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um and the other thing that I just want to mention to you and I mentioned this through the building committee um we are seeing some special legislation um and really the special legislation was targeted to probably four separate items and I'm going to share those with you um the first thing is is um if for some reason the bid environment changes and we end up at 158 million dollars I do want to make sure that the state will reimbursing on that costs for the project so uh I am requesting that they approve an increase in the project budget just in case we we don't get as lucky as we did with uh phase one that will all be on a 80 reimbursement uh the next uh item is a consideration for us to be eligible for the cost difference between the appraised value that we secured uh two appraisals worked on and what we ended up paying for so the way the state works is you secure two appraisals if the appraisals look comparable they will accept them and they usually pay out on a purchase what those appraisals are at we ended up paying a little bit more than our appraisals came that act although they developed the owners appraisals were higher than what we paid for the only thing the state looks at is the city's appraisals so I'm going to be requesting that the state of set the purchase price and reimburse this for the difference um the third one is just the technicality it's all about just starting construction before we have what's called final site acquisition approval it's in the works we have a we have a letter saying that they are uh that the project site does me all of their requirements we just have to finalize the approval process for which we're working on it's never been a problem before but I do want to just ask for that to be incorporated into special legislation and then the last one is a consideration for paying for some shrink space expenses should they occur in working with the superintendent and his staff if we do any substring space and there's some Associated across to that you wouldn't let the state to reimburse the sport I've currently asked for about two million dollars in swim space uh uh this generation so that will all be part of the special legislation that I'm working with a few legislators but and I've been working with our Board of Education colleagues um so having said that um I just want to personally tell you how exciting this project has been for me and my entire staff and let me tell you we learned a lot we learned a lot about your curriculum and um you've gotten a good teacher she's in the front of the corner here um but we've learned uh really about a different academic program that we've never really have designed for and it's exciting because it really is when this school's done it's going to position these children to really if they choose to go work directly into their Workforce so uh they're very exciting program and and we have an exciting side too uh that this site provides so much opportunity as you all know I was working with a much tighter site that was creating some complication you were working through them and this property came available the amount of land the amount of opportunity the size of this existing building is is just perfect it was nearly a gift from that so but having said that opening up to any questions you may have in my entire team here can answer anything else Antonio just this may take some research I could ask again by moving to this site rather than going into a condo where we were paying common charges any idea how much the city will save over 20 years I can't put a number on it but I am going to tell you this it is a significant amount at the time that we terminated our negotiations with the purchase of the condo if you will at the summit one of the biggest struggles we had was trying to come to a number but it was uh you know it was in a magnitude of probably 30 40 000 a year in common charges um so we never finalized those discussions because uh negotiations came to one hand but yes owning a building and owning the land around it is a far more economically feasible than being in what would be a condominium environment if you will where you're you're paying for all the time and charges all the assessments related to any upgrades that have to be done on the property is just like if you were owning your own condo how you're subjected to all of those costs and all of those assessment projects you had come through so there was the possibility of additional assessment on top of the counter chart oh yeah absolutely it was actually in some of the preliminary negotiation documents that we were reviewing which is pretty typical in a condominium scenario thank you sir thank you so you mentioned the more legislative pieces that you need to perform I'm sure I came here can you hear me now let's try again so you mentioned the four legislative pieces that you need to move forward those bundled together as one legislative piece separate yeah it's one document um we put together the legislative language you've gotten pretty good at it so we submitted it to the state we had an initial meeting um what they're going to do is review our proposed legislation language and uh they always like to make some suggestions to it and we like that because usually if you're making suggestions for it they're supporting them and that's all in the words right now but it is one legislative document if you wanted so second question you mentioned that there was a differential between the appraisal and the purchase price what was what was it sure I can go over that I have that so the change appraisals came in right around 37 million dollars as mn22 we paid uh 57 million 200.
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I can tell you right now no way in God's green earth we're getting to 53 or 56. if we do get there it's because they threw extra money at teachers and the 53 is going to become 58 the 56 is going to become 61. and so without having an override we are stuck trying to take the dollars we have and use them as as wisely as possible we believe the increasing for Monday and Friday is something that's very um doable but we would I would rather have the administrative team and CCC have a chance to look at the entire picture and say this is what we think is best for all of our employee groups irrespective of where they are I don't know what those numbers would fall out but the the less money we have because it's already committed the less options we have when we go to we go to to spread it out um the the ten thousand dollars is a as a one-time uh stipend at the end of the year uh allows for us to try to start to address the concern of the board brought about uh getting people to stay with us and work for us because that ends up being about 15 a day to be totally honest um uh for that uh there was a question from Mr Ray about the 500 I gave you two numbers fifty thousand five hundred and twenty five the 525 is what would represent what it cost us next year if we were to raise to 15 per day if and this is critical if we maintain a fill rate of approximately 50 percent if we incentivize this and we have a higher fill rate over the course of a year then that obviously means that our budget for the substitutes is going to go up accordingly so just keep in mind right now we're running about 475 if we add the 50 000 for as an increase to the base at fifteen dollars you're going to be about 525 if you move that number up to 20 or 25 and obviously that number goes up if we get more people coming in that's good but there is an impact to the budget because then that means we are going to increase our fill rate which means we're going to increase the cost uh the Monday Friday is another solution again I think it's it's doable but I'd like to put it in a complete package so that we see what we're doing with everybody else but I will also note that the retention stipend we have given the last couple years to our subs I don't believe all of the districts have used their Esser dollars for the retention stipend so the recommendation would still be to to make sure that the subs get the retention stipend but again it would be part of a package that says hey this is what we want to do for compensation for all of our employees like we've done the last couple years and this way I tried to come up with a solution that kind of meets your concerns but also gives us max amount of flexibility if you decide that that option two is the best option tonight then we'll make it work that's not an issue you just know that at the end of the day when we come to you in April or May with uh with a complete budget recommendation it will be modified in accordance with how much option two cost if you did fifteen dollars or if you did 20 or 25 again the the issue that's the elephant in the room that at some point time uh I don't know that any of us are crazy about this option but but us our inability to have an override means that we can squeeze the turn up as much as you want and I think I'm pretty creative of doing that but I cannot Bridge a 15 difference no matter how hard we try and so our com our competitiveness in every single employee group is an issue and so we're just trying to come up with a way to to be as close to competitive as competitively possible without being competitive because we don't have enough money to be competitive and I say that purposely that way because that is the that is the big issue that we have right now um I have a number of questions about option one the Loyalty increase um to work 75 of the 90 days of uh semester 67.5 days how many substitutes do we have that actually work that many days okay I mean that's a lot right now right now right now we last semester when I looked at the data we had uh I believe it was eight this semester we have on track to do 10 to 12 depending on that's what I calculated right yeah really not incentivizing anyone to come in except for we only have um when you look at the total number of Subs we have I believe we're only in the uh we have 30 Subs but not everybody works for us so when you look at the subs you're you're going to say that that number is probably close to half of the subs we have but if I'm sitting there and I say I'm gonna go take a job at at Queen Creek because I can get 15 an hour more if I know I'm going to get a a bucket of a thousand dollars um at the end of the semester I might go ahead and take the jobs here the other piece that may be is that because I'm looking at incentivizing those that are currently with us in the spring in the in in the recommendation for next year we're looking to get more people here um but it's a it's a two-parter we can go ahead and try and incentivize I don't excuse me we can raise the increase and try to get more people here my gut reaction is you're not going to get a bunch of people signing up because we went to the same price as everybody else on uh fourth quarter of this year you might get them over the summer when you talk to them but you're not going to get a ton that come to us all of a sudden because we're paying the same rate as everybody else with an incentive we might keep some no no that I understand that but we've got about eight weeks of the school year left five days a week that's 40 days right so for people to qualify they already have to be working for us a lot so the only way to get substitutes in my way of thinking the last eight weeks of the school year is to get the people who don't haven't already committed to us the people who've committed to us they're here they're long term they've made the commitment we've got to get other people from other districts so not that I'm talking against the Loyalty increase but I think we also need to raise the rate to get people to come for the rest of the semester and and we can do that like I say I just caution you because if I take that 50 000 out of the out of the 650 that we have anticipating coming from there will be something we will give up in our in our recommendations and so we may have a lot of Subs but if we are missing in other areas because we can't raise to the same level then we just need to understand that the cost of that may be that we don't have as many teachers next year because they decided to take a job elsewhere we've lost several teachers already to QC uh based on their 53 000 so so the more flexibility to be as creative as possible the better but if if the of the if the the board is supportive of what you just said Mr Delana then we'll go ahead and make the adjustment and move forward with it I was just trying to come up with a way that tried to address the situation but also gave us flexibility but we'll do it that's the board's decision and we'll do whatever the board says we need to do and and the other thing just to follow up on that is for the eight years now it's going to year nine that I've been on the board we've had what I would consider to be an adequate not a substantial but an adequate carryover of funds in the mno budget and about three percent so what I'm thinking is I'd like to continue to do that but if we get into a pinch where we need to get teachers I'm willing to take and decrease that carryover and use some of that for substitutes so now that's my opinion I don't know how the other board members feel but um that's why I'm thinking I'm I'm leaning toward up to uh vote on both options one and two I don't know how everybody else feels to both of them together is that what you're saying yeah option one would incentivize it no no really that we would we would we would be eight or ten or twelve people that have been with us long term and continue to be we'll give them reward for that they'll spread the word around to others but at the same time we need to get teachers in the classroom for the remaining eight weeks of the year so we increase the rate from 125 to 1.
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what does that look like in each of the grade levels in each of the subjects there are clear performance standards or benchmarks for each of the Brookfield C's and so that's a way that we measure those or kids can demonstrate those dispositions the Brookfield sees are explicitly integrated into the curriculum at all the grade levels I kind of already alluded to that the Brookfield C's are assessed at necessary checkpoints um kind of the standard checkpoints that we want to look at is grade 5 8 and 11 with the opportunity in 12 to demonstrate mastery clearly you can see that's the end of the different School levels Elementary Middle High and then students show growth over time of course the second strategy of aligning authentic learning experiences with the Brookfield Seas for big time indicators of success there and each of these indicators success will have detailed uh District implementation plans underneath them there's a lot of work that goes with these and again this is a Five-Year Plan uh professional development for District staff specific to connecting Brookfield C's to classroom and school experiences and the various roles has been designed and implemented you know a a grade one teacher a high school physics teacher and a social worker will have very different ways of looking at the Brookfield C's and integrating them into the work that they do making sure that rigorous vertically aligned standards-based curriculum is connected to the Seas and has been designed and implemented that research-based instructional and assessment practices are assured for each student and have been designed and implemented and then Universal real world Community connections are in place and you've heard Mrs Ferris at different times especially recently this year with that great grade one program she talked about the writing opportunity but as the Director of instruction really over the years has talked about authentic learning experiences and really taking learning from the foundational work further into kind of that change making concept and how you can make a difference in with the community the third strategy of incorporating uh digital learning tools into instruction has other uh other indicators of success curriculum writing will include digital tools for learning components so we're going to actually purposely when curriculum is designed say how do the digital tools work in this particular area periodic surveys and feedback uh from our staff to understand how they're doing with technology making sure PD is prioritized for digital learning for our staff Educators being provided with real world professional learning opportunities to understand how technology is used or can be used and that you know you think about we've heard about Jackie our technology integration Specialists that's that real-time embedded professional learning that we're talking about there so it's not just add a workshop they're actually working on it with kids at the time of course budget priorities making sure that we are investing in digital tools for learning which this board has been tremendous about our community has been tremendous about the district will work to anticipate and integrate new tools and that's is really and being very intentional about those new tools and then finally enhancing our existing systems and structures indicators of success well-controlled financial and operational management continued development of Technology infrastructure that's something I think about cyber security Eric and all of the access you've helped provide us over the years efficient and well-maintained Facilities timely and user-friendly Communications community and staff engagement and that's you know things like updating the website and how do we use social media and those kinds of things school security continuously enhancing our our protocols and our facilities board policies that support teaching and learning and I added a little piece here for people to really understand some of the ongoing things that are happening right now and some of them were talked about tonight already in terms of getting ready to to have those system supports and structures in place we have a number of collaboration and partners and they help us with strategic actions we're having various studies and and reviews done to help design not only complement us where we're doing well so we can continue to do that but help us move forward with recommendations or ideas for improvement so for example the only internal one really is our Candlewood Lake planning team that's a collaboration I think it was about 25 of our team and Dave obviously is an enormous part of that really supporting the transition not only the physical move but really the team is working on developing a brand new school culture that was alluded to tonight so that's really exciting I mean how many of us get to be involved with actually building a brand new from the ground up school and bringing three different staffs together and it's an incredible undertaking and an exciting opportunity uh krek is working for the special education program view they've already actually started their work this week and we'll talk about that under old business uh ciac that's the athletic governing body uh they're working toward an athletic program review with Mr Baldwin and Mr belanda at the high school and we talked a little bit about that in some recent board meetings uh just today as a matter of fact Mark's akubo it's a architectural firm they're going to be conducting our building condition study Mr Caldwell and Mr post met with them they're going to really dig deep on the physical structure of both wistoneer and Brookfield High School and by May 31st have a capital plan for us of what needs to be done to improve those buildings over the coming years I mentioned the vulnerability assessment from Karma um and and that's a tremendous support for us looking forward by the end of the month we should have the full report there and of course working with the Connecticut Center for school state safety as one of their first clients in terms of giving us training and so forth to make sure our Protocols are up to speed me ask here's an interest in what New England Association of schools and colleges Pre-K to 12 program reviews so Mr belanda coincidentally today actually submitted his five-year update from the last niask visit when we think about accreditation and yes we think about high school but most folks don't know that niask actually offers opportunity to use that same framework in reflecting upon the practices at elementary and middle school and Dr Mann brought Dean and Dave with her to Boston before the holidays yeah yeah back in December and they actually went to a seminar and learned about me asking what the visits look like and are pretty enthusiastic about it so we've got some detail work to do there and there is a budget implication but we want to we want to talk about that a little bit more and then you know Cabe is helping us with the policy services and we don't have a firm yet but we need to be working on an enrollment study and that'll be something next year we'll be talking about in the budget process so as we bring this all back together I'm taking six months of work and honing it into about 20 slides the approach to implementation we want to have a world-class school system that's what we want to create and you've seen the the portrait of The Graduate diagram that is what we are working toward that is our inspiration and our why the what is working forward toward a strategic plan to help us get there and we'll work through the district implementation planning School Improvement planning obviously Department grade level work it takes all of us to do this and working with our Community Partners and Community engagement our families and it's a back and forth exercise some of our next steps people might be wondering so where do you start we need board approval Bob talked a little bit about that we have a great subcommittee structure here for our board with our Cape committee and our finance committee and all of our subcommittees do a great job of distributive leadership and so we need to engage and work with the leadership of our our different subcommittees to help support this effort of course staff communication and engagement family communication engagement Communications about the Strategic plan will be going out we need to get this out as part of three main points likely Debbie and that kind of a thing and we'll be have ongoing engagement and communication regarding the plan right away we need to find Define each disposition of the program uh the portrait of The Graduate that is something that's going to be kicking off right away Dr Mann will help um architect essentially in working with building Administration or teacher teams and those teacher leaders that are very interested in working on this to actually Define that for us across the district and down through the grade levels and in the subject areas and then working through to develop the district implementation plan which would be a plan that we would Implement to start the school year next year and of course really focused on curriculum integration as we talked about in the instructional application uh and then ultimately the assessment of the skills I thank you for your time you certainly could chat about it and I can invite any of the team that was on the on the committee to come and talk as well all right so sometimes you're you feel like you've uh you've lived it over and over again um and uh you know I know I know I lived through six months of doing this we brushed through the top surface of this in this lot in this very short presentation I'll just say that the thing I will add is that when we were in having the discussion about the portrait of The Graduate the Educators were deep into how do I make that real in third grade how do I make that real in um in wood shop right how do I make that real in my sports right you know so that there's a constant thought that we need to take kids and give them deep skills on the the Brookfield C so that they can deal with that future right because what what Mr Costa said is the the future being relatively undefined because it's rate and pace of Technology what you need is kids who can roll with it if I could say that they they know how to go engage and it might be that they're a teacher and trying to think through what am I doing with my kids for the year 2050 right they might be in any types of uh role but if they can't engage and collaborate and be critically thinking and know how to do all of those types of skills where as jobs come forward they won't be able to do it and that's not something you teach as a class in 12th grade it's something that you incorporate in every little thing that we do and I think that was for me it was really interesting watching the Educators themselves having that discussion that very discussion and uh and uh and that's what this is about this is about giving the set of skills that will let our youth become adults when we need them to but also to be the sort who can engage on a changing world right which I think is really cool so so that's uh and sometimes that's it's hard to capture that in a short presentation it really is and for us as a board the question I'm going to ask us is how do we change what we do here right you know should you know we should be looking at our agenda and how are we saying okay what are we what are we doing on change making right you know as and what you know we'd like to have a report on that right or we'd like to have a spotlight on collaboration we'd like to um what in our budget right that we're looking at are supporting these things you know where are we on technology not just technology because we got a new display tool that someone can use but how are we teaching kids to use technology effectively right you know how's that in our and things so there's a lot of work to be done on but I think it's what we do as a board we'll set the tone of you know what are we putting on our agenda what are we doing in the cape committee right what are we doing in facilities and finance you know to talk about these things always um and uh I think that's uh that's part of the challenge of a strategy is it's very General at this point and John and his staff's challenge is how do you turn General into specific over time right and with a very deliberate you know uh approach so that's I'm gonna get off my soapbox and are there any questions the board has for Dr Burrell on this um maybe just for the committee in general but tonight I was just kind of listening to actually Bob what you were just saying but um not that I think a c is missing but I would like to know where sort of because I think what we what we always talk about is how do we make teachers be continuous Learners how to make students be continuous Learners and there's this this curiosity that we're trying to like build in because that's that's essentially the skill that's going to let them roll with whatever new comes along right like just the ability to say okay well I don't know this I'm gonna go learn it um where is that is that somehow captured in sort of the Seas that we have yeah you want to give it a go sure that's blood terrified um well I think that's that kind of outlines the work that we have to do right when fleshing out the Brookfield sees um you know this concept of the the outline of the portrait of The Graduate was developed a while ago um but it they are not um you know kind of exclusive to other transferable skills and pieces that build on that so I would say I mean just off the kind of off the top of my head I would say that definitely within change making if you don't if you're not curious about possible problem solving then you're not going to get to that change maker so I can see how that would be um a portion of that fleshing out um you know one of the having done this work before one of the uh the things that teachers are going to be looking for is that measurability piece yeah and so what does it look like to support the development of that but also how am I going to measure that so that's going to be as we work through this you know development um I think that curiosity is definitely there are probably a whole bunch of other kind of um components of these dispositions that are you're going to see get fleshed out yeah I think we see evidence of it at least um by the presentations made especially those Littles in the elementary school who did that opinion and that was incredible critical thinking working together and I really think they knew exactly what the goal was they wanted to be wanted their voices heard so I think that at least in this District we're starting all of these strategies and I'm confident that we'll get there and it was great it was communicating and ultimately changed me they got their extra recess well and it started with a question right so that's the question why do first graders not get so that was a curious question that predicated everything any other questions great this is great so thank you John um so let me ask you all do you you all got not only the presentation material that John had but the written document that uh that kind of had a lot of more a little bit in the next layer of detail if I if I could I don't know if you how I had a chance to read it but are you all prepared to approve this as a strategy at this point or do you want to have it take time and read it and then come back I just opposed I started the conversation with that what do you think I read it on my story you read it on a snow day you didn't get to ski upwards okay all right sounds like we're all ready to approve it so all in favor of approving the strategy against all right it's unanimous all right so John we're ready to go to work we're looking forward to getting our first status report on it um and uh it sounds like the first major task is about definition oh yeah right and what does it really mean to you know flush this out and that'll take a little bit of time but uh and we'll uh as we develop agendas maybe in the spring here we could practice a little bit fitting strategies onto our agenda items because I think that's a that's an effort we need to look at as we're talking about Bob yep okay uh so now we're going to move on to Old business um uh next item on the agenda is a special education program review update and the action is to receive an update from Dr Burrell good okay so um the uh crack um was uh there was full consensus that correct would be the um firm that we would work with going forward for the program review everybody has seen the scope of work uh in the exhibit for the board packet and um has authorized a couple of meetings back I followed the selection committee's selection and engaged with crack so they have already started planning with us this week and we are moving forward and already starting to look at dates for focus groups look at dates for survey distribution and school visits there's I think in the in the scope of work 24 and a half days with four uh different people working on this project this spring with a full public report as it's culminating event presented to the board at the June board meeting really what's exciting about it is the the uh areas that were brought up and even some of the areas that were brought up um tonight during public comment like IEP compliance and looking at uh independent education evaluations uh looking at regular ed students and identification and intervention um uh are all part of the scope of work the interesting thing the folks from crack are very experienced in doing this and when firms like this or knee ask or any anybody else who comes in and when they ask questions and they receive answers and they engage with the public and they engage with staff there will be responses that they may not have anticipated and that may take them down a different course of action in terms of the kinds of questions they ask or where they might look next so while there is a agreed upon scope of work it is iterative there is flexibility in you know we have an issue here we're going to go explore this a little bit further because we're quite curious about it um and and so on and and that that goes on so um that's just to answer some general questions that's the update in terms of them getting started I really did want to give credit to the selection committee there were a number of staff and folks that worked to go through the four different firms that gave us proposals and the selection committee was made of Mr post our business Direct after he had actually been through one of these program reviews in his former district and of course has budget implications Dr pepsoski our Huckleberry and Candlewood Lake principal Mr Conklin our Tech director Katie zazar grade one teacher from Center School Amy Hannibal green one of our speech and language Pathologists from the Middle School Kim Garcia one of our special Educators from the from Huckleberry Eileen Kramer Mrs Kramer is one of our para Educators and is the president of the Union the para educator Union Sharon was on said Sharon please feel free if I'm talking too much committees you want to say something that I ever was on look at them the personal here we asked a ton of questions we had the opportunity to speak with someone from the company um some of the other programs were very appealing but they were all fluff so we kind of picked the program all together I believe it was a unanimous decision for just the conversations about everyone's opinion and and why this and how are they going to do that it was extremely respectful and I think we picked the best crew for the job we also thank you Sharon we also had um Susan Griffin from the high school she's our assistant principal at the high school and then our SEPTA representative was Mrs mcniff and so it was really a good group of people and and we actually went around we had some consensus on a scope and then had some more questions and went back and had another meeting and went through the scope again so it was really a measure twice cut once um and so I'm really excited about it it's going to reveal what it reveals and where we have strengths we'll continue to bolster like we say about with like I said earlier in the the strategic planning presentation under system and structure and where we have needs and there's recommendations we'll move forward on those and that'll be part of our plan to make sure Mr what's his name Mr Carrera when he knocked that Pro oh I'm not allowed to say his name sorry um when he was telling us how bad the program was parents asked for this evaluation and then didn't give anyone a chance to say what the evaluation will entail so I was a little bit concerned that they brought up a major concern of this they're not happy with my special education but they're not giving us the time or the respect to work with them to work it out thank you so that's my update so any questions on the status of this sure yeah I do um I do have some questions I know some people from the public asked them to I thought they were really good questions I'm a little disappointed in myself that I didn't really think of the one thing was outplacements um I think that in the first paragraph of proposed Services It should read regarding special education practices in The District in the district and I don't know if that's considered in the district right but um or maybe that's just what we're going to remember when you're reviewing IEPs and they're looking at individual education evaluations and they have focus groups those that topic of outplacements will come up and again they they only have so much scope and so much capacity and bandwidth so you can't write every single thing under the sun down however outplacements are a part of our special education program so if it comes up through a focus group if it comes up through you know one of the things in the second iteration of the scope of work was looking at parents who've requested individual um uh evaluations and and why are they doing that that was the big question what kind of assessments are being used for that that's going to lead to some conversations Joy about exactly that question um so I'm not at all concerned that that's not going to to come up um and so the other thing like I said it's an iterative process there will be recommendations and pieces of the report that will say the board may want to take a further look at X or Y or Z but in this four-month scope we didn't get a full detailed study of that but we saw some areas you might want to be thinking about and then that could be the next phase of work that we do so it doesn't just end on in June and it's over there may be a few other things that we want to budget for and put under consideration and if we're fortunate enough to be able to utilize a grant like we're doing this year how whatever whatever we need to do we'll continue to do you saw in my systems and structure slide all those different partners we have we're happy to work with them and get that honest third party objective feedback it keeps us in a continuous Improvement cycle so I understand that you know that no I know it's not like it's the end goal is sure you know at the end of the report but I would like that to be a focus considering that's a huge portion of our special ed and I I'll be honest with you we went with the selection committee on what our understanding of the needs were going forward we went at it twice we've engaged with them now and they're starting and there's I don't know that in the current budget and the current time frame that they could add that on I could certainly ask but I don't know that they can do that so that's that's the only part of that um they've got their Manpower assigned so but I think we all agreed that we didn't want to limit this review either we wanted it to be really thorough um so I don't want to pigeonhole us either with a time constraint because this is really important and valuable work I think you know our placement should be a big Focus I don't want it to just to be something that's that could possibly come up I could I could ask Dana corvo who is the the um liaison and coordinator if there's a way that that could be done I just I just don't know if it's possible given their time frame at this point and I can come back to you and sure you know that's more than happy to to be frank the the question that was posed here today was a very valid one which is I think if you don't look at it you know is there the fundamental question is there's stuff we should be investing in in District instead of sending kids to very expensive out of District right and that would be a question I would I think you can deal with without necessarily a deep deep deep dive right it's just uh you have lots of experience with other districts you know here's the reasons kids are going out of district and we can't usually see that at our level but with uh being able to just look at it and say you know man you guys should Auto invest in XYZ you'll save lots of money there and you can go reinvest it in something else it's a bad thing to have a discussion about right and we you know we've chosen certain types of supports that we don't have in District right other districts may have them and it's paid off for them and that's a question I think we need to be able to ask I mean we've got what 30 some odd kids out of District 31-ish yeah and so just if that went to 25 right that's a lot of money right so I think it's a fair question how you Incorporated is I think the question is is something to have a discussion and just as Joy um alluded to earlier I you know regardless of whether students are in or out of District they're still our purview so they you know they're part of the scope right so they would be part of that scope but that's certainly and therefore I think that we probably could I think and I don't want to know all the topics that we have the one that gets the most attention is whether you send a child out of District or not I mean man I think about the amount of time I hear that we all spend and the parents spend before you make a decision to send a child somewhere else is extraordinary so and uh so I will pursue that um but I certainly here cannot make that promise and I'm not gonna I'm not going to make that promise uh if it's something that's difficult for them to incorporate but I agree that it's an area to look the other thing is let's be very Frank here working with the selection committee who went through the the various scopes of work and proposals we were working off of the concerns that were continually brought up and to be very Frank while it's a topic of conversation students who are outplaced in the cost and so forth as we budget the the concerns were not coming from that group of parents and so being very responsive to the parents who have come forward to us so um at some point you do have to make a decision and take some action and then learn from that get your report and continue learning and moving forward as you need to so that's where we're at otherwise similar to the equity and inclusion subcommittee we could get into paralysis by analysis never make a decision and four months from now still be talking about this and not have any report that gives us any good juice to go forward with strong recommendations so um but I agree let's take a look at it great point and how are the classrooms selected so this is a learning environment we're going to be working directly with the principals and so the classes are you know they want to get into a general-led classroom that has obviously mixture in their resource rooms self-contained rooms you know there's there's the kinds of classrooms they want to get in and then we look at the times that they're visiting the school and then we the principals and secretarial team and uh make the decisions on where the students are going oh there was a question um on who the main liaison is I I'm in name the the direct liaison but Karen Olson our special education secretary she's really working on the coordination and the sharing of documentation and the accessing and so forth Karen is a very seasoned special education secretary he's been in several districts but she's been with us for quite a she's back with us after a long time with us do parents have to be notified of if their child is being observed and they did a non-disclosure agreement with us and so no but we are going to be sending Communications out so parents know what's coming that kind of thing and the communication is ready to go out tomorrow to let everybody know this is the initial to get everybody out there and we'll do school level Communications let people know the only other thing um as a case manager Communications uh the online survey I don't know if the committee talked about it or it came up but I definitely want to see on the survey if for parents to have an opportunity to know if they have seeked outside services like denied the services from the school and have seek outside services or are currently receiving Services outside of school or has sent their child to another school I think that's really important information to have okay so people are if parents are seeking outside Services have seeked are currently seeking I saw it yeah you must be wrong or um or have sent and want to you know a child to a different school that's a survey that they have a base survey and then they customize it to our district so I took notes on that so that's something we do definitely the other thing that parents raise maybe you can answer is about non-special Ed parents being surveyed and do you know the reasoning behind their inclusion because one of the things we talk about and one of the data points is they want to look at our srbi intervention handbook and our processes for how students end up testing and being identified into special education so there's those are regular ed students and it could be parents who've had those experiences early on or now we're in high school and they're not identified with special needs and they don't receive services but they may have had some experience uh in there and in the demographic information it will be noted as such so we'll know if it was a general letter a special education uh parent survey completions will be able to disaggregate the data that way my question really has to do just do again with sort of the depth of the study and I'm I'm sort of seeing in every different category that they're going to study it just says things like a random sample or a sampling of Records a sample of students in the IEP review it's observation of selected students so how you know how many records are they looking at how many students are they going to be um so that they have complete so we've assigned what we do in these kind of services and reviews yet they have to sign a confidentiality agreement they're given access and they go in and they they look through the samples and so that's how you do any of these reviews you know you can't possibly go through 400 files it's just you know that where students may have been in have a file that's 12 years thick it's just not a a practical realistic or actually at the end of the day helpful and so there's there's the random there's also there are very few students who are in that they talked about the um going out for independent education evaluations we're specifically going to say here are the students that went to Independent educational evaluations select from this particular group because that has to do with intervention that has to do with relationships there's a lot there that goes on there and that was a big piece for the committee they wanted to really look at that so that's so just to clarify so you're handing over all of it and they are selecting correct okay correct absolutely that's an important clarification absolutely keep asking questions and will those will those teachers or classroom teachers know that somebody's coming in yes absolutely that's why they're getting the initial Communications already scheduled to go out tomorrow morning so they know there will be school visits and observations and then the administrative team will be letting them know because that's tricky too because right you're they're looking for Implement implementation of the IEP so it's like right when I when I know it being observed I'm going to put my best foot forward multiple people and you know they know they're coming I mean they're going to be visiting um I've got to be candid with you um people who know you're coming and if it's an act to put their best foot forward in astute experienced Observer see you right through that my view well we're not going to sneak up on our teachers which is one of the one of the things that I know the committee looked at was references from other districts who've used the correct folks can you give me the highlights of what we learned yeah they really I think dug in on the Southington study because it was the most recent southington's District we're probably a third the size of Southington they have six or seven thousand kids uh quite a large District um and a Suburban District though and the the study I'm not sure when the study occurred and their scope of work but I know the presentation was I think in September October of this past year so anybody can go look at it was Dana who Dana corbo who's doing our study was the one who did the study in Southington and actually gave the report so if anybody's interested they could actually go View the presentation to the board of ed Southington um I checked the reference and I talked with the superintendent uh very pleased with the report got some interesting Staffing information that they didn't anticipate they would receive um all kinds of interesting information that they're using to drive their program forward and then I called the new special education newer special education director who came on during the pandemic and I think it's Suffield and talked with her she wasn't there for the program review or the presentation you know in findings but she inherited the report and her report to me was that the I wish I could think of her name but her report to me was the um the staff and faculty actually appreciated the recommendations that were coming forward to help Drive change in the district it was things they were longing for perhaps some of the things were you know we're hearing in-house that they're looking to see change in and she's used that kind of as part of her entry plan when she came in to help move things forward so that's what this is this ends up getting this report becomes or any of those reports I refer to in my presentation become a tool to help us drive change going forward and Improvement in best practice and that's what we're looking for we must be doing something right this young man who spoke earlier how he had the confidence and the ability to say what he had to say was spectacular so someone's doing something right it absolutely was [Music] he's a good young man that's for sure any other questions all right what's the next checkpoint the next checkpoint that we'll be able to hear yeah to let you know how it's going you know they've been in they visited this many days they've looked through files um they are trying um by the end of April to have all the school visits physically done the online meetings the focus groups you know all the different things they're doing the survey completed reviewing all of our data then they're really going to dig in with what they found and work through and then analyze everything and then come up with those common themes and recommendations for for driving change uh culminating like I said with a report to us in at the end of the school year and how many days will they be in District like between the various schools um it's 24 and a half total I don't know if that they're not in 24.5 that counts some of the days of analysis okay so maybe half of that they'll actually be you know in and around the district and like I said there's there's four primary folks that will be there at the same time yeah there'll be different schools or a half day here or having an online meeting you know whatever it might be they'll also you know the internet view focus groups could turn into interviews if there's only one or two people there so it all depends but we want to get that communication out there to parents and some of the parents who spoke tonight actually said that they would help Drive some of the um communication about focus groups and things like that to make sure people know with their online presence and they can help us with that so that was good yeah cool um I think the board would love to see the survey itself you know because some of us are parents we'll see it some of us are not um or grandparents maybe but I would love to for one for us to get a copy of the survey sure as before it goes out or as it's going out right I just think that's that's going to be a probably the one of the broadest touch points in our community sure so I think it's important that we see it yep so all right well hearing uh no other questions we can move on to the next item which is about the thank you John um about the budget um and it's it's just to get an update of where we are I'm sure you all have seen that the uh since we last met we talked about at that time we talked about the fact that the first selectman had made her recommendations on the budget now the uh The Next Step was that the board of Selectmen they've spent God bless them I think they've met every day for at least two hours doing a budget review we had our budget review spread over at what a two-month period with lots of finance committee meetings and all on all of our meetings they had theirs compressed into a like an eight day period and they spent it God bless them but they actually restored the we had a half a million dollar reduction at the first at the first selectman's recommendation the board of Selectmen restored a hundred thousand dollars of it um which I'll thank them for that when I see them uh the uh it was a two to one vote and so it wasn't unanimous and I do believe the the dissenting vote wanted to give more back to the schools which um is a point of discussion they have a hard equation even with all the even with all the um the cuts that they've taken in different programs and they cut a lot out of capital it's still a four and a half percent tax increase right so it's a noticeable challenge that they have and it's all driven by the debt bubble just for those of you listening uh the the fact that we have all the debt coming online for the new school at the same time we haven't finished paying off the debt from the renovations we did in the late 1990s and early 2000s to our schools so and then the downtown the road paving bonds there's a lot of stuff about debt so one of the things that I talked to Mr Rooney about was he's gonna he's he's had one of his members build up a whole Capital debt management module for the town and he's going to try and do a want to use one of the board of Finance meetings to actually talk through you know what's going on right which I told him was a good idea because nobody really understands that where we are right now is that the board of Finance is receiving that budget from the board of Selectmen this evening right um we are invited as a board a week from tomorrow Thursday the 9th um to have a session with the board of Finance I've asked them what do you want to do we've already done our presentation so what do you what is it you want to do he's going to survey his members after the um after his meeting tonight and we'll get back to me on do they want to they have questions for us you know is it going to be a give and take um but they they need to make some decisions over the next month we do have some good news against the 400 000 Challenge and let me ask Mr post to come share some of the very good news and we might have turned it off yeah thanks for allowing me to do this uh as you know we've been struggling with the increases in our health insurance costs this whole body season starting out back in I think December when we got our first estimate from the insurance company that it was going to be a 12 percent increase and then they revised it in January to be a range of eight to ten so we made it ten percent uh just got notification yesterday they were even a little more specific that the estimate now is that it will be a 7.1 percent increase in next year's rates which means we could if we adopt that we could reduce the budget by about 198 thousand dollars which is almost half of the remaining 400 that we would need to find and the board of Finance is aware of this as is the first selectment in the board of selectman that's still not final yet right until April it's not final until April but this is the most precise they have ever been with us although I still don't restaurants I trust but I'll say I don't necessarily trust that it will happen exactly that way but they've never said last year did a little ping-ponging too right last year did a lot of ping-pong this one the words were different they said we're providing this to you because we know you're doing your budgets yeah right so you know it was very specifically pointed no acknowledging that all the state agencies and and towns all are doing budgets so and that that shows that the Connecticut partnership plan uh those working there are being responsive to the local communities and and this board along with the board of Selectmen and board of Finance you know the each chair sent a joint letter about this and making sure we have plenty of time and notice about what the budget will be and other communities have done the same thing and organizations I know my Connecticut Association of school business officials has weighed in with them and uh I attended a presentation when we found out about the the um eight to ten percent range they actually showed us data from their plan and how how they had originally come up with the 12 estimate and how the data was trending and got it down to 10 so they're much more transparent than they have ever been with us and much more specific so I think that was a result of of so many people communicating and then with with them and letting them know the importance of us getting the data sooner it's probably worth asking them well how did you get it from eight to ten down to 7.1 and let them explain it so yeah the the other thing that's going on is I got a call from Mr Rooney from the board of Finance today and he asked if we had locked in on heating oil costs right if you remember that was then the other big issue that we've been dealing with and those costs have been trending downward right so he is one of the deliberations he's going to do by the way we have not locked in because it's trending downward and you'd be kind of silly to be right now locking in for next year Town hasn't locked in either and we do that we do that again we do it together when we make those decisions so he's thinking that he would suggest we budget at a little bit more aggressive level than the 3.33 cents a gallon that we had it's under it's three dollars ish and on its way down now um already so he he there's a there's room but it's a just it's a bet right if you if you know what I mean so he's he's thinking about pegging a number that's lower than we budgeted but they carry contingency and do the same commitment to us that they've done on some other topics right that that if it's different they'll cover us within town-wide contingency and I told them we'd be willing to engage on that discussion right now and but it kind of it's a question of balance to me right but that could be worth another chunk of money so um so I will get some feedback from Mr Rooney after their meeting tonight about what they want to happen on the 9th um I suspect that they won't know any questions right this moment but they'll have questions by the time we get there and so I'm going to keep urging them to get us the questions as early as they can right if they have particular questions um they've been very complimentary about the thoroughness of the budget that we brought forward because it's basically an inflation story and they got that they got that message so it's just a hard equation right and capital is going to be I think if you want my opinion capital is going to be the point of discussion in the entire budget just because the debt bubble is so own right where this next year next this year coming year and the year after the two worst and then the high school debt rolls off in the late 2020s I got that right 2020.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
um the owner's appraisals very reputable by the way all four of these appraisers um and as you know there are extensive licensing that goes into getting their Christmas lessons um it was 57.5 so um we're hoping to be able to present all the all of these appraisals to the state and with the special legislation allowed them to actually pay the additional cost as ineligible expense which would be 80 percent thank you sure [Music] because anybody who's then free to ask any questions sorry um the gym on the first floor far away from the Fitness rooms yeah the fitness room are really being used for a different part of the academic program so the adjacencies wasn't a necessity the beauty of the gym where it's located is as you know it actually acts as an assembly area for a presentation Glenn did you mention the Spades family health setups yeah you probably should sure look I'm going to let let the land to just show you uh why Gap that gym this place where it is right so the existing building if you will this kind of L shape is the existing building the the existing building stops here and this was all Green Space parking area and so forth in the early design phases and and we had actually thought about um before the board event was definitely moving here taking some columns out of the existing building and putting the gym in this location um this was became too expensive and so forth so looking at the program these are health health rooms really not associated directly with the with the gym these two Fitness rooms are really more exercise dance and so forth again not necessarily and there are locker rooms here adjacent to that the the space here worked perfectly for building a new addition we didn't have to demo any part of the existing building to make it happen there was enough space to get bypass around for the buses and and vehicles and associated with the gym is a small platform area for performances or speakers or just general uh um assembly type things for the school so there are locker rooms the the uh platform area all facing out towards the uh the breacher it works pretty well and from that standpoint there's plenty of flow around it for the kids uh coming and going for classroom there is a divider curtain that comes down so you can actually run two classes in the gym at one time and uh there's two gym offices as well as further facilities off the off the gym so from the standpoint of using it after hours it's it's very accessible um doors leading directly outside or through a vestibule which is a secure investigator is there an area or weight a weight room there is a small small area and I know that that's been something that's been been talked about there was weights in that in that building in order to actually have a construction take place all of that had to be be moved out um some of it went I think to the high school itself you know and then eventually there they'll be uh determination made from a um a curriculum standpoint as to what comes back there's uh um I think there's um stationary bikes in there that uh that are left um this Fitness room was a dancer yoga uh Fitness room has a wood floor so that's remaining in place and then some small fitness equipment will be in there next to the EMT lab personally I think you're um young young people especially young men like to work out and that's why I was concerned the fitness rooms were so far away from the gym just being someone who always used to you know work out I just expressed concern about the lack um you can have that each group I think they would like something along the fitness workout room more so than just bugs and I think it's a important note um to bring forward is the design you see here meets all of the requirements of the aspect I understand uh you you have some preference in that regard but we the way we check uh to see if we get a good grade on our design is if we can pay if we're able to hit all of the educational specs and the spaces that are required this building delivers that um I know that we have the common area for the middle school and the high school will they be dismissed out of the same entrance um will they both be coming in the same entrance how come you can what we have uh Middle School day starts the same time as the as the High School site so um it's set up so that there there are two security points that students have to pass through everybody has to pass through um and if the uh I think it's the high school day starts uh earlier than the in the middle school so presumably all of those those students are going to be in the building by the time the Middle School comes in because they will will be coming in this entrance or this entrance all right um and uh at dismissal time we've uh We've set it up so that again buses in queue um a lot of that is going to have to be uh scheduled and sequenced you know based on the principles and administrators in the school um but there are two ways to access those buses and this is the Middle School stair and they come out this way their bosses are here High School is is on the back side because there's other exits out for that could I just ask a follow-up to that or dismissal questions uh when when you talk about the afternoon and the dismissal let's say it's the high school it looks like the lineup of buses I'm calling the 80 or so there will begin first bus will be right by the Outdoor Classroom you can see it in the picture right now will that wrap all the way around to the back out by the road and you mentioned sequencing by the question it would have been the discussions so far on how dismissing his work would they go out another door would they all go out the same walk around the building right I'm not sure I can adequately answer that question oh I can tell you that there are a number of uh exits along this uh path that could be exited for by the students now I know we've talked about having um some kind of digital display as to when buses are being dismissed at certain times so that there's a cue for the students and so forth so but the number of buses I mean we went through how many different site uh you know layouts to try to recite designs yeah and we worked with the existing principal at the high school who gave us the number of buses here he's anticipating um and the bus stays on a picture um really there's going to be buses all the way down towards the front so um we were able to accommodate all of them that buses that we were given and the Board of Education feels comfortable I should say that the existing principal and his staff feel comfortable at realize that possible as you know plus drop off your pickup is a very crucial part of the school operations so we took our lead from our just you know from the existing principal uh who helped us figure out what's the best way to get these kids into school and out of school thank you I just had a quick question about father wasps so at the existing high school we have a built-in display and gallery space throughout so are we going to have that oh yeah we we spent a lot of time locating uh display cabinets bullets and boards and so forth around the entire school there are at the Black Box um in that main Corridor there are two very large display cases right outside that entrance um that is are lighted so that they'll be shown at the uh in the media center here in this large Corridor there are our display cases in in that large area of gallery spaces and then again on the on the fourth floor remember that is oh on the fourth floor of the academies up here there are a number of uh display locations on the fourth floor bulletin boards all over the place that's wonderful thank you thanks stage where the buses come in the children come in everyone is coming in on the first floor am I correct that's that's correct so and there would be a separation from the middle school because the time frame is different in the high school that was my main concern right when we first started this project and started talking about it the person was unloading like we hadn't gotten to this point right and my concern is the young people shouldn't have been mixing with those older children right so could you just walk me through where the buses are going to be coming in letting the children out again sure and I can't see that far so you know just walk me through I'm going to try to follow my finger here um so the roadway coming around loops around the building okay this is the four-story side of the building buses are going to come in and loop around this is the entrance to the uh for the Board of Ed okay but they're the bus will queue all along this route right the main entrance is is going to be this location because there's a security office there and this location because there's a security office in that at this entrance um both of these entrances are hardened entrances to meet the state requirements um for for security so they will come in here and then if it's the middle school students coming in here and up there stair main stair high school students most likely will be coming in here again it's it's a a staggered uh timeline that that they're coming to the school whether it's middle school or High School thank you very much I have a quick question I'm not familiar I'm doing the snow days I'm not familiar on the plowing requirements I know the main roles is the share road but they're not different companies who will be responsible for them Emily will be maintained into this parking lot we're currently doing it right now we will not only be following the parking lot at Toshiba the main road coming up so there's not going to be a Reliance on an outside entity um although the Arab rules shows a couple of other businesses we will have the primary responsibility to plow it and make sure that everybody can get in and out so just one quick question about lockers so are we installing lockers I forgot to mention that um so the middle school will all have lockers um there's uh uh I think we have 400 blockers yeah for 400 lockers it's uh so all the middle school students will have high school no lockers thank you so I just want to make one comment about the HVAC that mandate that we seem to be getting down from the state we don't know much about but I just wanted you to speak to I think we incorporated it's just something that the board should know to yeah tackling some of it right here thank you um just for the record I know that we have quite a few found on safety findings and the reason high school well these um new facility will cover all the previous findings from the high school we have new technology I mean enough security cameras I mean in general terms we do that's so school security is one it's become so important that the state has made very specific requirements that have to be implemented you have to approve that you've implemented it one of the tests there we have to go through um in a week right it's to prove to a state that we have animal security to protect the kids and all the applicants and we do um the other benefit to this building is this building had more cameras than I could I couldn't even have in her camera it's got cameras in the parking lots it's got cameras in every corner and these are optimal cameras you can literally pinpoint um somebody uh you know on the other end of the parking lot there's also a main camera when you come up the road so you can actually see who's approaching uh your school which is great it's it's uh it reports directly into a control center in this building so um as a corporate headquarter I think they did a great job making sure that this place was well locked down and well monitored and we're only enhancing that please I'm sort of knowing why is it that we're not having lockets for our high school students well that's a good question um when I went to high school I had a locker and the new trend now in education as high school kids don't want to use lockers okay yeah yeah we um we would have gladly put them in but from our understanding later on their current student population at the high school rarely if nobody uses me anymore we actually just had a discussion about taking them out so it's a new trend uh that these kids don't like to use their lockers anymore I was attached to them if I could live in it at work and I was just thinking I only have a seven-year-old and every day I said to her about the time you get into fifth grade your back is going to be broken because of all the you know the heavy book bag that she has to carry school and then a little five-year-old he's almost at her point and I'm thinking about time you come to our 14 you you're gonna have back problems so that was my only reason I would ask okay is going to like to use lockers so it's kind of it's been it's kind of been running that way in the last probably eight years now uh almost 10 years yeah thank you [Music] thank you so okay threesome last one will there be a rock wall um [Music] can I understand yesterday no it's not it's not there but we did make a provision for a future if the school does decide to do you know that's that's uh yeah we really um our guidance document as soon as that headspects put together uh like I said the way we grade ourselves uh and you know whether or not we did a good job is if we're able to tackle and improve everyone in those educational requirements uh which your Educators put together and work with so uh us providing you that space is is the key yeah I don't think we have insurance for Rockwell's founders [Music] okay I had said last question but I'm actually gonna have two more Julie and then Bridget and then we'll do it actually it'll be my last question um I'm not sure but I haven't heard anything about green energy I know that in the past um Miss Kamara and everybody in the world have to requested or are these requested information about green energy into the new facilities so I haven't ever heard anything regarding sure this has been uh heavily discussed and actually there's a question that came out of the building committee a couple of weeks ago so we do have a small solar array but it's really for educational purposes it kind of uh shows and is able to educate kids on how solar panel Works how to generate electricity and you can monitor how much of that electricity produced there was no discussion about doing a solar type of array here or any other Arena energy truth ends we are very close to the airport and we have a very dedicated hype that we have to try to stay under or else the FAA would require a substantial review and certification so height is a big consideration and the other thing is is have you done a lot of solar projects their current Trend tag the way these solar projects are going they're all over us some leases work out some don't a lot of solar projects that were installed 10 15 years ago aren't hitting their Mark they're just now the technology and the business model to do like solar projects has to really be looked at pretty hard I'm looking at a solar project at uh the top of the landfill on the safe side been looking at it for five years I can't get a business model that works based on a capital investment that's provided and the offset an energy cost if you get into a lease scenario where which is even more complicated the business model becomes even more complex so um point this school does not have any solar on it um and uh that's that's kind of how we proceed it with the project it's not one other point is that we're required under uh requirements of the project to design to the Connecticut high performance standards so those bring in lots of different points so if you're familiar with the lead energy conscious Design This is equivalent to a silver rating for that standard which is a not the top of the line but it's not it's not down here either it's the mid midpoint if you will so there are are things in there that are taken into consideration as far as using recycled materials using things that from a mechanical standpoint from a water usage standpoint those kinds of things are in place here but as Antonio said not the big green energy solar or wind or anything like that thank you very important uh just to follow up to what Glenn says a high performance requirement is a tough requirement to be what that does is it forces us to purchase and design the most highly efficient mechanical systems electrical systems variable frequency drives so the state basically says if we're going to give you money to design and build a school we want to make sure they build the most efficient low energy school you can possibly build and we have to that's another test that we go through when we have our plan review we have to be able to demonstrate that we had a certain number of points in achieving the high efficiency School thank you thank you so much for this presentation I mean it's incredible you know time ever you know I have background in this so I understand a big big space all said becomes very small when you're trying to accommodate everything so thank you so much we are going to be getting together again in seven but I just wanted to um ask for a motion that the sites and Facilities committee recommend to the Board of Education the approval and the final plan specifications and processing it for phase two of Danbury Career Academy project in accordance with the exhibits on file in the bbac board I'm sure if you're not going to make that if you have made that motion ivy love to Second it also with cotton you've made you are making the motion okay I strive so you need somebody to make it right I'd be honored to make the motion do you need me to read it again I'd like to start to say by congratulating Mr Heidi your role in his team over the years sir you have demonstrated continued success in bringing in projects complete fulfilled and sometimes even under budget and on time so it'd be my honor to make the motion for the sites and Facilities committee take a vote that the sites and Facilities committee recommend to the Board of Education the whole board to approve all the final plans specifications and cost estimate for phase two of the Danbury Career Academy project in accordance with the exhibits on file in the bbac board right at 2200 pages right over there do I hear a second about Angelina Louisa sorry a motion to adjourn no we got a culture to vote does the subcommittee recommend it yes we do all in favor please thank you very much appreciate your time would you return
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so okay so now wait a minute do you are you thinking about just doing this little thing for the rest of the year and then we reevaluate it when we do the budget no well that's an option I was actually suggesting doing this and making it our long-term approach well I don't think that I'm comfortable with doing that knowing that we don't have a clue what's coming up I mean like what our budget's going to be like you know what I mean I do but we've we have this carryover that we can dig into I do know that I mean I kind of like the whole Monday Friday thing because I think that those are the ones that we have hard time filling am I tell me principles what do you think like it's Monday Friday hard to fill every day okay never mind but if we're not increasing the pay is how do we get to even giving them a loyalty increase a loyalty stipend if we can't get him here to begin with how do we give them the Loyalty I don't know that if we're going to increase the pay I don't think we need to do the Loyalty though what about doing one and three so then it's just Monday Friday the increase but then also the bonus for the loyalty and does it have to go up to exactly what somebody else is doing do we have to do it all the way to 15 right dollars we accepted I just did 15 because it seemed to be midpoint it could be 10 it could be 20 it could be 25 it's whatever your number is we just arbitrarily went to 15 because that seemed to put us in I'll just say the ballpark of Brothers it doesn't make us the highest but it doesn't make us the lowest so that's a arbitrary number today I thought that's where we were at right now highest and then we know we've had over the course of the last both last fall and during the course of this year others have increased theirs so what we were two years ago is different than what we are now because others others are doing this uh Higley as an example just went I think last week and and took care of all of employees including substitutes and they I forget what they bumped their substitutes up now this is for next year but so you have different districts moving at different paces and so at one point we were there I would still say we're not we're on the low end but we're above AJ I think we're above um Florence but everybody's adjusting at different times and so it's it's a moving Target even even if you raise this we could turn around and depending on what their what the budget is you could turn around have a bunch of districts and Charters that go ahead and increase on top of us and even though we think we're in the middle on March 1st come September 1st we're back down to where we're talking about right now because I don't have control over what they're doing with their own budgets and and those kind of things so this will this will be a constant conversation for all positions to be totally honest okay so so if I'm a potential substitute living within our district and I get the option to work for combs for 125 or to go to Queen Creek or somewhere close relatively close by for 150 something that's an easy decision that's easy but not even a second no but if I'm at 140 to be closer to home then I might think well you know what will I give up the 153 and stay closer to home for 140 and not fight all that traffic then I might come to calm so that's why I think it's important to raise our substitute rates now that's again to the fit to and raise it to increase it to 15.
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it's like sought versus um okay that's all I had to say anybody else have any updates on on the budget so um okay uh next is Candlewood Lake Elementary School [Music] percent complete so we're getting there uh still under budget great story um the cafeteria ceiling clouds are being installed um interior Timber beams oh perfect if I can see it there myself one thing you're not going to see on there but I wanted to report um so you'll see in here some of the terrazzo flooring um the main stairwell still hasn't gone in right because I had one of these days I will get to one of the walkthroughs um but they may need some stronger steel to be put in for those Terrazzo Treads so that's just one little thing that they're working through and then the main steering wheel will go in um so from what I can say um the exterior so you can see a lot of the exterior brick work has been completed the main doors are into that's always nice instead of those big plywood doors yeah actual real doors yeah doors are going in everywhere so this is the back over by the playscape area main stairwell you could tell is not in yet um I don't think we can't see any flooring really but the flooring prep is going in there we go um yep so this is the uh gross mortar gross motor motor area and the cafeteria so you can see some of those um the ceiling um design work is going in we have a lot of the wood paneling already in this is the administrative first floor so obviously some of the the wall designs going in the floor on the first level still obviously is going to be the last thing to go in so bear that in mind the gym still kind of looks the same but not much is really being done in this space other than the flooring which is going to be pretty much the one of the last things to go in and then yeah we have um this area here you can see some of the the wall designs taking shape there and there and our entry into the neighborhoods so those are I'm not sure where which exact Corner this is but it might be down by the Pre-K Wing which yeah they're still doing some of the sheetrocking and taping there but that was one of the last uh neighborhoods to come on board the classrooms look great you can tell the flooring is already in there's the protective plastic on it because those rooms are for the most part pretty much they're done I mean the sports going in yeah technology doors are hung so um this happens to be fifth grade yeah another shot of a classroom and some of the breakout room classroom to breakout room area that's that actually I think about that Rosa for a second they could the project manager uh Chris Mitchell called that a breakout room that's one of the classrooms at the end I'm not sure one of the bigger classrooms large sliding door so it could be not only a regular classroom it could empty the end of the hallway where that could be another part of a classroom that's great and so I mean some of these some of the design work that's going in some of the lighting fixtures it just looks starting to look really finished it's really nice yeah really beautiful and then the uh the bridge connection area right connecting all the neighborhood wings some of the wall designs this is the band room it's a bathroom [Music] and look at this Terrazzo flooring I mean it looks it looks really great I was really excited to see that and it goes does this go along with the neighborhood that it's near yes this this happens to be rainforest three yeah this is grade three great and so they're stencil designs there's a lot of Labor that goes into initial material grinding and leveling the concrete floor that's there for structure then stencils that have to go down other materials then the terrazzo that gets out I mean it's just that's why it takes so long to have to schedule it and then it needs time to cure once it's laid out we went through and kind of bothered the workers and got in the way and then we realized we're cutting into their time these are the stencils you're talking about right yeah so built into the trouser flooring is all kinds of artwork and uh here you saw a leaf before here's a frog so you see different kinds of uh habitat and animals and so forth throughout it's really centered on Elementary children Japanese more of the terrazzo flooring the different layers going in I think that was the last one yeah so it looks good I had something yeah go ahead thanks so I just were really excited we've confirmed that on March 16th it's one of the early dismissal days that um for conference is that Center School and Huckleberry Paras are going to go visit and take a tour and because we have to work with everybody's work schedule and then we're hoping March 7th which is next week if I can confirm with the project manager that the whiskey near peras that are the assigned right now that will likely be our fifth grade paraprofessionals will be going uh on a tour as well so we're trying to arrange that in the after school after school time on the early dismissal day so we're really excited about that and I had a large update for you two weeks ago so I'll hold often anymore that was it all right so that's it for our main agenda uh since we are up to public comment and so one person who had signed up for a couple of comment is no longer here so uh so we will oh your mic wasn't all right I'm sorry so we're on we're on to public comment the one person who did sign up for the second round of public comment is no longer here see them at all so I think we can go move on three main points your presentation so I was thinking the Sandy Hook promise say something presentation should be one the Strategic plan presentation should be the second and I think the special ed program review update is yeah worth putting in instead of the Candlewood Lake update so I think Candlewood Lake update hasn't changed a whole lot since last time so I would put those other three things in yeah okay uh so next blast up is upcoming events okay at Center School the one school one read for the month of March is kicking off on Friday March 3rd with a whole school pajama day and the first of four themed related books are going home to families and Center School has parent-teacher conferences March 16th and 17th with an early release for students that's the same at Huckleberry for March 16th and 17th Huckleberry also has the Spring Book Fair beginning on March 9th and this week they're celebrating right across America week with dress is your favorite character day tomorrow and a pajama and bring a book day on Friday at whiskaneer on Sunday March 5th is a family fun bowling night um six to eight pm at Strikers to help fund the 8th grade moving up ceremony and dinner dance and they also have parent teacher conferences March 7th next Tuesday with an early release and the high school has parent-teacher conferences March 9th with an early release and the musical Little Shop of Horrors kicking off the 16th through the 19th that's all I have cool all right that's it for tonight so without objection we are adjourned thank you all it was a very full meeting tonight [Music]
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increase it by 15 up to 140. and make that our standard going forward now what we could do as we're talking about these different options we can vote on each option separately we don't have to vote on them as a package we could because right I just I just gave the options the the retention option the only thing I would you know that's one that doesn't go until September because we're trying to have you come back so I would I would I just provided the retention so that you know we give it in the past we increased it from one percent to two percent using Esther's dollars I would anticipate we would do a retention bonus this next year too so I would look at I would look at a retention bonus for the rest of this year because it doesn't make sense by the nature of what a retention is but the other three that's up to the board but I at this point I just don't I don't know that I would want to do both one and two I think if we do two why do we need to do do two and I don't know that we need to do one I mean if we're gonna do one then I don't think that we should I mean it's already there that's already kind of built in do other schools do loyalty increases like this that you're talking about or is this a kind of a creative way you were thinking yeah I think it's creative I'm not aware of people giving loyalty out uh I think that's what we've had to try and do is is be creative and stretch the knowledge but I'm not aware maybe one could you out of state there would this already picked up the idea Idaho and Utah doing it but I'm not aware of and if you didn't do one would that make it increase the substitute rate a little easier comfortable yeah I mean the the reality becomes whichever if if you do all three of them we're in a in the worst case scenario in terms of money that's not not available to work with the other employee groups if you do one of the only one of the others then obviously they all have different capacities the option one is about 10 12 000 I think option three is about ten twelve thousand option two is about fifty thousand for the year for the rest of this year it's probably lower but we already know we're committing to next year a fifty thousand dollar increase so that we just have to be prepared for that for next year for this year the actual payout for this year if you do 150 years I I believe maybe less than ten but I'm projecting out to next year because I do not see a saying we're going to pay 140 and then in the budget projections for you guys next year we come back and say hey we want to move the 140 back down to 130 that would be stupid and so therefore I'm projecting the 50 for next year because it's going to impact our our budget more more than the other two options which option benefits most people I mean are we talking about just 10 to 12 subs for a loyalty increase are you talking about a greater number of Subs on a daily basis we need that we need to cover well does that make sense yeah yeah and what I would say is that the difficulty is is we have no idea of of whether any of this so let me back up we don't know if option two and three will increase the number of Subs that come to our district where you can put the money out there the reality is it may be zero because if I don't have right no I won't be zero because we still have to pay this is based on existing fill rates but we don't know that it'll increase our numbers in the case of option one I believe that you would at least maintain or have the potential to maintain the people that are working for us now staying with us the rest of the semester and and maybe giving up the fifteen dollars that it's it's I get one 140 or 125 versus 140 15 bucks I also dangle yeah but if I sit and take the job for a little less I get someone to hand me a check for a thousand dollars in June and I'm planning on going on vacation in June I might go ahead and sit and take the thousand dollars in June or if I'm in the fall I'll take the thousand dollars at Christmas time and for that it ends up being fifteen dollars a day it's just calculated in a different way in a unique way that's a very small population of people because so we're we're you know in that loyalty we're ignoring a great a number of people who may want to still come here but won't go come here for the for the lesson I'm leaning kind of the same way I think okay I'm just gonna throw this out here okay and we you can tell me now but what what if we did option two but it was ten dollars more but then option three is fifteen so you're you're you have more people like maybe you can fill those on Mondays and Fridays which I'm thinking are harder days but I could be wrong does that make sense to me do you so if someone calls me up from Combs and says I want you to sub on Thursday I'll say no but I'll come in on Friday right [Laughter] I don't know and I think if you're paying different rates it makes it harder for for payroll to to do that and right we've got a lot of headshots could know it from my experience with that so I think we got to make it consistent if we're going to do anything that's again like [Laughter] um so if I if I had to pick one I guess I I don't think I should go for two I I would not I would not do one and two I would just do I would just pick one of them no one of them one of them so it would not pick two I would increase and loyalty I would not like you like more of the increase if I have to pick one yes and would the increase actually create a loyalty if we were able to put it at a more competitive possibly possibly not I mean we've seen for two years even when we are more mid-range before we didn't see it at a vast increase in in substitute so so the issue that runs for us quite frankly and it's the same issue that runs in several districts you were on the Outer Edge people don't drive east they Drive West and so therefore the idea that if I lit and the further west I live the less the chance I'm going to drive east and so I don't know that this is going to change the number of the subs we have because you have a pool of Subs in the in the in the district a few may stay so what's the trade-off between loyalty versus this I don't know do we automatically assume that we will get a whole bunch more of that well dang they're paying 15 or more I'm gonna drive uh East to take the job I'm going to say no um and so if you have a pool of someone who's thinking to be a sub in this area that might entice them to be a sub if we have some that that are currently working for us they may not drive down the street but again it's very easy to drive West it's not as easy to drive east because everything I need is down into the West if I'm going into QC to get some some groceries or something if I'm dropping my kid off I mean there's lots of reasons why I go in that direction so I don't know traffic's not as bad if you're going against it about three people in my community who had been or and still are Subs here at Combs and out of the three one stop being sub altogether just because she said no matter what you were paying it wasn't worth it another one said I'm going to go wherever they're going to pay me the most and the third one said I'm loyal to Combs because I've got a good relationship there and I'm going to keep coming back so it's the one in the two percent of them yeah that we need to we need so we need to entice people to want to come here and I so I think you do that multiple ways not just one way so you're basing this Budget on filling all of our subs sub positions is that what you're doing no this is based on a conservative estimate this is based on if we keep our fill rate at what our fill rate was this year the way I did this was we looked at the numbers uh working with Charmaine we had about 2 300 different positions if we divide that by the seven months then times it by the 10 at a 50 fill rate this is what you get so that's I did caution you it's fifty thousand dollars next year if we fill at the same fill rate if our fill rate is greater if we because everybody says oh my God you're getting 15 more and all of a sudden our fill rate goes to 75 percent instead of 50 percent that fifty thousand dollar hit just became a 75 000 hit and so we won't know what that is until we get into the mix of what happens next year but we can just look at this year's data and say this is what we saw and it's a it's a a math calculation that is not tight tight tight that's why I told you guys in here this is a conservative estimate because I have no we saw a much better fill rate in January for some reason than we had in the previous months I haven't had a chance to look at February to know what that fill rate was like and so we may have gotten a higher fill rate and then also why are we at a higher fill rate for two months when we weren't in the fall it could be a thousand Reasons could be a couple three people showed up more uh from summer or from where they were vacationing and decided in the winter they wanted to work jobs uh could be we got two or three people that decided they wanted to start subbing and their subs that are we're using a lot there's just a lot of unknowns out there so I guess here's here's some philosophy I guess maybe it's so if we have an empty classroom there's no nobody to teach and we need a sub in there if there's no Sub in there that means teachers administrators somebody is filling that position so it would behoove them if we did raise the rate I guess because then at least I would take some pressure off the rest of the staff assuming assuming that somebody comes because the rate went up if they're ready then we didn't pay him anything right right but but I'm just saying if the fill rate stays at 50 for the rest of the year then whether we pay we pay the people that are with us I mean we're going to trade the loyalty bonus to be totally honest if nobody joins us and we pay 15 a day more the amount of money they make on the rest of the year is probably about to give or take the same as what they would in the stipend and but it doesn't change the problem for the principals or the school because we haven't attracted anybody else so within this whole mix you may at the end of the day spend the same amount of money the difference is an option two you're committing dollars for next year's budget based on a conservative estimate of of a 50 fill rate um question just for my own experience does do each of the campuses have like utility Subs that are on site their actual employees that can be used as a sub at any time that's needed uh my I'll if I'm wrong campuses do that right we have not gone to where we're going to say this Subs there what we have is we have people so for example pair Pros that may have a sub that don't want to teach but have a sub or that have a teaching certificate that can be a sub and so we end up relying on them and using them and putting them in the classrooms do we have someone identity no we don't have someone identified that said hey you're going to go do this campus you're going to do that campus you're going to do that campus Because if there are permanent staff on that campus they can always be used for as parent professionals also as would that save quite a bit of money if that if they're kind of a dual role type of thing it depends on the I'd have to look at it we looked at that last year as part of our budget negotiations but when the dollars came down and the discussion became what's more important the salary issue became more important therefore that option was slid off the table as we went ahead and said we're going to go ahead and and try to increase our base salary up to 50 000 to be more competitive and and do the experience indicator and do the the welcome to Combs stipend and therefore that got pushed off it may or may not that's the same as any budget is you tell me what the priorities are they change from year to year depending on how much you have so that that may that could be a possible option this year in raise I don't know if that makes a difference or not I think right someone that's in the culture understands the culture and the kids it needs them to come into just about any classroom right and immediately be such a I would say and again the principals may have a different view but I would say just based on my experience what we're seeing relative to absences and Etc um are not decreasing so and the amount that you're having on a given day that will help out minuscule because there's too many other subs or too many other absences that day and then what do we do in that situation especially when you look at a Monday Friday repair Pro would never be in there the parapo would never be doing the parapro position but they'd always be subbing right and we have a little bit of that right now we have people as the campus I mean I've just seen where they have the I just think that we have so many different ways yeah so okay so back to where we're at I feel like with number with option two if you were talking about Bob's three people that that lived in his neighborhood um with an option two it's gonna maybe bring back the one that wants more money plus it's gonna also reward the one that's loyal so I kind of like that one even though it's not like a big chunk at the end there's you know it's the same about the same amount right can I make a motion and then we can vote on it and would that be okay do you have do you have any uh I could probably talk about all night I know I'm like an option option two I mean the the increase I think that's possibly quickest fix and it kind of takes care of some of the loyalty okay because if we don't increase the pay we're not going to get more subs I agree I think it's that simple I think we need to acknowledge that's going to happen I think well I'm gonna stick my neck out here I move that we accept both options one and two is there a second all right okay I don't know enough about it yet yeah me too you know I I I like the idea so so just from a protocol standpoint uh if there's a second that that means nothing it just means the discussion continues at the end of the day when you call for a vote so there may be another 10-minute discussion on whether Bob's if someone seconds it there may be a 10-minute discussion and then based on that you may vote yeah if you don't okay I'll second it I'll second it okay now we can discuss it go ahead book well you do you understand you understand the budget so much better than I do so do you foresee a problem next year if we do this um I think Greg's points are valid that money will be taken away but I also see that we have this carryover and when I'm looking at why do we keep having a carryover if we're not willing to use it in a time of Crisis that I view this as a time of Crisis so yeah I'm willing to do that but we also have right now we need subs that's it we do so six years coming but we have something happening right now we have kids that are in classrooms that don't have they're not covered I mean I know we have someone in there but so also just for clarity because we have a full day meeting with the leadership team on Monday when you say the contingencies so are you looking at us to carry a one percent or a two percent contingency we're looking at a half a million are we looking at five hundred thousand are we looking at 250 um and I only ask that because as we move forward this this becomes important right because the conversation has generally been we want to keep a million dollars right so if you please as we have this conversation any direction that you can give us will be helpful as we talk about it at at uh at our as we start to build a budget so so if if for example we've been having a million which is what I recall about a million carryover and this is going to hit us let's say 50 000 for one option and another 50 for another so 100 000 then our Target carryover is nine hundred thousand that would be my Approach okay all right well let's let's go ahead and vote on Bob's um motion so all in favor aye all opposed aye so motion carries all right options two options so so that we're very clear though with us going into uh spring break what would occur is that the dollar amount will actually take place beginning on the 21st yes of March just just that way we have a chance to do what we need exactly otherwise it'd be crazy trying to implement it tomorrow right yeah okay motion carries three to one okay effective March effective uh March first is that something one of our principles to start telling their subs we we will announce something okay we will get something out getting a word out okay so um then we have uh 8.6 discussion and discussion and consideration of approval IGA between Pinal County and J.O comes Unified School District for a radio communication system this came to me just actually um yesterday um and so our attorneys uh appreciate their turnaround was real quick they reviewed it and they said it's it's fine as it as it is what it ends up being is uh Pinal County is gonna um go ahead and set up a radio Communication System across the entire County uh this is an IGA that we would go in with the county and and specifically the education um Lea for the county SCA for the county and they're going to every single District in the county saying hey if we go into this agreement uh we'll go ahead and put Towers on sites in your campuses the small districts it's just going to be one site for the large larger districts our case I think they're looking at putting a tower here on this site and then down at CTA and they will basically have a wide area network that covers the entire County that will take care of the potential issue of connectivity in underserved areas that may not have connectivity if you're in your buses obviously for ours where you don't have as long a rides but if some of the other school districts you might have a 40-minute ride on the bus if you're in the county you would have access so you could theoretically do your homework while you're on the bus so that's the concept is to make a wide area network for the entire County that would help underserved families and communities as well as take care of those issues is where someone might be on a longer bus ride and they they were technically there's another grant that we worked on that puts cradles in the buses that allow for the kids to go ahead and access it so it's a combination of the two it's really not a whole lot on our end in terms of the counties the ones that are setting up the uh uh the towers however they're working that we just get an agreement that allows them to do it and like I said our attorneys have reviewed it they don't have any problems with it that's not a cost to us that's just no it's it's it's more it's right right it's more of a benefit it's more of a benefit to us hmm looks good all right I'll have take a motion I moved to approve the IGA between Pinal County and the J.L Combs Unified School District for radio communication system as presented oh second what all right all in favor aye aye motion carries four to zero so we do not have any discussion information items um so anything would you have anything that you would like to request to be on future agendas yes I do okay um I was looking back over the last couple of agendas uh superintendent reports and all the great things our kids are doing and yet nobody in my community knows anything about him in my name and I don't know that people in our General District know about all the great stuff that our kids are doing whether it be banned competitions in in Statewide or national events whether it be swimming or or um shooting that you were talking about so and I drive by Ala and I see all their banners out front talking about the great programs they have and the great things going on and how do we compete with that and so I'm thinking and maybe Kayla if I could give you an assignment how do we get the word out about the great things our kids are doing our teachers are doing our principals are doing get the word out to our community to our district so we can compete with all the signs that people see because they don't drive by and see signs in front of our schools and they don't even know what's going on in our schools and we've got to get more public and more aggressive with our marketing plan to get the word out so I'd like to see something along those lines if you could work on that and present something to us in the future okay any um did you say you had something I had a thought I guess but that comes upwards um doctor I've even mentioned something about it was something that was lightening the load for the teachers and I know I brought this up before um and I sometimes feel like uh people that step out of the classroom into administration at times and in the district they forget what it's like to be in a classroom teacher they start all these different initiatives it puts more work on the teachers and as the teachers are feeling the crunch they don't seem to see themselves being recognized they're looking for other places to go would want you to put in the back your mind what are we doing to lighten the load of our teachers just think just what are we doing without saying oh I know what it was like to be a teacher no you don't you're not in the classroom we're not in the classroom we don't know don't tell me your mom was a a teacher that you're no you're not there I feel like people forget what it's like to be a teacher they're so passionate what are we doing well I'm a teacher I'm a teacher right now and it is a weight on your shoulders yes and about every other day you're like why am I doing this job it's because I love these kids but something is pulling these teachers away and I know other districts are struggling but what are we doing what are we doing or how how what can we do that something that's got where there's got to be something we've got great people in this room to say what are we doing to help these people so often I feel like and this is just part of my thought as I see things happen I feel like there's a bunch of adults trying to impress adults and we really don't do what's good for kids I put the teacher in a situation we have to spend five hours of their weekend time doing lesson plans so what do you want do you want that to be on the agenda I I said my own ideas I get it yeah teacher myself I'm still in the classroom right busting my tail with third graders I'll tell you right now busting my toe with third graders they're fun and as much as I love these kids man yeah I'm feeling that weight so I totally get what you're saying and I I think I even that was one of my questions for each of those principles um when I went to talk to them so um I think maybe that's a discussion that we can have with Dr Wyman um like do do you would you rather discuss this like maybe individually or would you like us to have this in a meeting not an agenda item or for our Retreat a retreat can we do that at the retreat okay I do have to put in a plug the paper thing I think is awesome my daughter came to me last night and she's like I'm chatting with someone on paper helping me with my math and I'm like that's great yeah because you know I think more the more they use it I think the more people Yeah the more one person use it maybe another one will use it yeah um but no I mean I underst I totally understand where you're coming from Jason and I had those same exact questions and um and I think that there might be I there might be some room I don't know but let's see yeah our teachers aren't necessarily telling the district or their or their supervisors or their principals why they're really leaving oh no I think they are I I don't know if they will I do think they are I don't know but I mean maybe they are but because I mean some administrators are clueless to what these people are leading leaving their schools and and if it's becoming other school I mean Dr Miami you sent out that paper looking at the the hiring shortages in different places like is there anything we can do we've got some solid people in this room is there any any ideas we could possibly look at this this is something we could do well I'll I'll I'll bring you celebrations of what we're doing um uh when we start talking about when I got here three years ago and I think we have to be very careful because this is this could go in a lot of different directions and I'll I'll I won't get on my soapbox purposefully about where how we're bashing the hell out of Administrators and teachers and education people in general in this country and that's what's driving this if you sit and smash people for 35 38 years that I've been doing this and you ask them why the hell won't they be in a minister or be a teacher an educator an administrator it's because you bash them for the better part of 35 years right 40 years so we have to keep that in mind but our starting salary the year I got here was thirty nine thousand dollars our starting salary right now was fifty thousand dollars we've given stipends we've tried to hire people and so I think that the piece that people understand is is at the end of the day when you take covert with and you take the political environment that's out there right now that's absolutely hammering people it becomes something that we don't have control over when you sit and look at the disrespect and the lack of respect and the fact that on a regular basis educators are called pedophiles they're called groomers they have caught they're called all of that and then right and right and so then why would I want to take and keep the job but that doesn't mean we're not working to go ahead and make a difference in light and loads but at the same time we're going to sit here and say let's lighten the load let's do this but tell me what happens if at the end of the day our test scores and I'm not saying the test scores the end-all be-all but we know they are the end-all be-all for lots of people and when our test scores don't come in why didn't the test scores come in so now we're now we're asking for something on both ends of the spectrum and it creates a heck of a problem when we talk on both ends of the spectrum on what you're supposed to do no different discussion about the budget is is what there's limited resource and in this community and I'll just say the community I'll be very careful but the community of across the county line from north to south that doesn't want to be competitive relative to an override puts us at a significant disadvantage to go ahead and do stuff and so if I am not getting more money and I'm required to do the same amount of work as down the street can I tell you how many different individuals we lose from every single position we're eight bus drivers short we have food service people we can't fill we have technology people that can go across down the street for eight bucks an hour more we have teachers we have administrators we have just about anybody that can go down the street for more but if we're not going to do an override which I'm going back to my days in AJ so that's in 2006 when they failed the last override there we're talking close to 14 20 years that they're not giving overrides well everybody wants to assist not only are they giving overrides of 10 percent of giving overrides of 15 well I don't know so Queen Creek did not pass his his bond right right but how many overrides they got an override they're sitting there sitting on a 15 override I'm talking about a bond I'm talking about an override and I know but when is that one up because I don't know that I mean I'm okay I think that Jason is saying that hey we last year we put a lot of new um programs in place not because we wanted to it was almost because we had no choice and and I get that right no not to say because a lot of our um things were coming up they weren't being supported all that kind of stuff so we put a lot like our systems that all of our our everybody across the campus had to to learn and then we have um modern teacher too which I don't think that our I think our teachers are on board but I think that they need some time so if if we can't give them a raise or like they do like in the other districts can we give them a little bit of time like if that's all they're asking for and I'm not saying that is but if that's if that would help can we do that like give them some time in their classroom to actually put what they learn like to to use I'm just saying if that's if that's all let's give it well we know that with the PD here on the 20th we're blocking out time for them to go ahead and work to to apply what they're learning right so five minutes right the all afternoon is what I'm understanding 75 minutes yeah I'm just saying from a teacher's standpoint that's I don't know PD that's just more work to me yeah so that's just more I'm just saying like they I think that they I mean what I'm hearing is they absolutely love the PD and they think it's great and but they're just I think they're asking for some time to do it in their classrooms and to learn and like figure out how to put it in to put it to work and if they can do that and maybe we can relieve some of that stress a little bit I I say give them it like I don't know how do we how do we get the time I don't know but I mean if that's one way but you can do it I don't know if there's let's let's think outside of the box too on that one like how can we just decrease some of that stuff for like let's bring down the frustration and I'm talking across the board I know that if there's just as much situation in in in in the district office as there is at all the sites in in facilities I mean we got all kinds of uh stuff going on with our bus drivers and our um custodians right like they're working hard so I'm just saying like there's frustration everywhere so if we can bring down some of the stress in some places let's do it that's just that's what and this is now we're totally off topic of what future agenda items so is there any more dang agenda items that you want all right so you know what I'm going to um I'm gonna make a motion to adjourn okay at 7 33.
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I second oh Jason's gonna do it because he's coming in hot right now all right all right all in favor aye aye okay motion carries four to zero what time seven thirty three okay [Music] I think you're right I like that do we have stuff to sign okay right here
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so let's uh kick off the meeting here and uh we'll start off by doing a roll call and remind everyone to uh to um say where you are physically at as we are going to be uh virtual this evening um and uh I guess before we do that before I ask Heather to help us do that this is Heather's last meeting so and you know she's going to introduce Chris uh I guess technically this has last meeting unless she really wants to continue participating in which case you could certainly do so um but but uh we wouldn't want to inflict that on her we have an empty seat or two yeah we have a vacancy or two right we do yes that's right that's absolutely right um well let's go ahead and start Heather could you help us with the roll please sure well before we get into that let me officially introduce Chris Cespedes who's going to be um your liaison going forward and Chris comes to us from Miami Florida so I was experiencing this wonderful weather um now and um I don't do you want to just say a few words about yourself Chris yeah so um I just wanted to express my overall excitement to be a part of uh of this task force and and join it as its newest staff liaison uh some of my background is in biological sciences and as Heather mentioned I have five years of experience working prior to this with Miami-Dade County so now uh I'm excited to um work with uh all of you to address the challenges that the committee is facing thank you welcome thank you for for joining us welcome where exactly are you in the city structure Heather was a community engagement specialist in systems planning yeah are you are you Chris in the same yeah and no I am the management assistant for the engineering department oh and also uh works with systems planning which is the unit that I came from welcome Chris thank you very much for taking over uh we will try and uh not drive you crazy um but uh we do really appreciate you and your work so thank you it'll be we'll be welcome to the team and I would like to say that I I've rarely met such an outstanding administrative expert as Heather and I thank her very much for all the fabulous work technically and diplomatically that she's done with us we're not the easiest group thank you all right well let's jump into roll call then council member Briggs here and where are you sir Stephen portstar hi present for Ann Arbor great Jennifer is absent uh Mr dejones absent Alan Haber I'm right here on the old west side Ann Arbor Michigan present Sarah is absent Jeffrey Henney uh Jeff Henny and I'm an Ann Arbor Rita Mitchell I'm here in Ann Arbor Alice Ralph yes here in Ann Arbor great Frank wall home uh here on further out on the west side from Allen uh school area come up and by the way I'm on Stadium Boulevard so right Adam Zemke here in Ann Arbor all right sounds good and uh I uh because I am driving I don't have the agenda pulled up in front of me are we on for the the minutes or the agenda next oh sure we are sorry we are I'm sorry just a moment please okay we are um approval of agenda all right so uh everyone has had a chance Heather sent out the agenda a couple of days ago and registrar for a while uh could we have a motion to approve motion oh second all right all in favor of approving the agenda as written say aye be opposed all right motion carries uh then we'll move on to the minutes uh from uh the last meeting I know there was some uh discussion about one of the attachments um is there uh are there any other questions regarding uh the minutes from the meeting in February no all right we have a motion to improve move in a second all in favor uh uh approving the minutes is written say aye all right all right motion carries um and then I think we're going to public comments am I right Heather that's correct and we have somebody with a hand up we have many people with hands up so we'll start with a person whose number ends with three two six you should be able to talk now hello this is Jeff Crockett can you hear me perfect okay I live at 506 East Kingsley and I've been a resident of Ann Arbor for over 50 years in 2019 I retired after a 45-year career in special education spent in creating educational communities to help students with disabilities and developing numerous professional development programs I know what it takes to create and support complex projects and this explains why I volunteered to help with the development of the conference it is my opportunity to give back to Ann Arbor throughout my career I've seen and carried out many activation plans trust me the Council of the commons activation recommendations presented here tonight is one of the best activation plans I have seen hats off to Adam Zemke Rita Mitchell and Frank Wilhelm due diligence would be the two words I would choose to describe this document this work has been the result of extensive research about the experience of other communities that have developed Urban parks and Commons in truth if you were to calculate the investment time of all those who have worked toward helping to have advocate for the commons over the past year it would be well over two thousand dollars an impressive investment in human capital I would like to specifically thank Alan Haber I'm on the bicentennial history subcommittee which is creating a timeline of significant in our event during my research I learned that Alan was the first president of the students for Democratic Society in 1960 which means that he has been fighting for social justice and power for everyday people for over 62 years certainly we have faced many challenges in activating the commons many of them systemic such as the complicated and confusing permit process did you know that an applicant needs to apply three months in advance or that the permit system specifies parts but done Urban Plaza or that it is necessary to get expensive and debt event insurance that lower income folks can't afford or that the application has to be completed offline in Penn and that needs to be scanned and attached to a stream template can you believe that the good news though is that I've met with Derek Deli court and he agrees that the application process is flawed I'm going to be creating a frequently asked questions document to help make the process more accessible Derek thank me for the offer and I am pleased to help finally I am happy to report that we are nearing approval from the city for installing murals on two walls near the existing Community Gardens we have secured ten thousand four hundred dollars in donations to fund the working work being done by well-known local artists Mary tiefels one of the donors Larry nisson has generously donated funds to do murals and a variety of downtown locations and Larry recently received a 2023 initiator award from creative Washington it is envisioned that murals will eventually be in all the walls of the Comet these murals will become a visitor magnet and provide an impelling case for providing tables and chairs for casual use drawing from the experience of other communities is well understood that short-term activation must precede a long-term Vision we need to get the cars off the library lot now thank you for your consideration together Jeff uh what's up next okay Robert black oh I'm sorry I clicked the the other person who had their hands up so speaker with the number ending in five three four you can go ahead thank you this is Tom stahlberg calling from Lower Town in Ann Arbor I've read the activation recommendations and it's an impressive piece of work so I briefly like to just say I'm very grateful for your hard work and I'm very enthusiastic about where this will lead us thank you very much all right thank you Mom Robert black can you hear me okay Heather I can yeah yes it works technology Works um thank you all I'm really happy to see you again I'm very sorry I missed your last meeting only the third in the last two years of all of your meetings I've been the only person who has been that dedicated to this work publicly uh on this group and I'm just so happy to see you tonight um first I want to just say I didn't make any formal remarks but I wanted to say thank you to Heather I want to Echo the comments of Mr Henny that Heather has been very professional in her diplomacy process and her ability to just handle this organization has been exemplary and I just like to personally say thank you to Heather I did meet with her and Mr Zemke and and Miss Ralph uh some time ago and I was always um pleasantly pleased with the way that she handled herself and the the uh the need to keep the city in the center of this work also I'd like to welcome uh Chris I think it's really neat to see some new blood in here and I'm I'm looking forward to seeing what uh he will bring to this endeavor especially if he's got a biological sciences background that is another dimension to engineering I think I teach at a Waldorf School so um and then um I just uh I'm so sorry I missed that last meeting but I'm glad to see this work um I have served lived in Ann Arbor for 30 years and served on many different public and private and University and business related organizations and um what I'm seeing now over the last two years as I've spoken in this group I'm seeing some things come to fruition and many of the comments that I did make previously are now actually moving forward and the first one has to do with alignment and I want to say within alignment within the council the commons is better than it's ever been um certain aspects of it that were divisive have left the scene and now you're working much more uh better together um also within that to know that as you've said it that the initiating committee is also aligned with you and there have been some contentious issues but I believe those are largely bridged and resolved now um but the alignment without is important also right now there are contentious forces outside the council The Commons in the center of the city with that would seek to demolish or do ill to this process I think it's imperative that you meet that with some passion and force so that you can move forward I won't say too much more about the RFP in particular I think you're moving in the great Direction with that I've submitted previous things about the specifics of the RFP that I think are important and then also harvesting the gold mine of the task force that lives that you could share more of that specific data with your potential um uh bidders that would come in on the request for proposal and then lastly activation I am thrilled I am thrilled by this document that I see here the connection to the parks in Liberty Plaza Jessica black is amazing and what you can do with her the Kemp house connection and this idea of all the things that are coming to bear on the activation for the um the library lot and uh and and uh Library Lane there um the the murals the green team is a is an example of this work and the other thing I will say is that there's an activation event that's being planned through the initiating committee that's getting some real serious momentum Wild Ones has a step forward Robert Gracie is going to be helpful we're working with Missy Stoltz to see if she will be a speaker and there's a number of things the theme of this year's uh Earth Day April 22nd is invest in the planet and it's very different than some of the what you might call woo-woo things of the past so I would encourage you all to step forward and help bring this out so that that event will you know bring string lights and you not even a internet portal but in that physical portal to the commons and then lastly this creating Community excitement you're doing it um I love it that you're just cheerleaders for this work let's build it out and bring it out into the community and move with some some Force into Mr hones connections for the bicentennial next year so that that will be a plea a complete celebration that will set Ann Arbor on the map once again for one of its other most to me the amazing things so thank you good to see you good luck Heather and have a great meeting tonight thank you thank you Robert any uh any other members of the public Heather that is it excellent okay well I think uh in that case we will move on to the next item of the agenda and I believe that as uh our special guests for this evening uh David Cohen uh who uh David has uh become I think a really uh good friend and uh helpful advisor uh to uh some of us uh I know uh Rita and Alice or Frank may want to speak I was unable to make the physical tour uh that he took some folks on uh quite some time ago now but um his uh organization downtown Detroit partnership he is probably one of the coolest job titles that I've heard in a long time but they were recently in the news because of uh their exemplary work at campus marshes being featured as one of the best uh or I think the best Town Square in the United States by USA Today readers so we were very pleased to talk with him uh on an ongoing basis and very pleased to have him here tonight I don't know Rita Frank if you'd like to add anything else to that before we have David on well uh we we had heard about David prior to meeting him and he just blew away our already high expectations uh of what uh his organization what he personally is bringing to the downtown Detroit partnership and he's truly an inspiration and I'm looking forward to your comments and uh our continued collaboration as we move forward in Ann Arbor welcome David thank you so much wow it's a it's a pleasure to see all of you again and this feels like a little bit of a Victory lap tour for me after the USA Today announcement so it's always nice to get some some national recognition and uh yeah the the momentum seems to really be picking up which which will be an exciting part of the of the presentation tonight so so thank you so much Rita good to see you and um and with that I will uh I'm gonna share my screen here and I'll get through a brief presentation and I'll leave lots of time for dialogue and questions because I think that's important I'm sure uh you all have a lot of specifics to get into after that I read the activation plan well done um and I hope hope that I can shed a little bit of light onto onto that as well so here let me share my screen I'm assuming you can all see that now we're here to watch all right well uh like I said thank you again for having me uh my name is David Cowan I am the chief public spaces officer here at the downtown Detroit partnership and my presentation for you tonight is the story of transformational investments in public spaces and place making in in in downtown Detroit where I am live uh coming to you right now so you can record that in the minutes coming to you from downtown Detroit um and I should say the outset too that I'm not naive to the fact that Ann Arbor and Detroit are very different uh communities but what I hope to inspire is that every project that we have undertaken to date while it's different in size and scope has had a beginning very similar to The Commons and Liberty Plaza and has really evolved over time into something really quite impressive and beautiful so a big theme you will soon realize in the presentation is is really what everyone loves and that's a good before and after photo um but I think for a community like Detroit it really helps tell the story of growth which has been particularly dramatic over the past 10 to 15 years so here is a uh a photo of a block about a uh about a minute away from my downtown office where I'm at now and on the left side is a blighted streetscape you know completely vacant uh series of storefronts as well as you know some pretty dilapidated uh pedestrian infrastructure and on the right is a clean and vibrant series of storefronts an expanded Cafe space and it's really hard to believe that this is the same set of buildings the same view just 10 years apart and I really love this uh this this before and after because it really demonstrates the incredible commitment and urgency around public space while also showing the magnitude of the effort to change perception of Detroit and our one square mile downtown in just 10 short years and so you know that perception is not an easy thing to uh to to change after generations of challenges a major bankruptcy filing uh but obviously can be done and it's it's happening um so I I love this before and after well this is uh this is a Time Time magazine cover uh from 2009 on the left the tragedy of Detroit this was the The Narrative and this uh one on the right Detroit named one of the world's greatest places by the same magazine it called the tragedy uh of the country in 2009 so pretty pretty stark contrast in comparison really and and we're very pleased to see this uh this this cover story from time come out just uh about three months ago a few short months so you know add that to the USA Today bus best Public Square add that to the best Riverfront add it to Time Magazine one of the best places in the world and I think the DIA also just got a really good shout out as being a top art museum in the country by the same publication so a really great time a really good period of momentum for I think cities uh in general and and really the pandemic in my opinion has not has not slowed anything down it's just uh allowed us to tweak how we're approach our work so with that the organization I work for is called the downtown Detroit partnership and we are a hundred year old public-private partnership P3 and we're also a place management organization that has really several key focuses uh I won't read all of these but uh you know some of the the top focuses are parks and public spaces Urban Innovation and planning Signature Events we hold our business Improvement Zone we have our our Bike Share under our under our wing and we've also got a pretty incredible board uh made up of 60 of my bosses so corporate leaders in in Michigan and in in Detroit so we have quite a wide diversity of work that that that we're constantly um uh tackling so here I am on the left um and our team here at DDP is now approaching 50 full-time folks and over 250 seasonal or contract employees and uh just to give you the State of the State and some context our budget's about 17 million annually from an operating standpoint and I serve a dual role here at DDP I'm on our leadership team and I also oversee our parks in public spaces events uh and corporate Partnerships so for the public spaces specifically as part of that that budget we're at approximately 7 million annually with a staff of 16 full-time and our work really spreads across six public spaces uh five of them truly public one of them private but operated just like any other of our public spaces same rules same access um and that was important to us but um but we have just over half a million square feet of space all walkable you can get to every one of our parks within a 10-minute walk and uh you can see a handful of the team posts here on the right uh during our centennial celebration last year uh and so you know my background's really in urban planning and arts management so you'll see this approach in the design of the spaces uh as well as the programming which we'll get more into you know shortly but uh but first I wanted to give you some context some lay of the land of the of the area we're talking about so you're looking at uh downtown Detroit one square mile both the 1830s original map from Augustus Woodward on the left as well as the map that we use today so actually much of the original grid from from the Woodward plan is still pretty much intact and right at the center of it is an area called campus marshes which has not always been a park it's it's been a district that actually uh translates the field of Mars it was the location of an old Barracks that was uh torn down and became sort of a convergence of Roads uh and you can see that here in this this historic photo from 1922.
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okay good evening I'd like to open the regularly scheduled meeting of the Clifton Board of Education for Thursday March the 2nd 2023. if you all would kindly please rise for a salute to our flag followed by a brief moment of silence into the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you foreign miss basford here Mr Brunswick here Mr Mejia here Mr Paris here Mr Santiago here vice president Danny here and president Smith here uh Mr Awad was here for a um uh Committee hearing uh this evening and had to leave so he will not be present for the remainder of the meeting um our mission statement vice president Danny if you would the mission of the Clifton School District in an open and reciprocal Community Partnership is to provide all students with a quality education to develop the skills necessary to become literate lifelong Learners who are responsible and productive citizens contributing to a Democratic Society in an ever-changing world our open public meetings act the New Jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right to the public to have advance notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act the Clifton Board of Education has caused notice of this meeting to be publicized by having the date time and place thereof posted at the city clerk's office Clifton Public Library administration building senior citizen Nutrition Center on cable TV in the local press and on the district's website and also mailed to presidents of parent-teacher organizations this meeting will be tape recorded in accordance with our policy zero one six eight okay uh we're going to start with public recognition are you ready for that all right while we're doing that I'll read the public recognition this portion of the meeting is open to the residents and non-residents of the city of Clifton for the purpose of addressing any subject matter pertinent to and or directly related to the operation of the Clifton Public School District residents and non-residents are requested if they're in person to sign the register provided for this purpose all speakers are asked to State their names municipality and subject matter before speaking comments are limited to five minutes per person issues raised by members of the public may or may not be responded to by the board all comments will be considered and a response will be forthcoming if and when appropriate your questions may or may not be answered by board members the board asked that members of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of other individuals when speaking specifically comments regarding students and employees of the board are discouraged and will not be responded to by the board students and employees have specifically specific legal rights afforded to them by the laws of the state of New Jersey the board Bears no responsibility nor will it be held liable for any comments made by members of the public members of the public should consider their comments in light of the legal rights of those affected or identified in their comments and be aware that they are legally responsible and liable for their comments okay our um our call-in session has been open um are there any people uh waiting to be heard hi uh you're at the Clifton Board of Ed meeting did you want to make a public comment hi you're at the Clifton Board of Education meeting did you want to make a public comment hi cell phone caller uh you're live at the Board of Education meeting would you like to address the board all right one last shot here cell phone caller you're live at the Board of Education hello hello can you hear me yes hi this is the Clifton Board of Education would you like to address the board yeah okay if you kindly just state your name okay you have five minutes please go ahead I sent an email concerning my remarks and testimony from the February 9 2022 meeting regarding the lgbtqia webinar I have yet to receive an answer the center of Garden State family was also copied on the email I'm still waiting for an answer I am a taxpayer resident of Clifton and I expect an answer regarding the email that I sent to a reborn member and the superintendent thank you good night okay thank you anyone else you okay pleasure of the board seen on motion to close motion to close the colon by uh commissioner abadrabo seconded by vice president Danny now we'll do the uh in person if you wish to address the board kindly come up to the podium sign the roster state your name and municipality in which you live good evening my name is Renee Holland and I have been teaching at Clifton High School since 1996 and yet this is the first time that I am speaking out of board of magic Education meeting I thought I was going to make it to retirement but I have Mr Greg Quinlan the speaker at the last meeting to thank for bringing me here tonight Mr Quinlan stated that his name was maligned and ridiculed but from what I was able to see he did a fine job of that himself so from this point I am addressing Mr Quinlan and any others who share his sentiment you claim that you know what is going on in schools how do you know do you hold a position on the board of education in a school district how many children do you have have you volunteered your time at schools at any capacity how many years experience do you have working with adolescents Mr Quinlan you need to walk away from cable news and start thinking for yourself you have no idea what goes on in Clifton schools and you suggesting you do is not only laughable but an embarrassment to you but let's pretend for a moment that you do know what's going on in schools if that's the case then you would know Mr Quinlan that the lgbtqia plus Community has the highest rates of suicide so you being aware of that fact and yet you continue the verbal attacks against these children makes you a bully you being an ex-gay does not make you an authority figure on the topic but it is quite comical the way you think you understand it all through your Ghana study and your lesbian feminist quote but what you are missing is something a nurse retired or not should never be without your blatant lack of empathy and compassion is a disgrace according to the Trevor Project National mental health survey in 2022 the lgbtqia plus youth are not inherently prone to Suicide risk because of their sexual orientation or gender identity but rather placed at higher risk because of how they are mistreated and stigmatized in society so once again you coming here with your smug attitude and your insensitive comments implicates you as a direct contributor to the emotional and mental distress inflicted upon the minor children in our community shame on you words matter Mr Quinlan and too often words have repercussions far from what we ever intended 13 years ago a college freshman who was coming to terms with his sexuality as a gay male was humiliated on the Internet by some of the students in his dorm imagine the loneliness and despair that this 18 year old felt as he jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge do you remember that story Mr Quinlan do you remember his name have you ever silently prayed that your children will never have to endure such rejection and hatred as Tyler Clementi did have you ever been awakened by a child crying stating that they hate who they are always have and don't know how to stop the pain have you ever looked a child in the eyes and said go ahead don't be scared tell me there will never be anything that will make me stop loving you lgbtqia plus adolescents are not merely numbers from a study and your statistics from Harvard do not Define them you cannot measure what's in the heart Mr Quinlan you stayed at homosexuality is not normal if you were the picture of what normal represents dear Lord I pray we stay abnormal forever here's what's not normal what is not normal is 80 percent of the lgbtqia plus youth report severe social isolation and that every 45 seconds a member of the community tries to commit suicide what is not normal is going on the Trevor Project website and seeing the message wait times to reach a counselor are higher than usual thanks for your patience we'll be with you soon what is not normal is a grown adult in 2023 knowing these facts but it's not deterred and mocking and humiliating an already marginalized community so as you can see you are the problem Mr Quinlan you were the one that damages children emotionally you're mocking of lgbtqia-xyz was not funny and it further demonstrates your intent to harm and ridicule the young and and vulnerable population which you claim to desperately care so much about but I thank you for helping me create the acronym I now use when you are here as lgbtqia-a-s-s you were correct about one thing this is not Winnie the Pooh and you're not Tigger and you're not the only one but we the educators of this Clifton Community especially the ones at the high school We Are The Velveteen rabbits we're our love for the students make them real thank you [Applause] anyone else wish to address the board hi Tova Felder Twain place uh Happy read Across America day just wanted to say apparently my hair decided to do an impression of Hermione Granger in honor of the day don't know what's going on here but um as most of you know I am now the editor of the Clifton times which is a daily digital news source and one of the things that I decided to do oh apparently I jogged here was to bring in some CHS writers to work with me because I'm I know there's a ton of talent in our district and especially in our high school and a lot of these students don't necessarily have a way to share their talent publicly and I wanted to see if we could do that so I have Stephanie Feliciano albera jabril and Elias Ragsdale who are all writing with the Clifton times please make sure you check out their pieces they're all really great writers and shout out to Elias especially who sat through a longer than I expected it to be meeting to cover it for the Clifton times last week and he did it he did the whole thing and he did a great job um and also albara is highlighting different students students who maybe don't always get the spotlight but should and Stephanie has been highlighting some of the clubs at CHS to help bring that to the community so that people especially people who have children who are not yet in the high school will get a little glimpse of some of the stuff CHS has to offer which I think is great and on a more personal note also kind of yay Clifton my son who is in his first year at Rutgers School of Engineering this year came up through Clifton schools his entire education just made the Dean's List at the School of Engineering no no small feat in classes like the ones he had to take and he texted us last night so excited sent us a screenshot of it and while his dad and I certainly would like to take some credit both for whatever genetics we passed on and for the way we raised him Nobody Does it alone and you know and of course Jesse gets plenty of credit for being the kid he is but he is a product of our school system so thank you to Clifton and especially his teachers at CHS who's did such a good job preparing him that off to college he went and he's smoking it so thank you [Applause] thank you is there anyone else that wishes to address the board seen on no one else Miss llama's not getting up oh geez oh well no I didn't mean to egg you on I'm just I was just shocked that's all I guess you twisted my arm I was waiting for a huge fight but I can throw my papers away so I'm happy with that I just want the community to know what fantastic teachers Paras uh counselors CST nurses um custodian secretaries security we have the best group here and we only want what's best for the kids here in Clifton I don't personally live in Clifton but I have adopted thousands of kids since 2001 here in Clifton so we only want the best for the children here and all the other nonsense that is going on don't listen to the lip service it has nothing to do they're trying to confuse you so please continue to listen to the Educators here in this District we want what's best for your children and I can't thank the Board of Ed enough for listening to the Educators here and not listening to The Outsiders so thank you again [Applause] thank you anyone else okay motion to close by Mr Roberto second by Mr Paris thank you uh we don't have our student representative right see Tiffany here no okay um okay there uh I don't see Tiffany here there's no one else representing the the student body on a report tonight okay just so I don't Miss over um we now like to recognize our students of the month for the month of March at Clifton High School and uh if we would start uh whoever has the freshman good evening freshman Anthony Stella Anthony's favorite subject is history because of the positive classroom environment created by his teacher Mr Latt who makes learning fun and interactive this year Anthony has been academically Successful by working hard and having supportive Friends by his side Anthony's parents are also inspiring and encourage him in everything that he does Anthony's older sister is in the students at Montclair State program at CHS and in the future Anthony is considering doing the same congratulations Anthony [Applause] thank you it takes a village to right foreign that's right [Applause] I do Mr Smith thank you uh sophomore Ava Acuna Ava is a very busy student at CHS she's a member of the cheerleading team the founder of the CHS book club and a member of the Heroes and Cool Kids Club managing academics and activities can be difficult at times but Ava has support from her teachers peers and family specifically Ava thanks her mother and considers her as a Pillar of Strength she also acknowledges her teachers Mr iwas Mr Cadmus and Mr Rando for inspiring her to do her best this fall Ava will be in the BCC early college program congratulations Ava [Applause] congratulations thank you [Applause] Junior Walla Neal's favorite class is U.S history partially because of his teacher Mr Rogers Neil enjoys engaging in his daily discussions about historical topics and his teaching methods help students to understand complex topics Neil is the vice president of the coding Club a member of the Hindu Student Association and also a member of the investment Club Neil is planning on going to college to major in computer science and thanks his family for all the sacrifices they have made to give him the opportunities to be successful certificate of achievement this recognition is certified to Neil jariwala on behalf of the Clifton Board of Education Administration for the CHS Junior student of the month March 2023 congratulations Neil thank you sure do you have any questions um you know congratulations [Applause] senior Christian Grant Christian has witnessed a diversity firsthand Kirsten's mother has battled lupus breast cancer and her will to fight is what keeps Christian going Christian has excelled in and out of the classroom and he really enjoys his marking class told by Mr O'Brien because of the passion he brings to class Christian has a has been a standout on the CHS track and field team a recently Sunday scholarship to bring his talents to Felicia University where he will be pursuing a degree in business the following certificate of achievement reads this recognition is certified to Christian Grant on behalf of the Clifton Board of Education Administration for CHS senior student of the month March 2023 with sincere congratulations on your meritorious achievement with recognition by resolution of the board education the desire to excel is the formula to a lifetime success your efforts have brought distinction to you your family in the Clinton Public Schools signed by President Board of Trustees Jim Smith and superintendent Danny Roberts would you join me [Applause] good congratulations congratulations [Applause] hmm Such Great accomplishments on on such great students and um as Mr Lama will um has just attested to um students you've worked very hard and you should be commended for the the hard work that you've put into it but you've had a lot of help along the way starting with your families your parents who have been there and supported you each and every step of the way and we'll continue to be there for you and your teachers your principles and all those people that have believed in you um we're so very proud of you and so very much enjoy making these presentations to the students of the month each month so congratulations to each of you continued success and it is a school night so if you'd like to exit the meeting now you're more than welcome to do so but you're more than welcome to stay as well so um thank you again and congratulations [Applause] thank you thank you really see is it too so scholarships right next are uh again very successful uh and wonderful program in our pbsis program uh by run by our um our coordinator Miss Paula ragosa who has uh two presentations tonight to make all right good evening everyone good evening president Smith vice president Danny Dr robitosi Commissioners and Central Administration thank you once again for the opportunity to showcase what we're doing in Clifton with pbsis in advance I will have you'll have to pardon my excitement we are recognizing two of my favorite people to work with in this district and I'm just so excited to be able to share this with you all so here we go one of the main system drivers of pbsis programs and the key marker for program sustainability is embedding pbsis practices across District programs and within curricular areas this is best practice promoted by the national PBIS Center despite the importance of integration of pbsis across curricular counseling and systematic programs many districts Nationwide struggle with this integral integral interlaced support system tonight we recognize two outstanding administrators for their effort support and enthusiasm and collaboration with the district-wide implementation of pbsis framework Mrs Aaron zamuda the math supervisor for grades K-8 and Dr Valerie kropenek language arts supervisors for grades K-8 have seamlessly embedded the pbsis preventative practices into their curricula few districts share this tremendous achievement in our state many folks have difficulty seeing the pbsis framework as more than an extrinsic reward system and neglect inter-curricular and inter-programmatic practices however thanks to these administrators and their content area teams working together with our teachers across the district Clifton has been able to embed the framework into our teaching practices nowhere is this more evident than in language arts and Mathematics Dr kropenek and Mrs demuda lead teachers to achieve pbsis daily practices by modeling tailoring support to the teachers needs asking for feedback and simply respecting teachers time these actions said administrative poetry into motion while ensuring that teachers feel successful I want to express my gratitude for this curricular alignment supporting engagement in curricular areas shows the power of pbsis practices and extends Universal interventions Beyond those simple extrinsic motivators making them part of daily learning in a moment you'll hear from both supervisors on how that the partners the Departments partnered with pbsis to support and enhance literacy and math engagement through several exciting initiatives Mrs kusilevic will then share remarks regarding this Monumental partnership so first I would like to welcome up to the podium I miss Aaron zamuta thank you everyone I really appreciate this we usually work behind the scenes so it's a it's a little weird we got to be honest with you um one thing I would like to also recognize is I don't do this alone my team of math coaches and with Miss Jaeger at the high school we really work together um to make math achievement a reality here in the district along with the teachers and the students so pbsis and math we started a partnership this school year to give each marking period the classroom that has the highest accuracy in completing lessons a stem kit so it can be a Lego kit it could be magnetic blocks it could be um other different kinds of I'm going to use the word Erector Set because I'm old but different kinds of building materials so that kids can really get um to build things and make things in their hands so you see some of the students here and it's across all disciplines we have in special ed classrooms in gen Ed classrooms and ESL classrooms and the program adapts for every student I've told you all before it is one of the supplemental pieces that we really are trying to leverage here in District to meet the student where their needs are and bring them up to grade level as much as we can so here are some of our recipients recipients of our stem kits and Lego kits for the first two marking periods in K through five are six through eight you'll see again but they are also receiving kits and then every marking period we recognize the students themselves who again achieve the most past lessons or highest accurate accuracy in the program and the coaches will go out give them certificates take pictures with them and again this is across the District kindergarten through eighth grade we hold contests imagine math holes contests in fact a high school teachers geometry class won a fifty dollar gift card to do a party even at the high school so one of the last things I want to highlight is something that we love so much about this program is that students in grades three and up can actually donate their think points to Charities both local and National and we're going to start with pbsis recognizing these students so you're going to see six names here these kids have donated the most in District from September to yesterday so they will also be recognized recognized through pbsis and again I don't do this by myself Christine gechi Kehoe Maggie whitillo and Hilary vangel along with Aaron Jaeger really help Drive everything along with me I am not an island unto myself and uh Dr kropenak and I work really closely together as well as Miss kutzalevich so I couldn't do anything without them so thank you very much foreign [Applause] I'm excited um as Aaron said we intend to work behind the scenes we tend to not take the Kudos but I couldn't do this job again without the support from my team which is in the back should I actually miss patala Mrs Maser and Mrs Hogan and Mr Stefano in our Middle School so we've leveraged pbiss with our book vending machine so it's very important to me as a supervisor we've we bought the book vending machine right after we came back from kovid in three of our buildings and then it got wind some of our principles are well how come I don't have one and we want to put books in kids hands that was the big big project for me I wanted all kids to have a book in their hand and the way to do that was to partner with pbsis and kids can earn that entry coin every month every week um and when the first time we did it was at school 17 on that Friday with Mr Gorski and the amount of kids that lined up to get that coin with their ppss dojo points there was just fascinating to me and then now we've every school has one including our middle schools and our middle school has leveraged we have videos out there our kids are excited and I'm going to put a chime in here our preschool buildings got their machines today I know they're not part of the pbsis but we wanted to make sure our kids are supported and that partnership um continues I think that's it right okay and our kids are in action and then I'm thankful for my team because they go out each marking period to reward AR or Accelerated Reader Program and our rods kids program for K through one and again with the entry token rpbsis bucks I think in the Middle School it's the golden ticket is hidden in one of the books for our kids so it's just really something that's very exciting for us thank you I think that's it foreign so I would like to really thank both Valerie and Aaron and their teams the all of our math and language arts coaches as well as our high school math and language arts supervisors and Aaron Jaeger and Dave White as a team they really work together to you know that they they're here to drive curriculum to promote instruction but to get kids engaged in curriculum and instruction requires people to be creative and that's what these two ladies embody they embody the best in creativity and they're tying together that social emotional piece that motivational piece the engagement necessary to get kids excited about something other than a video game now I know imagine math may be electronic but it's developing deeper skills and by tying it to these stem kits we're also getting the kids a little bit away from the computer letting them do some Hands-On 3D modeling in front in their classroom whether it be through a building activity um and by the way erector sets are not old because they still exist and that's another thing that we could add to those Hands-On Makerspace stem type based activities from the literacy perspective paper books matter yes you can always read on a screen but all of the brain research shows how our students learn better retain more from paper pencil activities and from reading books on paper so we're trying to strike that fine balance of getting our kids engaged in curriculum being tech savvy 21st century Learners while also being able to engage in deep curricular activities and Hands-On activities and that's what these two ladies do they drive their teams to ensure that our kids are fully engaged and the partnership with pbsis you know so many of the wonderful presentations you see about pbsis every year I'm sorry every month focus in on that extrinsic motivation but that's just kind of like the the universal layer the fun lining there's an awful lot more to this system of support we are building an integration of our behavioral practices with our inrs system with our curriculum so that we're able to do those secondary tiers what you see is the universal level that fun stuff that hooks kids in but that then helps identify which students are not getting hooked in and that targets those students to then receive addition an additional look with check-in checkout systems referrals to counseling referrals to basic skills additional supports that secondary tier is the real meat of pbsis but people don't quite see it yet because you know what that's not the fun part that's not the hook so here we celebrate that hook and that fun that Universal support and these ladies are taking that to the next level by now connecting that hook into that content and our counseling team is working on connecting that hook into our social emotional supports so over time we are building a really strong structure to support our student social emotional behavioral Developmental and oh yes learning and academic needs so ladies thank you for being such an integral part of this pyramid [Applause] um president Smith Dr robitosi would you help us hand out these certificates please so miss Aaron zamutas thank you so much congratulations [Applause] sorry I'm sorry did you know uh the um the board is going to be um uh breaking into executive session um to um be updated on um legal legal matters sorry I couldn't come up with the uh the the right word um so this is at the uh this is the time that the um are I'm losing our special ed council could be available to the board to to give that to us so um the board will be breaking away for a brief moment um to be updated on our uh special ed attorneys and at which time we'll come back and continue with the rest of the meeting um however if the board is okay with it um I just quickly like to um do the um educational Administration part um because um number one on that is the national women's history month and um Miss Lori lalama was a very instrumental and received an award um in this area from the New Jersey Education Association it was the Elizabeth Allen women in education award in recognition for Lori's dedication to public education by promoting women's rights and equality for all persons so we thought it would be great if Lori would read the resolution if it's okay with the board um and if we do that now and do our um our section B um before we break for executive session motion to move the group okay motion move my group I miss basford second by a Mr Paris any discussion okay we'll have you read the uh ea1 please thank you very much whereas women of every race class and ethnic background have made historic contributions to the growth and strength of our nation in countless recorded and unrecorded ways whereas women have played and continued to play critical economic cultural and social role in every sphere of Life Of The Nation by constituting a significant portion of the labor force working inside and outside of the home whereas women have played a unique role throughout the history of the nation by providing the majority of the volunteer labor force of the nation whereas women were particularly important in the establishment of early charitable philanthropic and cultural institutions in our nation whereas women of every race class and ethnic background served as early leaders in the Forefront of every major Progressive social change movement whereas women have served our country courageously in the military whereas women have been leaders not only in securing their own rights of suffrage and equal opportunity but also in the Abolitionist Movement the Emancipation movement the industrial labor movement the civil rights movement and all other movements especially the peace movement which creates a more fair and just Society for all and whereas despite the contributions of the role of women in history has been consistently overlooked and undervalued in the literature teaching and study of American History therefore be it resolved that the Clifton Board of Education honors the contributions of women have made throughout history and commit to support efforts to improve opportunities for girls and women and declare March as a national women's History Month thank you hey roll call please Mr abujrabo yes Berg yes Mr brunsiak yes Mr Mejia yes Mr Paris yes Mr Santiago yes vice president Danny yes president Smith yes oceans carry uh while we're confirming that the special ed council is here if until we get that confirmation if you don't mind we could continue on uh with um walking in there now so we'll now we'll do a person we'll do uh Personnel C sure okay we have uh P1 through p uh 21 no moved by Mr Robot second by Miss basford discussion seeing non-roll call please Mr abadrabo yes Miss basford yes Mr Brunson yes Mr Mejia yes Mr Paris yes Mr Santiago yes vice president Danny yes president Smith yes motions Gary okay we'll move on to a d Finance facilities we have uh F1 through um F9 so it moved by Mr abadrabo all right second by Mr Paris discussion um I'm asking for number four eight nine three under facility use of facilities uh f8 sorry uh um be pulled uh for uh till we get uh some further information um I have some questions on on it so um if the board agrees to pull this till we get some uh further information from Administration on uh 4893 use of facilities all right rest of the group roll call please Mr abadrabo uh yes with the possession F9 Miss basford yes Mr runziak yes Mr Mejia yes Mr Paris yes Mr Santiago yes vice president Danny yes president Smith yes excuse me Mrs yes I need to abstain on board conferences uh my name only please okay Okay so let me just see what else as she was walking in the door do I have time to do anything else sorry minutes I didn't do minutes I'm sorry yeah that's why I hate it which number is that's fine the adoption I mean it's okay I'm sorry number 11 gang adoption of the minutes of our uh regularly scheduled meeting of February 9th um motion please by Miss basford second by Mr abadrabo discussion seeing none roll call please Mr abadrabo yes Miss bassford yes Mr bunziak yes Mr Mejia yes Mr Paris yes Mr Santiago yes vice president Danny yes president Smith yes motion carries okay uh so the board will be meeting um at this time to be updated by our special ed Council um we do not expect it to be a a lengthy exit um so 30 minutes the board will come back and continue with the rest of our meeting uh do I have a motion please to break to Executive session by Mr abadrabo second second by Mr Mejia any discussion roll call please Mr abadravo Miss basford yes Mr Brunswick yes yes Mr Paris yes Mr Santiago yes vice president Danny yeah yeah president Smith yes thank you so I'm doing it okay uh the board met an executive session uh to be updated by our special education Council on a special education items um we also had a Personnel matter and a um student matter an illegal matter okay roll call back from executive session please here Mr Brunswick Mr Mejia here Mr Paris here Mr Santiago here vice president Danny here president Smith here we have a quorum okay uh we will continue with our order of business um I'll come back to the superintendent since he's uh not here uh so we'll go to number 13 which is uh first reading of policy uh Judy you want to read those um sorry uh first reading a policy um zero one five two board offices is a mandated policy zero one six one call adjournment and cancellations it's mandated zero one six two notice of board meetings it's mandated 2423 bilingual and ESL education mandated 5200 attendance mandated five five one two harassment intimidation or bullying mandated eight one four zero student enrollment mandated eight three three zero Student Records mandated and eight five zero five local wellness policy nutrition nutrient standards for meals and other Foods mandated any questions on that all right seeing none um we'll move on to uh our board committee reports uh we will start with our diversity committee and Mr Mejia thank you president Smith so the diversity committee was held on February 13 uh 2023 so I'm just going to read the minutes from it those who attended were me commissioner Fahim aldrabo commissioner Judith bastard Commission of commissioner Jim Smith assistant superintendent Miss um excuse me I'm probably going to mispronounce it I always have trouble with it because you love us um assistant superintendent Mr gengaro Clifton principal Mr hamda some teachers that were on the committee were Miss malama Miss Lopez Miss tesca Miss Tavera Miss Turk Miss Terry and a couple of student Representatives as well so some topics of discussion were that the first thing we all introduce ourselves some new board members on the committee and we introduce ourselves some students and teachers we're all able to introduce ourselves and talk about what this Committee of what's going to be about the second thing on the agenda um the committee discussed different presentations that the Key Club has been hosting throughout um the year through the Garden State equality there are going to be three more presentations that are scheduled for the remainder of the school year and the committee also discussed discussed potential issues with technology related to the virtual meetings and how we could solve that as well for number three the committee discussed the impact and the influx of the ESL students in our district it's seen now that the ESL population has more than doubled since last year and there's a discussion over the impact on class sizes and counseling resources for these students there's going to be further discussion to ensure regarding different programs to assist these students like peer mentoring programs as well as Global mentoring programs and we're also discussed to help these new ESL students come into our district the committee then discussed the potential of a school diversity event that would be planned and implements but at different clubs here at CHS the event will celebrate different ethnicities and help educate others from different cultures in our district the CHS Administration will work together with students and clubs and other advisors to schedule this event and then the meeting then adjourn at 2 20 PM again it was chaired by me and me and Dr Robert will work together to determine when the next meeting will take place and what we can do is help Advance the um the minutes for this thank you okay anyone have any questions yes Mr Brunswick thank you president Smith uh different presentations hosting through Garden State equality is that is there an age restriction to these presentations from what um from the presentations from the Key Club no I don't think I don't believe so and you could just I don't think the Key Club has any age restriction though just a high school student so high school students only are invited okay thank you and could you describe some of the uh some of the technology potential issues with technology related to these virtual meetings so there was a concern saying that one person was eventually kicked out um we try to discuss potential you know not in a way to say that someone was kicked out they don't remember anyone ever being kicked out it might have been you know just a technology issue in general ways on how to prevent that from ever happening maybe we can keep a record of all um person who was involved um I know when you do log into Zoom or teams wherever you're at as soon as you end the meeting it does give you a list of people who did attend how long they attended and if they ended up leaving or not early depending on the time so that was one of the problems we try to solve and I should I I do believe that we talked about recording the meeting too so there would be other records of it so in case um somebody did come up with a question but there was a there was a lengthy discussion about recording the meeting as well thank you another question about the ESL family commissioner Mejia yeah so this just happened there's a double ESL does anybody know over here if we get an addition additional funding from the state or from the feds as a result of the influx of ESL because presumably we need additional classrooms for this influx of BSO does that sound correct to anybody yes sir Mr Brunswick the on October 15th we submit our Assa state report that's the annual um submission for state aid and you you get the Money Follows the student so you get a certain amount of money for a regular education student you get more money for a special education student because it costs more money to educate that student you get more money for an ESL student so we anticipate because of the influx of ESL students at the beginning of this year and our October 15th account being almost 400 students higher than last year we anticipate more funding because those students you get more aid for those students don't know what that number will be but we'll know soon so if it occurred last year it occurred this this calendar this school year right starting September so we won't even find out the number until next fiscal next fiscal year July 1st no not exactly so we know the number last October 15th right so most of these students came last summer we count our students October 15th that goes to the state and that number is what our state aid is based on for next school year starting July 1st so that's the number we're waiting on right now in fact actually we got it today we're just looking through it that's the the money the state aid for next school year so it's the amount of students October 15 2022 is what dictates how much state aid you get for the 22-23 school year that makes sense sorry 24.
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the board how important the redesign has been for the itinerant programs and how much work the regional directors the regional supervising teachers the lead teachers have put into the redesign two years of work that we have tirelessly put into the redesign and I am fearful that in not offering this contract and getting rid of the position the redesign will lose traction and stop and all of the hard work that's been put into it will have been for nothing thank you next we have Astrid goodstein on number 7.01 I'll start with 7.02 and 7.06 first and then I will move back as time allows thank you so much for this opportunity to speak to you all my name is Astrid I am a retired professor and administrator from gallaudet I now live here in the valley before I go into 7.06 and Beyond I would like to take this opportunity to say how thrilled I am by the new leadership of the board congratulations Sue Kay the community has the utmost trust in your leadership based on your history and we are looking forward to working with the board and working with superintendent reichmann and the community at Large we all share the same vision passion and love for Deaf children in Arizona at both of our campuses we have been thrilled by the passage of three laws that are moving us forward those bills have been SB 1092 the Arizona's version of lead k acdhh currently holds the responsibility for looking into metrics and into standards we have established data measurement and I'm happy to be a part of the task course that has reported that asdb is going to be taking one of the lead roles in this field which is a big point of responsibility and will put you on the map for the future another exciting expansion has been the passage of extra funding for expanding The Early Learning Program as well as family mentors that has been very exciting and it's been exciting to watch that grow and Thrive congratulations to Kendra third a small but still significant Passage in recognition of Annette's leadership asdb has always been a local education at agency or at least has been acting as one it has never been actually recognized as one and so putting that into law has actually been a bit set forward for us okay I see that in Maria Murphy's update and her legislative update and updates about what's going on with the legislature and how the board is responsible for policy changes Annette as superintendent it is her responsibility to let the board know what's happening within the legislator and make sure that policy is in line with different changes than things that she's responsible for making sure that things are in line some of her recommendations to the board did and moved on some have been rejected and some have simply been not put on the agenda by the former president I've seen a pattern of how her proposals are sometimes tweaked or disregarded okay I'll let The Interpreter catch a breath I would like this opportunity to speak a little bit about superintendent reichmann's background like I said I was a professor at gallaudet and at another nationally recognized College ntid we reported to Annette when she was in the Department of Education working for the federal government she was making sure that our policies were in line with the federal government and she was responsible for ensuring policy enactment that was such a huge responsibility and I think we're so incredibly lucky to have someone with that skill set bringing to the table not many superintendents have the background that she does and we have been excited to work more in collaboration with her and with the community at large parents included thank you moving on to Dr Harvey goodstein hello and thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak my name is Dr Harvey goodstein I'll be speaking to agenda item 7.02 in relation to the amendment to 10 of 42.
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already all right let's start the meeting with the pledge a 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 world all right let's see it is all right um do we have any modifications to the agenda we just have one consent and then the item and it's for the modification on the separation to change the effective date of Nicole Sebastian February 20th is there a motion to approve the modification also is there any discussion um adding the modification all right welcome Amy yes Carol yes Vicky yes Stephanie yes all right um next we have recognition of visitors and comments from the audience here to do that tonight um moving on we have a presentation um this is the way of the eagle from Mark Bruner and he's brought some students and staff with them today um thank you for having us um this is the athletic director um and Ava Sanders is here um and Carly is here we kind of started a club based off of Ava's idea and as we started implementing we found we wanted to group it with student council it just allowed for more student involvement but they're going to present tonight of the kind of how it how it's set up so basically you have three tiers is what is what it's going to boil down to and it all basically ties back to students and quite a bit of Athletics and so I'm going to let Chase come up come up he's going to start and kind of just this introduction and then as we go along I just really want you to kind of pay attention to how he just involves all 100 students and Athletics and it's kind of growing as we speak so Jason you guys all right and our sponsors are Mr Adams Salisbury communication um the student council our goal is to create a positive competitive and engaging culture for all Brown County students and athletes and just to create create the change that we want to see in our Athletic program and in our schools so next uh London is going to tell us more about Student Life aspects of student council so our goal is to lead and Implement initiatives that increase students pride in and enjoying and coming to school at school at dchs and some things that we've done to do that is like we started on Fridays last year and that's where students select activities that they want to do once a month and that like has included dodgeball tournaments um school-wide party which is kind of like each classroom has its own activity and kids can just go around the school and you think what they want to do and then there's also been teachers versus student games another thing is spirit days and that's what we do during homecoming we dress up for certain themes that we set so there's been like pajama day and like Country Club versus country and things like that and that's just to hit a little more excited for homecoming and then also touch sessions happens the day of homecoming and that's something that we do indivisible day to show support for us so here's some pictures from fun Friday so the most recently we have is on Valentine's Day so we had everything kind of focused on Valentine's Day so there we had like arts and crafts so they made like hats and then here we have Just Dance and here's pictures from shop sessions so on the floor there is the teacher versus student basketball game we can have students sign up to play the teachers and then here is the cheerleader with the teacher where they perform their own dance that they came up with and then um and then here is one of our dress-up days for homecoming and that was amazing foot backpack so the kids brought whatever they can put their school stuff in but it couldn't be a backpack foreign all people are invited so it shows that we're involving the whole community so it's for people in high school but also for incoming students um so I'm Ava and I'm like the leader of wave the eagle and I started this because I noticed that as an athlete there's just this mindset that we're just from County but we should be saying we are around kind of being proud of that and also something that really bothered me so I mean I was just a freshman but I really wanted the Implement change so and you know with some of these ideas along with these people and obviously um one thing is the student booth and what we do for the student Booth is we have just different things like fun little things to support the theme of the night so for like Hawaiian or Beach day like we had lays and like sunglasses and just little things that are affordable but like just trying to get everyone to feel included and welcomed um and then also we do is a highlight board which if you ever go through the high school you can see it in the hallways and we just like you can send in pictures from games or just sub athletes and we try to post it just to get students or like athlete recognition and just make everyone feel important position um and then something that we're looking for in the future is a fan Buzz trying to get students to you know big games obsessionals or like rival games and just really having a positive fan base for our athletes um this is some of the pictures that are on the Highlight board so like this was the kid that won the um hiding contest and then some there's basketball and some of the cheerleaders and coaches and stuff um and then this was this is our student section which is you know I'm proud of we got like an eagle's nest banner and like you can see like the sunglasses and stuff that's from student food and like we put on the color War as student council and and have some fun stuff for everybody hi I'm Heather and I'm the vice president of communications so what I do mostly is focus on the video announcements that's something new that we started this year because there are a lot of students requesting for it so basically it's just a group of students going and filming all the announcements for the upcoming week and then they'll be shown during SRT to all the classrooms and it's just a better way to get people involved in it while actually listening to the nonsense instead of just hearing them over the speaker this is fun to watch another thing we do is social media so we have an Instagram page and it has a lot of followers on it it's just so we can match home games and things like that and it just helps get people involved gets people thinking about school from all sorts of platforms and stuff and it's just something cool that we do foreign so here's the social media page London actually is a big help with that mostly but it has almost 500 followers it's a really big thing here um it helps to involve future students there's a lot of middle schoolers that follow it and he's so excited for high school and there's a lot of former students that follow it too so it's still a good way for them to be involved and there's all the features we also not only feature sports but we have like theater and the Arts on that show and here's one of the video announcers [Music] good morning Eagles and happy homecoming welcome to today's morning announcements now please join us [Music] sorry foreign [Music] okay so um it's our recommendation to other schools that they Implement a system more like ours when it comes to student council to a lot of the others who especially the middle school to be on student council you have to be elected that position even just to be on student council in general and so when the kids come to high school they're surprised when anybody can join student council and we find they have a lot less um involvement because of that they feel like they have to be elected that position and really um four of us are ones that are actually electing a position everybody else just comes to just be a part of it and um we would like to see that more in the other schools that once they get here they feel like they can be a part of it as well and be part of that change um today so um thank you for your time today to learn more about students have any questions for us Yeah question so when the students do they win or do the teachers win all the time at the very end there's one student that did not get a chance to have the ball and she was being heavily guarded in her wheelchair by our teachers and they the teachers would not let her get the shot in and so had they let off their guard she might have made it they're relentless question I love that I've seen it trickle down in front of this so every Friday sprinkle has some type of theme like I think Friday was mustache day um have you guys considered doing like pep rallies or fishings as like going into the play the weekend of the play doing like something to kind of help promote that for like big arts competitions or choir or bands for our next fun Friday actually we we plan on having like a basketball tournament throughout the week but before like on that Friday we'll have like show choir and Winter Garden bands they'll have their performances before like the championship game so that's something that we do for like the artists but then also for the play we said that they should have their own separate day so like one day during us our team they'll have a preview scene for the school to go down and watch so it gets cool exciting and then knowing that the three of you are seniors are you senior as well sophomore do you see the other classes carrying on with what you guys have started I think so yeah [Music] well congratulations very cool I am incredible incredibly proud of all four of you um and Nicole's and just to take that step in leadership to see and make change just like you said Chase and I couldn't be more proud of the three of you for elevating them um to do what they want to do so thank you I know we were having uh kind of low numbers at like basketball games and football games have you seen that this is working like that more people are excited and becoming games and participating and yeah I feel like like so from the beginning of like my freshman year I played volleyball and I was like nobody was coming and once we started doing student Booth especially for football games so many more people have been coming because it's fun and I mean I feel like if you're gonna come to a game you want it to be fun especially like so I'm just getting even the little kids like at we did a face painting for football and there were so many elementary school kids movies it was so cute but it was awesome because they're gonna remember that when they come up here and they're going to want to be a part of that and then our freshman year there was a big student section and I think Cody kind of had a deal with like a lot of people not coming after that and I think we kind of and are we doing things for you know we typically think of football basketball but volleyball soccer track wrestling all of those sports are there any thing that's incorporating those um our best students from here to Eagle Park so that's one of our bigger problems right now but we're working on one of our just to chime in for that is student Booth will be set up at senior nights for spring Sports and actually our biggest population of athletes they play at Sprint store everybody it's student result is either in the play um or in a Sprint store I I can't meet one person so and then to get them there and especially since this track starts at 4:30 they all start early yeah so they're already interactive they're still a practice trying to Hype up a game okay I got fall Sports too that sounded tennis volleyball and a play usually all happening at the same time and make confidence same cross country and so they're all you're all the same kids and that's always been us Alicia could you pull in the student council from the middle school and then the elementaries to potentially help with those who are totally reading into their next year we're going on trying to get the schedule no and you all know more than I do about schedule to Mark match our day up better with the Middle School so that and it's been our goal to take our student leaders down to the middle so we're up to the middle school and then then down here do a Global Campus with it to be able to train them up and get them there and that's and just get them involved you know and again I think one of the biggest things here is that anybody and I know that the middle the middle school you know that they don't have that it's not a democracy it's a group of leaders making decisions and that works for them but I think we get more Super buy-in when they feel like they can come to any meeting that they want and express their excitement or maybe discontent with what's been happening and if they are upset the easiest answers come to a meeting come have your voice heard and that usually silences a lot of amazing that was one of what she's kind of hit on at the end of the slide is that this way we were kind of trying to put some viewers out there while we have the stage of can the Middle School adopt a three-tiered system like we have can the element trees do that as well so when we have all these spring athletes for example so then our hands are tied to only do student booth on senior nights well if the middle school had that same branch of the way the eagle then we could hold Middle School way of the eagle kids to work that student move potentially so we just share we share everyone across the board and how are you funding all of the Raffles and the giveaways so um partr truth Big Woods they've been our number one donor for those days like they designed you saw a little snippet of the Eagle's Nest sign they do a lot a lot for us we are still kind of working out in the community to try and have more sponsors or donations for that because obviously as we grow we would like to have a bigger budget but our student Booth is fully sponsored through Brown Street Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in Columbus action so we have not hurt or sponsors in funding but as we grow we would like to have to have more tickets and for like the fun Friday stuff that comes out of student council's budget which has been primarily in the last year funded experience they're primarily funded kind of ice donations Kona Ice the truck they donate 20 of all sales back to the school which is enough to hand out crowns at homecoming and sashes it's enough to buy beach balls for a beach themed day um about no so I don't even know I so yeah the arts and crafts that we saw the cookies first time we did it they were bad cookies the second time I may have oversold it the cookies were going to be good it worked in the hour period they were gone in about eight minutes left foreign all right moving on um we have number five is discussion and we have none there number six is approval of the public session mids from February 16 2023 I think the board has had an opportunity to review those um is there a motion to approve those minutes I'll second any discussion welcome Amy yes Carol yes yes yes number seven is action needed items we have a recommendation to approve an anonymous donation of a thousand dollars for its unpaid lunch balances so thank you to whoever that is um is there a motion to approve them one particular building and for the district it didn't specify much appreciated all right uh is there any other discussion uh let's do roll call maybe yes Carol yes Vicky yes Stephanie yes that yes and honestly we have another recommendation to approve an anonymous donation a thousand dollars for unpaid lunch balances is there a motion to approve this one any discussion again incredibly grateful for those donations to come through so it's great negotiation and I think I want to thank the Democrat because I think that's been one of the sources I've had more people ask me about unpaid lunch balances in the past month than almost any other topic so I appreciate that that you know we're talking about it it's being in the paper brings some you know Community awareness so I appreciate that um any other discussion uh welcome Amy yes Vicky yes yes and number three is recommendation to recruit the following staff members to approve the world of work conference in San Diego on March 22nd and 25th 2023 and we have Emily Tracy Christie wrightson Debbie Harmon Gavin Steele Wendy Gordon Hebert Kelly Bruner Teresa Foltz radically Shane pillinger Alyssa I'm sorry Allison Haynes um Erica East Greg Bernard Annette fields and Michelle Wagers conference is being paid for through eight through three E Grant supported work based learning is there a motion to approve that trip and so I'll move all second is there any discussions we got it under control I I wanted to thank the board for again allowing us this opportunity um as you know that three grants through the Indiana Department of Education um is a huge amount of money that we have been able to support our Pre-K to Adult Career connected learning Continuum um we've got a pretty big investment through that Grant through the world of work which was the presentation that Kelly Brunner and her kids had a couple meetings ago and this opportunity is to go visit those schools that that are on the foundation of that work and attend that so it's it's difficult if you don't ever get outside the county just to see really Innovative incredible things going on in the world of public education and this right here is one of them and I I just can't thank you enough for supporting our team to get out there and learn yes all right number four is recommendation to hire these olds as a speech language pathologist should be contracted beginning March 1st through July 1st of this year for a maximum of 175 hours at a rate of 60 an hour and she will be providing speech language pathology Services Under the direction of the Brown County Schools director of student support discussion how many students are going to be served um I mean in that amount of time but I mean I knew how yeah I mean they can't spoke that she has about 60 kids um and then we have another 40th vernica that right now we're short to mess up so these two they deserved gonna be here for the rest of the year to try to have conferences and touch Facebook goals are updated and um you know trying to make up some lost time yeah because I recognize one out of two names yeah yeah Lisa used to work for us she's currently working um in two other school corporations right if he's gonna work some magic all right we'll try any other discussion questions yes and number five is recommendation to hire Becky Maroney Maroney speech language pathologist again contracted uh March 1st through July 1st of 2023 for a maximum 175 hours at the rate of 60 per hour and she will also be providing a speech language pathology services school that vacation any uh emotions try something I do and any other discussion just want to thank Debbie all of the hard work it has gone into trying to find Qualified individuals to be able to come in and provide these Services um it's been an incredibly challenging Journey so kudos to you for making that happen this is actually a much less expensive route for us to just about 90 an hour to pay contract agency so this is um too I've spent with both ways printed out with their schedules and so on so they'll do a good job for us and Lisa brought Becky along so they they sort of take it back please terrific any other discussion or questions all right vocal Amy yes okay yes yeah all right we have a consent agenda for personnel we have separations appointments and transfers starting with Jim McFall as fifth grade was basketball coach through Cassandra Pontius as the Middle School head boys track coach is there emotion they're so rude any discussion and these people for stepping up for track and um I know it's hard and I know it can be hard to find part-time coaches um welcome baby yes Carol yes Vicki yes Stephanie yes yes all right superintendent report I just have a couple things um the save me one again I want to thank Mark Alicia Carly and Emily for all the work that they have done with the high school student council in the way of the eagle um Chase Hadley London and Ava did an awesome job as they always do and um this is a direct effort in the goals that we're trying to move forward increasing engagement across the board and I think it's pretty easy to see tonight the power that our kids hold when we just give the opportunity to listen to them to take the risk and and let them leave so I I'm just incredibly proud of that um February 16th we took a team um do you keep offer Chris Johnson Trent Austin and high school senior Joseph Dennis in the San Antonio to present on the National Conference of Education um and presented our student-based Enterprise of Eagle manufacturing I was a little worried our session was a 8 A.M on a Friday morning and I was a little worried we would get many people to show up at our session but and then whoever did show up would were just my Indiana superintendent friends but we had old reported people in the room um I could count on one hand how many were from Indiana actually so um they knocked it out of the park Joey our student stole the show as he should could not be more proud of that team I heard um that student talk about his transformation um his how from being coming in as a freshman to now him getting ready to graduate and the comment that he made to a room full of superintendents was I finally got to get into a program in a class where it wasn't figuring out how to get the next day it was to do something really cool and and I will forever hold in my heart that these kids will always remember those A's they are going to remember those experiences and those opportunities they get uh the Monday morning after graduation so again thank you for supporting allowing our team to go out there um we put Brown County High School Brown County schools on the national stage we have um people from New York New Hampshire um Arkansas Ohio and Kentucky now reaching out to come visit Brampton high school so um it was really cool thing um I wanted to give an update we I met with our Baker Tilly which are financial advisors um Jane Herndon and Ice Miller who's our bond Council and the team of Architects at Performance Services to begin the process of completing facility studies across the district I believe in 2018 we had a physical facility study done on all of our buildings which would include anything mechanical um like HVAC and and those types of things and we're able to to get a lot of those things done um it's it's now time to take a second look at that and see what else across the district will become a priority down the road um at the same time I don't believe that we've ever done an educational facility study which means looking at our classrooms and um really how do we want to design our classrooms um moving forward and and look at how we could do school um differently so the same time we'll get to look at our physical facilities but also how how we do school and how we provide that education environment for our kids so it is exciting um to The Architects will be here to meet with our district leadership team next week and then they schedule individual meetings with each of the building principals and the directors um so they can get some honest feedback in in what what they would like to see um in the future so excited to be able to start that process and then lastly we have spring break the week after next our next board meeting will be March 23rd that is um not a regular third Thursday of the month so I want to make note that it the next regular board meeting is March 23rd and with that um I just want to thank everybody for being here all right [Music] um next we can go to our agenda we're calling board updates and um during the legislative session um I wanted to be I'm the legislative liaison for the board and so I wanted to be able to do a legislative update and then I'll go to the board members and see if they have anything else they want to add um we are so I did go up to the state house I guess it was last Tuesday the 21st um and we Indiana State for School Board Association has a day in which they invite everyone up uh we get to hear from the education leaders probably my part is the head of each of the house and the Senate education committees come and speak to us and say hear their legislative initiatives and ask questions and then we also have an opportunity so um oftentimes some people will say to me why do you do this this way and we do a lot of local control of schools in Indiana we also are highly regulated by the Indiana education and the things that the legislature passes so education is a huge part of the Indiana budget and so there's just a lot of bills I think they said there's an increase but 50 in the number of bills that affect education that were introduced this year so it's a lot going on in a very fast period of time we're in a love this week if you're paying attention to what's happening up there all of the bills that needed to go out of the house or senate had to go through by Monday or Tuesday they take a couple days off and then starting next week any house that passed any bill that passed the house will go to the Senate anyhow bill that pass the Senate will go to the house we do another two months of committee hearings readings and then um any bill that passes both houses uh will either go to the governor for Signature or we'll have to have a conference committee at which they can put anything in there that they want so it's all the way up we say oh that bill is dead but there are actually no bills that are actually dead so it does really require a large degree of monetary um this is something I really like to do I really like to follow what's going on and I'd probably get three or four different newsletters from different organizations so it also means my head is swimming with stuff so I just wanted to um come in on a couple of things that again the School Board Association is following um ISTA is usually following bills as well they're usually the same bills um and you know those are things that you know you might say oh that's happening in Indianapolis but I really want to emphasize it affects absolutely everything we do number one it affects our funding so when we talk about how much money do we have absolutely determined by what the state budget is um so that's always House Bill 1001 that is the Senate bill or that house bill it has now passed over to the Senate and I'm not even really going to use Bill numbers because they all change at the halfway to be a Senate bill I don't know what the numbers are right now but number one budget is Big there is an increase in proposed for Education um but we don't really know what that would be for Broadcasting um because there is a lot of money that is proposed I think is like 50 or 70 increase to Charter Schools um that means there's just less money so if you're interested in those things I encourage you to do your own reading I'm not here to be partisan one way or the other but what they do in that budget very much affects what happened um one of the big bills that we were following was partisan School Board elections or something and then and it appears that that is one bill that is dead that was three or four bills bills and none of them pass through the house or the Senate so it appears that everything is going to remain status quo so that is um that's about the only thing that that will sort of we know at this point the other thing is is that there are fewer bills to follow at this point because a whole bunch of bills die if they don't grow the committee and they don't get heard and through readings and go away so the other nice part about the second half of the session is that there are fewer bills to follow and they'll be more intense discussion about those fewer issues rather than lots of discussion on yeah so that's that's something to pay attention to um there are a number of bills that to affect us again the funding is that um and I would encourage you to go ahead and take a look as I said we're kind of in between so we don't really want to say that much as far as what those are but if you ever have questions or you know are interested in those things let me know and we can make sure that you um you know get on those listserves that really kind of every Friday comes out of this or here's what happened in the legislature business so that's amazing anyone else have uh comments about that or anything else okay I'm sorry yeah I email Miss Tracy this afternoon so she probably didn't have a chance um I'm just introducing another a field trip opportunity for Brown County school and actually you have to get approval it was Tracy but like we took the Middle School in high school kids to IU last year for Korean night and that was pretty successful so I probably uh Miss Tracy would be asking you to get to approve of transportation and the IU East stages studies will sponsor the school bus again this year so it's gonna be a fun trip thank you yeah and after she's a pro I'm going to share with the rest of thank you Clara I do approve yeah it does not have to go through the board so okay okay but it's I was like we don't just just feel free it is open to everyone so any of you can control well Claire and I took a group of kids a few years ago and we had a fabulous time I really encourage everyone to go to Korean ideas think about it it was probably a few days before the pandemic yeah so um anybody else do you have the dates for the day I have it on my calendar I think it's the second weekend from April I know that I know it is it is the weekend uh Thursday Friday Saturday of um March 13 14 15.
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starting with Kentucky Derby all right we'll bring the meeting to order uh Maria can you lead us in the pledge everybody dig in congratulations to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands for all Kylie do we have any public comments we do not have any public comments pertaining to closed session oh yeah roll call Maria president Gary here Amanda here all right I'm here okay what we're gonna do in closed session start off with pupil Personnel expulsion case exp 12 22-23 stipulation number four 22-23 stipulation number five 22-23 and annual review AR number 11 22-23 and AR number 12 22-23 conference litigation government code section 54956.9 current litigation eight cases cibds cibds 2011 civsb 211-11303 cisb civsb22203 cibsb 221-8676 government code section 54954 and 549-56.9 and xe1 anticipated litigation in one case 20 to 21 government code section 54954 Point d anticipated litigation one case Aguayo Jesus Public Employee discipline dismissal release reassignment transfer leave title certificated and classified employees public employees appointed resignation retirement reduction title certificated and classified conference with labor negotiator Dustin Conrad Apple Valley Unified Teachers Association conference with labor negotiation with the California School Employees Dustin Conrad conference with um real property negotiations government code 54956.8 negotiation parties Matthew schulenberg and Apple Valley Unified School superintendent evaluation we'll be working on that I have a motion to go into closed session still moved second all in favor all right oh thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign at this time we'd like to pause in a moment of silence to remember the retired Apple Valley Unified School District family member Steve clopping okay we're going to start with our student Representatives I like to say um these are exciting times for you kids and your parents and uh it's a great experience and believe me it's the best part of the meeting from Rio Vista Nolan Webb JoJo 4 Easton vandalize no Riviera Ela Muir NM wasalewski Elijah Solis you know the podium you're up there you got it [Music] [Applause] insurance good evening Apple Valley Unified School District board members Administration and guests my name is Nolan Webb and I'm the Rio Vista Associated student body president with me tonight I am my vice president JoJo for secretary Easton vanderzil secretary Noe Rivera activities commissioner Ella mere Pride commissioner Emily waleski reading commissioner Elijah Solis and the rest of ASB tonight we are going to share with you some of the exciting things happening at Rio Vista but first we have an activity for you my name is JoJo four and I'm the vice president of Rio Vista ASB during our kindness week okay month our school made a kindness chain and it almost and it is almost complete currently it goes around our cafeteria almost two whole times almost so so we would like you to help us complete this chain right now we have a couple of our ASB members handing out these ships of paper we also have markers if you need one all we ask is that you post your first and last name on paper followed by a few kind words we will collect these to add to our chain and you'll be connected with kindness to Rio Vista foreign yours are awesome hello my name is Emmy waleski and I'm the pride commissioner hello my name is Eason vanderzel and I'm the secretary in addition to creating kindness chains the Rio Vista ASP members visited many of our classrooms to do a woman fuzzy with them this activity originated from a story about a club about a classroom doing a warm and fuzzy activity with them this activity originated from or no sorry his high school teacher saw that one that her student students were having a rough day that one day so she had them all take out a piece of paper put their name on it and then pass it around their classmates wrote kind words on each other's papers later on Mark Eckland died as a Vietnam veteran and when his teacher went to his funeral his parents handed her a paper that was found in his wallet after all these years he had carried the paper with all the kind words on it we would like to demonstrate this idea with you now by using these warm and fuzzies you're that people give me the hot pigs [Laughter] explanation [Music] I like colors okay thank you so do you want us to play well thank you for showing up here and doing such a great job the idea they're gonna collect Ive hi I'm Noah Rivera and I'm secretary we have so many great things happening at Rio Vista this year we have students hanging out after school for film crew film crew Esports choir and running club we have had several several spirit Spirit weeks for example we have had child Cancer Awareness Week where we do Penny races during Penny races we we raised over four thousand dollars for Childhood Cancer Awareness Week then we had thankful week where we collected needed items for our community Deck the Halls week where we collected canned food and kindness matters month during this month we created a kindness chain kindness posters to line our cafeteria with wrote letters to our First Responders and performed random acts of kindness hello my name is Ella mere and I'm activities Commissioners we also have a lot of fun upcoming events at Rio Vista today we celebrated read Across America Day by dressing up in our favorite book characters in reading all day tomorrow each class is getting together to have reader reading buddies with the younger kids and like nobody said we have many after school activities like Esports film running club and choir we have we have family paint night quickly approaching and we're looking forward to this year's annual Color Run I hope everybody has had a good time at Real Vista hi I'm Elijah Roberts Lee and I'm the reading commissioner kids here at Rio Vista love to read and listen to books that I read by the ASB being commission committee we love we love to read books to kids when the speed week is happening and not any regular books we read books with themes are happening that Spirit Week we love to read them and see them smile when we I got some share my hobby to young kids and I met one of the kids who still remember me when from when I read read to them but it doesn't matter if you're one fish two fish a redfish or a blue fish you're welcome here to read a Rio Vista [Applause] my name is emilioleski and I'm the pride commissioner we have a wonderful group of parents at Rio Vista who come come up with all kinds of fun things for us to do our booster president made these amazing magnets that say hashtag kindness matters for us to hand out to Apple Valley Unified School Board we hope you like them and that they will bring a smile to your face when you see it on your refrigerator one day love it thank you yeah it's way too much as you can see like our shirts say we are making leadership in action not a position thank you for letting us share some of the wonderful things going on at Rio Vista with with you before we leave I want to share one last great thing that we are doing at Rio Vista last year our vice principal Mr Webb would read jokes that students have made up now as the new Mr Webb I carried on his tradition foreign before we leave I would like to share a joke with you why does Mrs Nelson wear sunglasses to Rio Vista why because the students there are so bright [Applause] [Music] all right next week from the Phoenix Academy we have Connor Brown estar Carrasco [Applause] [Music] good evening avoc Board of Education I'm Connor Brown president of ASB and I'm star Carrasco vice president of ASB and today we would like to share with you all the wonderful things that happened at Phoenix Academy this year we'd like to start by telling you some of the upgrades to our Phoenix campus this year we were surprised to find two book machines with our Phoenix logo on them students are able to earn books by saving up book tokens which they can get by meaning a reading goal or by earning a rocks card these can be earned by students who demonstrate one or more of our Rock explos which are rock our world own our choices care for others keep our focus and strive for success another big upgrade this year at Phoenix Academy was our new sound system which has helped a lot with concerts dances and assemblies we are also looking forward to the promotion of parents being able to hear their students names called we like to tell you some of the clubs we currently have available at Phoenix Academy which include comic book club homework help Esports yearbook stem and open gym these are just a handful of clubs currently available at Phoenix Academy now now would we like to tell you about our Advanced band performances they had a great time performing at Ontario rain and did a great job we can't wait to see their future performance at the LA Kings game this year we are very excited to have sports back at Phoenix we started this year with the girls and boys volleyball games and currently we have our boys and girls basketball teams competing later this year we are excited to see how our cross country teams do next we would like to talk about our wonderful theme dances such as the Winter Dance and the back to school dance which both had great turnouts we had a lot of great feedback and are excited for our two upcoming dances which are the Spring Fling and the 8th grade promotion dance new to Phoenix this year is a reward field trips for 7th and 8th grade students and reward activities for our lower campus students 7th and 8th graders have had a great time at Topgolf on everyone have a great time at Big Al's tomorrow our Laura's campus students love the mobile tide pool experience this year we also had a great turnout on our fall festival we had such a large turnout this year we had the extender Festival by almost an hour just let everyone get the chance to spend their tickets we also enjoyed seeing our TK through second grade students perform at their Winter concert did an awesome job and we can't wait to see their performance next year we are very excited to continue the great things that have happened at Phoenix Academy this year thank you for your time thank you next from High Desert Premier Academy the girl with a million dollar smile Angelique Daniel that's true a lot of middle schoolers taller than me all right good evening president Bender board members and cabinet I'm honored to stand before you all once again to inform you of the accomplishments and upcoming events of high desert Premiere Academy I hope you have all enjoyed the snow in cold weather we have they made me say that I don't like to go this month is a busy month for high desert we are transitioning from third quarter to Fourth and our graduates are preparing for their big day we are so excited to have a graduation night of our own I also heard there's gonna like I'll heard through the grapevine so don't shoot the messenger but I heard they're supposed to be fireworks [Music] um not only will we be celebrating our first night graduation but we will also host our first High Desert Premiere academy dance because of coven I didn't get to go to my middle school dance so I'm super excited to make up for it and I'd like to personally thank superintendent Nelson we couldn't have done it without you last week we honored and had visits by two different board members thank you Miss opara and Mr arse for coming to visit our campus and to say hi to all our students and see what our owl nation is all about unfortunately I had a family matter to attend to so I'm sorry I missed you guys but I'll catch you guys another time I also wanted to give a shout out to our Esports team last month our Esports participated in play versus and we won our team of five will continue through the knockout rounds in hopes to go to finals good luck to our owls sadly because of the uncontrollable weather two of our field trips the Cheech Marine Center to Chicano art and culture of the Riverside Art Museum and the Museum of Tolerance were canceled we are hoping that these trips will be able to be rescheduled but until then we are looking forward to visiting Newport Beach to go whale watching with our biology classes this month is women's history month and my birthday month just letting you all know we celebrate this month in recognition of the countless women who fought tirelessly for equality Justice and opportunity in our nation in honor of this month we wanted to recognize two strong women in our district that should be extremely proud of their accomplishments and the roads they are Paving for me and other girls like myself so Brenton and Nelson is the longest standing woman superintendent in avusd and Miss Oak Park is the first black woman to sit on the avusd school board congratulations to the both of you thank you [Applause] next from Grand Hills High School Zell fabella I don't know am I loud sorry guys okay good evening board member superintendent Nelson and attendees actually couldn't make it tonight so instead you got stuck with me sorry guys it's Alpha Bella Granite Hills High School the GC vice president and student representative as always lots of things going on at Granite Hills High School school at Granite Hills High School last week students enjoyed Black History Month programs for students and staff showed off their talents and performed songs of Justice civil rights freedom and hope to create a fun learning experience and a celebration of black history month and a huge shout out and thanks to Mrs Mosley for making this all happen last weekend we also had students compete for skillsusa with 21 students advancing to the state competition in 10 different contests students earning the gold medals were Aiden Conrad for electronic technology Edwin Seiler and Madison Lucan for video game for our video game design team Sophia Milan won a silver medal for a medical terminology and our bronze medal winners were Kimberly Lopez for n a and Oreo white for practical nursing Connor favor and Blake Smith for our mechatronics team our CTE programs are getting stronger every single year and students will continue to compete in the weeks to come in other competitions such as our Granite Hills High School chopped culinary competition at Sultana high school and our second annual mdcp hackathon other upcoming events or other upcoming highlights are the 8th graders event 8th graders visiting next week HS awareness night and avusd Special Olympics field day we are hosting Grant going into our athletic department once your seasons are now officially done three out of six of the winter sport programs went into our playoffs and the girls soccer even won their fifth straight Desert Sky league title spring season though has had to come to a bit of a setback due to the weather but we have been able to get some games just not as many as we would like to we are hoping for weather to start clearing up starting next week to really start the season off Although our softball team is playing in the championship game of their tournament this weekend which we will which will be the first time they'll be doing this in five years aside from keeping track aside from keeping track of sport events the athletic department is also hosting their second annual Sadie Hawkins dance April 1st and our tickets have just begun to sell out earlier this week talking about dances winter formal last month was a huge hit we sold out on all of our tickets and if Ashley were here she would tell you that it was so much fun and there was a lot of dancing and happy memories being made ASB held a spirit week just last week catered to our seniors we had fun day such as Celebrity Day rhyme without reason which was a little confusing but it's like I'm in my PJs and you're a DJ dressing as our parents when we were teens and lastly on Friday where each of the classes had their own thing to dress up as freshmen were babies sophomores were teens in their early 2000s Juniors were middle aged and seniors were senior citizens ASB ASB also hosted a pep rally just for our seniors where the prom theme was revealed and we had many of our talented senior cougars come out to perform we I'm super excited for the upcoming months as we reach the end of the school year together as our campus we have been super busy putting together all of the end of the school year events and activities that we are super excited to talk about when the time comes in the meantime I hope you guys stay warm stay safe in this crazy weather because and also remember maroon and gray lead the way [Applause] from Apple Valley High Cheyenne Valentine stop uh before I start I just want to give a shout out to the elementary schools that spoke tonight you guys did so amazing way better than I could do so just a shout out to you guys anyways good evening to the board or to the members of the board in attendees my name is Cheyenne Valentine the Apple Valley High School ASB line president today I want to talk to you about how our second semester has been so amazing so far in all the plans that we have for the upcoming weeks last month we worked on so many different activities that got the students involved on and off campus we have continued to work on this year's Sun Devil by planning holding practices and even having a media day at the Apple Valley airport with our computer and media program we have also begun the production of our every 15 minutes project and are so excited to see it grow and develop over 300 students attended our winter formal where we all busted a move and it was held at town to end this year we also had 24 Junior and senior boys sign up for buff and tough this year and play a friendly game of volleyball we're so excited for our CTE students that have completed Regional Cisco's sorry that competed in Regional sprue skills this month and wish him luck on their journey to state avhs has 233 students advancing this year which is the highest number that we've had in many years the 2023 senior class has also attended a meeting that discussed all of the events that we've been waiting for like prong graduation grad night uh speaking of assemblies a motivational speaker came to educate us and bring us more awareness to our campus about minority groups and how we can all support one another overall I would say it was a pretty successful month and I can't wait to see what the coming weeks have taking a look at Terry plans for next month we will continue to work on Mr Sandoval which is on March 17th every 15 minutes and planning for the state competition for skillsusa last month Key Club held a book drive and this month they plan to adopt a street in our community FFA is also staying very involved on our campus with their leadership conference and their tri-tip sale the class of 2026 freshmen is holding their work dance this month and this teaches them how to plan and execute the process of planning a dance and they're going to have such a great time the future class of 2027 will be visiting avhs throughout the week with their on-campus visits on Monday and Wednesday in high school awareness night on the 15th we're so excited to show them how they can get involved and make sure that they're comfortable on campus now as you may have heard our Color Run was postponed a couple of times but that was because of the weather and now it's on March 11th and it's not too late to register your hair might get died but it's so much fun our campus is also looking forward to the spring break this month and hopefully the weather warms up with it we're going to continue to plan other events and work towards achieving our goals for the rest of the semester like every 15 minutes senior activities the cultural Affair Renaissance and skills USA as always we want to keep students motivated and engaged so these definitely help sports are such a big part of our campus Because it motivates our students as well as creates a bond with our community recently some of our sports like basketball and wrestling have ended but some of our spring sports like softball and swim are starting so to wrap things up I just want to say how grateful I am for all of your support throughout the school year and as always send Noble pride is contagious [Applause] reports here the California School Employees Association csga not here okay Apple Valley Unified Teachers Association of Utah good evening board members superintendent Nelson assistant superintendents and audience members I hope tonight finds everyone doing well after a day filled with sunshine my thoughts and prayers go out to everyone snowed in in the mountains I know at least one teacher that is among them and very stressed many of us hope the weather continues as we are headed down to the good teacher conference this weekend a Buddha is excited that we are able to send 28 teachers this year and hope that next year we can send more as more would have liked to have joined us to learn some tips tricks and great practices for the classroom from other teachers that teach throughout California we are hopeful that the district will be able to help us send teachers next year as well a Buddha is gearing up to provide teachers with grants for their classroom projects and scholarship for members children as they move into higher education we appreciate the district working with us to change the event scheduled on Tuesday so that our committee members can work on this a Buddha continues to strive to build those positive relationships throughout the district I truly appreciate the fact that the district has given me a chance to speak with administrators when concerns arise it is helping us to create those trust-based connections and be proactive in addressing issues and concerns that arise on campuses with our members our relationship with our members runs deeper than contractual issues we advocate for positive relationships between members classified employees and administrators in order to promote a positive School climate and school culture we understand that when our members feel supported respected as professionals and treated with dignity it not only raises which student achievement but it also makes the administrators lives happier and easier a Buddha release a Buddha leadership not only cares about how the administrators themselves feel and their concerns but we also appreciate the willingness of most administrators to have an open and honest discussions the encouragement of an open door policy to discuss all concerns and contractual issues at any time not just during the monthly site rep and administrative meetings and the willingness to be active listeners we do encourage our members to speak to the administrators themselves however when those relationships are broken members confide in the site reps and they or an exec board member step in as a conduit between the member and the administrator there are a few sites where the relationships are not developing the way we planned however we remain we remain optimistic we all take pride in speaking of the avusd as a family and treating each other with respect and dignity not only in how we speak to each other but in the body language we use when interacting with each other thank you for listening have a great evening and enjoy your spring break coming up in a few weeks in solidarity here a few words from our superintendent Renee okay Nolan I'm just going to tell you you and the Rio Vista students are extremely bright and I have new glasses that are transitioned so if I just walked in I would have shades on so I've had to take them off multiple times today at school sites um Angelique I'm so excited you guys are doing the whale watching because that was one of the desires of the student advisory to get to do some outdoor education and things like that so congratulations on making a move make a move at the school um Cheyenne I just have to call you out for always demonstrating such kindness to our elementary students and making them feel welcome and then I watched you jump up to just the mic for um Angelique that just doesn't happen by chance so keep doing what you're doing and be a wonderful role model for all the kids that are following you um and then it's all uh you we didn't get stuck with you thank you for coming and thank you for representing Granite Hills High School so wonderfully good job um and I can't forget Connor and star for all the work that they did today showing us what's going on at Phoenix Academy I've watched Connor he's been up at podium I think every year since he started in this District so um good job Connor and and star thanks for joining him um the county superintendent will be visiting Apple Valley Unified School District Mr alejandre next Thursday March 9th he will be at Granite Hills High School to visit their AVID program his AVID coordinator down at the county level is so proud of what's going on there and asks that he come and visit we are currently waiting for word back um on March 8th and 9th the State Board of Education will be meeting regarding Community School planning Grant we as Apple Valley School District applied for the planning Grant it's a two-year grant that allows us to then apply later on for an implementation Grant as long as the decision is made to do so um we met without Elementary advisory on February 2nd or February 7th here at the district office many of the kids that are in the audience tonight that spoke were part of that and then their principals came in halfway through the day and met with them right before lunch and took all of their concerns and things that they wanted to work on and we kind of shifted it to a school-based um thing at this point but they will be back with us this group continues to meet with us over the years and depending on what grade level they are they they come back so um more work to come and then we met with the Granite Hills group on February 9th um again amazing outcomes um Mr Paul brought um some of the leaders from his campus in along with the instructional coaches they each thought at the table with students and took the information they were listeners and wrote down the information to then share back with the entire staff at that meeting some of you may have remembered uh Trinity she was in one of our videos and she has a women's Empowerment Group that she started at Granite Hills High School fortunately it was meeting that day and so I got to go in at lunch and and visit the women's Empowerment Group um she and Susanna have a lot going on in there and they have some young men that are joining them and I thought smart young men hang out with the women's Empowerment Group um and then the county superintendence advisory will be taking place on March 15th Kylie will provide you information if you're interested in participating in a panel for that it happens they do it over in the Hesperia Unified School District um uh work room and then women's history month was mentioned um celebrating women who share their story I was able to go out yesterday to the um Victor Valley Federal Prison initially when they called me and asked if I would come speak I thought I was coming to um speak to the prisoners but I was then told I was speaking to the staff I prepared my speech for the women staff and then it was filled with men and so I had to on the Fly adjust to um thank them for supporting the women in their life and to tell their stories I was at Rio Vista or Rancho Verde today the other RV in the district Rancho Verdi for read Across America I was able to read in Mrs Jensen's fifth grade class and Mr King's third grade class let me tell you they were so well behaved and no kids really like at that age when you walk into the classroom know what a superintendent is I'm just a person and they were super respectful and so much fun to read with and then um I also was at Desert Knowles today for Brent Robinson he was he read his New York Times best-selling Ferguson's Forest he actually attended Sandia school as Elementary Vanguard as a middle school student and then graduated he was a 2018 graduate of Granite Hills High School but he was in Mrs Lopez's class at Sandia she's now at Desert Knowles so she got him to come and read and Mrs watt made magic happen because several of his teachers from Sandia got to come and watch him do his reading so um Martha Lopez was there Sean Rickroll was there Mary Swanson who's now retired from the district and Marie bastine pretty amazing to see a student from 2018 who's published in a New York Times bestseller and then um I would like to give Mr schulenberg a second at the mic to talk about the granny Hills Stadium because there's some exciting stuff coming and I know it's important to everybody that's out in the audience yeah um thank you Ms Nelson I'd just like to update the board in the audience you know moving forward on the Granite Hills High School athletic Stadium we do you have our construction manager on board and we have prepared what's called a RFP a request for proposal for Architects we'll be publishing that on March 15th and it is our intent to bring to the board an architect for your consideration and hopefully your approval to start the design of the athletic facility for Granite Hills High School so we're looking to bring that architect the second meeting in May after we go through the selection and interview process thank you Matt thank you all right board comments Rick Raleigh sure well first off you know I've been on this board for four years now and I've listened to quite a few presentations from students and I tell you each time they get better and better and some of these kids you can tell that get up and speak up here just have the I guess the word would be success you can just tell they're going to be successful in life the way they speak and and hold themselves and and act and the parents that are here should be very proud of some of these kids that come up here because it's not easy to do to speak in front of a crowd like this and uh I'm impressed all the time and so um with that too we have our own student that goes to school here and we have her mother sitting at this diocese here with Kylie at the very end and she has a son named Brady is it Brady correct yes and he was picked out of thousands of kids to race in Nashville Tennessee the Supercross in front of probably between 60 and 75 000 kids and that's going to be in April and so I'm hoping that we get some publicity the local paper picks up on that because it's really quite an accomplishment you just don't feel your hat in the ring it'll be a good picked you have a lot to step through so congratulations to Kylie's son gonna be a star and it's on it's it's television televised live on NBC we should make him come and sign autographs after his race right we'll do that we'll get him to a board meeting thank you uh so anyway I keep up the good work everybody so it's I'm really impressed thank you Amanda all right hello I apologize for my voice you guys I think I have been sick um well I'm not sick anymore but my voice was gone for like two weeks um but I've been under the weather pretty much since about two days after the last board meeting um so first of all thank you so much to all the students just like Mr Wally was saying um every month it really is such a joy to hear what's going on at your campuses and you are so very well spoken um so skillsusa I have to tell you the day that the results came out and I'm gonna see if I can slip this out I went on to the website I first had to call a friend of mine be like what region are we because I could not figure it out it was like so hard so I found out region I think was seven off the top of my head six just kidding I wrote it down so I started pulling up everybody that like won I'm not kidding this is like 12 pages long or more like it's just page after page and these are just our district winners mostly Apple um yes you guys dominated like it was so fantastic every time I clicked a new category I was like dang there they are um so you know keep it up that is just fantastic and good luck when you do go to Nationals and I am looking forward to I believe with stockpower and I are gonna attempt to come out to Apple Valley High School for The Adams Family musical um so we are looking forward we gotta pick a day um we did make it out to granite's play this this semester as well so we just want to wanna come see that one as well um I'm gonna uh some of the teachers were sent to a training um for Kagan and it's been so exciting I just have to brag like your teachers are so excited about the strategies that they learn there and it's really great to see like the joy um I've seen some posts on social media and it's just it's really great to see that that fire and like you know knowing that the kids are so much more engaged in their learning and that has been awesome to see and then finally because it is read Across America today I just have to show you I like tried to pull it up a minute ago so my daughter was Captain Underpants today I don't know if you can see um so yeah they picked their favorite character and I loved seeing like all over um Apple Valley all the parents posting all their kids and and what they were doing it was fantastic so um yeah it's just Apple Valley is a very special place so we have two weeks and a day to go until spring break so just you guys are almost there there and then enjoy your break um unplug for a little bit and we'll see you back for that last long haul the end of the year thank you Gary RC I just want to also say uh thank you so much all the students who who came this evening so it's always that's the thing that we look forward to is a senior smiling bright faces your enthusiasm for what's going on on your campuses The Pride that you have for your programs and your campuses and your fellow students is is really infectious and and it really encourages us so thank you so much for all your hard work and preparation I also want to express my appreciation for uh some of the dis schools in the district that were so warm and some of the recent visits I went to Sandia thank you Mrs watt for showing me around all the great things that are going on there I just want to congratulate you there on that campus for for the after school program for the the choir and the the band program you were talking about for the academic growth that you were sharing thank you for your leadership there it's definitely a showing throughout Excellence all throughout the campus so thank you for that also had a chance uh Angelique to visit your neck of the woods there that was the real blessing to go on to the high desert there and then spend some time with Mr Smith I really enjoyed that uh as he was filling me in and I was I was able to see firsthand the school culture just just the the tremendous um camaraderie that's present on that campus it's very obvious and it's also something that that's kind of rare so you you guys are at a special place and and uh you know uh you and all the students are part of that as well as the staff and Mr Smith and his leadership so uh thank you for that I had a chance to visit Rio Vista and spend some time with uh Mrs Poff and uh really excited about uh the growth that's going on there Rio Vista with respect to the learning maps and the new way of learning that they're they're piloting there and really kind of kind of taking the leadership on so very impressed uh thank you for that and I was totally blown away because the day that I visited the the students there at Rio Vista were doing their living wax museum which I had never heard of before but boy was was that the high point of my week because if you don't know what that is the the students the second graders dress up as as particular students or I should say particular people in American history and uh that you know they're actually dressed up and they actually have a little button on the one you push the button and they they they act out who that person was and so one second grader was uh dressed up and gave me information on George Washington and another second grader a complete with beard was Abraham Lincoln and filled me in on Abraham Lincoln I also got a chance to learn about Sally Ride our first astronaut and I even saw Dr Seuss there and and he was able to fill me in that he still does not like green eggs and hammers he still does not like them Sam I Am So yeah he was he was very very uh clear about that but that was that was a blast I went home and told my wife about that I was just blown away with with the the Poise and the skill of those dudes very impressive so so thank you very much for sharing that and then I had some time to visit Vanguard with Mrs Martinez and uh she was shared with me about the new elect that were there about the new Band Room Edition that's going on there so so very excited about that and also wanted to congratulate uh the the staff there with regard to the new stem grant that uh Vanguard was awarded stem for for science technology engineering and math and they just got a new grant for that and I thought that was very appropriate in light of something that an article that just came out in the California School Board Association the csba California School Board Association said this stem Knowledge and Skills are increasingly necessary to prepare students for the job market nearly a quarter of all occupations in the United States and Engineering Information Technology Healthcare construction and multiple other fields require stem competency in coming years that share is predicted to grow and so this grant that Vanguard was awarded fits in perfectly with the vision that we see among Professionals in the field so just really want to congratulate her and her staff for that accomplishment so really excited in fact I'm kind of Blown Away by all the accomplishments going out through throughout really every school in the district so parents students teachers principals administrators classified staff thank you for what you're doing you are absolutely making it making a fantastic difference and then preparing some amazing leaders for for tomorrow so thank you for everything that you do Maria foreign school board meeting uh it's always exciting to see all the students when they come in to Showcase what they learn at their schools but before I start today I need you all to take the time and think of that woman who has made a huge impact in your life that woman could be your mother that woman could be your teacher that woman could be your bus driver and that woman could be the person who's cooking your meals at school let us take this month to appreciate all the women who have made an impact in our lives mine is no longer alive so I tend to use every woman who has crossed my path as that woman in my history this this month or this last month I went and visited High Desert Premier Academy um I actually was so excited about going to that school that I wore this t-shirt I was so sure that I was going to see Angelique on campus and show her that I'm actually sporting the the T-shirt I actually had one of the students lift the back of my sweater so that he can see that it's really from your school that I did a sticky on it a good shirt um and so I had the opportunity to visit the classrooms and to see the teachers doing what they normally do and I actually see the children doing what they would do whether or not I was watching so if they were on their cell phones they were still doing what they wanted to do if they were talking to the other person they were still doing I just wanted to see the students in their natural habitat without having to show anything nothing to nothing fancy and then I went on to um Vanguard Vanguard was one of those schools I had planned to see a while back and but I couldn't see them because of some technicality in my scheduling my scheduling not their scheduling and so when I went I showed up um earlier than scheduled because I really wanted to see what happens when I'm not supposed to be there but it was really interesting the principal uh immediately noticed that on the back of my phone I had the sign for Sandia school I had their little logo on the back of my phone and she promptly went into her office and gave me and brought brought hers out I thought that was sweet so I immediately got a pair of scissors and cut hers out neatly so that I can add it to my Sandia sticker because I did not want to lose Sandia I wanted to have both of them on the back of my phone but be careful don't send me any more because my phone is so slow um but at Vanguard I noticed that we went to certain classrooms and I saw teachers doing what they normally do teaching the students being natural in their natural habitat but the one thing that really caught my attention you know sometimes because I'm a product of this school district I've been here since 1985.
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so campus marshes of course uh is the first Park that DDP ever created um you can see here it's a historic space much like a roundabout you'd see in Paris so it's you know it's not always been the park that it's known for today here it is uh you know it's a convergence of Roads you can see Old City Hall which is actually the the the the location of where I'm physically sitting right now that that was torn down in uh one campus marshes uh is sitting there today um and so this District by the late 90s as you can see it's it's still a convergence of roads by and large not a lot of change to that actual physical site and in the in the 90s downtown Detroit was likely one of the most depressed vacant downtowns in the country I mean it was it was a pretty bleak time even the picture and the coloration here kind of looks bleak and you can see just a sea of Roads nobody walking around um I I grew up in Detroit so I remember coming down here and it was literally just tumbleweeds there was physical tumbleweeds blowing around and it's hard to believe that just a few short years later the creation of Campus Martius across the street started to take hold around Detroit's 300th birthday and was really spurred on by the momentum of of acquiring uh Super Bowl XL um which you know Got You Gotta Love America we love a good sports event to push us you know to get something done really fast so um between Detroit's 300th birthday uh which was a wonderful kickoff and celebration Stevie Wonder headline for it I mean it was an incredible incredible event it really catalyzed the the development of Campus Martius Park and here you can see you can see a rare photo which honestly not a lot of people have seen this but it's a it's a picture of mid-construction in 2002.
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23 24 school year sorry right so the next fiscal year yes we're not helping this year that's what you're asking yeah yeah thank you everybody that was probably the easier to say that's what you're asking right yeah we don't get any help this year okay um thank you Mr Mejia for that first uh diversity meeting next we'll move on to uh policy uh Miss bassford thank you Mr President Smith uh the policy committee met February 13th we began at 5 p.m in attendance with board president Jim Smith uh commissioner fahima abedrabba commission commissioner Richard Mejia administrators were Mark gingero Lou Ross and myself the following by laws and policies were put forth for adoption as recommended by Strauss Esme which is the service that we contract to regulate looking at our policies and also giving us updates when they come when they come to um to the surface so one was zero one six one call a German and cancellations number two is zero six two notice of board meetings two four two threes bilingual and ESL education five two zero zero attendance eight one four zero student enrollment 8330 Student Records the following bylaws and policies are being put forth for adoption with recommendation changes zero one five two board officers select option one on page one and option one on page two number two was five five one two harassment intimidation or bullying select option two and section g and Page 24.
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as I understand it many of us in the community are aware of this proposed bill this strike everything bill and the proposed amendments if this passes as written then that means that for asdb we will no longer be a program for the deaf and hard of hearing yes you can't see me if I stand in front of the camera though all right sorry guys the community okay I'll try my best to make sure that Miss Bove can see me she's the only deaf person up here okay wow you're good all right for understanding for I'm sensitive to access needs for our deaf people we're just going to pause so we can actually move the camera to help help out in every way that we can well can miss both see me thank you anyways so if this proposed bill passes as it is currently written that that means that asdb will no longer be a school or a program for the deaf this will be in direct conflict with current policies of asdb many deaf members of the community have sent letters to our representatives and our Senators we have contacted Senators already because of the level of concern we have however we are upset that this board has chosen to wait until now to act things can happen at lightning pace things can be fast-tracked and we wouldn't know I was stunned that the board did not call some sort of special meaning or emergency meeting with the purpose of making sure that this is an actionable item for our staff and we could ask them to stand in opposition to the bill that is this serious while I'm here I would like to add that as a former professor of Matt at gallaudet University I also served on several school boards including the Board of Trustees at gallaudet University commonly the board is a policy making board it's a group of people who make policy and the administrators of the programs are typically left to the business of running the schools whether that be the superintendent or principals based on the meeting that happened most recently the board has decided to override recommendations by your superintendent and has directed funds to other schools and agencies for example desert voices that is out of asdb's umbrella which is direct violation of current policy if I could refer you to the current policy section B code bdd the superintendent and board relations this is very simple there's three sections here as everybody can see in short the policy says that the implementation of the policy is the responsibility of the board correct in the second section it says the superintendent is responsible for the administration of asdb the superintendent knows what is best for our students here for our deaf blind hard of hearing students here the board doesn't work here and the board seems frankly to be forcing its own will onto the superintendent which is in direct violation of standing policy and I feel like that should be avoided during the former Administration president Sims and then most recently president Nigro the board was frankly quite oppressive not only to their superintendent but to other members of the board I am very hopeful with the new leadership with suke I have faith in her that she will lead the board in the right direction so that from here on out superintendent reichmann can feel comfortable talking with the board and asking for ideas and being able to design new programs and move things forward we rely on you for that thank you thank you next is Eric Cardenas related to um contracts I know yeah hi I'm in fifth grade um Carrie should not work here next fall because what happened in November when she came into my classroom and she called my friend names such as an animal and threatened to call 9-1-1 on him and told him that he couldn't act like this in the real world she yelled at him in class and my teacher Miss Emily tried to defend him and said get out please stop but Carrie wouldn't stop even though he was crying and said he couldn't control it because he has ticks she made my friends sad and that made me so mad Carrie told my mom what happened and told my friends told their moms told them that he was just too loud and she continues to look at me to try to intimidate me she'll stand close by and make me feel unsafe at school I stay home a lot of days because she makes me afraid to be at school and a teacher should not make kids afraid to be at school I have a safety plan but Carrie continues to violate it by being in the cafeteria because there's a new student in the cafeteria but that new student isn't even in her class she's mean to her students and to other students on campus every day my mom has talked about pulling me out and taking me to a different school but I want to stay at PTSD and I should be able to stay at PTSD for Middle School I just don't want to get in trouble with my friends and with Carrie she's very mean she tells bad jokes to my friends and she calls my mom for nothing but yet she's not in trouble we try not to instigate of anything but she goes out of her way to be in our face the principles should be penalizing her if teachers aren't teaching how to be appropriate and she's hurting kids around her she should be in her own classroom separated away from us and that's the safety plan but she keeps violating it she just can't stop thank you next is Amy Young related to non-renewal of contracts hi can you go real close how about now okay yeah hi my name is Amy I am a mother here of Brody young that attends a PTSD my son birdie was mainstream school until about 2019 when we visited astb campus we already fell in love with the campus and the culture we knew then what we had to do he wanted to go to asdb that year it was a struggle for him when he attended there because he did Miss home so the next year we knew that we had to move to Phoenix for him to attend a deaf school but also be home with his family we never had any issues with PTSD up until this year after Carrie verbally abused a student right in front of him he has been terrified he refuses to go to school he wants to switch to another school which my son was very excited to come to this school and now he hates it he wants to go to a mainstream school he's being bullied almost every day since this incident for standing up to his friend which is exactly what will happen if Carrie gemmer stays here and her contract is renewed next year he will be attending to a new school he does not feel safe here as we had to get a injunction of harassment against her so that my son could go to school and be safe this should never have happened if Annette Reitman would have responded fast and put her on an admin leave and communicated with the parents I also believe Annette reichmann's contract shouldn't be renewed she admitted to us that parent admitted to us parents that communication fell through the cracks on this which blows my mind there was no way that communication fell through the cracks when we emailed her and the board many times this is a serious situation this should have this should have been taken seriously since day one since then my art students were put on a safety plan it has been violated over three times since it sorry since then we had to resort to the law my son isn't safe here at PTSD so why should I send him here next year thank you next is Talisha and I can't read the last name Evans Nevins thank you okay coming here I thought I would be prepared but I guess I'm not um first of all we all know um what Annette reichman did and or excuse me what Carrie gamer did and her contract should not be renewed um she should not be in this school she's not safe she has been bullying students for years um not just my child but other other children as well um when my son had an altercation with another student that child said that he would tell Carrie on him as a threat and my son immediately shut down it is well known the way that she treats students and the way that she treats staff everyone everyone that she comes in contact with feels unsafe here it has been a constant struggle since the incident happened and I don't understand why she's still here um in a normal circumstance at a public school this wouldn't be happening I'm asking you to not renew Carrie and I'm asking you not to renew and that's Annette reichmann's contract either because she has not demonstrated good leadership as astb superintendent she should be providing transparent and consistent communication which she has not been for almost four months since this incident happened I have gotten two Communications the one was not personal it was just a form letter and names were switched out and it was sent out it went to three of us three of us mothers we all got the exact same letter and the walking the the next one the second one um was throwing excuse me it said Jill will see you which is throwing Jill under the bus because she didn't even she had just gotten here she wasn't here when the incident occurred and it was completely inappropriate it completely blew my mind she also has thrown George Martin under the bus at the last board meeting the comments that she said that were not addressed and Mr Martin said that they weren't true and I believe him I absolutely believe him if she does not communicate well she never has superintendent Martin I looked at his background he has been an educator he has done quite a bit of education and educational direct instruction as well as leadership and I don't think that Annette is capable of changing I don't think that she wants him here because he wants to change things the community some of you might have faith in her but I don't and I think it's enough of this it's time to change get these folks out of here and I'm glad that President negro was no longer here thank you thank you it's okay this is um I am not able to see the signing members because of the camera so I'm in a tough spot I can no longer see the public comment being made by signers can we get the camera maybe moved again that will do it um yeah she moved we can't it was signed a portion of the camera so as a deaf person on the board I'd like for it to be moved please where wherever I don't know you set it up that way I don't know what's going to be best for you as far as the monitors and people who are watching the Stream foreign can she stand at the podium please yes that's much better thank you is that okay with everyone else yeah okay next I have Jason Schmidt related to um sb1402 okay I'm checking my visibility here I think are we all good okay hello everyone and good afternoon congratulations to a new president sukeko all right this is my first time speaking to the board my name is Jason Schmidt and I am the Arizona Association of the deaf president I've been serving the community for almost four years for four years now I have been taking a pulse on community concerns and SB 1402 is a significant concern it is not in alignment with asdb at all asdb is designed to be a school for the deaf and blind it is supposed to be an environment that is friendly for children with sensory impairments and is supposed to be 100 accessible in American Sign Language mixing with other students that have different needs and don't use ASL is in conflict with our policy and our mission as a school for the deaf and blind for our students who are deaf blind or deaf and blind that is the the environment that we should um be preserving for them we have brought together the community and tried to work out a strategic plan and I know that the um that the board is working on that as well the staff is working on that but we want to keep this as a sacred place for our deaf Community there is no need to continue to change it we would like to see that it be kept the way that it is um leave well enough alone is what we're asking for our students should come to school here to feel safe they should be able to learn in their primary language and that should be our priority and this is the place in Arizona for our students to do that thank you thank you next is Marcy barenberg related to contracts and Senate bill 1402.
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I'm sorry in April April okay April 13th to the 16th okay yeah and that is Shrek so we're excited about that it anything else we did notice when we were in the parking lot the academic competition is going on right now and that's one of the events I think we we often just kind of comes and goes but we have I don't know there's usually like 10 to 15 schools that come and bring an academic team to Brown County uh for the academic competition so anything else all right well thank you all very much uh is there a motion to adjourn can
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and so I tend to see things that were not can't things that are not set up for me I tend to find it one of the things I noticed was how easy was for those children to see their principal walking me around and they leave the playground and raise up to her and they gave her a hug I was still standing there and I thought what am I a chop liver you don't want to give me a hug too but they didn't know me they knew their principal but that still told me a lot about the relationship that the students have with their principal and that really want my heart um I'd like to thank the student reps that spoke today um all I can say is that my head is so full I need a head brace to hold it up because I I've never seen such articulate children I speak with such Poise to share what they know and what is happening at their schools and for us to know that you guys are our future we we look at you and we know that you are going to have a great future for for the people that are older you're going to create the world that we are going to live in I like to um see the students again if it's possible because you all are creating memories they're creating memories that you will remember long after this is done I have had people asking me about how was it when I was a teacher in Apple Valley Junior High I said this was the band room and they look at me like what do you mean I say this was the bathroom that was a choir room I could tell them what happened here on this campus but those were memories hold on to the memories you have learned as you are growing up through your years because that is your foundation um special thanks to Apple Valley high school principal who opened his doors for me to enter to come and see a presentation put together by Dr kwanda and um um and the um persons of color right it's so what's called the group was called and the presentation on that campus one of the things that I found very fascinating about that President uh present presentation was how easy it was for the presenter to present to this different grade levels using their different language to be able to make this I call it's almost like code switching to to teach to that population without overwhelming them and to watch these two students at the end of it to come back and want to talk to her um Elam I have known this child since he about four years ago and to see him come up today uh was a thing of Pride for me um I don't like to call our students but this one is very special to me and I wanted to be sure that you're aware that I know somebody that spoke today is like is that I know a superstar [Music] um foreign good teaching conference I hope that at some point this district will also continue to support it um as I was coming up that was my Foundation as a teacher um I went out and I learned what others were doing I bought books that were put out by other others I practiced with others to see what they were doing they were not teaching me a method that was contrary to the district they were just teaching me how do you relate especially in the world that we're growing in and so I like to see this District begin to participate in that in it one more time um and outside of that I can say I am really really proud of our student students today and I hope to see you again next month have a great evening thank you that's good am I going to be short I did a few words for some of you that are seniors here you come back from the break you got eight weeks of your high school career left you're going to have your AP exams you're going to have your prom and that's going to be graduation it's going to come at you at warp speed and all you youngsters here you got that to look forward to because you education is what will take you ahead in this life it really will there's there's no nothing to stand in your way thank you you guys are excused go home and study thank you oh yeah that was good yeah [Music] all right thank you [Applause] hello let me know when you're ready all right um we're gonna get our closed session reports the clerk will read any action taken in closed session Maria in closed session the Board of Trustees took action in support of the following recommendations from the superintendent conference on litigation government code section 54954.5 set subsection d an emotion by Bender seconded by RC the board voted unanimously to deny the claim of Jesus and a vote of five zero B2 conference on litigation an emotion by Bender seconded by Raleigh the Board of Trustees approved the following approved the proposed settlement agreement regarding case number Civ SB 2208019 on a motion um total vote of 5-0 in closed session the Board of Trustees took action in support of the following recommendation from the superintendent Public Employee discipline dismissal release reassignment transfer leave certificated and classified employees on a motion by Buchanan seconded by RC and a vote of 5-0 the Board of Trustees approved the following approved the non-re-election of the following certificate a probationary employee number 7925 identified by employee number effective June 30 2023 and direct that the superintendent or her designate gave written notice thereof as required by law okay conference with labor negotiator on a motion by RC seconded by Raleigh the Board of Trustees approved the following approved the memorandum of an agreement with the California School Employees Association chapter 828 dated February 16 2023 regarding article 22 transportation department procedure section B on a vote of 5-0 as a yes conference with labor negotiator on a motion by Bender seconded by opara the Board of Trustees approved the following and of a vote of 5-0 the memorandum of understanding with the California School Employees Association chapter number 828 dated February 9 2023 regarding an increase of hours effective January February 1st 2023 thank you conference with labor negotiator on a motion by Buchanan seconded by RC the Board of Trustees approved the following of a vote of 5-0 as a yes approved the memorandum of understanding with the California School Employees Association chapter 828 dated February 9th 2023 regarding creation of para educator expanded learning position range 25 180 base Duty days an emotion by RC seconded by opara the Board of Trustees approved the following approved the memorandum of understanding with California School Employees Association chapter number 828 dated February 15 regarding an increase in range based on the classification study effective March 1st 2023 of a book of 5-0 thank you all right the adoption of the agenda the board May approve the agenda as is or ADD and pull items from the consent agenda for discussion do I have a motion Mr Bender can I recommend that we pull item I2 and not take action tonight on that we will bring it back to the next board meeting there have been some changes since the last um since it was posted and one of the universities is listed as Brandman and it's now UMass there is another University that needs to be added um and so we'd like to just pull it and bring it next month okay so I move that we pull I item I too thank you I second it okay all in favor aye next we have a presentation on the second interim by Mr schulenberg thank you Mr Bender I'm trying to get my presentation up on the screen you do have a copy of that in front of you at yours at your space help it thank you for the record this is what teachers probably have to deal with my apologies for the technical difficulties if the board could take a look at the paper copies in front of them my apologies to the members of the audience it doesn't look like my screen is going to be agreeing with uh uh this this evening so for the board if you would take a look at slide two um you got two slides per page so slide two on page one you'll see this is our interim reporting um and for the audience the interim reporting is the financial condition of the district at some some points throughout the year this is the second interim so this is our financials as of January 31st uh this report is due to the county by March 15th hence the presentation and the item in the consent agenda where the board had the opportunity to review the budget documents and they will take action on consent approving that and then we will submit the report to the county um page three there are three certifications possible in interim reporting positive qualified and negative Apple Valley Unified will be filing a positive qualification which means through the budget cycle which is three years current and two more years we will meet our financial obligations based on what we know today and the assumptions and projections that we're utilizing qualified means we may not meet those and of course negative is we will not meet those um but we will be filing positive this evening um on the next page page four just some uh some list of some documents that we utilize what I'd like to point out there is we use the state adopted budget as of June 2022 along with the governor's January budget proposal um which came out a couple months ago and then the school Services dart board School Services is a consultant in the state of California that really has the the pulse of the finances and the widely accepted dartboard is an information document we use uh next slide I think we're on to number five now the Ada assumptions you'll see our funded Ada a budget adoption for the current year was uh 12 115 we did up that at first interim um because of what the state did in terms of protecting our funded Ada and um uh kind of a hold harmless now if you look at first interim to Second interim we've had to adjust our Ada down unfortunately we are experiencing High absenteeism um relative to pre-covered attendance rates which we've uh corrected that in our Ada projections for the out years and even the current year we had to adjust down a little bit so that is one thing that is affecting our incoming Revenue as we look at this particular budget cycle the next page page six uh Arcola assumptions you'll see from the budget to First interim the cola the cost of living adjustments did not change however at the January budget proposal we do have an increase to the cost of living adjustment in next school year the governor did pledge his commitment to fund an 8.13 Cola based on his financial production projections and the um the Department of Finance up at the state next adjustment will come with the May revision and unfortunately the revenue at the tax revenue at the state level is not flowing in based on the governor's projections so I imagine there will be some adjustments moving forward the next slide if we look at the 2324 assumptions oh it just goes over some Revenue projections that we're utilizing for the 2324 school year you'll see the funded Ada with the cola and that does Net us a lcff revenue increase of just shy of 12 million dollars the federal revenue we have a lot of one-time Revenue including our Esser funds our coveted relief funds some one-time State funds and we assume that those are expensed in the current year and in 23-24 so we have to make those Revenue adjustments because those are one-time funds they are not ongoing so we back those out of the budget same with some state revenue now what that does is that normalizes our federal and state revenue assumptions to kind of their pre-covered levels because the governor the federal government and the the governor of California really threw a lot of one-time money at school districts and that money is being used to support our operations the past couple years this year and next year and and then we are assuming that money is expent or expired uh the next slide 2324 expenditures you'll see we have included all of our negotiated settlements across all of our bargaining units we do account for step and column increases and retirement contributions and the big one and we are assuming all one-time coveted relief funding is expensed at the end of the 24 school year some of that Esser funds don't actually expire until September 24 but we're doing our best to spend them well before that deadline so we don't have to give any money back to the state or the federal government you'll see the 2425 assumptions on the next page again our funded Ada with the cola three and a half percent with the uh lcf Revenue increase of approximately 5.2 million now there are no adjustments to federal and state revenue for the 24-25 because we made those adjustments in the 23-24 year in year two of this particular budget cycle so you'll see fairly consistent Federal and other state revenues um in the budget on the expenditure side again we do account for all negotiated settlements step and column increases of course in retirements and the last bullet point you'll see because of the expiration of all that one-time money and the coveted relief funds and the nature of the expenses or the nature of what we're spending that money on we have to make an assumption that those expenses will continue so we have about a 10 million dollar movement from the restricted side of our budget into the unrestricted side of our budget to continue to support those expenses um so that is you'll see the impact of that when I show you a couple slides later actually one slide later here's the impact of that um you'll see these are just some projected year totals this is our unrestricted General funds so within fund one our major operating fund we have unrestricted funds and we have restricted funds uh the major Revenue source of our unrestricted is our local control funding formula and you can see it does increase from this year to 23 24 to 24.25 expenditures also increase and you see that big jump in expenditures from 23 24 to 24.25 we go from 151 million to about 168 and that accounts for the negotiated settlements step and column increases operating expense increases and that shift of about 10 million dollars of restricted expenses over to the unrestricted side of the budget so you'll see the ending fund balance unrestricted ending fund balance we're projecting this year we're going to end with about 21.7 million and we're projecting June 25 ending with about 10.8 million of unrestricted funds in our budget the next slide is the restricted you'll see the revenues and expenditures for this year the revenues are incredibly inflated because a lot of that one-time money we we book it as Revenue if we don't expense it in that year we have to book it as Revenue in the next that's a deferred revenue program so we are assuming that the majority of that revenue is is spent this year and the remaining is spent next year um so 24.25 that's a more normal however you still do see a deficit spend because we are assuming that all of our restricted program funds are expensed by the end of this particular budget cycle that will ebb and flow as we as we continue to refine those expenses and as we move through the budget years um again this is a snapshot as of January 31st and I forgot my disclaimer at the beginning this is subject to change it will in fact it already has based on our budgeted revenues expenditures as we go through again this is just a snapshot the next slide is the combined and what you'll see there is just combined um revenues expenses as we move through the budget year with an ending fund balance of 10.8 in June of 25.
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so it was really meant to be a legacy gift to Detroit um and obviously now in 2022 it's the award-winning space that um that everybody sort of recognizes very heavily programmed on purpose because you have to think of the the late 90s picture I just showed there was nothing to do down here no there was no reason for anyone to come to this site and now that we've got a space we we started off by having tons of events which attracted energy and vitality to the area and then look you know people started popping up small businesses around it people started uh moving in next door so truthfully public space can catalyze and really sustain a neighborhood so like I said we get 4.2 million visitors annually here now uh over 20 years it's our 20th year with campus Marxist Park and um and here's a look at the tree lighting uh ceremony from this past year so we had uh about a hundred thousand people show up in the in the cold just a few weeks ago um well just just it feels like a few weeks ago just a few months ago so again an incredible um series of before and afters and I just want to underscore you know why investments in public space matter and they do have a return both the financial return a community return um a a Civic uh return there's Pride there's marketing uh positive image so they've got tremendous value and of course you know we'll we'll just keep putting that in during the presentation just to remind everybody that we are the number one Publix quick um so now we'll jump over to Capitol Park and uh this is just to block North of Campus Martius one of one of six uh spaces that we manage and this park is this was the site of Michigan's first state capital which surprisingly not many folks know um it was here in Detroit before moved to Lansing and that's because uh uh um detroiters at the time were worried about an aquatic Invasion from Canada which is hysterical to think about in uh today but there you have it and what you're looking at on the screen on the left is the first state capitol building uh which which was at the site of Capital Park and like a lot of buildings in the 1800s it burned down and then it was rebuilt on the right bigger and better and it's still burned down so no more no more Capital at Capital Park and they learned the second time um but the but the legacy is Rich and incredible and uh and I know this isn't a history presentation so I won't spend a lot of time here but um but I mean just you know a few of the a few of the amazing sites at Capital Park Finney Barn which was one of the last stops on the Underground Railroad in your upper left uh on your bottom right the Michigan plane dealer which was the first african-american-owned um newspaper so uh incredible incredible history Stevens T Mason the first governor up there he's uh he's buried at Capitol Park so really really an incredible space and uh and it's worth telling that story so after the capital burned down it left uh a void there and as Detroit became you know it started to develop pretty intensely at the early turn of the century they created a beautiful space a really nice Parisian Green Park with a water feature benches places to gather they had events um and then like like a lot of parks over time and after the the uh the Great Depression um and as Detroit you know picked up more steam around the 50s uh they turned it into a bus depot because they needed to get people circulating so this entire park was raised it was raised completely there was a bus terminal now in the 50s and you know like like Campus Martius until the 90s Capitol Park remained in a similar State and here it is in 2008 um Capital Park was completely empty it was it was vacant it was abandoned there was uh you can still see some of the bus infrastructure there actually on the left it was overgrown it was unsafe safe and this is 2008 this is not that long ago you know to to to to remember that it was just pigeons that were there and uh and then there were some interim improvements made by by the city uh this lovely concrete um Oasis here in 2011.
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the following policies are abolished as recommended recommended by Strauss Esme 1648.11 the road forward it's covid-19 policy number two one six four eight point thirteen School employee vaccination requirement policy 8505 wellness policy nutrient standard this policy will be presented for the first and second reading tonight to be re-adopted as currently written due to the upcoming audit requirement we have to do this immediately or it's we're going have an issue with that audit for uh informational purposes the committee discussed the section addressing virtual public participation by zero one six seven public participation in board meetings the committee also agreed to continue the process of reviewing and updating all district policies the meeting adjourned at 5 35 pm and Mr Ross wrote the minutes any questions yes thank you commissioner basford on the board officers to select option one and page one is this is this something that we um that was already provided on on the agenda okay um everybody get the um [Music] it was hard to follow the attachment so I we have the committee we got the minutes right but just on the actual policy itself is is there um more description on these I believe Mr Ross sent the whole okay did he send every policy to everyone because that's what he's supposed to be doing believe right right every you got it right and then what happens is Strauss says me gives you a language to to consider it's either option one or option two and the committee decided the option so do you want do you want me to bring this back to you want to be invited to the committee meeting so you can listen to this I I don't want to be in violation of the public meetings act or whatever it's fine yeah yeah but um actually discuss these options in length and everybody was affirmative it's it's only a couple of word changes it's nothing where it's gonna It's Gonna Hurt the board I believe um which one you you're referring to board officers um I think it was just verbiage about the boy president and how we and how what he does in his role and Jim was on the call so he was fine with every all the wording as well as as there was no negative not one person said nothing about it so so let me just say this going forward when I get my minutes I'm going to respond to Mr Ross to please send it to the entire board and everything with all the attachments because I think that's where we made the foul uh I don't I I thought everybody got him Alan's telling me we got them right thank you right it's got an attachments but see the options it's from Strauss has made they're a company that we pay the Board of Education pays them every year to actually give us the language to put in these policies that are mandated by the state of New Jersey or the federal government depending on the policy it's nothing that we make up we may change a word like that says um designated uh Personnel we may say superintendent but we never make really serious changes you'll know when we make serious names because there'll be a lot of discussion here and argument trust me right we were all on board with it so thank you you're welcome yes Mr Paris um there it is I told you in two minutes I'm sorry it's not in two minutes sorry about that everybody thank you hold down meeting about the virtual public hearing and all that um because the former board member brought it up that he didn't have enough time to um you know basically go on and speak what he wanted to speak about is it possible you know and I liked how we did it today we gave we gave an opportunity and log in about getting like I think a minute and then you read a little bit about um the reading of the policy and all that can we just might have been the same procedure all along nothing's changed I think there's a five SEC five minute there's like a five something delay he was saying that I I know he expressed his uh concern to me that there's a couple of minutes delay by the time we're speaking and the actual login went on that was his issue so Jim really spread it out when we looked into it um through technology uh um and through uh Mr Rose um she puts it on uh a couple of minutes before the meeting starts so anyone who wants to come into the virtual room can come in she'll put them into that waiting room we go through this flag salute we go through moment of silence the mission statement open public meetings all that so there's a good 15 minutes there before any of that actually happens all right thank you so I don't know there was an issue with somebody's internet or something but we're not trying to stifle anyone from you thank you president Smith all right um food and transportation we're gonna hold those to uh to our next meeting um so uh Mr meehy I'm sorry I should have had you do both of them uh booster club committee it's fine um so we're gonna go to the booster club committee minutes um we held it on Monday actually not a couple days ago on February 27 2023 and it started at 7 pm the start time was at 705.
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