and um we had um created like our own pie chart of uh what different presenters we had like going based off the different fields and it was all spread out and even we had covered every aspect of kind of um the careers that may be available to students and I'd say the big part was that it's four students run by students all towards the students so even if it's military not necessarily College that's also another path that we had focused on and did the speakers talk about what they did or did they also talk to the students about how do you get into that field a little bit a little bit their main I think their main focus was um the steps that as high school students they need to take to maybe get to this career or get to where they are in their life and had provided a template that they could use we had provided a temple that they could use but a lot of speakers Did different things uh the presentations really varied from person to person and it was beneficial for both the students who knew what career they're going to or if they watched the speaker and decided this isn't for me it was perfect as well because it at least eliminated some sort of path so okay and was there any videoing of any of the speakers I saw you had the one that you kind of went in on a visit for but the uh but the you know though our kids could see what they said afterwards not really no I I know it would be hard with that many speakers so yeah yeah this is that's really cool yeah I love it how were the um this big recruited or selected so the main thing was through that form that was sent out through I think just like the community email and stuff like that um and then word of mouth and then eventually I mean like everyone that wanted to do it basically had the chance to um and yeah so we did a lot of recruiting and stuff but yeah ideally next year we're going to start a lot earlier and narrow down exactly who we want and how you know so we can get exact like every single category I I actually was a speaker of this before covid and uh I was really impressed with the questions that I was asked um so I mean I heard the template idea um and how organized it was I mean the between periods when there's like I don't know seemed like thousands of kids in the hallway it's like how does everyone know where where to go um but uh it's a really good event so I'm just I want a good job um I I presented at the event also and um I think it was really well organized the kids did a great job um communicating even prior to the event about what would be expected and sending a reminder like the day before and then you know we were welcomed very nicely there was a nice little reception in the morning before we started um and it went really smoothly it was fun to be part of it and the kids who came to the sessions were you know really attentive and interested and you know even if it wasn't their first choice to be in the session they were put in I found everybody to be really respectful and just happy to be there so it was really overall a very positive experience I heard there was one speaker giving out chicken sandwiches and she was quite popular she was Mr Greenstein who had the most signed up for us Caitlin did you have something yeah go ahead Caitlyn um I absolutely loved the student Affair by the way I think it was so well organized and I loved personally in my classes I got most of my top ones um do you guys remember how much scheduled time was allotted for passing time in between um if I could just recommend I think maybe it would be a little better to do um six or seven minutes uh I had a few freshmen sophomores coming up to me in the Halls um and they were stopping me because they were confused um because like any teacher's classroom was like up for grabs for the career fair um employees so obviously a lot of the kids didn't really know where they were going um and then I saw a few kids walking in late uh and I kind of felt bad because you know they don't know where they're going so it kind of affected uh the whole presentation so um yeah that would just be like a minor uh recommendation but overall it was amazing and I loved having like that one-on-one time with the employees thank you I think we'll definitely take that into consideration for next year and I think also a topic that was brought up was allotting more time for questions afterwards because I know students wanted to talk one-on-one with the presenters and definitely wouldn't want to make sure that for next year yeah in one of your pictures um you had a I saw people in cafeteria tables sitting there talking to presenters I recognized a number of the presenters those look if they were having one-on-one conversations with students in the cafeteria did that happen that was with the um yeah it's worth a commission okay okay that was a welcome event that we that you mentioned okay and if I could just add that I was at the um the CTE the Career Technical education advisory council meeting today and so that is a an advisory Council that is comprised of teachers and students and local um manufacturer or business people and I think almost all of them had presented at the career fair so it was really nice to see that Community Connection and allow and they were commenting on how they have already some of the members of the of the commission already have students from BHS who are reaching out to them to apply for internships and you know kind of even just explore you know the the field that they were so it's it's lasting it's not just November 15th and then it's it that's it so it's kind of a nice Community Connection cool okay well thank you guys this was fabulous great job appreciate it thank you you guys are welcome to stick around and listen to the rest of our board meeting if you want but if you don't but don't feel like you have to midterm start tomorrow then go study uh thank you and thank you to the adult members of the commission for all yours thank you well we're gonna let the room clear here a second before going on all right so next up on our agenda is public comment and I'll read my standard blurb on it if that's okay board of education does welcome public comment each speaker has up to three minutes uh to provide input to the board at the start of each meeting a maximum of 20 minutes is allotted for comment on any item that's on the agenda for this evening and at the end of the meeting time is allotted for comment on any item which is in the board's jurisdiction which would include any overtime any overflow time you know if we run out of time in the 20 minutes um the discussion of school Personnel individuals students or individual members of the board shall not be considered appropriate and if we get there I will stop the uh the the comment um so first on the sign up list we do have a sign up lesson we do require people to sign up in advance if anyone wants to come uh speak to the board we have a sign up sheet before the meeting but first up tonight is Mrs Korea and if you could start with name and address that would be helpful for the for the minutes hello Irene Korea 45 West Whiskey Road um for tonight's agenda the Boe should not approve the BHS program of studies for 2023-24 because it does not align with the current Boe policy and regulation for graduation and grading policy 6146 graduation adopted in 2002 only requires 23.5 credits for graduation as opposed to the program of studies requirement of 25 credits the policy does not call out graduation requirements for community service personal finance or the current CT state requirements for health and physical education the K bought it from August 2021 required that 6146 be updated to me current legislation 17 months later it has not been updated regulation 6146.1 grading adopted in 2001 has a different grade weighting system than presented in the program of studies the definition of grades from transfer students and class codes underneath the grade weighting chart do not match up between the regulation and the presented program the K bought it stayed at 6146.1 what's appropriate as written but the Boeing Administration has not noticed that the program of studies does not align with the high school program one of the main jobs of the Boe is to implement policy we have many outdated policies do not match state law are aligned with other documentation in the district in previous policy subcommittee meeting in 2021 an administrator stated that they were waiting on feedback from the district attorney regarding policy updates the Boe spends a minimum of a hundred fifty thousand dollars a year on legal fees how is this an effective use of tax dollars if our district continues to have outdated policies thank you thank you very much I appreciate that um next up is Mr Korea again start with name and address that would be appreciative Andy Korea I'm also at 45 Westwood Road um I agree with Irene um and it's there are several policies that the board doesn't follow including the one on public comment that was just read it's not consistent with the board's policy on public comment and it's also not consistent with law but we'll stick to the rules anyway so I comment with regard to the special education um the item on the agenda for the arpa Ida grant for the purpose of a special education program review this originally came up I think on December 14th um meeting it was billed originally the original proposal was billed as an administration's opportunist opportunity to see where they could use some help with best practices and of course highlight where they're doing well this was in the context of embarrassing and public failures of the special education Administration including injuries rapid staff turnover violation of Rights Administration like the parents public of the press and parents speaking out be careful yeah I know um you know this is essentially a lack of trust um you know the need really for this review here is primarily due to the management practices right so it's if you listen to parents who've been speaking out it's identification to students providing an appropriate Services writing effective IEPs truthful and accuracy progress reports um with you know dated credible work samples and follow-up management practices so if we're going to do a comprehensive review the purpose should be to get at the heart of why these practices aren't working right additionally any review should try to help figure out the ongoing problem of you know sped sped increases that are unforeseen due to all sudden outplacements right and I think if you were to do a comprehensive review and really get at why these things are happening you know you might find you're going likely to find things that are not um like they're not pretty right the things that the administration would not be proud of so to keep it credible like like we have had uh like other towns have had problems with I've asked the board to try to firewall the administration and make it more of like an investigation or an inspection so that there's no opportunity to influence the outcome because the original proposal most of the most of the verbiage was around you know a welcome party and a wrap party so the board has already responded that they will not do that but I'm reiterating this on for the public record that I believe that appropriate firewall an appropriate professional distance like you would have in a financial audit be in place for any review so that the public can be informed because I think if you look deep enough you might find some of the reasons why we have you know an increase in outplacements suddenly that's it thank you all right that's it for people who've signed up for this evening um a year signed up for the after I do understand that um the uh next up on our agenda is uh is our student representative reporter Caitlin glad to have you again with us thank you it's it's a senior also I have many updates uh we are pleased to welcome new staff members at Brookfield High Miss Savage and Mr ferraria security monitors Miss Guzman a Spanish teacher and Miss Gamache in special education this has been a busy week for students as midterms are quickly approaching exams begin tomorrow and end next Tuesday each day of midterm students will be dismissed at 11AM we prepared with master your midterms which was study sessions with tutors last week I attended the principal's advisory dress code discussion last week and we reviewed Cabe model policies and regulations and compared it to Brookfield policies and regulations Mr Blanda and our dress code committee are planning the next steps for the second year in a row BHS received the honor of AP Community science female diversity award we are extremely proud and excited the information for the Winter Dance was finally announced we will be hosting a starry night dance which will be 65 February 10th at the Amber Room the dance is open to all grades voice for change is talking about the next steps and planning how to use the twenty thousand dollar Grant awarded to BHS at a student-led initiative now for athletic updates we would like to thank all sports booster club for providing grants to teams to buy extra equipment outside of budget requests approximately six thousand dollars was given to teams we are excited to be working with the booster club park and rec and the help of donors to build a new concession stand in the west corner of the stadium field for better better accessibility to all fields booster club has set aside funds for the project park and rec has agreed to run water and electricity to the new building while they are replacing the front Turf and redoing the track and d-zones Dave kekase has volunteered to donate his time and workers to redoing uh to build a new facility Brian Reeve has agreed to donate building materials we have spoke with Dr Burrell and Ken post about securing kitchen materials from Huckleberry elementary school that will save us a significant amount of money on this project we are hoping that this building will be totally built on donations and Community Assistance so I'm gonna go run to study for my back-to-back AP midterm but thank you all [Music] before we let her go to go study all right thank you good luck tomorrow okay good luck back to back AP midterms man that takes me back all right so next up is uh written correspondence who's wrote regarding a special education administrator incident at Center School Marnie mcniff wrote regarding academic support and a meeting request Melissa Yeager wrote regarding an ABA para at whiskaneer and the esy program Claire Abate wrote regarding RFP language and a datco meeting and Andy Korea wrote regarding the superintendent CL education group work affiliation and The credibility of the chair's response thank you uh approval aboard minutes I'll move the board approve the minutes from the public budget hearing on January 4th the regular meeting on January 4th and an expulsion hearing on January 12th second okay it's moved and seconded any comments from the board members you all received it in advance any amendments okay hearing none all in favor hey superintendent's update all right thanks Mr Belden there's just a lot of great things going on so uh enthusiastic report this evening want to share I know Bob you mentioned strategic planning for next week and having Julie share the video excuse me the 23rd which is Monday afternoon we have kind of a celebratory final meeting we're going to work through the the near final draft with our facilitator and the entire committee and talk a little bit about rollout and next steps uh going forward from there so really excited about that I really look forward to thanking everybody in addition to that uh this evening prior to the board meeting the policy and Communications committee met and we talked about Debbie's the chair of that committee as well as on the strategic planning committee and we really talked about uh the two of us kind of doing a liaison with the strategic planning committee and communication support for that what it might look like when we have the presentation to the board and presentation to the public and so forth going forward so we're really excited about where we're at in the process with strategic planning and you could hear a lot about that tonight and certainly with the youth commission report you can see the four C's among the students being evident for sure update on the Sandy Hook promise Anonymous reporting system that we'll be implementing we're really looking forward and really appreciative of Eric Dean and Mark really their leadership working on this there's training coming up February 7th and some testing that will be happening technology testing going on with uh it's called the tip test in mid-February and then we're looking for a rollout by mid-march we're really excited about this Anonymous reporting system and Sandy Hook promise with that they just came off of in North Carolina there is a mandate for anonymous reporting systems in the entire state adopted Sandy Hook's promise so the part of the reason they're a little bit later in the winter getting to us as they were finishing their work in North Carolina so we're really excited to get them here now and focused back up in this area so again really proud of that and thankful to Eric Dean and Mark for their leadership there while we'll talk about it later on the old business part of the agenda with Candlewood Lake just an update and really have to thank the municipal building committee last night they approved the all hazards school safety plan we're going to have a vendor work and develop that entire plan for Candlewood Lake Elementary School and they work directly with Department of Emergency Management and Homeland Security and they'll be building that for us and obviously connecting with us here in town not only is it a lot about crisis team planning and protocols but there's a lot that has to do with the actual physical plant itself and working with First Responders so not only First Responders but Dan Caldwell gets quite involved with these as well so we're really looking forward to that and of course the Huckleberry and Center School plans come offline next year when we close the schools a big announcement here for everybody I think a lot of us have gotten used to the free school lunch over the last couple of years those funds have now run out we've already sent out at least two updates to families as of February 1st students will have to pay for lunch so we want to make sure that's going on and everybody knows about that we talked about the social emotional Baseline assessment uh the acronym for that was Dessa we had a presentation from Mrs xenicola Hickman and Dr Mann a couple of months ago February 17th we are looking for some staff training and then we'll be implementing shortly thereafter um speaking of program reviews we just heard that in public comment um Mr belanda and Mr Baldwin are looking forward to working and collaborating with the ciac and they're going to bring in some professionals from the ciec to perform a third party Athletic program review of all our Athletics here at the high school so we're really excited about that opportunity um I can tell you firsthand when I was a high school principal this is going back more than 10 years ago we brought in the cic and they really helped us with recommendations going forward not only where we can improve our processes but also where we could look to find ways to fund our programs differently or more effectively and it really helped the program overall so we're looking forward to the feedback we get there and then finally in thanking the board um and supporting our most vulnerable students the two bcba positions that the board approved for the remainder of this year and they're in the budget going forward um we've worked through the interview process and the paperwork process and both of those positions should be uh beginning of February should be starting those new individuals so we're really excited about that I don't know if anybody has any questions but that's my report I did actually have one question I read in the paper that there's a push in Hartford to secure funding for uh for continuing the free lunch program are we getting any input at all from the legislation legislators or the Department of Education Ken is in touch on that so it's a great question well I can't come up and talk to that I have heard nothing and nobody has reached out to me from the state or any other agency inquiring okay about it yeah and we're quite in tune with those uh I received weekly updates from the state department of Ed and I haven't seen anything no would you do me a favor and reach out to our state senator Mr Harding who used to sit on this board and see what he's hearing sure that would be very helpful and just to clarify what Dr Brill said before February 1st everybody who who does not otherwise qualify for free or reduced lunch goes back to full paid lunch and the impact for our parents is if they have an account that they need to make sure is funded they got to get it done yes and a lot of directions in the communications that have gone out of Ken's office Ken will there be one more communication before February 1 as a reminder yes yes we had that on the plan okay any other questions all right all right thank you thank you very much Dr bro all right so next uh we're gonna shift to subcommittee reports and first up in third up are Finance so I'll let you handle both of those Rosa and the same um so I'll yeah I'll do these both together um one was our special meeting on January 3rd and the other was our regular meeting on the ninth um it's kind of a rehash of stuff that you guys are probably already familiar with and we just talked about uh the vcbas which was um a big thing that we talked about at our meeting on the third the discontinued use of the of at Advance for those services in this current year and how that will impact the budget for next year in both of these meetings this section of our agendas that talked about the 2324 operating budget we mainly focused on our scrubbing efforts that I'm going to detail later on tonight's agenda and identifying possible reductions creative ways of using efficiencies and that was that was the bulk of both of these meetings the only other thing that took place on the ninth we talked about our our financial report for December we did our our shortfall is creeping up just a little bit it um and that's month to month just sort of um the major change is just a placeholder for an outplay student that's been identified as potentially on the horizon so something that you know doesn't just come out of nowhere we kind of get a little bit of headlights on that and so we're keeping an eye on it and the rest we'll talk about um later any questions thank you any questions for Rosa I will add that after the regular meeting I happen to have a chance to go meet with the board of finance and give them an update and that relationship has been stupendous right they have uh we are actually overrunning on our budget this year because of some real live exposures most particularly fuel cost being one of the biggest and UNS and surprise uh budgeted unbudgeted amounts for benefits costs and uh and actually not having as many turnovers savings and the town has agreed to make sure we're funded on that so I took uh took what we had done at our last finance committee meeting and I laid it out and showed all the forecasts we've done for the last five months with them and reminded them of that and they have reiterated they got our back right um because the it's actually interest rates on the town There's a one-time benefit that you know you always think of interest rates as a problem and when you've got cash in your bank account we have a pretty health the size fund balance in Brookfield it turns into a windfall right and it's a one-time windfall or at least you can only count on it one time right and that is helping cover the this year exposure and it does then play into our next year budget and they are very cognizant of that and they reminded us that they're listening very carefully and are committed to try and be helpful so I just got to share with you all but that was a really good discussion we had um and uh um and so very positive energy from both the first select woman as well as the board of Finance so so they have asked us not to shut off anything we're doing just because we are having the overruns this year and in particularly but they did ask us not to let it continue to creep up right so I'm going to communicated that to both Dr Brill and Mr poster we're going to keep trying to keep it at the total where we are today um and big surprises will of course be big surprises and we'd have to deal with that and Bob and Rose if I may we actually had a conversation with the building Administration about that just yesterday morning as well so we let them know that excuse me I gotta turn this off [Music] the first selection of the prior first selectment I should say um okay um so next up is facilities okay so we fourth regarding HVAC drainage and doors here's some updates on the capital projects so the HVAC we ordered new valves and store installed them over break 136 valves were changed at no no extra cost the project did get pushed a little because of winter break and staff being on vacation but in another week or so it should be done at the time of final walkthrough will happen the boys locker room at the high school it was decided to wait until after the basketball season to Begin work but there was a meeting yesterday with tecton Paul checo and the administration to begin discussing the work and timeline seminar room seating at the middle school measuring took place and now we're just waiting for a quote the cafeteria floor at Whiskey near we have one estimate and we're waiting for another security we have purchase orders for door alarms cameras at the high school for indoors and Outdoors gate to close off the back driveway specs for security filming and works being done with the principals on concrete barriers uh update regarding the water testing so the health department submitted a notification letter to us indicating that a number of violations were received that they rescinded because there were errors based on their behalf the health department is um saying that was their error so um also there was elevated chloride levels at with skinnier so instead of replacing the system we're seeking an engineering design quote for a potential project to partner with Aquarian and extend the water line to whiskaneer building condition study so they update we're checking references of two firms who submitted competitive proposals and we're looking to bring them in to do presentations we didn't have any new business and then our miscellaneous discussion was the very unfortunate situation that happened on Christmas Day the sprinkler pipe burst at the high school in the main office 15 000 gallons of water poured out of the pipe before the fire department was able to shut off the supply on the main office nurses Clinic cross hallway and Teachers Lounge were all affected but luckily it stopped short of the boiler room we lost office furniture electronics and some possible issues with the phone lines Service Pro came in and the insurance adjuster has been on site a special thank you to the fire department who was there within 10 minutes Dan cuola and Mark belanda for coming on Christmas and the custodial technology and High School staff for coming in during winter break to ensure that school is ready to be open on January 3rd so extra special thank you too workers thank you and that's it any questions for uh Joy No but I was just going to comment that I saw the main office yesterday I can't believe how put back together everything is it looks great last time we thought well done okay moving on uh Kate Mike uh so we met January 11th in a consistently different location again because it's always fun keep on our toes uh doctor oh sorry Mark Blanda gave a presentation on the program of studies for uh 2023 2024 I'll let him cover all the little specifics but we did as a as a committee we voted 3-0 to bring the program studies for a presentation for final board approval Dr May gave a update on the k-3 reading assessment state is going to require that we update the k-3 reading program and as you know there's there's a we'll discuss this before there's two portions of that the program itself and then the assessment which is also being looked at and uh rather than submitting a waiver we're doing a post one year postpone it to July 2024 and um that's all okay any questions for Mike all right one question I have is when when are we going to actually submit the the postponement request is that imminent or is that uh it's done it's done okay is it approved as far as I know okay there was no option for it to not be approved according to the webinar that I attended okay um and so unless the State updates that somehow we are in good shape we have confirmation Dr Burrell got that the confirmation email that the survey response went through okay and that's the confirmation all right perfect thank you for the program studies we're just voting on The deletions or revisions or additions right just those couple items correct yep well Mr Belinda is gonna present in just a little bit okay we'll get to that one and we'll need to talk about how it connects to our policies and save guidelines so I think while we're at it um all right so that's it on committee reports next up is our consent agenda I'll move at the board of items on the consent agent consent agenda which are new hires resignations and the December financials second I moved in second and any questions or comments on the uh on the items on the consent agenda okay hearing none all in favor okay oh it's been approved unanimously um so next up we're moving over to new business and the first item is the ARP Ida Grant idea Grant update and possible motion so it's just at this point in action so Dr Burrell why don't I turn it over you to uh brief us on uh on this uh ARP Ida item very happy to so um uh as I've been updating and I think I updated the board on January 4th that we're looking uh into several different firms that do conduct these program reviews and we're putting together a committee to uh to actually assess each one and review before selecting I'm a little ahead of myself there though um what's really exciting about this opportunity is Mr post and I were looking through ways in Dr Mann ways we could fund a comprehensive review um we would like to have always liked to do a comprehensive review but as you just indicated in the finance report we're over budget quite a bit so in proposing from the operating budget in December I propose a more targeted review as we reviewed some opportunities and and um things with the IEP compliance teacher that we talked about that we were going to use the ARP idea funds for um it occurred to us that given the timing in the year and the timing of the ARP idea budget and it was as a finite window of ending on June 30th it would probably be a better use of the I the ARP idea funds I hate to be so confusing for everybody to use that for a comprehensive review and there is enough in that Grant we haven't tapped into it yet where upwards of a hundred thousand dollars in that grant that we could apply Mr post actually contacted the state to confirm that we could use it for a comprehensive program review and that was confirmed and so we've chosen to utilize the administration wants to utilize the funds for that and coming to the board to let you know that that's what we'd like to do and we'd like to get your blessing on that this evening in addition to that we haven't given up on the concept of the IEP compliance teacher there is some money left in idea funds the regular Grant as well as probably a little bit of balance left in the current year for the ARP idea funds and then um kind of work on that through next year with the regular ieda funds so but right now the priority is to have the comprehensive review and to complete that before Year's End so we want to get moving on that um importantly in this uh not only listening to parents um and kind of going in a direction we would ultimately like to go um we talked about the audit for the uh or program review for the athletic program many of you will recall um and Bob you alluded to the great relationship we had with the board of finance that relationship was born out of a lot of hard work over the last seven to eight years but also we had a bloom Shapiro third party objective audit way back on our whole regulatory process and finances and that really helped us with a plan going forward so ultimately we'd like to get results from this that give us actions and plans to help us continue to improve programs for kids which is ultimately what this is all about in addition to that had a great conversation with Marty mcniff one of our septo leaders and she was all for this and thought this was a great idea so and I asked Marnie if I could use her name tonight to share that we actually talked last week you know not only as a parent but as a septal leader with Anna and myself and so so we're really excited about this in terms of the team to review the four different firms we're thinking of if tonight maybe if a board member might be willing to serve on that as well as we have a couple of our administrators that will serve on it and one of our service providers at least a classroom teacher a paraprofessional a special education teacher really trying to have a diverse group of people take a look at those get the pros and cons of each and make a selection and to be very Frank Amy and I are actually going to step out of that process and uh and and let the committee take a look at that and give a real nice objective review so we're really excited about it um the proposals are coming from PMG which stands for public Management Group CES Cooperative Educational Services krek out of Hartford which stands for Capital Regional educational Council and DMG which is District Management Group so those are four kind of known firms that do this kind of work so we're getting proposals and also actual reports that they have done reviews on other school districts and taking a look at that and we'll make our selection hopefully in the next week or two we plan to meet next week the things we have to get all the proposals in so um I've talked quite a bit we're really excited about the opportunity and we really like the board the board's support and moving forward and using the funds for for this purpose any questions from the board before I start asking questions make sure so I guess my first question is um uh first of all I'm supportive now that we we have can find money to do this that would go to uh full uh full review where we can because I was advocating the last time uh for a get started review and uh I've gotten some VM and pushback from certain parents and I understand why um and so I think this my input to the board is this would be helpful to us in fact we even kind of talked about that at the end of last year when we talked about both Athletics and special education this is an opportunity for our district um on the selection criteria for the uh for whichever firm is going to do this I would ask two things and then we can ask the board that question but uh for you I want to make sure that uh engagement with parents is a very highly included right that we have an opportunity to get a broad spectrum of Parental input on the fullness of our program right um and uh because we have parents who are happy with what goes on we have parents who are unhappy here it goes on as with any special education program secondly um God I'm going to lose my train of thought um secondly I want to make sure the board gets input on Staffing levels right um that that is it's not just a procede drawn and it's Staffing levels it's also care and feeding of students and parents and families right that was our number one concern when we spoke you know six eight months ago was about tone with families right so that would be um I want to make sure we have those as a high and we we have that and that the committee when they get going actually has a disciplined set of criteria they're evaluating against it's not just a who made up the best impression yesterday right that they actually have a checklist that they have here's the objectives lastly I would liken that to make sure that whatever their deliverable is it's a written public document uh like we did on Bloom Shapiro that says here's five recommendations or 50 recommendations whatever the number is but they have actionable items that we can then use to tick off because as a board that will probably be the best way for us to monitor progress against yeah Bob one of the opportunities with that just so everybody knows is that you you you work out with the firm to actually come in and give the report so it doesn't have to be filtered through you know an administrator or a board member or whatever the case may be or a chair of a committee whoever they might be actually bring in the people who've done done the work and they you know who do this around the state or you know the area and uh and then just kind of soft things I'm hoping we will be getting references from other districts that they have supported whether they're in in Connecticut or in another state but just you know what did they get actionable stuff out of it and then secondly we ought to make sure to spend one parent who has been on this point that they disclose to us any relationships they have with our senior leadership of any ilk right we want this to be above board and and open right and that ought to be part of what the committee reviews so so my question to the board my question to the board is would one of you like to be on this this committee that's going to make the selection over the next couple weeks you were on the uh you've been on a special ed some of these special ed committees in the past year right I would love to have you do this is everyone okay with that all right you're it yeah thank you that was easy thank you very much yeah okay um that's all I had anybody else so you said there's no parent involvement in terms of on the committee that wasn't there wasn't the thought okay because when we are selecting firms for all other things we haven't done that in the past okay I would think someone like Marnie you know the have SEPTA appropriate fit that would be my recommendation I think it would be a good idea to include septo directly right and uh in a positive and constructive one here um okay yep so um I would like to put a motion on the table that the board the board's action here guys is just to approve the use of the idea ARP idea grant for this purpose so um and we don't know the dollar amount yet What's the total available total available in the grant is approximately 130 000 Ken yeah and what's the range that you're expecting this um the range so far is is 40 to 85 I think is kind of the initial conversations again when you start sitting down and customizing things for the district and asking for more of this or less of that that could obviously increase costs and labor my instinct and I'm just going to ask the board members is we ought to put a dollar cap when we put a motion and up two amount but it ought to be room enough that the committee can operate and I would suggest a hundred thousand dollars as and with with the ability to come back to us okay does that seem rational okay um and I can make a motion that the board approve utilization of the ARP idea Grant to conduct a con comprehensive Pre-K to 12 special education program review as recommended by superintendent John Dr John Burrell up to the amount of one hundred thousand dollars if it's to exceed that they should come back to the board any discussion all in favor hi okay it's unanimous thank you so I'm glad we're moving on with us absolutely thank you all right next is setting the class of 2023 graduation date I'll move that the board set the graduation date for the Brookfield High School class of 2023 as recommended by VHS principal Mark belanda second in uh Mr belanda would you like to come tell us what that date is everybody's waiting for Mark on this one sorry about that happy to share that so uh the date I'm proposing is uh Saturday June 17th 2023 uh and the reason just to as with so many different state statutes have continued to change and evolve I'll just read it to you so you know what it is it's uh section 10-16l establishment of graduation date notwithstanding any provision of the general statutes a local or Regional Board of Education May establish for any school year a firm graduation date for students in grade 12 which is no earlier than the 180th day noted on the school calendar originally adopted by the board for that school year so June 17th puts us well past that it's perfectly fine not putting an offer discussion but just so you know the board did approve their calendar for 23.24 it's 182 days I'm not suggesting we suggested 2024 graduate situation date but we can certainly do it a lot earlier next year and I think parents would be happy to know like the start of the school year this is when graduation is going to be we have that Authority Under State Statute but that's for next year so right now I'm recommending Saturday June 17th 2023.
we outgrew the United Way uh conference room and have moved to the Danbury Police Station for tomorrow and um so my ass tonight is that at some point and perhaps I need to go through Ralph for this we would love to have a board of ed member that could sit on this committee as well okay so that's ask number one um the work that we have done so far at that first meeting was really introducing what Collective impact was our meeting tomorrow um and at that first meeting we brought in folks from Stanford and from Waterbury and they talked about what to look out for what was successful in their Beginnings startup stages and things like that we wanted to learn from the best tomorrow's meeting we will have Monroe Nichols or a colleague his from Cincinnati from the strive movement which is the National Organization that supports Collective impacts at the local level it's going to come in and talk more about the national model and the support that they can give us tomorrow we'll also be introducing um a Community Asset map mapping program that we'll be going through before the next meeting so that we can really identify where are the gaps in Danbury and then over the next two meetings we hope to have the work group or the smaller group and we're up to about 20 people now really say what's what our goals going to be I mean are they going to be in early childhood and mental health Early Childhood in reading this is something where the folks that sit on this committee will decide and then after they come up and not decide when they come up with some proposals we'll then hold a much bigger community meeting about what Collective impact is and say to folks do you agree with what we're assuming already would be our very best cornerstones or goals that we can have for this project and then it'll come back to the smaller group of 20 or 25 of us to work on and then there will be smaller groups that will actually take on those goals to work um so it's a it's an ongoing process it is a fair amount of work um Alex the consultant that I just spoke about has already met with um Kevin and our data person because the data in the district will be very very important the work that of this Collective impact um you know so so many of you may be saying so what's this got to do with the school district so there are things that schools can't always do but a collective impact actually complements the work that schools do around education and so um you know one of the things that comes to mind very quickly is if um and I think haven't you used this example the other day that if you're out with a sports team and that coach can talk to those kids about hey you're all going to school every day right you're not playing hooky you're not you know just hanging out not going to school but you know how important school is so that would be you know whether it be an athletic association or a group like that they're able to support what we're trying to do around good normal regular attendance with our kids at school so um Kevin do you want to add a little bit about your experience you've actually been part of a collective impact all right so so I I've been a fan of the collective impact uh mostly because of my uh time in Waterbury that I had an opportunity um and privilege to be part of the collective impact there for for uh the three years I was there I was two years on that committee um and really a an additional way to look at it as Anne had described it's really an organization that is complementing the goals um that the district already has but some of those goals and some of those initiatives might be outside of the reach of a school district so for example um Early Childhood goals or prenatal to H3 goals which certainly helps to address kindergarten Readiness but it could be an initiative the entire Community uh to address prenatal to uh three-year-old and then three to five-year-old initiatives to make sure our kids are ready for school um out of school time into to and point in the example that she gave but make sure kids are engaged in activities all throughout the school year and not and also outside of also the school day and so having people at the table perhaps working with the city of Danbury and other profit and non-profit groups around trying to get kids engaged in activities uh throughout the school year um and so you know in any social emotional goals that we might have as a community uh if you know to begin with just making sure our families already and all have and their kids have their physicals at the beginning of the year and how we can make sure our families are ready and that the city is ready to make sure we prioritize kids being in school on the first day so that we don't have any delays and again all of these things these are the type of initiatives that are outside of the reach of the district but certainly are priorities for the school district and so we're we're looking forward to this because partnership and I'm not sure if you mentioned but when but when talking about the funding that arrived we worked with apply for a grant with Nelly May and Nellie May supported this initiative um the grant was actually written in a way with a collective impact um slid in there nicely and uh was actually eligible for the grants I'm hoping that this grant is something that will it may not necessarily be written the same exact way annually but I'm hoping that we'll we can count on some ongoing funding from Ellie May if not we will have to find ways to secure funding to keep this going but the important thing is that we have uh the foundation to get this team started something that we've been talking about for a couple of years now and really happy and excited that we are moving forward with the collective impact and really have starting to get all the right people at the table to make sure these Community initiatives and goals can come together for the school district and the school community so thank you Anne thank you thank you you know the exciting news is um you know we have not officially announced announced anything we'll talk a little bit more about that but we wanted to go through the process to make sure the board was aware of what we're doing and in other groups as well but there's a Woman by the name of Dr Janice Grendel that does a lot of work around infants and toddlers and she's doing some work right now around prenatal care of Moms on Medicare and in her draft report that just came out two weeks ago she said that she's working with the four Connecticut communities that have Collective impact and soon to be Danbury Connecticut and immediately my phone rang by the four key funders that fund Collective impact in Danbury and they wanted to know where we were what are we doing and can they have a seat at the table so and I've had conversations with a couple of them prior to gaining the or receiving the the money from Nellie Mae and that they're very interested in seeing this whole thing through so um you know beginning stages but we're going to get there absolutely going to get there and I just wanted to make everyone aware I just put two links in this wonderful one for the Waterbury Bridges to success um Collective impact and then a Norwalk acts uh Collective impact and that you were referencing as well thank you yes but you know get yourself a good strong cup of coffee and look at both of their particularly uh the Norwalk site it's just really really impressive they have one dashboard one Community dashboard that every agency functions in and so this past summer I think they had 42 or 47 agencies that work with school-age students provide every child in Norwalk a summer summer experience so that in itself is huge so not gonna happen here you know next year but something definitely a goal to work towards so that's it yeah I just want to you know you know I'm such a big fan of proponent of this work and I know you already had had laid some tracks with it by the time I got here but I'm really excited to be to be joining you guys with this I I did a little bit of this work in in some previous um lives back in the Midwest and on the west coast and it's really one of those things where you you know you don't even realize sometimes the resources you have available to you in your community you know and and I've you know some of the research on these you see you know local businesses Workforce training police and fire cultural centers health clinics community centers you know airports right like all these I remember there was uh there was one in New York with a water taxi got involved because the kids were going to that um Maritime school on Governor's Island it's like you don't even realize like oh my gosh this is a resource that will be helping kids so it's just so exciting to be on the sort of ground floor of this and getting to shape what this is going to look like in Danbury because every you know every place it happens it has its own unique fingerprint because every Community is different every population is different and we get to decide what this looks like for us so I'm very excited about it thanks for sharing that one good work yeah thanks Mike oh and I just have two questions you had mentioned that there were initially 10 members and now you're moving into 20 for the next who in the community um have you already recruited those initial 10 other than you know Kevin yourself like yeah good question so the initial signers on the grant were um let's see Healthy Families Network um Sue gillio's group The Michelle James's group the Community Action of Western Dam Western Connecticut United Way stand together make a difference and then all of the alumni for our pep and our parent C group from last year so that's my very representation yes the library is on there too yes thank you thank you since then we have had um Civic the Community Health Center on Main Street reach out and many more parents the health department is going to be joining us as well because we really feel that there will be a major health component in all of this our next tier I'm just going through my notes Here our next tier will be to reach out to more Community groups uh cultural centers and groups like that because that will be our next step in you know fulfilling the group and then this for this particular meeting now we have many uh parents that have are either graduates of Pep or parent C that will be joining us we still need to identify some students that we'd like to be part of it but we have a really nice mix of folks tomorrow okay and tomorrow you had mentioned that it's at the police station what time is that and is it it starts at 11 15 with a light lunch and we delve right in at 11 30 and it's two hours of powering through um an agenda that we worked on with Alex and so he he asked the hard questions which is good because it really makes us think about what we're doing in the process that we're going through so he'll do a level setting and go through the minutes from the last it was really the last meeting to make sure that everyone's on the same page introduced the the new folks we'll talk about asset mapping for tomorrow um what the community looks like and how that tool is going to be used we'll actually go through the use of it and then we've got a couple other things on the agenda that we need to you know some logistical things that we need to talk about um you know a regular date for a meeting right now we've been using doodle poll and we want to go to you know the same date every single month to meet and then the Committees the smaller committees coming in between those bigger meetings okay so you're gonna meet once a month and then the smaller committees yes absolutely absolutely yeah and are you going to be um recording streaming this uh because I can't make it for this meeting I didn't I wasn't aware of it but I would love to see it yeah we can because we are streaming in um the gentleman from Cincinnati you know so we have all this new technology you can really do really cool stuff so if you if anyone on this committee would like to send me a request to be there we can bring you in and live stream you and yes absolutely absolutely and if you if you are like if I have a conflict at that moment I can log on at another time you can forward me the link or you can probably do the link yes yes and the entire meeting is available remotely or just the person who's coming in right now just the person yeah that that is speaking Yeah that's coming in from Cincinnati so we can we can record him and have him available absolutely I don't but I think the question is can folks stream into the meeting um to be part of the meeting I think um I'm not going to say no we'll make that work I think that's really really important yeah yeah wonderful well you know I'm very interested on about this new program you're looking to do um but if there's any other board members that are also interested in possibly you know volunteering for the port as well please let me know get back to you anybody have any questions on you send me all the information on an email pretty much can we send it to you yes yes and have it in the back of my head yep yep thank you yeah do that for I don't know myself as well any of the board members here great love yeah I just uh asked a question yeah as I sit here and listen uh you know to listen to uh the the 250 000 you have coming to get parents involved and that's have been my goal ever since I got involved in the community here in Dean there but as I listen near it's it's not an entire commitment it's a one-sided community so we go back and my question would be how do you get the other part of the community to join in with the other part of the community that you're leaving out um so when we're talking about part of the community and the part that's being left out is there can you be a little bit more specific you know what I'm talking about because what I'm saying I'm being very specific because we're only talking about one segment of the community from what I hear and what I see that's coming up at the meetings and questions we're only sort of looking and guarantee that this segment of the community get the information so my question to you would be how do we impact the community that are not attending the hand is put know that they ain't talking about as far as her community and if I may you know something like this might be one of the challenges that's raised in the group that we decide this is going to be one of the goals we tackle and we say you know there are there are certain parents we just can't get to come to meetings and you know to to you know uh come come to school and we're going to put together a metric we're going to look at all the resources we have and say this is our year one goal is to engage you know more people in the community and all those you know all those heads come together and think of okay we could do it through this cultural center or I see people over here or you know the athletic leagues or what you know Parks you know wherever that that's exactly this type of thing that I think would be addressed okay thank you and then also to follow up with that my thing would be how how would you contact I belong to you Hope Baptist Church and I'm quite sure your hand doesn't go over there or spreading the message that she just spreading tonight so how do you get those because they have parents over there just like parents over at Round Street Church that needs to learn to understand the budget process too just like the other parents and they want to learn so if I can answer Mrs Cooper the budget question we use parent Square and so that's our our fairly new we're a year into it now um of reaching parents so every message that goes out goes out in the parents desired language and we every message that goes out reaches 18 000 folks that are members of have children in our school and our community members and so if you can think of anyone that you would like to have as a community member please let me know and we will definitely reach out to them um we do have uh Wesley Johnson who is joining us and I will be um with uh Reverend Parker uh next week and I was going to talk to him and um talk to him about this initiative that we had we did we're having we did have a very short um communication about it several months back it's okay the church just sort of just you know people stopped going and sometimes when you have contact person to say okay to the minister this is what's going on and we need parents there that's more influenced than just sitting out a message to the people I totally agree yep Miss Cooper I remember when we were doing this work in Chicago the churches were a huge huge partner and I think that's a very important reminder that they need to be brought into the to the fold brought at the table too so thank you thank you and I can add to that that many of the people who have taken uh parent C in the past pep and different trainings that we do are part of what we call our cultural Brokers groups and so they reach out um or par or or are part of these Community organizations in our churches and different other Civic organizations and they are bringing that message back and that's how the group grew from 10 to 20 from this um from the December meeting to this meeting tomorrow yeah do we have anybody from like city council or anybody from the city themselves being involved in this the mayor's some supposed to be sending someone tomorrow he's been fully appraised of this all the way along yeah okay yep we can use all the help from anywhere absolutely absolutely yeah and we want it to be we want people to we want we want to be able to hear from folks or the group does yeah and and also um and and I'm not sure what the case is in Norwalk uh but the mayor in Bridgeport actually um has made this an ongoing budget item so in Bridgeport I'm not Bridgeport I'm sorry in Waterbury it's actually a budget item for the city yeah they don't fund the entire program uh but part of it a percentage of it is paid for uh by the City of Bridgeport and so you know what whether or not it's going to be added to the city budget or not I don't know um but but in other in other cities and other towns uh they have engaged this city in that way because it truly is a city initiative to help complement on District goals right very true the 250 000 sounds like a lot but I know that we were talking about the summer programs and you know that money kind of goes quickly so I'm sure that a lot of things on the list I'm sure you have some sort of a list where the priorities I know that we were talking about absenteeism you mentioned this today uh during this meeting so I'm sure there'll be a goal and eventually hoping to grow this I'm right so go ahead go ahead us you know I know that it's it's you know we're crawling we're just kind of starting up but that kind of a grant you know what what is the committee at this point feel that can be achieved you know is it one area or is it you know you know like an after-school program so the whole idea behind Collective impact to answer your question is not to fund programs but it's to look at what programs are already out there and how can we best leverage the um capacities that we have right now and so the Nelly May fund is to get this whole Collective impact off the ground it's not for it and when I wrote it I purposely did not write it for programs at this point yet we need to get all we need to get our foundation built first and then as the group decides what their cornerstones will be then we'll be able to look at you know should there be you know some funding from another Foundation that goes to the after-school program how do we leverage some of the the state funds that you know we do already in in the district for after school and um summer programs but we need to know exactly what are the assets first in the community and so that everybody can say you know here's where my organization excels and it and it's in two ways an organization excels one is the programs that they offer you know how do we help build those programs and and and create um Synergy between them to to have more robust programs and then the second part of that is how do we or how does an organization what capacity and what assets does an organization itself have of that can make this collaboration even stronger so that's going to be part of this asset mapping we might have an organization that comes in and says I have a DI trainer that I'm willing to put forth to do training around diversity equity and inclusion for this project or it might be somebody that says you know I have a you know a consultant on my board that does organizational development and so and and he he or she is willing to do more work for every organization that's at the table so if there's really two different levels that we'll be focusing on in this community in the Community Asset mapping um but I don't see that that money will be used for programs anytime soon we need to get the the foundation built first um and really specifically to responding to the grant proposal they they want to see that this Foundation is well built um before I would even go back and and ask them for more funding um for programs thank you anybody have any questions or comments going once oh okay I just want to say thank you again Dr Mead um thank you I really always bring everything to the table and uh he really he's very thoughtful about the way you do it so I do appreciate the enormous glitch that you're um office is doing on our behalf well I have to give kudos to the team that I work with both at the cabinet level and the support that I get there and then for my team um in the office and my my frcs um my School Readiness programs all the programs they really are the the supporters of all of this and it's where we get a lot of our great ideas from as well thank you yeah just I the meeting is at 11 15.
do I now have a motion to adopt the agenda as amended I'll move thank you Mr Bruno second thank you Mr ballen let's do a roll call vote since trustee Lee is remote trustee Lee did she say I okay Mr ballen or sorry Mr Bruno aye Mrs Anderson aye Mr balance aye and Mr Mason and chair votes aye we will now have the organizational report cuta Miss Mason you're gonna have to do some maneuvering ma'am hi good evening okay uh I don't have much to share other than we would like to thank the school district and Mr um Jordan's category special ed Department specifically for funding five teachers to attend the cars conference that's being paid by Center so we have five special ed teachers who will be attending a special ed conference paid by Center Unified so that's amazing and um door murals were delivered to Spinelli and they're really excited to see the great work that has been added to their doors and one of our classes from Oak Hill attended the Roseville Theater so it was the first time the second grade class had ever gone on a field trip so I thought that was worth mentioning that they were able to go see a play and then we look forward to continuing our contract negotiations our three-year contract is open the whole entire contract is open for negotiations this year and so we've been slowly but steadily working through all of the updates and some language and grammar Mr Jordan constantly is running his grammarly and approving each page and um hopefully by the next meeting I'm crossing my fingers we can get through it so that it can be presented to the board for approval any questions no thank you Mrs Mason right now we will have Naisha Harris the sea president hi this is Amy runsby I am csca vice president can you all hear me yes thank you thank you my camera is not working tonight my apologies um so I am speaking tonight for Naisha and she wrote a statement that she would like me to share with the board she said good evening we will be celebrating our csca classified members on February 14th the planning committee will be Distributing goodie bags this year two members at every School site we have two new negotiation team members one vice president and one Treasurer both residing who were elected by our members for two-year terms also csca classified staff has been continuing to step up through staff shortages this school year thank you and that's all we have for tonight well thank you very much is there any questions thank you we will jump to reports and presentations right now we will have Twin Rivers police SRO update Mr Lair yeah so um a few months back the board had talked about having our Twin Rivers Police Department is who we contracted with for law enforcement services and tonight we are I would like to introduce uh Lieutenant Coker and our officer Ahmed and they're going to give an overview of their the program and the services they provide for the the district and we welcome them and thank them for being here tonight thank you all right I brought him but I didn't put them on oh thank you for having us uh with me as officer Ahmed I let him introduce himself in in just a few moments give you a quick over brief of what we do we'll talk a little bit more in detail and then provide you with some additional information as you know we provide Safety and Security to The District student Outreach mentoring provide services uh public relations services and security to special events football basketball those types of things that are required to keep students safe in the attendees mentorship which we pride ourselves on with the students so with that I will turn it over to officer amid good evening board president Board of Trustees um I just wanted to tell you a little bit about myself my role here as a center SRO um I I'm from Pakistan I'm born in Pakistan I'm originally from the south South Stockton Community I went to uh Franklin and Cesar Chavez High School graduated from Stockton Unified School District I went to University of the Pacific graduated with a bachelor's in sociology and I ended up pursuing a career at law enforcement I've always wanted to come back and work with youth and be a mentor for kids and which ultimately brought me back to working for a school district as SRO so I've been having a really good time here at Center Unified one of the things I want to talk about what I what I do on a daily basis is uh my role is to be visually uh presence show my presence on on school grounds Mentor students have a proactive step towards safety and uh overall I just work closely with admin and just you know whenever they need me give me a call and stuff like that so we can work together okay so as you can see primary functions again is with the Safety and Security of our students and staff and visitors who come here we do provide 24-hour service to the district we have officers assigned to Patrol on graveyard and weekend so anytime there is a call for service alarm activation anything like that whether it be a fire alarm burglary alarm or somebody just witnessed something as well as just a proactive check-ins with the district that has done we help monitor cameras security cameras within our Communications in our Dispatch Center so that is monitored 24 hours a day as well as he said he uh he's here to help provide a proactive security measure by being present being visual obviously we'd rather stop things before they start um creating opportunities the interaction with students is huge for us building that gap between students the families in law enforcement we respond to a mental health crisis bullying issues assist as well as assist with child protective services when needed all right in addition we do provide parking enforcement traffic enforcement around the schools to ensure that our students are safe those dropping off most of that is done during the beginning hours and the later hours when we have our most congestion around the school sites as well as it's not all about traffic enforcement we do Thrive ourselves on doing driver education as well so we provide more driver education to the persons that we stop than we actually provide enforcement through citations um as we said earlier we provide security advances and other functions uh anytime we're asked we're here and we will always make sure that we provide a service whatever that request is from the school site admin themselves or the superintendent's office or one of the designees one of the things that officer Med uh does on a regular basis he does work with the school site if you've heard the term sept head crime prevention through environmental design he is always aware and paying attention to uh maybe not some foreseen threats to school side safety issues security issues he does work with the school site admin in the district and provides that information so that we can again take that proactive step towards things we've provided we provide lots of campus safety checks like I said through graveyard and Dacia weekend whenever there's an incident that requires more than one officer even though he is your officer he is your Sheriff of of your little town um we will bring whatever resources that we need to come here and assist and so that we we always want to make sure that we take care of you you take care of us we take care of you we want to make sure our kids are safe bottom line we have a great working relationship with the superintendent's office and uh Mr Putnam as well and I just want to say thank you for the collaboration that we've been able to have throughout the years that's it thank you thank you very much is there any questions we have a question how does our school compare to other schools in our area with problems that's not an easy question you'd have to give me a specific School site and I would have to do some research on that to see what the comparisons are and what type of comparison you're looking for I just thought you know the top of your head I guess uh I would say we love you gang problems drug problems no problems are everywhere right every every district has them every Community has them they vary from District to district and school psych to School site so again it would just I couldn't give you a it would be a guesstimate at best and I could be very far off I would rather provide that I can do some research provide that to the superintendent he can forward that to you if you'd like I wouldn't get that far into it okay but I was just curious but you know our neighboring districts real into Antelope Foothill Highlands and what you respond to you know I I would say we respond to a lot of the same similar calls it just depends on the call volume each School site like I said is very different um so uh one you know comparing MccLellan High to Center High you know or to Highlands uh very different makeups um and so they they all have their own their own calls that require assistance okay thank you I know I'm putting you on the spot it's okay any other questions I have a a comment and a question uh first of all I'd like to thank you both for your service uh and uh for your dedication to our community's youth um I have to say that my experience with your department is limited um although I'm aware of it from my own personal background and fairly recently I believe it was last summer I had the opportunity to to meet officer Ahmed and I want to say he didn't know who I was so he was extraordinarily professional and courteous so hats off to your department for uh somebody of Officer amidst caliber in meeting the public and greeting the public um it's not really a question I have more more of a it's a concern uh one of the things that's been brought to my attention is there is a knowledge of your services to this District um and what's brought up to me is we never see him so presence is is perception as you're well aware in your in your business um and I've had this opportunity to speak with uh superintendent Larry about this so um I myself would like to see I know officer Ahmed gets to other sites I know I know where the focus is currently and why and we won't go into detail here now but I would like to see uh some kind of an expansion uh so that we can have the same kind of services that officer Med uh and your other officers that come to our district under your services if we can kind of have that go throughout our district not just specific to not I won't say specific but pointed to the the high school the junior high and it seems like the elementary schools are the ones that have the least amount of activity by by your services that that's my understanding from the community so um I just wanted to make that make you aware of that and and I do have ongoing conversations with uh superintendent Claire about that so it's something I I would like to address in the future thank you for bringing that to me appreciate it you're welcome thank you again and thank you for your service oh thank you very much and we appreciate it and I gotta say what a wonderful turnout this is yes thank you excellent very impressed thank you thank you very much so right now we will have the independent audit report for fiscal year 2021-22 from Miss Coronado I would like to introduce our representative from Crow which is the company that performs the audit we have MS Murphy joining via Zoom I believe yes okay hello just want to make sure you guys can hear me we can't hear you okay great okay so thank you Lisa thank you everyone for having me tonight my name is Moran Murphy I'm the senior staff at Crow and we conduct the audit of the financial statement we also do audits over Federal Awards and state Awards so first one is going to be the financial statement audit and if you have a physical copy of the report in front of you it's going to be on page 74 where we talk about the results so first one is financial statements so we issued an unmodified opinion which is what you want to see that means there was no findings deficiencies missed statements anything like that so in other words it's a clean audit payment for federal compliance we tested the education stabilization fund programs commonly known as Esther or gear dollars money related to covid-19 essentially and there we had an unmodified opinion as well and then we also tested a number of State compliance areas and finally unmodified opinion so clean audit results all the way across the board um and then you guys also have measure n so under Proposition 39 we are required to perform a financial statement audit as well as a performance audit report so for the financial statement audit of measure n we have unmodified opinion so again no adjustments misstatements findings anything like that and then for the performance audit we have a methodology section and our report that describes the procedures we do over the bond to summarize we tested about 13.9 million dollars of expenditures and we noted no findings and you concluded that all the bond money was spent appropriately and for Approved Bond projects there are a few things we are required to disclose as Auditors so there are some areas in the report that do contain estimates like lcff Revenue calculations um Capital assets another one just to give an example there was one new accounting standard this year that was implemented titled gasby 87 and that is related to leases um however there was no Financial impact on the district related to that new accounting standard there were no audit adjustments and there was only one misstatement that was not required to be reported and that is related to the fair market value adjustment of the cash and County balances there were no situations where our Independence was impaired and we also had no disagreements with management during our working relationship and speaking of management we just want to thank Lisa and her team for providing everything on time and we know we asked for a lot a lot on top of her regular jobs that we just want to thank her and everyone else who was involved with the audit process so with that I will turn it over to questions if there are any is there any questions from the board there are no questions just thank you very much thank you what is Stellar on it and I want to thank a lot of people for um making this a clean audit because they they look at all of the money that's coming in from different programs and so for example our English learner program is one thing that's audited and so all of our English language teachers need to complete the paperwork appropriately for there to be no findings that's one example our attendance secretaries have to take attendance properly our ASB secretaries have to manage their records and so it comes from a lot of different departments HR Etc it is a team effort and so it's not just a business office we have a lot of people to thank and give kudos to for this well thank you Miss Coronado and the team okay thanks thank you very much thank you for coming tonight and then next we will have the citizens Bond oversight committee annual report and audit by Miss Coronado and actually we have one of our cboc members who is coming up here to give the report CeCe Linder and she is a former District employee also I'd have to let you know that I'm not a public I'm kind of nervous but I will do this I practice it at home so uh the committee members all former members turned out are we required to resign due to holding their other positions within the district we have four new members become being voted on at this meeting we have three pregnancies measure end passed by voters in 2008.
it didn't get submitted until later and maybe it should have been re-discussed um but the intent was to try and early on clarify why that was needed and you know so that's um you know and maybe we could have reused more that was kind of a field question of how much to reuse because the configuration had to completely change to be more in compliance [Applause] so the drawings that we have in the packet is that the revised set or is that the permit set because it looks like looking at the drawing in the packet that we have is the Tresor the math they're all 11 inch drawing drawn to 11. it says many Treads and five divided five and it all come out to be 11 inches so it looks like it works on paper to 11 inch tread no it's a uh it the draw the drawings that are included in this packet are the amended but everything anything that changed which was very minor was just that note with after my conversation and realizing that this was going to be an issue um and talking with the inspector so uh you know on a601 that is uh is what was what was it was intended to to make that challenge foreign was built with two by risers the risers are two by Lumber is that correct are they small it shows it shows the two by longer ones wrong oh yeah I'm pretty sure it was all too wide open DeSean you can answer that I I was out in the site about six months ago I got photo exceptions no it was drawn to plan for sure because of my issues where I had a we had a bearing issue which I added to gun stock support um and then Jamie and I had some talks about some other interactions of just uh some of the railings which we corrected um it sounds like the hand the handrail extensions were not added um but are intended to be added you know post this conversation because my thoughts could be used could you use a narrower riser to gain the tread depth that would gain you potentially if you went down to a as little as a half inch thickness material you're getting your whole inch there yeah Paul I agree you could do that for one run it was it was it was but it would get you on it wouldn't reconstruct the whole stairway it would be modifying what you have built there to get to the dimension that you need yeah if you look at the demo drawing you'll see you'll see why they you know in 1986 I couldn't find any drawings of the 1986 drawings on file but um we did document it on eight architectural demo 101 and you know I would I would love to share we actually had this full rabbit model full bin model we can not that you guys want to do that but anyone that would I would be happy to show why that those previous risers changed to make those Landings within that chimney and so that's why we we um we configured it as we did for yeah I'm still not following this the the the demolition drawing 101 shows the entire existing stair coming out Landings everything correct we could we could not save some posts but but it doesn't say that it it shows the whole thing coming out yeah and then it shows on a 501 a whole new stair with all new footings going in and there's no question about that that was the intent um as to was to was to make those corrections I mean of the old steel the old stair um could not be reconfigured um other than evaluating the field but yes those there's no confusion there those it was my call to rework the whole stair to [Music] so you made a field decision to rework the whole stair According to some existing conditions that you needed to preserve I made a field decision well I I guess what I'm trying to understand is we you if there's if the if the 601 drawing shows the the the the tread Dimension that doesn't conform so how did it get how did it get to the point where it was built well that without I mean this is a bit I'm not I'm not blaming covid but this is this during when when this was documented this is this there was the field survey and Analysis of the existing stair you know we were asked to to fix the existing state to you know how could we do that we and they did not want this to be this huge project they did not need it to be completely redone we went out there we measured everything up we modeled it up with the existing you know the existing stair altogether like I said I have the field notes I have the model that analysis was you know was done those decisions weren't done in the field they were looking at the existing stare as you know as a 3D model as a background of you know trying to understand why and how many infractions we had here and why things were done that way and then it was our recommendation that to to rebuild the stair and do a new stair you know to bring this closer to compliance and deal with you know hitting one two three four five conditions which which now I'm starting to actually things are starting to come back even that the Run the other run you know it was my goal to pull that you can't see it but it was right on the parking lot like I got photos um somebody coming down that stair would walk out right where where somebody could drive by and and uh you know so you know there was a lot there was a lot of attention and and I understand the scrutiny and the importance of of the full tread depth I'm just saying it isn't you know I would and I know these drawings aren't you know I mean there's a lot here but and there's a lot of of I guess uh history to you know which we've documented the existing condition and it sounds like I wish we you know had this more classified as a repair but again I I my decision to to completely reconfigure um and improve and and the only thing we fall short on is and I you know it will be less than an inch and it will be a full um actual tread depth when you're walking on it and it's and and there's a very few there's very few uh tenants walking down this it it is a low occupant use stair this is a very small R2 building I hope I answered your question please ask it again if I what I still don't I mean so to summarize there was an existing condition and even though the drawings show complete demolition it wasn't if there were existing conditions that you had to meet you had to try and accommodate well I so actually Erica is Deshawn Owen with is Dan happen to be here because he's the one that would you know was calling saying hey we you know we can reuse you know part of that Foundation um can you speak to that because I you know I didn't build a stair I just know it was it was built to the drawing oh hey good sorry uh there was one footing that we reviewed other than that everything else was that model okay you say your name for the file too so we can get that on the record just state your name they have what thank you so you you reused one footing and everything else was new yeah correct okay so what what was filed with the building department as far as the new stare was it the a601 drawing [Music] with sorry now I'm confused I mean the full full permit uh we have there should have been one two three four five sheets filed for my plan review is that what you're asking it wasn't just one sheet and I know I know that's not what you mean but it's a full set you say more but I I guess well I'm looking at the a601 drawing and I'm looking at the stair detail that shows a 10 inch tread and my my question basically is how did this get to this point I mean was did the building department not unders not pick up that it was that they were applying for a 10-inch tread um I didn't do the review um it got issued so it was either missed on it says stamp on this has 11 and stamp I mean the people who stamped this is living in stamps so correction no he's on there state that that um the the set that you're looking at is a revised set so I don't know if that note was on the original okay yeah um yeah and I guess the contradiction on the plans the proper code section with the proper Dimension is on the cover sheet yeah there is a discrepancy in the detail but if you look at the a501 plan the dimensions there on the track add up to 11.
get your cookies is it congratulations thank you so much why is your life foreign that's awesome thank you all right everybody we're gonna resume the meeting now um I'm gonna double back to my president's comments at this point if that's okay I actually really only have two other numbers to talk about tonight the first one really is just to call everybody back to the goals that we set about six months ago the primary one of the board really had to do with reorganizing our meetings particularly in our community committee meetings as well as the structure of business needs to make sure that we were using that time and as efficiently as possible um and I'm pretty happy to report I think you'll all agree that at this point let's achieve that we've completely changed the schedule so that we can refocus our time meeting a month um really investing heavily in the committee work that we're doing um expanding those needs where necessary it was happening because accommodated operations for this last cycle for January um and here we have a highly engaged and inquisitive reward and I'm really proud of that um I also want to thank both our administrative team as well as Mrs Casino for those of you who didn't notice on the right hand side of the stage facing out we actually have all district goals as well as our goal of goals now uh displayed and available just don't remind us all what we said we were setting out to accomplish we had our Retreat back in August um with five to six months to go still in the year one of the things we talked about at governance in terms that Bob will cover in his report is what do we aspire to do next and I'm happy to report again that we do have some ideas in the hot workout we can continue to do more and do better involves and more become better informed and become more professional as we go so I just want to thank everybody for your hard work and getting us to this point know that the journey is not over we still have more that we're going to accomplish but I think it's pretty amazing that we've already achieved what we set out to for the year and now we can move on to bigger and better things uh the second thing I wanted to mention is as a late addition to tonight's agenda um Mrs Fisher has announced her dependent retirement and while it's not entirely unexpected um certainly isn't it Bittersweet uh you know that has been with us after the better part of the last decade um making contributions to the district overall and while we'll decide to see you go about I'm very excited for what I was next for you so congratulations on reaching this box foreign [Music] School administrators we really appreciate you we're going to miss you but we're we're going to enjoy our remaining time and uh we want you to have a great time when you leave but we want to spend some time with you so thank you [Applause] well that'll actually include my comments and we can move on to the committee reports so the first up is education um just for everybody's awareness we are going to be making a change to the education committee Mrs Lima is going to return to being a regular member and Mr Dawson is actually going to stop in for so I hope that between the two of you guys you can deliver the report for this month and then Mr Dawson maybe you can take over great that was good all right so the education committee met last Monday um again continuing um but unfortunately a shortages of staff so they uh the effort in terms of trying to get as much support as they can um for to provide additional academic um support for those students to discussed about the different levels of support available to students who are not on grade level um so again with the uh with the testing and that they obtained from from the assessments that they do throughout the year um they are able to the district is able to develop a plan in terms of what supports are needed at what level for what grade level and so um again due to shortages just you know overall more nice beer they are um anticipating or it's been put into the uh the budget to get additional academic support in the area of math because right now um there is limited um additional again instructional support in that area but for next year it has been put in the budget to increase the support that's provided um to lower grade levels um foreign and students who are also who were also referred to the entire referral service anything else that you'd like to add no I thought you covered all the points that I expected any of the other committee members who uh had any observations I I just think uh honestly I covered everything well and I think we as a board are eager to support um District clients and look at what our students needs are and the way that we can support them and taking the goals thank you I know it's a little bit out of sequence and Mr Zucker I hope you don't indulge me but since we talked about your need to potentially invest in additional support for students uh maybe it would be a good transitional proper insurance we can do that thanks well I want to thank you very soon I want to thank the stores professionalism so one of the biggest things we did I told you about money there was a lot of presentations and moving benefits our expectations opposed retirement Health costs or responsibility of the state of New Jersey school districts they're not Material disclosures but are required by accounting important she presented the committee Community with a draft that indicated a fund balance of the district fund the balance for the last year important because and the excess Surplus recommendations [Music] I was really impressed with the fluidity and how everything went to being on the board a lot sitting through these in the past um sometimes we would end up with complications but this was a very clean School uh update that we got and we're going to be uh you know we're going to be keeping an eye on this one updates to come up let us all know but I think we're I think we're really running in a positive in a positive area budget questions on that part yeah if I could just add for everybody's benefit the draft report this committee is tentatively scheduled to be presented to the full board at our public meeting in February just so that you don't think that this is the only view that you're going to get of it full copy of the report as well as the presentation by the external factors we were just hoping that the audit itself could be finalized before the presentation is delivered that's so we also have some construction addition updates the HVAC projects um we're talking about what we're looking at all of the things that have been done I I was really impressed with all of the construction is going very soon which I really appreciate uh wiring painting of installed in schools Smalling cafeteria project we talked about the project at the time that this Broken Ground and a community letter was sent in demolition work was begun in concrete steps or include and large equipment was being removed from the black cop to prepare for the experience this was how amazing I think this is when when this does get completed it's finally incredible one of the most important projects everyone is looking for fields I don't know if anyone has been by the field but it is absolutely stellar um waiting on some final paperwork in practice when we looked at everything um I was I was very very happy um you should be able to reopen the facility sometimes you miss of course would be on an updated [Music] finalized this is finalized very soon within a week or so Dr Gallagher sent pictures today of the lights that have been all set up and the LEDs shining on the new turf field it's really spectacular it looks like a college you know it's I think that um another issue that we spoke about we had some concerns but High School um we talked about that for a temporary engagement exchange for a 100 consideration members yes getting sent an email to the person who solicited the abusement and she said she was going to check with those responsible and get back to me right away I don't expect it to be a problem but specifically the committee and the Mr jumuzi had concerns about the student and pedestrian safety yes and mitigating factors such as some additional supervision to make sure that while this is going on excellent I appreciate it we also talk about because operations we probably can always go over now we need to stick to that uh we talked about some future we're also going to have uh next Thursday operations Community to talk about the architect that will presents so over all in all I was very impressed covered a lot of ground I think what a question regarding the easement that's on West Maple the easement was on yeah the board office but it's it's closer to the high school closer yeah um it's for a utility engagement there's some needs by the Department of Transportation to temporarily use our ground and temporarily on italics with 500 rental for our property while they're doing their utility should just be a matter of a couple weeks okay and the pictures are exactly in the maps and the blueprints are all in board docs if anybody wants to speak with you thank you Mr President that concludes my report uh mine is actually a little bit shorter this month um we had no new policies to look over so that saved us a bunch of time um we talked well on our agenda actually it was adjusting the committee meeting schedule which we were able to do this past month by starting at five o'clock we plan to continue that because of scene lines at least as as through governance and through education everything was within five minutes of on time which is much better than before so if those of you at the end of the night didn't uh notice that you were sitting around and waiting someone that's because operation did start a half hour earlier um we're going to keep it that way but we also know that some committees from time to time will have special presentations special require more time so just keep an eye on the schedule we anticipate that it will stay the same but there may be months where things have to shift a half hour one way or the other if one committee needs a little bit more time so don't just assume that you know let's say six o'clock it may be that you shift one way or the other depending on me um next we have talked uh twice now about creating an ad hoc extracurricular committee uh we are ready to move forward with that all we need now is to talk about membership and a meeting schedule so if anyone is interested in being on that committee please like either myself or Mr news you know so that we can inform the committee and then of course once we have the members we will talk about times we don't know that it's going to fit on the same night as the other committees it would get pretty late but we'll see where it fits in the week and based on the committee members schedules we'll schedule that as well uh lastly we talked oh no not lastly I'm sorry there's there's one thing um next we talked about um moving towards board certification we have taken the first few steps towards that I spoke to Gwen before our committee meeting she's going to come out in to our February board meeting and she's going to give us our first training which is our yearly ethics training which is required anyway so she'll be doing that in February she also sent us a name which I will get to all of you through email a list of uh trainings that that she offers but she also told me that if there's something that isn't on the list that I sent you that we really feel strongly that we need they can set up a training room pretty much any time uh in her list was something that I think the majority of the board would probably need a light to see which is um evaluation of superintendent and our self-evaluation of the board I know that there are a lot of new newer members on the board who haven't done that before so we asked her if she would do that one as well and she's actually going to come back right in March and do that one because we have to do that at the end of the school year so that'll have our training done before we have to do the actual evaluation but like I said I'm going to send you all a list of some of the potential trainings that they offer I'm going to ask you to send me back a list of your top three or four in order and then we'll rank them all and see which ones we want to ask for next so look for that email coming out in the next day or two and lastly we did uh speak briefly about our new student representative and kind of what we're what what your role is going to be I don't know if you've had any ideas or not I don't want to put you on the spot in case you don't but um just from what we've seen in other districts it seems like um we would like to hear from you both good and bad we would like to hear if there's something very positive going on in the schools that you want to highlight for us and showcase for us and we also want to hear if you hear from the students any concerns that you want to bring to the board that we can help you address we want to hear good and bad from you so feel free to come with notes and speak you know freely because we we are going to value your opinion and what you have to say yeah uh one of my original plans when I got elected was to send out a school-wide survey and see what they thought the problems were they wouldn't be good and bad so next time I will bring no children okay yeah um whenever you compile you know your survey daily you can bring in just just uh is able to let you notice what you put it on the agenda I'm going to be with him okay so yeah just let Dr Freeman know so we can have it on the agenda so we know you're ready to speak whenever you're ready thank you and that's all I have for governance any questions there thank you Mr bound moving over to human resources so it was Human Resources met on the 9th it was brief um the Delta Dental plans have been introduced and questions from staff have been addressed in about 40 to 50 employees successfully switched over time we're continuing to monitor vacancies spreadsheet which I appreciate retro changes have been completed from our MLA um and let's see there were two employees that were found to be on the correct um salary guide so they were listed as custodians listed under building in the grounds so we or the district has corrected that and it is actually agenda item 6.5 tonight so that has been for mediated and then um we're focused on negotiations so getting our priorities and getting our what we think are our priorities together and getting and I would say just for clarity we're talking about negotiations with about work education associations just concluded a one-year deal and that's set to expire at the end of this so we want to make sure that we're in a good position to come back did you want the turnover um we just had a HR Committee just had a general question um regarding turnover from September 20 on to January 22 and then September 22 to January 23 and it's um 21-22 it was 10.
okay and then two more questions um what's the difference between the budget controlled and the cash controlled so again yeah we mentioned this in the Border cheat on Saturday but a budget controlled fund um is is derived from a budget typically formula controlled much like our maintenance and operations budget it's formally controlled by student account and the state has a formula that's in statute and so those are we may have differences in cash and and budget but we utilize the budget controlled fund because that's what we're obligated to utilize under the state formula a cash controlled fund those are those are actual dollars received by the district so those are largely if you look down the list Student Activities auxiliary uh rentals you know those are revenues that we've garnered or basically collected from vendors parents Etc um and then on the flip side expenditures are are the same things those are actual hard expenditures from that cash fund so it operates much like your personal bank account what you take in is what you have and what you uh expenses uh what you expense so and then is there a Target carryover for each different line item to handle emergencies yeah typically the district has operated with contingencies in some of the larger cash controlled funds specifically uh Food Service Civic Center which is rentals and direct costs um and Medicaid reimbursement we we bring those up annually on our annual financial report we also mentioned those um typically at some point in the budget process as well the rest are typically student direct derived or um specific [Music] like Insurance refunds like that's specific to the that's just an accounting uh fund that we have to use when we have an insurance um reimbursable and so it typically gets expense right out of that but all the 525 526 and 530 accounts are managed at the school site we just serve as the accounting bypass for those funds and we don't touch those student funds so there's no there's no specific dollar amount we target for those because those are student funds that the district just manages thank you that's all I have it's been a hook I appreciate you asking questions and Mr Moore I know um and you stated it several times it was a lot of this was covered in our um Retreat on Saturday was it recorded by chance no okay um I know a lot when it's in PowerPoint it's it's teachers know it's just because it's in PowerPoint doesn't mean that everything was in the PowerPoint there are things stated outside the PowerPoint um so don't ever apologize for asking questions I always have questions um and I just thank you for your patience as you reiterate things and I go back to our meetings even after we've been in meetings to listen to what everybody says I have to there's no way we can absorb all the information that's given but I appreciate you all sharing again and you'll probably say it 100 times over um and um in regards to the kitchen agenda it's good to ask and sometimes you'll sketch it in advance sometimes you'll catch it in meetings it's like the item and going through each one I mean that's just that's just what you do but I'll go to like item 5.14 I was looking through what we were uh what we purchased for the the new school or the new building and I came across the one that had like an ottoman and it said it was like six dollars and 45 cents and I'm like what I found an error look at me right and now it was for a part so it's you just ask questions and but I want a six dollars I know that's I was like writing down the website my God I did I did go to the website but anyway but this is I just wanted to say it's okay and I appreciate everybody's questions and patience throughout we are fine absolutely a board member uh president Schultz board members uh we are always fine with questions and like we said on Saturday it helps if we know what the questions are ahead of time so we can put it in writing always feel free even to ask them on the dice that way we just always are able to get you the specific information because as you pointed out there's volumes of work here and hours of hours of multiple staff time and we're always happy to get the information we just may not know it on a spot but we're happy to always provide additional information and see clarification so thank you for for your time and as we discussed on Saturday putting those questions in our minutes so that the public can see the questions that we ask ahead of time and the questions that we get and because they might have the same questions and so a practice of doing that because you often don't see all the behind the scenes stuff that we do to make sure we have all the information when we come out on Wednesday or when we have our monthly meetings any other questions no thank you okay um so uh we had a in a second all those in favor hi all those opposed writing a post uh consent agenda passes five to zero and with that Mrs Richards president Schultz members of the board I'm delighted this evening to come with the recommendation we are bringing miss Karen Johnson as a recommended individual for your HR executive director position she comes with the extensive experience in HR and with schools so she worked in Kyrene School District Scottsdale Community College in Arizona Western College so I'm going to make her stand up and wave to us [Applause] and she actually drove here from Yuma today after another board member meeting in the middle of the day so I commend her for making the journey and we're we're excited that she's interested in Higley and we're all very very proud of what God's on here so she's heard all about that too so congratulations we're excited to have you Mrs Johnson welcome okay moving on to 6.1 information item the first review of the fiscal year 2024 maintenance and operations budget Mr Moore yeah thank you good evening president Schultz and members of the board uh tonight we present the first review of the fiscal year 2024 maintenance and operations budget this is a practice we've started two years ago in terms of bringing this early to start the conversation and and guide the governing board and our community along as we go through this budget process for next fiscal year as a reminder um this is the the Arizona school budget timeline um I always try to allude to this because Arizona is unique in the fact that we have some different requirements by Statute and so I just like to cover this timeline um for so what we're looking at is the 2024 proposed what we're working for is that the 24 proposed budget and so um the schedule outlines the fiscal process in which we have to require the proposed that adopted budget where we look in December at our budget one more time the Arizona Department of Education typically notifies the district if we've exceeded our budget by one percent and if we have like we did this year we didn't bring a budget revision uh in December in may we always have to do a final revision to kind of true up our budget to 100 day ADM and uh we will have another budget revision for this year in May to cheer up those numbers we don't anticipate and I'll cover it later in the slide much change from that December revision that we tucked into account um but just know that we will have another revision to our current year budget in May and then finally our fiscal calendar in June this is when we formally have to propose an adopter budget we do walk through this process and we do ask for tentative approval in March but we bring the legal binding budget back in June to advertise it which is the proposed and then adopt it and as a governing board a couple weeks later so with that I'm gonna jump into the fiscal budget highlights this is slim and kind of what we know right now um as you know the aggregate expansion limit I feel like a broken record but um we are still uh kind of there hasn't been anything done yet um we have a March 1st deadline for this fiscal year there's been conversation um that both the governor and the legislature are working towards an exemption or some sort of um agreement to exempt districts from this for this fiscal year but that has not taken place yet we're still facing that March 1st deadline um so for fiscal 24 you know is that exemption going to be another one year is it going to be a long-term solution we still don't know and so we're keeping that in our budget highlights um as a footnote because until we have some concrete evidence that that has been solved or a solution has been made um that is always going to be a budget implication for the the district other budget implications um we do know the Arizona State Retirement System is increasing their contribution rate by 0.12 percent uh for the governing board and the public the district is a member of the Arizona State Retirement System and so that increase will take effect on both the district and the employee side that increases approximately sixty thousand dollars um and so just know that Eminem to Capital transfer for the Middle School lease as you know we've been working on refinancing I see that term loose leap it's really um looking for a cop steal um and we do have preliminary um kind of numbers on that um financing we do close February 2nd but what we do know is the payments will approximately be 3.6 million dollars about double the savings and when we initially came to the board um a couple months ago and so that's about 600 000 savings to our operational budget every year uh which is which is a huge win for this District um we didn't get rid of the lease but we did eliminate a majority of the fees and we did hit the market in a good time and got good rates so um I will have that final payment schedule February 2nd and I'll maybe present the whole slide on that I think it's well deserved on the February 28th board meeting when we review the budget for the second time um we do know uh well we will be proposing uh transferring additional mno to Capital to support our Capital needs um this was our preliminary plan if the bond did not pass and so uh on February 8th we will present our first review of our capital budget and at that time um we will propose or at least bring a information item with a recommendation that outlines that transfer amount and what that will serve what purpose that will serve lastly what we do know and what we're assuming in this budget projection is that we'll get a two percent inflation adjustment to the base level support that base level support is the per pupil amount per the formula in our budget um statutorily the the statute Loosely reads that if inflation is over two percent that the legislature has to at a minimum provide two percent inflation adjustment so we are taking that um an assumption that that will take that will be in effect as inflation has been in the neighborhood of seven or eight percent lastly um we do know since the increase in State retirement and with limited budgetary funds next year for compensation increases we're currently looking at some employee Insurance enhancements so as the board knows we move to self-insurance this year and we are already realizing um the the fruit of the benefits of that of that transition so um the district has had low claims to date and we are really realizing some Savings in that self-insurance um uh fund so what we're currently researching and working with our benefits manager and we will soon be working with uh Miss Johnson on um kind of surveying our employees and seeing where um they would be interested in terms of enhancing certain programs and then taking that back to Kairos our insurance administrator and working to price some of those out and see what we can do realistically next year to enhance our benefits package some more to come on that maybe there we go okay so this is what our fiscal 24 budget projection looks like uh right now uh as you as the Border recalls or for our new members in December December 14th we took a revised budget um revising our budget uh in mno particularly up about 700 000.
for the high school graduation date so let me just suggest you not you bring this to us in September I will next year and absolutely happy to do that it's relatively routine because you we've been setting the date based on the fact that this the state allows us to do it based on a formulaic the model as opposed to have an account all of the snow days it used to be like after April 1st you could set the date then they said after the 185th calendar day and now they're to 180.
tomorrow yes does that meet uh only a a small portion of your your targeted group because of I'm thinking people out working or is it where 11 15 work for the target market that you're trying to approach right I think yeah I think we need to clarify this is this is a representative group because I I think it's coming across as if we're meeting with families as part of the collective impact work and this kind of prep work so can you clarify who this committee who this committee is so we do have families sitting at the table people that are you know work a second shift or a night shift or whatever um and then we have people from agencies that is something that we will have discussions about how do we balance our meetings so that we're hitting people that can come during the day and we know that's not going to be conducive to our student population and so do we rotate our meetings um where we have an afternoon you know a midday meeting for lunch do we then do the next month and evening meeting how are we going to form those committees um and have the the workers on the Committees maybe the Committees meet at night and the leadership group meets during the day so those are all things that we're still wrangling with but will come out after we process all these different things we'll be able to to answer that question better yeah thank you and thank your team for the records no thank you so Ann for the leadership team and when you're coming in down to deciding you know where to put the focus on the infrastructure or whatever Direction it takes how is that determined with you know right now you're saying you have a team of 10 and that you're going to be inviting more people to be how does so is that okay good that discussion will start tomorrow um with our group of 20 and we may even have more than that actually show up um we will do the community mapping first the asset mapping we need to know what's available and then of course at every meeting we talk about who's not at the table who do we need to invite to the table okay and then um when we start to decide this leadership group this beginning group beginning group better than a leadership group um or calling the leadership group the beginning group will start to come up with some goals okay and we still have a lot of research to do so we need to have a meeting with our data person from Danbury public schools to talk about data and where the needs are the school like we talked this needs to be complementary um Endeavor that we do with the schools and so that data will inform us everyone pre to the meeting was set out the uh new Equity um danbury's new Equity profile they were also sent out some other pre-reading material that will be used in tomorrow's uh work to look at what data do we have out there what data do we still need and so that will help inform any decisions about what cornerstones we we take and then like I said we'll go back out to a larger group probably through surveys through forums through you know listing forums meeting in different Community groups you know where should the priorities lie you know what works for your group and things like that so it is a very integral carefully balanced process and that's why we have Eric lunding he is actually leading it I'm able to sit back as a participant in the group as well as everyone else and he really leads the group and asks those hard questions and and that's why you know we used Bridgeport and Stanford last time to get their feedback and then tomorrow we'll have the gentleman come in uh via Zoom from Cincinnati to talk more about the national model and what they do and can you repeat the name of the gentleman that you just mentioned Alex Lundy l-u-n-d-i-n-g thank you wonderful okay sounds like a big undertaking thank you so much anybody else we're pretty good okay so I'm motion to adjourn so moved okay so um thank you all right so thank you very much uh we were moved by Lauren and seconded by Al uh by Al Rochelle great much for everybody coming out tonight participating
to acquire construction improved school facilities including building new schools and classrooms to reduce student overcrowding improving existing schools for greater energy sufficiency and increase the access to computers and Technology 500 million dollars in general obligation bonds 55 million one hundred fifty thousand eleven percent sold as of June 30th 2022. 2021-22 project expenditures Rex 14 Elementary building project Rex Fortune Elementary land acquisition Center High School CTA construction Program Center High School CTA information communication technology program program management Bond sale issuance and refined refinancing costs total 16.25 million dollars performance audit art firm probe completed that cine Joint Unified School District exceeded exceeded bond funds only for the specific projects approved by the voters Financial audit Pro's audit disclosed note incidents of non-compliance the measure and citizens Bond oversight committee here are five states that in their opinion Senate Dwight Unified School District is in compliance with the state of California Constitution with regards to the dental bond process or the fiscal year 2021 and 2022.
so it looks like it fits you know this has four Treads or three foot eight or something like that and you divide that out that comes out to be 11 inches so it looks like it works on paper so how do you know is it a field condition they didn't build it this way or I didn't find any they didn't work out the dimensions that were didn't come out to 11 inches okay Paul I'm pulling up the uh the I guess the amended set only had pages that were by I mean I think there may be Solutions there that could modify and still get the 11 inches if we change the tread or change replace the rise or something thinner maybe you get your 11 inches about a complete reconstruction of the stairway but well I talked to Dan about that he didn't think that was possible to change the Riser and you can speak to that later is that using the complete removal of the stair again though I mean that's the question no we I mean I don't I would really hope we don't get to that point especially considering the existing conditions and and the improvements made to this there this is this is a very safe space there yeah the threads right now measure ten and three quarters of an inch so we are only a quarter inch without without the tread plate band without the tread plate that's counting the nosing though right that's that's riser to nosing not not uh Rising riser if these thicker framing square onto that and it will come up as 10 and three quarters so we're missing it by one quarter of an inch detail that's that's how they were constructed with the 10 inch so that part that was not caught on the revised and put on that note on the front page of the print we did not catch that or made aware of that change we worked off of the details to construct therapists I visited the site and I got a different position oh I uh I visited the site about a month ago or a month and a half ago and I got a different dimension than he's stating it was a full inch off by my measurements riser to risers 10 versus 10th recorder and it may vary somewhat I just I mean I don't find that much yeah can I ask a question is that was that 10 inches consistent everywhere throughout the stairs yeah okay yeah the the tread depth and the risers were consistent whereas previous to the renovation they weren't I don't know the condition previous I mean I I do have the previous uh geometry so if if the code if if the code defines the tread depth as 11 inches from the upper nosing to the lower nosing and you've got according to this a601 10 inches is it possible to take off the the leading two by two two by whatever it is tread piece make it longer so you can get to the 11 inches okay no the the geometry is set by the 7 and the ten so to change the geometry of that staircase you would have to do a whole new Stringer for each one of them which in turn then would change the Run of them so then The Landings would be in the wrong case I don't see that and he would gained some by making the Riser narrower because that's all cut into the geometry now right or no because you're based on the rise you're having a really thick Riser plus the the 10 inches I don't understand why you can't just do this the technical is not being met you know you're providing some even good or better or it's not being you know the code is not being applied properly so out of those three I think we're having a difficult time coming up with one I think the code is being interpreted correctly hey Paul I trust you know I trust your uh he's a um he spent a lot more about 25 years and you can surpass me um on a lot of the reviews of a lot of codes and um but I've never reclassified have you have you ever had a case like this where you reclassified this as a fire escape I mean would we just I mean I understand the window condition but and I've done a lot of fire Escapes in Ann Arbor but um I mean the rehab fire Escapist is drastic compared to yeah those are usually a second means you're being arrested not the primary means of being aggressed so of course of course but we we do have a yeah we do have we're both stairs both the same way or is this only applies to The Backs there that has the problems or both these stairs rebuilt in the same way uh Dan do you know anything about the noise with this thing from the remodeling in the so those have not been changed those are the ones that were there when we started the project but are the are the cell stairs in compliance these ones were horrible when I went out there but I never reviewed the the the I'm I'm sure they were in compliance with the Boca code in E6 but if you look at those stairs now they wouldn't be in compliance with the new code yeah no I that statement's been made it's not I mean I got I've got I can share it with everybody here there was uh stare stair one had an eight average eight inch Riser with two by ten tread and stair two run was oddly enough a two by twelve with seven and a half three quarter and seven they're all different there's it was not in compliance with Boca I guess the question um the Riser Dan would we be able to replace that inch and a half with the Riser thickness can be anything I mean could we remove the risers to get some extra credits you probably end up taking both of them putting the right back in maybe you know maybe you can get out there by itself but at least you would be saving all the Stringer component all that worked there you have to trim the strainer components back with you just moving the Riser back isn't enough you'd have to trim the nose and nose back yeah to get longer otherwise your noses are still you still got the same nose to nose issue because that would shift everything would shift that might that might work by that much yeah that wouldn't that wouldn't be like this if you notice it can't be more than an inch and a quarter right correctly right at that neither way they do it because either they stole or you have to do something there so the board have any other questions a comments foreign would this qualify as a fire escape I would need to see a plan and I don't think that current code allows for fire escapes with the exception of if there's a property line issued which I don't think this would fall under uh for as far as with so yet you can get a configuration in there I would need to see a Sign Sealed drawing to make that that determination but they also have to modify to not make it a common egress but to make it specifically for emergency I don't without without a a plan I can't really speak to them hey Paul do you um have a similar interpretation of exception three of why of why the internal exception is is allowed I haven't read the commentary on that I can I mean I can read it to you I can read it for the whole board because I do think it's important I do think it's relevant but I don't want to enforce it but exception three supplies to the interior it applies the interior I don't know why I don't apply the interior it applies to the interior but the reason that's the the uh the commentary explicitly says it's because it's based on a low occupancy in a low use yeah and it's more consistent with what the rehab where the residential code is it lasts a lot about the residential code but this is multi-family so multi-family I don't want to go through the expense of adding the tread covers but um that is above and beyond um and the uh the reason why that's relevant for me was when I reviewed the old stair back in 2020 um on the North side it was so it was so slippery yeah you know there's so much buildup there and it you know obviously it's not required by code but I mean I guess I'm trying to show how much was that doesn't have your geometry though a tread cover probably doesn't help your geometry at all as far as you may have less slippery so if it doesn't help the dimensions that that FRP one does lift the nosing which is I don't think the rehab Club helps too much either because you completely removed it you know pretty much a replacement again there was just a significant reason why why it was replaced I mean I guess if you're saying we should have it's level three probably you know it's not like it's a you're just changing the tread out without changing without changing the geometry it's pretty significant down to recording replacement so so Paul in the future if I come across a stair that that I could make a lot better but if I leave it as a repair and make it marginally better as a design professional that's what I you know obviously I'm being a little bit it's a challenger I mean it's and then what you know I don't you know dance the configuration was so different that's why it was hard to you know it sounds like you could use some of the foundation hopefully that's enough so the one Improvement seems to be that the stairs are now consistent as opposed to previously but other than that well consistent and lower riding and some bigger threats yeah the riser's lowered and we have bigger Treads and everything's consistent and I think the biggest infraction of the or the biggest issue with my 1986 deer review and again I've got notes filed here but it is the inconsistency I've got every every step documented here and um again it goes from the very first one on stair one was eight and a half then the next one was ancient a quarter then the next one was seven and seven anyways guys the risers not income an issue here um but on one stair here they did use two by tens and then 1986 portrays any other discussion do we have a motion stuck Paul would using the existing Foundation allow this to be reinterpreted as a repair or is that just not enough a pretty major repair to save the one pushing it doesn't change much else you know this thing seems probably sort of a level three alteration well yeah the foundation and also the existing window and Five Points to hit by Landing spaces now these field notes were dated 10 27 2020.
it's been 16. so not just noted notice and again I think that goes along with some of the commentary that we've heard about the way which is the difficulties that we have in practice it's so important for us to focus it's everywhere yeah great any questions [Music] all right over to miss Casino for Community engagement and communication okay we're not doing that um no I don't I kind of don't think I'm gonna need it but um you guys let me know if you can't hear me down at the end uh we had a good productive meeting uh we didn't really have uh but we didn't have a community outreach member visit us this week or this last month meeting we will however in February um agreed to come out of the sex so we'll be seeing her meeting with her and learning a little bit more about what she does in her role as a Downtown City Manager we did go through some agenda items from 2022 that we wanted to carry into 2023 one of those being a social media calendar maybe putting something together that's a little more structured so we can sort of align community events school events with a social calendar another thing was the Alumni Association that a meeting before the committee meeting is to attend to get to know the team and continue to collaborate with them I know they have a lot of scholarship opportunities they also have some improvements at the high school they'd like to make so we'll just continue to kind of work together with them and see how we can partner up to assist each other with that and then that's pretty much it I don't have any questions on community engagement communication great Mrs High has there been an scesc meeting yet well I'm going to have the shortest report so originally the um the first meeting was on January 4th which was the reorganating here it was rescheduled and couldn't make it and the next one is February 1st so February 1st is really going to just started rolling we'll go from there excellent thanks for the update any final comments or questions regarding things I just want to reiterate again how thankful I am for all the work that you guys are putting in um it's a long Monday as we're sitting through five o'clock about 8 30 9 o'clock especially foreign so I appreciate all the effort that we're putting into committees I'm happy with all the reports that you guys are bringing back we're making progress at this point we are open to the public for agenda items like any comments or questions from the group quick check online this is open to the public correct yes sir agenda no nothing on open to the public agree thank you so we are up to item 5.1 resulted in the mountain report of Education proves the minutes from following meetings it's a regular executive meeting women's December 14th evolution Ary meetings foreign can I have a motion motion thank you Mr zip code II second thank you Mr battle any discussion okay here he comes can we do a roll call please Mr Bell yeah yeah it's been awesome yes Miss Casino yes Miss Lima yes Miss hi I need to abstain as I was not at that meeting absolutely thank you Mr Januzzi yes motion passes thank you item number 5.2 results at the Bound Brook Board of Education proves the minutes for the organizational meeting on January 4th 2023 Back In Motion promotion thank you Mr Bowen second second is that Mrs guzino thank you any discussion all right here you know can we have a vote Please Mr Bell yes awesome yes this casino yes Miss Lima yes yes abstain miss high yes and Mr Jersey yes motion passes thank you we are up to item 6.1 resolved at the superintendent recommends for approval the resolutions is out by the district Personnel resolutions get ready this is 6.2 through 6.43 I have a motion thank you Mr Bowman a second second thank you Mr Zucker this is a big section so we're going to take our time any discussion of questions [Music] foreign thank you Mr zupco yes explosive yes yes Miss hi yes Mr Januzzi yes with an abstention on 6.36 .36 similar motion passes thank you we are up to item 7.1 it was all about the Battle of Board of Education improves the resolutions as outlined the district education resolutions this is 7.2 through 7.10 every motion thank you Mr battle a second second discussion not just a question on 7.2 um I brought this up before about that this is accountable by the way that all the half days in September is there any more discussion about that yeah actually we actually we made adjustments uh my plan was to have the account go to action from it tonight but we were working number of half days by making it happening for only the schools rather than look at the entire District so that allowed us to decrease some of those days since I sent it to you in the weekend reporting it's changed uh you've also worked to make the students last day prior to juneteenths without a week ago we didn't have to come back after that one day off so those are two things that we did the last thing is uh important to keep Junior Day and remove that so we could have uh the day off for the teachers as well we're going to start the year with a virtual training on September action today will be September will be bankable so that staff can actually complete it before that day that wanted to agreement there end of the Summer Olympics any other comments or questions on section 7.
um to uh revised General budget limit of 119 873 246. um that budget uh does not take into consideration a potential AEL reduction and I have another slide that will go into a little more detail on that but that is where we stand right now so looking into fiscal 24 which is a next year's budget we're estimating in a proposed General budget limit of 122 878 132.
so because people we were working calendars quite interesting so yeah so let's do it earlier next year that's uh once you know we gotta I I would urge us not to do it now because we got to get to the point where we know the school's opening uh you know on schedule and there's no no changes and I'm as you can imagine I'm a little cautious until we get there so um okay any discussion or questions from Mr belanda I would like to propose an amendment to the motion to include the date of July 17th in the text of the uh June 17th in the in the text of the motion anyhow can I get a second for that oh I'll second the amendment okay any discussion on the amendment okay all in favor of amending the motion hi okay and all in favor of approving the motion as amended hi okay good you're all set made a lot of people happy by not saying July yeah that was a bit of a slip of a time but I apologize for that all right stay there you're next too so next on our agenda is the proposed revisions to the program of studies I'll move that the board approved the proposed revisions to the program of studies as recommended by the cape committee assistant superintendent Dr Anna Mann and BHS principal Mark belanda second moved and seconded um to Blanda why don't I turn it to you and let you give us a briefing yeah happy to happy to share as part of our our annual process we reviewed the program of studies that we put forth for the upcoming school year so this is the 2324 program of studies uh that I proposed to Cape last week and there's a summary of some uh some basic changes that are there you'll see there's really not a ton of substantive changes as I brought to you in the past um I'm happy to go through some of the highlights the basic ones um there's a lot of revisions in there you'll see things starting at the top of this sheet so there's a revision uh the collagen career on page 16. those were older requirements that we put in place prior to making the change to align to state law and mandate about 25 credits for graduation so that page just reflects what our actual grid says that's that was buried within deeper than a narrative in College and Career and we somehow missed that last year and we made the changes so we reflected that on page 16.
for some reason thank you is there any questions from the board thank you good job thank you very much CeCe Miss Pope can I just make a comment I I know when when Miss Coronado uh uh recruits folks to be on the board for this they probably don't realize they're gonna have to do a public speaking in front of you know maybe 60 70 people so I just want to extend our thanks to to miss Linder for for being here tonight I know public speaking for some is is challenging and then when we walk on the room but I appreciate the service you've done for our district while working here and then currently in this role so I just wanted to acknowledge her for that um this isn't the glory of what it's like oh great we get to work with the numbers and stuff oh by the way you get to come speak so thank you CeCe for that and thanks for your continued support thank you CeCe thank you Miss Coronado at this time we'll have the Williams uniform complaint quarterly report by Mr Jordan good evening I'm happy to report I have nothing to report this concludes my report thank you very much thank you Mr Jordan do you know how many times I've heard that it's a good one to hear yes I think there's only been one time that it was different in all those years and we'll continue to The Bullying prevention update with Mr Jordan as well as Mr barassi and Mr Miranda if you're impressed by my last uh presentation wait till you see this one I'm happy to introduce Mr brassy and Mr Miranda tough job good evening hi Mr Miranda this is uh wild great turnout um it's great to see everyone um I am pleased to present to you all I'm here this evening about the district's efforts to create a safe supportive and inclusive environment for all students staff and Families that create an inclusive environment free of mistreatment disrespect and isolation so this evening we'll be going over our bullying prevention efforts at the district level and then at the school site levels I was allotted I think two minutes I may have gone over that right now but I want to do my best to really paint a picture of what we're doing here because I think it's really important to uh to speak to all good that we are doing first slide oh sorry thank you all right so um really prevention and early event earlier intervention starts from a top down um so when all staff learn how to recognize and respond to bullying effectively students understand that they can trust staff to deal with bullying incidences appropriately through Public School works all staff have received a training through an online training module on how to prevent recognize report and respond to bullying harassment and intimidation content matter also address online safety and cyber bullying and again that was done this past fall for all staff and then as you're well aware um with Mr rassi's leadership uh PBIS positive behavioral interventions and support that really sets the groundwork for creating clear consistent routines and expectations that lead to a better functioning classroom and overall School communities and you also have the opportunity to braid restorative practices into PBIS and that focus is really on relationship building with the goal of building strong connections that promote positive behavior and a positive classroom climate again free of mistreatment adding to school-wide Improvement and building up students pro-social skills is the district's adopted Second Step social emotional learning curriculum which through engaging bullying prevention units provides students and staff with tools on how to recognize again recognize report and refuse bullying there are various classroom activities and the cool part is there's take home activities that encourage family discussions and help students reinforce the skills they've learned in the classroom and then with funding from Sacramento County Behavioral Health Services and Sacramento County Office of Education or when a few districts to receive this grant funding are anti-bullying efforts have allowed us to increase such activities as the student-centered relationship building program safe School ambassadors it's been in the district for about going on 10 years I would say um this program educates a diverse social leaders social Leaders with skills to prevent and reduce bullying on their respective class campuses and in their classroom student bystanders see hear and know things adults don't they can intervene in ways adults can't and are often on the scene of incident before an adult is they are a critical and necessary resource for positively impacting the crisis of bullying in our nation recruited students participate in a two-day interactive training along with several several adults who serve as program mentors again the idea of relationship building students and adults uh the training gives student ambassadors the skills and tools to result to resolve conflicts diffuse incidents and support isolated and excluded students so again relationship building and um creating uh uh campuses free of uh social isolation after the training small group meetings of ambassadors along with their program advisors are held every few weeks again to create a sense of community and these ambassadors are allowed to work with their program advisors in a safe environment and talk about what their experiences on on their campus and through activities and and dialogue program advisors are allowed to support the students as they go back onto their campus and in their classrooms and deal with mistreatment um our upcoming kindness challenge this is my favorite of the school year um this is happening uh next week so we want to spread a culture of kindness schools across our district can take part in this week-long great kindness Challenge and there's action-based and Hands-On experiences that focus on caring respect gratitude and inclusiveness this is just a shout out to North Country this is their calendar for their kindness week um so Monday the color of the world with kindness where one color from head to toe this can be any color for your whole outfit their activity for that day is to write a letter a kind letter to a staff and deliver it so uh that's happening next week and then finally a touch of understanding so building off the social emotional skills students are learning daily a touch of understandings Workshop builds character empathy and encourages students to accept and respect all individuals through this Hands-On disability awareness Workshop students go through activities in which they build life skills that enable them to understand and relate to people with disabilities so all walks of life as a result teachers staff and parents and students observe an increase in respectful interactions and friendships as well as reduction of isolation and bullying in the school and community Mr barasi is going to lead you through our bullying a reporting process the investigation process and additional support Mr Miranda I have one question second step in safe School ambassadors is not just through the elementary school does that go up to middle and high so safe School ambassadors is a elementary through high school program second step is a elementary through middle school program thank you you're welcome when would be a good time to get into what actually takes place with the kids Mr brassy okay Mr grassy thank you all right so I'm just going to hit briefly um nope okay uh so I'm just going to touch on reporting uh and the investigation process mainly through our administrators there's your typical channels of reporting incidents of Bullying speak a student can speak to a teacher family members can call in that all gets channeled eventually to administrators we do have two Avenues uh one one through catapult which is our we tip Association on every website students can families can anonymously report bullying those reports go directly to site Administration they can communicate again anonymously or they can get involved and get more specific one-on-one communication with admin there every report that we get of bullying there's a suspected bullying report form that is also submitted to admin and that's going to have a detailed description of the incident that took place so just to quickly touch on catapult it does not only do bullying reporting there can be concern for self or others any threats to school or students the people report any tips including things like vandalism uh bullying is just one of the things that you can report through catapult here's our suspected building report form as I mentioned earlier it provides the definition definition of bullying a lot of Education around what actually defines bullying sometimes versus conflict is done between administrators and students and families it includes things like where the incident happened it does have options for characteristics of the targets and then it does ask for contact information so that investigator or excuse me administrators can start their investigations so that process looks like this administrators have we have a process that was adopted I want to say probably eight nine years ago I was part of that committee that adopted and trained administrators um on this process we have 30 days to complete our investigations of bullying and that may include that initial report we look at any electronic communications that happen screenshots witness statements we have two different things that we do with our students who are targets of bullying usually through a counselor sometimes it is an administrator we go through what's a safety plan we'll talk a little bit about more about those in a second with the student who has done the action the act of bullying we have what's called an action plan that we take them through involving parents every step along the way there may be school-wide consequences for those students maybe some restorative practices as Mr Miranda mentioned earlier can be suspension expulsion and we follow Ed code to a t when we do that and then again we have an investigation summary page that the administrator fills out within 30 days so just to touch a little more Lauren can you advance it for me something's wrong um just to speak a little more on our action and safety plans again the action plan is done with uh usually the administrator and and the students who accused or has been proven um to be the aggressor in the situation those are done kept in the Kim file again signed by parents we involve parents in every step and then the safety plan usually done with our our counseling staff mental health professionals sometimes again administrators they go through with the students who are the targets work on strategies things that they can do including reporting again and then again we include those safety plans and our documents and in our files when we go through them um and again those include supports for for those students involved okay are there any questions about my piece or Mr mirandas I do have a question can you set a ruffle a few of the different heard of cases where someone says oh this person was bullying me the other person says no you were bullying me and it seems rather Mutual so yeah so um we we look at some elements when we look at cases of bullying uh the first thing is it's got to be severe or pervasive enough um to qualify to take to that step usually Bullying happens repeatedly there also has to be an imbalance of power between the target so two friends who get into conflict or two students that we consider at the same social physical emotional that level um usually that can sometimes turn into a conflict which we would then investigate and handle in a different situation but those things have to have to be present and a lot of those times we go through those definitions including the definitions of cyber bullying which is that harassment done online we go through those with families and then we decide whether we take it through the bullying investigation process or we handle it as a conflict are these kids trained to know the difference oh my voice was loved that are these kids trained to know the difference when it's too serious for them to handle um and what if say eight-year-old Timmy has been punched by several people or is being harassed by a group of people how serious has that taken and when does it get bumped up um so what I can say is through some of those elements our SEL training our second step program they all have elements at each grade level of bullying one of the great things about the safe School Ambassador training is it gives kids those resources to handle those lower level incidents that you're talking about but that last one is how and how to report how to talk um to an adult to a trusted staff member to a teacher about how to escalate and we do work on identifying those kind of situations as well and the situation that you talked about would be treated very seriously would go through this process and then Administration would take appropriate action I I do have a comment um as well in a question um I wanted to thank Mr barassi and Mr Miranda for your presentations the information uh was very helpful especially the overview of what's being done at the school sites to address the issue of bullying prevention I think it was Mr Miranda who mentioned that the all the staff was trained on Public Works training I was just curious to hear more about that and a question for Mr Lair I know that it was available for staff but what board members be able to have access to that for review I really think in terms of understanding bullying as well as how we're addressing bullying prevention in our district would be great to have that same training and access to the same training that the staff had is that a possibility a superintendent Lair or how does that all work uh yes trustee Lee we would we could certainly make that available and I'm going to lead to Mr Grimes it's every year we go through that or every other year that we do the bullying every year so every year we do go through it so when it comes up or even now we it's a link it's all an online program that we would be happy to share with the board I there is some it it's good information as we go through it so we're happy to get that out annually we can put you on our list where you get to go through it like all of us but it is it is good information because it does explain a lot of detail as Mr barassi pointed out and talks about the difference between conflict and actual definition of bullying and as stated earlier through those through like our catapult we tip that's on every website we encourage students don't try to diagnose yourself if it's something that you think is serious enough please report that'll get to the appropriate administrator uh and then you know we can we can deal with it from there so please make sure if you see something say something if that's to an administrator in person a teacher a trusted staff member or to report anonymously please do it that works for the older kids but not for the younger ones the other piece I think that we're not understating but actually gets used quite a bit is that catapult Anonymous system it is really good it has given us a lot of tips where maybe someone's at home a family maybe they're a little nervous but it initiates that conversation it does get used quite a bit uh not just for bullying but for many different things that help us with that so to to Mr Bryce's point if you see it say it we'd rather you tell us and then we work through it with you then someone think oh someone else will take care of it so we that that is not that is something that we need to continue to emphasize for folks to use thank you thank you very much both of you I'm sorry I'm gentlemen so um thank you very much for your presentation I um I'm very pleased to see this uh program going forward I think it's unconscionable cruel uh disruptive and harmful to the development of our children and I think this is very important so I applaud you for your efforts so my question is um I'm I'm new to the board I'm not all that familiar with catapult but one thing I did not notice in your presentation was the accumulation tracking of Statistics you know how how many reports what schools whatever type of identifiers that you have in this form is that captured in catapult or is there some other application or format or is it just stays on paper so I can't 100 speak to what catapult tracks I know who it goes to I know when incidents do arise to the level of administration and there is action taken whether it's through this process we have actually multiple means for recording in our Swiss system which is our school-wide information system that we use for PBIS so anytime we can track a student whether they're a Target or accused of bullying behavior in there as well through our Airy system I am not 100 sure I'd have to ask Mr Graham regarding how catapult retracts or how it tracks incidents coming in so to your knowledge there is no statistical tracking or collecting of information of this program as as it moves forward through through catapult catapult think of it more of an information conduit so I would need to double check but it really is on the back end once we get the report we have statistics on that so I think what Mr Bryson is whether it turns into a bullying situation or maybe it's a regular discipline or a counseling referral we we have all that but I I would need to double check on catapult to see they have to have a statistics on that I just don't know I have not seen that personally yet and administrator is incorrectly but we do have to close those reports out so we do have information on how those reports were closed whether it was an invalid report whether it went through and we did an investigation we do have to mark them when we close them so we will have information on them so if I can make sure I'm understanding correctly catapult's more like an email client for sending the message in but the actual data would be stored in Swiss and Aries correct I I would say yes I what we would need to find out is whether catapult tracks the number of referrals but it does it's it's a conduit you can you can two-way message back in it anonymously but really the action would be saved within Aries or swiss yes thank you any other comments committee updates Mr Jordan a curriculum instruction and special ed update busy boy good evening again I'd like to start this presentation with just a quick appreciation it takes a lot of hard work and effort to keep all this audio visual sound and everything up and going uh Eugene and Lauren month in month out do an outstanding job and what we don't see from behind the scenes the unsung hero there's four screens working back here that she is rocking and keeping everything going so thank you you guys do a great job next up we did our second uh assessment with the I ready uh program in both math and reading uh that was closed we had our meeting last week Becky Lawson did an outstanding job with all of our administrators we looked at the district-wide data started analyzing that data those site principles now on site admin are taking that back to their school sites and they're coming up with their school action plans based on their particular School data so that second window has closed and again we are working hard on that uh action plan moving forward Next Step partnering on on what I brought last month was our our health Mental Health Services I'm proud to announce that we are partnering with a research firm a national research firm called EAB uh we are going to hold uh here on March 28th a summit and we're invite we invited today all the superintendents from all over Northern California all the way down to Fresno all over the place and the topic is a road map for Effective and efficient mental health care in schools so what EAB is doing is bringing all the most current research on what works in schools in terms of mental health with students and staff and helping us to further develop all of our programs so that that's a fantastic opportunity not only for the other districts but for us and for us to host that so I'm proud to uh to announce that tonight and then finally tomorrow uh you know in the special ed world uh we are having a professional development for all of our admin and all of our sites where one of our program specials who's in charge of accountability uh Tracy Ramirez who does a fantastic job we're going to sit down and we're going to go through with the administrators a review of all of the tasks and all of the duties and responsibilities of the administrative team in an IEP we're also going to be looking at what our best practices for classrooms for students with autism which there's a checklist what should you be looking for what is going to help students to be successful in those classrooms so we'll be going through that as well again we're constantly trying to improve our services improve our delivery and improve what we're doing in all Realms regular and special ed that's wonderful thank you very much any questions for Mr Jordan great job yeah thank you good thank you yes thank you facilities update Mr Putnam good evening everyone well needless to say this last month weather-wise has been a little bit of a challenge for the district we've had numerous storms come through and pretty much the district handled everything great until Saturday was a little brutal about a 45 minute Monsoon is about the only way to really describe what hit here at Center High School I received a phone call from superintendent Lair we saw some water ponding over at one of our other school sites I met uh superintendent over there he myself my daughter mucked water out of four classrooms thank goodness it was minimal amount and we thought everything was all fine and dandy and then come yesterday and we find out that the theater flooded uh from the mass volumes of water that came down brushed off the baseball and softball fields overloaded the storm drains so we are in the process of starting Remediation in the theater and I'm hoping that we'll be able to get that back up and running Maybe by mcclellan's graduation is what I'm shooting for but uh worst case I'm looking for uh into the fall to get that because that will be a long process the football stadium also took quite a battering the infill for our artificial turf field is done with cork cork floats so all that rain brought all the cork up and so we have for better description snow drifts of cork all around so the football stadium is completely shut down right now for student safety purposes and as soon as we can have the company out there we will get that addressed that is the worst part and then our CTE project behind us and our Rex Fortune School sites they weathered the weather beautifully and they are still on target to complete out at their scheduled dates any questions no doing a great job yeah thank you for your efforts oh it was basically pretty much all hands on deck from Grounds Maintenance uh administrators custodial staff everybody just and the Supreme sorry I'm going to tease Richard Richard can talk Vivian Vivian can talk she and I she and I had a great time she she's a great young lady and she was a pleasure and she worked hard you know we had to sweep a couple rooms but she was right there with us and we were teasing her saying she wore boots she was only smart one of the group yeah tell Vivian thank you you got it thank you I'm also on a related note I'm noticing the continuing changes in this room and I'm liking how things are coming it is coming along I'd like it to move a little bit faster but we have some delays with getting materials and all that so yeah it's kind of that added add a bonus what is new in the room this month thank you very much thank you all thanks right now we'll go to comments from the audience regarding items not on the agenda and I do have a public card from Mrs Hughes this is yours long walk from over there wow is the mic on this is yours is it on um I just want to say good evening is Anderson comes back and um happy New Year happy New Year yeah so good evening and thank you for the opportunity to speak um I've been involved with the district since about 2007.
foreign 30 years almost that's pretty pretty long life out of Ester outside stairway I'm saying 86 to 21. they were Treasures to welcome foreign faculty I'd be happy to meet outside and provide a cut sheet of the tread cover I tried to recover like a fiberglass perforated thing so it's not so slippery kind of you know yeah does that have the nosing strip on there so it has like the one inch truck on there along the nose a contrasting color uh there is a uh there is a version of that we specif um actually that would be another especially at night that would be another uh that's required now to have that nosing stripe you know back whatever an introduction to do and just wide back from the nosing so if you're going to put that on then make sure you get get that one on there yeah it has it um as the um what is the outside lighting on the stairway is that sufficient these are outside lights that are on I like to Stairway at night you've been out there at night I was there during the day yeah security for motion not really but all right well I'll float one yellow strip pole I got it from is it a contrasting Call of Duty it's required to be now I don't know what's out there now but it's I could I can show you I've got it on my screen I'm happy to hear it it is a contrasting yellow with uh okay I moved it in the case of BBA 22-2004 the appeal of the building officials decision that the work performed at 727 East Kingsley is granted relief from section 1011.5.2 and the building board of appeals reverses the building officials decision for the reason that number three the applicant has proposed an equal form of construction to suit field constraints and further that the replacement that the new stair is a replacement of an irregular and non-conforming condition from 1986 that risers and Treads were made consistent throughout the stair that safety non-slip nosings of contrasting color were added that the Riser height was reduced to meet the new code and that the tread was modified to suit existing constraints and come as close as feasible to current code yeah well I guess you're saying I said that meets the uh meets the antennas equally good or better again so any comment or discussion on the on the motion just a second I'll second those in favor it was against aye aye can I find something did you say I heard he said Eco but then I heard you say equal or better I don't know if that was a friendly Amendment or if it was if if what you guys are voting on was equal or equal or better it was just equal okay yeah okay so it looks like the motion to Grant is denied you should have to modify something or comply with code you know discussion I guess that wraps up that uh Paul I'm actually confused can you I I heard it that there was that the intent was met is that true so he made the motion and then it was voted the motion was there was no support for that motion of granting it was how that rewarded so um that's correct I floated emotion in favor of granting the variance with uh um based on various stipulations and when it came to a vote it was denied or not approved did it die for lack of a second no no for lack of support we voted on it and it was you know no one favor foreign AIDS so the appeal is denied foreign proceed well it's a bit of a challenge Paul I mean it doesn't you know we're not modifying the chimney on the buildings yeah and we're not changing the window yeah well I find this um you know what we'll have to so I mean I guess some ideas that borging Jesse was looking at all from the tread lengths or alternate Riser thickness and see if you can get the geometry to work out to be an 11 inch tread let me maintain a majority of that structure there if they can make that work that would be yeah we'll we'll do whatever we can to make it comply and if we can't come up with a solution then we'll have to resubmit some drawings and make some changes and I come up to code and we appreciate your time and input and thank you very much all right thank you thank you next item on the agenda is old business is there any old business to discuss saying none new business non-public commentary no public we have a motion to adjourn move to adjourn second it was in favor aye okay [Applause]
so we're not approved so the calendar is in the calendar we're looking at here is it reflecting the count okay so that's only that one change the way I read it was we're approving the calendar with that change okay okay I hear it I got it I think the calendar we're talking about at least 23 24 school years um so the year is different any other questions or comments all right okay here we've done can we have a roll call please Mr Bell yes awesome yes because you know yes Lima [Music] exclusive yes yes hi yes Mr Januzzi yes don't you pass thank you item number 8.1 resolved at the Bound Brook Board of Education proves the resolutions is outlined into action resolutions uh again this is our new combined section so it has a variety of things that used to be broken partner the emotions here that we will be voting are 8.2 through 8.22 I have a motion thank you second thank you Mr Johnson thank you to the Middle School staff and families and administrators for all the work and setting up these extra fundraisers to make the Washington DC trip happen I think that's a wonderful thing uh yes and I think the most important question of the night is uh will we be entering a dodgeball team and if so who's playing because last year it didn't go so well and we could use a little help back [Music] I just wanted to acknowledge the uh um I have a question on 8.12 um regarding ES1 so it was amended with it like because of additional students with the amendment for them total Mike you want to talk about that [Music] bear with me one second let me find that Source guy foreign one two is a joint Transportation agreement with southbound Brook transport their students for the 22 extended school year program at Milan Elementary School in melbrook for two sessions noted in the resolution two round trips for 30 days is a total fee of 4 218 amended higher from three thousand eight to forty uh there were some increased Transportation costs and so on and uh display so it's an increase in transportation any other questions or comments on Section Eight I guess I'll get the last word and then and just say thank you for the donation by Brother Presbyterian church again um not to be overlooked and getting can get pretty cold out there so making sure that our families I have the resources that they need is always welcome and with that I will also a roll call please Mrs Bell yes this is awesome yes yes exclusive yeah yes motion passes thank you we are now up to new business anything that any of the committee members at this time four news all right good no I was just gonna so um I have there been any talks with uh just in general yeah I don't know that there's any open or ongoing dialogue with any other body regarding uh parking or traffic I do know them just changed High Street to hopefully alleviate some of the safety and congestion concerns that were there at least you know from my perspective remains one of the higher priority items because they can say to our students and staff uh is right up there at the top um we also this year have a new uh representative from the council with whom I'm attending the group and hopefully engage so if there are other items are there any of the members have I think we want a real estate Council please feel free to send me any questions no we haven't had any conversations like you said it was just the uh the conversation with the police department about uh Lafayette making the One Direction traffic so we didn't have as much of a safety issue but other than that they were there were no other discussions if there are specific concerns that you have that would be an opportunity to take a look at okay thank you okay any other comments or questions for new business all right so at this point we are now open to the Federal discussion [Music] anybody online there is nobody online thank you sir all right at this point we will move to go into executive session uh this is under items one and three I have a motion that's seven or seven thank you one three and seven camera protein awesome thank you Mr Brown second thank you Mr all in favor [Music] we're going to start the video stream everybody okay all right everybody we are back in session and we are up to item 13.1 resolved in the Bound Brook Board of Education approved the resolutions has outlined an approval of HIV cases of their High School this is 13.2 and 13.3 and promotion promotion thank you Mr Johnson II second thank you Mr Bell I believe we have an amendment yes thank you Mr chairman may I have the floor I would like to recommend to the Board of Education that for a number 13 that the report be corrected for a typographical error to read the alleged offender not the target from the last line of the report for number two three eight seven nine zero BBH that means the first and a second and an all in favor thank you so at this point I will entertain a motion to make that Amendment motion thank you Mr Bell a second second thank you Mr Zuko and you said we need to go to the front okay can you do your role models just do it all in favor fair enough all in favor any opposed no yeah I'm sorry and Mr Januzzi uh if I may on on report number 13 I'm sorry number 14.
this is taking into consideration a flat a no increase to ADM our current practice inflation at two percent to the base level support which is the per pupil amount in the formula uh we do know we're going to take into consideration that 60 000 increase to asrs this is not take into consideration the the amino to Capital transfer um yet because we do not have a final number on what that total transfer amount will be um the biggest area where we're seeing a continued um increase in not really savings but um increase to the budget is budget balance carry forward so we have that estimated at 26 million right now a large portion that is again towards vacancy savings we are struggling to fill positions particularly in the classified hourly Department our grounds our transportation drivers our custodial staff and so um that's continuing to increase that budget balance carry forward which is one-time funding um and we'll look to basically have some recommendations to address that on the February 28th meeting when we do our second pass on the mno budget but you'll see right now um we're estimating an increase of three million dollars again uh this is our first pass at this we'll have um some some more information uh on the second review again I just wanted to footnote the AEL um again I feel like a broken record but it's it's here it's still no solution but the impacted this year's budget would be approximately 22 million we did carry over uh 24 million little bit over 24 million so um if the AO did not get passed we would the district would be in a place where we would not um any operations would not be halted we would be able to continue as is it would wipe out all our contingency but we've strategically placed ourselves in a position where we would not put any of our operations at risk right now the impact of fiscal 24 this is kind of uh the same to what we proposed last year there'd be no operational impact again I think we when we get to the bottom of this we will still propose that we carry over if there is no final um or long-term solution to AAL at least the minimum to cover the district um if the AL were to impact sn24 and again so we would have no operational impacts of the budget we would utilize that carry forward again we would propose you know hiring fees and a salary freeze just so we wouldn't put any operational risk to the district come on all right well this slide is a kind of a tease um we uh we are I I need to remind the board too we are six months out before our our fiscal uh date starts so we are working we knew no we do know um and with conversations with our insurance um our property insurance uh vendor um as well as utilities we do know there's going to be increases we do not have those renewal rates just yet we hope to have those by our second pass but we are we did didn't want to make the board aware of these areas in which we do project to see at least some increases um as we work through the process I do want to note the projected compensation increases we have started negotiations with our meet and confer team we use an interest-based negotiation process we hope to have those wrapped up at our next meeting on February 16th um and a recommendation to the board on February 28th and so more to come here so here's a highlight of our calendar and um the end tool bring over the next couple of months again I mentioned February 8th we'll take a look at our first review of our capital budget we'll continue our practice of having our budget summary and going through a high-level Department overview of each Department's kind of capital budget February 22nd we'll bring a second review of our mno budget at that point we'll we'll be able to fill in some more information here and have a clearer picture March 8th we'll bring a third review if necessary or just ask for attended approval of the mno budget so we can issue contracts to our administrators and certified staff at that same meeting we'll also present a second review of our capital budget and then April 5th um we'll continue the same practice for mno budget and ask for attendive approval for a capital budget which allows us to get out and procure some of those long lead items that we may need to start the July 1 fiscal year and then again I put the the June but the dates in there those are our statutorily official dates in which we propose and adopt our budget which is the culmination of everything we we're going to talk through for today all the way through June so with that if there's any questions I'll be happy to answer any questions Mr Van Hook I like to ask questions I'm sorry okay um as far as the um enhancements um for insurance so it's not because staff is asking for enhancements it's just something that you're thinking ahead and you're going to go out to them and ask things that they might want yeah we're proactively utilizing the the savings that we've accrued from moving to a self-insurance plan to to put that back into our employees we take every opportunity we can to enhance our employee compensation package whether that mean compensation or benefits all these hit are employees paychecks and so anywhere we can help out it's been um in interest of both our meet and confer team and the district to to put that back to the employee miss Mr Mark um last year April I believe when we switched from two years ago sorry two years ago wow um we switched to self-insured and we were able okay I was like wow I know we started the process two years ago because there's a lot of research involved but we actually made the switch a year ago thank you sorry no it all runs together um we switched to independent uh self-insured I'm sorry and so we were able to save um a great deal of money from that and so then we're able to um give back to the employees and hopefully ask them if there are things you know Dental or dependent type things that we're able to provide to them rather than take away benefits or increase benefits or costs so save money yes and also that that money can only be used for that we can't we can't move it around thank you Mrs Reese when is sorry when is open enrollment like because I know you're searching for new things so like when do we have to have something decided about here yeah a member remember wait uh I think we're targeting April May we do anticipate um bringing an information item in uh either March it'll probably have to be March uh regarding our benefits um and what we're proposing uh next year at least a summary to kind of summarize maybe our survey summarize the pricing of that and kind of look at what we're renewing for next year so foreign something else to to give you an idea because having worked here before um in years past where it wasn't as good as we've changed it to previously um I have teacher friends who either have you know pre-existing conditions like myself or knew they were going to get pregnant Etc and left the district because the cost here just wasn't enough in order to be able to get the care that they needed and it was better in in certain places certain cases different districts where that option for them or they left entirely and so that's why I the idea of changing it is definitely beneficial if we can't you know like if the AL doesn't pass and we are in a situation in which we can increase salaries but if we can decrease your benefits we're still then giving you more money to take home and that's you know we we count pennies a lot president shelves board member Wade and that is in direct alignment toward two of our strategic plan focuses which was where we can save money and also put in value for our employees and give them voice where we can and these are some of the the work and areas that we researched to put into that an aligned are examples of alignment to that work so if the AEL doesn't pass what is that 119 million reduced by or two approximately 22.6 million is that reduced by yeah the 119 you take 20 minus 22.6 22.7 million right now and that could change it depends on they would take a snapshot at march on every school district's budget and then calculate the reduction it's the total reduction right now is 1.4 billion for all districts and then they'll they would do a percentage off that and so right now it's about 19 of our budget which uh is 22.7 million so and are there any plans as to where the cut would come from if we have to cut there would be no Cuts we've strategically placed the district in a position where we would utilize the carry forward again it's on the slide here president Schultz board member van helke one of the things we we were in a good place compared to some of our other districts because of the fact our carryover was we were intentionally planning for the fact in case it didn't we wouldn't have to furlough or close doors or change districts that didn't have that carry forward amount held there last year previously would have been in a place had it not been extended for a year to to cease operating so hence moving forward many districts have done what we did last year in in in in their budgeting and and with the unknown of AEL hold that over for carryover so why that's one of the reasons why trajectory you're seeing many districts hold larger amounts of carryover until that's resolved in other words they're not allocating it for the things until they know that they aren't going to end up losing it so we're not using any of the carry forward for the for the Higley project no uh president Schultz member van Hoke no this is a budgeted carry forward set aside as contingency for um AEL if that were not to pass and then we would readdress it next fiscal year as we do not have a long-term solution so and that Capital funding is the only fund that could be used for um construction thank you presidential yes Mrs Reese and along with that because I know that's your first board meeting I can I would strongly suggest to schedule a time to meet with Mr Moore Mr Moore and I have talked at length on contingencies um especially since 2020 and everything that's gone on and I've asked multiple times if this happens then what what if this what if that seen that inflation was going to come we had that conversation um even as much as unemployment tax just changed now we have to pay unemployment on 8 000 versus 7 000 so that's an additional cost um for the district and things like that and those are conversations that Mr Moore and I have had and I know that when he's done presentations he's tried to include that because I'm I do too very much so we're there's so many things that are out of our control that would have been what um if this within that and making sure that we're not in a place that we were eight years ago where we were sitting around a table trying to figure out what we're going to do so that I would strongly recommend to meet with with Mr Moore and and ask all those questions and by all means they can share them out as well because I think these are all good questions and I think each of us have different experiences um in our knowledge and background and so like I worry about unemployment tax I worry about workers comp I work you know I worry about those things because that's kind of the the part of my life I have to worry about as well so I ask how are we planning for that but the last couple years Mr Moore has heard me over and over again on what are we going to do what are we going to do and um he's like he's sit down and he'll explain it over and over again to me he's like okay so we'll go here and we'll do this and we'll do that and I hear you I'm watching this and so it's definitely made me feel more comfortable that we have contingencies and because of that contingency planning we were in the same situation last year if the AEO had not been addressed we would not have had to to furlough people we wouldn't have had to stop our operations we could continue um which for a lot of districts if that had happened last year they would have been in some really bad spots and and kids wouldn't have had some places to go so um I I hear you and I worry about those same things and um but I would strongly recommend that you you meet with Mr Moore and and ask these questions and again you can jot them down we can get them out to everybody and and things like that because what you may think of I'm not thinking of and then I'm like oh that's a good point so what are we doing you know things like that and I know a lot of these discussions again both you miss Wade this is your first board meeting there's a lot going on and a lot of these budget discussions have gone on over the past two years and so it's not that we don't necessarily have same questions I think we've we've heard these things over it's been presented Mr Moore's done a fantastic job the report the financial monthly financial report we used to not get anything so I started to worry going what are we earmarking money for and are we spending the same money over and over again and so that concerned me and then we got a little bit of a report when Mr Moore came on we get a much more detailed report so that way as board members we can be more informed of our financial situation because the last thing I wanted and Mr Moore okay so this is different money right we're not spending the same money I'm not approving the same pot of money for this you know all these different things because that used to happen so um so Mr Moore has done a great job in trying to position us financially responsible for these things so I appreciate you asking and it's always a good reminder and it's not that we're not asking it's this information's been presented to us year in and year out so that's I appreciate that yes and every you guys have heard it I'm sure for so long but you know and and because of my my background in finance um and I'm not used to looking at numbers on a PDF Mouse which is why I'm asking for an Excel format because um it's just so much easier to be able to do math and add add different numbers and be able to filter different ways um to look at things so it'll make much more sense to me that way thank you absolutely um any other questions or anything okay Mr Moore thank you I am very grateful that we do have a contingency plan and when you say we don't have a long-term solution it's because the legislature doesn't have a long-term solution for us I just wanted to clarify not that we don't um and we will move on to 6.2 special education report Mrs Miller foreign president Schultz members of the board I am really excited today to spend some time going over our special education programs and reviewing some of the great things that we are doing I want to start first by acknowledging that the success of the special education programs has everything to do with the wonderful staff that we have in husd from the sites to the district office that continually work with our department to support our students with special needs to make them a part of their communities Higley thrives to be an inclusive environment for our special education students and I can say with confidence that that is what we've done and that our special education students are are a part of our community so I wanted to begin by sharing a little bit of the history of our special education numbers um on October 1st we're required to provide to the state account of our special education students so there you can see the count as the years have gone um this year our count is a little bit lower than we had anticipated but we know that the district enrollment is also down we also know that we have refined our mtss process so our intervention process so we know that a lot of students that may have been identified prior to October 1st are in that mtss intervention process and had not yet entered into the special education evaluation process as of today I ran a count and today we're at 1864.
uh and then I think probably the biggest one uh that I want to share with you is the revision of academic support which is on page 18. um so academic support in previous years was listed as a one credit course uh so students were in there uh and they received a full credit for it uh as we move forward in looking at IEPs and how they're written in compliance and making sure uh that we stay aligned with where we are looking at the service Pages not every student requires a full 80 minutes every other day of academic support so you can imagine a student a student might have let's say 40 minutes of academic support every other day and it reflects that on their IEP what we were doing was they were staying in academic support and for the entire 80 minute block so work with Misty Nicola Hickman over last spring and summer to kind of get that in alignment and make it really reflective of the credit reflects the amount of time the student is in that course so you'll see in the program of studies it's changed now to an opportunity for 0.25 which is a quarter credit half three quarters or full credit based on the amount of time you're actually in that academic support class so that more accurately reflects what the hours page and IEP says for a particular student we now are mimicking that in terms of the credit that they're awarded that does create additional uh concerns would be the wrong term but additional um additional situations to address because now if we have a student in a let's say who's in academic support for 20 minutes or 40 minutes we don't offer a class on the back half of that 40 minutes right so that student who's there then has to leave at the end of that academic support time so that creates a bit of a how am I where am I going to get this other half credit right and what am I going to do um our students are certainly on track across the board if you look at the number of credits that kids can take in any given year we have eight periods worth of courses over a four year period eight times eight times excuse me four times eight will give you plenty of credits you can get your 32 very easily right so it's not going to affect kids right now with this change for this coming year for 23 24 they will earn their appropriate amount of credit but what we're going to do is look at different opportunities and in conversation with the subcommittee and Mike and Debbie and Rosa we have the conversation along with Dr Mann about what other shorter whether they be executive functioning courses or you know something in terms terms of enrichment that students can take and that we already have in the program of studies ability to get Grant credit for online courses taken so if we do this appropriately and find some different alternatives for online programs with support students could then backfill some of that credit in with things that are relative uh you know to what they're learning and what they need to know to move forward so that's an idea that we have moving forward for the coming years so we're going to investigate those towards the end of this year you know and move on from there so that's the one big thing about academic support I wanted to put out there I figure if you have questions you can certainly ask towards the end um critical literacy one and two is not just available to students that receive special services it's also available to regular education students there was some confusion so we actually moved it to what was considered the English Department took it out of special services to eliminate some confusion and then we have a bunch of updated terminology so basically multilingual Learners it used to say El now we're multilingual Learners a couple other revisions in terms of names I'll skip AP Capstone for a second but like technology bobot didn't mean anything to anybody in fact I'm not entirely sure what bobot stood for and I shared that honestly with the committee I think coding for Robotics and talking to the team actually makes sense to a student and a parent who's reading that would say we know what Boe means you know they thought Board of Education so it's just a more accurate representation of what that course is and students have a better chance of actually selecting that course rather than Blowing by when they look at the program of studies um there's you see English we added the critical literacy from above musical theater hasn't run in more than eight years just a kind of a cleanup of that program physical education when we changed uh requirements a couple years ago to align with the state of having one credit of physical education we didn't we have not offered these um courses physical education for the future and Lifetime and leisure activities we're taking them out of the program of studies same thing uh because we can't offer them and so if a kid signs up for that we don't want to be misleading and what we're actually putting in there it we have historical uh information and curriculum that goes along with that so that course doesn't ever really actually go away we have that archive so if we ever decide to expand or the ability to expand or maybe we want to switch something up we could always go back bring that up to Cape and go from there there was a great alignment a realignment and social studies this year um because we found that in talking to students and working with other our curriculum Specialists that it made more sense uh to switch the um the alignment of human geography and for ninth grade and World modern I mean um Global themes for sophomores so this year in order to make that alignment initially everybody took human geography and so now we're switching it so what you see is the 20 there's requirements of the class of 2025 10th grade they're already moving past there's no need to include that because they've moved past that grade they're not going to be Juniors next year the class of 2025 which is hard to believe um and then uh you know of course because we have to change names of everything it's no longer AP World History we have to call it world history colon modern advanced placement that's college board at its finest making a change that really didn't need to be made we also added as an option for 10th grade students to really align with the um with the global themes program that sophomores have advantaged the opportunity to take so that's there replaced a name that's just a name change the Apple assessment with stamp the Apple assessment is what we used to use in World Language we just use a different assessment now so we want to be transparent about the assessment we're using and then going back to the first page about AP Capstone we wanted to offer it we after having conversations with Mrs maltesta Mrs Rocca and some of the value of AP seminar and those skills with ap seminar and research opening it up to students as an elective that they could take in 10th Grade and then also complete their next section 11th grade and AP research if they wanted to so there's it's just opening up more opportunities and electives for kids if there was a way that I could and not saying I haven't figured it out yet but the skills that kids learned in AP seminar you know and some of the conversations we had today at the CTE meeting after school today about some of those soft skills about research and it's fantastic I know some people were able to come and see some of the AP research questions that second course it is probably one of the most applicable for those kids that are going on to the next level to college first to help them Master some of those skills that they need to be successful but we want to expand that a little bit and see if anybody's interested in 10th Grade we did have some kids interested last year and we said no but this year we're gonna we're gonna open we'd like to open it up to them so that's a general overview certainly of the changes that are here um and while it's certainly not my purview I'm absolutely open to any questions uh about um board policy and things like that how this could be affected with the program of studies if it was not to be approved today and all those things I will share that if asked happy to share that so any questions on the proposed program of studies no question so that's it Mike here your committee's reviewed it and are fully in support of this we had a really a good conversation on what possible online classes could fill you kind of kept me up at night with that AI stuff with the writing papers I'm not gonna lie to that that was that pretty now what else what else can I do uh so yeah no it was a we spent a lot of time on on the first part of the academic support uh the rest you know like I said just it's kind of like clean up stuff and name changes and I apologize I need to keep you up with chat GPT Mike um oh that's what it's called chat GPT but you know I'm going to a seminar next week that's put on by Ed advance that talks about how to utilize it um you know we've had discussions at uh District leadership meetings about um what to do with it um because it's there it's not going away technology continues to evolve in fact we went to demo it uh yesterday and there's so many people on it that we had to wait to get a response wow wouldn't it be good for a board member to attend that training with you if there I I can certainly ask if Mike would like to you know I'll it's it's online Mike I can certainly get you registered so if you're interested this could go over a lot of people so we discussed an AI that can essentially students can plug information and it would write a whole paper on like Macbeth and it wouldn't be plagiarism because it would be totally unique I thought that was that's incredible but yeah yeah well I'm at plagiarism by definition right the electronics yeah and just as soon as one technology comes out uh this is Princeton right I think it was Prince star Colombia um a college student has come out with an app or some solution to plug in to see if the probability was that it came through an AI bot to determine so it's just going to keep going it's just well technology moves right so I think that that the smarter we are on this technology the better we are in knowing how to work around and with it absolutely um so I'm thinking it's a good thing to get trained up here yeah it's you know how to use it you know just like we talked about the evolution of you know um you know what calculators to cell phones to all the communication devices to radios and you know I had a zoom at one point a Microsoft zoom and remember those that was the yeah Mike and I had one but those are so Obsolete and gone and everything's on your phone and web-based now so things continue to change so quickly and we're working to to make sure we keep up with it and make sure the students are you know learn how to use it appropriately because they're going to use it yeah they will all right so let me ask the the elephant in the room question so our public speaker this evening said that the program of studies is not in alignment with our own policy nor in alignment with state uh requirements is that a true statement that is a true statement I did I we went back to board policy after this the speaker came up and shared that and took a look uh the credit alignments are not the same some of the GPA weightings are not the same as well and what's in the policy and regulations so there's build policy and regulation in uh in the board um so that is correct from that area um my concern and again I'd leave this up to the board to make that decision obviously it's not my purview but um I understand the process it takes to approve a policy and in terms of first reads and seconds just hold on that thought for a moment I'm not sure we're proposing that to you yet but uh but so and the state law side the state guidance are we not in alignment with the state Guidance the board policy is not in alignment with statement how about your program of studies program studies is an alignment so the issue is our policy correct and it was last updated in 2001 or two one so let's have been on our radar screen Debbie it's from you have to have so but I jotted it down we will definitely look into it and what's the policy number it was six one four six it's just without a DOT six one four six I think it was dot point one one I think it was point one that was point one there there are two there's there's a graduation policy and there's also a grading policy that that is in the board they're two different policies and now we're not in compliance with that one the grading one has a essentially has a weighting chart in terms of what an a is worth the B is you know in different levels whether it be academic honors or advanced placement those weightings are not are not matched for basically academic and honors most of them are and this is just a real quick glance uh looking at it you know trying to pay attention to all the stuff going on but clearly the AP column from what I can see the weighting that we have in our program of studies which is not connected to to state guidelines or mandates that's something we do that's something we do um so the policy has a lower weight the actual program studies has a higher way for AP courses and those are the things we've reviewed with you over time yes we went through a whole big section section on that we did yeah the AP waiting uh in the program of studies has been there that particular waiting has been there prior to my arrival here okay and if I could just share a little bit on the the iterations of State expectations for graduation requirement the state in um I believe 2012 change had a rollout plan for the class of 2018 which included a whole bunch of changes to expectations for graduation requirement um those subsequently got pushed off um I think to 2020 and then to 2023 and where they added in World language for two years as a requirement math was going to be for four years then what while they were rolling it in from 2014 through 2017 they changed those requirements and adjusted them for the class of 2023 and beyond that also was where the Capstone project came in and then they adjusted those those changes um during you know as people are actually supposed to be graduating with these expectations um to reflect the now current for 2023 and Beyond where they categorize not only did they roll back some of those like the World Language requirement and the four-year math requirement but they changed the Capstone project to a mastery-based diploma assessment requirement which is up to the school districts as to how they determine what the master-based diploma assessment one credit is as well as categorizing credits into career areas or areas of study so instead you know Humanities and um and stem as well as career and life skills and then that's where the PE and health piece came in where they you know parceled out the PE Health requirement into one credit PE and one credit health and so that is for this graduating year and Beyond so that's why one of the reasons that there have been a lot of changes to programs of studies and policies over the course of these past what are we in 23 so about eight years ten years because there have been major changes as everybody's gone um through what the state has been setting and then rolling back and the board also has the ability within those categories so example nine credits in Humanities the board and the working with the high school can set those expectations in terms of how many credits of English do we feel they need to take how many credits of science how many credits of math as long as it still matches up from nine in that category and different schools are doing it different ways we actually roll back our math requirement right I mean we used to be four years of math and four years of Science and four is in English and four is the social studies we've changed that but we've still kept some things like four years of English we decided that's that was an important piece for US based on the standards that we teach so there is the state expectation for following for their guidance and guidelines into the minimum categories you have to have and then we also have board and local control over setting some of those requirements as well foreign so just from a policy structural point of view we're not in compliance with our own policy but we are in compliance with the state guidelines yes and in terms of grading there's no State guidelines we are not in compliance with our own policy correct and but we are following the standards we've talked about over time yep in particular those grading teams have been here I've this is my eighth year they've been here that chart about AP waiting that includes AP waiting has been in place more than eight years so Deb I'm thinking we just have to get these up on I think two things first we the policy committee ought to make sure these get updated and it's high on the priority list right to make sure they're up to date and I would suggest on this given how much the state's been moving things around that we put something in there that says to the extent the state changes it right and this policy has not been updated yet we'll follow the state right so something that gives you the out when the state moves because they've been moving a lot if I remember um and I think as a board we need to waive these policies before we approve the approve this program of studies right we'll have to go through a small waiver process for this year until such a Time the policy is updated so I'm going to put a motion on the table to waive that before we vote on the motion that's on the table does that make sense to everybody are you okay with that any other questions for Mark okay hearing none I'm going to put a motion on the table thank you Mark um that the board that recognizing that the board's policies are out of date uh the board waives policy number 6146 uh graduation requirements and six one four six point one grading um uh for the purpose of updating the uh program of studies and directs the policy committee to you know uh move on getting those updated as soon as possible second is that okay for everybody has a motion okay it's moved in second and any questions on that motion all in favor unanimous um and all any further questions on the program of studies okay all in favor of approving the program of studies all right you're good to go mark okay that was complicated more complicated than I thought it would be and uh we'll have to thank Mrs Korea for pointing that out to us policies do get out of date every now and then and this is an important one that we get back up today all right so next up is old business um and the first topic under old business is an action to continue the discussion on the superintendent's proposed budget so um Dr Burrell I know we've been doing a lot of work over the last number of meetings and in the finance committee and I know your staff has been extraordinarily hard working on this uh if I'd turn it to you and Mr post to give an update on where we are sure so I think if we start with Mr post he's got a couple of uh charts he'd like to show and a lot of this work has been worked through not only with uh with Ken's hard work here and John Reynolds and obviously the team but the finance committee and I can't thank the finance committee enough um and Bob I appreciate the acknowledgment of the uh the team the uh leadership team and all the work they've done so Ken has those charts he's going to share which are broad picture about the budget itself and then there was one more comeback from the Board of Ed regarding the dean of students position at whiskaneer with the transition from a 5 8 school to a six seven eight school and the AP moving from one AP position moving from Winston air to um uh Candlewood Lake but we will get that after Mr post speaks thank you we have been doing an awful lot of work in our office and certainly in the finance committee I've lost track of how many meetings we've had the committee has been populating and some other board members populating our question document and we've been responding I still have some responses that I crowed but mostly it is populated approaching 30 pages worth now which is quite a lot of information and some of the some of the questions are are answered with links so it would be even longer if we embedded everything in there so Dr Brill proposed a budget in December of the 51 million 480 452 which was a 5.78 percent increase over the 2223 budget and in that time since then we've been reviewing a lot of accounts uh we got some great news uh just the this morning actually with the health benefits I attended a um virtually a meeting with the partnership plan where they lowered their health benefit increase estimate from a range of 8 to 12 percent to eight to ten percent and our position all along and accompanying with the town has been to use the high end of the range so our first pass at health benefits was 12 percent increase so now we adjusted that for 10 and made some other adjustments to the to the model so that allows us to bring the budget down by a little over nine uh 196 thousand dollars which was great news and I was uh very pleasantly surprised that they actually gave us solid information like that at cells that it could be this early in the process which they had been hesitant to do and pass and I know the the three board chairs sent a letter to the plan or to the state uh insisting that we get better information more quickly and hopefully that helped along with the rest of us who were complaining uh next uh we're working with several local towns with that advance to uh and form a cooperative for special ed transportation and we've gotten a quote from an advance that will allow us to reduce our budget by almost 226 thousand dollars uh heating oil and transportation fuel we started the budget process with a higher assumption on pricing and we've been following the markets we have not locked in yet but we did get a uh a quote a week or so ago that's trending in the right direction so we're going to and the town is doing the same thing as us going with the these rates and the plan is to lock in in February or March and even though we will have submitted our budget by then then the town will adjust up or down depending on the information we get um salaries we've been a lot going through a lot of the salary accounts and we've identified a little over twenty four thousand dollars that we can take out uh Eric reported on his fiber win where he could uh since we're going down from five sites to four sites he can reduce almost fourteen thousand dollars uh which uh has a corresponding reduction in e-rate Revenue which is 50 percent again in a regular scrubbing of the budget we've found that we could reduce special education legal fees by five thousand dollars facilities Professional Services by two thousand dollars I got the actual tuition rates from the uh shapog school so I can reduce that by 947 dollars and then we went back to the principles and and asked them to hold certain Supply furniture and Equipment accounts flat from year to year so that allows us to reduce the supplies by thirty eight thousand eight thirty one Furniture four thousand uh instructional equipment twenty five thousand and Do's and fees eleven thousand dollars so all of that adds up to six hundred and seventy seven thousand eight hundred ninety dollars in reductions or 1.39 percent so Dr Burrell's revised proposal is now 50 million eight hundred and two thousand five hundred sixty two dollars or 439 or 4.39 increase foreign so again we start with the 2223 approved budget uh we wanted to highlight the status quo budget drivers you can see the status quo budget is increasing by itself is one million nine hundred thirty one thousand four hundred twenty nine dollars and that's really inflationary um health insurance accounts for 753 000 of that increase uh that's the ten percent uh rate increase assumption on health insurance and six percent on Dental uh salaries is a little less than 732 thousand dollars which is an average 2.4 percent increase which takes into account uh puts and takes among the populations uh general transportation we're under contract for four percent increase plus we're going to be adding two buses to the fleet for the the um uh the go into a two-tier system with the new start times heating oil is a 76 rate increase with no assumption in usage and all of the other accounts add up to a little less than 33 000 some are going down some are going up but nothing significant and then as we've identified before we have savings from moving into Candlewood Lake Elementary School administrator salaries and benefits a little over 157 thousand dollars uh we are adding the dean of students role to the middle school and removing the Spanish FTE that has made unnecessary due to our reconfiguration so there's no net cost to that we will be adding cost for natural gas we'll be reducing our oil heat because we don't have to heat Center school anymore and reducing our electricity because we don't have to pay for electricity at Center School and as you may or may not know Huckleberry is all electric heat so that saves quite a bit so that's 302 540 reduction uh security the Town arpa Money covered all of it in 2223 we're adding five security monitors who are all on board at this moment including benefits and uniforms for 228 649 dollars and then the Investments we have the continuing of the ARP s or phase-in which is salary for a social worker salary for a science instructional coach and a partial salary of the technology integrator for a total of 214 379 and then the other investment we made is the reallocation from contracted services for bcbas to adding our own BCBS with the net cost of 64 497 and again that comes down to 50 million eight hundred and two thousand five hundred sixty two dollars 2.1 million dollar increase over the current Year's budget so do I read that that the total increase is 2.1 million and 1.9 is inflationary yes that's correct I just wanted to make sure I read that clearly yes okay I'd be happy to take any questions do you want to make any comments from their our reviews yeah um we had talked at our um our most recent special Finance meeting uh last night so I wrote down some notes um because I thought it was important to detail the work of the finance subcommittee we had what you see in your section 3 of your binder we divided up those budget summary sheets between Bob joy and myself so each had about 25 line items to inspect and not only those summary sheets but we also had access to detailed some detailed budget sheets from each department that were submitted on the school level so we could see everything down to the number of pencils and baseballs and chairs and so we were able to question how those items were budgeted the rationale behind them at a really granular level um and as a committee um you know we were very keenly aware that bringing forward a budget even at this size which is great from where we started um but it was going to be really tough for many of our taxpayers um to support so we were um very much focused on being as prudent and economical as possible with our suggestions to um the administration and through this process as you can see we were able to make several adjustments that have helped the budget overall the document that Ken mentioned we documented every question that was asked in that Google doc and as a committee we've been discussing this budget since November a little bit before it was actually presented to this board we've met every single Monday um since then um including up to um last night and um so I have to give a lot of credit to Ken for answering so many questions um and also the building principles for doing the same because they contributed to the responses to that Google doc which you um will soon see once it's formatted nicely all 30 plus pages of it and that will also be a public document um and I think year after year of doing it this way has really made it um easy to demonstrate that the budget is really constructed from the bottom up in a very responsible way and it makes it easy for the board of Selectmen and the board of Finance to really see the work that we've put into it and see that it's something that we can stand behind um so last night as a committee we did vote unanimously um to support this budget as presented with the adjustments that you just saw um Dr Bill mentioned there's a few comebacks that will continue to talk about um but as a committee we feel that despite the huge challenges that we're facing with inflation which is what we're seeing tonight health insurance which is really I mean for all intents and purposes the the reason we're seeing the increase that we are um this budget is actually very frugal so we support it fully as a committee can I take a moment to also give credit to Joan Reynolds our accounting supervisor who did a lot of the work putting pulling the budget together and a lot of the uh work researching uh the responses of the questions yeah thank you I'll I'll just make one or two comments I did all the salary and uh and uh and benefit stuff I was that that health insurance that says 753 on our chart but that's after our share uh you know the employee Shares are taken out and the fact that we've been negotiating contracts to increase those shares over time the actual impact of the health insurance is a million dollars right I mean it was stunning to me what is going on with health insurance for a little District like ours so um it's uh I can't imagine what it's like in some of these bigger you know uh City type of budgets and what that sort of stuff is doing to them so and uh and I the other the comment I'd like to make is there's other than the conversion of two contracted people one and a half contract people the two full-time people and the bcbas there's no increase in headcount in here right there's all there's there's just a matter of it was things were fun and there's no decrease in headcount right there's uh it's just oh then it's all about changing it from uh grant funding to uh to budgetary funding right as the grant money runs out but I actually went and inspecting all of the categories whether it's teachers Paras nurses there's it it actually proves out there's no change in head count um and uh because they're all people we hired this year or before it's just a matter of you know who funded it so John I've got to say that when when the Ford of Finance spoke to us when we first did the arpesser stuff they said you're making all your investment decisions now for the next three to four years and you stood by that so yeah someone will say thank you for that so that's a hard thing to do thanks for that acknowledgment Bob and the other thing I do have to to thank can on the work with Energy savings and obviously all the work we've done with the administrative team um we did talk way back with Candlewood Lake in the consolidation that we would uh look to achieve some savings and even with inflation and everything else we still have done that as well and that's really important to acknowledge okay so look um any questions from the board I do we do have one comeback item that we need to talk about tonight before we approve the budget but any questions on this presentation from Ken that's actually pretty good news Ken so thank you yeah I have a question or comment um I love all the savings that we were able to find and I appreciate all the work that went into that um looking at the list of identified adjustments you know it all seems like most of them are things where we were able to negotiate a better rate or we were able to look at usage and decide that figure out that we weren't going to be using as much fuel or or um oil but the two numbers that really stood out to me and kind of sting a little bit are the instructional supplies held flat and instructional equipment held flat and I feel like those are the two things that directly impact our teachers and our students and I just wonder I mean I just did quick math and if we added those back in it doesn't make a huge what I don't think is a huge increase in the overall number or could we compromise and instead of holding those numbers completely flat could we fund part of their requests so I think amongst us Rosa you had those line items you went through with them yeah that was a question that I asked um not that long um you know I had specifically asked it would that create any kind of hardship and the building principles were asked specifically that question and they said no right so um we felt comfortable you know supporting those Productions just to put in context even if after taking that taking it flat there's still a total of 361 thousand dollars or sorry 367 thousand dollars in the budget for instructional supplies and also um it's important to note that I think that all falls under um um like a what's the line item that all of these fall under because what's driving up some of the increase there um is specifically uh like office supplies so like paper and stuff like that was really affected by inflation so that that specific account got an increase whereas these could be held a little held flat and comfortably so they were when they say instructional supplies and equipment it's not necessarily there are different line items within that it's not necessarily like um manipulatives and things the kids are using in science or math or or yeah I mean we would have to ask the principals to dig in line for line and they're gonna have to make some choices as to what's the priority to purchase out of the level funding line that's the discussion we had I just feel like you know I feel like our staff is careful to not ask for a lot of unnecessary things so if they're you know to to not spend that money I don't feel like it's a it's I don't feel like it's such a huge number that we shouldn't look at ways to to fund it but if you guys feel comfortable I didn't see the items that were on those lists so you know if you've really thoroughly looked at it and you support it then I guess it's okay but but those two items just really stood out to me yeah I mean those those particular buckets are very long long lists um but but yeah um overall you know the the principles were asked and so I felt comfortable once you know as long as that was you know a box that we checked that we asked them and so that I was comfortable with it okay okay thank you um any other questions or comments right so before we go about we ought to do the comeback because there's been a number of board uh members who've asked privately and also at our last meeting about this Dean of student physician that's in the budget so I think you had to come back order I did so so I'm gonna invite Dean up and I'll give a little context as Dean is walking up he has a couple of slides he wants to share for the the rationale behind why a dean of students which I alluded to back in December um but just for some context as a reminder with the consolidation and and the right sizing of uh of Western ear to uh to a three grade model we are eliminating um there's currently a principle and two assistant principles we're eliminating one assistant principal position from whiskaneer and moving that position to Candlewood Lake the assistant principal supervises half or 400 of the kids now that we're moving and we'll be moving uh so that's 400 students that position will move to Candlewood Lake with 200 students but 200 students that are being supervised and by in the current model will remain at Whiskey near so it's just for context there the other pieces I did bring up the concept of the dean of students last fall when we started to have some initial conversations of the structure at Whiskey near so it's a concept that's been around we've been talking about but it's really important to to know that this is this really when Dean was thinking of needs of his students knowing the school for as long as he's known the school and how it operates um from his perspective this was something Dean brought forward to me as a superintendent into the team and you know I was behind so that's why it's been brought forward in in the planning going forward with all of the transition but I'll leave Dean to bring forward and then answer questions about all right well thank you for giving me the opportunity to come back tonight to to speak about the importance of this position and what it does in my mind to truly be able to continue to Foster that positive and safe environment and school climate it's built on strong and mutually respect um students and family relationships this position in turn continues to help students staff families feel safe valued and respected um I actually had started this conversation as Dr Brill talked about you know over a year ago a year and a half ago because I felt so strong with the need to be able to continue to provide for our students um for those of you that do remember last time I got up here to speak to the board about the importance of a position it was about 10 years ago when I spoke about the fifth grade counseling position and how important it was to be able to service the needs of our students obviously with everything that has gone on uh post pandemic 2 positions like a position like this in my eyes makes it vital so with this position why why is it necessary with this position I think about uh one of the things I think about is maso's hierarchy of needs for our students we all know the physiological needs the physical needs that um students and and and even adults have food clothing shelter etc those are things that happen from home um before kids even come to school but when they get to us the the needs of safety needs feeling safe and secure at school and having that social stability and consistency of a excuse me an adult consistency in school is is huge that belonging and love we all know the importance of friendships especially for our students and strong connections that students make with other students and also the adults in the building if we can't meet those basic needs it's difficult to get students to achieve to the best of their ability build confidence in themselves and to become Unique Individuals that we really want to help to Foster as they go to the high school and graduate from Brookfield High School so just as a quick uh Panorama survey that you know that we do every year some important stats that I point out yearly to our staff is about making students and families feel safe and welcome I have with these stats I understand and know that these stats don't come from just one person and we're only successful because of our whole team this position helps to make us that complete team so just some of those stats of the last four years one of the things again I point out to our staff because it's so important uh to me is school is a safe place for my child over the last four years we've averaged 93 for the parents who again who took the survey school is a mostly safe place for my child 90 School environment is carrying in support of 93 percent the principal and assistant principal are available and willing to listen to parents 95 percent as I move through my slides tonight I hope that you will see these recurring themes as I go forward that I'm going to talk about number one student support and engagement we all know that students are engaged and feel supported that student achievement will increase this is done this would be done with this position by assisting teachers and administrators with student management fostering positive and constructive student behaviors and engagement next would be family connections this position would help build a strong positive and joyful School climate and culture create safe and productive classroom environments and be and be close to our students and Families the daily School operations this person will have a great pulse on the school community Through collaboration with students staff and serve as a strong and visible Mentor for our students and you'll again you'll see the themes as I go through for each one now I don't normally put a lot of words on slides because I always talk to some people's like I know you can read right the reason I did put um these on here because I know this is something that will be posted to the website in the presentation and I didn't want community members to lose out if I just put like something like being visible in the school I want them to really understand the depth in the depth of a lot of these things that we talk about because we all know that when we are not in a position or say in a school or I don't work in a certain business I don't really know everything that goes on I could think I know but I really don't understand that everyday uh operations and things that do go on so I apologize for so many words I did try to underline some so there could maybe uh pinpoint certain things but being visible in classrooms hallways cafeteria and arrival and dismissal again this is that whole idea of building those relationships collaborative with our teachers counselors nurse Administration for those student support interventions what are those interventions it could be academic socially Behavior attendance anything like that that they could be helping out with those support interventions and again they're part of that team not any one person when we do things with intervention it's not with just one person necessarily it's with a team approach accessible to engage with students individually or small group to be proactive before conflict arises a lot of people don't realize if you or you're not in education but don't realize how many proactive conversations our teachers have really are any one of our staffs when we see conflict or things starting to brew is like I said it was starting to happen I'm watching I could see the interaction between two people two uh students that I'm going to try to interact and when you know the students and you know their the situations that have happened in the past you know this person may be a new person but they will learn those things I can tell you if I go into the cafeteria and my assistant principals do that assistant principals do we know I know Deb and Sharon have a little something going on and I can see something starting I'm going to walk over there I'm going to pull them together I pull students together sort of our APS are so do our counselors social workers we all do and have those conversations but they're not in the cafeteria they're not always in the hallways where they this person would be one of those people that uh would be con it would be one supportive in developmental guidance lessons with our school counselors again just another resource participate in planning coordinating engaging co-curricular activities and establish so that's this engagement part and establish expectations for student attendance conduct and learning performance aligned to to ruler consistent support for staff to be proactive in interactions with students and families a 10-week weekly team meetings which I will point out later that uh our fifth and sixth grade assistant principal does at this time and a shared responsibility with with the principal assistant principal and school climate leadership team for the safety Health and Welfare of our students the next one family connections maintain positive ongoing communication relations with our families um you the this position May and also have more of that maybe our at-risk students or students that are fall more on our radar that there may be more communication with those with those families but it doesn't mean that's the only those are the only families that there would be communication with ensure families experience a sense of welcome and belonging promote shared accountability for students academic and behavioral performance coordinate regular timely communication with families regarding student conduct obviously that's like behavior and academic achievement meaning students that are falling behind in grades um as as part of that respond to family concerns properly and effectively that's really important communicate and meet with families regarding student conduct and find ways or talk about ways to improve that behavior organize family learning opportunities for Middle School families around it could be academic expectations could be social media pre-adolescent development in middle school students parenting tips I like to always I like to talk about the emotional rollercoaster of being a middle school student I mean all those things are important plan and coordinate the sixth grade student orientation with the families but also with the cles staff and administration because prior to this those students coming to visit which currently has been the fifth grade for many years um our assistant principal 56 goes down and speaks with the principal and also every single teacher about students that they're they're concerned about with scheduling so on and so forth so that is also um you know a very very important thing that we do every year before we even start our scheduling and it liaison to community organizations that can help support our students and families you know some will say well we have a social worker that does that works with uh within the community and organizations true but also with this person as another uh person to be able to um to be on let's say it's Brookfield cares in in situations and uh organizations like that that again we're looking to help support our students and their families in need and then obviously comes with the territory down The Daily School operations supervision of cafeteria lunch waves now will only have three instead of four um but currently you know our fifth and sixth grade principal does the fifth and sixth grade and seventh and eighth does that so that's an hour out of their day this now would be a supervision of lunch ways there'd be three of them and the importance of arrival and dismissal for that 15 to 20 minutes in the morning and afternoon as we know these are the chaotic uh times of the day manage everyday behavioral issues uh initiate bullying investigations follow up with and I know years ago we had this conversation about the amount of time and uh it goes into when you do have for instance any just regular referral that comes to you or there's a situation the amount of time that it takes and we have to investigate and things like that and obviously when it becomes into initiate the bully bullying investigations it's a little bit of a different level but following up with the appropriate consequences including restorative practice and communicating that with families staff and paperwork as part of of the due process and making sure it's in in a just and fair manner that this is done collect data could be formal informal regarding School climate culture and the support structures that we have to improve those existing structures and overall School climate and culture collaborate with staff on Intervention systems some of our behavioral interventions and engagement opportunities for students including our after-school non-athletic activities that we currently have or look to maybe start facilitate implementation of our restorative practices and oversee against the the the part that you have to do is oversee our detention issues that we have um Crisis Support is a consistent leadership in collaboration with Administration and mental health staff again that consistent uh person uh work with Administration and school resource offer to maintain safety uh excuse to maintain safety and build relationships with our students and our parents so just to kind of again to give you just a general idea currently the fifth and sixth grade assistant principle there's about 380 students between the two grades about 190 sixth graders will remain again that number may be 200 by next year uh supervise this person supervises 17 teachers of those 17 seven will go down to class and 10 of them will remain of those it'll be split between myself and the assistant assistant principal so that means there's 47 teachers to still be evaluated during that time I'm sorry what's that oh um and again just to give an idea evaluation so just if there was five more uh of that ten if I split and I took five of those and Mr Bernard took five that add that is another 20 meetings because there's four different things that you do with goals mid-year review of practice end of the year and then 10 to 15 observations depending on the teachers that we're observing uh this person supervises fifth and sixth grade lunch waves like I told you sixth grade obviously would remain coordinate substitute in the many coverages that are needed during the day to cover for for uh meetings uh ppts um emergency things that come up that we have to uh cover for uh weekly meetings with uh fifth and sixth grade this uh Miss Gordon does 5A and 5B and 6A and 6B so that's uh weekly meetings responsible for fifth and sixth grade discipline student scheduling and staff assignments uh in the in obviously in the summer before school starts but also throughout the year the changes that we have Benchmark and SBA testing fifth and sixth fifth grade student orientation family night again which would now be sixth grade and our fifth grade in uh fifth and sixth grade survey meetings uh which are every other week and just as a an idea student conduct and physical emotional well-being in fifth and sixth grade this was last year there was 125 decimal referrals seventh and 8th grade 190 discipline referrals obviously if if we even said it was cut in half which it wasn't perfectly half you know it'd be half of 125 uh discipline referrals that um come off so again I would just wanted to be able to tell you that so you give you a context of some of the things and and I have to say there's there's so many more things that uh June does Miss Gordon does um but I just those are some of the ones that I wanted to just point out to you if you have any questions comments so in addition to I know you'd mentioned uh the two assistant principles currently we have guidance counselors for each grade correct yep uh social worker assigns the building yep five through eight a school psychologist assigned to the building sure just want to clarify that yep any questions so if I if I if I get the gist of it yep um you've got three administrators today which means the two remaining administrators have to pick up the supervisory duties that are left behind including a bunch of evaluations and the like and still have to cover more students and so is the fundamental issue that two of you can't handle all that added load with uh losing losing a full administrator for half the population and that kind of the gist of it and half the stuff and on top of it it's middle schoolers which are probably in the most I mean I talked I'm just going to tell a little Side Story I called my daughter who's a guidance counselor in a middle school in Vermont and I said so how many administrators you got in your middle school and she told me it was she has this much smaller school and it was two and she said well how big's your school and I said well it's almost uh it's right now it's going to be about 600 right give or take a little a little bit less and she goes oh man you need like five or six so she says she says these are six seventh and eighth graders dad you can't let I think the word she used was you can't let the inmates run the uh the the zoo so uh and we as educators of course if you guys want more normal but I don't want you to see that as this could we do it years ago I'm telling you before the pandemic years ago we had three people and there was over a thousand kids in our school I'm telling you that was a long that was a while ago that was probably 10 years ago um but it's it's just a it's it's different in in many ways um in my eyes it doesn't and I want to say Controlled Chaos but that is Middle School and a lot of people always say when you say you're in middle school they're like really how do you deal with them and that just that's just the the thing it is and I love it and I I don't want to go to any other uh grades um but there's so many things that need to be addressed my concern and John could tell you when I went to Dr bro when I went to see him was I I see us as we I pride myself as we do the best we can to get out there to be in the hallways to talk to kids to know what's going on to go to the games I I have to tell you and even getting back to parents we do our best I do my best in a timely manner um a lot of those things will be very hard to do because we'll be behind closed doors and or you know again we're going to do that anyway but this person I see as uh as someone that's going to become you know um um that I like to say that pulse of the school because they're going to be out there all the time they're not going to do any evaluations okay that okay that's fine but they're going to be able to pick up with the amount of time that we do I said before fifth and sixth grade Miss Gordon does fifth and sixth grade uh Mr Bernard just seventh and eighth but when things cross the plate if I'm sitting there and a kid comes in and there's something happening Miss Gordon may be in PPT I pick up that discipline I don't wait and say sit there until Miss Gordon gets out of the people like things need to be taken care of to the best of our ability sometimes we may do that for a little bit but that's how we work and I I truly believe in this case I worry about things getting pushed off and then things brewing and becoming worse if we're not able to get to those so I I hope you see that as that it's not trying to make less work because as you can see it's not less work so so I I'm going to ask this question I think I know the answer but I need to make sure it's publicly stated um your proposal here is not an administrator uh correct per se this is a someone in our teacher contract similar to like guidance counselors or in our teachers contract sure um and the reason for that is they're not doing supervision right they're not actually evaluating others and managing others they're doing they're dealing with students strict students families you know the building you know everything going on what kind of percentage savings is it by doing a teacher contract versus administrator is that a it's a cost management it would depend on the yeah so so for example if the the we moved forward and there was a position and there was interviews and someone from within or someone from out of District in the teacher ranks is has many many years of experience they would be higher on the teacher pay scale but they wouldn't be coming in as a early step administrator so there's a differential there if it's a a more a newer teacher to the profession under 10 years for example or something like that then they would they would fall on the teacher salary step in a you know accordingly but that's a lower rate of pay then or in the administrators as a teacher contract is is a cost management effort as well one of the things we talked about is well it's also an activity management thing because because I've always learned you guys have taught me well that the difference between the administrative contract and the uh and and the teaching contract is all about supervision right that's one of the reasons we did what we did on the special ed a couple of years ago is to make sure that the the upper school and lower school administrators could in fact make financial decisions and do uh evaluations and you also have a an hourly um day for teachers versus administrators and in addition to that we did it with the athletic director years ago as well so you could have the those decision makers one thing we would do and post the job is we would prefer that this is a stepping stone so this is an experience opportunity as well a door opener for a future sure so that's that's either you know that is that is uh succession building here in District or if we bring someone in you know uh from the outside is succession succession building as well um and so that's an important piece that we need to remember to that end we would prefer someone who does have an administrative degree they've gone out and gotten their sixth year or something like that um so down the road if there's somebody who's very talented and we want to you know we have opportunity in District we would be in consideration of that so it is a good experienced Builder as well okay that's excellent okay I think I just have while this budget is a very it's a very big number still and this is something that even though it's budget neutral right now um you know obviously not having this position we could recognize even more savings however um I think when we when we saw the results of the academic results back in October I want to say our middle schoolers are really really struggling academically but also very much socially and I think they are that academic part is related to that social part and they need that connection and I think for two main reasons our middle schoolers really really need someone that is I think if we can add supports we should um and also this is the year to do it if we're going to do any other year right if we if Dean you know a couple of years from now it says you know things are really slipping we really do need an extra hand it's going to be a big increase to whatever budget that is um I think now is sort of the time to sort of capture that FTE [Music] can I you just maybe think of something when you look at these discipline referrals that is one that's when we say discipline referral as a teacher that's something that's finally written up we all know how many times warnings are giving how many conversations you have so these numbers don't even indicate the amount of conversations that you'll see June at the counselors the social work that they're having ahead of time but mostly again just talking about with the aps the conversations and things that they do then contact the counselor to help out with mediation or whatever it may be that to us the most important thing is students learn why that was you know inappropriate behavior what could you do differently the next time where did you go wrong so they learned so we don't continue to see now some kids have a harder time learning that that skill but you don't this has no idea the amount of time those take because those are just as important as a kid to be written up that's the Punic part I get it there's consequences at time but the most important thing is that the the student learns you know it's not just saying you you were wrong go sit in the detention room type thing so thank you for talking about that because there's a lot the social aspect you do not uh really it's hard to to put that in in numbers of how much different that is the last so many years than it was before and I love every part of that part of my job but it is a lot more difficult yeah not just students and staff and if I could just make one other observation um to kind of also add on to capitalizing on this opportunity we've talked a lot about over the last since I've gotten here over the last six months about creating cles as a school Community this is recreating WMS as a new school community and um you know Dean and Ed are have been there and that's really important to have that kind of administrative oversight and institutional knowledge but having that connection between teachers and administrators or staff and administrators and families and administrators to help build that sense of community I I have never been so appreciative of middle school and the important aspect of the formative experience of middle school since the pandemic and I've seen it and I think that probably any High School teacher or person who lives in a high school would say over the last two years the current 9th and 10th graders when they missed out on middle school has been so impactful for them not only academically but socially emotionally behaviorally cognitively they just it's been so I've been astonished in my own my own personal life and also um as a former High School administrator so I just can't tell you how much I think this could help rebuild that sense of a of a school Community because it's going to be an opportunity all right any further questions for Dean um I don't have a question but I was just gonna say although I you know agree that you know adding supports could potentially you know help but I think most important is really looking at our current supports that we have in place and really capitalizing on those improving the systems within that we have currently um to really kind of strengthen our path moving forward you know looking at ways to improve what we already the systems we already have in place improving engagement student management strengthening connections and things like that um I don't think that we necessarily have to make a shift like that in order to re-look at you know the supports that we already have and improving that in those areas okay um so I'll just I'll just get my comments on this I'm supportive of this position but I'm supportive after having listened to some of the discussion because uh and just remembering back to what we learned about the situation with kids right now right and uh you know some of our discussions here is that we need to make a first priority you know getting kids recovered from the pandemic impacts so this wouldn't be the time for me to stretch the leadership so thin that they can't focus on that right they can focus on the wholeness of the kids so while I I actually understand what you're saying Joy I kind of agree that with the number of people we have in the Middle School There's an opportunity there this wouldn't be the year I would do that I'd do I'd actually put this in where we can and then let's look at it next year and look at it the year after look at the year after with the thought of is there a time when we can get down to two administrators and then the other support staffs that we have I think it's something we shouldn't let go away but I support this mostly because of what we all agreed as a board that this is the time to focus on the recovery of our kids and I just don't I've listened into the numbers floating on there I just worry that what will end up happening is you'll end up you know stretching yourself so thin you don't do that and and I think Joy's point is really flows through Anna right to Dean in terms of looking at our existing Staffing instead of two to enhance and strengthen what we have is all part of this which is that opportunity for school community building which we can certainly do so I try to be thoughtful on it but it's uh and it's a hard one because you don't want to go put in staff that you don't you might not need but I just timing is everything to me so oh I did have one quick question how many um parents took the survey uh uh do you remember like 30 I think normally it's like about 30 percent there's a 20.
I've seen the various board members come and go and I have never experienced such a dysfunctional board Dynamic than in the last two years lately the meetings have been very difficult to watch November's meeting was very disturbing and hurtful to hear Dr Lee Attack the virtue of our students it upset many high school students and has been a popular topic on campus but most importantly it upset my children and that's when Mama Bear comes out to address the issue her comments regarding racism homophobia and needing to take action and training to shift the culture of our district were offensive her comments came across to my children as generalizing the student body and staff as being racist and homophobic although it may not have been what she actually meant that was how it was interpreted by my children unfortunately Dr Lee was not present last month to witness the presentation by our high school leadership group on the various ways that they have been changing the culture and dynamics of our school if she has ever attended any school event she would see that she is wrong changes are being made to include our various cultures and dynamics of the district I feel her comments were inappropriate and request a public apology Dr Lee I see that you may have some good intentions and ideas but your hostile approach and tone make it very difficult for your ideas to come to fruition I feel your constant criticism of our district has blinded you to the efforts and achievements of our admin staff and most importantly our students you speak of wanting to see more inclusion in celebrations of diversity yet at our High School's First ethnic event in November by the Hispanic youth leadership Club you didn't even take the time to show up to the event congratulate or even give accolades in your board report are you pushing empty requests for diversity or did this event not fall into your particular category of diversity You Preach diversity yet regarding the policy to verify your residence one of your arguments was that no other district has this policy am I to assume that diversity only applies when it's beneficial to your agenda you claim that showing your verification of residency is immoral do you also feel this way when you are requested to show identification at any other establishment you seem to be the only person who is not complying with this policy is this violation of policy going to be the norm for you am I I am curious as to what are the ramifications of consistent policy violation has the community elected of representative who feels she is entitled to vote to violate policy and openly promote this to our youth as she did in November's board meeting in the last two years the district's attorney the district's attorney has been called upon several times for issues that were cried out upon as being legal or not costs for attorney fees regarding our school board matters alone in the last two years was twenty four thousand dollars which comes out of our District's General funds money that should be used towards the benefit of our students our district and our community in November's meeting Dr Lee mentioned illegal and seek legal counsel numerous times how much more money are we going to spend on attorney fees for the duration of her term I feel that it may be beneficial for the community to nip this unnecessary spending of General funds in the bud and petition for a recall I'm sorry to interrupt you but the three minutes is up so you might want to wrap up I'm sorry done my drop [Applause] ready comments thank you thank you is there any other public comments from the audience present is there any online comments Miss hunt okay I have one person online with their hand raised please unmute your mic hello hello hello hi please state your name hi please state your name hold under the brown act I don't have to do that okay but I'm I'm calling in um because I have some concerns some very serious concerns about my child in your school district and I think that there is a lot first of all I would like to State I don't know any of I've never met any of you but I'm very concerned about things that my child has experienced in your school district and I really do think that there is an issue of prejudice and if prejudice is found to be true then you would have issues of racism and I grew up in segregation so I don't have to think of things off the top of my head I have lived through and in my experience and certainly getting the history of African-Americans in Los Angeles to various riots you can see there were issues and still remaining issues of racism but I wanted to talk about um the letter that I sent to all of you about the prophetic attitude at Dudley at Dudley it is just unbelievable how thoroughly the staff is when I try to interact with them I don't know if they're surely or caustic because I'm a person of color or if that is just their normal uh personality but I think it's Unbecoming of them when they are working with students I have had issues with teachers with my little one in your District I'm not going to go into it right now but as I have attended some of your your meeting via teams and the reports that I have been gambling because I'm I'm gathering my experiences and writing reports on what my child has experienced because it has been very dramatic also I would like um you've left the topic so I'm going to respect your agenda in in bullying but I will say bullying doesn't just have to be from student to student it can be teachers and administrators or bullies as well and another thing I would like to know um why there is no posting of PTO meetings at Dudley Elementary School I mean whenever there are committees that involve uh funding from the school or the district or the state this information should be disseminated to all of the people in the community and the parents as well as well as I said previously I sent you all a letter um I heard back the most to you but not all of you in regards to information being in violation of the brown act and if that is the case that is a very serious legal issue then I would hope you would address immediately I do think there are some issues and thank you all Happy New Year thank you um I would just like to say something really quick um during the bullying prevention presentation it mentioned the Catapult can be used to report even anonymously if you choose Prejudice harassment that type of thing so for your concerns regarding your student please do report it so that it can be properly investigated thank you Mr Bruno that's a comments on other comments Miss Carol okay thank you we will continue with the consent agenda do I have a motion to bring the consent agenda to the floor for a discussion quick point of order yes if you don't mind I've been doing the well Paul vote could we please start with Mr Mason because his vote's supposed to be advisory so I no Mr Mason's going to go last this time uh just that way we could keep in mind his perspective and work has to memorize just a request I'm gonna have to deny that right now okay okay sorry make an amendment to that request if we're not going to say that beginning um then we could just say that that's calling for an advisory vote so that it's clear to our constituents and all of us the capacity of the vote thank you thank you for pointing that out I did not do that before I appreciate that Dr Lee okay so um consent agenda I will move to bring it thank you second thank you very much um as discussed we will remove item one two eleven and 18 from the consent agenda do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda as amended go ahead thank you Mrs Anderson do I have a second I'll second okay thank you Mr ballen do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda as amended thank you second I'll second again if I'm not too late again thank you in roll call vote Dr Lee I Mr Bruno aye trustee Anderson aye trustee ballen aye and the advisory vote Mr Mason hi and chair of votes I in regards to consent agenda item one approve adoption of the minutes for December 14th 2022 the regular meeting do I have a motion to approve the agenda or approve the consent number one I will I will still move thank you do you have a second all second thank you roll call vote Dr Lee thank you Dr uh excuse me Mr Bruno hi thank you trustee Anderson aye trustee Valley aye advisory vote Mr Mason chair of outside in regards to consent agenda number two of approve resolution number 2022-23 resolution on board compensation for missing board meeting do I have a motion to approve I won't make that motion thank you do I have a second I'll second thank you Mr ballon roll call vote Dr Lee hi um you would have to abstain please oh only because this is the one related to the Mis meeting last month I apologize uh resolution for board yes that's related to me obscene thank you thank you Dr Lee uh Mr Bruno aye uh Miss Anderson aye Mr ballen aye advisory Mr Mr Mason aye and chair votes I in regards to the consent agenda number 11 do I have a motion to bring it to the floor for discussion so moved thank you do I have a second I'll still move thank you Mr Valen Mr Lair uh yes just uh this has come up a couple different times so I want to just re-uh State the the process for Surplus in books because us as Educators we don't like the idea of books being thrown away and it does come across when you read this that we are done with the books we're getting rid of them so I've had a couple conversations over the last few times and kind of I think we came up with a plan so the board actually approves the Surplus once that happens the materials are then placed on our website for 60 days and then after 60 days we then have the ability to pass them out to students uh sell them if that was appropriate sometimes you of textbooks we end up do selling them there's other like a private schools that might buy them and so one of the ideas that came up once we get through all that we typically would recycle the materials so it was brought to my attention one other option we can do is put word better word out to our community when it gets that time that we have these books these are library books that were either um damaged or out of date irrelevant information things like that but if we can get them in the hands of a family a student why wouldn't we so one of the options that we're looking to broadcast at is in our weekly or bi-weekly messages we will communicate with all of our families that we have these take a look here's a link to where they actually we actually post every title on a PDF and if parents want that they can connect with the district and we can make it accessible to them so they could get those so I think that was a great uh option that I was was brought to my attention so I wanted to let the board know that's something that we are going to be pursuing and hopefully having less go to landfills and more go into our students hands and communities hands is it possible is it possible to put some of the books in the book boxes some of our elementary school has book boxes actually it's funny we had a we were joking today we were saying if we knew the community libraries we could drive around and fill those up with some of the books um so yes we absolutely could put them in that and then also as we're driving down Black Eagle or whatever it may be if we see a little Library we could certainly awesome add a couple there so I know Mr Jordan and I spoke about that this morning so we'll make sure we just the idea is just if we can get him in someone's hands before they get to a recycling place I think it's better for a great idea for anybody that doesn't know the public library also does that like once a year or something they'll have huge Book Sales where you can pick up books moving on consented I just want to approve that so we can oh yes thank you consider it thank you thank you thank you let's do that let's approve consent agenda number 11.
was that red yet no yeah before we do that do we need to move 13. um so at this point we will close 13 for discussion and uh we should do a roll call Mr Bell yes Mr Dawson yes this is Xena yes just Lima yes yes Miss moosen Mr minhas yes Miss High yes Mr Januzzi yes motion passes great when you're up to item 14. resolved with the Bound Brook Board of Education approves the resolutions as outlined in approval of HIV cases in the middle and elementary schools this is 14.2 and 14.3 I have a motion motion thank you Mr bowel II second thank you Mr Dawson uh Mr Gorski I'll refer to you again for an amendment Mr Januzzi uh on number 14.