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all the meaning to order will you please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance let the record reflect that all board members are present with the exception of Miss Christine Pritchard next we will move to item B1 recognitions and celebrations Dr Dean thank you madam president members of the governing board members of cabinet in our community this evening we are very excited to honor several of our students who have had great achievements this winter either through the city of El Mirage and surprise essay contests and we'll recognize them in just a minute or through our state and Regional Champions and national champions athletically this winter and so I would like to ask the board to join me at the front of the stage and we'll turn the first part of this over to Dr assai to recognize our essay winners and then Dr crota will go right into introducing and recognizing our state champions thank you so much Dr Dean I didn't know I was announcing um we have our first essay winners for the city of El Mirage first place or was always third place went to Caleb Rodriguez [Applause] second place goes to Layla Djokovic and first place for the city of El Mirage third and fourth grade is Esmeralda Olvera Martinez [Applause] we also have winners in 9th through 12th grade our winners for ninth grade through 12th grade for the city of El Mirage second place goes to Andre Mena Mena [Applause] and first place goes to Nathaniel cosio [Applause] and now our winners for the City of Surprise third and fourth grade we had a tie from Candace bumia and Rose Vasquez [Applause] and they're all going to fly away with their balloons first sixth or eighth grade our first place winner was Tatiana Pellegrino [Applause] at our 9th through 12th grade winner from Shadow Ridge High School is Caleb Delgado parents you can move to the front and take pictures if you want make sure you get big smiles to your parents and we would also like to thank the cities of El Mirage in surprise for co-sponsoring our essay contest and a round of applause Final Round of Applause thank you all right Madam president we're going to continue on with our recognition since you're up in front we have some awesome athletes individuals and teams to recognize we are going to start off with our sport teams that were named Regional sectional Champions and so first we have when I call your team or call you individually please come up take a picture real quick and then we'll move on the first one is Dysart High girls basketball they are the 4A Black Canyon region champions [Applause] what's up and deck is boys basketball Cowboys basketball lineup so it goes faster dice our boys basketball you're next hey is this is this you think this is Labyrinth yeah hurry I need the list congratulations [Applause] all right next up also from Dysart High School our boys basketball for a Black Canyon region Champions so Dysart High School [Applause] laborious I'm going to jump down to the coach of the year was the coach basketball no it's a nicer Keegan stay there Keegan don't go far Keegan stay right there all right along with these two teams we want to recognize we had two region coaches of the year and they're both from Dysart so Keegan cook boys basketball coach and Erica granados girls basketball come on up [Applause] congratulations coaches [Applause] all right on to our state champions and there's a lot of them we're going to start off keeping the pace with Dysart High School our boys wrestling division three heavyweight state champion Julian laborin [Applause] by the way Julian's joined up there by coach Benton Bloom so coach congrats [Applause] we have a region champ in boys soccer that I omitted so I'm going back to the region Champions because I don't want to forget them uh Shadow Ridge Boys soccer Regional Champions Shadow Ridge [Applause] okay on to our Shadow Ridge is Palm national champions come on up national champions [Applause] and yes you heard that correctly that's national champions not state champions thank you congratulations Shadow Ridge bomb s Abel Garza thank you [Applause] what do you think Eamon come on Posse foreign all right also from Shadow Ridge uh boys wrestling 150 pound state champion Amman Pacey [Applause] you say that right passy sorry congratulations all right keeping with wrestling from Valley Vista and I don't know if she's joining us tonight but she's here come on up girls wrestling 126 pound state champion Brianna Reyes [Applause] all right from Valley Vista our unified soccer gold division state champion come on up unified soccer thank you you can't have six thousand that's fine the last seven four in a row six out last seven four in a row all right continuing on with Valley Vista is the girls basketball team before you clap hold on they were 6A West Valley region Champions and they are also 6A the 6A state champions for six out of the last seven years they've been championships and four in a row so congratulations Valley Vista the game I have to just take us to points up out here on the trip wearing three rings Olivia has been a starter audiologists from the basketball team s inch fourth to get [Music] a chance to have won four state championships as a starter in the highest division in 6A [Applause] as long as she has to graduated because we're going to have fingers to put a rims on Saturday all right and Willow Canyon's up next at Willow Canyon division one and two their co-ed stunt state champions come on up [Applause] relations [Applause] might as well stay there and Willow Canyon again for division one and two they are co-ed cheer state champions [Applause] thank you all right and from Willow Canyon High School unified basketball gold division state champions [Applause] so Athletics all right sorry we have three goals so we go by Three A's academics Athletics and the Arts and as you can see we want to excel in all those in this district and what you saw tonight with the state champions and the region champions We Are excelling in one of those A's in in the Athletics so great job congratulations to everybody we are proud of you and way to represent Dysart and your families in the communities and that ends our our ceremony Awards there you go couldn't think of the word thank you [Applause] all right thank you that's your mom's number thank you Dr croto and thank you Dr Dean next we'll move to audience with individuals do we have any no do not okay then we will move on to D1 student update do we have one Dutch cuddle we do not have a student this evening all right then we move right on to superintendent update Dr Dean we do have a superintendent here this evening so we'll start with that Madam president members of the of the governing board members of cabinet in our community my update will be fairly brief tonight but we want to say congratulations officially to three of our schools who received a plus status through the Arizona Education Foundation those schools are Canyon Ridge El Mirage and Willow Canyon High School so congratulations to all of them we will have Representatives or I believe in uh Miss Davis's case the entire El Mirage staff at our board meeting on March 30th so we look forward to recognizing them then I just want to say congratulations again to our essay contest winners and also to all of our winter state champion and Regional Champions and the national champions at Shadow Ridge as well as the board can tell we had a great winter season athletically with our high schools just want to remind the board that we have a study session scheduled for March 23rd from 4 to 6 p.m and that will be at Freedom Traditional Academy we'll make sure that that information gets sent out to you as well in writing that will be in the library at Freedom Traditional Academy because we'll be having our career fair here in the boardrooms also want to let the board know that I will be out of town for the April 9th board meeting um Dr Crowder will sit I think it's April 9th I'll be out of town for the first meeting in April and Dr crota will sit in the seat for that meeting and we will make sure for his sake that it's a very long meeting with about five presentations from Mr Hicks to enjoy um and then I just want to point out a couple of other things looking ahead at our Board calendar we're going to need to look to reschedule our June board meeting as we will all be out of town with all of our principals for the PLC conference so we will talk further about that I want to remind the board and all of our staff parents students and our community that we will be on spring break next week the offices will officially be closed on Spring Breaks one of the breaks that we actually closed down and then finally I want to take just a moment and recognize Luisa um some of you may not know Louisa by name but you know her by face she is the right-hand person of anybody that's sitting in this role and Luisa has been with us just about 20 years it'll be are you going to cry all right just checking I haven't made anybody cry for a couple weeks so let's be a first again um Luis has been with us for about 20 years in a couple of different uh roles she had the opportunity to be the opening principal or opening principal secretary at Cimarron Springs correct she worked at Cimarron Springs when she uh when they opened the school and then was the opening principal or principal secretary at Marley Park I keep trying to call you a principal just just roll with it I got it and Luisa has been here at the district office serving as an administrative assistant for the director of student services and Athletics at one point in time and in the role as the administrative assistant to the superintendent and so Louis I want to say thank you to you for all the service that you provided to the school district and we wish you well so with that that concludes my update thank you Dr Dean we will move to governing board update um let's see I participate participated in read Across America and it was so much fun being in the classroom and I got to read at Countryside in El Mirage Rancho Gabrielle Canyon Ridge Freedom traditional and Sunset Hills and at Sunset Hills I did the whole third grade in one room that was very scary I mean one class is fine but three but it was fun and they were so gracious to me I also attended Sunset Hills musical production of newsy Jr and if you didn't get to go you missed out on a great production and finally just thank you Luisa for your service and your patience with me I appreciate it and good luck in your new position they're very lucky to have you I would also like to say congratulations Luisa we are going to miss you good luck on your new Journey I also attended read across America at Canyon Ridge Rancho Gabriella freedom and El Mirage Elementary I had an absolute blast reading to these to the students and then I also attended the National Junior Honor Society induction at Freedom traditional and I just want to give a shout out to miss soljic she did an outstanding job with the ceremony in the students so the students that were inducted were sixth grade through eighth grade and I'm very proud of all of them so it was an honor to be there so thank you I attended the auditor generals training on covid-19 spending report and the school district Financial Risk analysis this is one of many excellent development development opportunities for members of the Arizona Coalition of school board members I just want to thank Mr Hicks for answering all of my questions that I had after that I also want to mention that I was invited to several schools for the read Across America just because of my work schedule I wasn't able to attend many of them but I was able to read to a few classes at Freedom traditional and I am very grateful for all of the invitations that I did get I also just want to mention that during a few School visits I did at freedom and another one today that I am just so impressed with our security protocols even for board members so I I'm just very grateful to all of our staff that take that very seriously um this morning I was grateful to attend one of the dice Art Heroes days at a few different schools and just grateful to all of our staff that make that happen uh this morning I was also able to attend um a few classes at Marley Park and was able to observe their math curriculum in action also want to wish Louisa a happy retirement from Dysart and best wishes in the future I am going to miss you terribly and just want to wish everyone a Happy Spring Break coming up thank you I would like to start by asking Dr croteau since Dr Dean will be absent will you be training for the marathon instead okay all right thank you I was also able to make several School visits I was able to visit Thompson Ranch a mirage and freedom traditional and I want to say thank you to Mr Kerr Miss Davis and Miss Wilford for hosting me and letting me come we have some really great teachers and I saw some wonderful things happening in all three of those schools they're awesome so thank you and I also want to say thank you to Luisa for all of your hard work for organizing and everything that you do to make all the magic happen every week um we just really appreciate everything that you do in your service I wish you all the best all the success everything well in your new adventure and I hope you enjoy your flowers all the board members chipped in because we won we just wanted to bless you so thank you and that concludes the governing board update next we will move on to E1 I will move to approve consent agenda items as presented second motion made by Crystal Chapin seconded by Don Densmore motion carries next we'll move on to G1 information on teacher evaluation Dr Dean thank you madam president members of the governing board members of cabinet in our community this evening Dr assai will present I'm sorry Dr assai oh I'm sorry Dr polling too many doctors in the house Dr polling will uh turn this over to present information on our teacher evaluation thank you Dr Dean Madam president members of the board I'd like to introduce Dr Jane wiefridge our director of HR who will be presenting this evening good evening Madam president governing board Dr Dean and cabinet tonight I'm here to share with you teacher evaluation information Maybe yep are there any questions I think that's me now okay thank you I'm sorry about that so we have the certified evaluation for continuing teachers is a minimum of one year formal evaluation and the probationary teachers receive two Formals in a year at any time they can request another evaluation or an administrator can request another evaluation there does need to be 60 calendar days between each evaluation the evaluation process for certified staff consists of six main areas it starts with self-assessment and it ends with a year-end conference the evaluation model contains three domains the domains are planning and preparation classroom environment and instruction in each of these domains does have their own rubric the professional practice rating report has four areas distinguished proficient basic and unsatisfactory we do have an alternative performance evaluation cycle this is put in place by the state of Arizona there are five steps to this cycle after three years of the highest level of evaluation scoring an evaluating may be moved to the Apec we call it the Apex cycle in agreement between the evaluator and the evaluat as you can see from the steps the only thing that's missing is the formal evaluation at the conclusion of the evaluation process a certified evaluation score is calculated and it is done with multiple measures and we produce the state level classification system and the state level system is highly effective effective developing and ineffective we have teacher supports in place we do a support plan agreement which we call a spa we do a performance Improvement and plan agreement which is a Pia and then we also have a notice of inadequate adequacy of classroom Performance Based on how the outcome of the Pia there is an appeal process in place to the system you can appeal an assigned evaluator at the beginning of the year within 10 days if you feel like there is some bias to the system you are you are welcome to appeal the evaluator also the appeal process for the professional practice rating is in place again that is within 10 days of receiving the rating the grievance procedure can be used for alleged violations in the process or the procedures but can't be used for the opinions of the evaluator in the process so are there any questions that I can answer about any of those areas thank you so much I appreciate it do we have any other questions I do have a couple questions um when a teacher let me pull that back up when a teacher is placed on the Apec what happens if their evaluator does an informal and all of a sudden three or four years later sees things are not where they were prior to that teacher being placed on the Apec so if an evaluation is identified as needed by the administrator automatically that happens the teacher does come off the Apex cycle they are evaluated and then they would have to have three years of the highest evaluation again to go back on Apec at any given time if there is any reason and some of them may be their dok levels their data their monitoring of them anything in the teaching document that would trigger that an administrator or the evaluator would want them to receive a new evaluation they would come off Apec and then another question on the review of the professional practice readings it says that grievance procedure can be used for alleged violations of the evaluation procedure but not for disagreement with the opinions of the evaluator so what if a teacher what if an evaluator rates a teacher inadequate or approaching in one area and the teacher feels like hey I've got I've got the proof I've got documentation that I'm meeting this then are they am I correct in interpreting that this says that they can't disagree with that they can't file an appeal it says they can't appeal what's written but in the process it's already built in that they bring their documentation their supports and the evaluator is meeting with that person before and reviewing these ratings and look at any look at any extra documentation that they have supplied and they would have that conversation have that in that meeting and they would adjust those ratings accordingly according to the the data that they have supplied it's also an end of the year evaluative process when they come together and re-look at their scores in the rubrics and the data that they have supplied okay thank you you're most welcome do we have any other questions okay thank you so much thank you next we will move on to G2 Dr Dean thank you madam president members of the governing board members of cabinet and our community I'm going to keep this simple this time because I'll be the only doctor presenting um in this uh in this item and so this item comes to us at the request of a government board member as it relates to governing board committees and superintendent committees and how those intertwine with the open meeting law the governing board can call for Committees of various Natures as they see fit in my tenure in the district of 18 years I'd like I believe that I've seen a governing board in our district call for one committee and that was in 2005 late 2005.
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practice what time's the game 7 30. seven minutes somebody we already lost here correct yeah I don't know that's that's her I'm not going to give an update we told them no no no no no no yeah foreign well we can talk about Renee Renee speakers are not on up here all right we'll move on to item H the consent agenda can I have a motion I move the board approved the consent agenda as presented I second is there any questions you the consent agenda's uh approval of voucher reports personal reports Student Activities some gift and donations um out of state travel uh some approval for revised school calendars up to 20 24 25. um the HVAC system for toradolita so all those in favor aye thank you next item is item I unfinished business there is none so we're going to move to item J new business discussion approval of Picture Rocks Elementary School principal appointment Dr Streeter president Lopez governing board members members of the audience Mary O'Hara Perkins has been serving as the principal of Picture Rocks Elementary School since 2017.
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foreign [Music] good morning Wildcats it's Friday we're gonna have some fun we got a special treat for you today first time on location off campus you ever driven by warehouses around the suburbs around town wondering what goes on in there we're here at one on the north side of town called use again that has thousands of prom dresses that you could get for free at a special event next week right here at West Chicago High School and I'm only gonna pierce my left ear and I've been working on this mustache all summer long and my favorite band will always [Music] Boutique is back we're really excited we have 200 new dresses that were actually donated by use again most of them with tags so please come check it out we go Boutique will be March 18th here at the high school in Commons and student services all attendees will be entered in a raffle to win a free prom ticket and all you have to do is just scan the QR code and schedule an appointment she goes there she goes again [Applause] [Music] here she goes there she goes again [Music] all right Wildcats next Saturday March 18th 9 to 1 30 here at the high school come try on your prom dresses ticket sales go on sale the following week Tuesday through Thursday and the week after spring break Tuesday through Thursday great opportunity to save a few dollars get a great looking prom dress thanks to our student volunteers and our counseling office for all their assistance with this program [Music] that walk on the catwalk
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nobody lost a meeting tour will start with the pledge allegiance to the flag United States of America which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all foreign everybody that we are live streaming tonight's um so just know that um we'll welcome those who have joined us but know that you are being recorded at this time so the first item on the agenda is the consent agenda items if I motion by Earl to accept the consent agenda items do I have a second second by Travis any discussion all those in favor and then would like to know if there's anyone present who would like to speak on any item that is not on the agenda we have one Greg Browning What speaker yeah yeah perfect it's not it's actually not an agenda item so if you want to go ahead and speak and then we'll follow up with you sorry I missed the last meeting I was out of town but uh I'd like to start with a good evening to everyone and I'd like to start out with a thank you to our school board members and staff for making some great strides in improving school security having Mr Simpson's security training company evaluate our current procedures and measures is truly a step in the right direction so thank you for that after recent events at Jefferson County schools and sure you probably heard about I think we all can agree the threats safety still exists I'd also like to take the opportunity to update some information I have received lately on February 23rd I held a meeting with in his response to our situation was of a positive and supportive nature he brought to my attention a bill supported by state representative Jim Lucas that would allow teachers to be trained and armed while on duty during the school year this build in its current form has passed the house and is waiting Senate approval Sheriff Freeman has personally agreed to construct a training curriculum for any teacher or staff member willing and able who volunteers to take on this responsibility this is something we should monitor and certainly consider if it becomes an available option also during our meeting school resource officer meton was able to join us via conference call and was unaware of our newly acquired SRO from the city police department he indicated that communication was lacking considerably with dispatch and police departments during the event involving a gun at the North Vernon Elementary while we as a school board may not have a great deal of influence over dispatch operations I think we can improve our response to an event prior to this school year is beginning our Sheriff's Department conducted training at um to this to at the schools as a response to an active shooter event I believe teacher and staff participation should be mandatory so staff reaction to such an event would be more efficient seconds can make a difference between life and death and some of these instances and we should be prepared also during our discussion for future reference the cost of a new hire Deputy is currently forty five thousand seven hundred and sixty dollars annually plus the cost of benefits and Equipment it is also suggested by Sheriff Freeman in an effort to save costs that hiring Reserve deputies on a part-time basis may be a viable option Sheriff Freeman also indicated he was more than happy to address a school board meeting in the future to discuss these topics as necessary and answer any questions this board may have in closing let's be reminded that deterrence is our goal of preparedness our Ally and safety our um thank you I just want to say um that you definitely bring great points to the school board I think all things that we definitely are discussing and looking at I know that Earl for one the bill that you talked about Earl and I have talked personally together about that we are monitoring that situation what's going on of course um will make appropriate adjustments based on policy and those types of things that we need to make once that is or if that is passed so we definitely will take a look at that um as far as the you are absolutely right as far as the um active shooter event it's always difficult to have an active type shooter event um I'll kind of share a little bit of my personal experience we've done that type of an event in the hospital setting basically that Healthcare is my you know that's what I know that's my profession um and it's always difficult because if you you can imagine how many people that we have in a building like that or in the school corporation if there is one person that is not communicated with and we have that type of a drill I mean we wear bright colored vests and you know have make sure that people know with signs this is a drill you know those types of things which is why we need an expert to come in and really take a look at that for us um so we definitely are working with him and are excited about that I know Nikki has met with him multiple times and there's a lot going on there so super excited about that and then appreciate your comments about um the sheriff um I know that both um Chief Messer and Sheriff Freeman are are very very much um they they have stake in the game absolutely they want us to be safe they want our community to be safe um that is very evident with the debriefs that occurred with um Nikki and them individually with the principals and individuals that were involved in the event itself um they very much want to participate in this and we feel that as well I think the whole board would agree so there have been ongoing conversations we will have a update on safety under other at the end of this agenda so if you're still here um for that update perfect you'll get to hear a little bit of what's going on it is under other which is why we're speaking separately um but uh definitely something to keep an eye on that we um continue to Monitor and again a lot of work going around that so I appreciate again you being here sharing your thoughts and look forward to continuing to work with you on this very much absolutely so we'll go we'll go down under again Community non-related items I believe we have one school here we do okay Cynthia Elementary perfect awesome how's everyone doing tonight thanks for having me here uh as we get our presentation kind of transferred over here my name is Leonard Colette I'm the principal of Scipio Elementary um the I am very happy to bring to you tonight and highlight some of the things that we provide or some of the things that our students are able to do at Scipio Elementary and so we are very lucky to have a wonderful staff wonderful community members that come into our school to help provide multiple learning opportunities for our kiddos can you maximize that into the presentation for me into us into the slideshow button up in the top right hand corner down next to the share button us to the left yeah to the left of the share button so keep going down now down right there you go perfect thank you all right so as we look at this um again well a lot of good ideas trying to be prepared oh there it goes got it um so what's engaging students at Scipio Elementary and some of our highlights uh coming up we have a stem knife for a presentation and these are just some of the the different opportunities that we provide for our kiddos so it's pretty neat as we get going you'll see some of those things we partner with Farm Bureau with ag in the classroom Purdue Extension Office we have our little tiger days to welcome our Pre-K kids that would be kindergarteners next year into our schools and they tour the schools we have Lego Club we've had Winter Wonderland family steam night is coming up this is our first year for our national Elementary Honor Society that we've started this year we have a wonderful student council group our kids lead multiple activities in our building and they make us very proud with the different things that they do not only for our school but for our community and I will touch base on that as we get going too our fine arts program and the opportunity to have music and art and our elementary school and all of our Fine Arts are just absolutely phenomenal and and our teachers um have engaging lessons that stimulate our students growth and our students really take hold to those opportunities and you'll see some of the artwork and the different things we're doing in those classrooms some of the stem opportunities that we have going on in our classrooms man all right did you hit the button for me I tried I think my battery went down on me so are eie stem night is coming up we are lucky to be one of the recipients of the um that we're piling the stem Knight through engineering as Elementary we applied for that they were able to connect with us we were able to receive that and so with that we are able to host an event on March 16th Thursday March 16th it's for our k-3 families and students are invited to sign up and complete a mission that is set by engineering as Elementary it's really Hands-On for our students and our goal is to bring in our younger students and families to encourage them to collaborate and problem solve and so it's a great night for people to come into the school we'll have it set up in our cafeteria and they'll do they'll do the activity that is provided by engineering as Elementary room coming to sippy Elementary is any a different program each month for our k-3 programs and our students this program has brought to us through the Farm Bureau and this is it's a free program that we utilize and our library the other day was or is presented a copy of the Farm Bureau book of the year and so it's a great opportunity for them to come in and have somebody from the outside come in and help our students grow and our students really enjoyed the opportunity to have somebody come in and read and interact with them so it's you know we are we are doing a lot of great things and partnering with the community to help our kids grow and learn Purdue Extension Captain cash we have several programs with the Purdue Extension third grade students worked with Mrs wagster to complete a program called Captain cash dirt excuse me during this program students learned about saving and spending which is a skill you know I think that the earlier they learn the better they'll be especially you know getting as they get older get in middle school I have a middle school dollar now so learning how to save and spend is probably a good thing for them to learn you know at an earlier age um next on the Purdue Extension reading made fund kindergarten students have monthly visitors from the extension office our kindergarten is part of the program called reading made fun students are read to by the volunteers each month and we are given a copy of that book that is read to them we have visitors come in that are going to be visiting kindergarten this year from the 4-H program and again this is all wonderful opportunities to help our kids grow and participate in in activities during our bird unit they came in to talk about birds native to Indiana and our kindergartners have the opportunity to make bird feeders all materials were provided by the extension office our little tiger days for our future Scipio tigers or next year's Kinders we have a theme for each month several activities to keep our little tigers busy and this year's overall theme is Pete the Cat with a little monthly with little monthly themes as well so we have our dates coming up a little plug here Tuesday March 4th Tuesday April 18th and Tuesday May 16th from 9 to 10 30.
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come here dry shampoo what else do I have on your stain removal then our picture Lucas is a senior here at DHS and this is his first tedx station [Music] with other teams uncleanliness [Music] Welcome to our independent organized event Tia the tedxdhs we're excited to bring to you this amazing group for presenters today you might wonder who is Ted well Ted is actually not a person and it actually stands for technology entertainment and design these are three subject areas that are collectively shaping our world this year's presenters selected the theme choose to inspire make your voice heard the presenters will share a topic that has inspired them and they hope it will also inspire you in return let's start with our first presenter today our first presenter is Siobhan Swami Siobhan is a junior here at DHS he is a member of both the math team and the DHS marching band where he plays alto saxophone Siobhan chose his topic Because he believes there is a negative stereotype about certain genres of music especially rap music his goal is to illuminate you to the nuances that are associated with rap in other music genres in Al each of these types of music fits into the grand scheme of musical literature please welcome Shivan Swami as he presents meaning behind the music thank you [Applause] all right today my presentations on the meaning behind music now music is a language of what we cannot put into words every person digests reacts and interprets it completely differently for some it functions as a form of transcending reality and for others it forms as a way to immerse yourself in The Human Experience now music is a form of audible art now whether it's meant to be casual entertainment or philosophical poetry is not only up to the artist but mainly The Listener the genre an artist chooses has significance too as different genres have different Focus points and through this presentation I'm going to count down my three favorite genres and the morals that they entail pop now pop music really arose in the 1950s post World War II given that this was a relatively financially stable time people had more opportunities to enjoy easy going music radios and televisions began to broadcast this everywhere and given its contrast in terms of Simplicity to past music older Generations grew sick of it while the newer Generations loved it thanks to these factors pop music popped now one of the major purposes of the style is to have fun hence why it generally uses straightforward chord progressions and a lack of dynamic tempos it revolves around catchy beats now whether those beats are mellow and sweet like Bruno Mars and his song Grenade or more fiery and zappy like his song that's what I like mainstream audiences around the world are captivated by Pop's Charming nature one of the key innovators and in my opinion the greatest artists to ever Tinker with this genre is a self-aclaimed king of Pop Michael Jackson now his talent and ability transcends just this genre with artists across all genres crediting him to be one of the greatest of all time he revolutionized this with this Blockbuster albums and His short film music videos which introduced a whole new industry within an industry his visual Expressions undefeated however I believe that is a lyrical poetry is extremely underrated in his song Billie Jean he is it is Infamous for its deceiving tone the Sparky upbeat Tempo combined with a vivacious Rhythm of the synthesizer concealed the surprisingly serious lyrics about a woman who falsely alleged him to be the father to her child the phrase for 40 days and for 40 nights is actually a Biblical illusion to Genesis 5 where it rained for 40 days straight and for 40 nights rain symbolizes tears and the 40 days represents the drawn-out court battle that MJ faced and the prolonged torment that he underwent the line who can stand when she's in demand depicts that MJ believes that This Woman's ferocious willpower was enough to strip anyone of their titles the resolving line just remember to always think twice is a general moral to this song and it reveals that the song is not alive Lively and vivacious song but actually a tale of caution now these are some of the songs that I think really encapsulate the meaning of Pop very well topic Talking to the Moon shows that Euphoria through its long notes and the richness of pain sounding fresh as ever Disturbia by Rihanna is a Nostalgia hitter for me and transports me back to when I'm five years old in the back seat of a car listening to radio's hits it really encapsulates that 2010 Club atmosphere feeling hey Ya by Outkast is extremely similar to Billie Jean in that they're extremely painful lyrics underneath the very Sparky very danced joyous energetic beat now moving on to the next genre jazz this one is personally my favorite to play on my saxophone and it is very different all throughout it's very complex there's a sheer disparity in complexity and the usage of convoluted Theory between any two artists in this genre which is what makes it so fun to explore Now jazz originates from African-American instrumentalists in New Orleans during the late 19th and early 20th centuries Jazz was conjured up as sort of an echo to the western African tribes of their native Homeland like the Yoruba Tribe right there it was sort of built as an experiment after emancipation to see how far one could go with musical Liberty and freedom its appeal to the mainstream really peaked in the 1920s particularly in speakeasies which here I have depicting a drummer cozy Cole in one of those Now jazz began to depart from the mainstream culture around 1950s post-world War II in particular because the rapid popularization of rock and roll here we saw the rise of superstars like Elvis Presley and the Beatles rock and roll has persisted through the wear of time and serves as the roots to other popular genres today like hip-hop and pop jazz on the other hand was sort of put on the back burner of American music forethought and his since evolved into more of a niche where players find enjoyment with messing around with Theory nevertheless now and then popular Jazz musicians still arise kamazi Washington is one of my favorite modern saxophonists that name may sound unfamiliar though you may notice some of his notable features such as to pimpa Butterfly by Kendrick Lamar he was in for free and for so he is bewildingly underrated and if you're interested here's my favorite songs by him now on some of the last and my favorite genre I'll be talking about today hip hop one of the most popular genres amongst teenagers for the past half a century it's substantial versatility is portrayed through the numerous sub-genre as present in a diverse field of musicians this in turn has also made it extremely popular however many tend to overlook the origins and the historical significance of them originates the struggles of the African-American Community regarding the rural armed drugs originally enacted by the Nixon Administration and heavily bolstered by the Reagan Administration the War on Drugs has resulted in mass incarceration and a nearly 500 percent growth in inmates since its beginning according to the sentencing project hip-hop was concocted as sort of an artistic remedy for those whose families were broken by this war and that gives an opportunity to those who are poor to have a chance with Fame here Kendrick Lamar he is particularly good at articulating the issues of racial Prejudice he's also a Pulitzer Prize winner and is one of my favorite artists of all time I can honestly write an entire presentation on just him his album to pimpa Butterfly is a culmination of everything hip-hop is about from its Sleek Funk and Jazz fuse beats to the bitter and honest commentary on injustices many credits critics credit this as a masterpiece here I analyze some of the bars on one of my favorite songs on the album the black or the berry this song has harsh instrumentals that depicts the resentful tone the phrase vandalize my perception refers to the modern self-hatred for skin tone as a result of the perpetrating of white superiority for centuries in America the phrase the button is symbolism and Kendrick packs a lot into this some interpret this to mean Kendrick has some sort of weapon but in my opinion I interpret this differently I think of it as more of a mic button which when he presses his fear he can seep out and that Fury translates to his listeners who feel the same passion here Kendrick is trying to show his power in the world the last line here making a killing refers to the root cause of crime in the U.S as in the US has caused what's happened with the African-American community in the future legislation of the past creeps its results into tensions prominent today throughout this section up here are some of my current favorite songs in rap it constantly shifts constantly changes but currently I've been listening to a lot to xXx by Kendrick Lamar which is really good song it has this amazing B and it really transforms you to the scenery of what's going on Lord pretty Flacco Jody by ASAP Rocky is also phenomenal it's really entertaining and it's lavish production so I'm over a decade ago still live up to this day now Lil Wayne I didn't really listen to him until I started listening to this song The Vivid story he creates and the phenomenal feature of Kendrick is something I wish I could listen to again for the first time all in all the main point of this is to show you that music by nature is subjective that every person interprets each beat with unique perspectives that's why this art thrives every bar every lyric every quarter now every rest holds an imperative purpose in painting a song psyche all songs exist for a reason whether it's for pure entertainment or for the sly messages slipped in between the crevices of words music gives artists a way a platform to inspire with and music is how I choose to inspire thank you [Applause] thank you Siobhan for that wonderful presentation on music and its meaning our second presenter of tedx DHS 2023 is Kate and dimanche Caden is a junior here at DHS he is the student council treasurer and he's a three season athlete who participates in soccer basketball and track and field Cadence passion for sport is evident in the topic he chose he believes that sports are not just about the skills that are demonstrated on the field or on the court that the mental element of the sport is very impactful on athletes and their accomplishments please welcome Kaden demench as he presents Sports 10 physical 90 percent mental foreign [Applause] my experience here during this Ted Talk I have been faced with the blinding Spotlight the rush of adrenaline and the thought of presenting in front of all of you and it left me wondering these are kind of similar uh it's kind of similar to what an athlete goes through so it made me think what makes an athlete the best is it there's strength is it their speed is it their endurance and stamina I mean you just heard the title so you can probably guess it's their mentality that's what sets them apart if you don't believe me is an example Tom Brady 23 NFL seasons though now retired I might come back though you guys see that a seven time Super Bowl champion a five-time Super Bowl MVP a three-time NFL MVP a 15-time pro bowler and many other accolades not the most fit guy ever if you've seen his combine you know that but he transcended for 23 Seasons to this goat status by locking in mentally and pushing through the struggles that he would have without uh that he would have physically another goat is Serena Williams her 27 pro tennis Seasons 23 Grand Slams singles four-time Olympic gold medalist and again even more accolades she's pretty strong but you don't just get to that sort of status with only your physical strength and pure Brute Force you've got to lock in mentally for 27 years to stay at the top like she did and my final example LeBron James who's currently in the midst of his 20th NBA season a four-time NBA champion four-time finals MVD a four-time regular season MVP a 19-time All-Star and now the leader in points in a career there have been tons of guys in the NBA built exactly like LeBron but no one has lasted this long and has maintained the peak that he has been able to I mean the dude has his own app the call map just for locking in and making sure that his mind is good so you're probably wondering how to this is probably easy right it's just Sports it's just a game anyone can just persevere through it that's not the easiest thing in the world though but these athletes were able to do it because of their ability to utilize the benefits that Sports have brought like an improved quality of life reduced depression reduced suicide and improved sleep increased creativity and increased self-confidence and it even builds leadership roles better academic standing and better teamwork and social skills which are all pretty vital skills to have but again it's not the easiest thing in the world case in point Michael Phelps the arguably greatest swimmer in Olympic history his 23 gold medals 27 27 World Championships 16 Pacific championships he's an absolute legend in the sporting world but after his performance in the 2004 Olympics where he won eight gold medals he felt he had reached the peak and could never again get to that level and this was rough on him he says that he had about 10 or so people always with him making sure that his body was physically in shape and that made him an absolute machine in the water but he said that there was no Hammer checking if his mind was okay and because he thought that he would never get back to the peak he started using substances to try and get back to the peak to maintain his sheer dominance and this took a toll on him to the point where he eventually fell into depression and had Suicidal Thoughts another example is one of the best Olympic gymnasts currently and will probably be all time in my opinion Simone biles the four-time Olympic gold medalist the 19-time world champion and two-time Pacific Rim champion another amazing status to have however before the 2022 Olympics in 2021 whilst training her then coach and trainer Larry Nasser sexually harassed and sexually assaulted her and many other members of the U.S Olympic gymnast team this took a pretty big toll on Simone because now she has to go back out there produce more Olympic Golds because she is the best in a sport that has now been shrouded with so much controversy because of her own trainer and coach this took a major mental strain on her it led her into a field of depression and boosted her anxiety which then caused her to not be able to participate in the 2022 Olympics because she had to take mental health breaks and of course Kevin Love who does not have the same resume as the other athletes that I've mentioned but is still a champion a five-time All-Star and has two Olympic golds in his high school days he never felt that he was truly good enough he was always anytime he did something he always had to be better and he had to achieve Perfection which is impossible you can't be perfect but that didn't matter to Canon he tried his best to be Untouchable to be the most Unstoppable Force ever and unfortunately when he wasn't reaching those goals he fell to depression anxiety and eventually during college had Suicidal Thoughts because he couldn't live up to his own expectations of how he should be the NCAA also attributes injuries to negatively impacting an athlete's Mental Health causing things like sadness irritation anger isolation frustration sleep disturbance and disengagement even in the youth sports and attributed to causing anxiety a fear of failure depression substance misuse burnout and eating issues so why why put yourself through all of that for the small benefits of playing a game because if you're an athlete or you know an athlete you know that we absolutely love the challenge [Applause] case in point Alex Smith he had a remarkable comeback after fracturing his right Divia fracturing is Right fibia and developing the sepsis in his right leg he was told that he was never going to walk again and that his leg might actually get amputated but after two years of therapy and development he came back to football and played for the Washington football team in six games during the 2021 season where he actually did pretty well another example is Candace Parker who had a complications during her maternity leave tore her meniscus in her right knee and lost her college coach who had a major impact on her Patricia Summit all this happened in the same year and she still came back and won the wnba's championship and was the WNBA Finals MVP and of course my favorite Mario Lemieux during what could have been the greatest season in NHL history Mario discovered that he had Hodgkin lymphoma that is a type of cancer forget having the best NHL season ever are you going to live Mario had a very lucky case where he had a best case scenario where it only took 22 treatments and four in a four-month recovery and when the doctors told him you should probably take the night off after his final treatment he said no I'm going to Philadelphia and then I'm playing in the next game and those are just a few examples all of these athletes up here have made phenomenal comebacks and have pushed through the mental struggle and mental toll that Sports have to offer because they absolutely love the game you might see your favorite athlete up here you might not I probably miss them because there's so many but it shows that Sports aren't impossible they do take a toll physically and they take an absolute toll mentally but it's not impossible to push through them it's an absolute struggle to but again athletes love climbing that mountain and I hope that I inspired all of you to push through your own struggles and climb your own mountains and that is how I choose to inspire thank you [Music] thank you Caden for providing us with that perspective on sports our next presenter is Tabitha Cabral Elliott Tabitha is a freshman here at DHS Tabitha is on the DHS debate team and is also a member of our schools dance team dance is a passion for Tabitha as she has been in various dance classes for over 10 years additionally Tabitha is on the YMCA swim team Tim aspires to study psychology upon graduation and chose the topic for her Ted Talk due to the interest to the Dynamics Dynamics and relationships and how she has been in the impact of relationships abuse amongst her peers please welcome Tabitha Cabral Elliott as she presents this isn't love [Applause] this isn't love did you know that one in three American adolescents has been victims of dating abuse one in three one-third which means a third of the people in this school possibly a third of the people in this room have been or will be a victim of dating abuse before they graduate this school now to introduce you to this epidemic level proportion of what I'm about to talk talk about I'd like to introduce a character called Marie here we will follow Marie through her navigating a toxic relationship and the examples of which I will demonstrate here Marie is a teenage girl as many of you are but Marie is not gendered in any way Marie could be any of us and she's in high school where she meets a boy but before I go any farther I should clarify what I'm talking about what is a toxic relationship now I cannot explain it nearly as well as Dr Thomas Corey here but I would like to bring your attention to this last sentence to say a toxic relationship is dysfunctional is at best an understatement at best an understatement because these behaviors often start off as subtle but get more and more severe and intense as the relationship progresses and I'd like to introduce you all here to some red flags a term you probably all know of but examples you may not here I show in isolation in which an abusive partner will cut off their partner support system their friends family and those they hold dear to them to entrap them here intimidation and control where an abusive partner will use fear or imbalance of power to control their partner and what they do and gaslighting which is the manipula the manipulation of a partner but you all probably know what gaslighting means it's a buzzword it's in pop culture everywhere but do we all have the same con have we all reached a consensus on exactly what gaslighting is I'd like to show you Merriam-Webster Dictionary definition of gaslighting but I'd also like to bring your attention to dependency on the perpetrator gaslighting causes dependency on the abusive partner now how does this connect to Marie well at first Marie started to text this boy all the time but noticed as they were getting closer and they their relationship became more romantic that she had almost no access to her friends or her family for her new boyfriend took up almost all her time and restricted her outright from spending time with other people Marie was being isolated now as I said before they were in contact all the time to the point where he texted Marie over 60 times per day and it while it started from a simple hello how are you doing it escalated from knowing where she was with whom and when and fear if he didn't know where she was for how he would react that is control and then Marie lived for over four months convinced she was absolutely losing her mind for her boyfriend would say something then deny it or twist her words or insist she was either lying or delusional in whatever escaped her mouth that is gaslighting now I'd like to introduce you all to the cycle of abuse for once these patterns and red flags become accepted especially the gaslighting portion this can occur first tensions building in which there's fear in the air and anticipation of a fight an incident happening or your partner blowing up in some way that leads to the incident in which verbal physical emotional abuse can occur there could be a heated fight Anything could happen but this is where the abusive incident happens but however in this cycle it leads to reconciliation in which the abusive partner would often apologize the two people would probably make up and the issue would more or less be pushed under the rug which leads to the calm this is where the incident is more or less over done with in the past where the abusive partner will often be on their best behavior showering their partner in gifts admiration or overall rarely seen respect but what makes this cycle so abusive what makes this cycle so abusive now if you'll excuse me for a minute I have missed messed up all of my cards but I will fix them now I'd like to introduce to you what a trauma bond is a trauma bond is the attachment of an abused person to their partner through the positive and negative feedback created by the cycle of abuse which causes cognitive dissonance now according to psychology today cognitive dissonance is the term for when the state of just for the state of discomfort felt when two or more modes of thought contradict each other in other words when two opposite realities occur in a person's mind and creates a very confusing distressing paradox now for example in the context of an abusive relationship a partner May break their partner's phone in a rage but immediately apologize for it afterwards saying I didn't mean it I'll be better I'm so sorry I love you that creates cognitive dissonance in the abused partner's mind because they broke my phone but they didn't mean to they raged at me but only out of love they said they'll be better he'll be better she'll be better they will be better but will they will they why do you stay if you knew that your loved one or best friend or someone you were very close with if you found out that they were being insulted controlled being told what to wear and what to do or even physically being harmed what would you tell them just leave right leave now I'd like to offer up another example if you found out that one of your loved ones was struggling with substance misuse what would you tell them now a substance addiction let's keep in mind just stop using just stop of course not because addiction is not that easy and we know that so what if I told you that addictions can also occur in this cycle of abuse and that abused people in these relationships can become chemically addicted to their partner which brings me back to a trauma Bond and the hormones involved dopamine oxytocin serotonin endorphins cortisol natural opioids and more can create a concoction from the cycle of dramatic highs and dramatic lows of the cycle of abuse in the relationship and can be emotionally psychologically and even physically binding those people together many victims of relationship abuse have reported that leaving their abusive partner feels like being in both psychological and physical substance withdrawal it isn't so easy to just leave now isn't it you can't just leave or just stop using so easily but in no way am I saying all hope is lost because leaving while difficult is completely possible here I have the national teen dating abuse helpline and the more generalized domestic violence hotline which have trained staff on call to assist in these type of situations and especially in the community which you have probably been isolated from there are people willing to help such as teachers parents mentors and especially at DHS professionally trained social workers who can assist in these types of situations but I've told you for about the past eight minutes what love isn't so what is love what is true healthy love what is healthy love well I'd like to define a healthy relationship by quoting Dr Thomas Corey once again you can see here that a healthy relationship is a safe relationship what a statement and I must add my own a healthy relationship is a gentle relationship love is gentle it is not fear it is not possession it is not confusion love is safety and it is gentle but to be more specific I've included a few examples on exactly what love is healthy love you respect each other's boundaries you work through problems together and focusing on Resolute resolution instead of winning and you establish trust with each other Trust however lately I've been coming across a lot of whys why am I doing this why am I up on stage right now why did I sign up for this club why was I editing a PowerPoint at 1am on a Monday night with a test tomorrow why did I choose this topic was a very common one asked by teachers peers and especially myself well you've probably also noticed that I haven't brought up Marie in a while now have I why did I include her at all well it's because Marie could be any of you it could be you your neighbor your best friend your student Marie could live in any of us and Marie could be any of us and that is how I choose to inspire for I am making the voices heard of those Marines in the crowd and Beyond who are not yet ready to do so I am making those voices heard and in the hopes that at least one person here can relate to my words I am showing you why you deserve better thank you for coming to my TED Talk okay [Applause] thank you Tabitha for showing us ways of a healthy relationship our last presenter for Pierre Juan is Madame Wazowski Madden is a senior here at DHS Madden is the president of the magazine club and the co-founder of the makers Club she's also a member of the dance team and is currently choreographing dartmouth's finest a prong graduation Madden plans to pursue College dance and pre-professional dance programs Madden chose her topic because she worked on this topic for her AP research during the last school year please welcome Madden as she presents my mirror versus my mind [Applause] hello everyone so today I'll be presenting my mirror versus my mind so mirrors we see them everywhere we see them every single day we use them all the time why do they have so much impact on our Lives why do they cause so much pressure on us that's what I looked into in my AP research project last year I research the effects of reversing mirrors and non-reversing mirrors on Mental Health so my inspiration for that project was the true mirror project which was a project I saw on YouTube in like 2015 that detailed somebody that went onto the streets with a non-reversing mirror and showed people how they really look how other people see them I really found that inspiring what do you look like to other people and how does that differ from what you see yourself as so this is me I'm a dancer and that means that I look at myself in mirrors all the time I really feel the effects of seeing myself and feeling like pressured to have my body look a certain way from seeing myself all the time so this is an example of the two mirrors that I have so Mr Coogan modeled for me a reversing mirror which is the mirror that you look in every day it's a mirror that you look at when you're brushing your teeth just it shows a mirror image of yourself and then over here is a non-reversing mirror so this one is flipped so when you take a selfie in your phone camera it flips you that is a non-reversing mirror so back to my AP research project what did I really do so I put 20 participants in a room for a minute and a half one with the reversing mirror the regular mirror and one with a non-reversing mirror so then after each minute and a half they recorded their feelings about their body image and all those things so now a little vocabulary lesson on what these things really mean so a reversing mirror is this one that I have right here so it is just a regular mirror and it shows you flipped from what you see so if I were to move my right arm I just see it the same way and then a non-reversing mirror which is this other one I have over here is two mirrors placed at a 90 degree angle to each other so the reflections go off of each other and when you look down the dead center you see your view flipped 180 degrees how somebody else would see you if they're looking at you so now I'd like to call it my friend Owen to take a look in the mirrors and tell me if he sees a difference so you believe somebody besides me so first I'm gonna have him look in this mirror perfect okay do you see yourself how you normally would that's pretty standard okay and look in the other one please and what do you see uh I look definitely a lot different definitely extremely humbling I do like how I look here better thank you [Music] so before I could have people do that in a research setting I had to do a little bit more deep dives into the effects that mirrors have um on a wider scale so first I looked at the impact of mirrors on body image and performance so this is a research study that was performed with dancers they were put in a beginner class measured their performance before and after uh six weeks so one class had mirrors in their class and the other did not and it showed that the class that did not have mirrors improved significantly more than the class that did which shows that they really can have negative impacts they can diminish performance so these are the mirrors that they were looking in and you can see if you are in a class you're right in front of the mirrors you're looking at yourself the whole time and it really just draws Focus away from actual performance quality next I looked at the performance of ciphonids on and non-reversing mirrors so for those of you who don't know a cybernid is just a fish um so these fish were placed in a tank one with a mirror and one with a non-reversing mirror so the fish when they were looking in the mirror were just having their normal fish Behavior but when they were looking in the non-reversing mirror they became violent they started attacking each other and themselves their Reflections in the mirror so this really showed that non-reversing mirrors also can have negative effects they can make people violent they can make people just have bad or Worse qualities so I would really spark my thoughts is there anything good about mirrors and I found the article non-reversing mirrors for anatomy learning so this article really showed me that it does have practical use they can be used for good so these mirrors helped um residents in medical school to learn the way that the body goes and flipped to learn the internal organs so now back to the actual project that I conducted I have a little data for you on the all 20 participants that I got so because I had a very very small sample size all of my data is not conclusive but you can really see some Trends in what happened so my first question was I feel the need to improve my physical appearance so on the left this is before the study that's how all the people felt and post non-reversity mirror after looking in the mirror that they see every day you can see that really the breakdown was almost exactly the same but when you came to looking at themselves in the non-reversing mirror these people became more insecure um another question I like the looks just the way they are again you can see kind of a similar breakdown of bringing in over here more negative thoughts one more I dislike my physique this again has similar breakdown of just a little bit but becoming a little bit more insecure so what does this mean this really means nothing right now but a lot for the future research is never ending and this really means that we should do more research into the effects that mirrors and non-reversing mirrors have on body image and Body Image awareness as a whole knowing that the way that you see yourself is really important to you and your mental health and believing that research should be done and continue to be done is how I choose to inspire thank you [Music] [Applause] thank you this concludes our first period presenters and Madden thank you for that Insight on our vision of the mirrors thank you so much for attending period one TED Talks foreign [Music] ER Ruda and today let's get started with your favorite 2023 dartmouth's finest contestants on our first team we have the liberty kids [Music] on the liberty kids we have advisor Mrs lamba Aiden Mello Phoenix Campbell and Sean Martin [Applause] next up let's introduce our next team on our first ever finest Feud strung up [Music] [Applause] [Music] we have advisor Mrs Jen Thomas Sean Allen Ella Gibson and Addison Stanley Moore [Music] [Applause] [Music] all right let's begin our first round of finest Feud can I get Sean Martin and Addison up at the stand [Applause] ready born ready as ready as I'll ever be we asked a hundred Dartmouth High School students name something you might do when you wake up in the morning Sean brush your teeth on the board Addison get dressed unfortunately not on our board for today so can we have the liberty kids up at the stands [Music] all right Liberty Kids you are in the lead with 32 points with a fantastic answer brush your teeth for something you may do in the morning just remember though that at any time when you get those three strikes teams strung up can steal your points so let's get started Sean we went to you let's go to Phoenix now name something you might do when you wake up in the morning give me eat breakfast eat breakfast unfortunately not on the board First Strike we go to student Aiden mellow um first thing you do in the morning I'm gonna say comb your hair perfect answer 20 points on the board for the liberty kids Mrs lamba we go to you now what is something that you would do in the morning I'm gonna say wash your face wash your face unfortunately not on the board to show the kids and now we go back to Sean third strike here if you get it out we have strung up that may be able to steal so let's provide a good answer I'm gonna go with make your bed make your bed on the board for another 10 points a little bit of Phoenix now we're looking for our final answer for something that you might do in the morning check your phone unfortunately not on the strikes can we get a representative from Team strung up [Music] Sean Allen walks up to the stand the ladies and gentlemen Sean if you get this you will be ready to steal 62 points for team strung up name something that you might do in the morning pick an outfit on the board what's those Five Points congratulations to Sean thank you liberty kids and let's actually stick up with the stand for a minute we're going to interview our Liberty Kids real quick so let's begin with you miss lamba if you'd like to bring the mic what do you do here at Dartmouth High School and what's your role in the Dartmouth finest Club I am a Spanish teacher here at the high school my fourth year here um and I'm co-advisor of the amazing class of 2024.
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[Music] pledge allegiance [Music] United States thank you present Michelle Puella present Cape Canada here Gladys Cooper here Lauren Neely Jesse Fernandez yeah okay recognition Spotlight your school Ellsworth Elementary School all right come on up she does loving people thank everyone my name is Marty Durkin I know you have a very busy agenda this evening so I am going to just briefly talk about Ellsworth Avenue school but we certainly want to invite you to stop by at any time so that you can get to school see the school and meet the students as well so some of our accomplishments that are noteworthy is that Ellsworth Avenue School has been named a school of Distinction for and growth and math each year since 2018.
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foreign okay alrighty good evening good evening everybody I uh uh the regular board meeting of the board of trust can you hear me okay okay my voice might be too soft now can you hear me okay very good uh uh the uh regular board meeting of the Alum Rock Union Elementary School District Board of Trustees is uh being called to order this is the regular board meeting of Thursday March 9 2023 uh uh so I will call this meeting formally to order uh Maribel would you please take the role today is a regular board meeting of March 9th 2023 at 5 30 PM members of the board in attendance president MIM fam present vice president clerk Andres Quintero president member Linda Chavez she substance due to illness member Andrea Flores Shelton present members of administration superintendent Dr Bauer present okay thank you so much Maribel so at this time the Board of Trustees at the Alum Rock Union Elementary School District does hereby acknowledge that the district schools and Facilities sit on the traditional lands of the moekma Ohlone people and the Board of Trustees further acknowledges with respect and reference the Milwaukee alone people tribe this of the San Francisco Bay Area for their stewardship of these lands uh so now if you could please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands a nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay thank you so much so now we move to item 1.02 discussion and or modifications of the agenda the board may change the order of business including but not limited to an announcement and an agenda item will be considered out of order that consideration of an item has been withdrawn postponed postponed rescheduled or removed from the consent calendar for separate discussion and possible action is there any request for modifications at the agenda yes superintendent Bauer I need to pull 501 please okay so uh there let's see here yeah uh in 502 just 502.
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knowing where we live work study and recreate does not change the past but a thorough understanding of the ongoing consequences of this past can Empower us and our work to create a future that supports human flourishing and justice for all individuals thank you Sean and I guess I should say um this is being videotaped and I don't see our phone number that we would ordinarily use to announce to the public if anyone wanted to call in do you have that Sean pull that up really quickly if you have it on the agenda here and I'll just say that I'll paraphrase our statement that we are holding this meeting remotely because of covid we've been authorized to have remote meetings in this public way and we um encourage and welcome people to call in if they need to if they would like to make a statement um and to the environmental Commission thanks okay and the numbers uh yes I have that sorry Rita I'm back oh good I see you yeah I think I just got my internet back so I can take over from here and I can read the statement thank you full statement if you like uh sorry uh Welcome to the and March 10th 2020 23 electronic meeting of the environmental commission this meeting is in accordance with executive orders from the governor to affect social distancing and mitigate the spread of the covid-19 virus we intend to conduct this meeting similarly similarly to an in-person meeting however please be patient and through our technical issues public comment will be via telephone only to speak during any of the public comment opportunities please call 877-853-5247 or three one two six two six six seven nine nine and enter meeting ID 963-9100-2023 this information is also available on the published agenda and the Public Notices section of the city website and on the broadcast of this meeting on CTN Channel 16 at T channel 99 and online at www.a2gov.org watchctn all right thank you sorry so uh so have you done the roll call yet not yet okay is that the land Heritage statement oh yes we did do the line Heritage statement okay thank you so um um let's do the roll call Sean sounds good all right uh council member Ackman uh chairperson Brown president in Ann Arbor thank you uh commissioner Keller work here thank you uh commissioner Curtis here thank you uh commissioner Dale question thank you council member dish present in Chicago thank you commissioner Gabe Randall here in Ann Arbor thank you commissioner Graham yeah Ann Arbor thank you uh commissioner Gruber here in Ann Arbor thank you commissioner Merson right uh commissioner mursky you're participating from my home here in Ann Arbor thank you uh Vice chairperson Mitchell you're an Ann Arbor thank you uh commissioner nedric president and Ann Arbor thank you commissioner Oriole here in Ann Arbor thank you and commissioner Wayne all right uh and that is a quorum thank you Sean the next item on the agenda is the approval of this agenda um do I have a motion to approve it consider it uh John mursky seconded by Anya Dale um let's open the discussion um are there any proposed amendments to the agenda or Corrections hearing and see none I uh um let's bring it to a vote all who approve of the agenda as submitted please raise your hands and say yay and all those who uh any knows any abstentions I hear and see none so it's accepted as submitted unanimously uh the next item on the agenda is the approval of our minutes from the last meeting January 26th um let's see do I have a motion to review those minutes uh anybody uh John mursky Anya Dale again okay um uh for discussion are there any uh proposed uh changes to the minutes as drafted AI here and see none um so this closes the discussion so all who approve of the minutes as as drafted please raise your hand or say aye all right uh on any news any abstentions uh hearing and Cena I'm sorry I Heard a Voice I'm just abstaining because I wasn't there oh okay thank you Bridget so Bridget's abstaining um so the motion passes uh by a majority um so let's see uh this so this uh the next item on the agenda is the first uh period for public commentary um this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes please call 1-888-788-0099 and enter meeting ID 963-9100-2023 this information is also displayed on the meeting agenda and video feed City staff will select callers that have raised their hand one by one using the last three digits of your phone number in order to electronically raise your hand to indicate your desire to speak please press star nine on your phone you will hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sound so that we may hear you clearly please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments and be patient there can be a delay of up to 30 seconds before a connection is established so do we have anybody on the line as yet Sean uh we do not okay so we'll wait 30 seconds uh is there anybody on the line yet Sean there is not okay uh well this ends the first period of public commentary there will be a second opportunity at the end of the meeting um the next item on the agenda is unfinished business and there is none uh listed so let's proceed to new business and the first item is a presentation of the Equitable engagement report yes I believe we have Michelle Bennett here today instead of Heather instead of uh okay now welcome to the commission Michelle thank you good morning Commissioners thank you so much for letting me join your meeting um I am going to share my screen to start how is that working what what do you all see if I see your screen okay fantastic okay my name is Michelle Bennett I am a community engagement specialist with the city of Ann Arbor that's in the systems planning unit in full transparency my colleague Heather safarth started this initiative and led it uh for the 18 months I joined over the summer so I spent the last six months working on this project with her and with the steering committee so I'm here to present about the process um the the project Ames and uh some of the findings from this initiative so broadly speaking the aim of this project was for the city to work with a steering committee to figure out what Equity means and how to translate that into policies guidelines and practices that as staff we can Implement to achieve our goals of being more inclusive in our engagement efforts um before we launched this project the staff did quite a bit of pre-work so starting in fiscal year 2019 we started collecting demographic data through all of our surveys and public meetings to get a sense of who is attending um and so you can see here through uh race and ethnic identifiers household income age and housing tenure where some of the disparities are um and where there is some more work for us to do in bringing new faces to to our engagement um so you can see in these graphs that we are comparing our survey respondents primarily to Census Data this is the 2021 five-year estimates so we can see for example that um in Ann Arbor for example we have quite a bit more renters than show up to our meetings um you can see the age breakdown here as well that we have primarily empty nesters or retirees um you can see the same here with our income that it's used towards higher incomes and towards um primarily white homeowners I see a hand up to we want to go ahead and yeah just take that quickly um the question is I've heard you say this is based on meeting participants and I've seen it survey respondents what's the population for this for these results yes so in our entire database we collect both um these charts here are showing you the survey data um secondly we went through uh staff education before starting this process so we researched some promising practices from other communities so that's a term that we use now instead of best practices it's promising practices we looked at our own practices to see where there may be gaps and then looked at some research um in Ann Arbor and in Washington County to see what efforts are being made towards Equitable engagement yeah um so some of our current practices are are in community engagement toolkit so that was designed to help staff members who are leading engagement efforts to sit down with a community engagement specialist like myself it's a five-step process where we look through stakeholders uh we have a stakeholder list so we determine who should be at the meetings we discuss what are the best techniques given our desired outcomes for this uh process and so that is done before many of the Public Services uh engagement sessions the demographic data collection I just shared with you we also worked with IEP 2 that stands for the International Association of public participation they're a global non-profit that's dedicated to this topic and we have them come in and train about 50 staff members on on promising practices for engagement we've also worked with the youth before the pandemic it we are hoping to move back in that direction uh in 2019 Heather had worked with a class at Community High and that taught them about the Civic process and really got them thinking about some of these topics that might not otherwise be explored in a high school curriculum and then there's also an ordinance on file this is mainly used by the planning department where developers have to have certain requirements I believe there's certain thresholds where if the development project is big enough that they have to go to the public um and talk with them first and then before the uh pandemic hitter right as the pandemic hit um the city set up an engagement Hub as everything was transitioning to online they threw up a page with some links that direct people to engagement opportunities we had some school of information students review it over the summer you can see that it's not getting many hits it also wasn't advertised very much but we are actually in the process of updating this which I will get to a little bit later on in this presentation so while we're doing that research we were also putting out a call for steering committee members um here's the flyer that went out that you can see some of the criteria we were looking for so now that we have that demographic data and we see who the typical attendees are we were really trying to find a steering committee that was more representative of this city and so we put out a call we received 80 applicants um and selected 30 to meet monthly again for 18 months uh and the main takeaways here are that we wanted a group to define equity what our core values are and uh the recommendations that I'm going to share with you so the committee did come up with an equity definition here um which is contrasted with equality so that we can see the difference in this graphic if you were to give everyone the same bike only some can succeed if you were to tailor the bike to people's kind of individual needs then they can all succeed is the idea so we use this really as the definition moving forward so you may be wondering what did we do for those 18 months um Heather organized a lot of speakers to come in and held a facilitated a lot of discussions here's some of the major topics um the opportunity index is a map that's created by Washtenaw County if any of you are familiar with that um the demographic data that we talked about the engagement toolkit I touched on the idea was for them to share what the city is doing and get their feedback on is this reaching our goal of equity like is this good enough and so we um we share that information with them and then we sort of veered off into other topics that ended up being very important to them um City hiring practices was a big one um and I'm actually gonna show you in this next slide uh a five toed animal that we know doesn't exist in nature but this is meant to reflect the kind of larger topics that were mainly of interest but if you can see in the Paw there where it says Equitable engagement we tried to filter all of it through this lens of how can Community engagement establish an equitable footing on all of these topics um so while we may have veered off into talking about hiring practices or housing we came back to well how are we getting how are our processes at the city reflecting a more are more Equitable so that we can reflect um feedback outside of our typical attendees so I'm going to jump into the recommendations and this is where we're really looking for for any feedback from you all um the first recommendation that you can see here is a really sort of based on accountability and touches on the um hiring practices so one of the main comments was you know we would feel more comfortable uh participating if there was some reflection of us in City staff so we go to these meetings and they're all LED um by people that don't look like us and so there were some comments here about that's a good place to start so we did have HR attend several of these meetings um so that we can talk about things because there are obviously some legal constraints as well um but it was more about um feeling reflected so that you feel more comfortable at meetings um and that fifth one there be authentic was really getting at um maybe kind of getting away from politicians speak just tell us just tell us how it is like what is the process who is the final decision maker what do you need to know from us and share and share the information in a very plain easy to understand language so that it's not confusing or muddled with jargon so this was the first the first recommendation is demonstrate the city's committed to advancing Equity so they want to see changes uh as opposed to to lip service the second one really touches on Outreach um there was surprisingly I think to us a conversation about using non-digital ways of getting the word out so we've kind of transferred completely that way since covid um but they really pushed for a more on the ground you know going to local businesses and putting up Flyers that way you can meet people face to face you can kind of build connections that way I'm translating materials for our non-native English speakers and then creating an online Hub which again we'll talk about later but really we need a place to centralize all of these opportunities because at the moment they are spread across different project pages on the city website that are difficult to find um the third recommendation here is sort of about budgeting and training more or less provide the resources necessary for staff to conduct meaningful engagement so make sure that you budget every year if this is a priority for you to have the appropriate amount of staff and that they are trained um and that once your staff is trained that way they can continue to update the resources and pools that you use and actually measure um set up goals and measure success so this is their recommendation to sort of back up Flames about you know caring deeply about engagement and then lastly they want to make engagement events more accessible and attractive so this is thinking of ways to increase participation and hybrid meetings is a big one so we're able to do them in this setting often at commission meetings we can have people call in but if you want to do exercises in engagement or have neighbors meet and talk face to face that's been one challenge for uh for us at certain locations to be able to facilitate that as a hybrid meeting they also wanted to be set up in ways and we all know about this and to sort of mitigate grandstanding there are certain people that feel comfortable being vocal in front of a large group of people and it can drown out other voices um and again like we've mentioned earlier is they want to to be clearly communicated to them what the decision is that needs to be made what's the process who's the final decision maker and are the results going to be shared with them what level of influence do they have over this decision so that's the being authentic at the beginning of the meeting or at the engagement series so some of the promising practices that we're already looking into I highlighted here the engagement Hub because we have already put in a budget request for that and I'll show you on the next slide what that entails um but Community Liaisons is another one we're looking into where groups um for example that might not feel comfortable participating or feel mistrustful or neglected by local government one workaround through that and would also be a great way to have this steering committee continue to collaborate with us is that the city would compensate people to work with their neighbors or their community we would train and teach them how to facilitate we would come up with certain questions we want to ask and they would go into their communities for us and relay the information back so there are some communities that are already doing that and something that the steering committee um liked so we are looking into that as well so here is a screenshot of what an engagement Hub looks like this is I think our favorite so far for the City of Pittsburgh you can see these project cards just centralize all of the projects that are available at the top people can categorize them based on their interests or location and they can subscribe to those um so that they can customize this page to the types of meetings they want to attend and then if you click on one of these projects you get more information like for example if there's a survey if there's a recording for the meeting the contact information the process the decision makers all the relevant information that you would need to know as uh as a potential attendee to that meeting so we are also looking into this and hoping um soon enough we'll hear if we get funding and then pursue this as one of our first action items um that is it from me thank you again for your time these two um links right here are the top one is for the project website which has more details uh as I just gave you an overview and the draft report is there as well so you can read that in full and send us any insights comments questions that you have and you would be sending them to this email here A2 Equitable engagement at a2gov.org I have access to that as it does Heather so we can answer any other questions or thoughts you have um based on this presentation or reading through the report I can also take some questions right now if you have any yep yep yep um okay Bridget you're up first and then Anya thank you for sharing that Michelle I have a question about um our role in this you say that your recommendation which I think is a really good one one of the recommendations is to appoint racially and ethnically minoritized candidates representing impacted Community perspectives to boards and commissions and we are one of those commissions so I wonder if Michelle if you have um further recommendations on how we can do that and then I guess I throw the question to uh to the commission do we have plans to start thinking about how we can do that um I guess I'll respond to that Bridget after Michelle's had her say okay thanks um so again there are some legal constraints here right but the idea is that we broaden our Outreach so that we typically when we go through our um already established channels right depending on who established them they kind of um perpetuate the same types of people attending so really this is sort of a recommendation to maybe think through how are you advertising position openings do we need to diversify how we do that so that we're reaching other people um kind of this community liaison approach or working with youth or it's very labor intensive which is why I think it hasn't always been prioritized but it's going to take a while to build those Partnerships so that people um want to join these groups um but in the meantime I think the main change here is how those are being advertised like through which markets which channels um and then I believe our our positions people apply and then their selected by the mayor and then voted on by the commission is that how it works yeah that yes okay well Lisa you you have your hand up you're gonna comment Lisa I think yeah I was going to say that it's not that's not always the way it works I mean that's not the process for EC right they're not we the commission makes a recommendation to the council Liaisons the council liaison bring that to the mayor I don't know that that the mayor has discretion in this one and some of them he does but just you know just so you know we can't we contact people that we know personally yes the real action of getting people on commissions I helped recruit someone for igpoc a few years ago it's interpersonal so you can change how you advertise things but that is not that's not the pathway the major one yeah yeah here's where I can uh I can jump in as the chair I've been the chair of the commissioner for the last three years and um um I've made an effort I've tried to make an effort to recruit more uh Representative members to the commission but um first of all most residents are not aware that there is an environmental Commission and secondly um um I haven't I have asked a number of people to apply who have a strong background in the environment and who are uh you know members of the bipoc community but they have declined to apply because they're just too busy with other activities so I agree we just need to broaden our we need to broaden uh public awareness of the commission and we need to broaden uh you know just so people are aware that it exists and what it does and then we also do need to reach out to uh you know to um I'm not sure to the more neglected parts of our community so I I've been trying to make an effort with that but I understand I think I understand fully the barriers here after uh three years of experience here especially um so I I can just mention um I'll mention some things later but I want to field other people's questions first so Anya you had your hand out next and then Lisa all right um just to comment first on that thought and then go to the question I had I think I think it is true that a lot of folks rely heavily on their own existing Network to recruit people and I think that can be very effective but I think that sometimes perpetuates the problem right so I think that that's where we have to be a little bit more intentional um about going out to specific neighborhoods and communities and and um I think I think it does have to be a little bit more sort of far-reaching than the people who are already in like the networks that we that we are working in um the reason for my hand up though was a question about the specifically the the Pittsburgh engagement Hub but um is there a way I like that that there's an ability to subscribe to the topic that you're interested in um is one of the functions also that you would get notified about anything new within that category because I think that there's a there's always the issue of people who maybe be very well intending to go regularly check a website but often don't right so if there's a way that they actually get notified when there's new things put into that category on the Hub I think that that might get people more people to come back and regularly um yeah comment and participate I'm fairly I'm almost certain that is a possibility because we can already do that with our current system it's not by General topic or geography but if you go to the project page you can click to subscribe and get notifications for that specific project um so you know we're not in contract with anyone yet so I don't know all the widgets that are available but I think that's very doable um yeah and a good point let's see uh Brooks you have your hand up uh yeah it's just um I think it's a great initiative I'm just wondering uh what does success look like to you with this initiative and how do you measure progress yeah that's a good question um so our goal is to increase participation and to diversify our participants so it is very challenging to measure um as we've been talking about on the team that sometimes low attendance could be a metric of success if the gut if the participants or if the neighbors trust you they might not feel a need to come to the meeting we would usually Mark that as like a failure of notifying people where it could mean the opposite um there's also trouble with the demographics that we collect because those are optional um so we do not capture everyone so we are actually in the middle of thinking about what metrics work for us um but it is going to be probably looking at the number of people that attend kind of versus the number of people that were invited um the demographics how many newcomers we want to start a maybe counting how many newcomers are attending our meetings so we can maybe see who we're drawing in um but there are a lot of limitations to all of these um estimates of of how to capture them but um those are some of the directions we're thinking of moving in okay thanks uh Bridget and then John I like the the Pittsburgh Hub I think that's that's a great way to interact with the community though I wonder do you have data Maybe Pittsburgh do you have some evidence to show that those folks that we're trying to reach use the website like this to get information about meetings I guess I'm thinking is our targeted population that we're trying to interact with more is this is this do they interact with websites do they have access on a regular basis so that is something we might be able to track once the Hub is up um for anyone who visits I think we could have pop-up windows that ask you know is this your first time visiting um and then maybe ask them a few follow-up questions to see who's using the Hub um but you're right the digital divide is is tough and I think um you know we're just at a at a tough spot right now because it's so much uh more efficient and effective to do things digitally but um so are so much more efficient but it's not always effective in reaching certain groups um so yeah that's a that's a big question I I'm hoping when we set up the website that we can start tracking that and if it's not getting to groups that we need then we need to push further it sort of goes with our on the ground recommendations that we got is that you know we need to spend a lot more time out in the community um so that people will feel comfortable maybe calling or emailing instead yeah okay um John and then Sarah thanks uh Michelle great presentation um really appreciated it you're going to be presenting next week to the energy commission I look forward to that too uh it seems to me that there's two really important parallel activities that are going to have a big impact on the future of the city one that's um based on the city and the other is is going to be taking place in the University of Michigan one is the update of the comprehensive plan and the other is uh U of M is in parallel updating its campus plan and um so I'm addressing this to you but also would be maybe interested in hearing from John and Anya to understand how your work is going to certainly inform the city's process and in particular the the Consulting entity that's going to be sort of facilitating the whole process I mean it seems to me what you've shown here is the real problem that we see between the ability to engage um engagement being typically voluntary but not necessarily being representative and I think what we really want to make sure is that it's representative um while not being coercive or anything else all right so it seems seems that the lessons learned and the kinds of things that you're talking about here are really important for those two processes just because I mean the city and the university are so dominant in terms of how the city really um seems to us and acts for us yeah um so I think my role ideally would be you know to get this Hub up as the comprehensive plan is rolling out um and assisting in whatever way um I can granted they already have a consultant for the their or they're choosing a consultant for the comprehensive plan but as someone on staff um I'd like to assist in any way I can and really push it through through the Hub um but we did have Heather was on the interview panel so we did have a representative on the interview panel making sure that they're meeting our standards for engagement through that plan great okay as U of M cognizant of the same kind of mismatches most likely that are also happening in the university community what's representative versus who's really engaging in in influencing the process if you can take 30 seconds as an aside to to describe that um not certain where to begin with that because there's so many different uh ways of interacting are you talking specifically about internally to the university or internally but also I mean I suppose also as far as I understand the university with its uh campus Plan update is going to have a work stream to coordinate with a city um and so you know hopefully that yields better outcomes but it's these outcomes are always going to be better if they're representative as opposed to just be who who happens to show up yeah I I don't have any specific information I don't know of Anya okay yeah I'll just jump in here for a second um I yeah I agree and um I'm of course the of course the most common uh uh area of concern is affordable housing like especially affordable uh you know Workforce housing from the University so there's I would imagine there's some discussion or so there should be some coordination between these two plans the university and the city about this topic in particular you know this has been a negotiation um this has been a major negotiation point for like Geo and Leo just having the workforce housing so that people don't have to drive in here from uh you know from from Far distances so um okay uh so Sarah your next step and then Lisa hi thank you Michelle that was a wonderful presentation and I'm glad you guys are working on this stuff um I just wanted to quickly plug the state of Michigan's environmental justice screening map have you heard of that yet I have yeah okay um so yeah that's just a really great tool for trying to locate um you know underrepresented communities um and I think as a commission if we're looking at recruiting that might be one place that we could look to see what sort of communities we should be reaching out to um it's a great idea and yeah and um I guess I was wondering you know if you had identified like leaders of specific communities that we should be reaching out to more um another thing that I look at a lot in my work is um different languages so getting you know important material into languages that you know people can actually understand if they're not English is not their first language right um if the city is doing anything with that I would be interested in hearing about that as well yes um we are looking into translation services that was another budget request that we made um we have to think through first if maybe we will save those for written materials um it can be sort of tricky to have on hand you know a person at meetings depending on what language they you know we'd have to find someone on retainer for that so there's a few challenges to that but definitely we're looking at we're starting with written materials um and I was going to address your other question but I don't remember what it is um it was more about Recruitment and Outreach and if there were specific groups you were aware of already or if you know we needed to work together to try to identify those groups um we so the steering committee the Equitable engagement steering committee is a great place to start and I can share that uh well I I might have to ask them first but I would imagine you know that was 30 people that were selected sort of based on groups that they represent and they were um you know there was a rubric I don't know exactly I wasn't a part of that process but they they were selected for that for those reasons um so I think we have a really good start with the Equitable engagement steering committee we also have a long stakeholder list that we are continuing to add to um and using that as a basis for trying to build relationships with um you know institutions in this city um so I think that we could definitely share that kind of information um so that you guys have a good place to start as well that's great yeah I think our process usually is if we have info we went out there like we would send it to Sean so I'm sure maybe Sean knows where that list is and could hook us all together on that awesome thank you hey thanks Lisa you have your hand up yeah Michelle thank you so much for this presentation you guys have done an enormous amount of work and that's fantastic um I wondered if while you all were working um as the uh on this committee did you follow it all the um Community engagement around the 121 East Catherine project that the affordable housing commission is doing um yes well so Heather now works for the Housing Commission which is great transition did she watch any of the engagement sessions for that I believe I did if we're talking about the same one I watched um a video where Yodi was leading the meeting with Jen Hall yes I have seen that that has circulated around us like a you know a good bar I saw that too and what I learned from that which I think your your results also um emphasize is that part of the reason why people don't come part of what reason why uh were missing systematically the kinds of people that you've identified is because they don't trust the city and they don't trust that it will be worth their time to come to a meeting because they don't really believe that they will be heard or that the opinions that they express will affect a process and so Yodi at that meeting went around and said why did you come and a bunch of them said we came for you we don't really care about the city and we don't trust the city and I took that as a really I think a very sobering message because um what that says to me is that if we want to if the city wants to reach um bypoc community's you know many communities of people who don't actually even live here yet but who might want to we have to get to them through people whom they trust and that's hard and so I I like the idea of the engagement Hub but I think this is more of the same of what we do I think it's a passive form on our part because people come to it and they sign up for for what they're interested in but it's not what people uh were asking for in the meeting with your deed which was person-to-person contact with people that they trust yeah and they also indicated to you uh you know you said uh interestingly we're moving more and more digital but people are asking for more and more old-fashioned flyers on businesses that they you know um patronize and you know more neighborhood Outreach so probably a big key of this is putting in the budget to really meaningfully develop those those community community engagement community-based Community engagement Specialists so that it there is a conduit or there is a familiar face and there is someone to speak not in jargon but to speak you know in a way that that affects you know that that connects actually I should say connects with people that we don't know we're not being very effective at connecting with right right those are all good points um many of which were raised by the equivalent engagement steering committee and that's sort of what the community Liaisons is meant to get at so um you know imagine you know like that the city compensated yod in some way for going into that community and running that meeting for us and relaying back to us if they don't trust us to leave the meeting it's finding um people who have a connection with communities that we don't um and having them help us do that work a kind of a liaison that helps us build trust with them as well right so what we would need to begin with is someone who can reach people who might be willing to serve that role you know deep does this for a living she is being well paid by the city um maybe you know I think she she has built a sort of citizens commission around the 120 when he's Catherine but there would have to be more of those built and either you have to be willing to be super busy or there would have to be more people like Yodi who can help recruit because I don't think that the city is going to have a lot of success recruiting people to become that Community liaison unless the pay is really good and there's you know people with a lot of street cred trying to do that work because people people come when they think their voice is going to make a difference so that's that's kind of a that's a place we've got a gap I think but anyway that's agreed okay yeah thanks Lisa um um any other hands up I don't see any other hands up okay um I'm gonna jump in then I have two questions so the first one is that I noticed in your paw print diagram that that that that's great but I I thought uh you know I thought like something that was missing was Public Works um because you know when most people most most of the residents think about the city it's really the public works department that they think about you know the water supply the sewer the streets and the street lights things like that so um I'm wondering um I'm wondering uh where you where uh staff was considering where the the whole Public Works arm of the city so we didn't create this Paul the the Equitable engagement steering committee these were the topics they brought to us as being of you know a folk of focus areas okay yeah okay so um but I I'm still asking the question okay Public Works um I guess I would say that because it didn't come up from them we didn't spend much time on on that so I I don't think they brought forward to us you know complaints or grievances about that so we didn't talk about I know what you mean though I mean most meetings it ends up being about roads to be honest right and what bad condition they're in that's where there's a lot of complaints that come in but yeah and a lot of fear about water quality um but that um that didn't come up with this group oh okay um and so my second question was about uh part of it is just some suggestions I'd like to put out um first of all is that you know with these Community Liaisons that's an absolutely necessary element here but there's been talk periodically about the need for uh an ombudsman's office to have a central like Clearinghouse for Community concerns and so I think if in terms of like engaging with the top with the with the senior management of the city I think having a having it on hiring an ombudsman and giving him the approach him or her or the appropriate responsibilities um would be uh would be a place to put all these um uh the community liaison programs so I'm just throwing that out there and um and the other thing is you know with um and and with these Community Liaisons I've done a fair amount of door-to-door canvassing and and many different communities in Ypsilanti Township for example as well as the city and the excerpts around it and um I think like um you know first of all um I've done some um service projects through my church in Detroit and I was very impressed with the block organizations in Detroit and this is something I brought up a few times like with Missy Stoltz is that you know having having a strong block organization is a really good element yeah and you know the reason it's strong in Detroit is because the city abandoned a lot of these neighborhoods yeah even the police department abandoned them and so I think if um if there's some kind of an effort to uh to to get a block organization revived here in Ann Arbor I understand there used to be one uh and then um and then you know the city in in the city issues permits for block parties so for example having somebody just show up at the block parties to talk to people and see if they could recruit people and they're in those in those communities to help with Community engagement I think that would be a great idea and then also with the schools you know like for example the principal here at Barnes Park um would occasionally have a PTO meeting down at Bryant Community Center is that part of the part of the Burns Park School District but it's isolated down there south of i-94.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
and sunrise as of 9 23 2015. we never got we've been allowing or doing something illegal no I don't think we've been doing anything illegal but it wasn't these were never documented in the approval of these two preschools was never documented in governing board minutes oh okay so the and I will tell you Cass has spent many hours in that closet going through paper records from before and and probably audio also but before we had board docs and before we were doing YouTube to find the find when the board decided to approve these programs and the best she could find was in lists of new hires so here's a teacher who was hired to teach the preschool at Diamondback here was a teacher who was hired to teach the preschool at Sunrise and so that's how she got the dates the problem right now is we're not we're not being able to count those students in our ADM and on our records for our grants that we that those are you know those are operating because we cannot could not provide the dates that the that the board approved those programs so um when we sent them the information we had they said you need to give us proof that your board has approved these programs I need a motion to approve these two programs I moved to retroactive approval for preschools for Diamondback as of 10 to 2013 and sunrise as of 9 23 2015.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
Ken may remember this when we had a governing board that called for a committee to study a potential Bond and that committee was in place to the end of or towards the end of 2005 beginning of 2006 and then that committee made a recommendation to the board as to determine whether or not they believed that there was a necessity for a bond in the district later that year in 2006 there was a bond election and a bond passed that's the only time that I can recall in in my tenure of 18 years that we actually had a board appointed Committee in the district now we have several committees that run but in terms of open meeting law the only committees that are required to follow open meeting Law And when I say open meeting law would be posting of um of the meetings 24 hours ahead of time and then posting of minutes of each piece would be a board appointed committee or the curriculum Review Committee a curriculum Review Committee although it's a superintendent committee is required to follow open meeting law however I do want to specify that when it comes to curriculum review committees or committees that are not board appointed that have to follow open meeting law they are not required to follow the same format as board meetings and so the requirement for minutes for example for the curriculum Review Committee is a summary of the meeting and that you can find that on our website currently that's all that is required to be posted for to to be in compliance with open meeting law and so when a curriculum committee meeting is held held they don't follow the same process where someone calls the meeting to order and and follow a script similar to what we do you know with with the governing board meeting yet they um they are required to post a summary of the meeting in terms of meeting minutes the superintendent on the flip side of that conversation the superintendent can run committees throughout the course of a school year based upon the needs within a school a given year there are times that we run several committees and there's times that we run very few committees depending on what happens some of the Committees that we run involve parent or Community opportunities as well sometimes they involve students you know in different committees sometimes they are just internal committees and so I'll give you a couple of examples of those we have we run committees each year for professional growth for our teachers we run committees that look at our teacher evaluation process as Dr wiefridge outlined this evening the IBA group is and meet and confer is is a superintendent committee the 301 committee meets Every Spring to look at our 301 plan we have um we don't ever want to use this one but occasionally we have to to call a reduction in force or a rif committee together either if we have to eliminate teachers in a given area certified counsel is a committee classified council is a committee that we run I meet regularly with our associations our administrators our teacher associations on working conditions all of those are superintendent working committees that we have throughout the course of the Year none of those committees are required to have minutes or follow open meeting law other committees that pop up on about a two to three year cycle would be like the calendar committee for example and when we have a calendar committee that's when we we always ask for parent involvement we ask you know for student involvement as well as our staff in that as well and so I hope that provides some information to answer some questions in terms of committees what's required with open meeting law and what's not and I'm happy to answer any other questions that you may have or ask some I noticed that one of the Committees you it's not considered a committee but um the only other committee that's housed in board docs is for the trust right the the trust the trust risk retention no the the oh I'm sorry thank you and yes I forgot about that one yes the benefits um yeah the in the self-insured benefits Insurance trust yes and that committee um does follow open meeting law um post uh meetings ahead of time post minutes afterwards as well thank you I did for that because the board appoints that that is a board appointed committee yes I'm sorry so now there's two committees I'm aware of yes okay so and and I do understand that and I want to thank you for clarifying that but a lot of these committees that you mentioned were staff committees and I I think from some of the previous public comments that we've had in I re I really was hoping that this was going to be more geared towards committees that were open to the public I know you touched on a few of them for parent committees like the calendar um probably like the code of conduct you know that kind of thing um but what I would like to see is even though it's not a board-appointed committee these these these public committees I would like us to have these committees on a public page all together with those minutes whether they're detailed or summarized I think there's a lot of parents out there and community members that are concerned about what's going on in public schools whether it's our district or things that they're hearing in a state or national level and they want to be more involved and they want to understand more of what's going on if they're not physically able to come to one of those committee meetings um so is that something that we could look into like a central location for committees Madam president member Densmore yes we certainly can there there are what I believe I hear you saying is for I think the word you used was public committees that involve parents or community members or what have you if we could post even if they're not required by open meeting law just a summary of what happens in those and yeah and I don't think that would be a problem whatsoever and I think I'm hearing um that that we could do or the request would be can we post it on a page somewhere that's easily findable for a lack of better terms um I think on a home page yeah a link to it absolutely I think that we certainly can um and and there are other committees that I certainly didn't didn't bring up you mentioned the code of conduct and and that is a committee that we have parents on as well and yes I think that we can certainly go that route there are internal District committees in which we would not provide summary meeting minutes of you know for for obvious reasons and one IBA is an example of that right and so yes but I think that with the public piece I think that's something that we could certainly look to do happy to do that and then with that page could we also have notices when we are asking for Community input saying we are looking for X amount of people Madam President we certainly can do that and you know we there have been times in this district and I'm going to use the word unfortunately where we have begged for people to be part of it because we no one had interest and so yes we are more than happy to do that we also typically put advertisements in various places when we're looking for committee members as well but we we will we can do that on that committee page we'll post um summary minutes of the public meetings and then we also will be more than happy to place a link that just says if you're interested in being on a committee click here and then we'll collect that information so that we just have a database when we have committees and we can reach out to folks and see if something meets their interest easy peasy very much and as a matter of fact I'm being told by the powers that be way behind us that we actually have a committee interest form already that we have available on our website and we'll just make sure we link that to that page and that way it's in one easy place for people to find great peace cake thank you do we have any other questions all right thank you we'll move on to G3 information on curriculum writing Dr Dean thank you madam president uh Madam president members of the governing board members of cabinet in our community also at the request of our governing board we have information this evening that Dr assai will share as it relates to those folks that we pay for curriculum writing and during the course of the Year this is usually a um an every agenda item in our personal action report in which we pay folks hourly for a broad term that is just titled curriculum writing and so Dr assai will present information on that Dr assai good evening Madam president members of the board when you see something called curriculum writing what it usually entails is teachers going back and doing work as it relates to standards assessment District approved resources scope and sequence and best practices we get we always start with the state standards that we're charged with teaching lots of times when we have a district approved resources they will give us exams and sometimes they're great exams sometimes they could be better an example I like to use is my first my first year teaching there was a question on golf that said Don hit one and one Crystal hit three and three who won and by how much if I was a child who had been exposed to golf I would understand and answer the question correctly but if I hadn't even though my my math would be right my answer would be incorrect so we look at first semester I think last last board meeting there was curriculum writing and it had to do with K3 reading and that's a curriculum and a resource we had adopted and it's in its first year of use at K3 so those people were going through and looking at the assessment results from students and saying how did our students do and then they talked about was the assessment item Fair do we think this was a solid assessment item if it wasn't our kids did poorly we go back and look at our scope and sequence and we say did we miss something in the scope and sequence did we did we need to hit long a a little bit harder did we need to hit it in different ways if it's not our assessment usually it's our instruction that we can beef up we also look at mapping in best instructional practices and academic vocabulary so when you see something on there about curriculum writing and you'll see more toward the summer when we do the majority of our work this year and summer seminar but it is an ongoing process throughout the year and one piece I would like to add and I I stated um in the introduction to this piece is that the broad category here is called curriculum writing and perhaps that's not the right term because our staff is actually not writing new curriculum what our staff does during that time is they're reviewing and revising things like our pacing of how when we teach lessons how long it takes us to teach a given unit um as Dr assai mentioned we might make tweaks and adjustments to tests test questions test items a better golf example would be Dr Dean and Dr crotto are playing golf at in San Diego next week Dr Dean shoots 68 Dr crota shoots 90 who won and to to Dr assai's point if you're not familiar with the game of golf you would think that the high score wins um and and so when we when we find those things in test Banks and test items then we go back and and we re we review and we tweak those I remember once upon a time I was teaching in Middle School and we were giving a a state assessment I think it was the cat nine back then and there was a question in a passage about a Babbling Brook there's not a lot of students in the Phoenix area that are familiar with babbling Brooks right and upon analysis the majority of the students that I taught got that question wrong and so what we found is that you know we needed to revise the way that we taught in that school in that District our vocabulary components to add pieces like the word Brooke and those kinds of things that aren't familiar to students here conversely a student on the east coast is not going to have a lot of experience with the choya cactus right or a javelina or what have you so probably a better suited term for the work that our staff does that we pay them for would be curricular review and and it might benefit us and our community to fully understand what's happening in that payment to change that term from curriculum writing to curriculum review because that's really what it is and again our staff is not going through writing new curriculum they're going through and making revisions to the way the pace the way we assess and the way that we teach the curriculum that's adopted by the board thank you so to to your point we're not paying thousands and thousands of dollars to buy curriculum and yet still paying our own people to write the curriculum Madam president that is absolutely correct so it's just a matter of of us taking a look at what we're doing which by the way here's a quick free advertisement for summer workshop this is what summer workshop is completely about we look forward to all our staff being there this is um this is the work that's done on a regular basis by our team by our our outstanding teaching professionals to to hone in the curriculum that we purchase that's board adopted to make sure that we are best meeting the needs of our students and this is a stipend so this is done outside of the school day Madam president it is done um outside of the school day and it's paid at an hourly rate I want to say 27 an hour is that correct 26 I'm sorry twenty six dollars an hour we pay our staff to do that and that's laid out in the mou okay and that's volunteers Madam president yes and no um summer workshop is 100 volunteer although we would love to have all of our staff at summer workshop um and we're paying you your daily rate for summer workshop this year um but uh there are there are times that we seek people out intentionally um who have been very successful in a given unit a given grade level whatever the case may be so we're not paying a first-year teacher to perform these duties Madam president that would be rare and unlikely thank you but but I believe that we could probably provide great clarity um with folks just by changing the second word in that component to review rather than writing so and we will look to do that thank you do we have any other questions um just want to clarify too I know that at times sometimes in our existing curriculum we have things that might not fit into some of our values so would that fall into this as well if they were just maybe some changing some language and some of the prompts for students things like that Madam president member Densmore yes we our curriculum team is Con our curriculum specialist I'm sorry is constantly reviewing our materials but through our revision if that were to be found or through um you know our teachers reviewing our lessons yes that could be part of that as well thank you and we we are working very hard to be very aware um of of those types of things and catch them um as quickly as possible and revise as needed it's very appreciated yes very much appreciated thank you all right we will move on to item H1 Dr Dean Madam president members of the governing board members of cabinet in our community this is always an exciting um item and an exciting time of year when we welcome new folks onto our team for the upcoming year and I'm going to turn this over to Dr polling good evening Madam president members of the board cabinet and audience Administration is proud to present the following assistant principal recommendations for the 23-24 school year Juan Carlos Perla has been recommended for assistant principal at Dysart middle school and Kara Miller is being recommended for assistant principal at Luke elementary school and I believe they're both in attendance tonight a comprehensive selection process was used to identify all of our appointees for these positions which is our standard and I will stand for any questions all right thank you Dr polling do we have any questions all right I will move to approve the appointment of Juan Carlos Perla and Cara Miller as assistant principals for the 2023-2024 school year second motion made by Crystal Chaffin seconded by Don Densmore and Madam president they are both in the audience and I would ask them to stand so that we all know who they are and congratulations motion carries congratulations [Applause] next we have H2 sorry H3 wait where are we at H2 Dr Dean it's contagious Madam president I'll take a responsibility for that Madam president members of the governing board members of cabinet in our community this evening we are pleased to bring a recommendation to approve the appointment of a director of federal projects and I will turn this over to Dr Poling thank you Dr Dean Madam president members of the board we are proud to present a recommendation for position of director of federal projects Dr Ashley Longoria is being recommended for the assignment for the 23-24 school year um Ashley Longoria has a doctorate in organizational leadership she was a principal with us for three years and if my memory serves correct she is a graduate of Dysart High School all right there we go so Dysart is in her blood so a comprehensive selection process was used to identify Dr Longoria and I will stand for any questions thank you Dr polling do we have questions all right I will make the motion to approve the appointment of Dr Ashley Longoria as director of federal projects beginning the 2023-2024 school year motion made by Crystal Chaffin seconded by Joe Grant the board is voting I would like to say we've actually not taken a blood test on Dr Longoria but we believe Dysart runs through our veins and go ahead and stand up Minnie [Applause] motion carries next we move on to H3 Dr Dean thank you madam president members of the governing board and members of cabinet and our community the State of Arizona allows school districts to petition the State Board of Education to create teacher education programs in an effort to recruit and train new teachers in a school district and so this evening Dr assai will present information on this item as it relates to a teacher education program that we have had approved by the State Board of Education as it relates to special education teachers in our district Dr assai good evening again Madam president members of the board bringing the education preparation program to Dysart is our way to fill a need you'll note it is specific to special education teachers we currently have a need we have many special education positions that are currently unfilled by certified teachers we have Subs we have contract teachers who are certified but they cost our district more and we really believe by opening this program that we can grow our own we did tailor it in accordance with what the state wants they want us to teach certain strands to be certified just like the universities would but the advantage we have is we don't have to do it like the universities do necessarily we can put our own Dysart spent on it and what I mean by that is there's certain things in there about our curriculum we just talked about what is the curriculum that we teach in Dysart and what are our values how do we teach this and what's acceptable and what's not uh things like lesson planning and how do we do our lesson planning what is our expectation for integration of Technology we also have assessment we talk a lot about assessment I think dysart's farther along than many districts and our use of assessment and breaking it down so it enables participants which would be a limited number who have bachelor's degrees already to indicate I want to become a special education teacher in Dysart they're trained over 70 hours in July that continues throughout their whole time teaching they have a mentor teacher they have a teacher appointed by the district really that trains them in those things that observes them provides some feedback while at the same time they're working with Mentor teachers at sites and we really believe this is an opportunity to fill fill a need for a high needs population and do it in a way that we can get Quality quality teachers question I'm sorry questions thank you Dr side do we have questions student teaching they're in the classroom but they have a mentor they would have a mentor they're not doing it with somebody they are assigned their own group a own group of students this is very similar to the model ASU uses now where they do get paid why they're doing that so to get paid to learn an example member Grant is I have a friend who works at a local local charter school we are still friends um but she she has a teaching degree in another state she hasn't or she was almost there in another state I guess she has her bachelor's she would like to teach in Arizona she would like to teach special education Charter Schools can employ teachers who aren't certified we don't she would have the opportunity to sub but through this program she could get her teaching certification and be a member of the Dysart family and learn the way we want to do things advertised I guess is the right word I mean you obviously have a friend you can tell but how else would you be able to draw we would we would work with our public relations team on advertising and recruiting hopefully we would get more recruits than we have spaces so we can be very selective um and who we choose our first step is getting it approved we haven't started talking advertising plans until we get the board's approval and I know that you mentioned that this is um for our special education some of the um the program content mentions social emotional learning can you just speak to how that is different with our special needs students yeah and I if I can talk to it in two respects number one a lot of our special education students do have social emotional learning goals so in a special education program we would need to address those we we have to write goals for them if that's their area of disability lots of times with our autistic children they need help with you know how do I interact socially so we do write those goals and that's embedded there but also in the classroom and I just made a note on 811 we presented to the board what SEL is and is not in Dysart you know SEL and Dysert has to do with problem solving goal setting when we talk about those things and it's really not what we would consider social social emotional learning even but what it's not is it's not about CRT it's not about sexual education it's not about social justice or anything like that so it also gives us the opportunity to teach these teachers coming in not necessarily what the university might teach them but say this is how we do things in Dysart and these are aligned with our dicer values thank you very much and then who would be overseeing these teachers who oversees this program we would hire a position funded to to do this through special education funds and then ultimately it would be Dr Dr wifridge is helping with it I'm helping with it as well and supporting so we would need to hire new District Personnel to supervise this it would be school-based Personnel similar to our teaching learning Specialists that already exist so it would be site-based yeah like our teaching learning Specialists or site-based they're in our schools everyday classrooms every day would be a position similar to that an additional position similar to that yes I want to make sure that we clarify for the board in terms of the number of positions that we're speaking about here that would be one we're talking about one okay just wanted to clarify one per site one for the district it would they would also work with teachers at each side the TLs at each site to also oversee so I mean you would have one person traveling around working with the 10 in the summer that person would travel around and also work with the TLs on how do we coach these teachers and then are we working with our tls's to train them on this protocol and on this particular schedule we would definitely work with them because their primary job is to support new teachers at sites but because of the special education content in it not all of our TLS our special education trained so we do need that expertise so that's when the district Personnel would step in yes and then if that District personnel is is say we've got three sites where the TLs is not necessarily their specialty isn't special special education so is that District person that District Personnel going to be able is it feasibly possible for them to have the manpower to supervise all three schools I believe it is because of the special education structure we have special education Specialists that you're usually assigned to two schools that can support so they would also partner with that person we also have the coordinators of four or five schools so I do think if that if it comes to that that we would have this the manpower to support and Madam president I would add that we anticipate that this program will start small and grow and so we believe that what is being proposed in terms of uh the staff involved would be adequate to begin the program I would love to be wrong and we would be flooded with a number of people and be back to the board and saying we need additional Personnel but at this point we believe that we'll be able to handle the initial number with what's being proposed and I'm not I'm not great at economics but I would think in what we would save with two or three contracted teachers and grow our own that pays for itself and then would they be receiving evaluations like every other teacher they would receive evaluations and their success is actually also based on seeing progress with student test scores so you would have to see growth with your students and they would be receiving those evaluations by principals and then do they do they have like an end of the program assessment or evaluation where you know they actually have to prove that they can teach they're not just going through the program and then all of a sudden we find out after two years that wow we have put so much time and effort into this person but it's just not going to work out yes Madam president uh members of the board yes at the end of that two years then they will need to take the state certification assessment in order to get a certificate okay said so they will have to take the aepa and okay at the end of the two years and not just with the test taking like if if we see that it's not good for our students in our schools you see it on page 10 it talks about if they need to go into more intensive support in year two um we look at planning and preparation classroom environment instruction and professional responsibilities so they are you know it would be at that time we'd be like okay we need more intensive support or it might be time to part ways Madam president very similar to the way that we approach our student teachers currently if we see a student teacher that we have grave concerns about we contact the university and refer them back to them and so it would be a similar situation if we see someone in this program that we have concerns about their ability to be effective as a teacher we certainly will move down a path that's appropriate for our students the probably the best way to look at this program would be it's similar to a post-baccalaureate program that universities would offer to folks who have degrees and then want to become teachers and they kind of fast track that this is just fast tracking it through our system and the the biggest Advantage is it gives us it gives us control of the folks to train them in our system our value system and what we believe in in terms of teaching and learning for our students thank you do we have any other questions sorry um how quickly into the role do you think that it would give relief to our current special education staff I would think that it would be within I mean really within the first year what happens right now is if if John and I are Dr crota and I are both teaching somewhere and Dr Credo leaves and he gets a sub that sub can't write IEPs so even though we compensate another teacher for doing it that's a heavy load on another teacher to write double the IEPs to design that specially designed instruction so it would take that off that staff and I think it brings really to our other teachers training that that new teacher to write those IEPs is it going to be their buddy teacher like their teammates are they going to have to pick up that slack and say oh I hope you do this and in addition to all their other duties I would it's going to be refined throughout the year throughout the year in July I can teach you how to do it that doesn't mean that you're going to perfect it by any means so you know there would be practice in July there would be more practice in August than they would probably submit it to one of the specialists at the sites the special education specialist already review IEPs and work side by side so it's really a multi-person effort even though there's a you have to have that central point but when all of us work together is how things get done and you think this would greatly alleviate some of the stress of our current special ed teachers who are spread thin and teaching more bigger class sizes than they normally would I believe Not only would it alleviate stress to the special education teachers but also to general education teachers to some of our administrators when you're short staffed it hurts anyway but when you're short staffed in ESS for some of our Learners that need you know that need qualified teachers great teachers the most um when we have to fill that position with a sub you know or when we have to incur the cost of a contract teacher I think it hurts the system and I think having that person immediately be able to be in the room when they're qualified trained by somebody that's qualified who's somebody who's passionate and knows ESS who knows instruction I believe you know my own personal experience my husband went back to school to be an ESS educator he's actually learned more in the classroom than I think he did in his teacher teacher program you know I helped him with his objectives once and he got a B but in Dysart he got an A because I wrote him the right way um but just going going through those things and I will tell you my my own experience being married to a special education teacher is that he's learned more from his colleagues and the people he works with here than he did in his three year three years of the University he did not go to U of A or he would have been more appropriately trained thank you for that clarification thank you do we have any other questions or points of discussion okay then I will make the motion to approve the educator preparation programs as presented motion made by Crystal Chapin seconded by Don Densmore motion carries we now have requests for future agenda items do we have any all right I will move that we adjourn the meeting motion made by Crystal Chapman seconded by Joe Grant midnight what motion carries we are adjourned
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Ms O'Hara Perkins is retiring at the end of the current year congratulations as such a selection committee was put together to identify the next principle for Picture Rocks Elementary School the position was posted 10 applications were received for the opening a screening committee including one governing board member one principal two teachers a support staff member a parent one executive director and the superintendent vetted the applications and selected five individuals to interview the candidates were interviewed by the same committee and two candidates were forwarded for a final interview with myself and governing board president Dr Lopez we are pleased to recommend Ms Vanessa scaffidi for the position of Picture Rocks Elementary School principal Ms scaffidi is currently serving as the associate principal of Ironwood Elementary School she's previously served as the associate principal of pictured Rocks Elementary School prior to becoming in an administrator Ms scaffidi has worked at Picture Rocks as a classroom teacher in the library media specialist okay I moved at the governing board at a point Vanessa scaffidi as the principal of picks Rocks Elementary School effective July 1st 2023.
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opportunity for our kids to come into school and participate in multiple activities um in the school with one of our teachers and that's Tuesday March the 14th I think you said fourth oh did I say fourth sorry 14.
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Aiden hi um do I get a question or give us a quick little bio about yourself quick bio great okay I'm the junior excuse me senior class uh vice president here I um I'm the president of the fishing club vice president of The Debate Club uh I'm in the track and field team really excited to be here really excited to be on dartmouth's finest I'm excited for me and Phoenix this joints hey guys my name is Sean Martin I'm the senior class president here at Dartmouth High School I played football for the past four years I was previously in Deca I'm still in Key Club I'm in the chess club and I think that just about sums it up uh Phoenix I'm uh I'm a co-president of the NHS I uh I'm on the track team I've been on track the past three years and I also play golf and I'm really excited to be here do the joint act as he said perfect thank you Liberty Kids let's keep Aiden on up here the rest of you can go take a seat and let's get Ella Gibson up at the stand from strung up strung up is in the lead with 62 points but Aiden here is the time for the liberty kids to take the lead we asked 100 Dartmouth High School students if you heard a noise in the middle of the night what would you do Aiden I would check to see what it is investigate we'll give you 69 points for that and that's the top answer on the board Ella go take a seat let's get the rest of those limited kids back up here tonight to see familiar faces once again back up at the stand let's go to you Phoenix if you heard a noise in the middle of the night what would you do I would hide hi is that an answer on the board no it is not our first strike Sean we go to you now if you've heard a noise in the middle of the night what would you do I would go back to sleep go back to sleep and do nothing is on the board for 12 points [Music] we'll go to miss lamba now I would have my husband or someone else go investigate I'll give that to you for those eight points to get a friend to go investigate all right we have two more answers on the board we'll go back to Aiden if you heard a noise in the middle of the night what would you do [Music] I would probably um not do anything at all not doing anything at all was Phoenix's answer do you want to give us another answer no really no that's what I said so I'll give it one we are gonna have to give you an unfortunate strike for that one but if you can get these two options here strung up will not steal your pointage um I'd call the police call the police is on the board for another four points and that means that the liberty kids have wiped out this category congratulations to them foreign you guys can go take a seat now [Music] we hope you're enjoying finest food here today and we're going to move on to our next category now in this category we're going to have our two advisors Head to Head let's bring up Mrs lamba from Liberty Kids and Mrs Thomas from strung up [Applause] good luck how are we to be here today on our first ever episode of finest Feud [Music] fantastic or should I say Fantastico I had to do it well I'm glad that you're here and I'm I hope you're happy and ready to play our next round our second to last a finest Feud we asked 100 Dartmouth High School students name something you might keep inside of your wallet I'm gonna have to give that one to Mrs lamba credit card is the second answer on the board Mrs Thomas could you give a possibly a better answer cash is the first answer on the board can we get team shrung up here thank you Mr salami you can go take a seat all right we're gonna do a quick little interview with our guests and our advisors so we'll start with you Ella give us a little bit of a bio about yourself and what the fans might want to know I'm very involved a music program here I play Viola and I have for eight years I am president of the Dartmouth High School environmental club and I have been participating on the varsity sailing team for four years now Addison uh hi I'm Madison uh I am a senior at Dartmouth High School I transferred from VOC this year and I am a part of the Child Care Program and have been involved in child care for four years and I'm a student teacher in a kindergarten classroom at Quinn hi I'm Sean I'm from Colorado I moved here in seventh grade I'm a secretary of communications for the debate team I do the maker club with Miss Thomas I'm on the track and field team uh third most handsome person actually fun not commonly known fact right there biggest Campbell number one most handsome Sean Allen number three uh you know realistic stats here uh and I'm also the funniest person in Dartmouth um take that Michael Blazer hi I'm Miss Thomas I am the instructional list here at Dartmouth this is my 4 um I am also a co-advisor for the class of 2024 and super excited about the upcoming show dartmouth's finest perfect well you two have your your team rather has two of the five answers on the board so if we can get three more you would possibly get enough pointage to push you over the edge with just one round left so go to uwella what is something that you would keep inside of your wallet I'd say probably um an ID or a license licenses on the board for 22 more points for strung up we'll go to Sean now something that you'd keep inside of your wallet gift card gift card is unfortunately not on the board First Strike It Again Ryan strung up Addison name something that you might keep inside of your wallet a picture a picture is on the board for another 17 points this leaves just one option left one strike for team strung up if you can't get it Liberty Kids may have a chance to steal Mrs Thomas name something that you might have inside of your wallet a key a key is unfortunately not on the board with two strikes now strung up leads into the dangerous Zone if Ella can get it she could possibly win it for her team um I'm gonna say receipts receipts is on the board can we get a representative from Team liberty kids up [Music] at the stands [Music] all right Phoenix you have a chance here to steal get more points for your team and have a chance in the final round could you name something that someone might keep inside of their wallet I'm gonna go with coins coins is not on the board which means we will have to go into round number four who's gonna win it the liberty kids or stronger you guys could go take a seat [Music] all right let's get our two final contestants up at the stand Sean Allen from strung up and Phoenix Campbell from the liberty kids [Music] here is the chance where both of you have the most crucial jobs you can win it all for your teams or you can lose it all for your teams for our prize today of absolutely nothing so we go to the question we asked 100 Dartmouth High School students name some chores that you might be forced to do Sean I'm gonna have to go to you for strung up clean your room is the second most answer on the board which leaves Phoenix could you name number one [Music] unfortunately not on the board up here all right we'll go to you Addison name some chores that you might be forced to do wash the dishes wash the dishes it's on the board for our third most answer we'll go to now to Ella name some chores that you might be forced to do I'm gonna say uh mop the floor mop the floor unfortunately not on the board Mrs Thomas one strike for strung up do the laundry do the laundry is on the board we have number we have answers two three and four which leaves one in five Sean name something a chore that you might be forced to do old answer take out the trash take out the trash is not reward unfortunately which leaves your team with two strikes the dangerous Zone [Music] Addison I could I can offer this for both teams would we like a hint yes okay I'm going to give a chore that you would be more be able to do so in this climate in the summer and this other thing is something that you can do all year long to clean up [Music] mow the lawn mow the lawn is the number one answer on the board which leaves which leaves answer number five two strikes will go to you Ella does the clue also apply to this one it could but the secondary clue what I gave is most applicable rake the leaves is not can we get a representative from the liberty kids up at the stand do you have a chance to take it all what's up everybody Sean Martin from the liberty kids do you have an answer that could save your team this game I sure hope so Ryan I really hope so um we're gonna go with vacuum vacuum vacuum the floor vacuum the floor survey says it is not on the board it's the wind to shrunk up our number five answer was walk the dog all right let's get let's get everybody up on the green screen all right [Music] all right one final thing can we give the fans and all the people watching at home our most exciting and ready for a moment for dartmouth's finest we can pass it around if you'd like I'm excited for the intermission that's gonna be good that's all I can say I've seen I'm gonna leave it at that um also very excited for the intermission it might be siding for people to watch it's very bold um there's a lot of pizzazz in it um having already participated in one of the behind the scenes filming trips I am very excited for what's to come of those numerous lengthy clips I'm most excited to see the amazing dance moves that this group has uh I'd probably say I'm most excited to see all of us get out of our comfort zone a little I think a lot of our acts and especially the dances we've done have forced us to do that I definitely do not think I'd be doing some of the some of the dancing routines that I'm doing but I guess that's what I go with could we just have stress the liberty kids just step in frame a little bit more there we go awesome um again all great suggestions I'm going to say the opening act definitely and watch out for that Formal Wear I think you're going to be very excited good I'm definitely excited for the second intermission worked very hard on that I'm just really excited to see all these kids who've been so amazing um at every rehearsal come together have some fun the dance moves like Miss Thomas said are out of this world and I want they clean up nicely so I think you'll be pleasantly surprised with Formal Wear um just like really excited overall all right well thank you all for coming down and participating in our first ever finest food students fans teachers staff and anybody else watching please come on down to the Dartmouth High School on St Patrick's Day this year to watch dartmouth's finest and these kids compete to see who will be our number one Diamond student thank you and we hope to see you again [Applause] [Music] you've been watching dartmouth's finest feud in conjunction with Brian Oliver a thank you to all of the Dharma finest contestants as well as advisors Mrs Jen Thomas and Mrs from the salon now please enjoy a special video intro of the Dartmouth finest event thank you during all lunches March 17th come buy your tickets for Dartmouth finest 13 a piece if you can't buy the tickets during lunch it's okay you can still buy them at the door before the show for fifteen dollars coming soon to Dartmouth High School on March 17th at 7 pm [Music] foreign [Music] welcome back to another fantastic episode of dhnn we're your host for this week I'm Carlton and I'm Elijah lavaria on this episode we'll be showing you highlights from the recent girls basketball playoff game versus Middleborough we even have an exclusive interview with a member of the Dartmouth High Theater Company talk about lockdown announcements weather news and much more dhnn starts right now oh foreign [Music] I pledge allegiance to the flag [Music] of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all [Music] here are this week's announcements parking pass is available for thirty dollars see the school's website to purchase Cafe Tuesday coffee for 50 cents and baked goods for 75 cents for school staff only check your email clubs and activities sign up visit the DHS website to see all the wonderful offerings we have too good with Chipotle the Chipotle fundraiser for Dartmouth High School class of 2023 after prom is Wednesday March 11th 4 to 8 P.M 33 of the event sales get donated to the cause I'm test testing math MKS retakes are March 14th and March 15th March Madness the after problem committee is excited to announce that every Monday in the month of March will be a chance to show your school spirit and help raise money to make the years after prom celebration amazing March 13th is character or animal day March 20th is sports or Sparkle day March 27th is Pajama Day and please us up Monday to see Miss Tully in the LMC interesting information about St Patrick's Day it's always on March 17th did you know March 17th was actually the day St Patrick died after she died he was forgotten but he later on grew armor as the saint of Ireland he used the three leaf Shamrock to explain the Holy Trinity because of that in the 18th century in Ireland they started to wear Shamrocks on March 17th to show the Irish surprise which later on turned into the tradition to wearing one of the biggest Traditions that happened on St Patrick's Day [Music] if you want to learn more about St Patrick's Day [Music] on March 5th or Dartmouth High Theater Company competed at Attleboro with their production of lockdown we sat down with one of the cast members to discuss the event and what went on let's see the interview foreign Friedman and I'm this week's host today we have Mason Langlois our new Show's host called backstage today Mason is going to be talking about the Dartmouth theater's competition show called lockdown hi Mason hello I do have some questions for you about this comp the show that you guys competed with um so what is the show about so lockdown is a show about these group of kids that are locked inside of their classroom uh in a in lockdown hence the name of the show and they don't know if it's a drill or not and at some point during the show the teacher runs out of the room and they are left to figure out if it's real or not oh wow sounds very interesting um and how many cast members are there we have about eight in our cast for everyone playing everyone from a teacher to a ninth grade student so yeah oh wow um and what made you guys choose to perform this exact ly so we wanted to really uh get the message out there and really have people you know like face the reality of things that go on uh in schools today and we thought you know like a really intimate piece would be a good way to you know kind of force people to stare at something they might just not think about on a day-to-day basis so you know we went okay we can do this show and it probably did take a while to rehearse this show so what do your rehearsals usually look like so our rehearsals normally we arrive at like uh just before like 12 on Sundays and uh we you know go through the show you know if we have any new blocking we have to learn we do all that and then um you know we just kind of run it a few times make sure we really have it and you know just work on any character stuff that we need to oh wow um and of course as being part of this show I have to ask you this question who is your favorite character from the show that's a tough one um I'd have to say my favorite character is probably Adam uh just because his Arc throughout the show as he slowly learns um you know and you know becomes more friendly to his peers really kind of resonates and especially his final monologue that he has it in the show really sort of like sells the whole you know theme and what's going on and it's really powerful and really good wow um now I am not very familiar with this what did the competitions how do they work out what do they look like uh so for competition uh we go to the host school which this year is at Alberta high school and uh we go to their school and we kind of sit down and we watch a bunch of other schools arrive to and we all perform in front of every each other and a few judges and you perform your show and you watch all the other ones and at the end of the night the judges will like award people that they thought did a really good job in both the technical and acting side of things and um will you know pick the shows to move on throughout the three rounds is this your first competition that you've been to or so I went to competition last year for our production of crafting a killer and it was really fun well thank you Mason so much for coming on to the show I appreciate you coming on and answering my questions and here are some highlights from the show lockdown [Music] um during all lunches March 17th come buy your tickets for Dartmouth finest 13 apiece foreign if you can't buy the tickets during lunch it's okay you can still buy them at the door before the show for 15 dollars [Music] coming soon to Dartmouth High School on March 17th at 7 pm here's your seven-day forecast [Music] Holly reposted with this week's weather from March 13th to March 19th on Monday it will be raining with a high of 43 and a low of 31.
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staff have codified our vet Court values which align with districts mission and vision and health derive the work that we do every week thank you an academic growth is always a focus teachers need to analyze student assessments so that they can put on for high quality instruction one example from our recent Benchmark data is the number of students of fourth and fifth grade who have increased their Proficiency in math [Music] the school Community celebrates monthly we get together to honor the students of the month we also engage in activities with other schools such as the Alternative High School and Henry have a technical school to learn more about different High School experiences staff and students continue to focus on their personal peripherals as well as well the most exciting event this year has been the addition of the Ellsworth Annex with the addition we have not only increased the number of classrooms but also have developed a great collaboration with the Danbury schools failing and Community engagement Center this has been a wonderful addition to our school community our school is one of the district recipients of the bh-1 state of the music Grant which allows many of our students to take this instrument lessons we have participated in the welcoming schools walkthrough and continue to work on engagement with the community parenting programs take place in the evening with community members engage in professional learning regarding a welcoming School environment so thank you so much and I'm happy to answer any questions you might have about our school [Music] thank you questions that was in this presentation the interview any questions how many students do you have we have I'm not sure if the exact in real life that's 465. [Music] all right Chris thank you so much thank you okay foreign public participation so the board welcomes public participation and asset speakers please learn their comments to agreements speakers may offer objective comments of school operations and programs award will not permit any discretion of personal complaints or defamatory comments about Board of Education Personnel students nor against any person connected with the Danbury school system well okay moving right along consent calendar God's giving motion [Music] consent calendar exhibit and also happens 47.
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I'm sorry I'm sorry so go ahead uh Mr Chang pull it pull the one that we're not supposed we're not ready for that is 502 I'm sorry 501 501 that's okay the other one is there any other requests for modifications of the agenda okay seeing none uh is there a motion on the modification of the agenda motion to approve the agenda with the modification oh okay motion from vice president Herrero loera second from clerk Quintero uh seeing no further questions or comments by members of the war I'll call you as I see you vice president Herrera loera aye uh clerk Quintero aye Rusty Flores Shelton aye and myself vote and I the vote is four to zero with trustee Chavez uh not voting are absent uh okay so the agenda is adopted and item 5.01 is pulled so uh moved to uh 1.03 welcome an explanation to the audience is Carlos here okay thank you Carlos thank you president of the board parakeets for those who are Spanish speakers we have Spanish interpretation available in-house all the headsets are available on the table outside in the hallway thank you very much okay thank you Carlos so we moved to part two item two point and one public members who wish to address the board on matters not on the agenda request to address the board provides members of the public and opportunity to speak about any manner under the jurisdiction of the district but not on this agenda if the subject you wish to discuss is already on this agenda please provide your comment when that item is called during the meeting those who wish to speak on within a within the jurisdiction of the disc of the you know those who wish to speak on an item within the jurisdiction District you know please remember that the brown act prevents the board from discussing any item not on this published agenda but the board May refer to staff for follow-up any formal written requests that are brought before to board at this time there is a limit of two minutes for each speaker the board has the right to limit total public comment on any agenda item to no more than 20 minutes written matters may be placed on a on a future meeting agenda uh for purposes of this meeting due to uh advisory from the County Office of Education that the internet uh will be turned off at 10 pm I I will for one limit uh public comment to one minute per person and that there is a limit of 20 minutes of total public comment on each agenda item so with that I will open item 2.01 for uh public comment is there any speakers all right please state your name for uh for the board and the audience and uh yeah please state your name and uh you know and remember you know for for the board and for the audience and you have one minute Dr Bauer and trustees my name is I am speaking tonight in response to comments that were made on February on the February board meeting by Ernesto trustee I want you to know that your comments in agreement with Ernesto were uncalled for we love our students we stay in this toxic relationship with our Alum Rock School District because we love our students you as the board members you as board members have the responsibility of modeling respect for teachers and staff to students when you say that only students matter what do you think that is being heard teachers and parents are also stakeholders in the education of children so we all matter teachers are part of the team that make Alum rocks successful when you congratulate yourselves for the achievements of students for 30 plus minutes at every board meeting think about the role each stakeholder paid good evening Dr Bauer and trustees my name is Elizabeth Guzman I am also a teacher at the library Language Academy will you share your personal opinions please think about what you say as words have consequences especially for those of us that teach and interact with students daily another point I want to make is our U.S board members that need to remember that we are elected officials you represent all stakeholders including students parents teachers and all staff you are not there to represent your own personal interests in addition more training principles of Atlanta is not working for anyone now for the students not for the teachers not the staff and not the parents finally shows respect by sending you for a contract thank you for your time Board of Trustees and superintendent my name is my founding and practicing a family family member uh General language emergency concerns you know about frustrations and I'm going to keep you free all I want is that we start some type of hearing especially for our students and our families you know we demand the respect we demand the transparency and we demand that that we all honestly have a good conversation thank you good evening my name is and I am a teacher at Atlanta Academy I am here again to inform all of you that things are still not okay at Adelante teachers are exhausted and we are still being disregarded let me ask all of you would you like to work with four or more superintendents depending of the day of the week it's not working floating admin on Fridays really it's still not working by the way we have not forgotten about the comments made at the last board meeting about how some of you really feel about us how some of you sided with the disrespecting of us as professionals you have you have opened our eyes it is clear now how you really feel you are elected officials Community is watching you all remember it's community that puts you in your seats whether it is on this board or any other public seat you might have your eyes on your actions speak volume thank you hey when as much as good evening to everybody good evening Dr Bauer and board members my name is Wendy Cruz alcantar and I'm a teacher at Adelante I've been there for 16 years I want to take this opportunity and welcome welcome our new Board member Miss Florida shelter welcome I hope that your arrival increases the board's motivation to be transparent and accountable of their actions I hope that unlike the former board member barenjano you understand that we Alum Rock teachers are all here for the students and we take our job very seriously but that we are also we also deserve respect and to work at a dis at a district where we feel heard valued and safe at this moment many of us do not feel it this way especially we feel completely disrespected unvalued ignored I hope you are able to help the board improve the situation thank you foreign as secondary players in education we are concerned to hear from decision makers in our district that it is not clear that education is not just run by teachers this is a team effort teachers parents administrations districts and students will have a part just as important as the others when everyone does their job 100 the results are optimal for our students which is our main interest as teachers is always our main interest to support our students to express their voice however as parents and teachers our job is to guide them to do it in the appropriate place and time we need committed Leaders with our schools thank you oh are you are you are you speaking yes okay no okay hi my name is Delia the reason I'm talking is because um I just feel a very unjust what's going on at our school um with director Gutierrez and the fact that the board won't even say her name they won't give us I've been asking since November December since this all started what is the status suspended let go on paid administratively fired anything but no name is mentioned her name was never mentioned in any of these meetings and that's very disheartening for me because I can I we get so one of the parents shared like something that happened in Carmel High School where they laid out what's happening because of a similar allegation and they laid out everything well this principle is going to happen this is what's going to happen and this is what's going to happen and we can't get that from the board and that's very disheartening I don't know what legal is telling you but you can stay she is an employee she's not in a play that is legally allowed thank you so okay my name is this child came this this young lady came into the meeting where the parents were hurting the only thing that I request is I want my daughter to be viewed well my daughter she misses the principal Allah please we need transparency that letter is not professional our children are going to be fine blessings thank you hello it's nice to be back I'm Loretta Tanner I teach at um Cureton and I want to also say that the comments made at the last board meeting I listened to the comments from the audience and the comments from the board several times and it I I agree with the teachers from Adelante but it hurt it hurt all of us and um I didn't think that the comments from the audience warranted the response and I think there's a lot of damage that was done so I I hope that you're able to restore some trust and respect back from the teachers um also I really can't hear you when you speak this microphone I hear everything they're saying I can't hear what you're saying and I'm just three rows back so if you could fix that that would be helpful thank you for listening okay these being my principal back good evening members of the board staff everyone present here my name is Stephanie and I'm one of the parents at Adelante board members I actually would appreciate if you took a moment to put down your phones your papers and take a moment to look at us I know this is being recorded you guys can go back and actually take a look at every one of us but we want to know that you guys are here present for each and every single one of us we lost our leader we have no leadership at this at the school there's a lot of committees there's a lot of programs that are not being taken seriously they're not being filled so what's going to happen with all of these federal funds that are supposed to be funding this committees that are not happening at the school all the kids that are supposed to be learning about English that are second the English is their second language are not being helped by the teachers how are you guys addressing this well you guys need to do better than this you guys need to take this seriously we matter thank you my name is Carmen moderna Cruz I'm a parent and just as everybody here we're here to support director Gutierrez who want her back we uh not getting the answers the meaning that we had with um Miss Bauer at our school she didn't give us answers we need our leader back she took action all of us here we're here to support the teachers that are here as parents we're here to help our kids as she was a person that was a leader so we needed it back thank you true good evening my name is Ricardo Garcia I'm a parent of two Adelante students I'm here today to address the missing and ongoing uh replacement of our permanent principle as we speak there's a breakdown in fundamental educational values that are happening at school kids know that there's no permanent principle they're not wearing their uniform they're misbehaving and these things are coming back to us we need a principle not in the fall of of 2023 now we want to know that when we send our kids to school they're going to be safe and that there's a plan I don't know if there's a plan we need we need a principle thank you very much all right so you know oh yeah yeah so hi my name is Stacey Benedict I'm a parent of Adelante and I have three children currently Adelante and I'm a parent of an alumni I I'm asking for transparency I'm asking for the board members to support Adelante at this time um the letter that we got in response to the questions the parents asked was a slap in the face like it didn't even address any of the questions that any of the parents asked we need transparency look at the room this is Adelante we are Adelante Adelante shows up every time parents show up every time and board members know that Adelante has the highest rate of parent volunteers and because we love the school we need support from you guys as well to make this a better school we need a leader all right seeing a further public comment when we want to uh part three special presentation discussion consideration action uh item 3.01 social emotional learning programs and supports this item is for information only oh yeah and uh okay so uh Miss Campbell the floor is yours thank you um tonight we have a presentation um led by Dr Amazon our director of social emotional learning programs and we will be sharing some information about the programs that we have here in the district and the supports that we have in place for the social emotional learning of our students Dr Amazon thank you assistant superintendent uh Campbell uh good evening board board president um Board of Trustees uh Dr Bauer in our Alum walk Community my name is Dr almazan and I am the director of Social and emotional learning and tonight's presentation is centered around our scl programs and supports um I will briefly uh review uh what is social emotional learning as well as share a brief snapshot of the suspension and absenteeism data and current scl programming in in our schools and joining me tonight to present the third part of our agenda on School site perspectives and successes um Kristen Burt uh principal at Lucha Lupe Cruz fifth grade teacher at San Antonio and Jennifer Doherty principal at Shepherd Middle School and each of them will share their unique perspectives and share their SEL programming when we get to that part so uh to frame our presentation um our district adopted the castle framework um which helps cultivate skills and um environments that Advance uh students Learning and Development and so schools and districts and various organizations use the castle framework for a number of reasons but really it's to Foster knowledge skills and attitudes um across the five areas of social and emotional competence which you see there in the middle of the castle wheel as they call it and you see the five competencies there so awareness and self-management which are interpersonal skills as well as social awareness and relationship skills which are interpersonal and responsible decision making and then the second reason why schools and districts use the framework is to also establish Equitable learning environments which coordinates the practices that are across the four key settings that you see around the wheel which are the classrooms um the school at large family and caregivers and the community and so these are the settings that support students social emotional and academic development and so very briefly what does the research real reveal about social emotional learning well it shows that if SEL is implemented well and with Fidelity it yields positive results such as um positive attitude towards self um and others as well as the school and it also increases academic achievement um and positive behavior which then decreases risks of failure as well as issues in conduct and emotional distress in terms of our district suspension and absenteeism data I'd like to share you know what what it's been like the past five school years um and prior to the pandemic uh we concentrated our efforts in implementing alternatives to suspension and strengthening our culture and climate at every one of our school sites and as you can see from 2018 and 2019 our suspension rate declined by 1.4 percent and so there was no suspension data during the pandemic and distance learning so therefore from our return to in-person instruction last school year this is our new Baseline that we will be measuring how we're doing in terms of cultivating you know positive and caring environment for all students to thrive as with our absenteeism data again for the past this is another snapshot of our last five school years and in California um absenteeism is defined as students who Miss at least 10 percent of the instructional calendar of 180 days are considered chronically absent so that's 18 days um so after a year of distance learning schools reopened and we faced a lot of um a lot of surges in different areas because of covid which disrupted you know many of of um what we had known as our our normal in schools right um you know we came back with strict Health guidelines that were ever evolving and um you know we had to ensure that safety was practiced in our schools so in all grades some of the absences last year can be attributed to covid quarantines right um as our school um you know reopened and other causes right uh can also be attributed to issues such as anxiety about returning to school after 18 plus months lack of routine after months of remote distant learning um as well as other social emotional struggles and academic frustrations um as examples so therefore um you know prior to the pandemic uh you know we've had a lot of good practices that were in place and we knew coming back from uh distance learning that you know we definitely had to prioritize a lot of um the the sense of belonging and again ensuring that we provide a positive and caring environment so we have multiple approaches um in in our schools and um kamochis um I'm just going to go over them really quick so the public has um has an idea of what these programs are and you will hear them from our uh my co-presenters later on tonight uh kamochis is our Elementary School scl curriculum that supports students with skills that they can use to navigate relationships manage their emotions develop a healthy sense of identity PBIS is or positive behavior intervention and supports is an evidence-based framework that um supports students with behavioral academic and social emotional progress as well as to create a positive and caring environment and we are partnered with the County Office of Ed um uh to to help us with our implementations at these participating schools restorative justice and practices are also another approach um that is used in our schools uh that build community Through um the set of principles and practices that utilize uh the process of restoring relationships when harm has occurred and so um these practices along with other efforts at school sites are used to strengthen School culture and climate and we are partnered with the seeds organization at these participating schools as well to help with implementation so to grow at Shepherd and again you'll hear about this when Miss Doherty presents it's an SEL platform that is designed for students and teachers to engage in consistent check-ins as well as reflection and it is also a way for supporting struggling students who need it that need higher levels of support so and then Sky schools we've had Sky schools for a number of years at various School sites and they provide mindfulness and meditation strategies to help students regulate themselves um and decrease anxiety and so therefore um you know it can help them become more resilient right and these are just the various programs that we have in place in our schools right now uh to to enhance our efforts in bringing uh positive and caring environment and strengthening our culture and climate and so now the third part of our presentation is to hear from our uh our school leaders and so first I would like to invite Mrs Kristen Burt who will present Lucha thank you all right so Lucha uh well first let me just start off with the way that we measure our school climate is through the Panorama student survey right and so we administer this Panorama survey both in the fall and in the spring and so here's a snapshot of Lucha's student climate survey from November when we last took our survey and this is data that we use within our school teams to really figure out what are the next steps that we're going to be really honing in on and determining where we need to improve school student culture so for us as Dr iamasan talked about before that sense of belonging is that barometer for us to really understand how students are feeling if they're feeling connected to our school and so here is just a measure of Lucha's scores in our Panorama survey in this one area of sense of belonging and this year we had a little dip in our sense of belonging and we one of our areas of need has been in incorporating new students right when Cesar Chavez closed down it brought a big influx of new students into our school and so trying to make sure that all those new students feel integrated into the Lucha culture has been a huge focus of ours to make sure that they feel that they're not just the newcomers but they're part of our our school culture in addition to the school climate Panorama also gives us data on students individual SEL skills and so they're broken down into these categories and allows us to dig a little bit deeper and see what our students needs are in terms of building their social and emotional learning competence so Lucha's big push has been with komochis and so we're going to give you a little tutorial about what kamochis are so when you come and talk with you know students at the elementary schools that were listed as adopting the camochi's curriculum you can engage in that conversation so I have a helper here who's going to pass out a kamochi's character to each of our board members you can go ahead and assign them anyone don't let them choose just like give them whichever one go ahead you can take one out but the big idea behind kimochis is that all feelings are okay all behaviors are not we want students to understand that it's normal to be sad it's normal to be upset it's normal to get frustrated but that doesn't mean we punch the kid next to us because we're upset or frustrated and so we're giving the tools to students um we these characters are introduced to our students throughout the year so we have a scope and sequence mapped out in which we're introducing each of the characters if you go inside their little tummies you will pull out a feeling and so each of the kamochi's characters helps teach us different skills like um board president fam has cat spam um they're the trustee fan that is our bossy character I don't know if you relate to that or not but you can sometimes be busy so you can see that he has a Band-Aid on his head because sometimes he gets into cat fights and so we give the students different tools and strategies for learning how to avoid those cat bites and we have bug who puts their Brave in front and those wings sometimes get tucked away but they can pull the wings out to put their Brave in front and you know try new things show that growth mindset um trustee Laura Shelton you have Bella Rose who can go up and Wilt into her flower she can be sensitive and a little insecure so we're trying to build up her confidence and uh trustee you have lovey Dove lovey-dove is the mother of the pack she has her little baby tucked under her wing and helps us to feel proud as well so all of these characters teach different lessons with all of the different feelings so it's really important for us to give our students the language right so when they are feeling these pent-up emotions we want them to name what emotion it is and so we start with morning meetings in the day where students get to explain their feelings and teachers can coach them through how to navigate those different feelings each of the feelings comes with a katawaza which is the Japanese word for um di Cho like a phrase and so for example lovey Dove teaches us to be friendly and friendly faces create friendly places or mad it's okay to be mad but it's not okay to be mean right so just giving those little sort of sentences and language that we can share across the school to help our students in those tough situations the curriculum also has keys to communication so what might seem so obvious to us as adults or not all adults but is how to talk to somebody else if you want your teachers attention you don't just scream teacher teacher teacher right there are different skills that we teach our students for how to get their teachers attention or a peers attention to be able to engage in those effective communication skills um in addition in each of our classrooms we've Incorporated something we call a peace corner and it's a corner of the room where these kamochi characters live so if a student feels like they need to snuggle with their kamochi character for a little bit and just have a time to cool off they get to reflect on you see on the left hand side there is a blank kamochi feeling they can share in how they're feeling and write down what they're experiencing and just use some D escalation tools some calm down tools to help bring them back to a calm state so that they can reintegrate with their classmates we also have if a student's behavior is in need of a you know check in with me the principal we've adapted the kamochis materials into a reflection sheet so the students can use these same tools and reflect on what happened in their negative interaction that led them to being sent to the office and then put together a plan in place so all of the same language is integrated in all the classrooms in the office and all staff members are using this when they interact with students um this is our Halloween picture from a couple years ago our staff even dressed up like the kamochi's character so it just flows into everything we're doing we have a Weekly Newsletter that goes home to parents and there's always a kamochi's corner where we give parents the tips that um are part of the curriculum as well for how they can use these skills at home and we do monthly family nights at Lucha where we give books out to our students that tie to different values and different social skills and then reflect using the camochi's curriculum as well so it really has become something that is woven across our whole Lucha culture and just helping us to navigate all of the different emotions that we feel each day in a positive and skill building way so now I'm going to pass it over to our neighbors San Antonio so I'm lupus Cruz and I'm here on behalf of Iris for rest our principal she couldn't make it today so I will be presenting to you and I've actually I'm gonna I've been teaching there for 27 years and I'm a product Alum Rock because I actually went to San Antonio as a student so all of my family we all went through San Antonio Pala and so we're a product of Valley Rock and I'm very proud uh to say that so let me go ahead and begin the same thing like Kristen and mentioned about the student Panorama data we also look at our student climate and one of the biggest things that we noticed is that also that sense of belonging um really struck struck us that you know it's something that we always strive for to to make sure all of our students feel welcome and again this year we also almost doubled in size um we we welcomed our our neighbors our kids from Cesar Chavez and we're very happy to have them there with us but I think at the beginning of the school year we we did have all of us including the adults it was difficult and a new principle so it was a little difficult to try to get us all on the same page but we're really working towards that on a daily basis um we are now in uh this week actually we're giving out the the Panorama survey again and we're hoping that through some of the active some of the things that we've done at San Antonio that we're hoping that everyone feels that sense of belonging and it increases again um that is our number one safety as well but uh we do want everyone to feel welcome at our school uh we also look and and therefore this light is again discussing the sense of belonging but as you can see um there is a dip and those of us that have been there that long that that saddens us we don't we don't like to see that we we like to be a community and we like everyone including the adults to feel welcome at San Antonio and that's our number one it's always been my number one uh concern is making sure everyone including the adults to feel welcome at our school but our kids um our focus and so we're working really difficult a lot to to increase that and um here's the again social emotional learning just like they mentioned earlier um we know where the kids uh we know that it was difficult too for the kids that came from Chavez or other schools it's difficult to leave your school where you had been some of them there since TK or Kinder um and the teachers that have been there teaching as long as I have um having to move schools so we understand that and we're trying to work so that we're all uh everyone feels welcome but again if we look at this survey the data it shows those numbers you know the 60s and and the 50s that's you know where we need to work on the self efficacy that's the one thing that we with the kimochis we've also are trying to uh teach our students how to uh work through those issues or problems that they have and um how they can better work it out with the with their peers and so therefore um we do have an organization of seeds who have been training us it's the services that encourage effective dialogue and solutions so I emphasize the word dialogue and Solutions in that part because it is through having that discussion uh open communication that we can come up with certain Solutions we might not always like the solutions that we come up with but we are trying to give those tools to the students that they can come up with the solutions not coming from the top down but the kids are coming up with their Solutions and that that's always the best thing for them um and oops sorry uh through that we have restorative justice circles in our classrooms that um the teachers um we have that we make that time so that we can work as a class and make all of the children in our classroom feel safe and have a safe space to speak on what is on their mind um and again it's all for Community Building prescribed with Justice and um again it's it's an approach to problem solving we address the harms that have been uh addressed the harms and we that should and we make sure we include and solicit the needs of those directly harmed and we have accountability I think this is the biggest thing we're trying to make sure that we take accountability for our own harms that we have cost someone else and just like with presentation with fantastic presentation on komochi's a little bit I'm not going to go into it but again we we did start in 2020 we do also have um the kamochis that are here in my classroom specifically I do have a corner but the kids actually come in and they rush to get them and they take them just like you guys have them on your desk but they take them to their seats and they hold on to them they cuddle them um so whenever you come into my classroom you'll actually see it more on their desk versus just in a corner and then as the day goes by they they'll share and they do want it now do you want lovey-dub do you want like um and it's really you know kids kids um I mean adults think that fifth graders because they're the older kids at San Antonio that the fifth graders they're not going to want to cuddle up with these little uh stuffed animals but you'll see my big kids are even taller than I am cuddling with these little that's again it's it's a belonging and then um we also have our TK teacher who does all of our training for us she's brought in she gets all the videos and all the worksheets for us um so that we can all um access them easier so again it's really nice to have kamochis at our school as well we've integrated something new today I mean this year and it's called the peace path so if you start at the bottom Our intention is to and I'm just going to use Miss Dr Bowers says she's right here next to me if Dr Bauer and I were having um an issue that we'd like to solve as a teacher first uh We've we've gone with the whole class and we've gone through P spots and I go outside and we go through the peace path but Our intention is for the students to be able to do the peace path on their own um so Dr bowron I had an issue we start at the bottom I'd give her an opportunity to tell me what what happened to her version and then I would listen and that's where the feet are facing each other so we're facing each other and I would have give her the opportunity to tell me and then I would give her the opportunity uh she would give me the opportunity to speak and we go through the uh physically I mean we do have the past so we're physically standing on these things and then um I would tell her how I felt and she would like do as well but the next part here the third part is very very interesting so at that point it's how do you feel so I would have to say Dr Bauer I think you feel whatever she told me like you feel frust you felt frustrated when I took away the kamochi that you had earlier um and then she's gonna say oh Lupe I think you know what um I think you felt sad when I took away your camachi so we're giving that opportunity from the kamochis learning about their feelings talking about their feelings here they're able to now Express them and then I come up with it we talk about our Solutions we agree on a plan and of course it seems like you know the fairy tale right the problem is solved usually it's not salt but in kids brains sometimes we solve our problem and we're happy we walk away sometimes we say you know what let's bring in an adult so what we've done at San Antonio we have um there's a video I'm not going to show you the video but it takes you to the path but we have in every classroom in the classroom we have uh what you could see on the on the far left you could see uh there's a peace path poster so we have the posters in our classrooms as well as outside now in the hallways and uh actually put decals of those along the hallway so that now we have them inside if we need them but now they're outside so I can so the teacher can actually say okay Dr Brown Lupe why don't you guys go outside now and work on the peace path uh by yourself and if you need we have our student council students who are being trained in this but if you need support I'll send out one of our student council out there with you to go through the peace pathos with you our our big uh hope is that we get our blacktop painted which is the far right uh get our black tops painted with several of these strategically located around our school so that again um this uh the and I know our yard Duty do a fantastic job trying to help our students we don't always give them props you know or your duty are fantastic and sometimes they can also direct the kids to this piece but then it would be helpful to have them out there painted so again it's all about a social emotional learning and having the kids be able to solve their problems on their own and of course um ultimately uh come to a solution and that is uh that was San Antonio and I pass it on to Shepherd thank you thank you good evening my name is Jennifer Doherty from Shepherd Middle School um I'm gonna also start off with our Panorama data so at middle school it's a big transition it's going from elementary school and now you're at a middle school you're changing classes you're mixing with a lot of students that you haven't been with for five or six years it's a big difference and so we really look to our Panorama data and so as you can see up here um our Panorama David talks about from our spring to the fall and that sense of belonging that connectedness um is where our students are had some struggles in the Fall Again from many of our students this is a new school we get a lot of Middle School schoolers that make decisions in the middle of the year and come to Shepherd so we really want them to feel connected to our school and so as you can see there was a bit of a dip from Spring to Fall and so we really strive to help our students feel connected to our middle school so that they can make really good decisions and have a healthy Journey as they continue on their three years um our SEL skills we really want them to build relationships not only with each other but with our staff um and that self-efficacy um down to 39 is an area that we're really focusing on this year so at Shepherd we use a program called Stone to grow we piloted it during um online learning time um we had a lot of success um it's also Casal aligned and it's for students at Shepherd we have advisory so we've transitioned from students going from the morning meetings that we had during Zoom school to our advisory program which we went from four days a week in our Zoom school to now two days a week so students go to advisory on Tuesdays and Wednesdays they go for 30 minutes um it's a teacher that they have not only for advisory but they have them also for one other class so the teacher gets that connectedness with that group of 20 to 25 students every week they participate in a different topic that they also do they a nest different SEL topic and then they also do a self-assessment which I'll go into detail to talk about how you're doing and some check-ins and I'll show you some examples the teachers can provide real-time feedback which I'll show you an example of to help deepen those connections with students foreign some of the topics are about self-awareness self-regulation self-efficacy social awareness persevereness and again as you saw in our Panorama survey that sense of belonging so how does it work so every week the students will do a weekly check-in students as they get into middle school they're very familiar with social media they love emojis they love being able to use our technology so they do a check-in just with a face you know are they feeling sad or happy and how's it going and they can respond and sometimes it's how are you feeling sometimes it's a question how was break are you looking forward to Thanksgiving break trimester is ending how do you think you did and it says check in and the students can type in how they're feeling and then the teacher can give feedback which I'll show you what that looks like so as a school um this is a snapshot of when we're looking at in the beginning of February we were doing pretty good um the students were checking in um and they're had a 3.6 rating out of a score of five and for a middle schooler as some of you might be parents of middle schoolers that's a pretty good thing we'll take the blues right and you can see the emotions over time from the beginning of the year through January that big spike in October is right before the October break so I think they were all excited I think some of us were as well right so as you can see we're having a nice uptick in January they came back rested from the break and we've been doing really well so in these Reflections the students these are some snapshots of how they're doing throughout the week so they can really see their own emotions and you know in a middle schooler you're kind of on this emotional roller coaster you kind of go up and down and and some of it's just hormonal some of it's personal some of it could be families they can really see how they've been doing and so that we put out a question every week we have a teacher that's our coordinator who um guides us with our questions and we ask them like in this example on February 6th how's your week what strategies did you use and the student replies I did a lot of work this week and the strategies that helped me were paying attention so that's great and then the teacher replies great job remember this feeling so they have this private dialogue which is really nice um sometimes it's more serious which I'll get into but sometimes it just I'm good things are great or I'm okay you know and typical Middle School dialogue some additional examples are um tell me about your week and they get very serious how was yesterday Valentine's Day for you that's in Middle School um but the student reflected I haven't been feeling suicidal today this is very serious lately nor have I been crying that much this is a very this is a real thing that a middle schooler is experiencing so the teacher will reflect you know a response but when a student writes something like a sad face or they use trigger words like suicidal or very upset I get an email the counselor gets an email our assistant principal gets an email and we launch and we go okay how are we doing where's that student and we all team together to do a check-in with that student and maybe it's we're coming up with a plan maybe they have a a plan that they're not a non-self-harming plan so maybe we check in on that plan and how is that plan working maybe it's a need additional resources maybe they haven't seen their counselor in a week or we'll we'll call families and so what's I really like about this program is we get that automatic automatic email and we launch into action and it's great here's another example also about Valentine's Day but it's just again a personal reflection and a dialogue between its private between the teacher and the student you know and this this kid was feeling lonely and upset and so again the teacher gives them so much some strategies and also says it can be love among families members as well it doesn't have to be all these other things that you're seeing around campus so I really like the reflection that the students provide and then the teacher responses our teachers were doing about a 10 response rate um in the beginning of the year and we've upped that to about 25 so we're really working with our staff that these Reflections and responding to them is really important during this advisory time it helps you as a teacher build that connection with that student we all would like our students to have at least one adult if not five or six adults on campus that they trust that they feel a sense of connection to um here's another one I know these are all very sad but it's important for you to see that like in another example I see that my I can't see my dad because he left again these are very real Middle School responses and the teacher will reflect is there anything we can do to support the teacher gets this and then again we launch all of our services which I'll talk about as well so we are really grateful Shepard to have these multiple tier one and two tier supports we love partnering I can't shout out enough our counselors Maria Castaneda and Hassan vakili we're so lucky at Shepherd we have one and a half full-time full-time counselors at Shepherd and they're fantastic and they're not appreciated enough but we also work with our they also team with our schooling services provider Dana Polito and so when a student is in crisis we team together or they team together um to get a student in touch with their counselor maybe it's to an agency like Gardner or Pacific Clinics or Seneca or we also use one of our tier two supports like the city peace project that works with small groups um we work really closely with um the safe schools initiative through the city of San Jose and the Alum Rock youth counseling centers and so it's really a full team approach as kids are going through and navigating those Middle School years as we know we're all middle schoolers at one time it's it's a journey um and so we really try to support our students to fill out as connected as possible and together we continue to support our students and their social social and emotional growth feeling sense of belonging and connected to their learning ability thank you sorry [Music] at this time I will open the item up to public comment is there any come public comment and items 3.01 okay peace please come up to the podium they have one minute please state your name uh for born for the audience thank you good evening my name is Marilyn and I'd like to speak about the commotions program Adelante for one the Commodities program is not evidence-based meaning that there's no independent research showing that it's effective the only research that has been shown is by a dissertation at a university secondly the komochis program is free so that tells me that you're probably cutting Corners as a district to significantly and effectively Implement social emotional learning and thirdly you can't have systemic implementation of social emotional learning without an administrator so even though this is about social emotional learning this ties back to the lack of an administrator and I'd like to end by saying that I am a current graduate student studying this so I have some credibility thank you okay thank you very much uh seeing no further public comment I will open it to members of the board um vice president thank you thank you so much for that presentation and information I know we've gone out to the classrooms and we've seen different kimojis and uh posters and um you know a lot of the information I look forward to seeing some of that on the blacktop too because it's what our children are exposed to right that they'll continue to use them be comfortable with um so thank you for that I have a couple questions and then you know um I I look forward to you know continuing to learn more um about it but that launch program um that was mentioned when there's uh uh suicidal comment or something that um is is uh alarm alarming um does it automatically go through and I don't know who can answer that but so when a kid says suicidal or you know um unhappy faith is this something that goes like an alarm that goes to the principle directly or does the teacher see it and then it goes through the launch program we'll see if we can still catch her but from what she had said yes it goes it it goes to um The Counselor administrators um as well as the teacher who has that child during their advisory period um and so there there is there is notification real time is what she had indicated and those are the key words that they look for so that they can address it immediately and not at the end of the day or or whatnot so and um just curious as to the programs that are available at the different schools whether it's the kimojis the PBIS restorative justice sewn to groan um I look forward to learning how uh the schools have are assigned these programs and maybe you know not necessarily breaking it down today but um I look forward to that and then I know someone to grown is only at Shepherd right now so like that launch or something like that would be there are we looking to maybe implementing in the other middle schools in the future is that something that we're looking to grow well um so a lot of the schools will choose what what they think is going to work with the staff that they have um Dr Amazon has done a lot of work um out with the principals and the sites to talk about what what they think would work um we're always looking to expand opportunities because as you can see with San Antonio they have a combination of kimochis but also a restorative practices piece so again really working with the site leaders to be able to do that and yes it is something that we continue to build as we're establishing these programs across the district um and I I mean I'm a hundred percent you know um supportive of programs like these uh where children are able to you know learn the language and learn how to deal with their conflicts at an early age um you know there's programs like these that you know part of my dream as I've mentioned it always is to close down juvenile Halls because there's no children that should be behind closed doors um and so it's programs like these that will prevent our children from eventually right getting into a fight that gets more serious or things like that so I'm really excited to hear all the different interventions and things that are working and maybe they don't work right and then we change them so I appreciate that and when I also um like on this Zone to grow just as a professor that responds to messages you know I'm also thinking of our teachers um I know that you know some of them or they're responded to during their advisory period and things like that so um just putting it out there as far as you know a comment as a supportive board member um you know to ensure that we're maybe taking something off their plate and not just continuing to add you know um things to our teachers list of all the you know amazing things that they do and this is so important right so I'm also thinking like as a teacher who gets to respond to these um these these messages especially those serious ones you know I really hope that it is for sure that that launch happens just naturally like there's a red alert versus it you know waiting till the teacher reads it to then see that um but I'm just I'm excited that you know this is there so thank you so much Dr almasan for leading these efforts crusty Flora Shelton thank you um I just have to say is my the first presentation I heard is trustee after 10 years this is so exciting to see the menu of services that we have for the social emotional well-being of our students I have to say and I I'll probably say this a lot in the beginning like 10 years ago um but um it was there there wasn't a whole lot for our kiddos right and for our to support the teachers to be able to address these issues and um trustee Quintero was you know we were kind of I was reminded um when I worked for public health and the violence prevention program we were working with the County Office of Ed to launch PBIS and we see it really in so many places right now um and the tiered approach so that we can you know give everybody something universally and then really focus on those kiddos and families that need um a deeper intervention so I'm um so you asked one of the questions I already um wanted to ask and so I look forward to kind of doing a deeper dive to understand sort of you know sort of what the program matches um and sort of really at the kind of you you started with the suspension and expulsion data but trying to understand how we tie sort of the program to potentially sort of what is the goal right what is the goal that we're that we might might want to see um and kind of see if if that's something and I know it's we don't want to talk about causal relationships because that's really like how did kimochis do this or how did you know PBIS um change this but just trying to see if there's a way to um kind of see it if there is a connection um I I did also want to ask um because it kind of we saw across the board I'm so glad you're measuring belonging and connectedness because that's really like you were seeing the core of you know whether kids are coming to school whether their basic needs are being met you know if they have a positive adult role model in their life um but what we're kind of seeing across the board is about 30 percent don't feel belonging right so does the data allow you to sort of disaggregate and understand who those kiddos are that aren't longing and and seeing any patterns that we can respond to yes we can yeah under Panorama we can see which students score low versus you know favorable versus unfavorable um in the different areas of um using your example sense of belonging we can also disaggregate you know um by ethnicity we can also disaggregate male female grade level so there's different ways to disaggregate the data but we wanted if we wanted to be more you know um more detail right okay because that's that piece again about how do we respond to you know is cultural issues or linguistic issues are there any of those things that you can see patterns so great um yep so again looking forward to sort of doing a deep dive and um just really proud of the district's investment over these years I think I saw some of these things started in 2017 so you've been at this a while um and appreciate sort of again the menu that you're giving to your administrators to kind of figure out what best works for your culture I mean just it looks like we adults could use a lot of these things too right um I was thinking about my own workplace like how can we how can um we use these kind of tools um in the workplace but appreciate the presentation to you all thank you thank you okay uh crook Quintero um with regard to the statements that were made about uh the kimochi spur in particular not being evidence-based are we at any risk um I I know that they're very I in the side business that I've done I know that they're very popular and um I would not Advocate to remove something that seems to be very popular and and works with the children um but are we at risk uh for funding or any sort of like uh to put ourselves as a district in a in a problematic situation because it's not evidence-basive in fact the statement is accurate I don't see I don't see uh any of that uh president Quintara as a matter of fact um they are aligned with the castle framework which is a framework that is um used throughout many districts not only in California but also in the United States and um Castle has been doing the SEL work um uh for over 25 30 years now and um they're very intentional the kamochis folks are very intentional in ensuring that they are aligned with the castle framework um and they're uh their curriculum that many of it is accessible to the public because they want it to be accessible to the public but there are some things that we have to obviously pay for right and they also provide professional development um and we've offered numerous professional developments at sites um as well as a district-wide professional development uh even during the pandemic and even this last summer before we started this school year so um uh we we have uh worked very closely with the kamochis folks and the good thing about them is they're local they are not based out in another state they're here in Santa Clara County so that helps us a lot too um when their folks come and visit you know schools that you know may need assistance or whatnot and I work with um nedcraft who is the head of the company and he's very helpful whenever we we need the support yeah it looks like they were able to graft on a way to communicate these complex theories to kids and so they could use them on a day-to-day basis so I'm also comfortable with it and I'm I'm very happy that the children are are very receptive to it as we've already heard because it's the same reaction that we get that in different sites it's not like it's just isolated at one place yeah any further comments or questions from the board yes trust the floor um just um based on that last comment I I do think what you were saying about it's commotis are based on the social emotional wheel or castle castle premium the castle framework right I think we get caught up in sort of evidence-based I know I have for some time because yes there's proof but that usually makes it almost so expensive right that it's out of the realm of implementation sometimes but also there's there's that spectrum of evidence informed right that you're talking about and I think um the needs of our kids are so vast that we need to try everything right that we can and I just did want to say like I know 18 year olds that love plushies and like we used to call them stuffed animals now they're called plushies right so it's like anything that's like comforting and giving words to feelings again just you know I think back to you know where where we weren't at you know when I was a kid and just what we need to just try everything right evidence-based evidence informed um and and I think we're as long as you're collecting data to sort of understand you know where we're headed I think that's the most important but I wanted to support that that evidence-based is just this kind of Stellar level that you can't always get to because it's just really hard to do with all the research needed thank you thank you trustee uh all righty thing now for comments from my colleague I'll wrap it up thank you Dr Amazon thank you Ms Doherty and Mrs Cruz and uh Miss Burt for for and thank you assistant superintendent Campbell for bringing this uh to the board uh uh I'll I will please indulge me for being a little humorous there but you know bossy the cat was a bit of a oxymoron there's only one there's only one place in life like can be afford to be bossy and that's Morton's Steakhouse ordering a steak and scalloped potatoes but uh you know just you know but I wanted to say you know I I think you know this is a reflection of the uh the changing environment of public education where we're you know serving a vastly different set of needs from our students than a generation ago when I myself was in school uh uh a lot of things go I mean uh children these a lot of things are in a child's life that kind of have to come together before they're even ready to learn in the classroom so we uh what's that Paul you know it's called public education for a reason it's about it you know uh not just teaching academic skills but teaching social skills and uh I I you know maybe in a hopeful kind of way teaching how to be a good person and so this is I think uh you know thank you for kind of addressing you know working to address the emotional needs that our children have so that they can get to being ready in the classroom to learn and then I think the second point I wanted to say is uh you know of course I'm you know we are all aware of there are many many uh services and uh platforms out there and again this is just you know kimochis is just one of many and I think that you know uh this board you know and I'm committed to uh you know with our resources to find more resources and to expand the menu of things that we can offer our children in the future and that's you know that's something that we're you know we're going to be working on in in this iteration of the board and you know and Boards you know generation from now so you know I I kind of wanted to emphasize that you know uh for you know some in reference to some public comment that this you know this is not the end of the oh I know that there is you know there's more that can be done and you know I'm you know I think that we were all committed to doing that so thank you so much for the presentation so with that moving on to part four comments and communication so 4.01 uh Teamsters do we have the teamsters tonight I thought I had seen Adida but I don't see her they send their regards to things get up bright and early okay so uh okay uh item 4.02 the California School Employees Association uh Sharon's Fontaine stands for regards as well um and a big congratulatory note to uh Miss Andrea Shelton and her appointment okay item 4.03 the Alum Rock Educators Association you know and she told me she was gonna be hitting the red I don't know what happened so is she okay okay got it that's all right let's say something okay this is the areas of all the time on behalf of area we would like to welcome you back I look forward to working with you there you go Joss so we have it okay so moving on to uh 4.04 Alum Rock administrators Association good afternoon welcome back uh trusty for yourself and my name is Rebecca Jensen or Rebecca Williams thank you I just want to say good evening to the Board of Trustees Dr Bauer Alum Rock Community thank you for all that you do for our community I'm here tonight representing the alamaca administrators Association and I get the firm pleasure of sharing some of the fun things that have been going on at our schools this month so this month as many of you may know is literacy month and read Across America is something that is celebrated on March 3rd that originated from Dr Seuss's birthday but has grown into a movement across education to get literacy into the hands of children and so some of the events that happened at our school this year were pajama day to encourage cozy reading all day long um take home books so that we get more literacy into homes author visits where they can share their craft I know I saw on Facebook judicial visits to school so that our students could see the power of careers and how they show up in the community so it was a fun way to read more an excuse for myself to get into the classrooms and do read alouds and really celebrate the work that we're doing in early Elementary some of the other highlights that my colleagues have shared casell Elementary has been doing some great work with parent engagement they had a family dance on March 3rd where they had Community engagement they had cookie decorating Matthew Thornton was there to take family photos and they facilitated games and DJs for the family coming up at the end of March they have a desserts with dad's event so really exciting to I like to get ideas from these things as I read them too um I want to celebrate Cesar Chavez and all of the work that Dr balesteros and her team have been doing to prepare the Chavez site for our kadingo program they're continuing to work on enrollment and I know that there is a a grand opening that is prepared for this summer as we fully launched that program at Chavez um some other highlights that staff has shared with me was uh the steam I know Ryan Elementary has a new steam lab that just recently owned opened up so students have hands-on experience and opportunities to explore Russo mcentee has sent their students their two fifth grade classes to science camp this month um and George Middle School had a Mesa day competition where their sixth graders placed first place with the cargo gliders the middle school science won an award as well as I'm sorry crime scene science and their coding Solutions so they brought home a lot of Hardware from that competition at George um another highlight that is on you I just want to thank the board for their support with March Madness and the district's ongoing support it's one of the highlights as a middle school principal I love going out there and watching we brought home uh two trophies this year for boys and girls and I know fun was had by all um we also have uh our league sports full going and uh volleyball and soccer are currently going on uh the altitude girls happen to be undefeated at this point so we really have caught some steam um and so I just want to thank the community and the board for all of the support so that we can bring these programmings to our sites thank you have a good evening thank you uh for 4.05 superintendent Bauer I'm gonna be very brief because I'm mindful of the time I want to remind everybody that we're having our facilities master plan forums where everybody is invited I sent a reminder last night we had our first Forum at Shepherd Middle School and that was kind of like the Northwest Quadrant of the district school so Chef Russo McKenzie McCollum Linda Vista were in attendance March 23rd comes the group b and that's the the cluster of schools in Ocala Adelante Juan Ryan you know and I I kind of sent to all the staff and to parents via parent Square just mark your calendars March 20th three uh from six to eight correct Mr Chen and the last one that covers the Mayfair area in dorsa is going to be April 6 and that's going to be hosted and San Antonio hope to see everybody there thank you okay thank you so uh 4.06 Communications and comments from the board would anyone like to start um I just want to thank everyone who had um anything to do with the March Madness thinking of the coaches you know seeing some of our staff in coach mode helping that connection you know that we talked about earlier in different modes so thank you to everyone who had anything to do with that you know um it was great to see the students out there the families cheering and the little brothers and sisters there it was great um thank you and uh I also want to send a shout out to the community outreach committee that Julia eludiamento leads um and being able to connect our court system our judges to come out to our schools and read to our students um thank you Dr Bauer for following up on that and making sure that um that was done so it was exciting to see our judges in our classrooms and reading with our young kids um thank you really proud of the work that we're doing there in that committee and then also just wanting to invite families reminder we'll have Michigan year this weekend starting tomorrow at five rain or shine and then we'll have Sunrise ceremony on Saturday morning and we'll be there till approximately five I believe and then Sunday will close up so hopefully we get to see you out there bringing your families in Community to celebrate our Aztec New Year it's a free event it is uh free of no alcohol no um violence and things like that so yeah it's a beautiful space that we haven't um yet been there please make sure to check that out this weekend I'll see you there um and then last but not least you know I just want to reiterate that um I do support um our children feeling connected as we talked about earlier feeling safe um and you know as mandated reporters throughout our district um and just as a person as a human being I will continue to advocate for the well-being of our children and ensure and um stand against any abuse to any child whether here in Alum Rock or anywhere and you know I look forward to making sure that we clear that up maybe there was a misunderstanding of what I stated um and you know all my actions will continue to support our children and stand against any abuse with our children um and you know which is also why as a board member I made sure to support our staff um and to get maybe you know trained uh refresher um to ensure that our children are safe as a mother of an eighth grader you know under 18 when I send her to school I want to make sure that she comes home safe and I know that all of the parents also do the same um you know when they send their children and I know that all of our teachers you know I I can't believe that anybody would do against that um so just want to make sure that I clarify and there's anything that I can help mend any relationships or clear anything up I will continue to also stand and support teachers to make sure they have the resources necessary to do the work of not just teaching but also you know reporting if that happens so yeah just want to make sure that um I reiterated that on behalf of our children who depend on us as adults to make sure that they go to school safely and return home and all are also safe at home so thank you so much for president thank you any comments or Communications um no just uh thank you for bringing that up I think it's important that the community understands and is a word that um our my commitment now you stated publicly the commitment is the health and safety of our children and that it needs to be a priority I'm very proud of the resolution that was passed uh previously introduced by remember I don't and um the posters that are supposed to be up at every site in a very prominent location and forming children teachers uh uh classified staff volunteers of their uh uh responsibilities and the opportunities they have to ensure that they can be partners too ensure that our children are safe on our sites and uh they should be prominent on doors and so I'm as we begin our our round of site visits I'm looking forward to seeing them properly displayed where everybody's made aware of everybody's role in ensuring that our children are safe and each and every one of our school sites and so looking forward to that uh well I want to give a you know welcome welcome back to trustee Flores Shelton so uh is there anything you would any Communications in your uh maybe you know your second Maiden speech no no comments really I just I'm ready to just um get up to speed and support this community in the best way I can so no no speeching tonight for me thanks okay I'll I'll make it quick you know uh I look you know uh as as we move into spring I look forward to it uh next set of uh School visits and I look forward to meeting our our teachers our classified staff our administrators of whom I have uh the uh nothing but the utmost respect you guys uh make this uh production uh you know go day in and day out and I you know uh uh staff or staff teacher for Teacher the finest uh the finest in the city uh you know I've had a very very busy uh busy month as school board president I've met with councilman Peter Ortiz uh you know in regards to ways that our district can work with the city and in terms of protecting our our our school properties I've uh had the pleasure of hosting the school board presidents of the entire east side of San Jose the east side San Jose board president's lunch where we've had enough you know with this with their superintendents too to talk about you know our our shared our shared history and our again our common goal of uh protecting our schools and our property so that they can be they can serve our our children and their children into the next century and so I'm you know proud to be able to you know uh you know see our you know help help our district get into the Diplomatic business once again and in a big way uh I want to uh also I've had a meeting in meeting with someone else Mayfair or we had a constructive dialogue about our racial racial Equity toolkit and you know I look forward to uh you know the you know uh to collaborate where we can collaborate to bring more uh resources for our kids uh I'd like to congratulate Melissa Nguyen of uh McCollum Elementary for winning the District spelling bee I wish I could be there but I was recovering from a cold so I I offer my congratulations and also to you know proud of the fact that you know the district's spelling bee is back on again for the first time since the pandemic uh I also uh lastly I'd like to close with March Madness it was a pleasure to open the 2023 March Madness basketball tournament I congratulate the O'Connor middle girls basketball team and the Shepherd Middle boys basketball team for taking home the title uh you know and doing us proud all our kids are winners we you know you certainly showed everyone in the city what Alum Rock is made of and you know other than that I look forward to spring School visits and also later on uh you know I hope Wheels you know we'll see you back for Copita you know as our schools chase the you know uh the the district soccer title so uh with that uh you know I'll end with that and I'll move on to uh section five uh seeing that item 5.01 is pulled or move to item 5.02.
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and so um so you know the the community centers and the schools can be good places for this but they really need to get down into a finer granularity you know than it has been traditional and um you know and there's also our our elected officials who are usually aware of these things like the council members you know yeah of where there are where there are gaps you know in in community engagement so so I just wanted to throw that out there but I think I don't know if there's been any consideration of an ombudsman's office but I think that could be a Central Key to to to connecting uh Community liaison effort with um you know with um anybody who's got concerns with the city's performance yeah I think those are great suggestions um I can't speak much nor can I really even pronounce um I know that that is a Hot Topic that to be honest may or may not being discussed in seriousness I'm not sure but I know that I've seen those in survey results as well um as to your suggestions um those fit very neatly into our goal of being on the ground more um of visiting sites and building those connections um there are several neighborhood organizations uh I don't know how active they are but I know there's a long list of them um throughout the city so that can definitely be on our list we are creating a list of you know stakeholders that we want to spend more time with it's just there is only two of us um and we also have to plan all of the engagement or the projects that are ongoing so we are trying to kind of strategically pick um places throughout the city where we want to you know build relationships and I I think those are good suggestions oh great yeah and don't forget I wouldn't forget about the faith community either correct yeah having a table after church services or uh you know um you know places of worship I think is is an accepted practice and it's um so contacting the clergy would you know across all faiths would be uh probably useful exercise you know but these are traditionally institutions that are regarded as separate from the city so that's the only reason I'm bringing it up but they do exist within the community um so that I I'm sorry I've used up a lot of time so Lisa you have your hand up oh no she wants to lower it yeah oh okay all righty um are there any other questions for Michelle um if not I want to very thank you deeply Michelle for you and the rest of the staff well thank you for letting me come here and share the results and taking it so seriously and um you know support from commissions means a lot so um thank you for letting me have this time yeah I I I'm sure we well we would all be appreciate um a more continuous contact about this issue okay and whatever questions you have to make okay all right thank you all right thank you again let's move on to the next item on the agenda which is a presentation on biosolids and Wastewater management by Keith Sanders so Keith would you like to manage your own presentation I am trying to bring it up now let me know if you can see it well Sean's going to have to uh um you know change the permissions yes I just made you a co-host piece so you should be able to share your screen now can you guys see that not yet not yet ah I can see it oh you may need to stop sharing and then try to share again yeah it said it failed to share so we'll give it another try nope uh did you get the request for me to become a co-host you may have to accept that before yeah is it working yeah here it is thanks Keith thanks [Music] is it not from the beginning there we go so what we'd like to do is give you the context for our discussion uh it's a perfect timing to look at how we manage our biosolids we have a new permit um starting next summer that's going to be lower for phosphorus and we're also working on a centrate treatment for our Century from our centrifuges and so this is good timing for that we also have um as you know new emerging contaminants that pop up here and there and that seems to be a moving Target so that's kind of why we wanted to talk with you guys um I want to give you the background of what we do now uh some things going on with pfos and bile salads and then our future plans and hopefully you guys will think we're going in the right direction so our current practice is lime application or land application lime stabilized biosolids we try to do this seven months out of the year um we have a subcontractor there's really only two in the state we only got about 8.4 million gallons out last year we lost about three months due to weather truck drivers various issues so this number you see the 8.4 million gallons is is pretty low for us that should be probably three million higher and then in the winter um or when you know wait wait for the load limits to come off so we can start land application so usually around the end of mid to end of November through May were um running our centrifuges dewaterers it and we make a cake that goes to the landfill so these are the two things that we do now uh so why we do land application uh we believe it prevents landfill space from being taken up by recycled product it puts organic matter back in the soil uh puts um you know gives fertilizer for the farmers they don't have to rely on Commercial fertilizer so it saves them some money so there's you know there's a reason they want to participate with us however there's some drawbacks to land application uh it requires a lot of semi trucks to the site there's anywhere from 13 to 20 round trips uh they haul 10 000 gallon tankers to the to our site every day and then they go out to Farmers fields which can be up to 40 50 miles away um weather affects us with with climate change these freak weird storms that we're now getting a lot has really affected our ability to I mean this last season we didn't haul for a month and a half from middle of June to probably the end of July um just because the rains and things like that our subcontractors seem to be having a hard time finding semi drivers like everyone else the fluctuating fuel prices has them constantly you know looking for more money or saying you know they can't they won't be able to perform the service if it hits five dollars a gallon there's only two of them that ever bid on it in the state um we had one leave because they said it it didn't pay enough and then we will get into the emerging contaminants like pfas um that's just the current one if you will oh and so one of the things that kind of gives us pause um is Maine has banned all bio cells application no matter the concentration EPA is considered listing foil as under circular regs which could make it hazardous waste which would affect our ability to land apply and then Health advisories are coming out and so pfos limits have really are a moving Target right now and we don't know where they're going to land uh Michigan is is a prime example of that we're up to 28 compounds and there's more coming as soon as the tests get approved uh they're only limiting one right now and that's pfas uh started out that it was anything greater than 125 was industrial impacted and you couldn't land apply than it was if you're under 125 but greater than 50 you notify eagle and then if you're under 50 you can land a plot but you really need to look for um your source and now they've got it under 20 you need to keep looking for sources so it's really a moving Target that we're really not sure where it's going to end and one of the most important things of running a Wastewater Plant is being able to get rid of those solids because if you can't then you won't be able to put out a high quality effluent to meet your permit uh real quick here's some of our results um you know since 2020 we have had six detects of pfas compounds total we've had 11 samples since January of 2020.
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I'll suck at that motion all those in favor I'm Melinda sabroski aye Charlene Diaz I am into Amon hi Fred Rushton hi Barb zarzicki thank you and I'm sure that Jen thanks you because this has been and Cass does because she doesn't really like spending time item 5.6 approved bids for I Esser 3 flooring replacement project Madam president and board members one of the big projects that has been part of our sr3 plan for over two years now has been to replace all of the carpet in our schools in the areas that are used by students many thousands of square feet and um so we put out bid requests for this we had four four responses and um and we had decided that we would bid each each School site separately because of course time is a ticking on use of essermani and we felt that there was a possibility that low bids would be different for each site and that way we could have some things going on simultaneously so you can see here that a company called Kia out of Las Vegas had the low bid for four of the sites a local company Tri-State facilities had the low bid for one site and a con one of the one of the co-op companies out of Phoenix had the low bed for for Coyote Canyon and the total for these six sites is 934 392.11 I will tell you that the bids the low was the low you see here of 109 000 and but the high for the various sites were on the bids were as high as three hundred and thirty one thousand for one site so we think we got pretty good pretty good numbers here and work based on your approval of this tonight work will start at Bullhead City Middle School tomorrow foreign and what this involves is ripping out all of the carpet in classrooms and in student areas and uh sanding and and buffing and sealing the concrete and just working just going with the concrete so how long will it take him to do the middle school next door well they're going the idea because we have of course have to move everything out of any room that they're doing so we've said to them we don't want to move furniture twice so once things are moved out and there'll be our people moving the furniture out once the furniture is moved out then that room needs to be done and Furniture moved back in so they're starting with the 600 building they really think that building I think has 12 classrooms and I saw it she's gone now yeah I think that room that building has 12 rooms we're not going to do the computer room right away but I think they probably if they start tomorrow they can probably get seven to nine rooms done each room is about a thousand square feet and this company Kia Kia Kya says that they can do one room completely at least one room a day so I just keep thinking how disruptive that is going to be for the classrooms well it's spring break so that's why we're doing it now and then the next work would not happen at any of the sites until June okay that's what yeah we're not going to disrupt especially with testing coming up and that kind of thing but that's also why we're saying we don't want to move furniture twice so once we move the furniture out you have to finish that room so we can get furniture back in for classes to start so um you know and we would do that at any of our sites Dr shirtwa this Kya Corporation is is working at Bullhead City Middle School are the other two companies going to be working at the other sites not at this time because this is we just opened the bids on Monday okay so a little short notice for them to get their Crews together for for next week okay so my only question is is you know of the teachers prepped and ready if if this is approved that the things in their classroom are they going to take pictures and just make sure things are placed because I can only imagine this just you want to talk about disruption it's coming back in Monday morning on the you know the coming back from spring break in your classroom is right and then back in there but in a big disarray Mark flabbergasted uh Mark uh Scott our facilities director and and our Project Director met with Cynthia today um so that so that those folks it's very short notice and we know that but at least they could you know they could get their things uh moved and and you know their personal things and moved and and so things could be so things could be okay and um and let's face it it's a heck of a lot easier to do that at a middle school level than it would be say at preschool because the schools have about oh 10 times as much stuff correct as a middle school classroom would have so um so uh yeah so this way folks will have you know we'll have an opportunity and there may be some work done on some you know on some Friday Saturday Sundays there might be a couple of classrooms done at various places by any of these companies on a uh Friday Saturday Sunday weekend you know a couple of rooms could get done but we would give the teachers notice are they going to stain the concrete no we we had talked about that we really wanted that but that would have cost us probably another two hundred thousand dollars wow and yeah and right now um the 934 000 is pretty dang close to what Jen and I guessed when we when she wrote the grant two years ago so uh we were kind of police that we got fairly close and because of the expensive things you know in two years and when we wrote the grant originally when she put it in the first grant our idea was to replace with tile I can't imagine what this price would have been if we if we were putting tile back in it would have been significantly higher than this and and probably we would have only gotten about half done and I will tell you carpet in our classrooms in our district is in really really bad shape yeah um now are they going to put some type of finish on the concrete so if it gets wet they're not kids aren't going to go sliding across no it's a it's a non- it's a it's a not a slick finish okay I don't know it's kind of we don't want a classroom are in a lab and all of a sudden you're like yeah no skating rinks okay and and we do know that one of the things that's going to happen particularly in elementary schools where you know we frequently have kids sitting on the floor as we will be buying some you know some carpet pieces you know sometimes decorative carpet things um also to help with the sound attenuation but uh but the thing is those first of all they're going to be much easier to keep clean or clean you know you can take them outside and you can shampoo them in there or if they get Grody replace them yeah and as opposed to this and so this way we're not looking at replacing anything in 10 years or 15 years or you know this is a done deal well Mike my next question was sound yeah so we're we're yeah we're we're aware okay well that won't minimize the things that the custodians have to do over the summer because oh yeah they won't have to shampoo and whatever those and you know repair and all those carpets so yeah so I'd appreciate your approval for uh for all of these bids and we can start work tomorrow do I have a motion to approve I make a motion we approve the removal of all the carpeting from the classrooms at the schools and finish the concrete do I have a second I will second that motion Fred Rushton all those in favor I'm Melinda sabrowski hi Charlene Diaz hi Amanda amen hi Fred Rushton hi Barb zarzicki items 5.7 resolution authorizing the district employee neighborhood project to be a job order contract Madam president and board you're probably getting really tired of me bringing you alternatives for this but probably no more tired than I am to be bringing them because we just haven't made any Headway with any of our other things so this brings us to this Pro process which allows us to contract with uh essentially a development company and in this case it would be one of the companies on the state contract one GPA contract and a job order contract then in this case would be specifically to do the den project but uh then if we had other items still left on our sr3 plans that needed to be done we would not have to go back out for bids we would not have to go through some of these processes again to get that to get that work done and this the recommendation as you can see came from our attorney and and the resolution also was the wording that he had so this is to replace the design build that we had talked about in October and and the really good news is we have at least two developers who are interested in this project and this is the first time we've had that level of of Interest so I'm cautiously optimistic about moving forward as soon as you approve this what's our timeline are we still we have to be done by September 30th of 24.
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I second any discussion not uh all those in favor aye aye congratulations [Applause] so before we move on there is no such thing as Retirement trust me so yes we all come back so um item two is discussion approval of the assistant superintendent appointment president Lopez governing board members members of the audience we had an assistant uh superintendent position that is open due to the retirement of Dr Carolyn dumler which will be discussed at a later board meeting uh the assistant superintendent position was posted in 15 applications were received for the opening a screening committee including one governing board member two principals two directors and Senior staff vetted the applications and selected four individuals to interview the candidates were interviewed by the same committee and one candidate was forwarded for a final interview with the superintendent and governing board president Dr Lopez we are pleased to recommend Ms Denise linselada for the position of assistant superintendent Ms Lynn Salada is currently serving as the executive director of state and federal programs for musd prior to becoming the director of state and federal programs in 2016 Ms Lynn Salata served as principal of Picture Rocks Intermediate School principal of Desert Winds primary school and Associate principal of Desert Winds primary school and a teacher at picturox Intermediate School foreign as the assistant superintendent effective July 1st 2023 I second any questions nope all those in favor aye [Applause] congratulations to both of you we're going to move to item three discussion approval item a to adopt a district hiring schedule for teachers and speech language pathologist and a salary schedule for extracurricular and coaching positions do I have to do each one of them yeah um Item B adopt forms of teacher speech language Pathologists and extracurricular and coaching position contracts and item C offer contracts to district teachers speech language Pathologists and extracurricular and coaching positions Miss Harper good evening president Lopez governing board members Dr Streeter senior staff and community members hiring schedules for teachers and speech language Pathologists for 23-24 for 2023 2024 are attached the hiring schedules have been changed to reflect a two percent difference between steps also attached are the extracurricular and coaching salary schedules the new forms are secure of certificated employee contracts for teachers are attached for your review and approval and I'm happy to say this year we went from 17 contracts to five those are the teacher contract 10 teacher contract 11 tied teacher contract 14-year end and the extracurricular and volunteer coaching contracts also attached is a list of returning certificated Personnel to whom we intend to offer a contract for 2023-24 school year the list includes teachers counselors Librarians speech pathologists and other instructional personnel okay I have a motion yep give me one second Zoom this in I move that the Germany board approved the teacher's speech language pathologist and extracurricular activity and coaching position salaries scheduled as presented I furthermore I further moved that the government were to point contracts forms as indicated in the tax exhibits I furthermore I furthermore moved that the certified employees identified on exhibit Aid be offered a contract for the 2023-2024 school year a second any questions all those in favor aye aye okay the next item is also with Miss Harper that's discussion approval for a to adopt District hiring schedules and contract turns for administrators professional non-teaching and exempt employees B adopt forms of contracts for administrators professional non-teaching and exempt employees and C offer contracts to administrators professional non-teaching and exempt employees thank you hiring schedules for administrators psychologists therapists Specialists and exempt employees for 2023-2024 are attached the base salary was changed to reflect the two percent difference between steps on each hiring schedule also included our contract terms for administrators the new forms of administrator and exempt employee contracts are attached for your review and approval these contracts went from actually 30 last year to 10.
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yeah I just want to make sure yes anybody's watching online um our students Hands-On activities for our kids and that stimulates growth for our kiddos students in grades five and six are offered the opportunity to participate in the Lego Club the club is free of charge and hosted at the at our schools library at the end of each session students present their creation and work on their presentation skills um and the Creations are housed in the library for other students to see this year we have one of our former students coming back to help lead our younger students so it's nice to see people coming back and giving giving back to our schools and I believe she's a high schooler now so Winter Wonderland opportunity to give books to our kiddos put books in our kiddos hands to help them read um it's a night that we can bring families together and while they're there picking out a book they can get pictures and then we definitely have cookies and milk available for all of our kiddos but it was a hit that night we had a large number of books and every kid walked away with at least one book which is awesome the more books we can put in our kids hands the better our family steam night is coming up it's our first annual steam night we have a lot of opportunities for our students and we're really excited about this event especially that it's no cost um we'll have ozobots Bridges and Towers build a boat Lego challenge 3D printer demonstrations and we have a lot of our we have members from our high school um coming back to help volunteer so our student council some of the members of our student council at the house at the high school are coming back to volunteer and help during this event so it's a great way to get our community and our kids back in our schools and involved in in awesome opportunities like this this is our first year that we're that we're going to have the national Elementary Honor Society at Scipio it's something that we felt that our students needed and we needed to celebrate those students who have earned the opportunity for that award um so it's the first one and 15 students in fifth and sixth grade will be inducted this school year as they have met the initial requirement of a 3.5 GPA since fourth grade Canada's filled out the form to show their level of responsibility in different areas at home and at school and the induction ceremony is planned in April so and we'll have our first service project for them in May so a lot of great opportunities for our kiddos and it's amazing how our our students rise to the occasion um and and the different things the different Community opportunities that they provide so our student council this year um they had a canned food drive and so and that was in November and we ended up more than a thousand cans over our goal um and so that went to the local food pantry we've raised money for supplies by hosting a dance and so that money goes directly back to our school to buy school supplies next year for our kids um and so when you see the things that our kids are doing it's absolutely amazing and I know that we'll be in good hands as these kiddos grow and get older get through high school college and you know there are leaders one day I know we're going to be in good hands because of the different things that we're seeing in our schools there's a picture of our dance that we had and our arts program Mrs Edens does an amazing job providing our students with the chance to work with a variety of materials I'm in the Fine Arts and so that their creativity can blossom one of the things she did this year we have a group of students um who have a their Heritage is from a tribe in Alaska so she communicated with the parents and was able to reach out and provide opportunities from that group that she was able to present to our students and to the students so it was pretty neat to see that connection that we have with an outside group we of course through our stem kits we were able to do the knee brace design this year in our fifth grade classroom our third grade classroom making else students were given random objects and had a contest for creating and you know collaborating to make elves our second grade was modeling and preventing erosion so they were able to get Hands-On activities to show um what erosion looks like in preventing and how to prevent erosion and then we had an outside Group Oak Ridge Studios come in and talk about different kinds of drugs and students were able to play those drums in the classroom they also taught us how to keep beat with the drums that each one of the students had made so maple syrup huh so our kindergarten each year at sippy Elementary we have a maple tree in the backyard at Scipio so with the help of Chuck Davis a local syrup Pharma he comes in and works with our kiddos we tap a tree in the back the students then monitor the number of buckets of sap that we receive so they collect that data and then um Mr Davis then um works and goes through the process there's a two-minute video on there probably a little time consuming to show the video but it talks about the process from going from sap to syrup that our kids are involved in and then the ultimate I guess reward at the end of all of that is that Mr Davis and myself we fix pancakes for each of the students you get the sample which type of syrup they like better so I have for you some Scipio syrup so if you want to pass the jar around and look as I come around I have some serif and an animal cracker for you to take a cup you can take just one stack there and you can try the homemade syrups here's an afternoon I I will get to that girl I will discuss that yes absolutely tonight very cool thank you guys yummy yeah come back next week how is he going to compete with the acting and the singing elementary principles are very competitive I know just saying but no I mean and it's just amazing to see when we reach out to our community the thing provide for our kiddos sponges and they absorb you know every bit of this and these are experiences that they're going to remember you know as they as they get older and they're going to special events like this to where they were able to start from you know the sap to syrup and enjoy the pancakes and you know so so these are things um that I feel were lucky to be able to do in our schools I just want to play the video there it is okay yeah if you want to pause it and then if you want to skip to the next slide I have yet so Pancake Day we invite any of you to come out um of our group here I I will have to let you know um so if you want to come join us for that pancake day we'll be hosting our maple syrup taste test on Friday March 31st engineer and farmer Chuck Davis and myself will be in the hallway making pancakes our school board and administrators are welcome to join us so I do want to thank you for um for the opportunities that you you know you have given me as a principal to be a leader of the building to help our kids grow um it is absolutely amazing to see what our kids can do what they do each and every day in our classrooms and our teachers do a phenomenal job and you know I would like to thank our parents and our community for helping us and for being involved because studies show the more involved you are with kids at an earlier age the more successful they're going to be and so that's why we do what we do as Educators is so that our kids have the opportunities to be successful um and so I thank each and every one of you I thank our parents our teachers and our kiddos for working so hard so thank you for allowing me to be here tonight and being a part of this wonderful group and Corporation um thank you [Applause] Leonard thank you for coming and presenting at the board tonight and also you know I'm always proud to hear how community members step up and support our students and school corporations and this is I think a great summary of some of that support that you receive at your school but there are so much more so but thank you for for presenting thank you anyone have any questions or comments for a Leonard do you need seconds on the serum thank you no problem um so now we'll go down under old business programs this is just another inform on social State's textbook adoptions uh they've been in the class or in the schools the teachers have been reviewing them and turning in surveys and giving their input um in this week's newsletters messages will be going home on how community members and parents can also give input on social uh Facebooks thank you I think that's a great reminder Carrie that if community members or parents family members would like to review the textbooks please look in your newsletters that were sent home to the schools reach out here we want your input so I think that's extremely important so thank you for for offering that under property Roofing and news um the last meeting forum tonight I'm asking for board approval for the masonry and Roofing related work at various locations the bid bids can South Central Roofing Incorporated was a low bid for the roofing bid and it was 77 300 the pool Group Incorporated was a low bid for the masonry work at nbe at 512 asking for board approval I have a motion my pack do I have a second I have a second by Cheryl any discussion all those in favor six seven thank you Roy um under new business administration we have a renewal of administrator contracts yes asking for approval of renewing the administration administrator contract as presented hey do I have a motion so there's I have a motion by Mary Lynn do I have a second second by Pat any discussion all those in favor under programs permission for post um to post for latchkey yes or latchkey um current contract ends this summer so asking for permission to post advertisements to receive bids our plan is to post on March 30th and April 6 newspaper and then on April 14th will be our mandatory pre-proposal meeting here at central office at 10 o'clock and then all bids are due by one on Friday April 28th so asking for permission to post that into the newspaper I have a motion by Earl do I have a second by Travis any discussion all those in favor six seven coming down under professional staff recommendations okay thank you I'm sorry I apologize I was looking at a different location um for approval for the career increment Master teacher stipend for the school years 2023 24 through 2027-28 for the following individuals please Viola Davis Courtney Christ Johns Charlie Simpson Neil Snyder and Karen Tucker Google do I have an emotion hi Travis do I have a second second by Mary Lynn any discussion all those in favor think so and then also under professional staff permission to post or jchs certified summer school positions permission to post four jchs certified summer school positions just asking for approval if once we get the total numbers of students we don't need all four we will lose the appropriate number okay if I have a motion I have a motion by path do I have a second second by Cheryl any discussions all those in favor 6-0 and then it looks like we're going down under support staff recommendations I'd like to make um or ask for approval for um the hiring of Thomas Brooks as our JCS technology director and the effective start date would be March 13th asking for approval for David George to be hired as the Jennings cunning High School boys golf coach for the spring 2023 season asking that Annette Hardy jchs cook would be hired with the approval of a starting date of March 13th um asking for the approval of Denver ice and to serve as jchs Volunteer football coach for the 23-24 school year asking that Tanya Johnson would be moving from a genius County Schools School Bus aide to an eight-hour bus aide position Reitman would also be moving from I'm sorry would become one of the uh to be moving from a bus Aid to the corporation special ed bus driver and that would be effective on they actually had already had made that move but we wanted to ask that it became effective now okay I have a motion by Travis do I have a second second High path any discussion all those in favor 6-0 and I believe you have someone in the I just want to yeah I'd love to share but Mr Thomas Brooks is here today with his wife and his youngest child and Tom is the one that we were asking for approval for technology director and so he was gracious enough to come to the meeting tonight and he has been warned by many individuals of the responsibility that he now has are you ready to shake the hands okay can you start on that side it was funny when he was um he was in the office and or in the building and many of the people who were meeting him said if you are approved you must Shake hand s and he was told that over and over and over congratulations happy to have you have your team but hopefully [Laughter] sometimes we make the wife and the kids come too so I mean I'm just throwing it out there about my next moment would that be okay [Music] would you introduce your wife or your youngest if you don't mind yes this is my wife Sarah yeah [Music] you take care of their own responsibilities one grandbaby that's right three months old now yeah excited nice to meet you welcome thank you well we understand whenever we hire someone we get the whole family so welcome to all of you it's great it's great um our team here at um um and then also under support staff um we also have a request to post another summer school yes asking for approval and permission to post One jchs Summer School non-certified staff which would be a parapro do I have a motion promotion in my Pat do I have a second by Mary Lynn any discussion all those in favor 6-0 and then down under students policies asking for approval to post the transfer cutoff date for out-of-county students next year for May 23 2024 that throughout the school year so it's comparable to what we've done this year so asking for approval of that date have emotion motion by Travis do I have a second second by Cheryl any discussion all those in favor think so and then down under finances we have some donations we do so they ask an approval to accept donations as follows Anonymous 200 dollars to the nbe for unpaid lunches Jenny's Church of Christ 300 to the high school Panther Pantry nvic 200 to the high school junior class and Columbus City band 500 to the high school art Department so do I have a motion to accept those donations it's all moved I have a motion my pad do I have a second second by Travis any discussion all those in favor think so and then we have a resolution yes my standard resolution with four weeks between board meetings I'm asking for approved approved treasure Deputy Treasurer to make payments of claims without board prior action or action prior to the April 13th meeting and also allow the treasurer Deputy Treasurer to make transfers Appropriations within the education Debt Service Ops and major classifications do I have a motion to accept that resolution motion by Travis do I have a second second second by Mary Lynn any discussion all those in favor 6-0 and we have a second resolution asking for approval of a resolution to accept a settlement we were part of a class action lawsuit with many school districts across the country against a vape manufacturer and we have reached a settlement so asking for your approval of the resolution to accept that and sign those documents motion I have a motion by Earl do I have a second by Pat any discussion all those in favor 6-0 and then common School alone yes I'm asking for permission to apply for a spring common school loan to also purchase additional Chromebooks we asked you guys to prove one last fall for like about 770 this would be for another 760 some I have a motion by Cheryl do I have a second second second by Pat any discussion all those in favor 6-0 and then we're down under property asking for approval of a contract for architectural services with Lancer and Associates architecture I'm asking for this this approval pending legal approval from our attorney so this allows us to begin working on our ready Grant CTE projects at the high school that we're very excited about very exciting do I have a motion motion by Earl do I have a second by Marilyn any discussion all those in favor six seven that is super exciting super ready to get moving on that um great for our community um and then down under relations asking for approval for the high school for a school portrait Services agreement with the Barksdale group for the next school year Emotion by Travis do I have a second also taken by Cheryl any discussion all those in favor 6-0 and then um Four Corners employment nlu I'm asking for approval for an mou with with they are a company here in town locally owned by Bill Elmore who is here with us today providing services employment training employment education that will help some of our special ed students at the high school level that have more significant needs permission to come into the school and to take some of our kids on some job sites and learning how to function on a job too motion by Travis do I have a second a second [Music] four quarters employment I just heard straight back in Indianapolis State and my presentation was from three until four o'clock and so then I booked a street down here but it's always nice that we have people in Indianapolis that have busting and all this stuff and I represent Jennings County and how many disabled people were employed and the great Community Support that it's just kind of nice to to find that address for 23 years and the state is finally I don't improve BSI and risk here but I'm a for-profit agency which is the trend the state doesn't very much like to do that but after 23 years they're doing this in Jackson and Jennings County uh contract of my own agency I thought it was just going to be me and a co-worker for a while but we're now up to seven employees I've got over 70 clients between Jackson Jennings and Scott County Jefferson County school just sent me an email last week said can we please collaborate with your future so we're up and running but thank you to my home base well so we have a motion we have a second in the additional discussion I just want to thank you for the work that you do what a valuable service it really is so um I think it's just wonderful so thank you we do have to vote so um no no further discussion all of those in favor success um and then five star star engineering support contract yes we've been very happy with our agreement for engineering support with five star and we'd like to continue that agreement and that support So asking the board to approve an engineering support contract with five star and that would be a three-year contract okay so asking for a motion for approval I'll make a motion and a motion from Cheryl do I have a second second from Mary Lynn any discussion all those in favor and then I believe we're down to other yes yes I'd just like to update the board on some school safety updates so we're still working very hard on following up on details we've been meeting with Derek Simpson from Shield up defense he's an invaluable resource from a law enforcement perspective sharing information with us he has been fantastic we've been reviewing the safety plans and entry procedures we've also been talking about safety Staffing and after consultation with him we've also met with Chief Messer and Sheriff Freeman and chief Messer had already agreed that third SRO option position for us next year which we're very excited about and we've had the opportunity to also talk to off about options with shared Freeman so we're investigating what we can do to increase sros and law enforcement presence in the building so just wanted to share an update of where we're at with that and thank you to the Chief and Derek and the sheriff for their willingness to be such great Community Partners and support us I can't say enough good things about that and Greg i'm complimenting you you did you were very respectful you were well spoken and we very much appreciate that and we share your concern and he's one of my former students [Music] [Laughter] and I'll go in and say Leonard you did a great job he Leonard played football [Laughter] because all right any anything else Nikki mention that we have some have some important happening in the community on Saturday yes I do have some notes Here I do want to make sure that we mention in this room that we are will be playing in the regional game at Seymour High School at the gym the start time is 4 P.M on Saturday Jennings County will be playing Evansville rides and we would ask that everyone wear their JC gear to the game I um saw pictures unfortunately I was on vacation last week and not able to attend the sectional finals that man I saw pictures and it just gave me chills all of the blue and I think most of you know that I work in in Jackson County I had individuals that I work with talking about the atmosphere who don't aren't from Jennings County they're actually from another County talking about the atmosphere and how this is what it was like when we were in high school the excitement of thrill and it was just wonderful to hear so um just hope that everybody is able to come out for the game and support the boys um so that we can continue to move on right allowed to say that you can say it I said it otherwise hearing nothing else under other I will entertain a motion to adjourn an emotion by path do I have a second second by Mary Lynn all those in favor 6-0 meeting adjourned
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on Tuesday it will also be raining with a high of 43 and a low of 30. for the rest of the week on Wednesday we'll be raining with a high of 49 and a low of 29. on Thursday would be cloudy with a high of 42 and a low of 27. on Friday it will be partly cloudy with a high of 43 and a low of 31. on Saturday it will be partly cloudy with a high of 44 and a low of 32. and on Sunday it will be raining with a high of 43 and a low of 32. back to you in the studio thank you our girls basketball teams are off to a great start doing playoffs with a huge win over Middleborough here are some of the highlights [Music] and she's brought once again keep her on the drive from Beyond The Arc takes it up drives us away [Music] no good now verify Harbor and looks like a lot of contacts here's cheeseburger Kailyn super excuse me great shot there seems like that'll do it here today for final score Dartmouth Indians with 58.
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