salaries are pretty much identical to where it was what has shifted is employee benefits takes up two more percent of our budget than it had in the past um so you know that's a good chunk of change about 1.6 million dollars is the shift right there so Support Services you know that money has to come from some place right the the that percentage if it's if it's increasing in employee benefits it has to be taken from someplace else and you're seeing it in the instructional expense and support service accounts so I I alluded to the net Staffing changes earlier uh Chapman do little uh Highland All-Seeing teacher Staffing increases next year the way that the projected enrollment shakes out Norton would see a reduction in one position I'll get into more detail on that momentarily and then of course there's special education support that comes along with this and then the school nursing position the demand is such with the Intensive needs that we address and for coverage when nurses are out we don't really don't want to have a building without a nurse in it and so particularly at the Elementary grades but at any grade really and so there's the inclusion of 0.7 is our enrollment grows to cover that position one thing I know that certainly our planning committee is is well aware of and sensitive to the with the elementary growth uh particularly at Highland and Doolittle we're running out of space the planning committee allocated money uh Vin and the the team and the the principals met Tuesday I think that was to start to take a look at what space might be available how do we leverage that in those two buildings and then you know our trailer trailers potentially necessary something we want to try and avoid to the greatest extent possible but still you know provide a a quality experience for our kids so um the uh slide before you illustrates some of the information that I've I've already shared but in Greater detail around the number of sections in each grade so the top half of the chart shows the current school year and we currently have 116 teachers when you factor that into our student population total of 2182 students in grades K through six 18.8 is the average and it's almost shocking that the enrollment growth is such when you add four it's exactly 18.8 teachers per class next year uh budgeted into our our operating budget proposal um here you can see the same thing in a different format that is more District driven without the individual sections and you see the 18.8 and how that is reflected in our our budget um I think this is valuable because you can see how does 18.8 compare to our history is that historically high or low you can see it's um it's higher than typical uh the previous the only other year that we had as many as 18.8 in a class beside last year was 17 18.
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