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next is our fiscal 2024 uh proposed compensation increases so we've worked through with meet and confer as well as with Administration in departments on our Compensation Plan previously we have presented the board with options um this year we are not preview to I guess providing the board with options we feel at a minimum this is this is uh a recommendation the district um should proceed forward with so starting at the top teachers and other certified staff other certified staff include your otpt instructional Aid or structural coaches other various staff that support our instruction a two percent increase from the mno budget which equals 950 000. the bullet point two would also increase 1250 to their classroom site from planned and so that's another bucket um that is another two percent um from the classroom type fund bucket that's fun 10. so that is not included in that cost so the two percent is the 950 000 and that's what's being proposed from them in a budget but in total the compensation increase would be four percent classified hourly South I think you just heard from Mr Crosby what just one of our departments that have a high vacancy um in terms of classified hourly staff all his bus drivers are classified hourly you can consider it in that category as well as our Landscaping custodial grounds areas where we've experienced a number of vacancies and basically unable to fill positions we're proposing at a dollar an hour increase straight to all classified hourly employees as well to our salary schedule in an effort to help move the needle forward we know these employees are some of our lowest paid and probably our hardest hit with inflation and so this increased a dollar an hour is an average of 5.5 percent increase and so um it was definitely a point of emphasis with District administration as well as meeting for support that increase down to Administration and classified exempt these are our principals our department heads and our managers we propose a two percent increase at 150 000.
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um she gave me some advice about saying things out loud that you know before they think before you talk obviously it hasn't worked um but um I think Miss Cooper kind of and I don't want to embarrass her and get her upset just kind of kind of a picture of what a board membership he said I found and the probably one of the most respected people who's ever been on the board and in the community so we we are starting that process I don't know what the process is but it's it's gonna get started and that that's what we're gonna we want to do and we just want to recognize her for that here here tonight thank you [Applause] I'm pretty much out of everything at this point in any any board members or committees or ptos or anything else that anyone wants to say before we wrap it up yeah so we need uh effective yes so we need a motion to adjourn public session things public session second by Warren all in favor I need a motion to enter executive session someone motion by Mr Russo seconded by Teresa all in favor
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in addition we've talked about adding on to the budget cycle increases to our supplemental schedules and also a one-time stipend so the first bullet point is 750 dollars type into all employees is an employee recognition as I've mentioned we've been realizing a lot of one-time savings and so rather than a whole dot we want to put that back to our employees in an effort to show our recognition to all the the work they've done in addition our activities in coaching supplemental schedules we would propose adding a two percent increase to those as those have also stayed stagnant for many years in addition uh subpay adding it to our annual budget cycle so if you recall this year mid-year we brought a subpay Edition um and we're always being reactive and so the goal of bringing this Increase five dollars is approximately 2.5 so we rounded up we didn't want to put 425 on there um is to be proactive in an effort to just to stay ahead of districts and continue to be able to fill um our sub positions at a high rate um this makes it easier on me budgetarily because I know what the budget's going to be throughout the year rather than Switching gears mid-year but I understand the need when we do that so this was an effort to be proactive and increase that subpay along with the the total Compensation Plan um so just highlighting that Compensation Plan and what it will do for our proposed teacher salary schedule um up top um you can read this would be our proposed teacher salary guidelines for fiscal year 23 24.
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a base would that includes the classroom site fund would be at 51 476. um the pay performance and supplemental that is all paid from that classroom site fund again it's not mno dollars that's a separate bucket that's um a six tenth sales tax from the state that is they just renewed that a couple years ago so that goes through 2042. um that would be the remaining portion of their salary of 4 700 for a total salary of 56.226. um looking at a teacher salary comparison in the East Valley we don't know much the only District that we do know has made an increase is Queen Creek and that increases two percent and that's reflected here based on what they've posted online and what we know um that these amounts do include their classroom site fund allocations so it is a comparable apples comparison with the exception of we do not know what they're going to do for fiscal 24 on the the four districts that are asterisks so this does put as a leader for now but I do want to know again we do not know what other districts are doing and if Chandler I've heard rumors that they're in the four percent range that would put them right up to where we are so I do want to note that your question it was a spec ific Speculator did I clarify it nope I'm good okay Mike president Schultz members of the board if you'll recall this has been a huge Focus for us as three years ago we were one of the very lowest painting and this has been a huge priority for us and this is why this this year is unique instead of coming to you with the same percentage for each employee group we're being very intentional and thoughtful and making sure that we're recognizing across the board in all areas as we work to maintain competitive and attract people to Higley as we've identified as a huge priority in multiple areas on our strategic plan so taking all those into consideration and putting those in a summary this is the total budget impact and so if on slide seven we talked about the 2024 estimated General budget limit increase of 4.3 4.3 million uh we on slide eight we talked about the fixed cost decreases that's an addition of 305 650 in terms of budget capacity the total salary composition increases uh totals just over 5 million and so that's a net position of negative 399 000.
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um that negative budget implication we would propose reducing our fiscal 2024 budget balance carry forward to balance that budget as I noted earlier uh we are slated to carry over 26 million so I feel confident that that budget balance carry forward can support this net budget decrease and with that on we work to our budget calendar um February 8th as I mentioned we provided the first review tonight we are providing a second review of the budget March 8th if there is any further question or discussion regarding the budget I'll be more than happy to do another information presentation but if there is no further discussion I will just bring a tentative approval of the mno budget as an action item for approval we will also have the second review for capital budget and then April 5th we'll bring the tentative approval for a capital budget to move forward with our capital projects and then legally in June we will adopt this same budget that we've talked about today and with that if there's any questions I'll be happy to president Schultz Mrs Reese this makes me very nervous I've had long discussions with Mr Moore on contingencies and making sure that we're covered because as we saw tonight with Mr Crosby's presentation we would not have projected our fuel increases the way they were um and Diesel continues to stay really high as well and just going up and so thank you for putting it all together um I it does make me nervous because just as we had this conversation last year and I remember Mrs Wilson having the conversation with our building and you know we we could not have expected the we knew costs were coming up but we could not have expected it to look like this so um so I am concerned with what we what we take forward for unexpected costs um I'm hoping for the next year it looks better than it does this year hopefully we're more on the the recovery versus continuing so um I appreciate you taking the time and putting it together and and I know it's been kind of a ongoing conversation and joke with us because you never know what's going to happen and what we're going to have to do and what those costs are going to be so I mean I I agree I think it looks great at least right now we can see Higley kind of leading that compensation because as we just said we don't see that very often um and it has been a focus of ours so I appreciate putting the budget together and that's that's very important especially just as everyone else our our teachers and their families are going through the same thing they have increased costs and and everything so um I I just it makes me uncomfortable not not to the point where I'm like oh no but it I'm leery because I don't know what's going to happen if we're going to be better or worse next year but I also have to say you know thank you because you're probably one of the very few who could refinance something right now and actually save money so um that's just not happening right now so thank you for going through all that and refinancing our our leases and we're actually saving money so that's certainly helpful that we can put towards our our employees so I just want to say thank you on getting that done and and you've done a nice job putting it together I it does make me a little nervous and as we move forward hopefully things will start to look better not worse Mrs Reese thank you I am fearful that it is going to be yours and it's just the reality that we're in I wish we were in a different place right now um it's sad where we're at um but Mr Moore I know is very thorough and finds different ways to be able to keep us afloat and we do have to pay our teachers and our staff to be able to have good staff and to teach our kids and and we don't want to cut programs and so I appreciate the juggling that you do with the budget and I hope that we can be in a better place I just am fearful it's going to get worse presidentials something that I would like to add to that I guess is we look at the slide that shows what we had to pay for Contracting out if we can't afford to get our staff which I recognize ultimately you don't want to get too ahead of yourself when it comes to what budget you have but if we don't do those things and then we still can't support that staff it ends up being far costly right like in the grand scheme of things so I feel like it is it is risky and I understand that but at the same time the trade-off seems worse if we don't have that and things get worse because then we have to contract out I mean at the end of the day we still need custodial Services we still need these types of things and we can't not do them so as risky as it is I I argue that it's riskier to not um just because of how expensive contracted work will only increase as well any other questions um I do have a question um so I spoke to a few people who had um concerns obviously we want to see our staff paid well um but last year there was a six percent increase um and then the the 5 million more in salary increases this year um you know they feel like it's this forever budget that just items that keep going to the mno and what happens if voters refuse an m o extension in a few years and what plans do we have for that long term to ensure that this is you know able to continue and not just a one-time yeah so everything we proposed tonight with the exception of the classified hourly matches the increases in budgets that we're assuming from the state if you recognize the two percent is the two percent that we realize are expected to realize from the state and so that's just a dollar for dollar or percentage for percentage um offsets we're not essentially increasing costs with the exception of classified hourly but we're basically matching everything we're getting from the state additional it's going right back to our teachers they they brought up a good point in terms of our mno override we are slated to need a renewal for fiscal 2024 in which we'll need a voter approved election to um renew that yeah if that is not renewed on fiscal 24 the immediate impact for fiscal 25 will be approximately three million dollars and then for fiscal 26 another 8 million uh and then fiscal 27 that'd be completely expired and that's 13 million that's currently providing additional mno um so yeah it is a concern um the mno override if you looked into what that is approved for it is improved for a lot of our extracurriculars and so that is currently what that's funding so if that were not to pass I hate to say this but we would go there first because that is what that is funding is funding those extracurriculars our Arts our music there is a portion that's funding staff increases as well and so um there could be potential for salary freezes and so that is an impact but it's it is on the table too and we're realistic of that or forward thinking and looking at that but we can't stay stagnant and sit on on money and not put it back to our staff when realized inflation is close to seven and eight percent um that's not going to change that is reality and so um we do have to make forward progress as a line to our strategic plan and what we've approved and be optimistic and that some of those overrides will be approved but if not we will go to directly what those are funding and go to make Cuts in those areas first um I did a comparison um I mean we're doing another 6.6 million from Amino to Capital um and it seems like we're transferring so much dollars to cap um to Capital so often um when doing the comparison to other districts um Higley was at like 83 percent um in our mno dollars where other districts are like 12 percent and and lower Sometimes some even seven percent um and you know community members are concerned about the fact that we have so we're so much higher than other districts in in capital yeah and so that's a fair comparison but looking at Higley unified we do not have a bond we do not have a capital override a lot of our neighboring districts are comparison districts in the in the pure not a general peer groups have these additional Capital um Revenue sources and so we do not and so we budget according to what Higley has and so we do have Capital needs in excess of our capital budget which is six million dollars a year um if you remember from our first review our Capital proposed budget is about 17 million and if you look at that it's hard we've already made some Cuts uh I have a hard time cutting more and so yes we do fund a large portion of our capital budget from our mno because that that is the reality of higley's budget and how we have to maintain our schools hmm thank you any other questions thank you Mr Moore I appreciate it and I'm hopeful that our community will come through for us and we'll continue to fund everything that we do now moving yeah you can ask another question I do have more questions sorry um just not on that page um now the the hiring freeze on page five um that would only be if AEL didn't pass again next year that's a potential impact um as we don't know the implication just yet as I stated like it may we'll have I think Ade provides us the first pass of what that they take the cumulative budgets of all the districts and figure out what that limit is and then we'll get a percentage of of what that would impact higlia um what that Ado will be for Higley and so we'll we'll take that percentage um reduce that from our budget and see if we if where we land um I just put that's proposed um because I don't I don't know what that limit is and so I want to be fully transparent in what may occur and I don't want to hide anything uh because I don't know what that limit is going to be for next year and then with the with the one dollar increase um so you said that that's five and a half percent um is what it equates to now is there a way um that you know I'm guessing you've already looked at options to be able to possibly you know cut somewhere else to be able to pay our bus drivers extra because if it wasn't for bus drivers or kids wouldn't be in school for you know for them to be taught and you know obviously that's tied to um money coming into the district based on the number of children so I know what the Esser funds um we hired several counselors now because those funds are going to be going away um how how are we going to fund those counselors um after the fact and then um is there a way to maybe I mean I know Administration increase was what 150 um yes so I don't know if maybe like even half a percentage can go from there to um to our bus drivers um I just want to make sure that we do take care of them as well and knowing that they're at the bottom compared to other districts to be able to help them out yeah so to answer the bus driver question first so that this dollar an hour will put us we've worked with Mr Crosby we feel like it will make us competitive and put us in the middle of that pack um it would be 1933 which would put us uh just above Mesa but right under Gilbert um he does feel like that would be competitive wage we've also made a recommendation going into next year to um honor up to six years experience it was one area in which we um we're only offering for and so um experienced bus drivers were being capped at four years of experience and so we've worked with Miss Johnson to basically say hey this is another area in which we can basically attract um qualified experienced drivers and compensate them for their experience while still maintaining Equity I do have to note that because I always forget that but uh um and be able to hire those so we hope those changes going into the next year and and with Mr Crosby is fully aware of those he feels confident that he'll be able to fill some of those vacancies uh the second part of your question in regards to the sr3 budget and the salaries that we have allocated in there we have been holding in that contingency um enough the that salary implication to bring back into the budget it has definitely been miss Richards can express this but a relief to our elementary schools and to have these counselors while we don't have one at every school three years shared or nine Elementary um it definitely those counselors we are planning to bring those back into the budget it aligns with their strategic plan it aligns um with everything we do I in terms of providing students with resources that they may need so we have been planning to bring those back in and we're holding the funds to do that presidential board member Van Hook one of the other things is tonight you had an opportunity to look at the bus drivers and their their compensation compared with their neighboring District we didn't bring you the other areas which would have been very similar because our our increases had been in percentage as we're competing in the same areas for custodial grounds and those things one of the things one of the components when we were talking about transportation and you looked at one of our competitive districts to the south of us here they initially were all contracted Services particularly during coven and one of the things they did was bring it back in-house because they were spending more on contract and services but that's why they upped the cost to bring it in so that you saved where you were being able to bring it back in and that's one of the pieces that's important for us for all of our classified areas as well as making sure we're competitive because we focus tonight on Transportation but if we were to look at all of the those other areas we would find ourselves more on the lower end of the scale than toward the middle and this is where addressing it at that particular thing for the classified hourly staff will bring us up more competitive in all the areas we're trying to to attract and keep people in that are Higley employees rather than contracted Services because that has been a very expensive thing you saw Even in our transportation tonight one of the pride things that Josh has been able to do is bring back in the contract of services not sending it out when we needed to get students to football games or other things outside of school days and we didn't have our enough internal people to cover it so again whether or not we can hire the people we still have to provide the services so that schools are clean and we get them there and it's been kind of an important uh Focus for our team president Schultz um and another question I had is um since the employees are already getting a raise um why give an additional 750 bonus to everyone versus targeting the money to where it's needed most such as you know bus drivers or to bolster pave you know versus similar districts certainly so I mean uh meeting with with meet and confer and our conversations with district-wide we've worked vigorously to make sure every employee feels valued um and that is one way I feel like we can do that um that does go to bus drivers as well and so um providing that and it the reason we can't do that into the salary schedules because the point you brought up earlier it becomes an ongoing cost we're realizing savings on a one-time basis so we those those are salaries that we cannot if we make those adjustments those are budgetary implications going forward you've made that note earlier when we have one-time costs um it's basically vacancy savings and so how can we show our employees recognition and treat and basically put that to use one of the ways is to do that is employee stipend to all employees um thank you I think also since transportation is top of mind because we heard that presentation but as Mr Moore said we want to Value all of our employees and so we don't want to cause shortages in other places if we just bring up one air one area as well correct right and that's I mean you know the the salaries being increased across across the board it's just that 750 that I'm talking about um I mean yes it's you know it's nice to get a bonus but I I just want to make sure that that's um that we're utilizing the dollars to where it's you know most needed um and then also I looked at the average teacher salary for 2022 and 23 the adopted budget and there we had um like in 2022 it said 62 000 173 and we have 56226 um for 2024 um and I wanted to be able to understand why the decrease so it's not a decrease so what what is presented on this slide is the starting salary going into fiscal 2024.
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uh what's presented on the budget forms in the AFR is the average of all our teachers currently employed in the district so this could be teachers that have experience up to 20. I don't know if we have 25 years but I know we have some 20-year teachers um and all our news your teacher salaries we combined all those average that out and that is what is presented on the budget forms this is a starting teacher salary going into next fiscal year if a new um teacher or to apply for our district that would be the starting wage okay to give some context when I got hired in 2012 the average salary I think was still around in the 60s and the starting salary was 35 000. so the base is is is really important for teachers who are looking for places to go because the base is where you're going to start from and then you add each year of experience on top of that or my masters and everything else so like when I came back I had 10 years of experience they only gave me nine those types of things and so then it starts at the base salary and they add I think on your slide it's 350 per year of experience and then your Masters and everything else so when I'm looking around I don't look for averages I want to know the base because that's where I'm going to come in at if that makes sense one other note on the 750 Mr Moore we're giving a two percent increase in inflation is at seven percent so we're already behind and so being able to give 750 are employees to hopefully help them with some of the cost of inflation is important too any other mystery just a quick question on that 750 when would that be paid we we talked about following this similar as we've done in our our retention stipends and the previous fiscal years um and so if an employee signs their contract and returns for next fiscal year and works up until August 31st would be paid that either first pay period in September or second pay period in September so we want to get that into our employees Pockets you know as soon as possible okay I see your thinking on that um but I also noticed our board packet after that August meeting we had a large um resignation list after that so they stayed long enough to get the um the stipend that we paid for for returning teachers so um I don't know that that was overly successful in that aspect [Music] um just like I said I think that was probably one of our largest um board packets with um resignations and and pay or that part I just can't think tonight so I don't know what the answer is do we do it right at the beginning of the school year or do we do it in until August um I mean I want to get it in their hands I'm not nearly suggesting that we go later I'm just wondering if if that was overall successful because in that on our consent agenda for resignations and everything that was besides the semester which is normal for people moving I think that was one of our highest resignations was after that was paid out president Schultz board memories particularly when you're looking at the classified ranks because our teacher ranks because of a contract unless they met one of the Criterion in which we would waive it the fee would have cost them to get out of their contract more than the stipend that they would have gotten so and again it was I think a fifteen hundred dollar one at that point but there were individuals who were classified who stayed to get that and then they went to another District that was paying more per hour and it was truly a money thing particularly in the classified hourly range and hence being if we can pay them more on their base salary they won't stay for it I've put in so many years and now I can go and make two three dollars more an hour in another District if they're making closer to that they're likely more likely to stay I think the thing that we didn't have going for us particularly with that employee group was the additional compensation for the hourly that palliative Factor as we saw when we looked at why they were leaving so we need to look at a lot of teachers will travel the the across cities and sometimes to Phoenix and Beyond and then the pay the pay goes up pay goes up here pay goes up there then they start having to take into consideration the travel and then you know when the salaries change and they have to make a decision so I think sometimes that plays into it what are we talking last year is that what you're referencing or when did this occur just this past just this past year this past August that they also received a one-time stipend for our renewing employees those who signed and stayed and it was as long as they were employed through the end of August then they got there um they got their stipend so I remember that the language and remind me I apologize um how many years have we offered this type in how many years have we offered this stipend the stipend house so this is this is relatively new that's coming from the m o budget the two previous years were funded from the covert relief funds um so this would be the third year this will be the third year yeah and which in which I stipend such as in this characteristic has been offered and then so last year was the second year in the first year before that did we have similar Behavior or was that in language if they stuck around to okay so it's hard to use that data to determine if that was a either people left to begin with people didn't move around like they did last year last year people were more comfortable and started moving around okay all right thank you with respect to some of those who left it might be interesting to look at how many were returning employees versus because I know we had a lot leave of individuals who under ducey's law to try to help increase the number of teachers that anybody can teach and I know a lot of them uh learned that maybe student teaching is kind of important president Schultz um Mr Moore now one of my concerns um I I've been in the finance world for over 20 years um and I have never seen a a budget approved based on a PowerPoint presentation um I am used to seeing Excel spreadsheets all the line items all the GL lines to see all the dollars that are involved in a in a budget obviously our biggest expenses are our salaries and benefits um and and tonight we've seen Transportation um but for me it's it's really important that if if we as a board are going to be approving a budget um with all these line items that we should be able to to to see an Excel spreadsheet of of line items and um you know I asked if we have study sessions to be able to not just go over the presentation yes this is the third time we're seeing presentation but um not just seeing a PowerPoint presentation but actually seeing the entire budget which would also help us understand fully what is in our budget and I was told no we don't have study sessions um but for me I you know I think it would be irresponsible um at least for me to to approve such a large budget without seeing all the numbers and basing it just off of a PowerPoint presentation that were being presented not that I I you know I have a reason not to trust what you're telling us it's just we need to be able to see that and obviously I I've scheduled an appointment to to be able to meet with you and and review those in a little more detail um but I don't know if we all have to do that separately to be able to get a better understanding of it um or if you know or if it doesn't matter to if it's if this PowerPoint is sufficient for everybody else um but at least for me I just would feel more comfortable approving a budget being able to see the full details so um that's all thank you presidential yeah I mean we do have a meeting scheduled to go over in Greater detail uh what what this is proposed in March is tentative approval of the budget this is not the formal approval the formal approval is done in June in which we bring you if you've looked on our website we do have all our budget forms up on the website those are in Excel they're in great detail it's our whole general ledger you can see every single transaction those are public on our website and we'll bring that to you in June those forms are not out yet for next year but districts in Arizona cannot proceed forward and be competitive when other school districts are offering issuing contracts in March February this is the reality in which we are in in Arizona we tentatively approve the budget and then we come back and formally approve it but this tentative approval allows us to issue contracts to our teachers and lock in those stat those positions so we know our staffing for next year if we waited till June that would be I'm sure give Miss Richard a heart attack not knowing what our staffing is going next month right into the school year and so that is why we bring this in PowerPoint form because we do not have the budget forms yet from the state but we do know tentatively I know the formula and certainly we'll go over that when we meet and how we come to this number but this is why we go through this process and then we bring you the formal full adopt proposed and adopted budget in all its Glory Excel Nine Pages multiple the whole GL basically in June um so I'm glad to hear that that we will at some point be able to see that before final approval and I'm not saying anything that you know we shouldn't approve it in March um but I want to make sure that we are seeing the details um other than just in a presentation form I remember Van Hook one of the things that we worked with the governing board with over the last three years is to bring the information in this form and in this fashion this was the preferred way so we could walk you through the process that we were doing on the side because you hire people who are experts in these areas who are monitoring this and being compliant with it which so formulaic previous boards if it members and I think you know particularly board member Reese could speak to the fact we are bringing more level of detail and explicit in what the process is than has ever historically been brought to a board and we're working really hard to to provide the answers to the questions that you have with the information that we can provide and so um again questions we are happy to answer um but this is the process that the multiple reviews of this with additional information was what the board had asked for us to begin to bring to them at the level we bring them which is why we do it multiple times thank you and just as Mr Moore said all this information all of this is public information we are a public entity and we have to provide this information line by line and the website and everything so we're not just looking at a PowerPoint and adopting a budget Mr Moore I know we'll sit with you and answer any of the questions you need to understand the budget and go line by line with you as well as he does has done with many of us I know Mrs Reese and Mrs Anderson for sure um so yeah I appreciate it thank you very much and to that point I how often is the one online updated it follows this timeline here so we don't we don't annually change the budget unless we have to um and so we'll adopt and propose in June again we'll revise in December which we did this year so we had we that is you'll see the revised budget posted on our website you can also compare that to our adopted and proposed if you wanted to see the changes that occurred between June and December and then in may we revise again so at a minimum you'll see two budgets for a fiscal year um but this this current year you're going to see three revisions and so you can compare those um each uh to basically see where the changes were made I'll also highlight those when I do the revision on a high level on where the changes were in budget so um that's that's what we do statutorily again in our office we have a complete team that monitors this regularly we have a staff I have a team of about 11 individuals who help schools but also help with the budget process and all that cumulative work comes into these forms and so what you see is the culmination of every single transaction in the district and to those forms and so it would be a lot of work to revise those every single month but at a minimum you'll see two revisions in a fiscal year and again this year you'll see three because we did exceed our budget in one percent by one percent in December so and whatever's on our website is that what's also on the Ade website correct yeah you can also find that same information on Ade okay I just didn't know if whatever was submitted to the state and then updates are being made on our end um in the meantime before it's updated again with the state no whatever we formally update or revise we have to statutorily submit to the state and so um those are both running on a same schedule so what Ade the state has the district has as well perfect thank you so much all right thank you Mr Moore we will now move on to 6.3 uh the marketing plan but this is Joseph president Schultz members of the board are going to ask there's a quick bathroom break here members of the board I'd like to introduce Teresa she has is our our has put together a presentation here tonight this is something that if you recall last April when we were in a study session we were talking about um marketing and our strategic plan and goals and focus areas and she has been diligently working on this work and then miss Teresa Joseph had a baby in October and so we gave her a chance to come back so that she could present to you so many of the things she'll talk with you about The Five-Year Plan it's an alignment to the work we identified in our study session or our our our our April meeting with you when we meet on a Saturday um and she has got some updates for you as well and this is a good opportunity for us to discuss the progress we're making okay tonight I'll be discussing um husd's marketing plan which is a comprehensive plan um to help broadcast all things Higley and better aligner marketing strategy moving forward foreign so our marketing plan was designed to align with the district's strategic five-year strategic plan that was implemented this school year so this plan will set the foundation of the district's marketing efforts moving forward for the next five years and it was a refresher to members of the audience the district devised a strategic plan with its third anchor being communication and community relations so the goal of this anchor is really to engage all stakeholders through transparent respectful timely and consistent communication so as part of the Strategic plan our district came up with 2022 2023 Focus areas with one of those Focus areas being developing a district marketing plan that will help us enhance our relationships with our community in addition to this we committed to redesigning the district's website relaunching the business partner events and establishing communicate communication protocols for various circumstances to help guide The District in providing effective and informative communication so tonight we'll be discussing this marketing plan which also encompasses those other 2022-2023 goals so you'll find this marketing plan online under it's under about us and then on the Strategic plan so which this goes over core marketing goals Target markets and marketing tools that we plan to use within those five years so tonight we'll we will outline aspects of those core marketing goals and just provide a quick update on what our public relations team has already started to do so with our core goals our Focus areas are really wide-ranging as there's so many different aspects of marketing when it comes to a school district our goal is really to showcase the amazing work of our students employees and sites while also providing thoughtful and consistent communication and broadcasting that messaging to our current audience and our Target so our Focus areas are enrollment and employment re-engaging and expanding Partnerships aligning branding district-wide and streamlining that process of district-wide communication so we'll start with enrollment in employment this has been an important area for us as recruiting employees and enrolling students is absolutely crucial to any school district now before I get started with these slides I do want to stress that we are already advertising these things this isn't new we'll just be taking a different approach these next five years with this with this year and the year to come to really focusing on those analytics to driver decision making so we'll be looking at our the analytics will decide our strategy and the channels that we will will use moving forward so key areas key areas will with enrollment will focus on redesigning on marketing materials to be more engaging and align with our husd district branding so we'll be creating flyers and postcards and social designs that can be shared at Kindergarten Roundup or other hsd events and also shared with our sites at our preschools at external daycares and with external Partners like HOAs we will continue to promote enrollment through advertisements and again the biggest thing here is we'll what this entire plan is we'll be looking at analytics after each ad that is run to see what has been the most effective strategy when we advertise through print for example we'll be using Q unique QR codes with each ad to or to track that success and with digital ads we'll be using unique URLs or yeah unique URLs so we will determine the best advertisements moving forward from there and again we'll be advertising across all channels really to spread our best this next year so we can be more agile and double down on years to come we plan to relaunch our digital Higley magazine I know this has been a success in previous years prior to covid so we do want to relaunch this it will be a digital magazine and annual so it will be at the end of the year to really try to re-engage our families and also provide some District information and then we will be remaking all Schools Enrollment videos in our district white about Higley videos so these will be used for advertisements and other school marketing needs and as we've begun to analyze our current social media strategy organically our posts with students have ranked better with sentiment and engagement so we would like to double down on this specifically during enrollment season I will be sharing stories and posts on why our students really love Higley we want to share the unique aspects of our schools through our students and our parents eyes and then with this we'll also be sharing more student success stories on the website so as we revamp our website we really want to drive traffic there so we've also recently updated our District's video which can be found on our website it's a bit longer at six minutes so we and it discusses all great things in Higley pre-k through 12.
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um so we have created a shortened video too that's about a minute long which we'll be showing you tonight um and this is also used for advertisements so hopefully you've already seen some ads on social media running with them [Music] Higley Unified School District prepares students for a life filled with Limitless possibilities we are a distinguished District in Arizona that serves more than 13 500 students in the East Valley in grades pre-k through 12.
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from academics Arts Community involvement to extracurricular activities we offer a well-rounded safe and inclusive learning environment that puts students first with 16 schools located in Gilbert and Queen Creek our exceptional teachers and staff prepare students today to become Leaders of Tomorrow our school district is committed to not only ensuring students graduate high school but our 21st century ready by cultivating students to be Innovative Learners responsible citizens and College and Career ready Scholars [Music] this is Higley Unified School District thank you Curtis for putting together such a wonderful video and you may recognize that voice it was his as well so now we'll move on to Higley uniform we loved it so much we're gonna watch it again um so now with employment so we plan to recreate all of our employment flyers and brochures that can be shared with Arizona universities as well as displayed on our website and so we want to make sure that our benefits are clearly outlined and accessible and that way our prospective teachers and employees know what makes Higgly unique and as we engage potential Partners we will be launching advertisements and we already have that highlight various openings and our job fair so this will be through um LinkedIn or other job our job platform so job boards and again utilizing those analytics to drive decision making and then as we update our website we will be revamping our human resources page to just ensure all the benefits are clearly outlined and accessible and we are going to be remaking the applicant video so it was last updated four years ago and a lot has changed since then and then we will also be doing a why work at Higley Series so there are so many great reasons to work at higley's and um we can go on and on and list them by hearing from our employees might have a larger impact and with that why work at higley's campaign and the why I love Higley that I discussed with the students those are both Evergreen campaigns so they're really going to be running year long um with more of a or more of a push during that enrollment in employment season but they will be running all the time and then moving on another area of focus is partnership so we have already launched our business partner breakfast this school year and it was a tremendous success so we had over 90 people in attendance as you can see by this photo it was a packed room we had principals and District leadership at each table just really engaged and talking with our business and Community Partners so we are excited that it will be happening again next week and we are already at capacity and with a wait list and the breakfast the breakfast is not the only thing we are doing so we are also to engage our Partnerships um so we are also doing sponsorship brochures for student and employee events like Chinese New Year teacher of the year retirement reception and Arts Festival we will also be doing quarterly emails which will be sent to our community and business partners about upcoming events and just ways they can engage with our community so they're not just hearing from us twice a year or just when we need sponsors um and then we'll also be engaging with new businesses um in building a relationship with the Gilbert and Queen Creek Queen Creek chamber and sharing positive stories with this network and then branding our goal is to align branding district-wide to ensure all schools marketing reflects husd in our updated Mission Vision and core values so to do this we will be updating our website to be more user friendly and accessible and as we redesign our website and look more closely into those analytics with our advertisements um we will be also looking closely into our conversion rate and other website metrics so we have currently started to track the top of that funnel with those advertisements but as we redesigned our website incorporate and incorporate some of those website tracking mechanisms we'll begin to analyze the conversion rate as well as other website metrics and then we will be providing employees with a brand toolkit with various marketing materials like PowerPoint slides and Logo designs so we can make sure we're staying consistent and with that we'll also be doing Style Guidelines so we are currently updating those so anyone who has access to edit our website or just sending out communication is making sure we're staying on brand so this isn't just our visual identity but also making sure our brand voice is aligned as our marketing strategy really builds Upon Our brand identity and then lastly we will be revamping marketing materials we've already designed business cards and we're working on updated brochures and pop-up banners for all the schools and so our new website is currently underway and so we have an expected completion date of April so around spring break time this is it'll be site by site so you should start to see our new design sometime around spring break with all the sites done sometime in April which is exciting and with the news or the new website it will be a video on our home screen so as people come to our our home page they will see a video there and our last Focus area is streamlining communication so we will be streamlining the communication process by providing guidelines and templates for crisis situations I will add this is something that we already do we just want to make sure the process is perfect um because when the crisis situation occurs we need to make sure we are responding accurately and as soon as possible because families do need that communication and then we will be updating our communication rubric when to contact to and how to contact again we already have this we're just providing the process of making sure it's perfect and then we'll also be providing training on sending out communication when I was on maternity leave we already started to do this and we will just continue to make sure that everyone who needs to be trained is and with that does anyone have any questions just a quick question um how can non-current families receive information how can they opt in to receive emails on what's going on the Higley digital how if they're not currently in school how do they do that yeah so there is a way on our website um and it's under one of the short links for them to to register for communication they can do it by school or they can do it as the district-wide communication so there is an option there it will be just for the community messaging foreign this looks great very fresh it feels energized thank you to everybody involved in this I remember one of my first uh emails I think received was a Community member making a comment about the pictures online why aren't they more of our real like our our students and and it looks like we've we've met that request and Beyond um I don't want Higley to be like a school district because we're unique but one thing that the district I work in does very really well is it is constantly sharing what's going on and it's it's us like when I run a lab I get I take the pictures I take the video I send it to our admin they they approve it and then they'll it's on Instagram it's you know of course they have their their legalities of which students and faces could be on there but it's great as a teacher to represent these kids and the kids go out there and the parents like it and they share it and it just spreads like wildfire and beyond that is I appreciate as a teacher to see what's going on in the other classrooms and what's going on I don't leave I don't get to go I don't go outside much so she's working at six Fifth and being a department chair like theirs and it's dark when I come in and almost dark when I leave but I I know there's a lot going on and it's exciting to see that and like them and share and you know and talk to the kids about it man you did that I'm not saying we have to do that but I think that is something that works really really well in the district that I work in but I I this is beautiful I love seeing the faces that we are here today for you know shining and being shared and representing that's what I appreciate thank you president Schultz vice president Anderson so yeah that is something we are trying to do more of so we are working with our principals and sending out communication to them that we want more stories so we are going to be sharing more stories so hopefully you'll start to see more of that on social and in status Mrs Anderson you do already share things but I agree that the Personal Touch the teacher aspect the details you know or what parents want to see and what helps be shared rather than the overall yes um okay one thing I'm sorry okay um the pop-up banners that you mentioned are those to use at events or where will you use the pop-up banners yeah presidential so they will be used um for the school's marketing efforts so they when they're at job fairs or just anything enrollment based too so um just wherever they are um for any marketing needs so even if they're just if power ranch is having an event they can have it up and welcoming parents in so just all marketing needs um the video the one minute video was very pretty and very nice is their um attention pans are very short um about 12 seconds and so are we are there plans to create other videos that are about 15 seconds long and I'm very proud of higley's programs well Mandarin but also Spanish and gifted and all of the different act things that we offer as a district to be able to share that with the community as well in a short video president Schultz yes so Curtis is doing a lot of different videos right now so he is working on just the All-Star doing a video for every school as well as just shortened videos um for advertisements awesome I can't wait to see him thank you oh one thing before I just have one last thing uh I know I asked Christine do you have any feedback yet I know it's early um I saw a mailer that was created and it was really pretty and they have a QR code on it and so I wanted to see if there was any data on that yet so I contacted a presidentials I contacted um a Valpak today so there is not any results yet because the mailers just finished this week but they will have us results or the analytics by next Thursday so I'll include that in status perfect thank you very much this is Van hook thank you Okay so I'm not trying to be negative really but um I do have one concern um in Anchor one um strategic anchor one um the part about the portrait of a graduate and again this social emotional aspect is just being embedded in every aspect of our schools of our lives and um and I don't know if um I mean I'd like to know where this the whole portrait of a graduate came from um I know it's you know it's Again part of this whole child whole school group think um you know teaching kids to think as as a group and instead of how to you know how to think and teaching them what to think and not being able to think individually and out of the box um so I'm curious to know where where this idea of portrait of The Graduate was brought into Higley and I it's okay if um you can't answer that but I'm hoping that I can I can get the answer to that at some point um would you like to answer where the portrait of graduate came we were extensive in the board yeah go ahead absolutely um and I I grappled with that a little bit just because it was in the slideshow that if it was okay but we'll move on and then um thank you discuss that later um and and just how you know it was initiated but um we can discuss that later um with um this moving the district away from State Standards because um uh it's moving the district away from state standards and towards more social competencies um superintendent Tom Horn superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horn is trying to rid our schools of social emotional learning and still we can't talk about that right now because we're talking about the marketing plan and so it's not part of the it but it is related because it's the portrait of a graduate is not to State Standards but we're not talking about the portrait of a graduate right now we're talking about the marketing plan if we want to talk about the so how do how do I address that that's part of our strategic anchor one [Music] so while the Strategic part of our well the Strategic plan is here we're talking about Community Communications and community relations we're not talking about anything that has to do with social emotional Teresa is not working on social and emotional at all right now she's working on a marketing plan to Market our schools and that's what's on the agenda right now to talk about okay so we're yes you can okay right I will do that thank you okay thank you are there other questions for the marketing plan currently I am very excited to see this as you know that I love marketing and so I'm excited it's my background sorry I don't just love it this is Wade sorry um but I'm very excited to to see this and I love the videos and I look for more and to be able to get more kids involved and and staff involved at the district thank you very much thank you all right moving on to ml of a 6.4 F fiscal year 2023 2024 employee contracts this is Johnson yes president Schultz and board members I present today some of the changes that have been made to the certified employees contract that was the contract that we really wanted to outline all of the pay elements um in the past it was put into one big paragraph basically and so we felt it was in the best interest for the employee to understand exactly what they would be paid for based on the their base pay of course and then the classroom site funds base and the classroom site funds retention stipend and as well as the pay for performance and I think in the next section under the action plans we'll be talking even more about the contracts but we wanted to point out what had really changed this was the biggest change probably in any of the contracts is really separating out the pay elements as we do when we present an offer to an employee I also need to say as we get to the contracts there were some dates no language but dates that had not been changed for the next fiscal year and so we will need to make an adjustment to those as well any questions at this point I'm sorry any questions at this point Thank You does anyone have any questions thank you very much moving on to 6.5 amendment to policy gdl support staff workload presidentials and members of the board I will speak to that change as I'm reviewing the policy for our employees under Personnel I noticed that this was a very interesting one that the week started on Thursday and ended on Wednesday we believe that happened in the past based on our text being printed outside of the district and that's how the work week had to look we now print our paychecks within the district and so that change is necessary because that really is our work week we start at 1201 a.m on Monday and we end on Sunday seems reasonable thank you any questions comments or concerns all right um thank you very much moving on to 6.6 amendment to policy jlcb immunization immunization of students I talk so loud you could probably hear me anyway so I didn't even notice um the immunizations of students so what you see in the blue is part of the new legislation and from the state and following those laws that come into the ARs codes so we have the board follows Arizona law as it applies to immunizations of students and then under that we have the following immunizations are not required for School attendance this is what's being added and you have the human papillom my virus that's known as HPV and the covid-19 or any variant of covid-19 and under that it says a school district or Charter School is a government entity that requires a person under 18 years of age to receive a vaccination for covid-19 which the state will not but they're stating that so you know any variant of kova 19 must obtain the consent of the person's parent or Guardian and to add just below that the board authorizes the superintendent to create procedures for verifying immunizations records of students when we're enrolling them in school which is we already have in place do you have any questions um I wanted I mentioned to Dr Foley that I wanted to um ask for an amendment to be added to the policy according to um a statute um because I do notice that in the policy um I think just on that there's just one area where it says unless student is Exempted um but the policy um we have a statute 15-873 um that allows children to utilize exemptions and I think that that should be mentioned through the the procedures to say um you know verifying immunizations or exemptions or exemption records of students and any anywhere where it says immunization records it should also state or exemptions because that is in State Statute as well um and I'm sorry but I didn't see it oh it is it is listed at the bottom um but it would be nice to be able to see that verbiage um throughout the document as well president Schultz board member Van Hook what we can do is bring the process that we have done and that's why you see as an information item and you see is an action item is is that our committee reviews those you'll notice at the top of this one it has a copyright that means that asba and and their resources have looked at the policy they've looked at the most updated laws and they made the recommendation to us we and our policy committee looked at that and chose to keep it as it was and bring it to you whenever we choose to make a variation what we do is we would take the feedback you'd have if the rest of the board wanted us to consider doing that we would bring it back to the policy committee we would look at it if we then decided to add it or change it we would have an attorney review it one time just to make sure again that that we weren't adding or customizing this in a way that would rare about you know not be legal being that you're referencing a law that's already listed on there it would just mean that we would remove the copyright so if that would be what the direction the board would want us to do we would we would pull it from uh action tonight and bring it back and another meeting as another policy review if if that is something you'd all like us to consider thank you sorry so we do that during that any other questions or concerns all right perfect thank you thank you thank you for sticking around so long okay moving on to action items 7.1 the approval of the fiscal year 2023 2024 employee contracts I make a motion to approve the fiscal year 2023 2024 employee contracts excuse me second yep you're perfect in favor aye aye all right five to one and 7.2 approved policy jdl support staff workload I make a motion to approve policy jdl support staff workload I apologize seconded all those in favor hi hi all right um 7.2 passes and then 7.3 I make a motion to approve policy jlcb immunizations of students second questions comments concerns at this time is when you would make a motion to oh sorry so so Mrs Schultz if you would like to move forward what you can do is make your motion um to not waive the second reading and that the administration take a review at it because the the motion is usually we have two readings unless they're pretty standard this motion is to waive the second reading so we can choose not to wave or not to we're not going to waive the second reading we want it reviewed again and brought back to us so yeah so I can make a motion to not waive the second reading I make a motion to not waive the second reading and have the staff bring it back to us a second all those in paper I okay so what's happening is that we're not voting on this right now we're asking that the staff looks at this again because we usually have second reviews of items and this is a policy that was pretty straightforward so were great not necessarily unhappy I just think that there's should be verbiage added that's part of that's part of law um that's in-state statute yes so just it's just the word exemption in addition to it I'm going to say no too so um but and Christina I couldn't hear you not to wave it right I mean not to not wave it okay let me understand I'm saying Amanda is your is your motion to waive the second read and move forward with it as it's presented yes okay but that's okay hold on that don't mind us we'll just have a little conversation here okay so I made a motion to not wave the second wreath so and to send it back and to send it back yes and then there was a vote right and I'm voting nay yes okay I think the confusion was on the vote there um and then Michelle voted yay okay and Christina yay okay so three to two bring that back so we're not voting on it oops I'm sorry so three to two we're asking for you to bring the administration to review it um Simply Having the conversation of the concern take it back to asba it is a copyrighted is there an issue is there a legal issue if it's statute if there's a legal issue the way it's written and if they choose to come back and say there's no legal issue the way it's written and district is comfortable with that they'll bring it back as is if they're still even if they say there's no legal issue we reach with our attorneys and they say it's fine as is and that's what they want to bring back that's what they can bring back and the board can vote if our Attorneys at that point say you know what it's perfectly fine to throw that exemption in there we take the copyright off we throw the word exemption wherever it is in there already in an area um that then they'll bring back an amended copy so either way the next time it comes back that is our second read and we will have to vote on approving or not approving the policy so you'll bring this back to US president yes president Schultz board member Reese that is our process and that's why we use that process so that we can make sure that we're here and then we approve and we also get that second vetting um and we'll bring back our thoughts questions or concerns should we have any in that process but it allows us to hear your thoughts and allows us to make those changes if if if if we do and then we bring it back for you to vote again and I'm not necessarily concerned I mean the word exemption is in there um already and for just for me I'm not concerned if it is or is not because it the word exemption is in our policy here we do say that um but because our process is is we usually allow two reads someone can give feedback they can go back and look and so that's why I'm comfortable to have them take a look at it again because we were just waving the second one seems pretty standard but if someone has a question and would like it looked at then I'm okay with that so I'm okay with the policy The Way It Was Written me personally but someone wants it looked out we can look at it because the second read is typically part of our normal process all right thank you um and then uh 8.1 future agenda items anything we have a full calendar ahead and as we get towards the end of the year it will continue to get busier anything that you want to see on a future agenda right I don't so we do have a just referring to Mrs Van Hook we do have a strategic Plan update in March and April um perhaps with knowing maybe if you review those anchors and can get information to Dr Foley on these are you don't have to go into detail of your concern but these are my areas I have questions or concerns in so that way they can be more prepared there's a lot of history behind this so to understand where it all came from and how it all came about um is probably more than just a board presentation because that is years in the making um president Schultz board member Reese we'd be happy to probably being that we literally spent oh to I mean probably combined together 50 hours last year uh presenting parts and pieces of this and we did a massive study what we can do is do a uh individual session if you'd like to to learn more about the process the history and very similarly um to kind of our conversation earlier this evening about assumptions on terms and and things without understanding the process and how we went through it and who was involved and what it means to Higley and how we're operationalizing it sometimes we can get very caught up on buzzwords or terms and their intention or their meaning without understanding the context so perhaps we could do that because we will be bringing to you additional strategic plan work and updates as part of our goals as you've been seeing the conversations you've had tonight even we're connected to that so for upcoming agenda item as you do have more strategic plan updates but we can also do a study session or individual sessions for individuals who want to learn more about the work and history that went into that so that the whole board doesn't need to repeat it for those who have been involved in multiple hundreds of hours of collective time I think if you can for the purpose of that presentation small summary because I think that's always good for for us but as far as details in specific and like Dr Foley said sometimes it's hard because there's certain buzzwords portrait of a graduate means a lot of things you look up a portrait of a graduate it has a whole thing that it means which is not necessarily just those are the words we're using it doesn't mean the same thing for us same with restorative justice we had that conversation restorative justice is a specific program but it means something different when we were talking about it in context so I think if you have the opportunity to meet to get all of that I think would be really good um also so your certain areas could be addressed it doesn't mean it can't be addressed in the update as well but there's a lot of information there from the whole strategic plan and I think if you just give a summary um what our old strategic plan was when you guys started working on it who was involved and how this one evolved a little bit I think would be fine for the presentation piece but I would highly recommend to find some time because there's a lot of work in there and I'm blinking there we go um and and I'd like to be able to do that and and be able to learn for myself but also for the public who would like to learn more about that whole aspect that um has done their homework and thinks it's something else and I would recommend them to go back and look at our board meetings because this went over a board meeting over board meeting over board meeting I mean this was all done publicly in the last two years okay so I I hear it two years well it is I mean and so I understand maybe people weren't as involved or paying attention back then but it's not that it was done behind closed doors it was done very publicly all of it lots of presentations on each of the anchors and who who was responsible and how they were going to do that many community members from the preschool kids all the way up so everybody was involved in this and we've discussed it for two years so if we are going to talk about it again I'd like for it to be very short that's what I'm saying a brief summary yes on that piece but if anyone wants more information I mean I I would say go back and look at our board meetings for the last two years because it's there so okay uh 9.1 board initiatives nobody all right I move that we enter in this meeting a second all those in favor meeting adjourned
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stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with limiting Justice thank you Mr romanccino I'd like to read a quick statement if I may the New Jersey opened public meetings law was enacted to ensure the rights of the public to advance notice oven to attend the meeting of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discuss our actual part in accordance with provision of this act because I part of Ed has of course noticed that this meeting could be published by having a date time in place they have a posted in the office of the federal Clerk or a library or a Rec Department the offices of the Board of Education and the offices of school numbers three four five six and in the high school on January 4th 2023 and notices referred to reports on the record January 24 2023 this is an official meeting I'd like to take the role if I may Mr romantino okay Mrs Abreu here Mr capano here Mrs Fredo here the Garcia yeah then the Drew Dr pantaliano oh okay sorry let me scratch that Mr Russo here Shelley said it's terbacca yeah Mr yunozzi here okay Mr Roman Gina okay thank you very much Mr alfano uh just like to welcome everyone to our meeting tonight before we look at the consent agenda uh just a couple of items I'd like to just take this opportunity to thank our Administration and staff for running our staff and service day this past March February 7th we had our staff members Pre-K to 12 involved in a number of uh different activities throughout the afternoon from curriculum revisions to mental health workshops many different things went on during that that particular afternoon we have another staff in service tentatively scheduled for March 14th and Mrs calibri saw director of curriculum is in the process right now of coming up with an agenda for that day uh February 15th we had a parent workshop at school number six I want to thank Mr reinfest all Middle School principal for organizing that Workshop uh we didn't have as big of a turnout and we would have liked but um the workshop addressed uh wellness and mental health of our students and staff but we do plan on doing a follow-up Workshop later this spring but I do want to thank all of those who were involved I also want to thank our Administration staff and guidance staff for celebrating uh February 13th through 17th our random week of kindness a number of activities throughout all of our schools I'd like to take this opportunity to congratulate Mr Helm he's our high school science teacher and also advisor of our Academic Decathlon I'd like to congratulate Mr Helm and all of our students who participated this year in all of the events that had to do with our Academic Decathlon team did a great job I also want to wish good luck to our high school distributive education Club next week they're going to be in Atlantic City competing in different on various competitions Mrs basoli who is the advisor for that group has been doing a great job with our students so I want to wish them next good luck next week at our upcoming competition just a reminder to uh parents uh who might be viewing this um our board meeting tonight that we will be holding our Pre-K registrations for this coming September and our kindergarten registration for new students only to the district um at the end of March so if there are any parents out there who know uh of students who are going to be entering Pre-K or new to our kindergarten they can visit our website there are registration forms available there's information as far as making an appointment for registration and there's also information regarding medical information that might be necessary for registration so if you have a chance you can take a look at that if you have any questions feel free to call my office and we'll gladly help you with any uh questions or information you may need at this time um any questions or comments from the board any committee reports from the board okay very good so at this time what I would like to do then is just go through our consent agenda before we vote on it uh as always we are approving a number of Staff members who are attending uh in in person and virtual workshops and we are reimbursing them for registration fees and travel fees um at the bottom of page two actually the pages aren't numbered but at the very bottom of the first page or the second page Mariana Elias who has been substituting with us uh as a media specialist at school number three will now be transferring over to a title one substitute at school number three for the uh remainder of the school year uh next year uh next page under Personnel um I'm not going to read anything specific but we have a number of appointments and resignations as far as bus aides and teacher aides are concerned uh very bottom of the page we are approving um school nurse substitutes and Sue Bach who retired as our school nurse from school six this past June uh will be substitute we will be acting as a substitute nurse whenever needed at the rate per diem rate of 150 a day uh over to the next page again it's a number of teacher aides bus aides that are either resigning or we're hiring um nothing else really noted on that page uh following page atop we have Catherine Tomer who's a special education teacher at school number four is applying for a maternity leave Catherine will be leaving on or about uh April 17th and uh her anticipated return will be November 2023 we wish her good luck uh Denise hotos who has been an English teacher in our high school for over 35 years has announced her retirement effective July 1st 2023 we wish Denise the best in her retirement uh Maria Elso herleo who's been a custodian with us for a number of years has announced hurry time and she will be retiring effective May 1st um and we wish her the best in her retirement a little bit further down the page Sam Sedano who's a part-time custodian at school number five Sam also served as a board member for many many years with us uh has announced his retirement effective March 13 2023 so we wish Sam the best of luck okay uh next page is just some uh Financial Accounting information going over to policies and policies and procedures uh we are approving tonight the uh tentative calendar for the 2000 23-24 school year that calendar will be posted to our website uh sometime next week so pounds of the opportunity to look at the days uh for the 23-24 school year uh next resolution we are approving a staff and Service as I mentioned before for March 14th for pre-k through 12 students and we just have the release times as we do each half day program uh we are approving uh as a formality and Alternate education program in our high school called our Scythe program these are for students with interrupted formal education it mostly affects our ell population and this is a program that we've been running at the high school Mr Pinto has done a very good job with this but we are formally approving as per state guidelines that we have a safe program at the high school and we will continue to do so as far as the programs that we run for those students coming into our district we have a number of HIV cases that were investigated as per state law and buildings and grounds uh requests for activities that are being run by PTO and by um clubs from within our district Finance Mr alfano or anything a couple things Mr romancino I'm seeing your packet at the end of the agenda there are four resolution those are the formal resolutions to approve our 20 21 20 22 audit uh in the board's pack and the board's a packet they will see the AMR booklet which is essentially an overview of our findings and our Surplus and there's also a annual report in their large report of about 200 pages that goes through all these sub funds and both of those booklets are in the board's packets we are currently working on the budget for 23.24 which is due to the county and the state on March 8th Kia deliverables over the next week and a half is we're going to be meeting with the borough specifically the finance manager I will be meeting with him tomorrow in regard to doing a tax impact analysis on our residents in regard to the levy increase on March 3rd we will be meeting with the finance committee and the borough to go over the initial tax levy and the impact on the taxpayer and the total budget and then on the sixth or the seventh I will be requesting from the board for us to do a special meeting to approve the the quality temp resolution which essentially is a resolution that allows the county and the state to do the first blush review of our budget and that'll be on the 6th or the 7th we'll probably do a zoom I will ask Mr savastana to set that up and I know exactly what date yet because I don't know exactly when we're going to be fully completed but on the eighth end of day on the 8th at 11 59 PM we must submit by electronically the budget to the county and the state so that's pretty much the overview on the budget over the next two weeks okay any questions or comments on the consent agenda most to accept so moved a second that was Mr capano and I believe it's Mr Russo okay I'd like to take a vote if I may this is a brew yes Mr capano yes Mrs Fredo yes Mr Garcia yes Christina Drew Yes except it's not page six uh online items to regarding the school calendar I'll be boring now okay that's Page Six thank you Mr Russo yes Mr vacchia yes yes thank you so move Mr Roman Gina okay just a reminder uh March 22nd is our next work session March 29th tentatively we'll be uh our budget presentation or we have to wait excuse me no Mr Roman Gino I believe it's going to be the 22nd or the 29th I will be doing the the budget hearing to do the formal the formal approval of the budget one we're doing on the 6th of the seventh is the tentative approval to allow the county and state to right right review it and then I believe it will be the 22nd or the 29th based on the new account that's coming out okay we'll have the formal approval of the of the budget okay okay very good okay and then stop and then excuse me and then the vote is April 25th right no April 18th now let's move from because of Ramadan oh okay 25th yeah 18th through the 25th so we may have to tweak our board meeting for the organization meeting until May because I think you have to have after the budget vote you cannot approve for a minimum of five days but you have to prove where the maximum of 14.
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[Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] pursuant to the open public meetings act adequate notice has been given by the secretary of the Eastman Township Board of Education in the following manner posting written notice on the official bulletin board at the Board of Education Office emailing written notice to the Burlington County Times And The Courier Post filing written notice with the municipal clerk of Evesham Township now you have a roll call please Mr Bach here Mrs capalo here Mr physicaro here miss Fox here Mr Captain here Mrs null Miss Lee here Mrs Ryan here Mr Thompson here we have a quorum okay at this time I'll ask for a motion to go into executive session and a motion to approve items 2.1 through 2.4 whereas in njsa 10-4-12 allows for a public body to go into closed session during a public meeting and whereas the Board of Education of Evesham Township has deemed it necessary to go into closed session to discuss certain matters which are Exempted from the public and whereas the regular meeting of the board will reconvene following the end of the closed session at approximately 7 30.
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foreign at this time I'd like to call the meeting to order please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance thank you let the record show that board members present are Joe Grant Jennifer Drake Don Densmore Crystal Chapin and Christine Pritchard absent okay we will start off with a choir performance Dr Dean thank you madam president members of governing board members of cabinet in our community this evening I will turn the agenda over to Dr crota for the next three items Dr crotto thank you Dr Dean Madam president members of the board superintendent Dean guests we are very excited to have a choir performance by Dysart middle school today they are under the direction of Miss Hillary Bond and we are very excited so Miss Bond it's all yours thank you foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] another name [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] we can't wait rage [Music] thank you [Music] we are ready [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] forever [Music] gonna burn place [Music] we are ready [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] good morning forever [Music] okay well thank you very very much Dysart Middle School choir you guys are fantastic so way to go and if we could ask the board to move forward to the steps for the next presentation that'd be great all right why are they board uh joins us in front of the Deus tonight we have some special athletic recognitions for our Northwest Valley Athletic Conference champions if you remember the Northwest Valley Athletic Conference is a new conference we joined this year it is a competition between Dysart Unified School District Peoria Unified School District and Deer Valley and we have some champions in that so we'd like to uh recognize our Champions tonight so first as I call your team come up take a picture with the governing board we want to say congratulations to Canyon Ridge Boys volleyball so Canyon Ridge come on up [Applause] come on up shake their hands take a picture and smile parents if you want to get pictures please uh join in as they line up congratulations Canyon Ridge great job [Applause] continuing on it with our Northwest Valley Athletic Conference champions We have Marley park girls volleyball come on up thank you congratulations [Applause] continuing on we also have another Northwest Valley Athletic Conference champion in Ashton Ranch for flag football come on up [Applause] all right guys congratulations and before you guys step down let's have the cheerleaders in here for a picture too real quick come on over foreign that's awesome so you get to be in the picture too all right congratulations [Applause] of continuing on we had dinosaur middle level cross-country teams they participated in a Tournament of Champions with Peoria district and Deer Valley district and we had some top three finishers so we'd like to introduce and bring up our bronze winner in Mountain View Lions they're seventh grade girls come on up if they're here Mountain View cross country Missouri great job everybody congratulations great job [Applause] all right and last but not least the same division cross country for the Tournament of Champions uh Sunset Hills Bobcats the seventh and 8th grade boys cross country team thank you congratulations awesome stay there stay the stay up there we're gonna take a picture with Renee in them stay up there congratulations to our all our athletic uh Champions great job this year I'm continuing on with our recognitions uh the Dysart schools communication and public relations department won numerous aspiration Awards recognizing standards of excellence in school public relations from Arizona school public relations Association and we'll kind of hold on while they're eggs in can you hear me okay yeah okay I'll keep going each year school districts in Arizona submit projects for consideration and they're judged by members from another state Association so winning entries demonstrate how sound public relations principles and research analysis communication and evaluation and creativity as you can see out here um our public relations department pretty much cleaned house and won nine excellent Awards and three merit awards and you can see everything displayed here so congratulations goes out to Renee Ryan our director of community public relations Carly McVeigh public relations program manager Ryan McGinley our education media coordinator and Ambria Brown our communication specialists congratulations on all these awesome Awards you do an awesome job and that concludes our presentations and Madam president I would point out the two side seating areas are filled with all of the plaques that an awards that the our PR team won along with a couple of photos and I can't say this enough but um you know we have a back to school video or a dice informational video that was presented and one as well and it was the only entry to receive a perfect score so congratulations to our folks great job [Applause] that's awesome thank you PR team for all of your hard work I know that a lot of times you don't get all the recognition that you deserve and you work really hard behind the scenes so thank you thank you and thank you to our choir I know they're not here anymore but you guys sounded great thank you and congratulations to all our athletes that's wonderful all right next up we have item C1 audience with individuals Miss Densmore thank you all right this is the time for the public to comment members of the board may not discuss items that are not specifically identified on this on this agenda pursuant to ARS 3843-101 action taken as a result of public comment will be limited to directing staff to study the matter responding to any criticism or scheduling the matter for further consideration and decision at a later date in order to facilitate accomplishing the business of the district in a timely manner a time limit of three minutes will be imposed for each individual or group addressing the board when you approach the podium please state your name for the record and first tonight we have Janet LeBlanc good evening my name is Janet LeBlanc and I'd like to thank all of those involved for working on correcting the open meeting law violations that have been pointed out regarding the curriculum review committees I have not completed my review of all the agendas and minutes that have recently been added for the curriculum review committees however from what I have reviewed thus far excuse me there are a few notations that I'd like to bring forward uh there is no name as to who is calling the meeting on all of the agendas and there's no name as to who is submitting the minutes on all the minutes the slideshow link on the October 1922 agenda is inaccessible and in the December 6 22 minutes um what was the feedback that was received within the slideshow of the January 18th 23 minutes one of the slides has a link to notes that link gives an access denied notice I'd also like to ask if another staff member is allowed to sit in on a committee in order to make a quorum and if so where is that policy and in order to further in in Partnership to further close the gap I am asking that a listing of all committees within the district be added to the dysart's website with a brief description of committee responsibilities a quick search of your policies produced a number of committees within the district I have not yet had the opportunity to review the policies for these committees to include the newly adopted policy for curriculum adoption I'm also asking that this listing be brought to the Forefront with other public meetings to include the agendas and minutes and unbury them from the from its current location which is next to impossible to find this would be a great place to put the newly created committee interest form as well so I thank you for your partnership your time and due diligence in this matter because together we are Dysart thank you Madam President we will have Dr ER Dr assai follow up with Miss levanc thank you next we have Larry LeBlanc good evening Larry LeBlanc I would like to address an item listed as a consent item to be voted on tonight under Section F1 and then under the drop down from item one is a title staff will be paid per mou for curriculum writing is that it just gets my interest because we've been uh discussing a lot of curriculum and we are currently prepared to spend millions of dollars for curriculum that's already been written so I'm asking for an explanation on that and uh with this it brings in a couple of questions that I'd like to ask and uh one of them is what are they writing and who approves this written curriculum what is the cost of the writing of this curriculum and where is this curriculum being used and I'd like to add that Mr Ken Hicks has assisted me on getting that information already and I really appreciate when it came to the cost of things and I'm hoping to understand just how that's working in closing I would like to address our wonderful educators of the Dysart Unified School District Janet and I are your biggest supporters your abilities to educate and provide sound learning are never in question our interest lies in the materials in which you are provided with to employ your talents please know that our actions are not personal it is Duty God Bless America [Applause] Brad and President we will also have Dr Psy follow up with Mr LeBlanc next we have Sarah Rivera okay good evening Madam board president members of the board superintendent Dean and members of the cabinet for those members that are new since the last time that I was here allow me to introduce myself my name is Sarah Rivera and I am the President of the Dysart special education PTSA the PTSA was started at the end of July just seven months ago it feels like much longer as it has been a very busy seven months um I haven't made it back here as often as I would have liked to because I've been very busy with the planning and organizing of a new PTSA but I would like to update you now that I am able to come so over the past seven months we have consistently had 20 to 30 members or community members at our monthly meetings which I was really excited that to have that much participation every single time we have held a workshop on strength-based IEP goals that was attended by both teachers as well as parents our trunk or treat and holiday party were both very well attended with over 100 people at each event as well as a lot of community support for donations because we had no money at the time we have reached our first year goal of 60 paid members this past weekend we held our first annual Walk and Roll for inclusion event at dreamcatcher Park that was attended by at least 150 people including members of the Texas Ranger baseball team who were also sponsors of our event along with Desert Vista Dental Health and the Dysart Education Foundation also I'd like to take this opportunity to thank board member Joe Grant and Dysart cabinet assistant superintendent Ken Hicks for their attendance at the event as well as those that sent well wishes through email that they couldn't attend but they were in support of our event anyway and also the members of the ESS Department who attended in their tutus we have launched nominations for the Ginger Lee Francia awards that will seek to honor our ESS teachers general education teachers paraprofessionals staff members and a community champion who has gone above and beyond for our students who utilize special education services nominations are still being accepted through March 1st through our website so there's still time for that and I am very excited for all the work that we have ahead of us I have so many plans I just hope that I have enough time to utilize all of them and I can't wait to come and share all those things with you when I'm able thank you thank you that wasn't thank you very much we will move on to updates do we have a student update we do Madam president and I'm going to turn this over to Dr coroto thank you Dr Dean Madam president members of the board superintendent Dean cabinet guest tonight we have braylee Ratliff a junior at Valley Vista High School here to share the student update really all right so um one of the main things that we've been discussing in our dslc meetings are prom so Shadows releasing their theme March 1st Valley has already released our theme Willow is going to release their theme on March 1st as well and Dysart has yet to release her theme or tell us when they're going to another thing Willow hosted their sweetheart dance on the 11th and um from what I've heard it was really good they had a lot of attendance Shadowridge is hosting a movie night upcoming on the 25th I believe and we started planning our spring Spirit weeks all four schools Sundown is hosting a blood drive and so is shadow in the upcoming week and we've been really heavy on planning our end of the year conference together thank you very very much all right thank you next we have our superintendent update Dr Dean thank you madam president members of governing board members of cabinet and our community will keep this brief tonight congratulations to all of our high school choirs who last week competed at the NAU Jazz Madrigal Festival um that Festival features more than 140 schools and each one of our high schools improved upon their scores last year with some Awards being given out and the awards were as follows Valley Vista High School's concert choir received a superior rating Shadow Ridge High School's Stellar FX choir received an excellent rating and their constellation choir received a superior rating and Willow Canyon High School's concert choir received an excellent rating so congratulations to each of our choirs also want to say congratulations to convergence our Winter Guard that's in the district they took first place in their competition last week they are upholding their tradition of being the best Winter Guard in the state we are also very excited to have had several state champions at uh last week's State wrestling tournament and we look forward to honoring each of those State uh Champions at the next governing board meeting where um Dr crota will have to pin them before the meeting will be over so I would plan for a lengthy meeting Additionally the last piece of my update this evening is that our winter our other winter sports seasons are winding down we've had great playoff performances I mean in soccer and in boys and girls basketball and Valley vista's girls basketball team the defending champs are still alive and they play in the semifinals next Tuesday night against Hamilton good luck to them and that concludes my update for this evening thank you Dr Dean next we have our governing board update Madam president before you begin the governing board update I have a very very important piece that I failed to mention today is Denise birdsell's last board meeting and Denise is the person who sits behind the glass in the back taking care of all of our technology needs and no Karen's back there I know she's back there Denise is retiring um and she's really retiring and um after eight years of running board meetings from behind the scenes we wanted to just Express all of our thanks she's always available to meet all of our technology needs throughout the district office every single day I usually see her about 7 15 in the morning checking on us to make sure we're good and she takes care of everything here so Denise happy retirement and thank you so very much and that concludes my update are you sure really you want one more okay okay governing board update go ahead Joe well Denise enjoy retirement I will tell you it's the best it is the best I just want to say congratulations and I was surprised you didn't want to come back and do that about the a plus recognition oh next week okay well I get it this week so to Canyon Ridge and El Mirage and Willow Canyon so that's awesome to have that A-Plus recognition and then as you heard I did walk in the uh Dysart special ed parent teacher Association first annual rock and roll the weather was absolutely perfect thank goodness because if it was done just last week a couple of days I don't know if I could have made it but it was a fun day it was a lot of kids there a lot of attendance and those kids really love the Texas Rangers and their interaction it was a great day so thank you so Miss Grant Denise does that mean retirement does that mean Denise is going to sleep in and not do mornings is that what retirement means thank you Miss Grant do you guys have anything I do I attended the freedom traditional talent show and outstanding Talent was performed so kudos to the students and and also the teachers that performed we had a great ending to the show it was wonderful so I just want to say congratulations to everybody that participated it was a great show thank you and I will once again Echo and say congratulations on retirement thank you for all that you've done Denise um I attended a training put on by the Arizona Coalition of school board members on Saturday and that was a great training on finance and some open meeting law and it was really great so that concludes our governing board update next we have item E1 I will move to approved consent agenda items as presented second motion made by Crystal Chapman seconded by Don Densmore motion carries next we have item G1 Dr Dean thank you madam president members of the governing board members of cabinet in our community as you are aware and if you had forgotten thank you to CTE for the great reminders at our seats today this is CTE appreciation month and so this evening I'll turn this over to Dr crotto and he will introduce our presentation Dr Grotto thank you Dr d-man and president members of the board we'd like to welcome our amazing leader of our CTE team tonight for a great presentation on CTE so Mr grishaver it's all on you all right hey thank you Dr Crowder good evening Madam president members of the board Dr Dean cabinet and Community I am really excited to be here to share CT month with you before I begin the presentation and we have wonderful guest speakers behind us and I'm not going to take up a ton of time in fact I'm going to start my timer Dr cuddle so I keep an eye on where I'm at um I want to take a minute to thank our 39 Career and Technical education teachers that are in the classrooms day in and day out doing what's best for kids you take a walk and you go in the culinary you walk over the fire science I will say we had a new lawn Public Safety teacher that started a week and a half ago and he's coming back he came back um so we have teachers in classrooms that are doing amazing things so I just want to publicly say thank you to all of them um I was one of them up here with me and we just appreciate so much what they do day in and day out and we're here to support and they always keep in mind when and every staff meeting that we're always going to do what's best for kids so thank you to all of our teachers all right so we're going to move on can we play the video beneath hit the button all right hit the button nope wrong button oh there we go [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music] so just a brief uh video so think back in the day the old vocab that vocational education is what people think of when we talk about CTE and obviously by watching the video you don't see that anymore so we have wonderful Innovative programs within the district um you can see CTE follows a program model that will have classroom instruction lab instruction work based learning and personal leadership development which is our student ctso organizations one of the things with CTE is per Ade we have to have 51 percent of our time in lab so we have to make sure that whenever we do so for instance we have culinary has 600 kids how do we get 600 kids in lab twice a week we do we move them through we have two Labs we're able to to get kids in there so they're getting the true experiences all right I'm going to kind of fly through the data this is some enrollment data um from 2021 and so on I'm not going to kind of go through it you can see our numbers have held pretty steady I want to say we have about 7 000 high school students and a little over 4 400 are in a CTE class this one we're really excited about this is our industry credentials so one of the things that we pride ourselves on is that when a student graduates from one of our CT programs they have a credential so they're ready to go out into the workforce yesterday I met with the owner of Fastsigns and we were talking about they're looking at hiring a graphic design student to come and work for them I say well hang on a second let's get a graphic design senior in and do some internship for you and then that way you can kind of do a little job interview for a year and then we'll have them come in he says we'll we really need them to have illustrator Adobe Illustrator I said guess what the kids are getting Adobe Illustrator and it's not costing them a thing to get it so that student or those students coming out of our programs are ready to go all right some recognitions we have uh our ctsos as you will see in our board agendas we have a lot of travel and that kind of stuff coming up competitions we have Regional skills USA starting tomorrow we have Deca State starting tomorrow down at the Arizona Grand skills is over at GCC UTI we have a lot of things rocking and rolling with our 17 programs um here are some of our national um level from last year Deca all these programs participated in National Nationals not in Arizona they're I want to say Louisville Kentucky Atlanta Georgia I want to say Deca is going to be in Orlando Florida this year so kids get some awesome opportunities to get out in fact Trevor one of our speakers today is going to talk about his experience with skills all right so speaking of that all right I'm right on time um we have former student from Willow Canyon High School that was part of the IB TV broadcasting program I'm going to have Trevor come up and tell you a little bit about his CT experience at Willow Canyon and what he's doing now Trevor hi I'm Trevor Tuttle I graduated from Willow Canyon back in 2019 I was a part of the TV broadcasting program I started taking it just because I had to fulfill that credit and I had I didn't think I'd have any interest or in it or anything but I didn't know what I want to do and then I found out that's really what I was passionate about and that's what I wanted to do for the rest of my life so I started taking the classes one day I was told about this competition called skills USA it was part of that ctso and I joined uh competed in my first competition I loved it didn't win or anything but I was like okay so I joined the that chapter uh and eventually went on to become their president and everything but during that time we myself and another student we talked about how cool would it be to do something like create a sports broadcasting program and that's what we did we started working on a sports broadcasting program and after school we'd get together and we would meet in the gym with some of the equipment that we had in the studio which is industry standard equipment that you would get to use in the industry and we actually ended up being selected as the 2018 National skills USA model of Excellence winners which they select 24 schools out of the entire country eight per their three categories we went to the national competition in Louisville Kentucky and we actually got to win the like final trophy the national award which is one of the coolest experiences of my life but through this sports broadcasting program we also got to do interviews with major league baseball players which is part of what we got to win that award for uh one year was the Kansas City Royals and then I believe in 2019 it was the Seattle Mariners and then we had I don't remember how many students but they got to participate in MLB media day and they actually got to interview the different coaches and general managers for all these teams and I got to interview my favorite teams manager Joe Madden which is the coolest thing ever but one of the things that I've noticed about students who take these ctsos and the CTE classes is that they they have a lot more initiative and everything than just the standard student not that they don't have initiative but taking my first introductory college classes in film and broadcasting they were they came off really easy because a lot of it I already knew I couldn't believe that I was walking into a classroom and my professor was talking about yeah I have to teach you guys how to turn on the camera because this is something that I'd been doing since my sophomore year high school and there were other students in the room who didn't know how to do that type of stuff but you can always tell which students took part in CTE classes and ctsos because they're the ones who have the initiative and the ones who when they get put in a group to do a project they're the ones who step up and actually lead the group forward and know what to do so thank you that's all I have thank you Trevor and I will tell you I just met Trevor today you know when we came inside I didn't pre-load anything so perfect and and it just attests what our teachers do in the classroom and so whenever I look at tea and I our other teachers I just I'm in awe of what they do all right next is a huge business partner of ours she's also a parent in the community she has a daughter at Shadowridge High School on the Senate Sonoran Heights you know what huh good memory good Noel trigger is a huge business partner with Banner Health so I'm gonna have Noel come up and share a little bit with you and I time I'm exactly four minutes okay I think all right so hey everybody I'm Noelle trinder I'm here today as the senior director of Healthcare careers at Banner Health and thank you for having me to share about our CTE program partnership with Dysart Unified School District and Banner Health so I'm here today obviously as an industry partner but also as a mom I'm a parent as mentioned of a seventh grader and an 11th grader and both are in their CTE programs of course so just a little bit about Banner Health and myself short little thing um so I've been at RN for 18 years from bedside nurse to Chief nursing officer and now the senior director in a Banner Health is the largest employer in our state second is Amazon so and we're in six different states we're in Arizona Colorado Wyoming Nevada Nebraska and California and we host remote employees in 38 States so 60 000 employees 18 000 nurses okay that's that's big in 2022 we strategically created my team which is the banner Healthcare careers team focusing on the Six States we serve and part of the work that my team does which is a bit novel in healthcare is focus on K-12 strategy and solutions to meet Healthcare Workforce needs so we intentionally and always thoughtfully partner and align with with business partners such as yourself to make Health Care easier so life can be better which is our mission so as soon as we met Jim and the teachers we knew that it was meant to be both parties are aligned in our vision of creating Pathways of employment for our communities so I'm going to start with one example is our nursing program that we work with at Dysart which is at Willow and Banner Health became a part of the advisory committee we've had time dedicated with CNA students and we host all of their rotations at Del Webb and Boswell now here's the really cool thing about the partnership and what Healthcare and CTE can do I say I have air tags on all of these kids but we really do we track all of them and we will do conditional offers to all these kids prior to graduation for employment which is really cool so they will be offered different working options because we know a lot of the kids want want to go to college of course but let's say they do want to work full-time or part-time we already have them tagged for Banner Health to be a CNA which means they'll be eligible for all of our full health care insurance are matching 401K our tuition assistance to continue on for nursing isn't that pretty amazing think of yourself at 18 just graduating to have that opportunity that you went through the CTE program have a job and all these benefits how cool is that so as a parent and an industry partner I've also been invited to the CTE Sports Med advisory committee and I was able to in-depth review their sport Med curriculum so I'm a doctoral prepared nurse I work with 400 Higher Learning institutions across our country and I was thoroughly impressed very very impressed as the content mirrors both private and State University curricula so the focus on the modules prepares the student for really any health care role so I know they're focused on Sports Med but when I look my daughter is in the program she wants to do nursing it's absolutely preparing her for Grand Canyon where she wants to go also Pharmacy respiratory ptot speech athletic trainer so you guys are really teaching incredible content to these kids also a shout out to miss Donovan that's her main name that's my daughter's favorite teacher so I had to put that in there okay and just a little bit more and then I'm done so when we talk about Healthcare we usually think okay doctors and nurses right but there are so many different key people behind the scenes such as it so Banner Health was able to partner with the dicer High School CTE program for it and we are hosting two of their interns for free which is incredible and they are virtually meeting with our leadership team at Banner Health corporate for it it's going very well and they're learning from the best of the best in the industry of how to create apps so they're with our Banner Health corporate I.T applications team and the head of that team so in conclusion this is just a little bit of all the things I wrote culinary down I wrote culinary down okay so in conclusion we look forward to the future with you and the programs and Partnerships and I really feel with things like this we can be rest assured that we are building solid and knowledgeable so solid and knowledgeable Healthcare Workforce for our community we're very very grateful at Banner Health that I represent in our partnership with Dysart so thank you guys thank you now obviously I've known Noel for a little while but our partnership started just this year though so at the very beginning of the year so where we've come when she really quick on the I.T side they interviewed all seven of our I.T interns and they wanted to hire all seven of our but they only had spots for two so um just a great example um all right moving on hang on I want to thank Dr D Dr Krill yet um that'll come in a minute yeah how's my time all right I'm a few minutes over all right so I also want to take a minute to thank um the CTE staff in the office um Tracy Carroll Holly Dana and all the work that they do each and every day I'm doing what's best for kids from the behind the scenes side of it so whenever we look at the travel and what Trevor talked about about going to Louisville and winning Awards there's behind the scenes stuff taking place and the staff that we have in our office is absolutely amazing so a shout out to them all right so now I'm going to thank you all for all your support of current technical education I have to tell you I do feel like I'm one of the luckiest people in the district and I I tell um Ken and John that all the time because being the director of current technical education is an awesome job because we have awesome teachers and awesome people we work with thank you all for all your support that you guys do for CTE thank you all right thank you so much thank you I feel like one of our biggest strengths in our district is our CTE programs and I love the fact that our students have this opportunity to explore these careers they don't have to just go to college and spend thousands and thousands of dollars and just kind of puts around for a couple years before they figure it out and they go oh well I could have done this two years ago and they don't have that debt for the college that they spent two years just kind of wandering around I love the fact that these students who may not want to go to a four-year University have this opportunity for a career and they're certified that's wonderful so thank you Mr grishaber thank you to our partners thank you to our staff and thank you to everybody who makes that possible all right we will move on to item G2 Dr Dean thank you madam president members of the governing board cabinet and our community this evening we have an information item that was requested by a governing board member as it relates to the governing board receiving information um for uh from those who attend out of state conferences and trainings um so as to keep the board updated and informed as to what is happening as as folks are attending those trainings and so this evening I will turn it over to board discussion but I may offer the following um thought as this is discussed and that is that we would be more than happy to have when folks come back from an out of state training or a conference to have them provide just a short summary that we can forward to the board to keep the board updated so that's something that we can put in place probably as soon as April and so with that I will turn it over to board discussion thank you Dr Dean um I I think this item came about because we constantly are having conversations you know we look at conferences and we say well this session is offered and this session is offered and that goes up against board policy so I think I could be wrong but I think the whole intent of the agenda item was just to kind of clarify how we make sure that these employees are not attending sessions that go against board policy thank you for that Madam president and I will tell you that we've taken a couple of steps this year that are new that we haven't done in the past the first one is when we have any staff who are requesting to attend trainings out of state or in state and or conferences we do have an acknowledgment box that they acknowledge that they will not attend sessions that are contrary to our district values and and we lay out what those are additionally the supervisors of those uh folks who are involved in traveling to conferences meet with them to go over the conference agenda and what it is that they'll be attending as they move forward all right thank you do we have any other points of discussion I just have a quick question um when they submit their synopsis of the the conferences to the board is that going to be for the public also or just for the board um Madam president uh member Drake you can certainly have that conversation to determine um which way you would like to go on that but our our thought on that is that it would be just a short a short summary of what um you know they had gleaned in that conference piece and that we would likely provide that to the governing board in writing at you know at some point in time so that's certainly something that that you can discuss um you know but again communication such as that with the board is certainly available for the public if they so choose thank you anybody else um I I guess sometimes these conferences you you go to and you're absorbing a lot of information um and you're not going to implement all of it not all of it is going to make sense for Dysart maybe a few pieces of it here and there and that you know will make sense for what we do in our district um so I think from my point of view um I would like a summary of what people come back with and intend to implement just because you go to a conference I mean I could go to a conference and I could you know fall asleep halfway through because none of it applies to what we do in our district um you know maybe it's just completely out there and just it just it's just not applicable so I really couldn't come back and give a summary on something like that and they wouldn't expect our staff to either but maybe on the flip side of that if it wasn't applicable maybe come back coming back and saying well you know I know that when you spent a lot of money on this and you know um but here's here's why I can't apply anything Madam president member Densmore thank you for making that point because that that does happen um and it actually happens more often than perhaps you would think um unintentionally correct where where we may attend a conference thinking that um a session that we're going to see that we have strong interest in right and then there's a a different take you know presented or it's not applicable to our community or whatever the case may be and so I appreciate that piece because there are likely far more sessions attended at conferences than those that are brought back for us to look to implement in the district for example um Dr Cotto Dr Psy Amy hartun just came back from the National School Association administrator conference in that conference they would have had an opportunity to attend probably up to five to six breakout sessions per day over three days and three or four General Sessions so that could be 20 to 25 sessions that they sat in of which maybe one is an applicable piece that would come back to us or that we went to see and so I appreciate that piece on that and it would probably help those attending conferences um to narrow down to things that we believe make may be applicable to us coming back right um but in that same vein though if they're coming back and say they really can't Implement much of what they've learned but I'm sure that they've maybe had some experiences at that conference that were helpful in other ways as far as what not to do correct so there's always learning you know right in in those experiences that might not seem worthwhile at the time but upon reflection it's telling it's giving you a clear indication of all the things we don't want to do so agreed and there is Great Value in that type of learning yeah as well and so I think you know our our best approach at this will be to start a process yeah and then we can continue this conversation down the road and if we need to refine it or make adjustments to it we'll be more than happy to do that and we would we would likely begin this process with folks that are attending conferences starting in April we have spring break coming up and uh you know and those types of things so it's never good to start an initiative then but if we can start that in April and then we'll we'll work with the board to gain a frequency of when that occurs so all right thank you next we will move on to item H1 Dr Dean thank you madam president members of the governing board members of cabinet in our community this evening we bring to you a recommendation to approve the English language instruction specialist position for title schools for next school year this is a position that will assist with our English language Learners and assist with our current state with the or our current situation with the state board or State Department of Education as it relates to corrective action with our English language Learners this position will be funded by both the SEI and title III grants it is not an m o based position and we seek approval this evening from the board thank you do you want to start oh okay sorry um so you you mentioned the corrective action plan is this position a requirement of that plan Madam president miss Densmore I'm going to turn questions specifically over to Dr acai um as she is the content expert in this Madam president member Densmore members of the board the position is not a requirement of the grant what is a requirement of the grant is that El students get an hour of targeted instruction a day that is only our El students you can't mix them with any other students it's just those El students and that they also receive an hour of integrated instruction a day this position would serve as a model class for our targeted which really helps with our schedule our teachers can only do so much you can imagine within the regular schedule a teacher carving out an hour of a day for targeted instruction we currently have three El itinerant teachers for the entire District that try to do this where some of our schools have an abundance of students so this position will help to provide for the targeted instruction needed as well as serve as a resource for teachers who need help with El instru with the integrated okay so I just want to clarify though um so Michael you said it's not a requirement of the Grant I appreciate that thank you but is it a requirement of the action plan sorry thank you in the action plan it requires us to provide the hour of targeted in the hour of integrated so this is not a requirement of the action plan however it enhances our action plan and our duty from the state it's saying that here's what we're doing we're dedicating resources through our grant funds from our SEI funds and our title III which is specifically dedicated to El Learners and we're spending it specifically on that population to increase achievement and to do our due diligence with English language acquisition thank you and so these um these positions they would be doing like a pull out service they would be doing pull out because we are required to do the hour of pull out they would also help teachers to integrate the El in the classroom as well okay when I read through the the job description I for some reason I didn't interpret it that way I thought that this was being presented as a support position when it says model there's a there's a specific line that talks about them being a model classroom they have to have students with them to be a model classroom so through pulling the students they could also serve as a model classroom okay and in fact they will because that'll be helpful I would add that this what we are presenting and proposing in terms of our approach We Believe will take us out of corrective action very quickly it provides a specific and designated employee specifically for providing El instruction for our students which right now we struggle a bit with with our current Staffing model um would these positions with these El instructional Specialists would they also provide resources for teachers or students that are not identified as ell like initially identified as Madam president miss Densmore I think that I might be able to answer that question in terms of the way that we approach all of our students and so um all of our teachers do an excellent job of meeting the needs of any student that they see or getting them resources in which they need so one of the things that Dr assai talks about with his position with the pull out and pushing in piece of it so not only would they be providing pull out instruction but they also would push in during during general education Court let's just say core instruction for example let's say it's math and they would be assisting our teacher and our students with any language-based needs to meet their needs to help them be successful in that core subject while at the same time meeting their needs as ell students in their transition to the English language that being said they would have access to any student who may need assistance in that in that course as well if that makes sense or in that class as well I guess what I mean is I have heard I've been given some feedback in the past where some of our teachers feel not as supported um you know with the ell I when seeking resources for you know first comp you know having those conversations with um the parent or the guardian that sometimes the only resources that we had were Spanish that we didn't have alternative languages or other resources but I mean in just reviewing the consent agenda yeah we we're paying for interpreter services but I don't think that all teachers are aware of that so I'm wondering if these positions can maybe create a little bit more transparency for all teachers and not just ones that they've identified as ell resource teachers So within the within the job description it does mention doing professional development and that would be for all staff and I think that that it you bring up a valid point that not all teachers are aware of all the resources that are available to them uh when they do that PD they could definitely integrate that and here's the different resources you have that is part of the job is thinking of ideas to help kids but we can also easily with the PD how do we connect with families because we know that's a huge need is to better connect with our families and our community regardless of the language they speak they're also responsible for when children come to us and the families and answer the flow like do you speak another language in your house is arranging for testing for those students so when they do that that would be a great time because they're going to be connected to campuses to connect with those teachers and how can we support you and the other the only other thing I would add related to this this question and and it's a fair point that you bring up is I would add that we've discussed with the board a few of the changes that we're making in some of our federal project approaches moving forward and this is one of those as well and so we believe that we will see great benefits for all of our teachers with this piece and the transparency piece is a fair point and we'll make certain that we do a substantially better job of communicating with everyone as they as they work with our English language learning students thank you um when we do the pull outs will they be multi-grade levels or just one grade at a time um although the state would prefer it to be one grade at a time that's not always realistic with the amount of kids we have we would definitely try to group them at least by proficiency level which could be multi-grade sometimes not saying we would ever have a first grader and eighth grader but you know three four five together six seven eight uh it's really dependent upon the population of children in their proficiency okay I have a few questions do you have questions okay um how many ell students do we have currently do we have that information I think about 900 don't we can I believe about 900 I don't know if that's a firm number I'd have to go back and look and then how many students would each teacher be responsible for all 900.
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let's get started then let's get started this evening first up on the agenda is the Pledge of Allegiance and Mr buckler has the pledge tonight good evening everyone my name is Craig Buckler and I am the principal at Center Grove Elementary and it is my pleasure to introduce Ellie Mae Shepard to lead our Pledge of Allegiance for this evening's meeting I have just a couple things to share about her before we let her jump into it Ellie is the daughter of Samantha Harper who's here this evening and is a fifth grader and Mrs woodhouse's class Ellie is an outstanding student at CGS and in January was nominated by her teacher for the knight in shining armor award to recognize her positive attitude at school Ellie is a member of the ukulele club and the choir she is also a member of the student safety team who's meeting tomorrow with Mrs Rawlings Ellie is the lead catcher on her travel softball team and her free time she likes to paint she is hard-working and responsible and she always has a smile on her face and brings joy to everyone around her I am proud to have her represent Center Grove Elementary School this evening [Applause] I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all Ellie if you'd come up this way [Applause] thank you all right next up adoption of the agenda do I have a motion Mr President go ahead Mr President garyson thank you all those in favor signify by saying aye aye all those opposed motion passes five zero and except this evening is recognitions sorry I was getting a look for Mrs Kelsey and Mrs McMahon is going to introduce our Rising Stars are rising stars for Center Grove High School rising stars of Indiana is a non-competitive recognition program designed to honor High School juniors for their academic achievements each Indiana high school was invited to recognize up to four students in the 11th grade based on their current academic achievement by allowing schools to identify outstanding Scholars during their junior year iasp hopes to increase their visibility and scholarship opportunities it is my pleasure to introduce Center Grove's four Rising Stars RAV agrawal come on up please and we'll give you your certificate Ellen Nguyen Lillian Spite and Taylor word we're very proud of these students for their accomplishments you're not done yet thank you thank you [Applause] yes a big congratulations well next up for recognitions is Mrs Rodman for our Indiana statehood Day essay contest winner we have a student who placed second place from Turkey Grove did you spend a lot of time each year learning all about Indiana's history and part of that there is a Indiana statehood Day essay contest that our fourth graders are encouraged but not required to participate in in the state of Indiana this year there were 1200 applicants that wrote an essay centered around the theme of living in Indiana because there were so many applicants they actually narrowed that down to 108.
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thank you okay it's called the meeting to order we'll start with the pledge allegiance to the flag of States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all we want to welcome everyone to the school board meeting tonight remind everyone that we are live streaming on the school board meeting so um this is recorded I'm going to welcome those who are joining us we do have one board member also joining us um well so the first item on the agenda is to accept a motion to accept the consent agenda items a motion by Earl do I have a second by Chelsea any discussion okay because we do have one board member that is joining us virtual we'll do a roll call for every vote so Chelsea if you'll call the roll Marilyn yes Pat yes yes Cheryl yes Earl yes Chelsea yes yes um we'll we will also um because we do have a secretary who is absent tonight I will also entertain a motion to um a make a um temporary secretary for tonight's meeting Alone um he's going to have documents and things signed so I will entertain that motion make motion Chelsea does that okay so I have a motion for Chelsea to be the temporary secretary for tonight's meeting do I have a second I'll set I have a second by Cheryl any discussion Chelsea if you'll call the roll Marilyn Marilyn yes yes um and then we'll first go to community non-agenda items so if anyone is present who would like to speak to something that is not on the agenda hearing none I believe we have a presentation for this evening yes thank you so much for allowing us at Brush Creek to entertain you tonight um it's a honor to get to Showcase some of our kiddos for you to die so we wanted to highlight some of the Student Activities that we've had at Brush Creek this year it's been a really great to be able to bring some of those back after two years that have been pretty tough so um if you would go to the second slide there perfect our first club that we got started again this year was our volleyball club that was open in the fall to our fifth and sixth grade students um they taught they were taught volleyball Fundamentals by coach Chelsea Davis and Abby Brown and they were able to attend a middle school volleyball game as well as kind of a culminating activity and then our Archery Club um is for fourth and fifth grade students they did have a tryout this year so um and we were able to honor most of those students as well they did find out just recently that they qualified for the um state tournament in March so they are very pumped about that and they are competing in some local tournaments as well our student council is for fifth and sixth grade students um they just sponsored a school-wide random act of kindness day just last week and we were really appreciative of that ripple effect in our school and then there are also student ambassadors at several of our school events including holiday night and our Pre-K days where they take our future raise on tours of the building and we'll um have those students help at our Kindergarten Roundup on March 30th as well then we have our National Junior Honor Society oh one more up there you go um that is for invitation only that is for our fifth and sixth grade students that have demonstrated excellence in academics as well as promoted a positive School culture um we were able to induct 17 of our students this year so we're really proud of them for that on the top there are pictures of their visit to Autumn Trace at the holidays and then they also just recently conducted a pet supply um I do have two Club sponsors here um to share some things first is Shelley driver she is our stem facilitator at Brush Creek and she wants to speak about our stem Club we call it the stemtastic robotics Club because mostly we work with robots and learn from robots and teach robots so we explore artificial intelligence um a couple of the robots we have are the Vex claw robots that you'll see in the picture that's Aidan mahoy with one of those I refer to him as our robotics president and um so I taught them what I knew when we unboxed it I taught them what I do and they've now surpassed me in the knowledge now I'm learning things from them there's a set of robots that we use coding um with and um we also got some unplug have some unplugged robots that the kids are making robotic hands that will be able to pick up an object and perform a simple task and when we get back in the spring we've also have plans drawn up for to build a Stegosaurus dinosaur with animatronics his eyes will light up through what we've learned in stem every day class with with electricity in circuits and we're going to apply that knowledge and the dinosaur is going to be able to raise its head up and down open its mouth and Bang its tail but they have a lot of fun and then finally I want to do a plug for our drama club because they have a performance coming up and they want to give you a little bit of a so without further ado our drama club sponsored by Miss Kelly Clarkson Maybe they're getting cracked that's important oh hello everybody we've got a few little props here so do I need to talk about it anything um so good evening everybody my name is Kelly Clarkson um I am the drama club director at Brush Creek and I also I don't know in here right here um this is Shelly driver she's like one of my co-directors and helpers and another person who wasn't able to be here tonight is Miss Melody Boyd she's our seamstress and does all of our wonderful costumes um but information about drama club it is open to Fourth through sixth grade this year we are doing Willy Wonka Jr the musical um so we're super excited we have 32 cast members and information if you would like to attend right now we have it set for Saturday April 29th at 4 pm it will be at the high school auditorium and we're going to charge five dollars per ticket for kindergarten and up um but yes the kids are super excited and I've got them back here ready to come in and perform a little bit for you I really enjoy some of the traditional characters from the movie and recognize a couple of the little song Snippets they're going to sing for you make sure that's good [Music] foreign [Music] imagination I am Willy Wonka the greatest candy maker of all time welcome everyone is there a droop here their name is I just love Wonka Bars I eat them by the sack Charming next we have the salts oh right here Mr Wonka uh say how would you like to partner with me in the nut business we've got cashews Brazil That's yeah what's about me but just a moment dear no nap my name's Ruka I love your factory Mr Wonka can I have it please my such a pleasant child you're being sarcastic daddy he's being sarcastic moving on we have I'm Mrs Beauregard and I teach geography and this is Arcana mama I can introduce myself pilot beauregards the name and gumptu into my game clearly that remember what your purpose say about the gum oh here seems to be a pleasant young man ah shut your pothole I'm trying to beat the boss in the final level Mike don't be so rude I miss a TV and this is my TV and I'm gonna miss my second favorite show just to tour this stupid Chocolate Factory Michael don't talk to him like that what's this world coming to hello Mr Wonka I'm Grandpa Joe and this here is my grandson Charlie he's such a wonderful boy we shall see about that I'm so excited to tour the factory thank you for giving me this opportunity welcome now that you're all here let's proceed foreign [Applause] [Music] thank you [Applause] and parents that will be on YouTube so you want to show anybody to look it up thank you so really quickly for those in the room and those that are live streaming just a reminder Willy Wonka will be at the jchs auditorium April the 29th at Saturday 4 P.M tickets are five dollars each for kindergarten and above so what a great afternoon to take the kids the grandkids the neighbor anyone looks like it's going to be a great performance I'm super excited so thank you all for coming and making sure that we and our community members are aware of all the great things that you all are doing um so now we'll move on to Old business looking at operations yeah I've been asking permission to purchase four 2024 lit school buses okay do I have a motion I have a motion my Chelsea do I have a second second by Mary Lynn any discussion Chelsea if you'll call the roll yes yes business under our programs okay this is an inform um the curriculum committee you met at the end of January and considering our social studies textbooks are not even in print anymore at the elementary level they have decided to move on with textbook adoption this semester um they will have everything they need surveys will go out to teachers next week to give in their input on our options and then after that we will have time for community and parent reviews of the text and we'll send out multiple in forms so that they know where it is and they'll be able to come here and give their input also right so that item is an is in a form again Social Studies textbook adoption for K through six um if parents or community members are interested again there will be communication that goes out to make sure that you are able to provide input into that adoption of those textbooks yes ma'am thank you um and then we're moving down under professional staff recommendations for approval police for the following recommendations career increment Master teacher stipends to be awarded for the 2023-24 school year through the 2027-28 school year for the following individuals Leslie Brown Darian castetter Charlotte Cummings Ryan Cummings Paula ertle Justin Smith and Suzanne Wilson also we're asking that Lacey Cockrell be approved as the Jennings County High School assistant softball coach for the 22-23 school year Justin Earl be approved as a Jennings County High School volunteer boys varsity assistant coach Leah Lane be approved as a Sand Creek Elementary co-student Council sponsor for the 2223 school year Samantha Lau be the Sand Creek Elementary Coast student council sponsor for the 2023-20 22-23 school year and that Jack Sinclair from Sand Creek Elementary be approved as the math book coach for the 22-23 they have a motion to accept those as presented have a motion by Cheryl do I have a second by Earl any discussion Chelsea if you call the roll please Maryland yes that that yes staff recommendations uh after the approval at this time for the following recommendations Dylan Boswell as the Jennings County High School assistant football coach for the 23-24 school year Cole Elmore as the genius County High School volunteer assistant football coach for the 23-24 school year Neil Graham as the Scipio Elementary parapro Sarah McLean as the Jennings County High School cook Brady Shepherd is a Jennings County High School volunteer assistant track and field coach for the 22-23 school year Janice Smock as a Scipio Elementary Esther parapro and Catherine Todd as the Jennings County High School volunteer assistant softball coach with a 22-23 school year will entertain a motion for those as presented I have a motion by mayor Lynn do I have a second tell me any discussion you call a roll Marilyn yes that yes the board to approve the donations from Rose Acre Farms 600 to Brush Creek student snacks nvic 250 to nbe for Intervention Program church at Nazarene Pavilion Ministries thirteen hundred dollars to Sand Creek for student lunches Brian Bowman Incorporated five hundred dollars to the high school current Vision Care 200 to the James County high school supply shop Pfeiffer jewelry 25 to the James County high school supply shop Walmart one thousand two hundred fifty dollars to the Jason my shop Cummins 600 to the James County High School black cat racing team First Baptist Church of North Vernon 1 331.86 to the Hope food program and Lord of life Lutheran Church 100 to the Hope food retain a motion to change motion by Chelsea do I have a second by Cheryl any discussion unless you can call the roll please yes that yes we did receive our bids on the roofing the masonry related project we had 11 contractors that got plans for the project we had nine contractors that showed up for the pre-bid conference and we received six bids on the two projects four beds for the masonry two bids for the roof or yes for the roofing project and uh they actually came in under architect's estimates so we're very pleased with that and we'll be bringing the information back to the board at next meeting for the approval of the business thank you thank you Roy next under operations we're requesting the addition of an additional sub bus driver and sub bus Aid to start a new sped route here and that's due to increased numbers to asking for approval make a motion I have a motion my Earl do I have a second so second by Mary Lynn any discussion I'll see if you call the roll please Maryland yes yes [Music] asking for approval of the sih CDC ready sub Grant agreement this allows us to move forward in the next step it's a sub-grant company group that we will work with to process our approval through our ready Grant monies so asking for approval of that agreement okay looking for a motion for approval I have a motion by Chelsea do we have a second by Cheryl any discussion Maryland yes asking for an approval of an agreement with the shield up defense for a school safety consultation so this would be an official agreement to work with the company head Derek Simpson to come in to help us with Consulting on school safety and guidance do I have a motion to accept that agreement so moved have a motion by Maryland do I have a second by Chelsea any discussion I will point out that Mr Browning was here at our last school board meeting and don't see him here tonight um but um as a parent and Community member he was obviously concerned about school safety as are all of us both on the board and I think members of our community and school corporation so this is a great first step so I want to thank Nikki and the work that she's doing also thank Derek Simpson for agreeing to come in and share his expertise in knowledge so that we can have Direction moving forward any additional discussion Chelsea if you call the roll please yes yes and then one Spectrum do you have ABA therapists come in to help transition to student from an ABA Center into our Public Schools do I have a motion to accept that agreement no motion by Earl do I have a second by Mary Lynn any discussion to just to be clear we have a student who's transitioning from an ABA into one of our schools and this individual is just going to help that one student with that transition yes and we have an eight-week plan to to slowly stair step them out so that they'll be in our school or the the ABA therapist will be in for eight weeks okay okay and Chelsea if you would call the roll please Ireland yes yes and then it looks like we're down under utter I don't have any other fantastic that I will entertain a motion to adjourn motion by Chelsea do I have a second second by Cheryl I'm sure there's no discussion so Chelsea if you will call a roll please Maryland yes yes
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okay which probably leads us to the first so we can find we probably have to do some sort of we can finalize those dates yes okay Mrs savasana was there any questions or comments no okay motion to uh close I'll make a motion a second okay thank you very much thank you everyone thank you Frank
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now therefore be resolved that the Board of Education will go into session for the following reasons as outlined in njsa 10-4-12 items 2.1 through 2.4 do I have a motion Mr Canton Mr physicaro second thank you roll call please Mr Bach Mrs Capello yes Mr physicaro yes Miss Fox Mr canthan yes Miss Lee yes this is Ryan yes Mr Thompson yes motion carries um all right we'll see you at approximately 7 30.
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[Music] we haven't planned for how many they would be responsible for yet I mean that's that's a large caseload they're not going to be at every school some schools do have to you know they currently provide that service on their own working within their schedule so I don't have that answer okay so we're not gonna end up with one El instructional specialist who's got 10 kids that would not be the plan the plan would be to look at campuses and their populations sometimes we currently we're combining two or three schools together to get that support so it would be to look at the populations and have them share campuses unless you do have a high number on the campus Thompson Ranch for example has a huge population you know they may get their own teacher why you look at somebody like Canyon Ridge Mountain View and sunset who may share because they have that number of of kids not teachers I'm sorry and do we have a goal our goal is to exit them from their El status as quickly as possible to comply with the state regulations the state has those regulations because they believe that's the quickest way to get children to English proficiency we know that's always our goal because after we get them English proficiency we have a ton of extra work to do with English math and science okay and then what happens when we get off of corrective action and our ell students become proficient and they are exited from the ell program what happens to these positions I think at that time we would monitor them and say you know do we still need six you know can we go down to five can we go down to four I think your need drives that you know some districts it depends on the influx are you going to get an influx in the 90s we got an influx of Bosnian children and kids coming uh coming that way that needed eal assistance depending on where immigration is from you could have a lot we could come back and say you know can we have seven we could come back and say okay we're going to take it down to three I think it's looking at the effectiveness of the program after we have it for a year we have sufficient staff are we reclassifying at a higher rate than we did before and then what is our need based on student numbers and then where does the funding come from next year the funding would still come from our SEI in title III the grants uh yes the federal grants okay and those grants are planned to be reoccurring for the next foreseeable future Madam president um yes the answer that question is we receive SEI and title III grants each year so this would be currently an ongoing expense that would be planned for and as Dr assai mentioned it would be based upon need and we would adjust up or down if needed in the future the intent and the goal would be to adjust down okay thank you a couple more questions so this basically I'm looking at the requirements and it's this is open to any certified teacher who's got their SEI and endorsement correct so are they on a teacher salary teacher certified teacher salary yes it's a 197 day contract which is a typical teacher okay thank you I have a question not sure it's valuable for this but for this position under the certification or under the Education certification is there any possibility to have the individual that we put in this position be certified in Spalding to help with this would it be practical to have the ELO specialist certified in Spalding would that help our El learners Madam president Ember drink and Madam President we certainly could look at that it is it is certainly an option part of the the targeted ell instruction involves teaching English and so what we find a lot of times is that students will pick up the English language fairly quickly and as most kids do in terms of learning a lot of languages I wish I would have picked one up when I was younger however then as Dr assai mentioned then the work really begins in terms of making that connection to great you can speak it now we need to to read it and those types of things that's where Spalding could possibly come in from an effective perspective so we have not looked at that we'll go back and look at the budget for SEI and title III to see if we could entertain the cost of the Spalding training into that as well it's um sorry I was thinking because of how Spalding works with the letters and how you pronunciate the letters I thought that would be an excellent source to utilize understand completely okay I think that's a very valuable thing so I appreciate you looking into the Spalding piece you bet thank you at this time I will entertain a motion less position for the title schools as presented second motion made by Joe Grant seconded by Don Densmore do you need her to repeat it yeah I need you to speak into the microphone I'm sorry I'm losing my voice well motion to approve the addition of the English language instructional specialist positions for the title schools as presented second motion carries next we will move to item H2 Dr Dean Madam president members of the governing board members of cabinet in our community it's been a while since he presented but he's back Ken Hicks is here to present our employee health benefit plan recommendation for the 23-24 school year Mr Hicks it looks a lot like the CTE presentation I'm not going to lie thank you very much good evening Madam president members of the board superintendent Dr Dean cabinet and community members I am before you tonight to present and request approval of our employee benefit package for 2024 so thank you for allowing me to come up and make that presentation to make this presentation before we get going you know there's a lot that goes into a lot of this stuff so I do like to thank all the people that participated in this process of course Marydel is always there to help and support but um and you've seen Janice this is benefits so Miss Janice peel Ava also helped we had our consultant Elvis we had our Actuarial Jamison we had the EBT the employee benefits trust board provide input and we made presentation to IBA and getting all their feedback so there's been a lot of people that have taking a lot of time and energy to look over all of this and give us feedback so I appreciate all their efforts before I go through the benefit and renewal plan that we have I do want to just um because a lot of this is not in there I just want to always of course we get lots of awards for wellness that you see or hear Janice Miss Janice Peel's name a lot and she does an amazing job just in the last two months she's going out to all schools or available through Google meets to present anything on benefits she's promoting Outreach to learn about our our Wellness coaching she's our employee assistant program answer any questions about benefits so she does an amazing job thank you for all the principles that are taking her up on participating in those staff meetings you've heard Dr Dean has pushed us a little bit and we're doing uh Financial Wellness so we'll be rolling that out next week we've identified and got the emails and hopefully that will get finalized we just got to get the purchase order done let's drag it taking a long time on that and then also part of our medical plan which um I'll just allude to right now which is a new program this also thank you for Janice always looking for innovative ways it's called hinge Health that Blue Cross Blue Shield is partnered with and it's a amazing Innovative way to do physical therapy to help reduce our muscular skeletal costs which are probably in excess of two and a half up to three million dollars and so we're always looking for ways that we could Implement something that will then reduce future claims this comes at no cost and a guarantee so Blue Cross is guaranteed that we will save at least 150 thousand dollars so um it's what those type of attitudes and mindset that's always looking to grow and innovate and make our plans as best as possible so I appreciate all their efforts so um I just haven't talked in a while so I'd like to continue speaking I know I know Dr crota woke up grumpy this morning um so I'm just trying to wake him back up a little bit on that so um thank you for allowing me we'd like to thank Mr Hicks for his presentation are there any questions what's going on thank you very much Dr Dean um so um our our medical plan is running at 84 percent uh claims uh ratio claims lost so that's a good thing uh over 100 men's means that it's costing us money right now um it is only through 12 months um or six months out of the 12 so it's doing very good we want it to continue to do good Blue Cross is our provider so we are a self-funded plan Blue Cross is our provider and about three years ago we carved out Pharmacy because we knew they were getting rebates we they said they were giving us this recorded they are they did give us discounts and everything we believe that the rebates coming back to us would be bigger and better we were right so the first year we saved approximately a hundred thousand dollars net was about 750 there were some costs expenses in that the last 12 months I looked our rebates were up over a million dollars so it has been a good uh good decision to carve out Pharmacy and that is through Magellan and they do a good job working together just in general cost inflation we know everybody talks about inflation now most times people did not but medical costs continue to go through the roof specialty Drugs Pharmacy continues to drive a lot but we do still see in part of our Actuarial only uses about somewhere between 8 10 maybe a little bit higher but we're really looking at what our claims are what our usage is to see what that inflation is but we do make that part of the process so but when I look at and I know a rule of thumb is 10 inflation if we're working at 84 that means 94 percent for next year looking at that so that's a good thing so our our cost increase is very minimal going into next year um we are looking at a little bit of a plan design and this is out of network so we have a now and a network option right now um people can select it I will say that I think at least 98 maybe not more percent of our claims are in network a very small out of network and just because we're recommending out of network being eliminated does not mean that if there's an emergency you go to a emergency room if they're out of network that does not count in this place that still is covered and if they're going in for surgery and maybe the anesthesiologist is not in network that also will be covered that is not what we're talking about mainly it's page management centers that have manipulated the coding and medical billing that have caused a huge spike in um in our costs and our administrative claims and so we are recommending to carve that out every single claim that came through in an out of network there's corresponding services in network available so they're just choosing out we're going to carve that out and not let that that we are paying for if they want to do that they're just going to go on their own dime which most of it was on their own dime but a portion was coming through our plan at a higher rate so that is the major change that's happening within our plan is the out of out of network option going away and I know of three other districts that have done it and they have not had a single complaint single issue it is not a huge cost driver it is just something for management and when I see a manipulation of the billing codes it just seems wrong and so I feel very strong that this is the right direction that we should do on that and all this recommendation obviously as I mentioned was shared with IBA but in more detail we do have an employee benefits trust board and that went discussed last week with them and presented in this was their recommendation as well so just in total just uh we'll go through a couple of these slides hopefully pretty quick um really we're looking at current year this is estimated for the rest of this year um at 15.8 million dollars we work our Actuarial looks at all of our history not just this year doing good that's only weighted at a quarter of what the weight is they look at last year and they look at the previous year every Year's weighted they come up with here's what we think based on your plan design the the cost will be next year at 16.1 so really you're looking at three hundred and seventeen thousand dollar increase which is around a two percent we do put down we do not Bank on a million dollars a pharmacy so we really I just wanted to highlight we know there'll be a lot of Pharmacy rebates we go down low just in case it comes in it'll hopefully it will come in more with not a lot of claims expense corresponding with it and so really we're recommending that the two percent increase be completely absorbed by the district and none of it being passed on to the employee so all the premiums and everything will stay the same will go down a little bit and we'll go into that in a second here's what our demographics look like we have two plans our PPO buyout and our HSA base and you can see the corresponding in each one of those tiers either employee only employee spouse employee children employee family how many employees are in each one of those plans in each one of those tiers and then below that the 227 the 1463 is how many employees are in each one of those plans and then the corresponding total cost of that tier for those plans on a monthly basis um we contribute 618 dollars is what we're asking that's the two percent going up so the district provides 618 for every eligible employee we also provide two other contributions which is going to the HSA base and last year we added the HSA family because that cost changed a little bit and so what we want to do is try to offset some of that and so that provided the extra 250 so that's the only deviation that we had and that was new last year here is the employee premium when we take that monthly amount take off the district what's provided what is the monthly amount for employees if we go over to the far right we would just like to provide just in case you want to thumb through this at the middle of the night looking at all the historical side but really just looking at the right side employee costs we always like to provide a no cost for an employee only option so you can see this has employee only on the HSA base is it zero cost to the employees so the district pays the whole amount and then the corresponding premium amounts for those monthly for each one of those tiers and you can see they're the exact same as last year going down to the bottom the PPO buy-up plan you can see almost all the same except for there are two plans the employee only and the employee with children they actually both went down just a slight amount we're not promoting there's a reduction in costs or anything there's not a lot of people on those plans but they will see a slight decrease in their premiums in the monthly amounts our financial position so the employee benefit trust we set the Actuarial sets the premium sets the dollar amounts that funds the fund the employee benefit trust fund and then we make all the claims payment out of that and so you can see that we're really operating if you look at the last four or five years at around a six million dollar balance insurance industry standards do like for uh claims incurred but not reported you should have about a 25 balance in there so we try to hold although we're not audited by the Arizona Department of Insurance that's what they would be looking at are provided that we purchase food they like to make sure that we have balance to make sure that we could absorb any claims that are coming through and you can see holding at six million four million would be the minimum that we would talk about do we have a problem but you could see it I'm here every year so it would be self-correcting every year looking at the rates in the premium so the worst thing we could ever do is go down in one year that we would address the next year or we would not address if it goes up or down we would have that conversation and so now that's the medical plan um looking at just our dental plan we have two dental plans TDA tele Dental administrators and once again you could see the proposed rates there are no changes to that but you could see the employee monthly costs and employee only is zero so we have medical and dental that's provided at no cost to our employees and there's no changes for anything else there is the buy up PPO plan for our Delta Dental of Arizona that costs a little bit more but you can see those rates none of those rates have changed as well jumping over to our supplementary uh supplemental and voluntary programs we have our Health Equity Flex Pay account and Health Equity savings account and neither one of those have a rate increase at all and then we have wex health wex health is our Cobra administrator that we pay to help us when people leave us and we have to administer it COBRA they were new last year we had problems with our previous vendor and we were trying to leave as quickly as possible and luckily we were able to access wex through Valley Schools I believe is how we got them and they have been a great deal of help and a lot better for our employees and for our administrator which is Janice on our Cobra administrators so that has been a blessing so that change was really um this year um and but no change and no rate increase for next year teledoc does have an increase in so this is a virtual medicine when you log in you could see a doctor from your own home and we pay per member per month this is not an employee cost this is a district cost and that is going from 250 up to three dollars so that's approximately about ten thousand dollar cost increase and we have an annual Reserve vendor that provides that and there's no rate change on that one next um or just continuing our vision which is a voluntary Vision the district does not pay for this but there's no rate changes on our vision plan uh symmetra life this is our basic life accidental death and dismemberment this is the district provided um uh life insurance package and this is our cost that we pay and this is going up from uh four cents or four and a half cents per thousand to four and a half cents per thousand very small increase so it's about a three thousand dollar increase to us some of it is their claims but it's also we asked them to move the age at which the life insurance amount that we pay to employees up all right they reduce it it started reducing last time to cut in half at age 70 we've asked them to move that up to age 75.
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at Sugar Grove we had 30 that participated in that initial 108 there were eight in Johnson County six of those from Sugar Grove so that of that 108 they then picked their winners and we are very honored to have Nora Jansen who's sa-1 second place in the Indiana statehood essay contest out of 1200 entries which is an awesome honor so not only did this allow her and her family to be able to attend the state house for a special special recognition on December the 12th but her entire class got to join so Mrs Franklin and the entire class was able to attend they got a special tour of the state house and just really got an opportunity to to celebrate Nora for her accomplishments it was really neat when we got to find out when Mrs Franklin announced to the class that Nora had won the tears of joy of the students in that room it was just really cool to see the excitement for everybody so Nora is going to take a minute and read her second place essay for everybody awesome fantastic hello my name is Nora Jansen and I am a student in Miss Franklin's fourth grade class at Sugar Grove Elementary my essay today is called Indiana's food whether you are in your home or in a different state you have to appreciate the food of Indiana on any night corn pork tenderloin or sugar cream pie can sound so good you can go to state fairs and get salty and buttery corn the Indiana famous pork tenderloin sandwich or the Hoosier sugar cream pie for dessert there are 5.27 million Acres of cornfields in Indiana I love looking at my great grandpa's cornfields he says he loved working with them the fields are a beautiful sea of green stalks The Buttery juicy and salty corn on the cob is the most delicious side dish for a Fourth of July dinner tenderloin sandwich is one of Indiana's most famous dishes the beautifully breaded sandwich is perfect for any night with your family I love watching my family make the tenderloin just right with the perfect outside my Grandma makes the best pork tenderloin ever it is so much better when you make it yourself though you can get lettuce onions and ketchup on your sandwich as well lastly the official state pie of Indiana is the sugar cream pie I wanted to know what it tasted like so my grandma and I made it together it is so buttery and Rich The Filling is more of a pudding but the taste is delicious this pie creates Nostalgia for every person that eats it I will definitely have it again these are some of the best foods of Indiana if you haven't tried buttery corn the crispy pork tenderloin or rich in buttery sugar cream pie you should try them they might become some of your favorites too thank you you think it's Mom right no thank you all done all right next up for recognitions Mrs Fisher is going to recognize the the girls high school golf team thank you anyone else hungry after that essay that was very nice essay good job to that young lady I'm Katie Fisher assistant A.D at the high school and it is my honor and privilege to be here tonight and to introduce our head girls golf coach Mr kale Hoover as he brags a little bit about his team and the awesome season they had yeah [Laughter] I'll make it quick we have another meeting that a couple of us have to go to um thank you for having us uh outstanding season uh we got off to a bit of a rough start early but uh we have a really short season too so it was really important that we kind of got things uh headed in the right direction highlights uh we won the Johnson County tournament won the Bloomington North uh Invitational and then sectional Regional and uh finished his State runner-up we were actually we had to lead after the first day of state and uh weren't able to to hang on to that but uh a wonderful season we have uh four of the four of the five players here and um four of those five will be coming back next year so maybe we can come back with the the bigger trophy next year so do you want me to do the introductions too okay we've got I'll go and order so Rowan pfeiffel Junior Abby rich Junior Sage parsettich who's a senior and Camille short who's a junior and then uh one Lexi Stewart was our our fifth player she's also a junior she wasn't able to attend tonight thank you I can see you later okay okay you're welcome thank you great job [Applause] so as everybody can see with the recognitions tonight we've we've got quite a array of talented students whether it's academically athletically um very impressed with the young fourth grader who stood up in front of everybody and read her read her essay so I might have to have another pork tenderloin before I call it a night after that all right next up uh reports we have a report from the teacher retention committee work Mrs Nelson well good evening thank you for allowing me to talk about the great work that are started out as a retention committee um has done over the course of the school year we formed this committee back in August to really look at retention as we were looking at data not only in our district but across our nation and what is happening in education right now so I want to kind of give you some background our work is really done looking at John Hattie's work and we know that the new number one influence is that student achievement really starts with that Collective teacher efficacy and if we don't have a great group of teachers we are not going to see student achievement and that's not only academically but also personally socially and emotionally up here on the screen you are going to see a 2021-2022 exit data from teachers who left our Corporation starting in August of 2021 to July of 2022.
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[Music] thank you [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 at this time I'm going to have board member Marianne Capello read the mission statement of the Eastern Township School District thank you Miss Ryan mission of the Evesham Township School District is to promote excellence in the 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 to 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 solve individually and collaboratively become contributing members of a diverse Global Society thank you Dr Smith the floor is yours to begin presentations I think it's it's on now there's absolutely no better way to walk into any space other than seeing students about to share their talents with us and I got it I gotta say it's just like if you could come back every board meeting which uh Mr Wade's looking at me like I do have a life something else but but but um no we're so glad that the students are here and we get to recognize them tonight and thanks to all the families that came out as well and I see Ms Green and Mr Hoffman our principals of dimasian Mountain Middle respectively Mr White Miss Goldman back there too our wonderful music teachers who help the kids to achieve such Heights um and before we get to the music there is one student who's here for a very special non-musical but also very artistic achievement which is Cooper Levine is Cooper Levine here Cooper come on down buddy so and if I could have our board president Leah Ryan and our board vice president Anish khanthan come around we have with with us Casey Gifford from Cooper Levinson who is our board law firm and the reason that Cooper living is winning this certificate is that he designed the winning 2022 holiday card for Cooper Levinson which is a con Statewide contest and I guess if name is Faith in tonight's a day of Destiny for you because Cooper Levine won the Cooper Levinson art contest so it'll never get better than that ever so um I just wanted to say a few words thank you Dr Smith I am from Cooper Levinson and it's funny because when they gave me the plaque for Cooper I thought maybe they just followed Cooper Levinson wrong but um just to give you a little background of why we have this holiday card contest every year since 2008 Gabriel Levinson has had this contest because our fan one of our founding members um Jim Cooper had started uh let us eat please and let us see please is um a way that we show our commitment to the community and it's also a way that we show support for arts and schools and um let us eat please is our charity that we um what we do is we raise money to feed families that are food insecure all throughout the summer because you know when the kids aren't in school kids that would normally get free and reduced lunch do not always have food at home so we raise money we put together food packages for the whole entire Summer and the families are able to come pick up those packages you know at their local schools and it's just really a big help for the community so Cooper um there were seven card designs from hundreds of entries uh this year and actually all of us attorneys we use them to go out to our clients and our friends and our colleagues so they are distributed all over not just the state but probably the country and Cooper is a sixth grader here so at Marlton middle school so in addition to Cooper getting fifty dollar gift certificate and a pretty cool plaque Ms gomley is also going to get a hundred dollar gift certificate to use in her classroom because she's an awesome teacher and had her class uh submit these entries so and as as Miss Grimley walks down I just have to say it's like it's like watching the 1920s Yankees in in the form of one person walk down because what eight years in a row eight years in a row one of her students has won this contest and I don't I think that's even better than the 20s Yankees I think they were like six years in a row um so uh if we could get some photos of everybody together yeah thank you all right and if I can get a electronic version I'll include it in the next update that goes out because you you really have to see the uh the artwork it's like socks um the perspective of looking towards a fire with socks in front of the fire like kind of symbolizing a family being together um it's just really brilliant just such a brilliant uh design so speaking of brilliant we're going to move on to the musical performances so Mr Roy if you want to uh good evening ladies and gentlemen my name is Mr Roy I'm from Marlton Middle School um so this evening we to Macy and Walter middle will be displaying uh some of our talents um some of a lot of these students up here actually are been selected into all side Jersey honors band and Olympic conference honors band so um it's with that being said some of the instruments instrumentation can get kind of funky so we invited the jazz band from Malta middle school and also to Macy to participate and just showing the parents and the board members obviously to see what we can do so we actually both the Macy and Malta middle just attended a Roan University Jazz Festival which was about two weeks ago and we got to perform in front of Cherokee and Cherokee was there as so it's like all generations which is really really nice and we got to see master class with Denny de Blasio and Diane Monahan was an excellent drummer as well so they are the best the cream of the crop up there so they're just really awesome to play in front of the kids and get critiqued by the amazing professors so uh we're gonna play one song tonight this is called America Patrol and then we're just going to take a quick switch and then to Macy's going to play and uh we'll take it from there thank you foreign hey I'm Maddie Goldman I teach at demacie middle school this is our jazz band we're going to do one chart for you enjoy it thanks for having us yeah maybe we'll go um yeah why don't we do that we're gonna go demisi first for the certificates that will come up and uh very nice idea from a board president to walk up here why three people walking up is a lot better than many people walking down so super smart um and uh so we are going to go with uh this is a um someone who earned a spot on the Olympic honors band this is Gavin danielwitz [Applause] and then also on Olympic honors band Luca fringella [Applause] similarly Olympic honors band Dana Kerber [Applause] and then Olympic honors band Alexander Lightfoot [Applause] congratulations thank you and then Olympic honors band for Bruce navoa last but not least Olympic honors band Mary Sullivan and let's have if we can have all of the the Macy honors Band Stars come on out we'll take some pictures parents if you're you get a little farther to walk if you want to come up please feel free right um moments are Timeless feel free to come down and take a picture awesome thank you thank you thank you [Applause] uh now we're going to move on to our Mustangs this is uh the 2023 Olympic honors band and all South Jersey band winner was Alexa Butler [Applause] alto sax right I saw that then we have similar Olympic honors band and all South Jersey band Timothy Carl [Applause] all right next up Olympic honors band Beckett Carlton [Applause] Olympic all South Jersey band Kevin Chang [Applause] Olympic honors band and all South Jersey band Mackenzie Gordon Stancil [Applause] Berry sacks next up Olympic honors band Ace Lee [Applause] and then last but not least Olympic honors band and all South Jersey band Luke zarelli [Applause] the camera smile it's the paparazzi wait don't move don't move wait wait there you go all right good job thank you thank you thank you Mark very much [Applause] this is the part where I say um where I thank all of our parents and students for coming and say you're welcome to stay for the full board meeting but if you want to go off and do there's slightly more fun things out there so you might want to go if you want to go and do no harm no foul thank you at this point we're going to move to item 5.1 public comment just in case anyone is not aware we have two public comments the first public comment is for what is on the agenda and the second public comment what happens later in the evening is for anything that you wish to discuss the meeting will now be open to the public referencing agenda items only however if your questions pertain to 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 it's also crucial please for you to give us your name and address before you speak up and also limit your comments to one-time per public comment period is there anyone that wishes to speak for public comment if so come up to the microphone foreign good evening hi can you please state your name and address Jillian cook and then it's 81 Lakeside Drive I just had to get a paper sign for my hours I don't know if you guys have an agenda that I could get a quick signature on or I have this paper that just has like a signature line on it um yes and why don't we um if you can hang out hang out talk to the meeting and then I'll John Hancock whatever whatever papers you've got for your hours absolutely okay thank you thank you is there anyone else that wishes to speak okay we're going to make you earn those hours there you go anyone else wishes to speak okay seeing none we're going to close that 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 need a motion to approve item 6.1 and 6.2 do I have a motion Mr Thompson thank you Miss Capello thank you any questions or comments regarding the minutes seeing none roll call please Mr Bach stain Mrs Capello yes Mr physicaro yes Miss Fox yes Mr Canton yes Mrs null yes Miss Lee yes this is Ryan yes Mr Thompson yes motion carries thank you at this point we're going to move to item seven superintendent's report and administrative items do I have a motion to approve item 7.1 through 7.6 Miss Fox second it Mr Thompson before we get into questions and comments I am going to give the floor once again to Dr Smith for his superintendent comments thank you Mrs Ryan I'd like to lead off by recognizing the importance of this month as Black History Month in etsd and Nationwide and to that end I'd like to highlight Ralph bunch American Diplomat advisor Professor director and a profound Peacemaker who among his many achievements was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1954 ranging Armistice agreements between Israel and the Arab states in 1949 I remember reading reading about him as a child through a book series about core values called value Tales the first edition 1978 um each book in the series uses a real life person to exemplify an important value the book about Ralph bunch is called the value of responsibility with March as National reading month just around the corner I'd encourage anyone to read that book and the entire book series you'll want to read it again district-wide we are gearing up for the kickoff of national reading month next week with plans afoot within each school and classroom many thanks to all our staff as we continue to do all we can to support all our students whose needs are greater than ever and as a continuation of our commitment to doing all we can for kids which during covid meant prioritizing in-person learning using full days of schools synchronous instructions staying open as a district for in-person learning throughout our 23 24 District school calendar on tonight's agenda for first reading does not have any scheduled delete openings this is a change and an increase in learning time traditionally each year we have had three scheduled delayed openings the elimination of these delayed openings has multiple purposes including providing more consistency avoiding three disrupted days for our students and families and increasing learning time which represents in aggregate an additional day of school I appreciate etea's and eta's feedback on our calendars we drafted it over several months another new aspect of our 2324 calendar again part of our commitment to doing all we can for our students and staff is that Tuesday June 4th 2024 which has traditionally been a full day of a full day staff in service and not a not a day of school for students is listed as a regular full day of school with the full day in service shifted to Friday May 24th this change reduces disruption for staff students and families by making Memorial Day Weekend a four day weekend for students and families and not interrupting the first week of in June with a day off midweek most importantly though this change is about safety we anticipate this change can be possible because we are currently in conversation with our Township leadership about moving polling places out of our schools by that date no guarantees as it is not entirely up to a school district and it depends on certain variables within towns but this is something We Believe can work and we all want to work toward making it possible over the next 15 months as I said the primary reason is to increase safety most towns in our County including all towns in the Lenape region have already moved all polling places out of their schools in Camden County next door similarly over three quarters of all towns have done the same these towns use a combination of fire stations municipal buildings houses of worship community centers libraries businesses and more if anyone affiliated with any of these types of spaces is interested in learning more and potentially becoming part of this very positive undertaking please feel free to contact me anytime and thank you for your interest on behalf of our board our district and our families I'd like to thank Our Town leadership and mayor Beezy for working with us on trying to make this possibility of increased safety a reality for all our families shifting gears to budget there will be no preliminary budget presentation this evening traditionally our district has done three budget presentations in February March and may many districts do just one in May the rest do two in March and May we anticipate our March budget meeting will be Thursday March 16th the date will be officially advertised soon a couple of reasons for no preliminary budget presentation is one it avoids some redundancy as the presentations do repeat a bit especially as we continue to work on our budget and this year it's been tougher than ever quite frankly as state aid continues to decrease each year the most important reason though is that um I'll be having voluntary meetings with staff starting next week as an opportunity for us to talk internally about anticipated Staffing impacts due to the 23-24 budget before that information is made available to the public first we talk about it together as a staff and then we'll talk about it in public at the March meeting and Staffing impact will become known a little earlier this year in some ways than prior because we will also be presenting the the ballot question as part of that March presentation and that ballot question may contain um some information that would from which it could be deduced what Staffing impacts there are lastly and just a huge and heartfelt thank you to our Evesham Education Foundation for the tremendous undertaking that was the Double Down fundraiser on February 10th truly a village effort our district appreciates all the work of EF for our students and if it says anything both my daughters were there and they both can't wait to go again next year so I'm like I'll take it that's fantastic um that ends my comments Mrs Ryan thank you any questions or about the superintendent report Mr Hand then thanks Mrs Ryan I'd like to commend the efforts by Dr Smith and then also our Township officials to take a look at the way that voting is done right now as far as polling locations are concerned like you mentioned Dr Smith I think all of us are sitting here because we know that Evesham is the best at a lot of things but we also have room to grow in a lot of places full day kindergarten being one of them and the way we examine our polling locations being another so thank you to to Mayor veezy Deputy Mayor Freeman and then the rest of council as well for working with us as we remain not complacent right we want to keep taking a look at the things we do well but also where we need to improve and I think that's something that we have in common with ourselves and our Township and hopefully we can keep continuing to grow in that space thank you and comments just please Mr Ashanti Mr Bach yes Mrs Capello yes Mr physicaro yes Miss Fox yes Mr Canton yeah yes Mrs Knoll yes Miss Lee Yes Mrs Ryan yes Mr Thompson yes motion carries thank you moving to item eight curriculum and instruction I need a motion to approve items 8.1 through 8.4 do I have a motion Mr physicaro Miss Lee thank you any questions or comments to curriculum and instruction okay Miss Noel just a comment on the um the after school club I think it said a pilot for Marlton kids tech club a pilot this year perfect okay sounds very good it's on computer coding I love it I hope it works and we can bring it to the other schools any more questions or comments okay seeing none roll call please Mr Ashanti Mr Bach yes Mrs Capello yes Mr physicaro yes Miss Fox yes Mr Canton yes Mrs Knoll yes Miss Lee yes this is Ryan yes Mr Thompson yes motion carries moving to item nine finance and operations I would like a motion to approve items 9.1 through 9.17 do I have a motion Mr kanfin Miss Fox any questions or comments pertaining to finance and operations seeing none roll call please Mr Bach yes Mrs Capello yes Mr physicaro yes Miss Fox yes Mr Canton yes Mrs Knoll yes Miss Lee Yes Mrs Ryan yes Mr Thompson yes motion carries moving on to item 10 Personnel I would like a motion to approve items 10.1 through 10.9 do I have a motion Mr Thompson Miss Capello any questions or comments pertaining to personnel okay Mr physicaro sorry there's no um I I don't try to make a habit of this every month but it just seems like I'm getting hit with this every month um another um you know we have another round of retirements coming in and I want to just speak on behalf of Robin Murphy who is uh currently my daughter's fourth grade teacher and has been here has been one of the one of the originals and uh a part of a a staff at the Macy elementary school that has as we've talked about with Mr romanelli and Miss vancuren has really established what this school really is and Miss Murphy was a part of that and I am just incredibly grateful uh to her and especially that my daughter had the privilege to be in that class and have that opportunity to be with her a phenomenal woman a phenomenal educator and I wish her all the best thank you to talk about if you did I'm sorry um under here the appointments I saw a number of them and and it I thought did that come out of our job fair Dr Smith what I mean how did that go and a lot of interest are we seeing people that are going to be hired or it's a great question there's no no I appreciate it and uh so it lets me kind of like plug both uh Looking Backward and looking forward our need for jobs right our need for folks to apply so we did have our first ever uh etsd job fair at Rice Elementary School on February 9th in the evening great turnout actually we we had about 60 people come out um the the challenge uh in this day and age for a lot of organizations is translating the initial interest into um we'll call it like uh getting it across the goal line that the person joins our staff you know um so uh the the final number I would say is um definitely single digits um and uh the um sometimes that number is written in pencil because people can still be in process you know so that was only a couple weeks ago right um but uh I would say that [Music] um it's something we'll look to do again as well and um well I didn't well I didn't although I sometimes do plug in my comments are that are ongoing need for uh folks to apply like that I'll just say it since we're talking about that we uh have a if someone is wondering do we have a need especially for support staff positions the answer is and told known otherwise indefinitely yes so uh and that would be paraprofessionals bus drivers bus AIDS lunch AIDS um clerk typist um uh and um ECC counselors and more and anyone in can contact our director of personnel Rich DNT so I would say single long story short single digits I wish I'd give them more specific than that that's fine in process I just had heard it was a big success you had a lot of people coming out so I was hopeful we did we did it was a successful night it really really was um we weren't sure people were going to come definitely all of us who we all share predictions of numbers in advance and it exceeded all of our predictions also met some really nice people from our community that night it's great you know a lot of parents come out it's fun to get to connect with um just people who live in town who are just interested in learning more about how they could be part of etsd so great thank you yeah any other questions or comments I just have one while I appreciate every single staff member in this district and wish them the best in their retirements I want to give a shout out to Mrs fasolero Bonnie VanZant and Mima Pino at VanZant two of the most fantastic people I've ever had the privilege of meeting and working with so best of luck in your retirement I know it's been a long time coming so enjoy yourselves please any other questions or comments okay roll call please Mr Bach yes Mrs capalo yes Mr physicaro yes Miss Fox yes Mr Canton yes Mrs Noel yes Miss Lee yes to everything except 10.9 in the addendum I abstain to Dylan younger due to family connection okay Mrs Ryan yes Mr Thompson yes motion carries okay moving on to item 11 policy I need a motion to approve items 11.
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we do have some older workers I think there's about 60 to 70 people that this impacts and this just provides just a little bit more not penalizing them for being older and working with us we like to keep them and don't give them a reason to leave us and at a small cost of three thousand dollars the symmetra life insurance that this is the voluntary this is they could go above and beyond what the district provides that has no rate changes there's a voluntary short-term disability rate that increase is a half a percent so they did see some rate increases and that's the last couple years there have been some high claims and uh and whatnot from the Sun Life program so that is a corresponding increase and our employee assistance program and Colonial Accident insurance has no rate increase as well so just to summarize up our benefits um the medical premium costs going up two percent with the district absorbing the entire cost lower premiums on just the PPO employee only and employed children we are removing the out-of-network coverage for both plans we have extensive in-network coverage and so this will not affect emergency rooms it will not affect um where um you're having a surgery and there's the providers at a network as well we're maintaining the zero cost employee contribution for the base employer fan plan as well as our TDA employee only plan and continue incentive participation for our HSA plans and we're maintaining our specific stop-loss claim at 320 000 per claim and the employee benefits trust board agrees to continue to reduce so they cover a slot I almost I'd rather say like a subsidize a small amount of the premium so what the actual premium is and what we charge the employee there's a little bit of a gap employee benefit trust board continues to fund that because as you saw previously we were up over 10 million dollars and we're like hey why do we have so much money let's start covering some cost of the premium for employees and so that is what that is so we're going to continue those amounts and as previously kind of alluded to but we if our claims experience exceeds any of our actual claims expenses exceeds any of our projections the employee benefit trust has sufficient reserves to kidney to cover any and all access claims for the 23 24 year and we continue to review premium costs as I mentioned before that we would adjust and monitor future premium costs for presidential adjustments if the balance was in Jeopardy so hopefully I did that quickly painful enough not too many changes but I will stand for any questions thank you Mr Hicks do we have any questions um just a comment too thank you for absorbing that increase because we give employees a pay raise and then health insurance goes up and their pay raise goes away so it's nice to see that they're truly getting a pay increase on that teledoc is there tracking done on how many employees actually use it Madam president members of the board that's exactly what the employee benefit trust board asked last week and we're getting them usage reports so yes we do get in total usage report obviously there's patient confidentiality so we don't see exactly what they are but yes the numbers yeah and they do they of probably save themselves a lot of money because a a teledoc appointment has a co-pay of only ten dollars as opposed to what you pay going into your doctor's office so it's a lot cheaper also to stay at home so um if the board would like I will send on the next usage report over to the board just so you get a context of how many people are using teledoc I was just curious as long as you have a thermometer and a blood pressure medicine or blood pressure machine that's usually what they say what's your temperature and your blood pressure um by taking the pharmaceutical out of the plan does that increase your job or your Department's job at all at all Madam president members of the board a little so when we did the first transition of course when you add a vendor into another vendor's wheelhouse yes there were transition problems and issues and although you say me no not me Janice Candice our payroll department they all had extra work and burden but now that we're three years in it I I think it's pretty seamless and I think they work very well together sometimes a file doesn't get transferred appropriately and they each point fingers at each other and it's hard to determine and really I just want the right file to get over so we just tell just get it done kind of thing so there's been a little bit but right now I would say very minimal you're welcome and then do you think maybe you could include that usage report in either this Friday or maybe next Friday superintendent update thank you definitely by next Friday yes thank you you're welcome um as far as the the claims being uh the 84 percent can you speak to um how much that's decreasing from and for the previous year I know we had a spike um Madam president members of the board we've had spikes and we've had declines so covet play a really crazy year so if you remember we that all happened around March 2020 and they froze no surgical procedures for the rest of the year the rest of the four months we had no claims coming in so that year was great but what did they do the next year they pushed it all to the next year so claims that should have happened in one year were all added on to the next year so we went way down then we went way up and now we're kind of leveling off and there's kind of a little normalcy so so you think it was all maybe kind of a wash um that's a good question isn't it um I still do think there's some good um in the plan and um some say it's luck uh maybe people just don't go to the doctor maybe they're not getting sick enough maybe they're not saying anything maybe they feel guilty leaving the work I I don't know exactly it does feel good right now when I look at trends of course July August High numbers because teachers are home and so they can make doctor's appointments they're also home in December which normally does Spike up this year didn't Spike up so we still had a positive month in December so so I don't know if this is a new norm and this was a good settling and costs our costs and claims are coming down or is this an anomaly I actually don't know that's a good question I don't know that well it's good to know we had a good month yeah okay at this time I will move to approve the employee health benefit plan for the 2023-2024 school year second motion made by Crystal Chapman seconded by Don Densmore motion carries we will move on to item H3 Dr Dean thank you madam president members of the governing board members of cabinet in our community it's hard to believe that it is very close to the end of February which means that it's time for us to start looking ahead in terms of calendar planning for the 23-24 school year actually we started a couple months ago but now it's formally time with the governing board to take a look at our governing board meeting cycle and policy monitoring cycle for next year and so we bring this item as a recommendation for governing board meetings for the 23-24 school year along with us resuming the policy monitoring cycle thank you do we have any questions comment that I'm really excited to see the policy monitoring cycle back we're excited to have had successfully transitioned our policies to the model policies with the trust and look forward to beginning that as well all right at this time I will entertain a motion I motion to approve the 2020 wait a minute sorry am I on the right one okay sorry I motion to approve the 2023-2024 governing board meeting schedule and the 2023-2024 policy monitoring cycle as presented motion made by Don Densmore seconded by Joe Grant motion carries at this time I will open it up item one do we have any requests for future agenda items yes um I know that Dr Dean mentioned earlier that we would he would give us an update on something that was mentioned earlier but I would like to request um in a an information item on the board committees versus the superintendent committees and how the open meeting law requirements are different for each I would also like to request an item to answer Mr leblanc's questions about curriculum writing and what our staff members are writing who approves the curriculum how much it costs and what subjects they're writing for an information item anyone else okay at this time there's a there is a call for an executive session pursuant to ARs 38-431.03 and Irish one ars-15-843 for the purpose of reviewing and consideration of the hearing officer's recommendation to expel a student in the student Discipline matters hqr223-029 and hor 2223-030 and receive legal advice from the attorney for the public body regarding the same at this time I moved that the board established executive session motion made by Crystal chicken Chaffin seconded by Joe Grant been a long day I have a six week old baby okay we will now go to Executive session yeah at this time we will reconvene the regular meeting we move on to item K1 I move to expel a student in the matter of student discipline hearing hor 2223-029 motion made by Crystal Chapman seconded by Joe Grant motion carries action item K2 I recommend or I move to expel a student in the matter of student is just student discipline hearing hor 2223-030 second motion made by Crystal Chapman seconded by Don Densmore motion carries at this time I will move that we adjourn the meeting motion made by Crystal Chapman seconded by Joe Grant thank you motion carries we are adjourned
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you can see that quite a few are leaving education altogether others were of course retirement moving out of state and mental health was a big big part of that exit data as well so as we went through this data and looked at and I'll talk a little bit more about that background we did put a timeline in prep place because we wanted to put a task force together we wanted to be in partnership with our teachers to see what really was it that why why teachers were leaving the corporation but also education in general so as of right now we've been able to meet four times over the course of the school year of course it will be six times because this is just the mid-year update and we do still have uh quite a bit of conversations and work to do in our summer 2022 exit interview data I was able to sit down and speak with those teachers who did leave our Corporation and it was also qualitative and quantitative through a survey it came down to five different areas the reasons why they were leaving us is because of collegial working conditions in the schools they also wanted to look at restructure of pay and benefits a teacher mentoring programs and then also looking at the professionalism and support that they're getting not only within the schools but also through our White River Township community looking at that data the task force was formed in August of 2022 we had 27 certified staff members we actually had over 70 70 certified staff members that wanted to be a part of the committee but we needed to pair it down and so 27 were on that committee as well as two District administrators up here on the screen you're going to see the different topics that we were looking at and that was working conditions professionalism and support and then that financial needs all of these items over to the side the influence items were kind of those side categories that we were looking at as well our collective bargaining and benefits Community Committee um which is Head Up by our utag also working with our district committee with Mr Taylor and Dr arkanoff and myself we wanted to make sure that when we talked about collective bargaining and especially with the payment or restructure of pay and benefits that that was inclusive to that space and so our work was parallel was parallel and in tandem with the collective bargaining talks that were going on in August September November December and of course into January um when you look at that these are the four areas that we we focused on and that was the collegial working conditions we wanted to look at leadership roles recruitment efforts and teacher mentoring and that's where our teacher retention committee turned into teacher recruitment retention and recognition because all of that came out of the survey data that we were looking at with our current teachers on that committee when we looked at the current task force data and again we took this from our teachers that are still in our in our classrooms right now um the recruitment part was the community reputation reputation salary and benefits came through that as well and then that national and local PR when it comes to being in the classroom and then education in general and retention the group wanted to look at workload they wanted to look at Subs how those are being used and supported throughout our schools that morale and that collegial team building and mentoring and then recognition you know we have wonderful ptos and wonderful parents who recognize our teachers throughout the year but what can we do to make sure we have year-long recognition programs and it's just not inclusive to one week in May so our team developed developed these pipelines for improvement they were the ones the teachers were the ones that narrowed those pipelines into these three areas and then also looking at these more Focus areas under each one and I'm going to talk just a little bit about that tonight so in recruitment we have a wonderful Community who they pour our teachers pour their hearts and their soul and their life into these students every day and that was you know evident tonight when we are looking at the beautiful writing that came from a fourth grader wonderful academic programs and then also our academic programs so that um we need to make sure that we are growing our own and so we are going to actually Implement just like our um our Athletics do we're going to have a CG future teacher signing ceremony coming up in May and as of right now we have 15 seniors that are going to be going uh into education and so we're hoping that we can get them back here into our school buildings because we know that their hearts are within this community as well another possible solution and something that we are working on right now is we have some strong Partnerships with local universities and programs but we are building that up um as as we speak to Market our cgc Center Grove rules to teach your candidates and that is getting into those classes talking to Future Educators telling them about the great things that our Corporation has but also supporting them with just the job search in general also with recruitment is student teachers we are fortunate to be a place where our student teachers from Central Indiana schools want to come and learn from the best because we do have a wonderful teaching staff and so welcoming those student teachers into Center Grove our HR department has been pushing out to them and having meetings with them going in and observing helping with resumes and just where they're at in their job search hoping to keep them within our school buildings and identifying those strong student teachers another recruitment possible solution that the team talked about was just marketing CG again we are we are looking at Partnerships more with our universities um Stacy Conrad has done a great job getting video series out there about what makes our schools great and our teacher is great we are in talks with some of our Cadet teachers to do a future teacher Camp possibly which that would we would look at student leaders from third grade to eighth grade and just kind of teach them about what it's like to be a teacher in the classroom and then looking at a career pathway maybe for Education starting that career conversation earlier at the middle school level must pause there any questions about recruitment stuff that's going on we did yes so we had um a recruitment Fair last night we had 102 job um positions filled like for them to interview and it ended up being 91 that showed up for the career fair last night and definitely interviewed so see we got some great candidates so retention challenges um again came with substitute teachers and I have to give a shout out to Michelle shealy in our HR department she has done a wonderful job of going out and seeking out the best substitutes that we have are possible solutions that we came up with at the recruit with the re retention committee and task force she's been able to bring it to fruition and so back in November we celebrated our subs with national substitute day we've been able to incorporate them more by you know making sure that they feel like they're a part of our CG staff family they are receiving a monthly newsletter we're giving out surveys just so that we can make sure that their experience with our schools is positive we've increased subpay so we are one of the highest if not highest in the county right now and then also giving sub incentive bonuses so we're hoping uh doing those five things that will be be able to fill those classrooms so that our teachers are not as stressed when they don't have a sub in their room or when our aides are out sick and so we don't have to pull them to cover somebody else another Retreat retention that we're looking at in recruitment is that teacher onboarding process that comes down to that collegial mentoring our instructional coaches do a great job meeting with our new teachers but we definitely want to come up with a coaching calendar and kind of make our we've got great mentors but make that Mentor program take it a step up as they support new teachers not only during the first year but also the second year and we heard that a lot in the feedback is they felt like they had a good Mentor the first year and then they got to the second year and they just didn't have the collegial or the mentorship that they needed we're also looking at um the workload and I know we whoops we know we hear that a lot um there's a lot that teachers have to do outside of the non-instructional day that they could be using for planning um and also looking at great um you know practices that they could use not only in their classroom but across their their grade level and their school and so this group right now we're in the middle of that is looking at what we can do to lessen the workload and create more time for our teachers to play in and be together and then recognition uh the team came up with some some again wonderful ideas on what we can do we're hoping to implement these during the 23-24 school year with the help of our community as well just monthly and yearly morale boosters for our school and districts so that we make sure that they leave every day feeling loved and respected uh when they're in their classroom so our mid-year summary again we still have a couple more times that we're going to be meeting what this team has generated looking at data also getting feedback from current teachers in the classroom is that we need teachers that are effective but they also need to feel supported by our district and our community and also we want to make sure that we're growing our own teachers because we have some great people that live here that we know would do wonderful in our classrooms with our students and we're also being very proactive right now just in our retainment efforts so that we can support our teachers any questions or I guess more more of a couple of of comments and I have questions so a couple things for everybody to understand if they ask why the committee did not focus on paying and benefits those are really Bound by the collective bargaining laws in the state of Indiana and can't really be talked about outside of those parameters that are set forth by the state as the board approved in January Mr Daniels and I will continue our roles on the collective bargaining team and we have begun talking about that process with our internal team that's what we spent some time talking with the board about today during our executive session and we're starting that process earlier than we have ever done before and the results of the teacher come in teacher retention hang on I've got to get the whole committee name right you gave me a mouthful to say um recruit recruit retained and recognize and recognize thank you the three R's R cubed yeah um is very important as we have those conversations and begin you know the conversations as a board you know for how can we add it correctly and adequately recognize our teachers so I look forward to the additional recommendations from the committee and it sounds like at least we have a good path forward and please think the 27 on the committee currently for all their hard work on behalf of the board thank you yes yes a wonderful job honored to lead this lead this group and they they've come up we've had some really great conversations so wish everybody could have been at the table but we'll report back to you in a couple months on our final report fantastic nice job on the fair too oh yeah it was great yes that was a collective effort that wasn't me that was everybody so I've got to give a shout out I don't even know if they're looking tonight but shout out to the HR department uh they did great so it was a lot of fun and thank you to our admin because I know they put a lot of time in after school to interview and and make sure that we do have the best and the brightest in front of our students every day well I'm close to double to what we had last year wasn't it it was yep it sure was so and I'm excited here we are in February and we're already we're already starting that recruitment process so it's the earlier we can start that the better the better off we are yep and we had some great candidates it's positive thank you I turn my mic off all right next up is public comments just a reminder each person who has signed up for public to speak to the board via public comments has three minutes in which to do so Mr Daniels will be the timer this evening um just a reminder for everyone please direct all comments to the presiding officer of the board and please make sure all comments are exclude names and all those kinds of fun things those are as our normal rules um first up this evening is Angie lingman wants to talk about the Stu start time survey and can you state your name and address for us please yes sir my name is Angie langman 5753 Somerset Boulevard Bargersville 46106.
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