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[Music] foreign [Music] foreign I would like to resume this meeting of the Evesham Township Board of Education would you please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible thank you at this time I'm going to ask board member Janice Knoll to read the mission statement of the Board of Education the mission of the Evesham Township School District is to promote excellence in an environment that engages students in meaningful learning experiences in partnership with students dedicated staff families and Community the district provides a strong Educational Foundation that will Empower our students too achieve their unique potential Embrace self-directed lifelong learning develop the skills necessary for appropriate risk taking and responsible decision making respect themselves and others problem solved individually and collaboratively become contributing members of a diverse Global Society thank you Mrs Norm Dr Smith the floor is yours to begin presentations I know I think I'll skip the uh I actually probably from the last year so if students and a staff member we're going to start with our staff member Mark housel I saw him I thought that's not gonna go mark come on come on come on come on down come on down so so Mark um and this is Ryan Mr canthan would you mind joining me so um Mark was named the Mr Hazel was named the 2023 shape America eastern district teacher of the year and Elementary physical education and is in the running if I understand for potential National recognition which you'll find out when you go to the National Conference right coming up in March I want to say um and uh one might think that an award of this magnitude would be a surprise no matter who got it but I have to say um having been with you in in your uh PE classes that it was probably the least surprising of all the possible surprises for me just because um I think like if somebody wants to see what what does PE look like in the year 2023 compared to in the year 1985 or 1995 or 2005 or it would they would need to come and see your class because um of the creativity and the uh sort of um the multi-layeredness I guess of of all the deliberate decisions of planning on your part to make it not just about say physical activity but also incorporate thinking skills and social skills and creativity and ways to activate interdisciplinarily all kinds of capabilities of kids and and from that basis this is just holy holy wonderfully earned and we couldn't be more proud of you as our staff member to represent yourself and our district at the National Convention so congratulations mark [Applause] we can get a picture killer awesome here's our next step [Applause] it's great so we're gonna before yeah before the student awards we're actually going to have a special Musical presentation so if our students wouldn't mind um assuming the stage and we'll give you time to set up um so these I'll just a little background as they're walking up there these students are members of the all South Jersey string ensemble and they are from YouTube you know and we're so proud of them and they are accompanied by our wonderful music teacher Miss Smith so sure hi everyone I'm Sarah Smith I'm the orchestra director here at demacie and these students auditioned they had to play some pretty difficult things they had to play scales they had to play a really hard solo piece like think concerto and they had to look at a piece of music for only 30 seconds and then be expected to play it and they were graded and they were given scores and the highest scoring students were selected for the all-star jersey string Ensemble which you see six of our demacie students up here and we could not be more proud of them tonight they're going to play a piece that they performed at Rowan University called Libo Tango by Astor piazzolla and they let me play with them as a bonus I feel honored yeah that was absolutely incredible musicians that was so fantastic I wish we could just stop now and just applaud you and and go home because there's nothing that could Better Could Happen your night than that um but we have a little bit more for you because we yeah you haven't actually gotten your um chance to be a little bit embarrassed and come up here and get a certificate and handshakes and all that so um so I think what I'll do is I'll call you up one at a time and then each person who received certificate if you can just stay hanging out up here so we can do a group pick at the end um so we'll start alphabetically with raelyn Ambrosio foreign [Applause] ER [Applause] uh Alexander Lightfoot [Applause] congratulations Bruce Novoa [Applause] congratulations RNA Sethi [Applause] and Esther you [Applause] so we want to say one left before we do tons of picks Paparazzi stuff one last round of applause these are the members of the all South Jersey Junior High School string ensemble we look forward to hearing you play many more times to come and so at this point that's usually at the part where um and I can only imagine with a lot of practicing that there's less time for homework although I will say that dedicating oneself to a uh a discipline like music does encourage high levels of self self management and time management right so I imagine they're they're very good at all that too but um but we didn't we wouldn't want to hold them up if you everyone want who's here for the student presentations or the presentation wanted to uh go home and do maybe more fun things than the rest of the agenda you're welcome to we won't take offense if you want to stay you're welcome to stay board meetings can be fun too but usually people think there's more fun things than board meetings so this meeting will now be open to the public referencing agenda items only however if your questions or comments pertain to litigation student or Personnel items or negotiations we ask that you see the superintendent after the meeting since we do not discuss these matters in public please limit your comments to three minutes per person anyone willing to speak good evening name and address please 106 Williamsburg Court I wanted to talk about two things a night maybe I won't have time for my first three minutes here then I can just follow up during the open public comment uh regarding items 8.2 which is field trips and 11.2 which is the HIV policy so with field trips I'm a big believer in field trips and uh you know given the the pandemic and whatnot I know from my child's own experience that we didn't have that many my question is is cost a prohibitive factor in executing and if you're shaking your head yes then okay yeah because that's that's where we tied the academics to the real world that's how we connect the dots for the students right and so you know I saw that we had some field trips and it's just going up the road for read Across America or challenge for America or some to that effect but zero cost worthy but at the same time broadening you know our ability to have more and take advantage of those opportunities so hopefully if if cost is not a factor and if it is then you know I'd be willing to push forward to see that you know we're able to get our funding it does the right thing for our students regarding 11.2 which is the HIV policy so it's good to see that we're updating the policy um the one thing that I just wanted to uh connect with y'all tonight was um regarding HIV there's a lot of factors within the policy that seem more reactionary than proactive and I understand that that's something that is you know limited by the New Jersey you know student learning standards of what you can do however I just wanted to relay something that we did in my district when I was on the board and we connected the Arts to those policies so we had upperclassmen from drama and theater come to the other schools and put on skits for Relevant topics what this did was create a great sense of empathy with our students because in real time when there are disagreements or anything you know culturally relevant that's that's going on kids see it play out in front of them but they don't see what happens afterwards the kid is being bullied kids are kind of bystanders they see what's going on but they never get to hear the inner voice of the child that's bullied and seeing that play out from their peers and the all of it you know when they put it on in a dramatic way it connects with them in some ways that we can't through you know normal academic means so I was just curious if maybe that was something that we could you know look towards incorporating you know maybe our upperclassmen from you know our district or incorporating Cherokee to you know do things for our kids that they could at least look at and not necessarily imitate but have a greater sense of empathy for their fellowclassmen that's my time thank you thank you very much okay just I just want to I'm just going to address a few things just follow up to your very welcome comments on those two topics and uh first uh kind of going to reverse order but the suggestion about the power of I mean we we will gladly add that into we do we do ongoing trainings and programs throughout the year and want to make sure that we add your suggestion into our considerations um and I like actually both those topics that you brought up kind of connect through the idea of High School working with K-8 District you know you mentioned the read Across America little Chiefs and then the idea of um because there's such a strong drama program at the high school so um we'll gladly look into that and see what we could do um the the field trips piece you know absolutely uh the value of field trips to um connect learning with the larger context for kids um the and we are we've we've Under the Umbrella of as we've been trying to bring back everything that kind of like was um put on pause during covid field trips has been something that we've continued to look at this year like the trip like the the first graders that go to Cherokee for little Chiefs that lends itself better than a lot of trips in um from the standpoint of the proximity of Cherokee and and the biggest challenge that we're facing right now as we talk about it is um the uh the availability of drivers in a reliable way like to be able to plan a trip collect the money book the different pieces and then know when that day rolls around that that we're actually going to be able to have the drivers that we need to get the kids there and back um so we're we are we're actually having conversation right now administratively to to to the the best diligence that we can make those trips possible [Music] um and um unfortunately like right now it feels it's it's still going to be good work even if it doesn't work out in the way that we wanted to based on availability because we'll have it again to apply forward to next year but um the particular phase that we're in right now with our drivers is um very uh we're very sh were particularly short right right now due to a few um drivers being out for for some health reasons and other things um which are making it uh look making and I I'm like try to be an optimist uh but um but they'll like my inner person my inner realist is telling me that um it might be a bridge too far uh to achieve the types of things we want to do with field trips for the rest of the year but we're we're gonna screens what we can out of out of the capacity that we have I I'm just glad you and also if I can add something I'm talking a lot but I just want to add thank you also for offering that if it was a matter of cost to uh to help because um that we do arguing through tough budgetary times and um if that were the factor I would be coming around and try to talk to you after the meeting so I just really appreciate you that altruistic Spirit to offer it so thank you is there anyone else that wishes to speak okay seeing none we are going to close the portion of the meeting there will be another public comment section at the end at this point we're going to move forward with the approval of the minutes I would like a motion to approve item 6.1 6.2 and 6.3 do I have a motion no thank you second Miss Capello thank you any questions or comments from the board okay seeing none roll call please Mr Ashanti Mrs Capello yes Mr physicaro abstain 6-1 and yes to the following six two and six three okay Miss Fox and yes to six two and six three okay Mr Cameron yes Mrs Knoll yes Miss Lee Yes Mrs Ryan yes Thompson I abstain from 6.1 but yes to six two and six straight motion carries thank you point we're going to move to items number seven superintendent's report and administrative items do I have a motion to approve item 7.1 through 7.6 notion by Miss Lee seconded by Miss Noel any questions or comments from the board if not I'm going to give the floor to Dr Smith thank you Mrs Ryan um this week so our students and our schools are participating in great kindness week which is a national campaign kindness challenge week I say that and at the same time I should also add that kindness counts and matters every week in etsd every school is celebrating kindness this week in various ways from whole school meetings at Rice to complement cards at Beeler a coin drive a jaggered to sharing ways to be kind over the announcements and promoting kindness and courage that other District theme of ours so important this year both at school and at home and I just want to thank our our staff for their help in that work their passion and dedication in helping our students learn and to show learn and show kindness as we remember that our our words and our tone and our example as Educators carry tremendous weight kids all of us together students staff families committee members have do have a common stake in spreading kindness world where much can seem beyond control to influence in a positive way the micro moments of countless daily interactions as opportunities to lift each other up is one variable that we can control to choose to be patient to choose to be kind and individually and Collective those micro moments add up majorly and truly matter this month is board School Board recognition month in New Jersey and on behalf of our district and personally I'd like to express deepest thanks to our Board of Education for their countless hours and tireless work all voluntary and dedication to finding the best path forward for our children whose education and growth is nothing less than the single most important responsibility we have as human beings nothing less than that and lastly I'd like to plug two important upcoming events February 9th from 5 30 pm to 8 p.m at Rice Elementary School our district is hosting a job hiring Fair so this is a chance to for folks to learn more about various roles in our district and have help with applying as desired and more info coming out in my update tomorrow and Via other various means um February 9th and then the very next night Friday February 10th is the Evesham education foundation's annual Gala fundraiser double down for Evesham education night which is at the mansion in Voorhees from 7 pm to 10 30 p.m all proceeds 100 of the proceeds benefiting Evesham students um all money raised by the Eastern Education Foundation goes to help evham students in the aggregate amount each annually of around 60 to 70 000 it's incredible work from very dedicated people all year long tickets and sponsorships available at eveshameducationfoundation.org see you there and that ends my comments Mrs Ryan thank you Dr Smith any questions or comments from the board regarding the superintendent's report okay seeing none roll call please Mr Ashanti Mrs capala yes Mr visicaro yes Miss Fox yes Mr s Canton yes Mrs Knoll yes Miss Lee yes this is Ryan yes Mr Thompson yes motion carries thank you moving to item eight curriculum and instruction I would like a motion to approve items 8.1 through 8.3 do I have a motion Mr Thompson Ms Capello any questions or comments about curriculum instruction roll call please Mrs Capello yes Mr physicaro yes Miss Fox yes Mr Kenneth yes Mrs Noel yes Miss Lee yes this is Ryan yes Mr Thompson yes Mission carries moving to item nine finance and operations I need a motion to approve items 9.1 through 9.12 do I have a motion Mr physicaro second Miss Fox any questions or comments pertaining to finance and operations Miss Noel I just wanted to let everybody know Marlton Rotary Club that's a donation under this um section if you remember I believe Marlton rotary club would present dictionaries in the past and I love what they're doing here it says at Rice they're going to donate a little Library so I thank you to them any other questions or comments okay seeing none roll call please Mr Cynthia Mrs capella yes Mr physicaro yes Miss Fox yes Mr Canton yes Mrs Noel yes Miss Lee Yes Mrs Ryan yes Mr Thompson yes motion carries moving to item 10 Personnel I need a motion to approve items 10.1 through 10.9 do I have a motion Mr physacquero Mr Thompson thank you any questions or comments pertaining to personnel Mr physicara I want to speak briefly about one of our retirements that's happening about to approve and that's for Debbie van curen uh Debbie's retiring on March 1st and the reason why I wanted to say a couple words uh on her behalf was that I've had a chance to know Debbie for a very long time in a lot of different capacities she was I was I was a student at Van Zandt when when she first started there back in back in the 80s and she was was and still is a phenomenal teacher uh she's it's something that has never been lost her ability to teach first graders and I in between there I'm not exactly sure where she's moved in in what positions but I know I know her definitively as a first grade teacher and I know there are going to be a lot of parents who are truly going to miss her and and her work and how she is uh touch the lives of so many children over the years I've also had the chance to get to know her as a parent and as a school board member and president she is a tireless advocate for for educators she's a tireless advocate for educators in this district and I always commend her spirit her fortitude and her ability throughout very trying times I mean we've had many conversations over over covid and she uh she is a steadfast leader who's always puts everybody in in front of her her own her her own kids her uh her the staff everybody the district and I want to commend her for a phenomenal career and I want to say thank you for all the service she's provided to this district and that will never be lost thank you Mr Professor Carroll any other questions or comments from the board pertaining to personnel okay seeing none roll call please Mr recently Mrs Capello yes Mr physicaro yes Miss Fox yes Mr Catherine yes Mrs Noel yes Miss Lee Yes Mrs Ryan yes Mr Thompson yes Mission carries moving to item 11 policy I would like a motion to approve items 11.2 do I have a motion Miss Noel Mr Canton I just wanted to point out that this policy is a mandated policy in its second reading so before we ask for a roll call are there any questions or comments from the board okay seeing none roll call please Mrs Capello yes Mr physicaro yes Miss Fox yes Mr Captain yes Mrs Knoll yes Miss Lee Yes Mrs Ryan yes Mr Thompson yes motion carries moving to committee reports does any committee chair have a report they wish to share okay Miss anybody yes thank you the curriculum instruction committee met earlier this week it seems longer than that but it was on Monday and I jotted some notes but I'm I'm going to call my own audible because I have I have to give kudos that was just an amazing performance and the reason I'm tacking it into the curriculum instruction because it is curriculum it's curriculum in action it is just phenomenal instruction it is a robust curriculum it's family support it is just embodies everything of just the wonderful things that are going on in the school district and I'm just I said I'm speechless but I can't stop talking about it it was just amazing for somebody whose musical Talent is limited to hitting Shuffle on her I you know on Spotify so um I'll get back into the actual notes from our meeting we're going to be focusing on a particular content area each month with the curriculum we're going to focused on math and I really love the approach of a balanced literacy approach that was mentioned in the meeting it's looking at building skill sets for students math fluency it's not just rote memorization it's actually building skills and Dr Smith spoke to the great kindness Challenge and we did talk a little bit about that as well it started this week it involves examples of compliment cards and announcements over in the morning announcements of suggestions to be kind activities to connect school to home again just showing that learning is just all around and I love Dr Smith's statement at our meeting was every week is kindness week and I just think that's a wonderful statement so thank you thank you Miss Capello any other committee chairs wish to share okay I have um an update from the PT oh I'm sorry okay go ahead it's not a committee but um the liaison for the wrap room parent to parent group and uh we met last week and um so I want to give you an update on that the group is wonderful the police department has a representative and members of the local clergy as well as Cherokee Lenape Regional so it's a good group and we all report back on things that are going on in the schools and in the community so the wrap room group as you know is uh a group a local non-profit that offers services to support families struggling with addiction or families that have lost a loved one to addiction and so they're there for our community they're located in Marlton and the website is wraproom.org and one thing I wanted to talk about is an event that I didn't know about that the police representative told us about and that was something that took place at Cherokee earlier in January in the evening I don't know if any of you know about it but it was called not even once and there was a movie shown to parents uh about a child in Evesham who died because of drug addiction and so this is part of the health curriculum at Cherokee for seniors so they invited the parents to go that night and watch the film and learn a little bit about what their seniors are learning in health so uh I really thought that was a great idea I loved it and actually there was an article in this week's Marlton sun on the uh front cover about it so um I think that was it that we spoke about as a great group and we will meet again in March thank you Miss no which ties in very nicely to the fact that this week and last week was the lead graduation for our fifth graders at some of the schools in officer Kenner as always that did a fantastic job along with the students um I have a report for the from the ptos and ptas um as you know various classrooms are participating in the kindness challenge Van Zant had candy bar Bingo this week and next week they're going to be celebrating the birthday of their mascot visi and they're kicking off their big fundraiser which is a readathon mes hosted a day at service on Martin Luther King Day about 45 students came in on their day off to make sandwiches put together toiletry kits for a homeless shelter and make cards for nursing home residents they're gearing up for Valentine's ties and Tiaras dance for all mes families and they started to collect donations for their silent auction parents Night Owl event um they are also spending this week celebrating Mr Feldman and his years and years of dedicated service to mes a middle school there will be a Snowball Dance for 8th graders on the 27th of this month and a Chick-fil-A fundraiser which is kind of cool for the Super Bowl weekend MMS PTA is having their eighth grade winner dance on February I mean on January 27th and they're having um um Candy grams and dine out at PDQ and MMS had their new sign installed and Mr Hoffman sent a picture the other day but it looks great I saw it online thank you moving into Old business there is no old business new business there is no new business now we're going to move on to public comment the meeting will now be open to the public referencing any items of Interest however if your questions or comments pertain to litigation student or Personnel items or negotiations we ask that you see the superintendent after the meeting since we do not discuss these matters in public we ask that you limit your comments to three minutes per person and also this section is meant for one comment per person please come on up to the microphone good evening again Mr Scott yeah Evan scott106 Williamsburg Court uh so just to follow up on the previous comment about the HIV policy um so I was thinking as part two of that that while that policy is posted on the school website I'm curious how many parents actually physically see it read it understand it and are able to you know iterate those expectations to their children so I was curious if maybe during the next school year at the very beginning if we weren't able to create a sort of contract where we send home the policy maybe as part of a larger School guidelines or expectations I love setting expectations early and often on big expectations guy in any case having something that you could send home with the child that the parent needs to sign for at the first parent teacher conference so they get to absorb it they get to understand it and then when they come in for that first or teacher conference if they have any questions or then the teacher can prompt them hey were you able to read through the material did you have any questions so that way everyone's on the same page everyone understands the expectations and the consequences for anything that could happen Okay so next thing I'm going to move into just really quick um the governor's educational adequacy report so I know that that might be due this fiscal year I'm not sure if any of you have insight as to when that should come out I know it's every three years and the last one I believe was published in 2020 and it was called the FY 2023 educational adequacy report so I'm not sure where or the timing of that release in any case uh you know previous uh discussions I've had with you is you know inflation it kind of started to go down a little bit and now it's starting to creep back up and looking at world events who knows where we're going to land right and it's unfortunate that you know as our district formulates its budget here we are being faced with you know inflation once again which puts a crunch on our ability to you know educate our kids not that we don't but it just makes it more difficult right we have to find you know ways to be more efficient and and potential sacrifices which I don't think any parent wants to sacrifice any of our programming here so if anyone has any insight as to when that might get released that would be very helpful and instructive because I don't have that answer right now thank you for your time thank you Mr Scott Mr Scott we'll look into the answer to when that when that's going to be released the educational advocacy report um and uh and I also want to um just part of my response just thank you for um among other things also sharing the links about that you mentioned inflation and the fluctuations and um I've shared those links actually with lots of people because they're so it's it's the best uh data view I've ever seen to understand not only nationally but regionally how like within our Philly region where the north New Jersey New York Region how the Consumer Price Index is changing and um how that relates to um that very static two percent local tax levy cap um so uh thank you from the public okay um I am going to at this point um I just have a comment or a little thing I want to read as Dr Smith said it is School Board appreciation month January 2023 is the annual School Board recognition month in New Jersey it's a time to raise public awareness of the roles and responsibilities of local Boards of education and to thank your community school boards for their efforts I couldn't lead this school board without the support and help and diligence from all the members here so I just wanted to quickly just say a few words about the members of the school board Dave Bach he's not here but he's newly elected Board of Education member has a son in the second grade he's currently on the technology and finance committees and is the community outreach chairperson he will be serving as the board liaison for Town Council and planning board and Dave will also be the board representative on the cpag committee Tracy Fox is also newly elected member of the board of education has a daughter in high school she's currently on the curriculum and community outreach committees and she'll be serving as the alternate liaison for the Marlton rec council Town Council and rat room Bill Thompson also newly elected board member has two children under two and will be entering the school district in the next couple years he's currently on the policy and community outreach committees he will be serving as the board liaison for Evesham Education Foundation and moral term rec council but it will also be the board representative for New Jersey School Board Association Jamie Lee serving on her second year as a board of education member while finishing her degree at the University of Delaware she's currently on the curriculum committee and is chairperson of the policy committee which is good practice for her quest for law school she'll be serving as the board liaison for the human rights advisory Council Marion Cappello serving on her third year as a board of education member and has four children of various ages she's currently on the policy and Technology committee she'll be serving as the chairperson for the curriculum committee something she works at in her daily life a nice kanthan serving on his fourth year as a board of education member he's currently vice president of the school board and as such serves on the personnel and negotiations committee with the president myself he serves as a de facto member of the community outreach Finance Tech and Technology committees he also serves as the leadership advisor for various School Board Liaisons Janice Noel serving her sixth year as a school board member she is currently serving on the finance committee and is chairperson of the technology committee Janice also serves as the board representative on the wrap room and is alternate representative for the CPAC committee Joe physicar serving his 100th year as a school board member I mean 14th he was the former Board of Education president and brings unlimited knowledge and experience to the current board he is currently serving as the finance committee chairperson Joe will also serve as the board representative when ballot question is proposed to the public I appreciate every single member of this board of education many thanks to this month and throughout the year and thank you to you Leah um is there any more comments or questions okay go ahead Mr Canton um first of all thanks to you from I think I speak for the whole board I had no idea it was uh board appreciation week so that was cool month month oh we get a whole month a whole month and it's a long month yeah that's a good month all right um on the topic of more things I didn't know about uh Mrs Noel was talking about rap room uh last year I had the opportunity to go to my first rap room meeting I had no idea what wrap room was I talked about this a bit last year um I get to the wrap room meeting Mr Hoffman is there Mr de blasi's there Mr Fitzgerald is there from the Lenape board and then you start learning about what wrap room is and this is an amazing resource right so if there are board members that don't know like probably just me but if there are board members who didn't know what rap room was I encourage you Mr snow to keep talking about it every time there's a meeting so we can get that message out to parents that there's a resource for them for this um for this Avenue so I would encourage you to keep talking about it because if I didn't know definitely other people didn't either thank you Mr Canton any other questions or comments from the board seeing none I will make a motion to adjourn no one wants to make a motion everyone wants to stay here Mr physacaro second Miss Noel thank you all those in favor I okay unanimous at this point we'll see you next time
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
next up is the investment policy which is Court policy 6144 no time to that next up is the cancellation of outstanding checks the the guideline is you can't have any checks that are longer than older than two years our oldest check is barely over four months so we have nothing to report there August 11th is our oldest check in the system so we've done that aspect last up is the fiscal and quantitative indicators which is the packet that's in your that's in there it's got four or five pages printed in color and what you'll see there we have a slight Rebound in ADM from the 2020 2021 year to the 21-22 not not a lot but just a little bit from that year and we also had a slight increase and extend main reason that existed was because we had timing on our grants with the 3s or the two Esser grants and the gear Grant at the end of the year we had quite a bit that was expended and we don't get reimbursed until we asked for that and we don't ask for it till we we asked for it like January 10th so we had additional spins that happened because you have to spend before you can receive the money back so you'll see on the charts it looks just slightly above that it looks like it shows it as a deficit that's only because it's not been received yet and that is all I had to report unless there's any questions do we shop rates every year we had not shopped a rate for I believe about 18 months and when we got the phone call we turned around and got two additional quotes and we went with the one that had the best percentage and flexibility we did have some CD options out there that were a higher percentage than what we went with we need to be able to transfer money on any given day just depending so we did not choose that we chose one at three and a quarter even though there was some CD rates out there 3.6 but we're getting three and a quarter and we could pull money out today put it back in two days and three and a quarter there's no penalties for anything coming out which is going to be a motion in the regular meeting any additional discussion or questions hearing mental entertain a motion to adjourn motion by Chelsea second do we have a second by Travis all those in favor
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
you know we are increasing the dollars we need for Legal Services by twenty five thousand dollars this year we also have a small increase in our technology contract with Apex you know which is still at a very good price for us for the services they provide as the chief technology officer for the schools and the town and then we upgraded our munis platform or I should say we we switch from newness being hosted on our servers to being in the cloud and so we have a higher annual fee that we pay Tyler but we no longer have the hardware replacement costs um or some of the risk associated with that Hardware on site so that's really the bulk of the explanation as to why this particular category is going up 4.6 I'm going to just take you through a little bit of a deeper dive on a couple of the large line items starting with transportation and so here what you see is the total transportation budget is broken out into several major categories the public school routes which is about 53 percent of this budget category those are the the routes that we run every day across the district for our general education students um 982 000 or 23 those are specialized runs for special education students that in their individualized education plans I know we talked a lot about that on Tuesday we are required to provide individualized transportation to you know and from their home to whatever their designated uh learning site is it could be in District but as the board knows we also transport students to out of district schools when they're placed in those schools um fuel equipment and repairs is about 10 of the budget for transportation Student Activity just think of sports band anything that we do after hours we do a budget for that private school routes were required by uh state law to provide transportation for in this case St Bridget students and so that's that three percent we also provide transportation for students who elect instead of going to the high school to go to a boag school or Technical High School such as Wilcox and then we have a small slice of the budget for transportation insurance so that that covers the transportation costs I'm just going to hit you with a couple of highlights about Transportation one I already met our contract increases two percent per year including this year and when we negotiated that contract in June for July of 2019 we did get an upgrade to our Fleet so that we have GPS and cameras in all our buses plus we added the new bus depot facility as part of that contract some of the things that we do that are you know in the ordinary course of trying to make sure that we're effective and and also trying to save as much money as we can you know we have over the years done a lot of consolidation of of our bus routes we do have students you know walking to the bus stop within you know well within the parameters set forth in the board of Ed's policies so that you know students in kindergarten can't walk more than a half a mile to school on that bus stop it's a mile at the elementary level Beyond kindergarten and a mile and a half to middle school and high school so you know we use that as our guideline we are below that you know in all cases but we do work to minimize the number of stops every year we look at where our students are going to be and we adjust the bus stop so that we are running in a very efficient um number of bus routes we did budget just by the way this budget year we budgeted our transportation flat because we had some route consolidation that we knew we were doing we can't do that into next year because we've already started with a lower cost this year um and we do you know where to the extent we can if we could share transportation for our special ed or technical school students with Aces or other districts we we do take advantage of that we also this year installed some software upgrades in fact we replaced the routing software that we use with a new one and it makes it easier and better for our transportation staff to plan the routes but I did want to mention two things one it does provide the capability I want to emphasize this the capability to allow for parent tracking so they know when to expect about home so that is a feature that we can enable when the software is ready and it should be next year also it does provide for turn by turn capability for our drivers it's very specific on the state law we cannot just use a standard GPS and let the driver follow that route because it distracts them from their you know primary duty of you know driving the bus but you know this particular software will allow us to incorporate that in line with state state allowances and then the last bullet on this slide you know the board is aware and the planning committee of the board is has already started looking at what is it we need to do to our bus fleet so that by 2040 we will meet the state's requirement to have a zero emission bus fleet which means all electric buses it's a long way out but we certainly want to incorporate in the next service contract with whatever bus provider it is whether it's a dacco provider Deco or another company but we want to start moving in in the direction of alternate fuel vehicles which could include propane but eventually they have to be all electric a pause there because this kind of ends transportation for now is any questions yes thanks Vincent uh regarding our buses are we still incorporating uh the cameras on the bus on some of the buses for you know safety purposes this is kind of curious you know what experience has been over the past year or two in terms of there are cameras and and all the school buses um we and the experience has been generally positive in that if there is an incident on the bus you know we can go back and view the video um I will tell you that it it's not used a lot but when it is used it it does come in pretty handy and you know most of the requests for viewing come from an incident through the School principles yeah thank you for that I wasn't asking that but I'm glad oh sorry I was talking about the uh the cameras for oh the cars you know the stop arm yeah those are still we still have two vehicles equipped with the stop arm cameras you know there are violations that are issued um and to the extent that we have a bus pass where the stop arm equipment isn't on that particular bus the drivers do have the ability to report as long as they collect a license plate to the police and we do that and it's since we've installed those um stop arm cameras you know again this is to to monitor if anyone is passing a stop School Bus you know we do believe the incident of those passes has decreased I think it's a combination of not only ticketing but greater public awareness of the need to stop for a school bus okay that was it thank you okay so that's a couple questions one of them is so I assume the public school routes is where or the line item the public transportation line item is where at what point my question is at what point does our increasing enrollment have an effect on on that category increasing that category there's got to be a point at which well important has it already no it hasn't yet and even though but we know the enrollment is across all the grades but there are some offsets it's you know it's it's kind of flat for next year at the middle school it's down for the high school and it's up at elementary so as we as I was saying as we plan the bus routes if there's a new development that has a substantial number of students it doesn't necessarily mean we're going to have to add a bus for the last several years our buses have been running because of covet we've tried to keep the bus count below 60 and the typical bus has a capacity of 72. so we have some room we didn't budget in for a significant increase in transportation costs related to Route increases and if we have to add a route you know we'll we'll do it obviously we have to transport the students safely and we can't exceed the capacity of the bus but we're not there yet we don't expect that next year is going to push us based on the enrollment projection to a substantial increase in cost over time it will happen though great so we're not there yet not there yet the other variable we have is in three years we'll be redistricting anyway which should support uh people closer to their building great um my second question goes with that um Student Activity portion and I know that it's not the biggest portion but my question would be is is that increase due to not having those activities Transportation costs over the past couple of years we're having a lot the cost hasn't changed substantially six percent is six percent of the total it's it's I I know you understand that what we've been struggling with frankly on Student Activity the last couple of years is the shortage of bus drivers hasn't affected our daily routes but we've had to go to outside providers to find routes that can be run for Student Activities but that should subside and you know we haven't seen a significant shift in the number of Student Activity bus runs that we need so we're you know that's been fairly stable you know other than the contractual increase I don't see that changing much well I was thinking during covet certainly for one year we weren't doing as much we had not yeah but that's not the reflected part that's not reflected in this but correct okay thank you you're welcome um so could you I we go through this every year students don't want to write a ride the bus what is the opt-out how does that work and Eric do we get savings and what is what are the trends that you've seen so there's a couple of things we do if if you know the the easiest one to explain is if a high school student is granted a parking pass as part of the parking pass application process it states right on the form that they're opting out of um a bus route so you know that that's a given that's Incorporated I think it's well understood but it doesn't work in every case because some students don't have access to a car every day so there's a little bit of give and take there but we make a concerted effort you know through that Forum when they get the parking pass that they're opting out of Transportation the second way that we have students opt out is the bus drivers you know do observe if they if they've got to stop and no student is boarding at that particular stop you know for a couple of weeks they do report that to our transportation manager and staff and our staff does follow up to say we notice that your child hasn't been getting on the bus you know is there a reason if the reason is because the child is getting a ride to school from a parent we let the parent know that they can opt out and we ask them to opt out and we promised that within 48 hours if the student wants to ride the bus again we will get them on on that particular bus so it's incorporated into what we do I can't point to any specific savings certainly not in this budget year you know we we have been doing this for a number of years so it's kind of built in to what our transportation routes are there's that certain opt-out percentage and it is a little bit of a struggle for parents because they don't want to commit to opting out on a permanent basis even though we say we will quickly opt the student back in but there is a reluctance to do that okay and then um drivers salaries or drivers pay um you there has been a shortage of drivers I assume they're paid minimum and are you seeing um price or wage pressures and who's responsible for that if are we will we have to eat some of this if we find that we have to really bump up the pay to get those drivers and you're talking about tacos drivers yeah dacco because of by the the nature of our contract which was executed before the minimum wage requirements kicked in you know Deco is really eating has had to eat that increased cost I do expect in our next contract when we go out to bid that will result in an increase in prices I mean what that is you know it that price increase that we see when we negotiate the next contract will incorporate wages and benefits and whatever's changed over the last five years that wasn't built in to these two percent increases so you know I do expect that next contract will bump up but we'll try and to minimize the impact of that as we we get those bids and can I ask some non-busting questions yeah okay so the other services um are there any Regional purchasing Arrangements we're in with any of these other Support Services I was I was going to cover that when we get to the tail end but yes so what on the procurement side you know we to the extent that there's any type of a regional estate or a federal contract you know we do work to take advantage of that um you know good a good example is the school supplies that we buy the WB Mason and school specialty have the bid Awards the state bids that those two vendors won the state bid award for most items and we make most of our purchases there but the school staff and the departmental staff know that they need to shop so just because as a state contract price for paper for example W.B Mason has the state award this year for copy paper which is used to be about 25 a case for years it went up to 48 dollars a case and so you know through the course of you know our shopping and this is actually central office Heather Santi our operations supervisor found that Amazon and we have a special relationship with Amazon we could buy the copy paper at 38 per case instead of the 48 from WB Mason so even though we've got a state contract price we're buying copy paper you know this year from Amazon and it's Prime so there's no delivery cost um if it's a larger expenditure if it's over 15 000 you know we do put that out to bid if it makes sense to do so you know the reason I say if it makes sense to do so sometimes there are State bid awards for those items so you know Steph is really diligent about trying to find the best price you know even when it comes down to you know buying small quantities of of supplies collaborative right and that's you know especially for special education we do some of the ride sharing to and these are for out of District Place students and they do an annual bid and those are the ones that you know come to mind I know that you know we do a lot to try and um save every penny we can and sometimes you know the offset is we get you know a state mandate that is very expensive you know but at least we're doing everything we can to save our pennies and you know kind of buck the trend increases to the extent we cap and then when most of these uh are fixed to their contracts correct so there's very little wiggle room for well it depends on on which item that we're talking about I mean Pupil Transportation that is fixed you know the rentals leases some of those I mean those are that's an interesting mix of of different items in there some are fixed like the the multi-function printers that we have deployed across the district so that not only copiers but they also serve as our printers at a much lower cost those are on a municipal lease contract so those are fixed pool rental is part of that line item that's a Cheshire pool hockey rental ski golf rental that's all in that line item so those aren't contractual we try and negotiate them every year so it depends on the line item okay thanks okay I apologize for getting here late I'm guessing you didn't go over this but thanks Andrew with regard to telephone all right have you been looking at you know the newer technology that what is it the VoIP or I mean do people still I find myself at work using my cell phone for everything rather than I'm just curious like if you've thought about that do you have a telephone you have a telephone consultant who's like helpful with any of that we do and our phone system has been Voiceover IP for a long time I know Tony was part of that selection process it's probably 10 years ago we moved to a mitel system it's you know voice over IP um so yeah we're not paying traditional phone bills it's all done over the internet you know once the the equipment is placed and you know we do have a service contract with um Windstream I believe it is right now so but is is your question can we replace I'm just sure system with cell phones yeah I'm just curious like the hardware I mean do people even I'm sure it wouldn't be 100 but I mean in general do most people even want to have a landline I guess this would be principles because you need to have the hard the hard wired telephone lines to the classroom I mean from uh from a communication point of view you know they're there is an important need to have a hard line or landline type phone in your classroom and that is if you have to make a 9-1-1 call so there is you know even though it's it's internet based there is e911 capability so if you pick up you know the phone in classroom 82 at the high school you know the 911 operator knows exactly where that call is coming from you know it also serves an intercom function yep um and you know naturally we do have parents that call in you know to the schools and we call parents so um but our phone costs are pretty modest at this point you know if when it comes time to replace this system you know you can buy you know telephone as a service I'm not sure what the pricing of that would be instead of having to make that whole Hardware investment up front like we did and the hardware investment is primarily for the handsets yeah they're working fine so I it's not in the near future that I expect to be replacing the font system and when we did do it by the way we did have a school security Grant out pay for the hardware thank you okay ready all right so now we're going to hit um just a couple of things on technology again this is all under support services and that is and I know Mr grippo had a question about this but the we've been replacing our aged and failing interactive smart boards that run with the projector with smart flat panel TVs essentially what they are they're still interactive so we've the good news is we've done um and completed 60 percent district-wide of those Replacements we are doing it through that computer Capital Equipment account that I mentioned that we have 264 000 budgeted in this budget year that's being requested so we've replaced 194 pieces of equipment we have about 120 to go and we'll continue to do those replacement as the budget permits we do you know obviously we take care of any failed equipment first um and over time there's there's a couple of um advantages of going with these flat panels besides they're easy to use one they use less electricity and less energy you don't have to replace the bulbs which are the most expensive component um and the second most expensive incident that we have is the the interactive whiteboards do delaminate over time and so they they wind up being trash so we don't have that that particular issue and it there's also less repairs involved so that our Tech staff you know over time won't be dispatched to do as many repairs to the smart boards once we get to full interactive panels so does that address the question you had Mr grippo I was just wondering what the status was on the upgrade path you know yeah so yeah we're moving it along at a pretty good pace so you know we hope to continue that and finish that up uh no we we do um first of all our internal staff maintains or Services them on it on a daily basis um but if we need help outside of that we use r b Communications you know they're doing all the installs and they've they have a state contract for the purchase of that equipment but for the most part if it's a if there's a repair need in we do it right in District with our you know for technology assistance and uh uh one question so um how old is the oldest panel and what is the expected life of a panel you know we've gotten rid of the the oldest oldest ones which I you know I got here 13 years ago and they were already installed so probably 15 years old but those first generation those are long gone oh what's the life yeah so we've been installing them for it's probably two years and it's the life expectancy of a TV which but I would expect I would I would guess about 10 years and when are you expecting to have everything upgraded how many years I mean I have to do three three thousand times 120 so that's three hundred sixty thousand dollars so it'll take us a couple years to get there all right so we won't be in a Perpetual upgrade cycle there will be at least a few years where you think maybe we'll enjoy operational fully operational panels in all of our classes yes two years into it sixty percent done yeah so also we get six years on that yeah hopefully yeah but it's not not including what's going into the new schools that'll be part of that budget right well there's going to be an offset there right when the new schools will get all new equipment so um you know this is a challenge we have we're still gonna we still have three years to go with Chapman and with the current Norton and with Darcy although Darcy doesn't have a lot of of classrooms so you know we'll we'll manage that and we'll prioritize the buildings that are not coming offline and those are mobile right so those could be moved to New classrooms or to be shifted to the other Schools they're not mobile but we can Dismount so that's a it's a permanent installation they're not on carts or something like that that's basically you know what you would install in your home you know you attach it to the wall and you hang the TV on the back okay so it can be moved it could be pretty easily thank you okay and then just a couple of other quick things um you know our PCS kind of along the same line of thinking as you could see in this next bullet actually yeah you can see it there most of our PCS are relatively new 75 is under four years old so you know those again we upgrade those as we need to over time and we try not to let the technology get too old otherwise it's a it's a large expenditure all at once and then we are maintaining the fleet of Chromebooks again in-house what we do is we have parts inventory our staff is trained so if a screen cracks if a keyboard isn't working if there's some other you know problem with the device we're repairing those in-house and that saves us quite a bit of money when a student has a defective or a broken device we give them we swap them a loaner right away so there's no down time for the student is our goal and we've been able to meet that goal we did upgrade all all the radios across the school district so you know this is this was actually covered you know by Town appropriation Capital appropriation and our radios do allow us to communicate on an emergency basis with our emergency responders you know including the 9-1-1 Dispatch Center so that was an important upgrade and right now we're working with Apex to um come up with a more full-fledged Disaster Recovery plan if we were to have a Cyber attack on the school district so we're prepared but we're really looking to come up with a more in-depth plan part of this you know as an insurance requirement these days so that is you know in development and we're working with Town Board of Ed staff and led by Apex our chief technology officer we're we work on those Chromebook Replacements in-house who exactly is that that for technology assistants that we have you know so they're they're our traditional break fix team so how big is that team four people okay um and it's Dan we used to have six but over time as we've you know increased even though we've increased the amount of Technology we have a lot less brake fix because it's it's newer so yeah that staff has been you know paired down and you know we don't want to pair it down too much because we want the response to be quick for our students and staff so we're in a good place with that group and they've you know they've been trained so that they could do you know Technologies chains and they're prepared to deal with that technology change so just a refresher on the Chromebooks start in grade seven well we have Chromebooks no I mean for students but take home for take home seven yeah but they're used in and they're using them through grade 12.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
okay of three is orange two is yellow and one is green okay that that really helps because I thought like uh one two four that was all well within the green so that was why I was confused yeah yeah sorry about that yeah and then my my next question is just then like it's wonderful to like you know get these numbers but then you're like okay why do we have such high you know um small fine particulate in the air that that uh Maine and Washington streets and so what do you you know what's the next step then of you know how you determine what's causing that yeah definitely um so like I said our our next step definitely is figuring out how we're going to get the alerts out to folks um but we are also looking into figuring out um what the causes are um particulate matter typically is uh from Cars uh burning fossil fuels um engines burning fossil fuels it's it's what's released in car exhaust um so we expect that that particular matter is likely coming from traffic at the intersection um but uh you know we'll we definitely need to figure out how to do some digging to figure out exactly what is causing it um and if it is vehicle traffic then maybe we have some evidence for reducing traffic in downtown um all right uh commissioner Gabriel I see your hand uh you're muted sorry about that um and I had the exact same question as you did and I think to to avoid confusion in terms of have the page and all that kind of thing if you just I don't know if that that colored um kind of Road uh diagram is yours or from somewhere else but somehow indicating the aqi in relation to that would make it just a whole lot more clearer for people being able to navigate that whole system because it was you're sort of intimating it based on the color and but um that would be really helpful I think for people just to user friendliness wise to be able to make that um more clear um my my other question is do you measure uh volatile organic compounds or vocs through this program or not uh no that is not something that's measured by the the sensors that we got this is something something spot in Ann Arbor in West Park where there's place where um the creek comes through um and it is you walk over and you have to hold your breath it is so strong when it's raging out of that thing and um we've talked to people at the city before it means water quality testing it's like nobody seems to want to take it on but it's so distinct and so many people from that neighborhood know what's going on with it um and it would be a way to be able to kind of acknowledge like what's happening in certain hot spots of areas um so I guess that um sort of relates to climate and that it's you know it's clearly some sort of gasoline some sort of oil something leaking is obviously a problem that's an issue with water quality too and you know maybe we can talk about this more um with the water quality group but um there's different ways of of being able to detect that stuff you know an air air is one way right so um it's just something to consider I guess in all of this uh too is and I I get it you can't measure everything um and I think it's cool to see what you are what you are measuring um but it's just something to consider as as a um an issue that happens in in all over but you know definitely in a few spots in Ann Arbor I've noticed it quite a bit before so something that I think the Public Notices a lot of these things we don't notice unless it's you know whatever asthma rates go over some is really sensitive may start reacting that many of us can pick up if it really stinks of gasoline or oil so it's something to consider thanks though for your work this is interesting to see yeah thank you I appreciate that um and I will say that uh the uh sensors unfortunately like life had so many you know actual sensors in each monitor um so we kind of had to pick and choose but we do have the option of for future monitors to to switch it up and change other ones if we have a spot where we at least we want to measure vocs for example we could easily get one that would match our videos so I appreciate that thank you um all right commissioner Oriole of your hands yeah thank you for the present I just wanted to make sure that I understand how this system does its measurements so you mentioned that OSI collects the highest value over a 24-hour period at each system is that correct uh yes so these the monitors are actually they're collecting data pretty much continuously I think it's uh every five minutes every 10 minutes something like that we actually get a data thing um but for the aqi purposes that's calculated over 24 hour periods so we're actually taking that data and then we're taking getting the 24 hour average 4-H pollutant and then putting that into the aqi calculation okay I see that was my main question I was curious to know how often the measurements were being taken by the system um and just to end on a quick comment I am really I'm really curious to see how this data will be uh visualized and shared with the community you know what key trends we'd like to the community to see and how it would be visualized in such a way that the aqi is understandable uh for for everybody and uh perhaps even translated in different languages based off of the community in Ann Arbor so I'm looking forward to seeing how that will um develop yeah thank you I appreciate that um I see your hands um yes Sean thank you so much that's uh that's an excellent project um I would I just missed when was the installation date for these monitors uh so they're actually installed at different times um the farmers market one went up first that was in I believe uh May of 2022 uh the Bryant one went up a little bit after that so probably June and then the one at Main and Washington I think went up in around October oh okay so you have less than a year of data yes so far um I had another the other question was what about calibration um how often are these calibrated and uh me for example I bought a purple air monitor a couple of years ago so I think um you know the Ecology Center has been using these devices more in Detroit Indiana in Ann Arbor so I was wondering um if there if the city if there was a way people could maybe calibrate their purple air monitors against the city's ear monitors and how the cities um air monitors are calibrated against the epas um more elaborate gear yeah great question and thank you for bringing that because I actually forgot to mention um that the the data we're collecting is these monitors are not considered to be EPA reference monitors um so it is it's not considered to be uh you know accurate enough uh for EPA use but we do uh they um have been calibrated against an EPA reference uh sensor that is over in uh Detroit uh I forget which which part of Detroit um but uh we went over to one of those and we put these up next to it for um two or three weeks um and and took a look at the measurements and compared them to to kind of calibrate it um so it has been referenced next to an EPA sensor um and uh the company but I believe recommends to do that once every two years something along those lines will will be frequently taking them out there to to recalibrate them um and folks are welcome to bring their sensors to one of our sites and calibrate them against ours if they'd like to okay um thank you yeah thank you uh council member Desh sorry lowering my hand and muting I haven't mastered that at the same time um I just wanted to make a comment about the Maine and Washington reading and I think it's a good bet that that's traffic it's interesting that it was those days um it will be really fun when you have that up for the majority of the football season because there will be a lot of traffic on Main and that is just another argument for taking over control of Main Street from MDOT yep thank you appreciate it um and uh Vice chairperson Mitchell oh you are muted thought I did that um my question is whether there is a possibility to use some mobile testing for some episodic concerns that might come up um I don't know what those might be but I'm you know when I hear about the West Park situation it might be interesting to have something that we could move around according to something that's brought to people's attention um is is there a spare unit or or something available that that could be moved yeah that's a great Point um we have discussed uh we haven't uh looked into it fairly yet but we have discussed getting um another type of sensor these are relatively small but they're not particularly portable especially with the the solar panel and everything um so it would have to be a different sensor um a more portable one but we have discussed getting some more smaller more portable ones um and having uh folks um be able to take those out on their bike rides or on their walks um or you know wherever with them um to to measure air quality as they move um and so that would be a really great way to to get um that more uh small scale data I see uh commission or chairperson brown is holding up a portable one that he has um so it'd be something like that um we have discussed um you know uh bringing in the 10 000 degrees initiative a little bit that I run uh we've discussed having a survival study of that so having interns go around and check up on the trees that we distributed already um and I think it would be a great uh opportunity to kind of combine projects and have them wear those as they're biking around the city to check up on the trees um just to get a sense of what air quality is all across town okay so I wasn't thinking of moving them and measuring but I was thinking of having them having various locations where you could test during the course of a day so I'm not familiar with the testing process but that sounds very interesting um yeah okay thanks yeah thank you and yeah I appreciate that that's I hadn't thought of that but that's something to keep in mind too um let's see here uh commissioner mursky thank you um I apologize for joining late I had a bad day identity theft the last whole day um so a quick comment and a quick question the comment is that PM 2.5 is primarily coming from trucks diesel trucks and cars and also very old Vehicles so that's really what what's probably driving the TM 2.5 the question that I had is um and I'm hoping someone recollects this more clearly than I do my recollection is that in kitchens with gas burning stoves EPA criteria pollutant levels are four times higher than the limits that are allowed outdoors and there are no limits set indoors does that sound right to anybody um they can be up to like 250 parts per billion for nox for example for Knox and uh that's the one that I think is usually mentioned by the EPA is the nitrogen oxides because that's a particular irritant for asthmatics so that's all I I'll interject so Sarah has her hand up shot yep uh did that fully answer the question um John uh I don't know if Sarah had one something to add to that but um yeah I think it's something maybe that it would be good to bring back to the commission what exactly the the numbers are because we're obviously worried about indoor um pollution but uh or outdoor pollution but most people are indoors a hell of a lot more and if we're worried about these pollutant levels and they're much much higher in natural gas burning homes than that says that really we need to be focused there or continue to be focused there go ahead Sarah yeah thank you yeah I just had a quick question so I wasn't familiar with the aqi analysis and I just kind of looked it up um so you said you guys took 24-hour averages was that just for like the particular banner and then I'm here it says like you take different averages for the different compounds depending on their toxicity yeah so it's the averages are uh different depending on the pollutants okay it's reported over a 24-hour period um so okay yeah I apologize I misspoke earlier but it's very complicated I'm a toxicologist so I like to think about it um and then the other thing I was looking at the different like weather um items you guys are tracking um I know that like sunlight can impact ozone formation um obviously like wind can impact the air quality as well are you guys also tracking those physical parameters uh those unfortunately aren't aren't measured um that's that's a really good point though um and uh I'll do some digging and see if those are sensors that could be added on that would be really nice to see yeah yeah there might be like supplemental data from different monitoring stations within Ann Arbor but I would think for like your long-term tracking you know how you said like you wanted to look at like changes over time and things like that all those like physical parameters will wonk up how your analysis comes out so it'd be good to have more data more supplemental data right definitely and we do have a network of weather sensors um that I think measures uh things like that I don't know if it measures exactly like daylight or wind um but but if it does then we could certainly use that data even if it's not at the exact spot there sounds good thank you for your presentation really interesting yeah thank you for the questions um and uh two person Brown um yeah thank you Sean I think um if there's no other questions I think we might move on to the next uh agenda item thank you all um so the next item on the agenda is a discussion of the draft natural features ordinances um uh by the working group leader Chris Graham so Chris you're on the floor and I share my screen Sean yes I will make you a co-host so you can do that at it so I will read a draft resolution and this is a graph something we can work on over the next month or two or whatever it takes us to get through this um this package of amendments actually is a pretty major recommendation to the council for some changes to our um development code in the city and so the resolution is fairly important you would like me to read it Stephen I can whereas the city of Ann Arbor has declared a climate emergency and adopted a climate action plan which at least acknowledged the importance of trees and called for the protection and enhancement of our tree canopy where is Doug Ptolemy and Richard dark in their books bringing nature home and the living landscape brought far more recognition to the need to use our communities our backyards to support the diversity of life including Birds pollinators caterpillars trees and native plants whereas such restoration work is important is as important as as carbon emissions and reduction in reducing in the reduction in protecting Earth human life-giving biome whereas annivers fortunate to have natural areas of public and private Woodlands especially native Forest fragments that are on that are our own refugees refuges of native species they are models of native ecosystems we can bring to our backyards whereas we are fortunate to have a natural race program in our city which for 25 years has worked to restore and sustain the diversity of native species on our natural areas their work can guide our efforts whereas for 20 years protections for our natural features in the city have been part of the site planning process for development which has indeed reduced loss of natural features whereas it's vital to protect as many old trees as we can especially natives they sink the most carbon and recharge the most rain to the soil whereas the original natural features amendments were adopted in the early 2000s much has since been learned and now more is needed therefore be resolved that the environmental commission recommends to council that these new proposed draft amendments the unified development code be accepted then promptly sent to the Planning Commission planning staff for review and consideration resolve that since plans are eminent to condense the city's Master plans one of which is a natural features master plan into a single document likely much reducing the presence of the city's concern for natural features to a few abbreviated pages that the council asked for CPC to consider the matter without delay uh resolve it since these matters involve issues not generally are fully in the Wheelhouse of planners that the planning staff along City forced to be asked to collaborate members of the environmental commission and its natural features committee to work on changes as may be important to them resolve the council asked the CPC and planning staff to concurrently Begin work in collaboration with the EC and the NFC on a best management practices handbook resolve the cpcbs to transmit the revised proposed amendments to the attorney's office for reveal at the earliest possible date again with requests to them to review without delay resolve the council asked that the attorney final CPC and EC EC review of the proposed language the recommendations to be made to the council to adopt these changes into code resolve that the final draft language be brought back to council within this calendar year I will move it I hope someone will second I do not intend that we vote on this this evening there is much discussion and I hope suggestions and changes and other people to consult with before we um have a final package to send up to the council I don't know if it'll be next month I would hope but uh if it's too that's okay um before we have a final vote and send it up to council okay yeah here I hear the sense of urgency Chris and um um and I would agree with it um it's a complicated package um it looks like you've ordered things in a very logical way so the resolve Clauses like um prioritized in terms of the order of things that need to be that you think need to be done to go through the city's process the Planning Commission and the staff and Council um the attorney's office some are easy some of these sections are easy amendments um the um The Landmark trees which becomes landmark and Heritage tree section is more complicated because we're adding a new natural feature and that's Heritage trees these are native trees that have a certain threshold of size and the mitigation requirements the the cost of taking them is increased from what just the simple Landmark tree was doubled actually um most complicated of all is the Woodland section when we originally wrote these um amendments we didn't do anything special to protect Woodlands um that is to say the same mitigation requirements that applied to trees apply the trees in Woodlands and um what's become clear over the last 20 years is that our native Force fragments are extraordinarily important to us they are a serious component of the scenery of the city and fall especially when the colors turn they are um as I've said our refugees of our native species um they are a facsimile of the ecosystems that existed in Ann Arbor in 1824 when Europeans arrived here and began to take the place apart ecologically right right you're preaching to the choir here Chris I think um I think though um I assume that um that a certain number of the city's offices have already reviewed these suggestions you know like Parks natural features the city Forester the first the natural features committee works for the environmental commission you guys are the first there are some people that have contributed clearly but uh there's been no formal review throughout the city yeah okay uh Sean you have your hand up yeah just um an opportune time to note that I did get a request specifically from nap staff but I'm sure there are a lot of other staff as well that would like to review these before it goes on the council so I just wanted to put forward that I did have a request to have staff review it I'm I'm hoping that will happen thank you again to send it elsewhere myself tomorrow or Monday okay do you have a list of offices you'd like to send it to and uh are you are you anticipating like a kind of sign-off process like um the different departments can just check off um whether they're my uh whether they're perfectly satisfied or uh probably more properly done by the Planning Commission than the planning staff who have uh a lot more anchors in again the natural features committee it doesn't work for the city it works for the environmental commission so our job is to pass it on to the council and for the council to trigger the review process um but informally and to try to get the language to improved before it even goes up the council is a good idea so we'll do it I agree I just remember what we went through over the uh over the chapter 40 the title free chapter 40 revisions I still haven't seen it back yet that's correct so uh Shannon you have your hand up I'm a little confused about the order um because it seems like you would that's are you thinking that it would go to city council so that it can then be reviewed by these others or that it would go to these others it seems like city council is the last step that gets you know worked into city code commission is advisory to the council we have only one route that we can take our recommendations and that's through the council goes there first then the council disposes of it how they will hopefully they will send it through the process which goes down to the Planning Commission and the blaming staff we we don't have any ability to ask the attorney or the Planning Commission directly to do things okay so it has to go by along the environmental Commission so your your hope is that we get a bunch of Staff inputs so that it can have kind of a um like a for a vetting essentially um now or later either way I I just doubt that city council is going to pass this without they want to ask changes and things like that that would need to happen um they get a resolution here which asks them to send it onward and put it in the process formally yeah okay and so um so Steve when you've done the other ones is that what has gone on to city like you had staff do it first and then it's going under city council and then it's going back to the attorney or like how is that working with the other chapter that you all are working on well it's prudent to pass things through staff um it's you know just to get their input but uh you know Chris is right that um we need to we need to uh our resolution needs to be addressed to council to instruct the city to instruct the city uh managers the administrator to to do something so that should be uh you know more specific in the resolved Clauses yeah okay uh maybe listing the Departments that they that we think should we should review this package and what order they should be reviewed in um that's my uh that's my feeling okay so that's that's a process question that I have and then there's just a bunch of kind of like editing kinds of things there's certain things that don't feel very ordinance like in terms of the language of it um sentence fragments you know what I mean things that just don't feel like they're part of our normal code they are not hyperbolic at points you know and so it's like how does it how does it get sort of tightened up and um more kind of consistent with the kind of language that we have throughout the rest of the UDC um so because it seems to me that there needs to be a level of editing first on that and with that and then it goes to staff rather than having them you know what I'm saying like there's it's a huge effort that you've never taken here I mean it's admirable it's a but it's a massive effort with all kinds of interlacing you know this is something that I work in you know frequently with my job outside of environmentation and it's confusing to me you know and I work in this you know so it's like thinking about how all these pieces and parts interact you know I mean you know you pull one string and then all of a sudden all these other pieces start um you know getting getting unraveled and yanked on on things and so I think I I would um I think it needs some level of um of kind of figuring out and tightening up and and making more consistent with the the kind of language of the rest of our ordinances before it goes on even to staff in some ways to sort of get it to that point and then then it would go to staff I mean um it's it's tough too because I mean just I mean Lisa can tell you too the bandwidth that Planning Commission has right now to be able to work on something like this in terms of that level of editing is not it's not gonna it's like that need that level needs to be done um at a different place rather than with them um because it's it's been very difficult for Lisa and I do things that we really are care about it's really been hard for us to be able to get things on the group agenda for for our for what we're trying to work on for the next two years um so um uh now if something comes down from city council saying you have to work on this then that's different right that gets sort of automatically put on our plate um but those are some of my initial initial thoughts so if I can respond please the current code has language in it it has the same problems you're suggesting that is to say it's not typical code language and the reason is that natural features are not in any way called out as a thing that can be regulated in state law whereas almost every other aspect of zoning in our code is called out and enabled by state law the language that's in the code currently was originally called guidelines it wasn't put into an ordinance because we were afraid that this level of Regulation this kind of Regulation would be easy to sue against um what was happening back then was we would have major projects happen that would tear down a lot of trees and fill in wetlands and the public would rise up and say no you don't and then council members would spend the next six or nine months in a negotiated very complicated set of meetings between the developer and themselves and those of us who opposed destroying natural features to finally get an agreement on a development and not made nobody happy although some natural features were saved in almost every one of those cases these guidelines which were very wordy like this set of documents is and like the current code is were put into the code when we Consolidated all of the development desperate development statutes ordinances into one if we're going to lose the master plan we really need to have enough language in the ordinance so that when you go to court you have the justification and rationale for why it's important to have protection for Native Forest fragments why it's important to have protection for Heritage trees why they're important to us that's what a master plan does the guidelines were developed to to help the planners figure out how to negotiate with developers why why it says why and I I agree this is not normal code language but especially if we lose the master plan we need to do this to some degree [Music] there's always a there's always a way to say things less and fewer words but uh the substance of the explanation needs to be here because it's not going to be any place else and I I hear what you're saying and there was I I get it that there were there were the sections especially in the sections where you were describing each of the areas that were that was that's in the existing code I would say that these um sort of take it further down that road in terms of the way that they're written and so I would encourage that same tone that you have from the last time and and to be able to kind of tighten it up so I get it that it's not like this many inches and blah blah blah it's not it's not like that you're trying to describe why but that it's it's still kind of um feels it just has a different feeling about it in some ways than than the one from before and I'm not saying that you that you know it's it's it's not okay to state things in a way that um indicates how important things are to us but there's I think there's I think that the the style of the one from before um sits better within the context of the code than the style of the ones that are in front of us right now and I think the content can still be in there but that just stylistically again there's you know they're set in Frets there's not complete sentences you know what I'm saying there's just things that need to be kind of tightened up and smoothed out and figured out um and uh so that it just feels more cohesive or maybe you can zoom with me and show me exactly where give me some examples anywhere and then maybe we can work on it a bit right as I said it's always they're always shorter ways to say things okay quite difficult to do that like writing poetry all right okay yeah hopefully you two can do that offline um John you have your hand up thank you briefly um just from a process point of view I I second Chris's motion I think we really should have a second to before we go into discussion of the resolution so at least from a process perspective um we have that on the table so there's a motion in a second and now it's open for discussion um secondly I just want to affirm some of the things that that Chris has said it's at least been our understanding so Chris and I and Wendy Carmen have been the ones working on this off and on for probably the last two and a half years and um our our sense was twofold first of all that uh well maybe three three things are worthwhile make uh stating that we were a little bit more verbose than probably what is appropriate with the sense that um having language uh in in ordinance has proven in multiple court cases around the country um important because it really sets the justification for um the ordinance and then the ability of the the municipality to defend the the order the ordinance or the the code um secondly um we are not regular code writers and so um we you know we we took it to a place where we thought the content was all there and we applied I would say the third principle and that is um we felt that our work on this to the point where we felt it was perfect was likely to be dramatically edited along the way by Planning Commission by legal by city council and so we could stew over this and do all the editing um that maybe Shannon might think is good but then have um what we put together be taken apart and put together completely differently by staff by Planning by city council so rather than the perfect being at least our perfect being the enemy of the good we wanted to get it to this this group so that we could discuss exactly these things and decide how to do this because we've been we've been tweaking this Chris how long have we been tweaking these probably for just what what you see in front of us has not changed dramatically in a year in a calendar year's time I would say I mean there's been there's been some minor changes so that's why we wanted to get this in front of you and finally get some input and hopefully get it to others who are professional code writers and would have a sense of what is going to stand up legally what is the kind of thing that planning and the city is likely to adopt as opposed to those of us who do this you know once every couple of years where we help write um you know ordinance language So Lisa go ahead well um thanks I wanted to um just acknowledge the incredible work that you guys have done this is incredible and it's important um I think your instinct to stop here was excellent because I think you're right you guys could hone and hone and hone and it probably wouldn't be helpful um I I think we it would be a good idea to think about process a little more deeply and actually possibly um check in with a couple of staff and maybe Mr Mr dehoney on what course this should take um you are right that as an advisory body to counsel um the resolution has to direct counsel to direct blah blah but um my I think that as I've seen these things um that come out of commissions to council usually they don't even get voted on they get bounced right back to staff and then back through the appropriate commissions so and typically and this is enormous and it's a multiple departmental effort right this is going to take you know yeah the planning people yeah the legal people and some of the you know the the the grounds people the people who are proven our forestry yep yeah exactly right so that is really hard to do in the city because it's very hard to get them to coordinate their efforts and their schedules and their attention so I don't know which staff group should get it first but I I think that it does not make a lot of sense for environmental commission to vote on this and send it to council before there's been some staff input on it but I would I say that tentatively because I think it the best thing to do is to check in with staff and Mr dehoney and figure out where it's going to fit and just a couple of words of caution uh the planning department is about to get you know all engaged in the comprehensive plan so there you know for a large project like this is going to be there I don't know what kind of Staff capacity there would be right now um so yeah and um the um you know the OSI staff has a lot of work on it's late as well so I don't know where it would go fall in its priorities so um I think our our best bet is to to to try to figure out how staff wants to treat it and then in terms of formatting it is really helpful if you're modifying a section and not just generating all new stuff to have a redlined copy that is the way we are used to seeing things on planning and it is really hard for anyone whether planning commissioner or even staff member to receive a document that says we're modifying something but it doesn't show the text um that's you know that's being proposed to be eliminated and what's new and so that at a very minimum would need to be done before this even went to staff because that's asking you know too much for them to to do to see modifications that they don't know um what the Baseline was so um I I would definitely recommend as Shannon did some excuse me commissioner Gib Randall did some editing first and in the meantime we can do some nosing around and see how staff and the city administrator would like oh yeah to get this treated and the other thing that flew on my head earlier was and of course council is about to go through the budget process and so there's not going to be a whole lot of room for anything as huge as this until after the budget is settled so that's kind of um uh where we are but I think that there's some room to get this in shape so there's some you know there's some lead time well well you know your key actors are busy with other stuff foreign echoing what others have said thank you so much for all the years of work that sounds like that you've put into this um I'm wondering if you can help by my understanding by like what's the scope of this I mean this is not my area but I'm trying to understand are we talking about everything within the city are we talking about City lands are we talking about private lands and developers who's impacted my sense is it's everybody but I just wanted to hear a little bit about that for the moment it's anyone who has to go through the site planning process for a project in the city which is all commercial projects and anything larger than a single family two-family house project this is a site planning all the all of the UDC is the site planning process so this is for projects like Concord Pines on Earhart Road you have your hand up um quickly Chris I don't think you included it in your resolution but there was a resolution passed by city council albeit a year and a half two years ago directing the administrator and City staff to provide support support for review of of these types of ordinances if I recall correctly Chris can you share the the language with us or and I don't know if it because it was passed along though if it's even relevant anymore because obviously priorities and staff capacity and everything else has changed in the meantime council members have changed there were two really that were important one maybe five years ago uh that asked the environmental questions to review the status of the natural features ordinance in Ann Arbor we don't have one of those we had a set of amendments like these are to various chapters in the code the wetlands ordinance the development ordinance chapter 57 and uh um the second one and we did that and it was a multi-page legal size document that came up to the environmental Commission maybe three years ago maybe four three I guess the second more recent Council resolution was to ask ask the environmental commission to do more to protect Heritage trees the third thing that happened was climate change arrived in Ann Arbor at long last and we decided we had a climate emergency and Mr dark and Mr talmy's books arrived at the printers really indicating how important the connection between sustaining species on this Earth of ours is to what we do in our backyards and the four things put together resulted in [Music] the ideas that are embodied in these four ordinances which is to tighten the mitigation requirements for taking especially large and old trees and taking native Force fragments and another category qualified Urban Woodlands we have a seriously nice not native but nice Woodland on a property that's being developed so there's some motivations um commissioner Dale you have your hand up yeah I have a follow-up question about the scope so I understand that it wouldn't um it wouldn't apply to single family residences to you know someone removing trees on their own property um does it apply to right-of-way public right-of-way does it and does it apply to Ann Arbor Public Schools because like the public schools are also exempt from zoning right so so those would be other cases where it doesn't apply correct does not apply to schools does apply to any City projects on public land does not apply to the university does not apply to single-family houses yet we would like to do a step two here where we do some kind of many natural features requirement for people redeveloping single-family properties so that trees get protected we're losing dozens of old threes a year on projects on single-family properties and we think we can do something with a grading permit that's similar to what we've required for um uh storm water retention yeah I can say I've seen it in my neighborhood like crazy you know between between just the removal of um of trees on the lawn extensions and people removing things on their own yard it's uh the the landscape of my neighborhood has changed significantly in the last couple years as far as Street canopy cover well again the entire thrust of the way this works is not to have a permit to take a treat it's not to say no yes or no in every instance of every tree it's to give performance standards and most of all on single family properties to make sure that mature trees aren't lost not because they were cut down in order to do an addition but because the contractors drove over the roots and killed them which is the way most of them are going unintended loss is huge but that's another that's another year that we get into a single family property okay uh commissioner Ackman you're happier hand up yeah I just wanted to check out what uh council member dish said about the redlining and this is probably largely a function of me being new but I feel like I have no context really for this like how much it differs from what we do today in Ann Arbor um and that would be just really helpful because otherwise I just feel like I have no no basis um I'm also curious whether you modeled it on other municipalities or kind of what was your what was your inspiration what were you using to guide this uh I have done Red Line versions of the woodlands and the tree sections and they are Byzantine because the language was so much updated in both of those sections the others are easy um you might not like what you asked for we'll see um in the case of modeling out other communities we were the model we invented this stuff in the early 1990s nobody else had been doing it and again I say again the state enabling ordinances statutes for zoning don't talk about natural features we we put another line in our development ordinances a petitioner shell to the fullest extent possible minimize the damage to natural features nobody else's code has that we've gotten away with it because the trade-off of being able to negotiate a good deal about protecting natural features at the planning staff level before a petition went up to the Planning Commission for approval solved the problem of controversy and instead of long drawn-out process where people are fighting about protecting every natural feature they could that got negotiated in based on the standards the guidelines the language the original language that you're seeing in return the developer got prompt decision time is money for those guys and and only when we've overstepped our bounds a little bit have we gotten sued most of the time it's just been wonderful in the case of Concord Pines on on Earhart a lot of very nice trees were cut down there they couldn't all be fit on that property as replacement trees even under our current code and we're strengthening it um they had to put into the tree fund a quarter million dollars Plus plant a whole lot of trees on their property so uh we've had some high impact over the last 20 years and done it very smoothly but as I say it's not enabled in the state statutes for us to do this which is why the language okay so does this need to be um maybe emphasized in more detail in the city's policy agenda with the state legislature that whatever reforms on the UDC code should either allow more local control or to maybe explicitly add natural features protections well I did look at that document and it's really a big mouthful as it stands good sure sure Chris well um it looks like you have all the content there um what I'm hearing I just want to propose something and what I'm hearing is that maybe um maybe we should um as a final first we should have maybe expand a task group to look at this and uh and uh revive and do all these revisions and redlined revisions uh Chris you were mentioning that you already did this for woodlands in the tree the tree ordinance and it wasn't an ordinance you have a redlined copy of the current code not one I've done in against the current language um and whether I've kept them from several versions ago or not I don't know but uh it's doable Microsoft Word will compare two documents pretty quickly you'll see it's a little scary well this seems like a potential Way Forward um let's see I would ask anybody to make suggestions if they're so inclined I see John commissioner mursky's hand is up um if I think we could get support from Tiffany I forget how to pronounce Tiffany G I think whatever her last name is sorry um that that would be great and I don't know that she is going to be all that wrapped up in some of the other uh kinds of things that planning and Council and things like that budget the kinds of things that most council member dish and council member Ackman and commissioner Bramble mentioned and I think her support would be don't you think Christopher really helpful um at least in the interim well she has been maybe Remy will help too yeah but I mean she hasn't set in on recent meetings and probably I don't know certainly months maybe a year he has a set of these documents however and asked for them so so maybe if we can get some explicit support through the administrator for some capacity from her side that will that will greatly help in the kind of editing that commissioner Gib Randall mentioned redlining and things like that it would help to have a planning staff member too I mean the buzz cell is going to be there okay so um so are we thinking about um recasting this resolution to city council that they recommend that the city administrator carve out a certain amount of time um from Tiffany G and uh and uh somebody from the planning department I commit to a certain amount of time over a certain period of time to to uh to get these drafts in shape for uh further consideration for consideration by Council if you want to do it informally before we send drafts to the council that's fine with me I'm I'm it probably takes the chair of this commission or council member to make the informal to open the informal doors I in a the words in our Charter for the environment commission are pretty black and white we we environmental commissioners Commissioners work for the council we have no standing in the city otherwise commissioner Ackman you have your hand up I'm new here so I'm going to be also asking council member dish I mean we have our staff person here on the commission Mr Reynolds it sounds like he's indicating that some staff wanted to see it does it make sense to have you Mr Reynolds talk to uh Dr Stoltz or Mr dehoney about how we should handle this at this stage councilmember just does that make sense or as a first step I I think um it's great Mr Reynolds that you um already reported that you guys wanted to take a look and that nap wanted to take a look I think councilmember Eckman you and I should speak to Mr Dahomey okay and uh and have you know if he says it's okay we can then reach out to staff in other sections and then the department heads or section I don't know what they're called section head section leaders their grad students um they can figure out uh they can decide where they can put it on their you know the their work plans right and um because I think that it wouldn't be very useful for it to come to council before it's been vetted at least by some of the key staff and definitely the attorneys because all Council will say is we can't even talk about this until staff has seen it and then the relevant commissions you know discuss something that looks more like something that's that's something that's already been vetted by staff something that's that you know and so this is an incredible it's more than a conversation starter it's a it's a remarkable effort but there are um ways that it will move more quickly if we do things in the in a in a proper order so but that's a conversation um between you and me and Mr honey it doesn't need to be and shouldn't really be a resolution from the environmental commission instructing Council to tell staff what to do because we're we don't really they don't like us when we do that no they don't um uh commissioner dish you have your hand up oh no oh okay so um yeah that sounds like uh that sounds like an action point and um so meanwhile what can we be doing to help you to help the natural features working group to advance this um and um you know and whatever whatever Direction seems appropriate here in terms of uh just reorganizing the documentation uh I their input would be number one on my list I I'm again I'm I'm fairly well persuaded that we need more than the norm in that normal level of explanation rationale in the code for this subject area again because there's no enabling legislation at the state level allows us to regulate natural features it's not there there's no defense you can regulate billing Heights and density and all sorts of stuff and that's enabled in the state statute under zoning not this and so um I'm going to be defending as much language as I can albeit there's always a way to say things shorter and more carefully but I I really need to get in the weeds with people about it so okay Chris uh what people do you think are important to get into the weeds with uh Remy Tiffany I don't think um Misty has time but maybe you do Sean um a planning staff member who's been working on natural features for a long time um Parks person um because uh our best native Forest fragments are on the parks and because of all the reasons I said in the resolution it's the it's our it's our Noah's Ark those things and what they do and what the natural race program does is is what we need to educate people to do in their backyards and certainly do anywhere near a natural feature native Forest fragment that's not publicly owned okay um I don't think attorneys want to work with anybody they have their own world over there but Maybe McDonald's around when we did this to begin with but otherwise I think they're all new um okay okay so um so maybe uh maybe uh council members dish and uh backman can can convey those uh you know those the desire for those departments to be pulled um when they talk to Mr dehoney is that um is that a good course of action yeah okay all right uh meanwhile um let me yeah meanwhile Chris I'd like you to think about um if if you really legally only had um yourself and John and Wendy um you know devoting a lot of time to this some I would hope you can recruit some more volunteers from the commission will and uh I'll go back to the larger natural features committee and include these other people on that and um and again it's difficult to write language in a committee of any size that's so yeah that's a camp so but at least we can hash over the ideas and and and make progress yeah yeah I have the feeling that um a lot of the content is there it's just a question of putting it in the right form and putting it through the right process right that's important yeah so um with the Parks Commission have anything um to contribute to this discussion I think so one of one of the documents in here amends the alternative mitigation plan Tiffany suggested that it's not the current code suggests that if you can't fit all the mitigation all the replacement trees on a property that you could negotiate a plan for the petitioner to work on some other property to put the trees there Tiffany said well I have no way of monitoring that I have no way of measuring that I really don't I'm not able to manage that uh what makes more sense is to put is to charge the tree canopy loss fee for the trees that can't be put on a property that's being developed on the site that's being developed charge account of philosophy and put it in a tree fund and use it for natural feature stuff and tree planting and one thing I put in there that it could be used for is deer management there's an off the books way to solve that problem and especially if we're increasing the mitigation requirements there could be some money going through that fund easily to pay for deer management um the fee that Concord Pines paid for all the trees they couldn't fit on their property on Earhart was a quarter million dollars so good good thing to talk to the parks people with and if we don't manage deer we're not going to have native Forest fragments that are any good anymore on the parks they're going to be destroyed have been substantially destroyed oh people's backyards as well that's so um not so important but what makes us mad yeah indeed okay um let's see I think it's been a good discussion I think we have some action points here that um Lisa and Dharma will talk to um maybe other council members and Mr dehoney and try to firm up a process and some letter and something of a commitment um for the time required to bring us over the finish line I'm happy to meet uh or consult the I email or help or do whatever I can I I'm ready to do stuff yeah I mean if we're asking for people's time we've got to put some limits or some expectations on that it will get us over the finish line and not scare people too much sorry this is a it's this is a big deal folks I I'm I is not an easy way to do it I know it wasn't easy back in 2000 but it's a core responsibility of this Commission so um all right if there are no more uh no more discussion um we'll close out the discussion at this point um the next item on the agenda is reports from committees other other commissions counsel and share so let's start with the Committees um and does natural features have anything to add uh nope uh thank you this is a big big puzzle here appreciate your time about it and help yeah I think water quality we have not met yet we're going to be meeting um soon so I'm not going to report anything for water quality work group as yet um what about Solid Waste John John commissioner Calvert sorry not I hear a solid waste and I'm thinking something else so um not much to update since the last time we talked about our work although we have reached out to both Anya and Maisie who've expressed kind of uh some degree of interest in engaging with the current work around the circular economy uh Macy had Lisa and I just met just before this meeting she's got some great ideas about work she's coordinating with others through the Ann Arbor Public Schools um so that was really exciting to hear about but as I mentioned a couple of weeks ago our main thing right now is um very specific Community engagement to help shape what we're doing and supporting the work of the University of Michigan school for environment and sustainability students who are wrapping up their work um they'll be completing their project with us in April Lisa anything else just um just to specify that what is going to be coming up is a a strategy plan for strategy five or an Outreach plan for strategy five and uh it's a little confusing because it's all plan speak but uh we are definitely that is the Outreach that John is talking about that we um there is a a person a helping us build the community team that we're going to need for Equity to be at the center of that strategic plan for strategy five which is building the circular economy and so we're sort of planning in order to plan which seems really weird but I think it makes a lot of sense because the city's normal planning process though it does value Equity it doesn't really know how to get the right parts of the community involved in a respectful and Empower not Empower that isn't the right way but um powerful way meaningful and consequential way and so that's the work that's happening now and expect just as we saw tonight um a strategy that's implementing strategy six expect over the next year strategy for strategy five to be developed and that will be really exciting great so uh pollinators Rita yeah um the pollinator work group has received a message from staff regarding our coming season to address where we were last year with the Nomo May and we'll be working a meeting on Monday to have a discussion on on directions for how we'll move forward it may be it may look different so be prepared for some changes um and uh we'll keep you posted but the goals are really the same the ultimate goal is to support pollinators to have biodiverse Landscapes that support them and that all along support all the kinds of things that we are all interested in um well thank you Rita so um and let's move on to commissions um energy Commission there's we have not met since our last special meeting when I gave it updates so nothing bad okay thank you John uh parks and I uh Parks met um last week um and let's see we've completed the pros uh plan process um and thanks for everybody who commented and helped with that um we had an update on the tree line Conservancy at our last meeting and an update from the parks operations staff that was very interesting how they manage 165 parks within the city of Ann Arbor on a with a just a handful of people this was pretty amazing that's it all right thank you Adam um and then planning we've had just one meeting since we had our last meeting and um uh it was one where I had to accuse myself because I worked in the project but I do know about the project so this is the um the um annivers third fire station which is over on East Sharon Parkway just where flat comes down and it's the first Net Zero fire station in Ann Arbor probably in the state I would imagine um and uh it's a it's got some weirdness to it because the the spot the the site itself where the fire station sits is is really tiny but it's right next to shuffler Park so I'm sure Ann knows all about this because uh um we are taking a chunk of sheffler Park to be able to expand the fire station onto that and it's Associated like there's a small parking lot and some storm water areas and things like that um and so uh we went through the Parks Commission to be able to kind of swap through some of those things um as a result of that we're putting in a nice new basketball court um on the other side of the of the creek there because mountains Creek runs through there um so there'll be some kind of Park upgrades in or so that kind of trade you know that's happening with with um part of that area that's coming up um for for the fire station use the whole intersection is going to be reconfigured uh through there right now the where plaque comes into Eastern Parkway it's a three-way stop and it will become kind of four way into the fire station parking lot which really isn't a place where many of us are ever going to go in but it's where fire trucks are going to be coming out so there's going to be a lot of changes in that area um to be able to accommodate this use um so that fire trucks can pull through their building rather than backing out which is what happens right now um so lots of changes and um pretty exciting that they were able through a combination of solar and geothermal and things like that to be able to achieve Net Zero um on this on this building hey thank you Shannon yeah I read the M live article um and uh it looks like a good number of the city's departments that really worked well together to make it happen yep yeah okay um let's see uh now report from Council uh Lisa do you want to go first yes and I'm not sure how far we need to go back in Council meetings and the only thing I can think of that's interesting to this emission but there may be more if uh councilmember admin remembers is that we did pass we approved the pros plan so we're really excited about that and um also just it is worth mentioning that as exciting as the fire station is it is as yet unfunded so if anyone has a little extra money in your checkbook feel free to send it in and I don't remember anything else that we've done councilmember Acton but I was I missed a meeting I think well I'm thinking of one that you actually spoke about and you spoke very well about it uh the big rebate that we got from uh putting solar facilities I think the prior plan was to basically kind of lease the panels uh but now with the new federal tax credit I think we were able to save three some odd million dollars um by changing to purchasing it outright so that's great for City buildings thank you for reminding me I know you're we're juggling a lot so [Music] um okay um anything um anything um commissioner Eckman you'd like to add to that or no I would just say I'm happy to start giving uh reports out from Transportation Commission if you'd like I think you said that that hasn't been before uh we met last week um basically went over what our plans are for the coming year what we accomplished last year uh one of the big activities is the vision zero implementation committee so that's our transportation plan that was passed a couple of years ago we have a subcommittee that's working on the implementation of that with an external consulting firm and soon they will have a list of prioritized projects uh they plan to work on and I think that's that's the main thing yeah okay yeah thank you very much um so let's see um so Now's the Time for the chairs report I'm just going to say that uh let's see uh first of all that um you know that I want to mention that the city's sustainability forums have begun once again um they had one last night there was folks on the circular economy that had uh Jenny Petoskey and uh Sam McMullen in a black zero waste and uh oh I'm drawing a blank right now Sarah I think it was Hannah Hannah Loftus that's it Anna Loftus so um they gave some very good presentations and there was a really good public discussion a lot of q a that went on for uh quite some time um until eight o'clock I believe from 6 30.
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but lower grades do get them in a Chromebook uh I want to say two through six there's a cart in each classroom in first grade it's a Chromebook of sorts of sort of a middle step and then in third through sixth their Chromebooks just like the ones in seven through twelve and again those are carts that are available in the classroom for if you spend students when the teacher use it appropriate but we don't necessarily send those home at the elementary group thanks okay and then just because it it kind of falls under some of the support services we provide I did update the board last year that we've spent a lot more energy on providing professional development for our non-certified staff so for our secretaries our technology assistants you know our drivers our maintenance staff you know we have a pretty full-fledged catalog of course offerings for them I think this came up maybe at the last board meeting but you know we've expanded the Narcan training so there's more staff that's been trained to administer narcam in an emergency so that's beyond the School nurses and then we've been you know continuing to train on Alice which is the violent Intruder protocol it I explained last year that that training is video based now so new employees you know within 30 days of employment have to complete mandated training which does include Alice so they understand the Alice Basics as soon as they're hired and then we have done two training events this year these are the Alice drills that we do we just did our last one at the high school earlier this month and it went well the employees you know respond well and they really understand how Alice Works after they go through these drills and at this point our staff is is pretty much fully trained and we are beginning to work on a curriculum so to speak for our students to train the students on Alice so right and you know administrators are responsible for all but we want and they're Alice trained but we want the students you know on an age-appropriate basis to go through the Alice training as well and Ms Solano and and her staff is is directly involved in that training development um so this is just a wrap up here Support Services you could see you know the trend is is up a bit as a percentage of budget um but it is down over the last couple of years as part of this budget request that's it for support services so before I move to maintenance and operations are we good okay so maintenance and operations the school buildings um here in Cheshire we've got eight running right now and in a minute I'll talk about what what we look like in 2026 but you know these are the building ages we know that our buildings are used not only for schools but buildings serve as community centers and you know we've got over 4 000 after school type events most at the high school and you can see Norton Highland and Dodd Doolittle have a substantial number of events and so it's always important to remember as as we make any kind of improvements or have maintenance to do at these schools it's because they're schools but they're also our community centers foreign now the good news is that we do have approval for a new Norton school and a new Norton Elementary which is excellent for us when these schools are built and what a little over three years away at this point we will have seven school buildings so these three buildings will come offline Norton Elementary that we know that that will be demolished Darcy and Chapman that is to be decided you know what the what the fate of those buildings would and that property will be and that really isn't a topic for discussion tonight but we will be moving towards having seven buildings and so we still have this responsibility and this need to maintain and make investments in these buildings that we know that they're going to continue to age you know starting with humiston in in 2026 will have reached the age of 114 years and Highland will turn 55 years in 2026.
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um and um let's see so that's all I wanted to say at this point um commissioner Ackman you have your hand up yeah sorry just because you mentioned other things that might be of interest I'm not sure people saw this February 22nd Forum housing and transportation what's the climate connection I think it's going to be at the downtown library from 6 to 8 P.M hopefully it's on Facebook it's in a variety of different places if you want the invite I'm happy to send it to you but it looks interesting and relevant oh yeah it does thanks for mentioning that I think that's being sponsored by the climate reality project is it yeah okay Ann Arbor citizens climate Lobby yeah okay so um let's see uh so the next item on the agenda is report from staff yeah thank you um most of my items have been mentioned already um I will add on to the sustainability forums uh that the one coming up in March is on electrification and the one in April is going to be on renewable energy I'm sorry for those topics keep an eye out for those uh I also do have a note uh that OSI and the Solid Waste Department are working with the Bryant Community Center to hold a neighborhood's pop day uh in the Bryant neighborhood on February 4th um so this coming week uh or next weekend I believe um and we are looking for folks to help volunteer at that event to help with sorting items that are brought in and distributing items and bringing uh leftover items that might be left after the swap day to drop off stations for donations so if you are interested anyone on the commission or anyone who is watching this meeting if you're interested in volunteering at that event um please let me know at s Reynolds a2gov.org and I will get that onto in the event okay [Music] um so um are you asking for donations as well Sean or just volunteers to help with sorting and Bryant on February 4th uh it is just fair volunteers okay and um what time is it um I do not have that information right in front of me but I will bring it up and get back okay all right thank you Sean so um the next item on the agenda is items for the next agenda so um we've had some back uh some back and forth um we were we were anticipating um uh to get a report from um from the public works department on the solid waste uh budget and the plans for uh the coming year and the budget request um we have been told that uh that um a lot that um it would be difficult for somebody to present their plans for next year because a lot of them are still in flux you know there's a lot of stakeholders and things and remember Sarah Mason came and gave a short review of what they were planning back in October so however um the city staff has promised that they will get the financials to us and we can have a discussion of the 2022 financials and the uh and the budget ask as it exists now so we'll a substantial part of our next meeting we'll be reviewing these financials and discussing them um so um that's all I have for the next agenda besides I believe yes Chris you have your hand up I when you're done I have uh one map from the C students from last spring to show folks if you want to see it it pretty well shows the net Navy Forest fragments in the city okay and and wasn't Remy gonna come in February as well or was that March uh Remy uh will be in March thank you very much correct oh no we have um no what it is is we have uh um Keith of the wastewater treatment plant as well so Keith is going to be uh Keith I forgot his last name uh Sanders yeah he's going to be talking about the wastewater treatment plant so that seems like a full agenda there we have two major items uh I do also sorry um I do also have a request from uh Heather safarth to present the Equitable engagement report at the February meeting um that would be a short presentation if we okay let's add that on okay yep we could probably accommodate that Sean thank you thank you so uh Chris you still have your hand up um yes Sean if you let me um uh share the screen sure I'll also just jump in real quick that swap day is from 8 AM to 4 P.M there are different shifts but that's that's the time frame okay oh this is one one map from the C students that worked on our fourth last year the dark green our oak trees they are the city's native Forest fragments um this um areas um where am I Earhart this is um east of Domino's Farms along Ford Road and uh a lot of hickories in there that's the orange that's math eye isn't it my math is on Dixboro which is out yonder sorry let's see if we get math High out here I think it's the East Medical Campus south of south of there this is and you can see a lot of great native Force fragments in the East Medical Campus area yeah that's that's a park I believe over there east of uh yeah that's called Marshall Park that's Marshall Park that's Marshall Park yeah Marshall Park is up here right correct and this is the East Medical Center area South yeah East medical area south of uh Plymouth Road this is a parcel that was developed back before we had natural features ordinance amendments and we managed to save this native Force fragment and a lot of really nice Wetlands on this parcel after six months of uh serious work these are the Sugar Bush and other parks along Georgetown in the Georgetown neighborhood each tree by the way here has a identification so there's lots of information here Chris is this is this um a link that you could send to all of us um that is publicly accessible no this is uh me tapping into the University but it will be okay and what is it what is what is pink and yellow in here yellow are hickories pink are um everything else that's Woody um including a lot of Maples but it's also picking up the shrub thickets and so on which is certainly true around Thurston Pond here um will this become part of the natural features um inventory kind of like GIS interface which I actually use all the time I'm so glad that you're going to be able to have this and have access to it I think we need to do a second step with c's and get all this pink reconciled a lot better this is black Pond Woods um which used to extend out into the golf course before they put a fairway through here we have another layer that I can't seem to open that actually went back all through the old Air photos and we put a line around what were Native Forest fragments back years ago and this one went out this way but didn't go nearly as far south so this 84 segment has expanded since then okay Chris that's a great that's a great uh look um so uh do you have uh do you have an anticipated time when that then the Commissioners could look at it or maybe a data test and then um and then it could be made available to the published is there a Target date for that I'm not in charge it's the I.T guys and they have a full plate also but um and Jason Talent who's the advisor for the students and used to work for the city and still worked for the university is working to get the data in a form that the it guys can plug into our system it's coming I in the next couple months Steve you're muted sorry um commissioner Dale you have your hand up yeah I do um Chris I'm wondering because I see that that's some some U of MCA students but do do you know if they're working in cooperation with like campus grounds because campus ground Services has also been working on a massive mapping of natural features and trees and other things and um I hope they're talking to each other and working together and that yeah the group is done and it was a spec a specific project that the city engaged them to do and that was to look at our fourth canopy across the city and identify areas of grass and identify down to the species level the trees that we have in the city um there's a lot more data there that I can't show you I don't haven't figured out how to work all this yet but yeah maybe we can talk offline about about what's involved in that process and see if there's an opportunity to connect it with this other stuff that U of M's is working on it'd be great and maybe it already is connected I don't know but but the U of M has a lot of native Forest fragments that are very important and it would be good not to build on yeah get them restored great okay great thank you uh Rita Mitchell you have your hand up I just want to thank commissioner Dale for raising that issue because the opportunity to work cooperatively with the university on these things where we have one Community but kind of two separate administrative Parts um has been something I think has been challenging to us for a long time and and where we can pull together the better and natural features is a perfect area to do that yeah excellent so um so let's see let's move on to the next item on the agenda which is um the next scheduled meeting which is February 23rd at 7 pm and it will be online [Music] um so this is the this the next item is uh the second period of public commentary so this is another opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes please call 888-788-0099 and enter meeting ID number 922-9696-1644 again you call it 888-788-0099 and enter meeting ID 922-9696-1644 this information is also displayed on the meeting agenda and video feed City staff will select callers that Embrace their hand one by one using the last three digits of your phone number in order to electronically raise your hand to indicate your desire to speak please press star 9 on your phone you will hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sounds so that we may hear you clearly please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments and be patient there can be a delay of up to 30 seconds before a connection is established um do we have anybody on the line as yet Sean we do not okay so we'll wait again we'll wait 30 seconds meanwhile um um let's see um do we have anybody as yet Sean we do not okay well then I will declare this meeting adjourned at 8 59 pm thank you everybody
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so as we look at maintenance and operations and I'll kind of come back to this as as we get to the capital budget portion but as we look at maintenance and Ops always remember that that core of buildings that we're going to keep we still need to maintain and make Capital investments in um before I forgot um if uh any of those properties that you highlighted were sold who's the beneficiary of the proceeds not the schools well it's the town I mean technically the buildings are Town property so they would go back to the you know any proceeds from the sale would go back to the test so we have we have control of the property but we do not own the property they're the landlord and we're the tenant although when as a tenant we fully manage and operate those buildings thank you I'm going to piggyback on that I know we're gonna I know we're probably three years out but uh this but so when the new schools come online and the other two schools become preschools become vacant um at that time will the board be handing those schools back over to the town because they won't be in use or we're just not there yet that's my plan okay thank you no I mean the point so anyway I know we're in Mr clivett has already ordered a set of keys [Laughter] no just because I I only ask because I know if folks are watching I hope they are yeah um I'm sure they have questions about you know how's this you know this budget you know it's this year but we're looking forward and I know they're thinking hey when new school's coming online are some of these things those anyway uh thank you Vincent yeah no see we'll have seven buildings in 2026 not nine well because we know I mean the one building that we know Norton will be demolished as part of that project got it okay so maintenance and operations um and I do want to recognize Mr Richard Corvette is our director of Facility Services I believe the board members know Mr clivette thank you I never get Applause by the way so that's something rich um so the maintenance budget request for this year is 4.5 million dollars we are requesting a 12.8 percent increase and that's mostly driven by electricity and heating costs which I'll I'll talk about in a minute but this budget is about 5.3 percent of the total District's budget you'll see that 40 percent of the budget is utilities and heating so that's just to turn on the lights and and keep the buildings operational 1.4 million about 32 percent of the budget is for maintenance and repairs you'll see that 19 of this budget is the cleaning services that we provide in those buildings on a daily basis when students are in and then smaller amounts maintenance supply equipment maintenance and repairs you know those two combined are about nine percent of the budget request I'm going to drill in a little bit deeper to talk about um utilities and heating so of the total maintenance budget 1.8 million dollars is specifically for utilities and heating electricity being the largest component here and for next year we are budgeting up to 879 thousand dollars with budgeting an increase of 14 for electricity um heating oil natural gas and propane those are the fuels that you know we are currently using to provide heat to the buildings is 524 000 that that is also going up in its budget request which you'll see in the next couple of slides we also pay for garbage removal and recycling um we pay water bills gas and propane is primarily for the cafeterias that's non-heat gas and propane and we do pay sewer use fees to the town of Cheshire of about 51 000 per year so that's 39 and a half percent of the budget which means that the other 60.5 percent of the budget is for maintenance and repairs of which 32 percent is for the cleaning services we do use an outside contractor to provide those cleaning services um building repairs and improvements is about 732 000 per year um and then I combined that with this line uh excuse me maintenance services so these are outside contractors we use where our building staff can't provide certain repairs you know we'll go out to a plumber an electrician HVAC contractor so it's really about a million dollars in total that is provided in this budget for the the repairs and general smaller improvements in our buildings we have another hundred and ninety one thousand for maintenance of grounds so that's anything outside of the building and I add the hundred thirty thousand budgeted for snow plowing as as part of that maintenance and then we do have monitoring service for the um for the buildings when they're not in use so that's the 60.5 percent of the maintenance budget if we look at this just on a line by line basis and um you'll see that our public utilities are going up uh 14 again that's primarily the expected increase in electricity electricity excuse me electricity costs for next year um another 130 through 3 000 we're anticipating for heat and energy cost increases although the market is looking a little bit better for um fuel I'm not so sure about electricity just yet but the natural gas supply is pretty good because it's been a warm January and so hopefully that does help bring our electricity costs down um and we are actually working without our consultant right now to try and find us some electricity pricing for next year at the board meeting I did update the board that we are locked in from February through November at you know on the supply side at about 12.8 cents but we're looking to go beyond that if we can if the Market's favorable so we're looking right now and then we are looking to increase the actual repair line by about 9.7 because we need it and again we need to you know continue to maintain our buildings and we have three more years with the existing building so these costs can come down we need to budget appropriately I'll pause on this line if there's any questions otherwise I'll keep moving I'm just wondering uh if there's what the reason behind having things like snow plowing and grounds maintenance separate in our budget from the towns snow plowing and is it just to keep track or because it seems like there could be savings to be had by having it all come under one but I'm probably wrong about that well you know one reason why it's budgeted separately is we have direct control and responsibility for you know let's use snow plowing as an example we do get help from the town the sound the town salts our Lots after our contractor is done with the plowing we recently went out to bid actually for this season and we hired two new contractors to replace the contractor that we had last year um so we went to bid we got some decent beds we haven't had any significant snow to speak of so you know we haven't put those contractors to the test right Mr clivette um you know so by going out to bid it you know it kind of ensures that we you know are doing our due diligence to try and get the you know not only the right pricing you know with snow removal it's so important that we have a contractor that's reliable that's going to show up that's going to communicate and they're not going to make any damage to our you know lots and our driveways so the town you know they plow roads and they have a whole crew that can not only plow the roads but also plow their Lots but if they were to take over they would have to add staff to do so so you know when we have talked about doing that in the past but it just doesn't seem um like it's it's really gonna add significant cost savings and there's always a concern about losing control and losing priority you know the schools need to be you know plowed and ready for you know early start the high school they have to be ready to go by 6 A.M so it's not something that we haven't considered and it's not something we won't you know continue to look at where it makes sense but for now you know we are doing everything we can to keep the cost in check and give us the control we need to be sure that we're ready for school and ready for staff when we do have a snow event we do co-op we do you know cooperate with the town on you know the maintenance of the fields you know the town uses the fields as well as the schools use the fields we've you know had a couple of issues over the last couple of years I think we've resolved those you know pretty well so there is you know cooperation that that does take place and you know the other resource that we have we share a resource with the town as project manager for our Capital items that's that's Dan bombero you know he works closely with Rich on any of the larger items that are improvements that we'll talk about as part of the capital budget thanks Ben I appreciate that we continue to look at that when we can I mean if it's not causing this not producing efficiencies cost efficiencies then I understand but continuing to look at it is always a good idea yep thank you you're welcome yeah so mine was had to do with no plan too and I was wondering if we even spent a dime yet but I don't think so maybe yesterday we spent more than a dime but we had one that was at one snow event that we had to do some cleanup rich so um so it's not zero it's not zero okay so we spent a quarter no but okay um I was going to ask you about the building use and I don't know if this is the appropriate time or because you were just really moving along and that held the audience but in a good way right if I could go back so how many um groups that use our facilities since we don't have a community center our schools or community centers so private groups we've had this discussion before that use it do we gain lose or break even with those would you say we break even is is you know my response it's not a money maker for us and you know the bigger the biggest cost you know really is custodian and if a user has a custodian they're paying for the cost of that custodian you know they do pay a building use fee you know which would cover any overhead electricity lighting now we haven't upgraded or updated our fees in several years we can look at that but um it's a break even and you know a large portion of users um you know I will add are park and rec so we don't charge them a building use fee but they bring their own staff you know to supervise the building like here at Todd they have basketball a few nights a week so they're bringing their own at what point would we do a review of fees to see anytime we want to okay I've been I just I've you know it's wear and tear on the building um and I you know I don't know I just um I think it's just something we should always be assessing um you know we do provide a service and they would you know they'd have to I'm not I'm not looking to make a big buck on this but at the same time um I I will I'll add a couple of things you know one is there was a lot of demand for use of the buildings especially the gyms there's just not enough gyms in the area and so you know we do our best the best we can to make those gyms available when they're not being used the high school has the two biggest gyms but not the only gyms Highlanders used you know Doolittle is is a well used gym um you know so the availability you know of our facilities is I think important to the community last time we looked at our fees they were in line with the market and don't forget we had a couple years of covid here and you know one year we didn't even allow use so you know we are due for a review so I can add that to the to the list of things we need to get to but um you know I think you could leave here tonight understanding that it's not costing us money it's not making us money foreign thanks uh yeah the date our electric bill Cuts over this month is it February February 22nd February 22nd yeah so we're we're out to market for our rates for another month so I'm going to give you an update because I told you I would reach out to our consultant and get an update on where we are so in and I I think I reported already in December we were paying 15 cents per kilowatt hour Supply that's just Supply okay this is just Supply you know again we're coming off an eight Cent contract yep we went to 15.
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and we were on a basically a daily price yep Market based yeah and we're scary we've engaged with actual energy for January it came down actually and January is not over but we're at about 12 and a half cents now eversource January 1 went to 24 cents so we're doing better for residential well and Commercial as well they're 23 24 25 I mean you know those commercial rates vary depending on usage but you know so we're doing better than had we moved to eversource which was a recommendation from the consultant but we are at risk through that February 22nd Okay so you know again if it stays warm then I think that's what we're looking at if it gets a little colder I'm not expecting a significant increase maybe we'll be back at that 15 cent per kilowatt rate and I hope I'm right but I'm sure if I'm not you'll let me know could you just could you just ask them how many days it would take to switch over 30.
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I already did so really yeah it's going to take 30 days to go back so oh okay we're good 12 and a half cents in January we're doing good I just hope it doesn't get extremely cold because well again because it's warm that natural gas supply is pretty strong so and we you know roughly half of I mean I think it's roughly half of Connecticut's electricity Supply does come from natural gas yep the thing is is the price of electricity is the price of energy is inelastic so it skyrockets with just like slight tweaks and temperature I mean if it drops down you know 10 degrees or something like that the price will go up significantly If drop 20 degrees it listen it's a calculator we're locked in right now we didn't have a choice um you know either go to 24 cents till we get you know we're locked in at the 12.87 starting February 22nd or we take the calculated risk so we're locked into February 22nd so as of February 22nd we lock in to the 12.8 cents with constellation we're in the open market until then yes okay um less than 30 days that's right good um the have you with regard to the snow plowing and everything else thank you for that I mean I I think I I think I recall those conversations in the past not just the labor but the equipment you have a bottleneck you might have to tell might have to buy more equipment more plows that would be like significant impact because our you know our lots and driveways have to be plowed within a short period of time yeah you know on one of those large snow events where we we are able to open school so yeah you're right in addition to you know adding staff they might have to add equipment the peak usage is the concern because it's got to be at that moment in time when you can do it um separate apart from that I have this Insider over here who mentioned that the Public Works director is now hired so just thinking sometime in the next few oh in the in the in the next few months um have a conversation just circle back with them about you know are parks the fields I mean and stuff like that for opportunities for cost savings okay will do um so just that piggyback on what Tim was saying as far as energy goes can we are we controlling what we can control as far as costs like do we have contracts where they're a lot you know we are locked into wherever we can't lock in and we're locked and we exposed somewhere well we're only the only exposure we have is electricity because we've locked heating oil gas diesel fuel natural gas we have not had a price lock in at least three years it might this might be our fourth year just because the market has not been conducive to that and it still isn't so it's really they're not willing to lock or you haven't found it the prices to lock is too high we're better off staying we've been better off and it served us well just staying with the you know eversource supplies natural gas now so we were better off staying with with eversource and that's who we're still with for that natural gas supply um let's see my next question was on looking at the cleaning services number um as we're no longer doing that day Porter and any of the uh additional cleaning services that we were doing a few years ago right now so we're just on the standard you know nighttime crew you know tidying up during the day or you know however we were doing it let's say in 2019 yeah we have a crew that comes into each school at night after the school day you know sanitizes the bathroom you know does all the you know cleaning of the floors emptying of the waste basket um they'll do the and there's special services that we do at each of the breaks and then over the summer so it's we're back to standard contract there's no covert related intraday cleaning that all was suspended okay um that's all for now thank you thanks Adam with regard to natural gas and electricity they're kind of similar and that you know if it gets cold the prices can Skyrocket the gas is used to generate the electricity but I'm just taking a guess with regard to the gas do we use an interruptible splatinum so we're just solid on gas all the time okay do we have do we have oil at our schools as backup s oh so you don't but you don't even have dual fuel boilers anymore okay is sure okay okay it's just it's Doolittle and Norton because there's no gas lines there anyway yeah okay thank you and Darcy was converted to propane so there's no natural gas there either but the conversion to propane you know took place two years ago oh thank you does gas have to run by Darcy do you know on the street yeah okay oh sure sure okay thank you okay two um the board's familiar with this slide so we do have eight school buildings and a lot of square footage and a lot of learning spaces but the two points I want to make here is one that the operating budgets for maintenance you know have been essentially flat to inflation the last several years even though our buildings are getting older and so you know it's important that we look at the capital Appropriations and the operating budgets to make sure we're able to keep up with our buildings I think the board knows that but even though we have two new buildings coming online we still have a significant amount of work that needs to continue to happen at the existing buildings what we've done even with the capital budget the last couple of years because we didn't know are we going to build new elementary schools is it going to be approved are we going to build a middle school is that going to be approved we have put items not on hold but we've pushed them out into future years of our capital budget well now that we know that we will have two new elementary schools built in three years now we know what the fate of the rest of the buildings are so this is going to be a bit of a challenge and a dilemma for the planning committee of the board and then the Board of Education to consider the Investments we have to make so again the operating budget funds you know maintenance and repairs and the capital budget which we're going to talk about kind of quickly here funds those long-term improvements that we need to make to our schools capital in in Cheshire is defined as anything over a hundred ten thousand dollars goes through the capital budget anything over five hundred thousand dollars has to go to voter referendum now we've met with the planning committee we have a follow-up meeting scheduled for February 8th and so we are working on the five-year capital budget request starting 23 24 through 27-28 you'll see that there's no dollar numbers no dollars associated with these yet because the planning committee is is not prepared and hasn't made a recommendation yet but I think it's important just to highlight the general categories where we know Investments are needed I'm going to start with window replacements because you know the shell of the building right all the components that keep heat in and out you know the windows are an important component of that so we want to make sure that we are continuing to make investments to keep the building show solid as possible and that does include Roof Systems so these two categories you know Roofing is part of this category those are important to maintain you know the you know not so much the structural Integrity of the building but the actual heat and cooling capability of that building and then we're going to talk about HVAC improvements across the schools um you know we know that do little as an elementary school is not will be the only Elementary School that doesn't have full air conditioning after the new schools are built so that's one consideration that the planning committee and the board will be looking at same thing for Dodd and then the high school as well so HVAC improvements we do anticipate that being a larger portion of the capital budget for the next few years what we are hoping with the HVAC improvements is the board knows is the there were there were HVAC grants that were made available that we applied actually for nine different grants on December 2nd we're hoping that the legislator makes HVAC grants permanent and at a 50 reimbursement rate that'll help defray the cost of these improvements that we need to make and the state is keenly aware you know after the pandemic in particular that many of the age school buildings don't have you know updated or any mechanical air systems at all and so these hopefully will get supported you know by a legislator and and pass but we don't know that yet um we still have several cafeterias that need improvements the largest one being Cheshire high school and that one is that's a good example of a project that we had a known cost we get pushing it out and pushing it out because we just didn't know what the fate of the school Improvement plan would be so now we know we'll have to deal with that and then the rest of these not that they're not important but you know in the interest of time we'll just move through it because the planning committee you know will make a recommendation in the next few weeks to the board and the ball would consider whatever the recommendations are and then this is the same idea except breaking it out by school so you know the high school is probably going to have the largest piece of the overall cost just because it's the largest building you know followed by the middle school Doolittle Highland and then district-wide projects would include things like replacing ceiling tiles and you know improvements to the sidewalks and those types of things you'll see that I just noted up here because there's no slice of the pie Chapman Norton Darcy those buildings are coming offline so you know we will certainly make investments in capital to the extent we have to to get us through three years but you know we're going to try and avoid making Capital Investments on buildings we're no longer going to have and then central office and humiston and this you know particular example we haven't you know contemplated making any Capital Investments there but that's something again that still will get discussed and then just for informational purposes the town the board recommended and the Town Council approved 2 million five hundred ten thousand dollars for improvements those were approved those are in the works right now Mr clivette is spearheading that we've got about at least 10 bids that are outstanding right now for improvements on these particular projects and then just kind of wrapping up capital budget so this has been our Board of Ed requests and this has been the Town Council approval rate on the one-year capital expenditure so you know the the rate of approval you could see has increased which is a good thing so we need to fund those Capital Improvements you know at the Town Council level I do think this 2.5 million is a little bit light we do need to step it up now that we know what buildings we're keeping online so that again will be the challenge as we talk about the capital budget this year also wanted to point out that we have the this emergency fund we call it if there's ever a building you know catastrophic building issue that we don't have enough operating budget to cover we do have this building maintenance CNR fund it has a 233 000 balance I do want to point out that we haven't made any requests to tap that since June of 2019 I don't want to jinx myself but I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that you know Mr clebet and his staff are doing much more preventative maintenance you know when they see things that are not going to last for much longer you know they repair or replace them so we do have this safety net you know and we'll continue our efforts to try and you know do everything we can with the dollars we have to keep our buildings in good repair safe and secure you know for our students and the if we do need to use this fund it does require time Council approval which the board members are aware of so the wrap up here is you know we've got maintenance needs from our operating budget those are a constant I just put in some recent pictures of well graffiti that's does happen this is a light pole at the bus depot that nobody noticed was was pretty rotted a bus tapped it it went over didn't damage anything including the fence but that's in the process of being repaired that's a trapped raccoon apparently raccoons are looking for warmth and food at this time of year and they're they found it in our buses so this was captured and released and that's uh one of the dog boilers that had a leak and this is actually over at Cheshire High School the greenhouse structurally that's failing and I we I believe we talked about this we are going to have to just tear that thing down we talked about it in our capital budget meeting so we take care of the maintenance as it comes up but you know the capital budget this is where we make our our bigger improvements and some improvements are really visible like the that's a picture of the East gym that was just refinished I mean it looks brand new was was refinished and the contractor did a great job but you know most most people will never see the you know replaced group up at Dodd that you know will get us through the next 25 years and I I believe that's is the warranty 25 on that or 20.
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I think it's 20. um that's the Doolittle you know parking lot repaving so the things that we do we really have to look at the capital Appropriations as a long-term investment to keep our buildings in good repair and so that rounds out maintenance and operations you could see on the operating budget side it's been flat as a percentage of our total budget it's not that it hasn't gone up but it's been you know flat as a percentage of budget so I'll pause there because that ends maintenance and Ops um I'm going to ask a weird line of questioning and the chair can let me know if it's too strange or out of place for this meeting um yeah I don't know I'm not quite sure all right have a nice hat um how much a year do we spend um uh uh replacing damage for the bathrooms in the high school approximately ten thousand all right give me a number since then uh they've stepped up with you know security so the numbers come way down aside from graffiti I think the physical damage is much of anything okay so it's yeah okay because I I don't know if um I don't know if it was another presenter had mentioned something about an idea and popped in my head about um was the students did present oh yes yes right yes our student Representatives um say he was talking about you know preventing uh damage and graffiti and that sort of thing in the bathrooms and I was wondering uh if we have any a key card access systems in the school and how much it would cost because I was a thought of like what do you say key card you're talking about access to the buildings themselves or inside the buildings thinking specifically bathrooms though you know who comes and goes and you know you you just you know you chime in and then you know you can cut off access so you can allow whoever you want because you know for years now it's been you have to kids are running across the across the school they use a bathroom and I can only imagine how inconvenient that is considering you have an unlimited amount of time to go to classes and would it be a worthy or at least a time to look into the investment of having some kind of access like that because then if something were to happen you know who was in there at that time and potentially you can at least narrow the the suspects of who it might have been or installed I don't know if we have video cameras if that's even legal they have a video camera code who's coming in and out you know I don't know what would be uh video cameras outside the bathroom and um Adam I think you raised a number of really good points things that you know dating back to my day is principal when when cigarettes were an issue you know that's that's evolved over time and um it's frustrating for us to have to limit bathroom access I mean bathroom access should be a right of every student and staff member in the building um and I think our students as you heard from Michael last Thursday are really trying to take ownership of supporting each other to make better decisions I mean on one hand you hate to limit bathroom access on the other sixty thousand dollars in repairs of bathrooms in the course of a year that's astronomical um and so it is a very difficult balance point but our students as Michael said are really working on constructive Solutions and we look forward to hearing from them you know we'll make sure that Michael provides an update as they evolve and continue to report things now in contemporary high schools that are being built there aren't doors on the bathrooms it's more hygienic better from a security perspective uh to you know if you can hear something going on in the bathroom do you say there are no doors no doors so it's like the airport you know like like a sports Stadium yeah yeah exactly so you have a privacy panel yeah and there are definitely bathrooms at CHS where we could do that tomorrow um actually and just leave the door open that you can't see into the bathroom um but the door is open which provides better supervision if somebody is vaping or I mean and that's full honesty I mean some kids do vape in the bathroom it's very hard to catch um it's very frustrating I never thought I'd you know yearn for the days of cigarettes where it was easier to catch kids like that um but it is I mean it can be odorless smokeless you know it's it's tough and nobody should have to deal with that in the bathroom either so having doors open when there's an odor that's beneficial and there's often a noise that's emitted with even a vape pen that you can pick up if the door is open you can't pick it up if the doors closed so we're looking at a variety of solutions and our students are kind of leading that process and we'll definitely be updating that but you can see kind of where our conundrum is where it's sixty thousand dollars worth of damage vandalism is is light compared to that obviously but it's still problematic and our kids think it is too and they're working on it quick question I just uh I know it's tough um finding you know the culprits but have has a school district ever again I and I'll ask this question without um sounding odd but the point is that in the cases where it was known cause damage was the bill ever sent back home to the parents to pay yeah when we catch people to do that the there's accountability on that and whether it be Financial or otherwise but uh it's it is difficult to catch people when you stuff things into the toilet and it could have been there three hours later and you know 13 1400 people passed through the building it's hard to tell you know definitively so yeah so what I was getting at was would there be a is there a cost offset to installing an access system like that versus incurring the uh vandalism cost every year would it be a break even or is there a net positive or or anything like that I just wasn't sure if if that kind of system had been looked into since probably the the physical transformation of like the open doors or whatever would probably be a significant cost as well and maybe just having because I know then every student would have to have a keypad and then you have missing key missing Keys all the time you know just like at work you know you lose them or whatever right and so you know that that could be in you know a problem too but I don't know it's just a thought where you know that you have an individual it's you know it's an individual uh access for every student and then you open up all the bathrooms again and then you kind of back to I don't I don't even know when when all the bathrooms are accessible I don't know what year that was but it seems like it's been a long time so all the bathrooms the high school now are open but those are locked so the yeah when we obviously we try and keep as many open as we can the fact that we have to pay an adult to sit outside and record who goes in and out it's also kind of ridiculous right so so now whether you have staff yeah paid staff now so yeah so again so is it you know Is it feasible then to look into it yeah the short answer is all options are on the table we would consider anything because there's not just the cost of vandalism I mean that's the easy one to quantify but the other cost is are students not being able to use the restaurant like that that's a real issue that's a i they hate it we hate it and if there were I would much rather spend another 50 Grand to ensure that all of our kids can use the bathroom in peace then spend 60 Grand to replace vandalism so all options are definitely on the tape well because not only and I know that as far as I know there haven't been a lot of instances of violence I don't think in their bathrooms you know that may be back in the day that was the case but um you know now at least you know use Co who's coming going you have logs all the time I just you know it might be just something that sounds like some planning yeah perhaps something to put on the planning agenda take a look of something did because we're willing to pretty much try anything and so we had some Vape detectors installed as a test and the way it worked is that if it detected a vape the person the administrators would get a text message so they you know how big the high school is you know you'd have to run across the whole high school and hope that you make it into the bathroom in time to catch the kid vaping so it didn't work out right for us so we we did it as a pilot technology wasn't quite there my last year as principal I was complaining to Jack kasner about this yeah and I was eight years ago now nine years ago and Jack brought me defunct smoke detectors with a label maker uh Vape detection and we just hung him up in the bathroom he was kind of as a deterrent and it didn't work all that well but you know maybe a few kids but we would do anything right it's the way to to give that freedom back without having staff camped out when they can be used in another capacity um you know so I just you know thinking maybe it's a Worthy investigation if it hadn't been done already that's all that's why I wanted to bring that up that's not one we've done really never um yeah you know kids share fobs and you use the fob and you open the door for six other people or whatever there's there are ways to skin the cat and it yes but it's still worth still worth um examining but that's you know so then you have a name and then again you're still exactly that's you're making that Circle a lot smaller right yeah anything we can do yeah so you suggesting that the money be added to the opponent to budgets or something next year I say that an investigation should be uh conducted to see if there's a net positive right or a net a net even you know sure so yeah messed up yeah just wondering about the uh dollars involved here we had home monitors we have had home monitors for years what happened with these homeowners did they just get repositioned just like yeah so there was no there was no real changing cost with regard to that she just said all right you're gonna sit next to the okay thank you good all right well that's maintenance and operations so the last piece of tonight from a presentation point of view is to go through a couple of quick updates Dr solon's gonna address the updates and questions from the prior meetings I'm going to do the first one this is a follow-up um to miss Ham's question she asked about new and equipment um new and replacement equipment at our last meeting and I did explain generally what it was for but I thought it would be helpful to provide a little bit more detail of what we used our replacement our new equipment budget and our replacement equipment budget for and this is 2122 so on the replacement equipment aside you could you could see you know right off the bat music was um about 60 percent of our expenditure we needed to make a pretty significant investment especially at our elementary schools to replace some of the musical instruments we were either repairing them constantly because they were dated or we couldn't use them which that makes no sense so you know that was a significant portion of that spend in 2122 we also had to do quite a bit of upgrades you know for our art you know at the high school as well as our elementary schools um and then we we did spend some of our replacement equipment for technology Athletics classrooms that category means that we've either bought you know some furniture some replacement rugs things of that nature and then office another is just that you know the school offices um and then on the new equipment side that year you could see that we spent quite a bit on classroom furniture we added a couple of kindergarten classrooms because of of growth in kindergarten so that was not only Furniture but all the supplies that are very specific to kindergarten classrooms that had to be purchased cafeteria tables again Athletics office furniture and a lot less spent out of our new equipment budget for music and then along the bottom and I know the board members have a copy of the slide I just gave you some examples of the types of purchases that you know were made across these categories so it's things like gym mats and vaulting boards science lab tables and student desks project Adventure ropes project Adventure is at the high school it's part of the physical education um class says basketballs white boards um basketball backboard and we had to replace a defibrillator over at Doolittle which we have in each school so those are the types of items to give you a little bit more clarity around what comes out of the newer replacement equipment accounts and with that I would like to introduce Dr Solon a superintendent of schools who will take you through the next couple of slides and then conclude thank you Ben um is Mr mecciana mentioned we're going to kind of revisit some of the questions that have come up over the last couple of weeks and kind of put a bow on things I do want to remind people that if you do have a question that you want to submit to the board I'm assuming that given the later nature of tonight's meeting and that we're likely to meet again on Tuesday or if you want to email now you could do Cheshire Board of Ed contact at cheshire.k12.ct.us if there's a question about that you can go on to our website and look at the meeting agenda for tonight's meeting or any of our meetings and that email address is located at the top of the page not just for tonight's meeting but for any questions you may have um last or this past Tuesday Rob and Ann was presenting our a special education budget and a portion of that as well as some really good information around updates and we had talked about uh and Tim asked specifically about the 66 new enrollments around special education when we evaluated that that's true but 26 of those students came through the Darcy program so we did have an exceptionally High number of new students that enrolled over the course of the year 262.
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that's a really big number of students to come into the district over the course of one year moving from out of town or joining us from St Bridget's or you know potentially but most of those were move-ins from out of town 40 of those students had individualized education plans when they arrived that's 15 percent roughly our prevalence rate is 13 so it's a little bit higher but it's not um demonstrably higher it's not something that's like really reshaping the game for us per se but like I said you know the 262 students is a dramatic increase in enrollment for one year for us the future Staffing question is something that Andrew asked early on I think maybe my initial presentation and I'm looking at the projected enrollment data for next year if we were to sustain a current 18 18.8 18.1 students per teacher at grades K through six that's our average we would need to hire two additional teachers for that level Middle School would really kind of they remain on this threshold where the enrollment is on the highest end of our average for the last decade or so um higher end but um you know we'd really have to monitor that it's too early for me to predict it based on current enrollment we know we wouldn't necessarily the current projection we wouldn't necessarily be adding but if things fluctuate it could happen um and then the high school would remain status quo and I want to again I know we've talked about this a couple of times but for anybody maybe who's watching for the first time at the high school level several years ago we shifted uh at the negotiation of the past contract from six periods taught per teacher to five and that is aligned we couldn't identify another high school in the state where they were teaching six periods um and so that was a what we would consider a contract negotiation liability that we negotiated into the contract and there is an adjustment there so we knew we did this in a way and because we knew enrollment was declining it would have been astronomically expensive to do this to either pay a lot more money or to hire a lot more teachers as we dropped when the enrollment was higher so it was a strategic move by the board at that point it makes sense and that's the status quo but that um influences this next slide that Adam mentioned the other day in that um the teacher Staffing Trend over time um and I think you know there there had been historically this uh you know misperception or misconception that uh we hired teachers and they never go we just the number of teachers keep going up and so I started sharing this slide through the board and and um uh Town Council meetings several years ago and it really illustrates that when our enrollment declines are total teacher count declines and when our enrollment increases our teacher count generally increases the last two years are an anomaly because of that six to five where is our enrollment dropping the high school however we are not eliminating teachers because we've reduced them down to five sections in a phase-in process that made a good fiscal sense so you know once we get through that process it'll be back on Trend prior to the last two years are we would reduce one on average one teacher for every 30 students we lost as our our enrollment declined um and you know we you can see at the beginning there the for 2014 through 18 we reduced a number of teachers over that period as our enrollment declined as our enrollment started to increase again um again we were also at that time adding special education in the house programs offset by the tremendous cost of outplacement so um I think you know I just wanted to highlight that for people and help people understand that Faith had asked the question last or this past Tuesday about special education versus general education per pupil expenditures that's Illustrated up here on the screen our net current expenditures per student for all students is 18 809 for general education students 16 298 special education and students it's thirty four thousand 301.
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that number has increased also over the last several years again because we've returned students that were outplaced to our school programs and when you do so that obviously increases the cost not just for um well I guess on the average student that's in-house increases the cost outplacement costs actually I'm wrong because our placement's embedded in here is an event yeah okay so thirty four thousand 301 it has increased it does underscore what we talked about in our legislative meeting around the cost of excess cost reimbursement so when a student has needs that exceed four and a half times the 18809 that difference between four and a half times eighteen eight oh nine and whatever the cost is gets tabulated for each student where that's the case the state initially you know was intending to reimburse districts 100 of that cost uh what has happened instead is there's a a block grant that's proportionally divided up among the districts for whatever money is out there and so we don't end up seeing uh a hundred percent of that by a long shot so um that's an issue for us is is the cost of special education continues to escalate that concludes some of the the questions I I hope that I captured the questions that you had asked over the last several meetings um and I want to just try and put a bow on this before we wrap up and get to any other questions I apologize that I sound like froggy from our gang but um I'll try and get through this as quickly as possible um you know if you recall the theme of our presentation was prosperity and like our our community as a whole the Cheshire public schools are growing and I think that's a testament to the job that you do that our administrators do that the destination that our community is and our budget is dedicated to maintaining that level of service that existed you know before our our enrollment increased the ratios almost miraculously are identical in k-6 18.1 students per teacher other factors though I mean this this budget is not a direct translation to tax all right when you see 6.46 doesn't mean our taxes go up 6.46 there are a myriad of other factors that um are folded into the equation like our grand list growth which has been substantial um the town budget obviously is a significant portion of this as well as well as our capital budget so ultimately there's a long road to hoe before we get to determining the actual impact I would encourage and and ask the you know you consider supporting the full budget toward that end some of the Marquee budget drivers here as we talked about previously and and you know much discussed enrollment is certainly a key part of this medical benefits being probably the second most significant piece Global energy and as I mentioned uh mill rate offsets by a lot of the development that has occurred over the course of the the last couple of years in town um I talked about this being a budget that maintains the level of service that we've provided um and then shared this slide with you and I think it you know is illustrative of that point that you know 95.2 percent of our budget is basically fixed cost increases uh whether they be um you know energy based or um you know are Insurance based or our contracts with teachers and things like that um it's really driven by that there you um I'm sure have heard there aren't new programs we're adding into this or add-ons anything flowery per se it's it's sustaining the the programming that we currently provide and we've you know as as Robin has talked about as well we've adjusted you know where in an effort to make sure that we're being as efficient as possible that um you know we make adjustments we move staff around to make sure that we're getting the most efficient and most the best support for our students at the best and most reasonable cost um tonight a number of questions were raised by the board about uh considerations on how to save money and we appreciate that our administrative team I think they're really smart people and I think that we're very conscientious about how we spend the resources that we have I don't think you find cheshire's level of success and the fact that we spend four million dollars Less on average per year than our peers without pushing ourselves you as the board and us administratively and all of us collectively to try and do the best we can to be efficient I mean again I think it's worth consideration one thousand dollars per student every year we spend less than 10 pounds similar to Cheshire dirkby um and um that in no way is meant to be any sort of Shame the same way I would say that's not meant to be some sort of uh badge of honor either I think what it says is that we are all of us the members of the board and the administrative team very conscientious about how can we be as efficient as we possibly can be and this budget I think stays true to that mission um and again I I ask that you consider that and as you deliberate and and make tough decisions and of course at the end of the day we're going to do the best we can um you know as a team to to make the best outcomes for our kids so um this is our budget calendar this concludes our January 26th pub public uh budget review and and thank you for your administrative review of accounts and uh I guess at this point I want to pass it back to Mr grippo and certainly if there are any questions all of us are happy to answer them or if there's anything else certainly um go ahead um so before I start asking a couple questions I I just goes without saying but I do want to thank you Dr Solon Vincent the entire team Marlene our staff our administrators for putting a lot of work into this it's uh I'm not surprised I've been through a number of these and the details is always there so thank you so much we do look at it as you hopefully have seen last few meetings by the questions being asked we appreciate this it helps make our decisions a little easier um one question I had was regards to the three additional elementary teachers and and I think it was a great job covering the enrollment and why the teachers are needed and why it's important to maintain the you know 18.8 ratio per student or 18.1 uh but before I ask all those three questions you know you you probably could slide about the certified you know staff tally is you know they don't increase infinitely you know we you do adjust I should say CPS has adjusted within you know reason to the enrollments and every year you know I I again that's the same question that you answer is you know what do we have to teach on coming or you know eliminate teachers well we don't really want to limit teachers want to keep them and keep what we need to have so that that happens I appreciate that slide one thing I want to say is for anybody that might be watching um you know children that went to school you know two three or decades ago um maybe what I went through which I want to say how long ago that was um yeah I saw large class sizes and this is a private parochial school and I was you know 30 kids in a class one teacher but it worked because you know they just had a focus on what which is no small task you know the basics right the basic Mastery skills fast forward to today in addition to mastering English English math stem we have behavioral assessments we have social emotional learning we have things that come into the classroom that are not um really related to the classroom that our teaching staff have to be aware of and assess and educate so there's and you know we talk about the mandates um and so there's a lot more going on even though the classes are 18 students in my opinion I think that it still is a lot for our teachers to handle um and knowing that you know that some folks are level one to one student teacher relationship that's going to be feasible but nonetheless I I appreciate and I understand the reason for three online three teachers uh because our growth is continuing and I do feel you know class size is getting too a little bigger than that posted some challenges uh it affects everybody in that classroom so so that being said I had a really just a question general question we probably can't answer but if um let's say we weren't doing new schools I'm glad we are um and we're stuck with what we have as far as facilities if there was an option to even redistrict today at the elementary level and if we did that do you think there will still be a need for additional staff for through for enrollment or do you think if you had the flexibility to move children around base where there's room if there is any would that have helped the situation I know it's a hypothetical but sure um and I'll do the best I can to respond to that with you know the support of the people in this room I think there there could be the potential to perhaps um it's harder to if you redistrict the entire town um if I was able to redistrict some students that were in a specific grade the answer would be definitely um if you're redistricting the entire Community the answer would be possibly the other you know potential impacts there are transportation and you know special services and things like that so um I don't know that the the budget would look significantly different than it does the other issue there is you're creating a lot of community pain yes for students who have been through this you know I've gone to the school for the last five years and now I'm going to transfer in sixth grade without giving much advance notice I'm not I know you're not suggesting but hypothetically you know yeah if there's money to be saved and you know I don't know that that money is significant until when we build new buildings and the capacity of those buildings dramatically expand now I know we have more kids sure uh we project obviously more kids in 2026 when those buildings open but when we redistrict there I think you know the savings isn't going to be dramatic but you do gain efficiency No Doubt I just relaying a thought so much sure so thank you thank you thanks huh thank you Adam yeah just following on that uh as a Norton dad I don't really want to go down this path but I'm wearing a different hat right now so I just look at it um Norton's gonna happen yeah Fawn Boris Silver Mill Farm Meadow I live right on Higgins I'm just thinking the kids who are moving in we had a record number it sounds like right number of kids who just moved into the past year at least in my experience yeah okay in recent history just having those conversations when they come to enroll yeah do you want to do this I mean some of them may be very well just within the walking distance of where the bus lines go right now now would be on the other side of the road so there's some complexity to it but it seems to me that you could end up well I don't know you'd have to look at the numbers and see yeah I think that would be a kindergarten enrollment you know issue because if you're in grades you know four through six it's not going to matter you'll be gone you'll be in the middle school so um yeah the earlier grades yeah when those students enroll particularly kindergarten as you're saying we do have a map on our website and let me Backtrack on that we will have a map if we don't already I know we did for months on end that showed the redistricting here morning here um but we'll put that back up again and I'll talk to our elementary leadership team about making sure that people are aware of that that's fair Realtors may also be we should probably get together with the Realtors over the summer to make sure they're aware too yeah where new lines are so that's a good suggestion um so switching now uh thank you for the information the update on the special ed you mentioned the 26 of the students were coming from Darcy is that a high number or a normal number I'd like Kim and and Robin kind of weigh in on that I'm not looking for an exact I just wanting to the 26 transition students some what do you think okay is that something that you expect to continue with covid hopefully dying out or is it increased awareness of the program now so it'll stay Flatline yeah no and that's the thing that that's the thing that was going through my mind before when you use the word reshaping the system and I'm thinking we're just adding new space and there are certain situations I think where it's one student in one classroom at least for a set amount of time and that just that would be really rare but okay yeah you were saying eight to nine subscribe this this could just balloons space uh concerns really quickly but when you said it's 15 that's the same as the 13 right um yeah in terms of yeah so thank you for that sure um sure yeah no and I think that's a great thing it's just like sort of a reality check like if all of a sudden it wasn't 15 and like UH 60 or 80 of the people moving here and I'm wondering wait a second what's gonna happen with space but it's kind of built in I think you know I I agree that people move here because of special education services the data tells you though they move here for all services if they if the percentage of IEP students who moved in was 40 of our new enrollment I would say absolutely they're just here for the special ed it's 15 percent which is a big number and I'm proud of the fact that so many people have chosen Cheshire public schools and chosen Cheshire as a community um and I'm proud of the services that special education offers but to say it's I it's it's because of that I think for some people I absolutely agree certainly for the people Kim hears from because that's a lot of the population she works with um and exclusively basically the population Robin works with so yes absolutely people move here for special education services in the job they do but clearly they move here for all services the night ride 200 Yeah well yeah exactly without due respect to Mr Martell he's working on it he's working on it that's why the grand list is growing Mr martelli's um okay yeah that's it for me thank you I just well I'm gonna like shout outs um I just there was a report that came out there to show at the Town Council last week so we have 549 approved multi-family housing units on the books right now that haven't even come online yet yeah so I think when we're thinking about adding teaching staff I think that that's an important number to know so that's 549 units that are approved some of which are not multiple bedrooms but it's still a large number of housing units and then that doesn't include 140 two to four bedroom units that were approved down the North End and then another at least 40 housing units so that's about 700 housing units across the town so all right you should probably make sure people are buckled in before you say that well it's just it's all public records yeah I know but you know um but I the AED is in the lobby for those of you who are wondering but the um the um other thing I I know Vin and Andrew you may know better than I do when slam came back and did the revised enrollment estimate I know some of that was considered and they worked with I don't remember if it was Dan or Mike Glidden um to to review that but I I don't know all I don't doesn't sound like all of that was considered it's your point A lot of it was but you know since then at least I would say 70 units were not included in that so the line so then all the North End units were included as well as the Hazel AI which is the larger Apartments towards Waterbury side of town so you point to impacts what Tim asked earlier about boundaries in terms of uh where each Elementary School would service that part of the community and that I mean what we had drafted could shift I mean based on what you're sharing here if if we get substantially more enrollment on the North End as we're constructing these schools I mean things could shift within a few blocks they're not gonna I don't think dramatically shift but a caveat that I think we need to share with the community I'll put that on the website too that as things evolve they could shift this is not static don't buy your house based on them thank you I just want to say uh yeah Andrew next time give us a warning because I just heads up just just I was getting so just I was getting settled because I was getting set into like we said 500 plus I started coming down I need my 700 and so but thank you good work what's wrong with the seven it would be 700 before we meet next week right so which is it's a nice problem that's a good opportunity a good problem to have I just want to say if I mentioned earlier Dr Sullen that um for those that would not be aware um the board actually started budget planning talks uh more than a few months ago with you I appreciate the proactivism back then I clearly you heard some of our ideas of concerns so thank you for that I do want to say though that the 6.64 percent was not what you originally started working with if I remember um and I think I did we did talk one day and you kind of pitched a number in the process and I almost slipped off my chair but it was more than 5.2 million so yeah do you want to talk about what initially that number looked like before you came down or came to Europe sure that was in my initial presentation I don't know if your number right in front of the event but um it was in my I want to say the number was closer to eight percent yeah does that sound right man which would be what roughly another three um 81.6 2.4 million yeah so you were closer for an additional three percent on the eight million so I I only mentioned that because uh that gets a little bit lost and in all this great detail so for folks I've been watching this thank you this was a higher number that was worked down um and you know working out now but I want to thank you for that um there's one last thing I I every year I don't know why I forget I wrote it down this time so next year you had mentioned the cost saving efforts that the the district does is we all appreciate that we know that there goes a lot goes into that and uh unfortunately public is not always aware maybe for next year I would consider having to slide in there talks about and we had this yeah I think we did I think we should but some of the some of the some of the activities that the district did that did save dollars on o m would often don't talk about that and I feel that um as a board we're a little closer to it um but the public is not and it's not something you do for this process but it's a shame not to talk about it because there's a lot of good work happening it's another great suggestion because I think you're right um in the past like the um the proportion of teachers to students slide that had been in some of our and and this year's not fully behind us yet I'm not that you want to see it on on Tuesday but um certainly it's something when we go before the council in a couple of months that it would make sense to be inclusive of because um there's a reason that we spend a thousand dollars less per student and those reasons can be enumerated to a degree and should be like you're pointing out and uh I think we need to share that so thank you for that suggestion I think I just want to acknowledge that foreign so one of the reasons why I'm not a lawyer is because I wasn't that great at word problems as I've gotten older I've gotten better um and so this word problem stuck out to me and so I have a bunch of questions about it to see if I understand it correctly and that goes back to your future Staffing forecast sort of word problem there um to maintain that 18.1 ratio going forward um so I wanted to ask so so you're saying that firstly in order to maintain that 18.1 does that assume that we approve all positions that you ask for in the budget this year and does that include all the special education positions as well um really good question and the answer is yes that it would be provided that this year's positions are included for General classes um that we would need to get to the number we're proposing in this year's budget to only add to next year um in terms of the special education it's not fully inclusive of that um I mean that that's a little bit of a wild card you know based on students who moved in students who moved out um you know that that's something that is Robin did a nice job illustrating the other day we try and manage very carefully so for example we had a reduction in a specific service at the transition program we had an increased demand at CHS we didn't you know add a teacher at CHS we reallocated so we would continue to do that special ed is a little harder to forecast um does that also assume that um that our population you you assume that our population will increase another 262 students over the average next year and kind of going up to that our Peak all I did was take nasdaq's projection for k-6 for next year that's in your budget book if you want to take a look at that the net difference um there is that uh I just want to get back to that slide there was two teachers so they're forecasting 36 more kids I guess is it's a little more than that but when you average out all of the students all of the teachers to get to 18.1 and that's what where we are to to additional positions okay um right now a caseload of 18.
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right we don't add that position and we allocated one of the other positions that they will surpass the General Life classroom teachers face or right yeah student load that's a fair come yeah thank you yeah that certainly adds uh you know perspective and um you know an intention around that that addition um so uh so 262 if I recall our normal like sort of like a Kindergarten class it used to be like 200. right like a few years ago am I am I it's like I'm trying to figure out like is 262 really high like was our average always like 198 and now all the students moving in yeah oh no not students moving in but just in general like to to try and figure out you know what are incoming classes are looking like in terms of the whole grade level Staffing sure so so 260 is a pretty small number um of for a grade level in the Cheshire public school system um this is generally in the threes the NASDAQ page Vin is at under enrollment tab I would imagine right there's a page under enrollment it's produced by the New England School Development Council and we include this in the binder because it's in anybody watching at home or our administrators who are really excited to check it out on their phones can go to our website it's there um it has the historic and projected enrollments by grade um like I said historically going back probably 15 years I think and moving forward I think it only goes forward 12 years because it's based on birth rate um so that will show you you know what is a historical 15 years ago I started here 18 years ago what did a class average look like it was High threes force that number has dwindled to the point where we do have some High twos but it's returning right back not quite over four but close so so I'm just trying to tell the the just so so I look at you know we expected uh let's see yeah sorry it's such a big chart that you almost need a magnifying glass uh cell phones help when you so we were expecting uh if I'm reading this right 20 we're we're expecting to have a total of 2469 students for 2022 for K through six according to this so are you saying that we were expecting 24.69 but we actually had 26 or 2700 students in k-6 for 2022 is that what you're saying is that what that is that what that means um not necessarily because of two reasons one the 262 and the uh 66 it was 262 Beyond expected or is that absolutely and it was that include that was K to 12.
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okay to 12. right okay so full District right the other thing is if you look only against that chart there it it updates based on the actual enrollment every year too so it doesn't show you what they projected for last year it shows you the actual so the projections for last year were lower and we had a lot of students move in they projected some students moving in so it's not exactly 262 the difference but it's certainly higher than based on the 262 that's a big number of kids to move it like Tim said in my tenure I could never remember a year like that I know our elementary people will vouch for it Scott used to call me every three days it's not quite as bad anymore but it's still busy over there not that Scott calling is a bad thing but you know what I you know what I mean my wife knew his voice on the phone not for nothing between covet and enrollment so then so then you were we were really sort of expecting maybe I don't even know you can't figure it out from that chart because it doesn't have the projected data we would have to look at last year's chart right you know we can't send you that to add to elementary school teachers You're Expecting 60 additional students in the elementary so for next year we're expecting um 36 more students oh I see yeah so 18 18 times okay yeah 18 times two I'm thinking the reduction was 30 every 30 reduction is 30 addition is 18.
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yeah so every 30 students and the reason is because they don't all leave out of the same building in the same grade right if they all left in the same building it might be you know one and a half if you lose 30. right right yeah but when they're distributed across 13 grades pre-k through it just seems right right now all the new students were sort of in that Highland area right because that's where yeah so we're getting hit really hard over in that area uh with new enrollments right I mean that that building is as big as it's been been a long time based on the new and that's why you know planning committees looking at uh trailers and things like that and um uh Miss Kerry had mentioned in her presentation that the positions that she was seeking were formally Grant funded um all right well some yeah um how many Grant funded positions do we have left and if I recall doesn't that funding expire after next year depends on the grant so the grant funding that Ms Kerry is talking about is title grant money with title grant money that's an annual federal allocation that goes to the state and is then passed through to local school systems I'll let Robin tell you how many I don't know how many stat I mean it's pretty good the rescue grants yeah position one of like nine certified positions that are done with the IDK and then including also the IPA Grant is probably about eight or nine pair of educated positions so the majority of the IDPA program I was you know you know is towards and understanding positions it's a very little portion of the life is used for other other things um yeah I was speaking I was specifically asking about yeah the Esser grant funding but the the grant funding that you were referring to was the I I you said Ida Grant and so the funding for the the positions that you were asking for that that grant funding was expiring or it just was there to maintain our positions that we have through this year let's say [Music] there's no chance for a an additional application next year or anything or you're not aware of one currently ones that are currently in the idea every year is um those salaries are going up those positions so it's a fixed the fixed amount and then so you can only do so much with it so we need so you're asking for us to absorb the cost of that 1.4 okay or PCI bcba and the 0.5 pathologists speech pathologies Elementary education especially teaching are highly vaccine and musician that's not coming out of anything okay and I know the the acronyms can get really jargonistic and board certified behavior analyst and that's really critical for intensive special education needs and behaviors which which of course you know is Kim mentioned and you guys have mentioned that you know that's kind of a byproduct not just a treasure by product but nationally of cobit all right so now that we've got that cleared so then going back to the Esser funding how many positions are still being funded by Esser that are going to come off next year coming into our operating budget this year Ben nothing right so yeah yeah I'm just talking in the context of you know we're adding we oh okay that's still two Elementary School teachers good point I did not I did not consider that so we were talking about um administrative we have administrative support I think that's 1.4 Marlene is that 1.4 Elementary administrator support which again is our elementary enrollment skyrockets that becomes more of a necessity than luxury like it was pre-pre-coded um we also have um reading and math specialist is at 1.0 Marlene I think in the Esser budget and then we have um a math intervention support at middle and high school so I don't know that we would recommend that full complement um it would be something we would evaluate for next year I could tell you the elementary supports are probably the greatest necessity of the five I mean they're all certainly very beneficial we wouldn't have Incorporated that into our bounce forward plan if we didn't believe that to be the case but um critical is really the elementary level right now um and and lastly um do you have any idea on retirements not yet I we're we're lucky to have that come um April when we're presenting to the Town Council I think you know I'm sure that some teachers are contemplating it I don't think it's going to be a number like we saw last year though um last year we saw a pretty substantial retirement uh post covid I think you know you you simply look at the media today and you um hear the the challenges that our teachers face and I think it's been a tough adjustment post covid for a lot of us you know that work in education but um you know I think our our team does everything they can to be resilient and supportive of each other and continue to move forward but we did see many more retirements last year than we typically see um I know that that's directly related to the rigors of Education post pandemic um you know I I can't predict this year where we are and when we can start to solicit that but until people come forward and tell us we don't know thank you sure one last question on the grants and I apologize from if I'm being dense I know it's uh been a long day for everyone I think I'm caught up with everything but so in our grant uh tab in our budget books uh it lists all three specific grants the Erp ones specifically the Arps or ARP idea 611 and 619.
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Robin or 6 11 6 19 the ones you're talking about the expiring only because there's nothing estimated in here for 22 23 or 23 24. for then you want to look at Revenue yeah I'm sorry the Grant and revenue attempt I was just curious uh page one of the detail or Assessment program specific Grant Revenue what's broken up by calendar year last two columns are estimated requested I'm looking at the Erp ones down below Ida 11 6 11 6 19.
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so not the Ida Part B or anything yeah I'm talking about the ones down below right and I guess my question is were our positions being request or used were they being paid in part from those clients got it that thank you that's it I'm good yeah I just wanted to make sure I heard correctly so I'll be caught that so these grants were paying for speech Specialists right they're gone right um are there any additional questions currently yeah I don't have a question I just want to thank Dr Solon and Mr maciano Miss Carey and everyone else who took part in putting this budget together um and thank you for answering all my questions I do it because I want to really make sure that I know where I'm coming from when I go out and support what the superintendent is proposing here today so thank you everyone sure thank you I do want to I do want to apologize if you do have audience members want to speak I missed number 20 agenda as far as any audience comments or if anyone in the audience has any public questions or anything I I know majority folks here not that Peter isn't important but our our staff but uh I'm sure Peter has a lot of questions after but uh so for those watching please as Dr someone mentioned you can send your questions to Cheshire Board of Ed contact at cheshirek12 at ct.us and the email address is on our CPS website and the agenda just from a logistics point of view usually the Third budget Workshop meeting the the finance committee itself can um take action and make a recommendation to the full board but speaking in Mr grippo or tonight I think um because not just the finance committee members but also all board members have uh a lot more to digest so what we want to do is uh use Tuesday night as our special meeting and follow protocol where a finance committee is ready Tuesday night to vote on a budget to present to the full board and that evening the full board can have liberations on the budget proposal if you're okay with that um yeah you have options yeah I think um the finance committee is comfortable doing that especially since um Mrs Rosenberg is in attendance tonight and I if uh if I recall uh she may have several other questions before she's ready to vote as well um so I think it'd be uh prudent that we uh not uh move anything forward tonight and wait until Tuesday so Tuesday night is a special Board of Education meeting at 7 30 p.m it will be here at dot Middle School Eureka yeah no I was just yeah Thursday listed as the next so I'm just Switching gears that's fine it is Tuesday that we have let me check what's listed but it is Tuesday that we have it seven o'clock here seven or something I have seven January 31st at seven o'clock there's an error on the slide oh okay okay yeah all right let's make sure perfect January 31st is next Tuesday so I have a question the slide our next meeting is February 2nd so I apologize if I said next Tuesday I'm getting on myself I have it for Tuesday in my calendar too I think I think no my calendar has February 2 which is a Thursday yeah so is mine yeah yeah that's what I had on my account if I could make a special request to actually have it on Tuesday because I also have next gen meeting meeting on Thursday um uh my friend if people are available I mean this is something I guess we could we're okay with moving into the 31st if maybe we're not committed to the second right and then the board um yeah that you do that right 7 15 so yeah you do that of the whole thing is uh yes well in that instance it's the finance committee moving the uh you know budget or you know Mary just texted me that we have um 8th grade curriculum night on Tuesday the 31st at the CHS too for the foreign any participation um certainly invite people to weigh in I think I'm flexible next week uh I think I could do Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday I don't know my calendar with it but I certainly am how about we do this I was like I know you have the and it's not just it's also Vincent and others uh the next gen speaking Thursday night can we uh leave it as this for every second and then just do a quick pull of the Board of Ed yeah tomorrow yeah I'll send something out and if we can then we'll advertise the heck out of it yeah yeah it sounds like if we could do a Wednesday okay and 7 30 a better time during the on Wednesday yeah and again yes Wednesday works for me Thursday works for me yeah I'll love I'll reach out to Sam too and confirm okay okay we'll uh I'll ask about it I will do Tuesdays so we will uh so let's get the results tomorrow and we'll publish yes absolutely and agenda we'll have it on Facebook for us but uh for board members I know over the next few days we'll continue processing the details any questions for Dr Solon and his team you know what to do email them so they come Wednesday night or Thursday night we can you know you have the answers ready and and move forward and I'll I'll ask Sam the same and messaging for members are public hopefully hopefully someone's watching this uh I I thought there was a great reporting today on the budget process Peter so thank you a lot of great detail so I hope folks are picking up that there's some you know importances being made that being said um I asked for a motion to adjourn that's made by Faith seconded by Adam all in favor it is unanimous the meeting is adjourned thank you everyone
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with you prep you prep made an agreement with MGT in a private meeting to pull back on its public promises and to adjust the timeline by a year MGT had no authority to override this board's approval of uprep's Charter application the Adams 14 board had no knowledge of this agreement nor did it approve of any such agreement then in June of 2022 you prepped further attempted to pull back on its public promise to offer Pre-K three and four classes in its first year of opening obviously while this was a key public promise you prep made to the community you prep attempted to pull back on this promise in private when Adam's 14 staff objected to this proposal a uprep administrator threatened Adams 14 to contact State Board member Steve Durham to involve him in the contract negotiations to be clear the State Board of Education has no authority to interfere with contract negotiations between a local school district and a charter school applicant also as this community is where Mr Durham has terrorized our Adams 14 Community with his public bias and racist Behavior against our district in fact in Adams 14 board member has filed the discrimination and racism complaint against the State Board member of Education because of Mr Durham's conduct in addition we live in this community with you we've experienced firsthand at least one up board member attempting to bus students out of our district so for uprep to threaten Adams 14 with Mr Durham's interference in contract negotiations and for at least one of their board members to actively work to privatize our district up has demonstrated that they are not entering into this contract negotiation in good faith as any party in contract negotiations would do when terms do not live up to promises made and where threats are made Adams 14 rejected the proposed contract offered by you prep in October of 2022.
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all right hello Cheshire Public Schools welcome to the third annual Cheshire Public Schools pinewood derby the Tournament of Champions thanks to all teachers groups administrators that joined it this year for those of you watching at home we have a large number of racers that signed up this year so we're going to go through the qualifying race just to clarify all Racers had to have a weight of 12 ounces or less every school employee of Cheshire Public Schools was allowed to enter we decided to run all cars together in two different rounds that way every competitor can get a race in each Lane and go against every single competitor for the competition from here we'll pick our three winners the fastest racer of the day but the best looking car as well as the slowest car from Cheshire Public Schools I'm gonna go through our numbers if you check out the parent Square link we also have a live link to the results as they come in heat by heat let's go through our carbs car number one is the reboot racer car number two is battery car number three kibo-sabi Productions car number four is old Tech car number five is the Highland hurricane car number six is move over Marlene car number seven is Marlene Solano our current champion from last year as well as our first ever race our two-year repeat winners going for her third win overall car number eight is lucky charm card number nine CHS AP tartarelli card number 11 the Maserati F1 car 12 team Anders car 13 car dash in car 14 F1 Racine car 15 the Silver Bullet car 16 CHS PE dedicated to Mr trafone card number 17 is Orion Murphy car number 18 is the CHS art department and card number 19 is the turbo tiger when leading out the end car number 20 hope it holds we have representations for almost every single Cheshire public school as well as central office the bus depot and the support for Cheshire Public Schools we're going to begin our races with heat number one round one we're gonna have car number one reboot racer Heather Santi from central office against card number three timosabe Productions it's Keith Moyer from the CHS video production car number six move over Marlene representing Chapman and car number 11 the Maserati F1 production hold on to your cease Racers we're beginning for today [Applause] and in a lightning speed across the Finish Line it looks like the Maserati took place number one all right go now to round one two we've got card number two battery from da card number four old Tech representing the CPS tech department on Highland car number seven Marlene Solano our current champion for last year in car number 12.
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does not make sure thank you all right choice [Applause] thank you wait now you are more than welcome to mix it anywhere around the tables here you are not allowed Inside by trash so you're more than welcome to go anywhere around outside there thank you period foreign thank you foreign thank you [Music] thank you how do we spend all of our meetings foreign [Music] yeah well um [Music] wow I know you guys your parents might have helped a little bit what's up we're gonna start the race this is a reminder Scouts need to stay behind the tables you're free to get up and move around and watch the different angles well we don't want you coming inside this area here we're going to start my racing with the Lions then the Tigers and the wolves are going to work our way up through the ranks there's some food and drink back there help yourself at any time um [Music] we appreciate it uh again Scouts make sure you get a ticket and you vote for your favorite color Best in Show foreign [Music] scouting organizations in town uh and also next month in February um we're instead of having a weeknight pack meeting we're probably going to be having a winter carnival over at Nixon so that'll be their Saturday afternoon we'll be this Sunday afternoon um we're gonna get together and do bonfires for s'mores hot chocolate maybe there's some snow on the ground we could do a little sweating um anything else leaders [Music] start your engines all right everybody here we go we're gonna start the lion Den we've got Michael Carlin Ralph salalla Connor Henry Micah is car number 102 Ralph is car 103 and Connor's car 104 in the first team we've got car 102 in Lane b car 103 Lane C and then Lane D car 104 let's get the racing started foreign [Applause] D's car 102 that way every racer gets to get to every single Lane throughout the day and gets to go against all their competition three [Applause] car 104 in the center lane [Music] see ya foreign everybody if you notice up on the screen on the far left side will be the racers and their current Place based off the score on the left-hand side as the results will keep one and to the far right is the results of heat two following these races [Music] that's awesome [Music] [Applause] in our second round it looks like car 104 had a first place Connor Henry [Music] thank you all right everybody here's the last race for the Lions currently in first place is Connor Henry second place is Ralph and third place is Micah based off the score let's see how our race is doing this last race for round two of the Lions [Music] are you ready [Applause] all right give us a moment to look at those Speedy results foreign second place is counter in third place is my God [Applause] congratulations Ralph you're gonna go on to represents the lions in the final race of the evening against all of the other dens ities [Music] foreign [Music] Lane B is 203 Lane sees 205 and Lane D is 208 good luck tigers [Music] am I right now all right here we go for heat two car 202 cold Barrett Nicholas in 204 Lane sees 206 Victor and then Elaine D Card 201 Connell so you can hold this lead thank you [Applause] thank you [Applause] very much um [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh that's not a countdown those are some fast cars from the Tigers we currently have a three-way tie with a low score of two points currently between Jackson Ethan and Connor Lane c car 208 and Lane D car 203.
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