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Wayne and Kathy Lewis designing an intermediate in the amount of five hundred dollars Putnam County Hospital during Castle High School athletic training program and the amount of fifteen thousand dollars Prime real estate to Greencastle High School baseball program in the amount of one thousand dollars and the Mary Allison children's trust the two teasonicas intermediate in the amount of five hundred dollars thank you can I get emotional questions second okay good motion and a second all in favor all right all opposed thank you thank you motion passes in a thank you great big thank you to all the visitors folks who made donations as well last item on the agenda is other business and the only other thing that we have is I'd like to remind people that we are looking for a School Board member in the process to apply and to apply in writing to the school central office care of me my whiteboard president and please do so by the 31st of March the process then would be on the 5th of April interview all all over the blind or ape line and make a selection that night that person would be sworn in either at or before the April meeting um has to live in it's a city it's a council appointment so that person has to reside at city limits and be 21 years old um so if anyone knows of anyone interested please send them along deeper the pool the better the more the merrier yes hi a random question now that we have ourselves a great persistent superintendent now we are losing a great middle school principle is there a timeline on looking at that yeah so that's that's the one challenge you create another right um so I actually have an advertisement to go out tomorrow um and we're going to share with staff and ask staff to share it with anyone who thinks it might be a good fit share with our professional uh organizations um once again so we'll look at taking applications through I think right around the end of April I think it's April 28th and then look to conduct interviews I've already tomorrow morning I'm going to reach out to some potential Middle School staff members to help with our committee once again and look to do look to take care of interviews right around the beginning of May so that we can have a recommendation for approval at our amazing okay thank you anybody else okay next item is a journalist I'll make a motion to adjourn second okay motion a second not all in favor all right Paul opposed motion passes thank you everybody thank you for coming and be careful going home see you then
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this course is a an Ivy Tech course that is called Student Success it is a one credit course that ultimately is a preparation for students taking dual credit courses it allows students to go through the process of taking our knowledge assessment that is a prerequisite for some of the um more advanced Ivy Tech courses that students might take in their following years and at the curriculum advisory Council there was some suggestions that that might be a great dual credit offering to pair with either some of our Avid courses or are preparing for College and Career courses that already are focused on some of that work anyhow and we would give those students an opportunity to earn some college credit while taking that course lastly we have a few late additions to our phase three of our nlps courses proposing the Capstone courses for our education professions and our construction trades and that's it be happy to entertain any questions I have a question thank you Mr Harsha this is great I did have a question regarding the Ivy Tech course for one college credit would that be more geared towards incoming freshmen not Juniors and seniors who are already into the programs where they're receiving dual credits yes it would make more sense for us to uh Target that class towards ninth and 10th graders it really is open to students of all grades so if there was someone who got maybe a later start on um their certification or their stackable credentials towards Ivy Tech this is a required course in all of those Pathways so it would not be exclusively for 9th and 10th graders but that is where we would Target our students to get them on that track right away okay thank you and also this um this credit hour would also transfer to a majority of other schools much like the other Ivy Tech credits is that correct yes typically you know the um some of the universities do have different um you know regulations about what can transfer but uh yes this is just a pretty standard entry level um to dual credit courses okay thank you I was just thinking from the lens of a parent one less college credits absolutely thank you first of all thank you for this presentation it's always exciting to see how the district is pivoting to meet the needs of our students so it's super exciting to see the addition of all these as new board member I have to plead ignorance on what nlps means okay next level programs of study okay so that is a part of the graduation requirements in the state of Indiana now require uh some work through our CTE coursework and our next level programs of study offerings continue to increase in this district and we're very proud of those um so the basically a pathway would start off with a principles course kind of a foundational course then we would move on to a concentrator a and concentrator B and those are required what we also have uh is offering these Capstone courses that students might be interested in typically this would be an experience that would involve the classroom and then also get the students out in the workplace a great example of one of our Capstone courses is the students that work at Bernie's restaurant at McKinsey that would be considered their Capstone experience PS now in lieu of CTE um I would not say it is in lieu of it no it is it is um these are our CT offerings um and it's just that they're structured now in specific Pathways okay gotcha and then the um cost for credits is there do parents have to incorrect costs in order to get those credits for their children great question and in most cases the answer is no um we have a lot of the universities are offering credits either for free or at a discounted rate um right now and we also in this District use um some Grant dollars as we continue to try to increase our offerings that can support our families that need help with the Dual credit we have julied about three can made me think about students who potentially do not have documentation how are they accessing some of these programs of study as I know that many of them if they do not have documentation that they have to pay for out of state tuition and so how is that um with our increase of dual language students how is that addressed well um I I can't speak for each of the individual universities that we are partnered with specifically um but I know that uh in our uh constant Communications with with Ivy Tech with Indiana University with all of our partners um we are all about giving students access and increasing access so we will do whatever we can to support students to to make sure that we open that access up for them but I honestly I'm not certain how to speak to to that for each of the individual universities is that something we can address though at our level in terms of counselors because I know sometimes students it's a very tricky conversation and in order to I just think about the work that we've done where I work and we've got a number of students who get really excited about the opportunity and then come to find out that they're not able to achieve it and so I'm just wondering what kind of conversations that we're having early on with students to make sure that we're being proactive about what their post-secondary success and access looks like and I appreciate you bringing that up and I will tell you that at our buildings right now those conversations are happening our counselors are very excited to promote courses like the ones that we're talking about here this evening to really increase that access get our students taking college level courses earning those dual credits and we do sometimes have to have further conversations with parents about why we're asking for certain information or what does this really mean what does this look like is this really for my student and so I'm I'm proud of the work that's happening at the buildings no I appreciate that and I'm not indicating that there should not be we should be very proud of what's happening but I guess I'm thinking about it through the lens of let me give you an example of some students in order to get a um for example to be able to be a beautician and you go through um CTE coursework you have to take at the end of that you have to take an assessment that requires you to have documentation that are you are you are U.S citizen and so I'm wondering what conversations are happening prior to a student going through that progression of all of these different Pathways only to find out that that is not an achievable reality for them due to their documentation status and with the increase of our Latino population as well as those from Haiti and other places that may not have that documentation I think it's a conversation that needs to be had I agree with you and I I think that is something that we need to dig in a little bit more into but I think you're absolutely right because we want to ensure again the success of our students so and along the same lines of dual language I know several and I don't know when this was but you guys created a locally created pathway that you took to the Department of Education specifically partnering with the Immigrant Welcome Center to support some of those students do you know if there's any intention to continue looking at Pathways that might meet the needs of those students so uh recently there were a few locally approved Pathways that that were just recently approved so we are constantly talking about that that's actually something that came up even at this curriculum advisory council meeting sometimes there are different ideas for locally created Pathways and also just increasing our nlps Pathways that we have as well so that would be the processes that would be brought to our curriculum advisory council meeting and we would have those conversations Mr you excellent point you bring Mr kuznick next to you is in charge of the counselors and I know for a fact we're having those difficult conversations Miss Dunn made a very powerful statement the youngsters have the access to the class but on the back end when it's time to earn the credit we don't have control and so our counselors are having difficult conversation and I hope people out there in this world and are politicians are listening closely what can we do to help these kids that's the statement is these kids not being able to have access because of their their Birthright and so that's the difficult question that we're having that we have been for years what our guidance counselors and with those universities allowing these youngsters to have credit okay and that's the part that we don't have control over so we we're making a political statement but we need some help for the youngsters so that they can have the same opportunities as students that are citizens in this country many of them have been here their entire lives so thank you Madam president Dr Smith members of the board we're very excited tonight to bring you information about jumpstart and summer opportunities for our students and our first slide has just some general overview information including the dates and as a reminder our students who participate participate in the incoming grade level so the next year's grade level as a jump start on the new year and we will be observing thank you we could be we will be observing Juneteenth day and so students will actually be with us for 15 days where there is academic and enrichment instruction on the slide you can see the elementary day as opposed to the secondary day but we do Target an 18 to 1 student teacher ratio each ELC each Elementary each middle school will be hosting students and our high school students who are in person will be at McKenzie and we use this opportunity to provide many services to families in addition to academic enrichment and we provide transportation Food Service Aftercare until 5 PM Friday care July care or in Gillingham training or I'm sorry small group tutoring that extends all the way into Aftercare and all of these services are provided at no cost to our families the instructional design will look similar to what we did last summer we're using Hands-On highly engaging stem activities with Project Lead the Way combined with our math and our core knowledge language arts and then as Dr Brown said we will continue with the Orton Gillingham that is a partnership that we have with Marion University we have club and enrichment activities for the Elementary in the afternoon just some examples are Artful artists crafty crafters they're gardening gurus and so the stem Humanities and electives align with graduation Pathways at the middle and high school so that we're continuing to support that we do use pre and post assessments so that we can measure growth and determine how successful the program is life skills program will be offered for both Elementary and secondary and then we will continue to offer our ltech virtual courses for high school students as we look at our preschool kindergarten offering students are in one of two programs they're either in a multi-age preschool or the year before kindergarten programming for this program we go from June 5th to July 8th because we know those families need care All Summer Long there is no school for on Juneteenth and then also July 3rd and 4th in the month of July we have care offered at no cost for families Monday through Friday from eight to five we do follow our licensing guidelines so we have a ten to one teacher student ratio for multi-age and 12 to 1 for the year before kindergarten classroom all of our preschool sites will be used including the elc's along with Forest Glen and Skiles test good evening we're very excited to be able to offer specialized support to many of the students who attend the summer school programming of jumpstart we do offer resource and therapy support to all students at all grade levels we do offer life skills programming which will be offered to students who qualify based on our teacher recommendation and our life skills programming will be located at Amy beverlyn Farrow Elementary and Lawrence Central for our secondary and we also support with a line classroom instruction and transitions at the high school level in addition to in-person jumpstart we also have something known as ltch Lawrence Township e-learning campus primarily virtual and asynchronous however one lesson learned from cobit as we able we're able to now also have a synchronous component as well 33 different credit bearing courses are offered open enrollment occurs in June and part of July and there is a small fee for for these courses the total jumpstart budget for 2023 is just over 4 million additional funding is also available in a partnership with Marion University for OG tutoring in grades one through three this budget includes certified and classified Staffing for the instructional day as well as Aftercare and transportation curriculum development and supplies funded through payer's Grant our timeline staff application opened up back on February 13th student registration opened up on March 1st as of today we were already over 2 300 students signed up in less than a month so we're you know there's the need and we're happy to answer any questions you have at this time um sorry I had a question first of all this is a great program we're very appreciative of it I'm just walking back a couple years for the public I want to make sure I understood it correctly the funding for jump start came from federal dollars for three years is that correct and this will be the third year 's grant for 2021 2022 and 2023 and we've also budgeted for 2024.
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oh okay okay okay that's great and then my second question um is at the secondary level our students are recommended for Jumpstart is that correct or can anybody apply for the in-person jump start it's recommended okay Target certain individual students transitioning from eighth to ninth to get a jump start to their freshman year as well as freshmen to sophomore but if there's students that would like to enroll with they can definitely work with the schools to make that happen Okay and then to go along with that incoming k-6 anybody could apply to be in jumpstart correct yes as long as you're enrolled for the 23-24 school year you can come to jumpstart okay thank you I have a couple of questions the first is the targeted students are those students is it Credit Recovery or what is the who are the targeted students a little mixture of both credit recovery at the high school level for maybe freshmen moving into sophomore year uh eighth grade moving into ninth grade year list of reasons might be attendance concerns might be achievement concerns we will make sure they have a good foundation moving into star high school so what about those students who potentially are Juniors and seniors who need credit recovery well so jumpstart is primarily for incoming freshmen and software but we do have some Juniors and seniors efforts okay as well and again just asking that question about the cost and so if I am a family on free and reduced lunch am I still required to pay that fee or are there any workarounds there's always workarounds we always have ways to support our students ltech has been around since before jump start right so we've had that for several years uh and the 25 fee that we have was just a small way to create ownership in the in the enrollment in jumpstart or excuse me in ltch but also we always have other supports that we can support our kids to make sure it's not a barrier for kids right and how is that communicated to families it's communicate through we have two lead administrators one at each high school that run uh jumps or else excuse me in the Middle School day I saw that the elementary has enrichment does the middle school have in Richmond as well Middle School was set up in three blocks you can go back to that slide for me we have the stem Humanities and then the elective one before that excuse me slide before there stem Humanities and then the electives component is is what is a course designed to help students prepare for graduation Pathways so how if I am an incoming seventh grader how do I know what my graduation pathway is you don't so this is a exploratory learning course about the different options there are perfect thank you and we should all bring our clarinet with us and you know the music people never leave the building so I'll speak up the language in its best Roger Smith for the board there's a little bit of a clarification we mentioned that our summer school program for high school is at McKenzie will you remind the board why we need to do that this summer due to construction yes we have excuse me we have a lot of site work going on that is going to minimize the opportunity for buses and parents to be on site for the same time so we've recommended that we house those students at McKinsey and also transport them as we did to each of their high school so next summer returning back to Lawrence Central Lawrence North Campus lealton we'll be back to normal yep foreign if there are no more questions we will move on to Mr miles and just a little information about cancellation about standing checks please thank you madam president Dr Smith members of the board before you tonight you should have a report detailing 36 checks that were asking to be will ask later in the evening to be canceled per state code these were um over two years old and were not ever cached and so we need to cancel them at this time for our books okay so again Mr miles can you give us some information on our application for a common school loan yes Madam president Dr Smith once again members of the board at this time it is our time to prepare our spring application for the common school loan we do this twice a year once in the spring and once in the fall and due to the dates of the board meetings and when the window opened this this spring we'll present this as an information item now and then back to you for a vote here just a little bit this evening um but the the loan uh is is one that we apply for typically to support our technology needs in the classroom directly supporting teachers and students uh we we detail what those those uses will be when we apply for the loan through the state and once again this is a state loan at this time we intend to to finish out phase three of our interactive panel rollout which is the Smart panels that the are used in all the classrooms that's going to be a big chunk of these dollars the rest of the dollars will be used once again to support directly teachers and students teacher uses maybe items such as laptops and other peripheral devices needed for those as well as the interactive panels we could potentially purchase some Chromebooks with these and then other student specific teacher specific I.T needs could you just Enlighten us one more time about the benefits of using the common school loan and applying for that over other sources of funding absolutely so um a couple of benefits again this is uh funded through this state and it runs through the treasurer's office so um they give us specific parameters as to the amounts that we can apply for at this time we could apply for about 1.5 million dollars and it is a low interest loan that we can get through the state the payback terms are as far as how long the terms extend are dependent on the the amount of the loan so it's it's a safe loan it's a low interest loan for good purposes that we that we use um and that's why we we typically take advantage of it twice a year thank you so much you need our financials absolutely happy to do so Madam president once again Dr Smith members of the board before you you have two reports it's our general fund monitoring report and then we will go to our Transportation uh report both from uh month in February 28 of this year and again we always like to highlight our checks checks and X's um and we'll start with that under the general fund um happy to report the general fund is tracking as expected at this point um we do have some offsets and you may note those particularly um you know the variance in revenue is is very minimal so no concern there and then under the expenditures our contract services at this time throughout uh through again through February and the supplies and materials are a little up and certainly we will keep an eye on that that does happen sometimes especially early in the year when there's not as much uh not as much history to look at so when we're projecting budgets one of the reasons on the on the supplies and materials typically fourth quarter we do not purchase as many items we kind of phase that down and shut it down so that we can prepare our books for end of year so some items that maybe would have been purchased right at the end of the year get pushed off to the next year and then so the expense hits our books first quarter of the following year so you can see that as well on the on the report as well as our contract services are a little bit up we we think that's actually a good thing some of that is due to a big part of that is due to our relationship with rjb that we now have so we've moved some dollars from the payroll lines down into some of the other vendor lines and and that happens across the board and it also um um the the bottom line budget there as you see under the total isn't a good place so we're happy with where we're at right now uh year to date and as we move to Transportation uh similarly uh you'll see some of the same same things on the supplies and materials of course they're also uh paying high higher dollar than normal for our diesel fuel um so that's that's got that amount ticked up just a little bit as well as those purchasing cycles that we talked about earlier and then on the salary side it's a little a little higher than what we may have maybe originally had thought I think that's a good problem we've actually been able to hire more drivers and monitors than what we had done at this point last year so hats off to our transportation team I'm sure it's uh under new director's leadership that we've been able to do that um but happy to answer questions again the bottom line here not far off from from where we'd expect the difference is really uh driven by that supplies and material difference and so we can kind of attribute you know the shortfall at this point through the year to that happy to answer any other questions I would just say I so appreciate you're going through this with us and explaining why the red why the green I I do appreciate that happy to do so and keep up the good work thank you I do have a quick question about procurement and so in looking at board docs and I might not be looking in the right place so please forgive me but is there a threshold by which the board has to approve purchases over a certain amount that is an excellent question um and it's one I don't know that I have the answer for you right here at the at the desk but I'd happy to be happy to follow up with you on that typically our larger contracts as we we've done you've seen those come through but it's a specific line item purchase I'm not sure I have that answer for you right now I haven't seen anything yes sir the reason that I ask if you because we've been working diligently with a actually somebody who's working with procurement to make sure that we're getting the lowest cost possible and it's saving us a lot of money so I just am wondering about the procurement process here and if there are ways especially when we're thinking about supplies and materials sure if we can negotiate better rates and how that process looks like so I love to learn more be happy to do so certainly we follow All State Board of accounts guidelines on all of our procurement processes and and What needs to go out to bid versus RFP and those types of things so yes I always happy to to work through those and I think probably the answer from uh for our board member done it depends on what division and what section I'm looking at Roger and Matt with Transportation you guys have a certain time you procure diesel fuel and those type of things we'll get answers for the board that's a good question if there are no more questions we're going to move straight ahead to board committee chair reports I would like to I would love to know Miss bucket what's what's happening with our parks and our partnership um what a beautiful day for the pickleball courts to open today so yes um that begins we also have new playground equipment at Alexander park so we have little ones go check it out as well as I will go to the arch for Lawrence Facebook page concerning um not Arthur Lawrence I'm sorry the Lawrence Parks and Recreation Facebook page concerning um Arts the arts for Lawrence Fridays at the Fort and art camp as well so check out their Facebook page for dates and lots of spring awesomeness coming up that's all I got that's a lot grabbed the right folder today Miss Miss Norman you probably have a lot to report on for the foundation I do Mr President and anyone else feel free to chime in because I don't feel like I can give the gala Justice I mean Dr Smith was rocking the shoes [Laughter] yes oh yeah I I believe it was sold out and they reached the fundraising goal was at forty thousand yes so it was a great night a great entertainment and great event to raise money for our our community so that was one thing and then I also am pleased to report that the or well the first ever LT dad's care initiative has already reached their goal of 100 dads donating 100 dollars so yeah ten thousand dollars so well done yeah I know okay um policy Miss Dunn Mr harshberg we have some exciting times ahead of us yes we are so I understand we have about 25 to 30 that we're anticipating so more information should be forthcoming correct are you hitting the stairs like you know getting really excited yeah up and down up and down getting ready we better get ready that's a lot of reading thank you for sharing that board and Miss Lawrence what did we have for our Indiana school boards Association not no updates for me at this time okay thank you madam president all right then um we will move on to our action items this is always super exciting we've heard the information now it's yay or nay um Mr Smith approval for the CMC for the lecc project please Madam president Dr Smith members of the board we recommend the board approved core Garcia as the CMC for Lawrence education and Community Center as presented and it a second properly moved and seconded any discussion all those in favor aye any opposed the eyes have it thank you congratulations to Cora Garcia um we now move on to the approval of the construction bids for Fall Creek Valley Senator president members aboard Dr Smith we recommend the board approve the bids slash gym P Price contract for Fall Creek Valley School to powers and Sons as presented so moved properly moved and seconded again any questions from the board all those in favor aye any opposed guys have it now Mr miles the approval of cancellation of outstanding checks thank you madam president Dr Smith members of the board at this time I ask for approval that the board would approve the cancellation of the checks as presented earlier this evening so moved second properly moved and seconded any discussion all those in favor aye aye any opposed the eyes have it we will cancel those checks immediately all right um now Mr miles again the approval of our application for that common school loan please thank you madam president once again Dr Smith members of the board at this time I would recommend to the board approval to apply for the common school loan as presented earlier this evening properly moved and seconded if there's no discussion all those in favor of the approval of the application for the common School aye any opposed the eyes have it Madam president I move that we treat items 4.5 through 4 Points make sure I get it 11 as consent agenda do we have a second second okay properly moved and seconded it's been requested that we move these items to a consent agenda all those in favor of moving these items to a consent agenda aye aye any opposed they've been moved to a consent agenda now what will we do with the consent agenda we I move approval of consent agenda you have a second second properly moved and seconded um all those in favor of improving that consent agenda aye aye aye any opposed then our consent agenda is approved and that I would think concludes the business portion of our meeting and now for board and administrator comments who of this board would like to speak first this evening oh I'm always down well you're there miss Puckett please all right I would just leave the time just to I want to be cognizant of the narrative that's being said concerning um Panorama um as it's being used as a measurement tool for SEL um I just wanted to remind community that um this is found actually in our uh Equitable student outcomes action plan dashboard that's 72 percent gave us this is their wording the 72 percent gave a thumbs up for exploring and confronting the best the vestiges of institutional racism um and so the tools that we utilize and the things that we do are at the Forefront of what our of what our community wants and what we need for our students and we're in regards to student achievement so I just wanted to reiterate that that the things that we do are from that lens as well as the diverse student population that we serve so I just wanted that as a reminder also too just wanted to read that Panorama social emotional learning questionnaire is a measurement of student mindsets behaviors and attitudes that might be related to success in school and Beyond the classroom so again I just wanted to be ahead of the narrative that is being said that our student achievement is at the Forefront and that is why we use the tools that we use that is my comment thank you thank you for that for that insight it's done we'll go outside in today I appreciate you sharing that it's very important that the public understand the tools that we have and the reasons that we utilize them so thank you for bringing that to everyone's attention I just again want to thank cabinet for the work that you do obviously a lot of really exciting things are happening and again just want to reiterate that questions are me trying to understand the landscape and by no way shape or form are indicative of the feelings that I have about the work that you all are doing and so incredibly grateful and very hopeful that every member of this community will be able to have some rest and relaxation over spring break and come back rejuvenated and excited for the work of our last quarter as we know we want to finish strong and so I'm just excited to see that as we progress to this last quarter of the 22-23 school year so thank you madam president we're in class now okay okay back over here miss Norman yes great comments everybody um I wanted to add sorry um first I wanted to thank Miss Laplante in the entire uh Committee involved in the high ability review um there were so many stakeholders at all levels involved in just such valuable uh discussions were taking place for the benefit of our school community so this was a long process and it was very in-depth and again thank you all who who have been involved the second thing I wanted to say is March's disability awareness month um I wanted to thank Miss Niemeyer in all of her entire team with the exceptional learners for the work they do for our students um it's very valuable so thank you for that and then finally um I wanted to and this is actually a question Dr Smith one thing that was on my mind today about spring break is students or families in our district who might be food insecure what is our local what Avenues could places could they go to um because we have so many organizations Miss Bush or Mr Smith we don't feed during the spring break board but summer feeding we do so Sean and you can go ahead and come to the Magnus Bush and of course uh this wonderful place we have here Roger that will be always open to give food Monday through Friday right here at sharing places if any families needing help go ahead Sean yes we do have the sharing place here on site at LACC but if any families are having um any uh concerns about food insecurity for the spring break they should please contact their family liaison their CIS liaison at the school and we'll be able to help thank you no I have a central office like this in the state of Indiana Roger Smith we're really proud of that that we do have a food pantry in our central office so outstand S Lawrence well thank you madam president so I I've been reflecting a lot on the importance of community as part of the educational environment that we have here in Lawrence Township starting with the gala that we all attended and took a photo together which was really fun all of us dressed to the nines um and you know I that Gala was attended by hundreds of people all there to support the students of Lawrence Township it's pretty incredible and a really unique thing that our district has a foundation that is so active in uh in the community of our schools and so um wanted to point out the fact that schools don't function without a community that is there to support one another and the other thing that I was reflecting on as we were coming into this board meeting is you know last weekend I had the opportunity to um to volunteer at the isma competition at Fall Creek Valley many of our other schools participate in other isma competitions throughout the state of Indiana um but you know I was there until about 10 30 at night but the T the teachers the music teachers and the administrative staff were there far longer than I was and you know as I've been thinking about Community yes it takes parent volunteers to come in and sit with judges for six hours but it also takes dedicated and um an invested Educators and administrative staff to be there to help support and to allow kids the opportunity to participate in these sort of events at their home school and my gosh the kids were really cool too they were running around literally running through the halls of Fall Creek Valley to bring music to judges to get uh to get supplies where needed um and it was just a really impressive thing to see so that's my comment thank you um I would like to add a few things again thanks to operations curriculum High ability committee um and our jump start team um and I feel like the Oscars I've missed somebody here but thank you and thank you to everyone I see other people sitting out there have been working diligently as other cabinet members and thank you also for what you've done um thank you to um Cora Garcia for bringing your best to us thank you powers and son for always bringing your best to us as well we appreciate you very much and are so glad to have you with us tonight um I I think it's no there were over 700 people at the gala 757 we reached our goal um I RMC yeah Rafael Sanchez is gives of his time to do that for us every year and he's fabulous and in costume just does a fabulous job for us um I will also say this evening a little personal privilege we've got some free tickets to the Indianapolis Symphony this weekend and I really want us to get that message out to our students their free tickets you have to apply for them you have to go to the iso website to apply Indianapolis Symphony website it's a collaboration with Sphinx which is an organization devoted to collaboration with diverse musicians and Symphony musicians and they're really great concerts and you know when was the last time you'd go downtown go to a free concert you know go around the corner and get a hamburger and get out of there for 10 bucks so you know it's a good opportunity um and uh Dr Smith I'm gonna leave the rest to you and I'm going to be real short uh it's NCAA tournament it's March Madness Grant Elizabeth I'm an IU Hoosier everyone knows where I'm from but it's even more special but another team knocks off my Hoosiers and Nigel packs a part of it so if any of you watched last I stayed up late last night to watch the game was bittersweet I love IU but I love Nigel Lauren Central bear beat us last night so it puts things into perspective for the young people the talent that we have in this District but I won't let I you know much recruit those kids on your team so we can win the game so I I did go on the record and say that I hate I know Boilermakers you guys are struggling also losing okay we they lost but it was even harder watching my kid beat us but it's bittersweet so Lawrence Township Kudos Nigel pack is on to the Sweet 16 let's be a fan for him went to school here all the way through so we're gonna cheer him on so that's all I have today Madam president love public education all I have to say I just have one more thing okay got our meeting we've got another meeting scheduled for you I know you're going to want to be here Monday April 10th 2023 and guess what it begins at 5 30. so I apologize again for all of you that had to wait for me I'm glad I lived close thank you have a lovely evening um do you have a motion to adjourn so moved we are adjourned thank you oh my goodness it's the end of the month meeting I'm gonna come in at seven o'clock I know but I'm still gonna uh I know we only had one but March is one here you go yeah and I mean Nigel shot down IU last night he made several big shots he killed it he did he did you know what
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[Music] Good afternoon and thank you for joining us for the Committee on Education. Today is Monday, March 20th, 3 o'clock PM. We will be recessing the committee on education hearing until 3:17 to hear the joint committee on higher education and education at 3:15 and then the joint committee on agriculture and environment, education, and higher ed at 3:16. Once again, the committee on education will reconvene at 3:17 following the conclusion of the aforementioned joint committee hearings. to call the joint committee hearing for with the committee on higher education and the committee on education to order. Today is March 20th. It's uh 3:16 p.m. Conference room 229. Uh we have our 3:15 agenda item on House Bill 12:04, House draft 1. But first, uh this meeting is being streamed live on YouTube. I'm not sure why we don't have a recording on this, but in the likely event, we must abruptly end this hearing due to technical difficulties.
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indivisible with liberty and justice for all thanks for everybody addition to the agenda get our emotions so well yeah all those in effect most of the best slips foreign patrons Communications you have a thank you note machine from Carolyn Brown family for the donation of memory of Helen Boland Carolyn's mother to Leroy Fire Department yes administrator reports I've got a question for government nope is a little bit lower but like I mean so we had some discussions before because we had a service area before so you know like some teachers were uh you know I told them like people that haven't signed up and then like some teachers and they came out a few teachers were like well the parents just said like they're good they'll do that and I'm like I would just encourage them that we still really we want to have those conversations so you know do I think it probably had a little bit of impact yes but I think our teachers did a pretty good job of still trying talk about making it much easier for the teachers I mean I don't know like you know we try to like survey if you're interested in his eyes and most people seem to I thought it was super easy it was just remembering to log on to do it but I thought it was super easy and it was it was nice since I have two kids to be able to fit times that we could do back to back and on a match that we need so yeah like the emails will go out like I mean we wouldn't can't imagine what it wrote yourself video about because you too are having like fourth grade will be theirs first and like this is kind of the first time first ever after that like trying to get it and then be like you know it was a second grade teacher might put hers out you know they always Mark the siblings so they know but then like draft three draft four I mean like those shapes that were in with this kind of put in the parents had like if it's important to you as a parent to have back to back you probably should get on and sign up sooner than later and you know I didn't have anybody complain that I don't know that we had everybody that had to come both lines I don't really think so but um you know if that was if that's I mean I think that's one thing over time was but the parents realize that's really important to them then they'll probably not put that off to yeah I really liked it I thought it was there I mean that it worked really good and like I said one evening with Stewart and I just kind of set up the mention the door kind of asked people thinking about like I was going to the assignment process and everybody's like really good so that's kudos to pregnancy because um we're kind of talking about one of our um in service days or this afternoon Nikki said well let me see I think Sarah we're going to do that and she got with uh Craig and he had that for us and um they made the flyer but the step-by-step directions which I thought was really good for the parents and they seemed to get really good so I think it will continue yeah and then just keep trying to encourage people that we we want to you know have those conversations basically but he's sharing it and we're usually pretty strong so okay anything else regarding yeah okay Matt is not feeling well today about your party goes so he was out today it's not the way you want to start but coming back hope he feels better and we'll be here but if you have any questions you can just uh let me know or email me or email him either way thanks for giving me that please sorry I saw someone else had one and I'd like they're missing out yeah the only thing I let you guys in the loop is if you've been asked about last year's yearbook um it is still not completed and it should it won't be delivered the 21-22 yearbook until the same time as this year so remember he'll be in August so just a few so you can pass it on I'll pass it on and working with our sidecastle members so that they know they can pass that on too because we you know it's frustrating um I know that they don't have it so but it's in the works and you have a new crew yearbook working on this year's yearbook so you have the sponsor that's advisor that's trying to take on the pages and so um we're working with him on that he is an advisor and what the kids do is what the kids do and it is a kids publication and what they get done is what they get done so we're working on that he's he's new to it um so just heads up on that so I know it's been frustrating for some parents that have paid for it and don't have it so but it's in the works it's coming it's just so that's your safe bet your safe answer anything for our special education things always Staffing more 10 to 10 plus short um I think I've got a resignation coming I've got a hard word of so not uncommon this time of year partially because we have people who start looking for summer work and if they they start early or not um it's also a really bad time of year with State Testing and field trips and that stuff so um I mean people are surviving but that's the best I mean it's a lot less than the where we were at the beginning of the year but it's still essential uh technology report great you know anything else not in addition to what's the most reported Mr Marshall Okay I uh put together a PowerPoint um and if you could pull that up for me Christy thank you um I thought it'd be really interesting to kind of see just some things that we've done this school year and things that we're looking to do over the summer and I I kind of I was reflecting on seven years ago when I first took this job how times have changed in many different ways but we used to do projects in the summer all the time summer summer that was just our time it's different now because of labor material short shortages and things like that so we have actually gone to doing some projects whenever we have breaks Christmas break spring break so anyway so having said that um here's a list of just some different things that have occurred um I don't think we would have ever have thought maybe about trying to tackle the fields of projects uh in the winter and thank goodness it's been a great winter weather-wise so um yeah to go to that thank you very excellent next slide yeah and uh again completing February 2023 this will be the start of the third week for the girls on their field Turf uh new new uh it just is incredible out there we will have an open house type ceremony you know as well we're working on planning that to take you know for baseball and softball here very soon if you haven't been out there just let me know there still is a construction zone going on so they're a little yeah they will ask you if you happen to wander out there they may ask your name are you here for a reason or something along those lines so be happy to take any of you out out there again continue on next slide just some pictures we've got some windscreen kind of that branding piece going on out there it just it looks it looks tremendous big kudos to oh gosh Taylor was involved in the windscreen and I was involved Parker West Brad Griffin and Brady nordstead we're all involved that was a little bit of a challenge but we did quite real work on it so anyway right no yeah oh yeah oh yeah definitely yeah the old and the lights are done out there again projects again never would have thought about doing this in the wintertime because you're just scared the death of dinner but thank goodness it was a good winner for us enough the lights are done the only thing that's not done is the scoreboard so anyway next page next slide baseball they they were on today a lot of happy baseball players they they uh decided it was an upgrade from Kelly Mark it's a huge upgrade from Kelly Park uh I've got some pictures and everybody if you follow me on Twitter you'll see some pictures ever some kid they were just rolling down the turf and they had pictures down with their faces at home plate and it was you could have thought it was like Christmas I mean it was just incredible and they had a ball today out there and they're looking forward to bigger and better things we just did get completion substantial completion Taylor and I met with them today so this was their weekend their first day out we haven't gotten our windscreen up out there it's the same as the girls on the softball field except it'll be Wildcats Burlington on left field Wildcats on the right and again their scoreboard's the only thing that's not them lights are done everything's good old sound system for about sound system it's all done out there it's all ready to go so next slide there's just some other pictures uh for baseball continuing on um let's see yes football stadium it's getting close Taylor we just found out today you know a substantial immigration baseball today they think they're going to be done in the next two weeks with with maybe two to three depending on whether two to three weeks so it could be depending you know first or second week of April they'll be finished um that's the view from the Press Box uh continue on please and then just uh some other pictures uh as well things were happening out there so fast it's like you go out there and stay and take pictures those pictures rolled they're out there Sunday cutting the lettering and big thank you courtesy to Ron as for doing uh some throwing pictures continuing on please he did some drone pictures of so they look really really good good um continuing on that one just it looks like gosh it looks like the professional look with those windscreen and everything so and then all three together very very nice so we'll have some drone photos once they're all done and we'll put some in here and even around so um [Music] uh anyway uh and they're actually able to practice I think you're able to roll around the track for practice now yeah right there's some obstacles still on the Far West corner of light woods and tarps but they're okay and it's the kids kind of know to slow down a little bit there I watched them actually today so but great pictures thank you we're on a Saturday I I asked him for one set of pictures over the elementary and I said hey by the way you can go over there if you want I didn't realize how cold it was outside every morning until I got out there I was like oh man so anyway thank you thank you thank you next pictures please um Mark big thank you margarito guys oh that guy works eight eight days a week 48 hours a day we'll tell you um so we go we go Margarita and Mark I was margarito's sidekick in the summer if you ever excuse me in the spring break if you ever want to know what the superintendent does part-time and during spring break it's worked with margarito he's the one here doesn't you know there's there's few people in this world that are known by one name Margaritas like Cher and Prince and you get the idea okay margarito is just the greatest duck we went out to change two light fixtures in the ladies restroom at the stadium at the Wildcat at the football stadium and we changed the map because the bowels had gone bad so they were just they were fried so we changed out the two right in front of the sinks there and he turned looks up there and he goes these look bad back here we're going to do them all so careers that we get about six hours seven hours later we got done with it but anyway LED lighting is in there we're changing things out as ballasts go bad again again it looks really really nice and they're really really nice continuing on so this is a combination project and I'm not going to show you the before pictures on the light fixtures up above because they were not in really really appreciate but this isn't though this is in the ladies locker room at the high school two things here the light fixtures were not in good shape at all you can see that they are replaced with LED lights we'll show you both here in just a second but notice also too our shower partitions we're going to do in this summer we're going to get rid of the shower if you've ever been in there or your kids ask you if you've got daughters that have been in the high school the showers are about four about five foot tall in there I mean so it's it's too low way too low and those partitions if you're even close to being any type of claustrophobic whatsoever you won't go in that shower because again it's a pie shape figure and you got the center pivot for the water it's it's not good at all we're going to do what we have as far as with the middle school and the high school the showers that we did you'll see some pictures here and it's going to be so much better so you can kind of get a feel of a visual of what it looks like I don't I mean it's just uncomfortable when they're completely uncomfortable so the showers are going to go on the walls and they're going to have again shower partitions with curtains it'll be so much nicer in there you can see the two new LED lights really really nice continuing on so that'll be a summer project Cooks Plumbing is worth looking to work with us on that we started changing how the band room lights and we didn't get very far that was one of the projects that got put off to the side because there were some that took much longer so we only got three lights changed out of 35 but you can kind of see the difference in the in the light in the light the new light versus the old light so we're going to work on doing that here into the summer this is a project that you guys have approved for the cafeteria flooring you can see it's uh it's time that floor is just it's it's hot it's tired and so continuing on there just some different angles there so uh Jody worked I think Jody and Taylor worked on the the new design of the floor and that's what it's going to look like it'll have a red perimeter and then the middle will be similar to our hallways and Wildcats in the big big block letters in the middle so kudos to them for creating a floor that will be I mean just that would be really really nice really really nice matter of fact uh John McCallum were guided us the flooring with uniforms that uh this will be a wow thing if you go and say I'm impressed with what you come up with and so it might not be an epoxy project no yes yeah and and the epoxy project he has done has called it looks it's it's the real thing it's the real thing so anyway continuing on so this we did this in December 2022 is these are the shower stalls we did this is what's going to look like instead of that Center pivot and the girls they'll have their own individual showers and we raise the shower height like you'll notice on the picture on the right to shower height up they put new fixtures there so we need some like seven foot boys to come in here and be really good at maybe basketball or whatever so I think at Shoppers that are taller in there so anyway continuing on um margarito and Tom Burris uh our high school custodian myself we put up the batting cages for the indoor practices in the in the in the wrestling gym now one new one from the rec center uh the one on the right is the black netting is the one that we got from them so they will if we ever have thunder lightning you can't go outside and you've got inside practice covered so continuing on the Middle School faction that's the other epoxy flooring project I've shown you a few pictures on Friday notes getting rid of it's all carpet in there carpet as you can see it's Stained It's tired it's time so we are going to again replace the flooring with the epoxy that was something Ashley Oliver was really interested in having the Cabinetry is going to be changed out as well it's going to be painted updated it's probably original to the the building and some some cabinet facing indoors and counters we're looking at just making it more up-to-date modern in there with some of the summer project this year continuing on is this is what we did in December of 2023 here this past winter with Cook's plumbing and again this is what we're kind of looking at doing again um you know in the in the gross lockers of high school so Elementary School um we are going to do a couple of projects this year and again because we weren't sure exactly what was going to happen with um with the potential ability with the chip project whether the elementary school may or may not be needed for other option there possibly uh with with the with the chips project we have been kind of holding off and doing a few things to the elementary school so there will be some things next summer that we will definitely plan but one thing we're going to do is remodel in the office it's going to be carpet paint new countertop there or uh Center the counter and um Darla and Sally uh they need some new furniture man I I think I think Mrs long is really causing him to grind in there look closely this is the picture of both of their desks they are taped oh my goodness it's time it's time so they are again we have a bid today from navrats out of Emporia that you will hopefully look to approve But continuing on they'll get new furniture the uh the elementary school library will be the last library for us to get remodeled in their uh Darla and uh Julie templemeier that would the representatives they have I think from school specialty yeah to put together a proposal again new carpet in their paint new book okay so some of the bookcases are in sad shape and it's time for them to to be improved and updated so continuing on this again thank you courtesy to Ron for the Durham photos this is a possible option so while Mammoth is here I just said just give me ballpark figure what would it take if we were to say for example so look over where the elements we're assuming where the daycare playground is that's that square concrete square with the turf in the middle I said what would it take to potentially look at doing field Turf in that rectangular area so it in terms yeah do they immediately be filter but it's going to be playground um so you're again you're thinking about I'm going to get every point so you can kind of see my turn so in terms of thinking about I'm going to say from right here all the way over here to the the fence and this rectangular area here so it's just this this whole area here it's about 40 yards wide by 50 yards approximately so if you're trying to think of half of a football field and our football field costs about 1.2 million that area there with playground type field Turf has been it would be about 250 000.
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amazing night to comments so let me see we will talk about and get back to you after yeah okay thank you uh so thank you have a couple of comments um and a few questions um so I'll skip the part about thanks for your leadership and continue success um last week more than half the members of of this board seated in front of me uh attended meetings which constituted a legal Quorum so uh the open meetings act Illinois statute 5 ilcs 120 which is known as the open meetings act requires that advance notice of any meeting that has four or more individuals for a a public body such as a seven-member body give notice they met not once last week not twice but three times in various locations including on school property via zoom and at a local business with board membership totaling six members present one meeting five members and four members including the president and the vice president before me per the reference ACT public notice prior to the meeting is required when a board meets to discuss public issues namely this board has set the precedent and I saw walking in having physical postings of agendas minutes making recordings available as well as these items posted on their websites this applies to regular special and emergency meetings per the statute to quote the statute its citizen shall be given advance notice of and the right to attend all meetings at which any business of a public body is discussed or acted upon in any way this required notice was not given for these public meetings as a publicly elected board this is unacceptable disregard for procedure misalignment with State statutes and brings to question the ethics that motivated this breach I will be filing a complaint with the Illinois General Assembly regarding this breach of the statute here are my questions for now uh more to come as we see the agendas be posted the minutes and any recordings to president Frost during the meeting titled Town Hall in which you facilitated visitors questions regarding policy Finance special education Etc you referenced Stevenson owning the ELC can you please elaborate on the ownership of the ELC for the public secondly Mrs Ben Yosef and president Frost you each offered a parent on the call a tour of the facility which I assume means the Stevenson High School was this done as an individual as a board member or the board as a whole or as a candidate why was Administration not part of the call or this offer finally vice president nyalt you stated that this board handles Finance is different than other school boards referenced as competing districts local districts feed Industries specifically referencing application District you said we quote worked hard to keep maintenance as part of the budgets so we didn't have to go for referendum quote we just have a little bit different philosophy rather than putting off repairs and things like that so we don't have to go and ask for more quote we can't tell 102 how to manage their funds is this board opposed to referendums in local feeder and other neighboring districts are they leveling charges of mismanagement of funds or are these comments made as an individual not on behalf of the board or are they made as a candidate for an election again do we statements refer to whom to Stevenson to the board to an individual I sincerely hope this oversight was a series of flukes and not indicative of what typically goes beyond when Beyond close doors when the public is not watching I shouldn't be put in this position to call your attention to this but this is how taxpayers keep those who hold the public administration accountable to the high standard accountable themselves thank you and have a great evening thank you um okay we can we will sit down and talk with you later I guess the short answer is we've been advised by our Council that when we're meeting on campaign stuff and we're not meeting to discuss school business or take action that it doesn't count as a public meeting and we can go back and talk to our Council if that advice still holds but that's what we've been told which is why we can go to campaign events together we're not conducting School business um and we can meet after the meeting if you want I don't want to sit and discuss I mean the same is true what you're asking but we're happy to be with you and talk back um any other comments okay um we get to the best part everyone um I hope all of you are doing well definitely am with the extended period of light and uh seasonal depression out the window uh so I'm ready to get started I'm ready for spring break uh it's gonna be it's gonna be good so I'm going to get on with academics uh so just a general gist of what happened over the past month Science Olympiad team uh won first at the you've had an Invitational and earned 14 medals uh which is a very high accomplishment and then Stevenson HOSA participated in State uh last month or earlier in March and 67 members will be advancing the Internationals so that's awesome as well along with the 27 students who will be advancing the Nationals from BPA so a lot of people will be having fun competitive trips this summer so looking forward to that political action Club recently hosted a campaign fair at school where local candidates came in expressed what they what changes they want to implement to students which is like a great way for civic participation and just to know what is going on within the community and within the government and then science reach Club also 23 members qualified for state and then recently the junior has participated in Isa testing so those are just some academic related things that happen and then going on to Athletics we had a wrestler placed third for boys state finals and then a female wrestler placed fourth at state finals so that's a great accomplishment and then the voice women dive team they placed third at state that's actually a picture of them to the right with their medals and then their trophy as well and then boys basketball won regionals for the fourth time in a row which is just a very crazy amazing accomplishment for them so moving on to Arts we had the marching band visit Orlando and they performed at the Magic Kingdom Parade which is awesome like I remember going as a little kid and seeing all these like for I was like terrified of like Mickey Mouse like the cartoon ones like I was okay with the cartoon but when I saw it in real life I just cried um but the parade was always a cool thing to watch because I used to live in Florida so I'd go every year um so I bet they had a great time with that and amazed all the people watching uh and then choir students performed at the winter choir concert putting on an amazing performance along with band students who performed at the Winter band concert which took place over two nights and then this one I actually really enjoyed because I did go to this one my friend was playing like the therapist teacher kind of role but the Curious incident of the dog in the night time it was amazing production um I knew the black box was a small space but they really used that space to the max like the whole like Star thing and like the um helpers as well like lifting him up into the air it was a very very amazing and just inspiring piece and I've heard a lot of great feedback from teachers from students from family members as well about that so it was really cool to witness you know it was sold out all for you yeah I was sold out all four it was amazing and then Winterfest so I got feedback that the assembly was probably the best assembly ever uh we had like yeah we had senior showcase performers or the winner uh perform uh along with winter sports athletes being featured s factor there was just a lot going on uh so a lot of students had a great time watching that stuff at that assembly and then Winterfest as well obviously school dances are always a huge hit we had Inflatables dancing the silent disco like when I was a freshman I heard about silent disco I was like I mean dancing music in your ears people watching you but it was in school actually like you're gonna be surprised uh and then obviously the moshing waking up with a million bruises the next morning but it's all for the experience all for the experience okay and the kilometers for Kenya initially when we were planning this it was a brand new event we were concerned that everyone was just going to want to walk the complaint like oh running well like for three hours oh that's that's too much but when the event actually took place it was just amazing to see how many people were running whatever their motive was some people wanted to compete and win that first place others were like oh shoot there's people that are actually running I gotta run uh so that was really fun um a lot of people had a good time with the activities in the middle there was always something going on uh like teams brought some team t-shirts as well so it was kind of a fun new event and hopefully it'll take place in future years but we did raise over eight thousand dollars from it which is awesome because all that money will be donated to the agaza center so uh it's great to see how a new event like this sorry will be uh used to benefit the line of the children in rural Kenya who are getting exposed to technology and trying to prepare for the workforce you're probably wondering what is that picture on the right uh so two three days before we decided to take a little Home Depot trip so for our little batons we're like oh shoot like tracking people kind of me earlier what can we do for Baton so we went to Home Depot we got PVC pipes but we had a great 40 of them and the Home Depot people only could cut it into three pieces so we were like um can you teach us how to use the machine like we'll do it uh so she was like sure whatever so we did manage the saw we saw the PVC pipes into 40 equal sized pieces we had a use some math skills to do that but that was really fun then we got poke bowls after for reward for our little Home Depot Adventure do you still have all your figures yeah and that's your showcase so this event was also amazing I had some friends that participated in it so I want to support them and oh my God like the one on the left that was the funniest thing I ever saw he was imitating he won the whole showcase but he was imitating a Napoleon Dynamite and did this dance and I don't even know how to explain it it's just he's very tall so when he did certain movements it was just like funny to watch uh but it was it was crazy I was not expecting that but everything about the show was great itself uh the host did amazing job keeping our attention the contestants were all phenomenal and I know it was a really great bonding experience for the guys that participated as well as they did many practices together so it was great to watch and I know everyone had fun participating it as well as well this event it was actually 24 hours which is crazy for kilometers for Kenny were like oh maybe it should be 24 hours but I don't know if people would be happy with us we did a 24-hour Marathon uh so hackathon was 24 hours they all had a great time and I know they were participating to win a pool of about 2 500 um so that was really fun and I know a lot of them were tired because they didn't get any sleep at all uh but even then they had fun they stayed away through pizza and other food and just hanging out with their friends and it was a really great time for them an operation black history month so this kind of ties with anti-racism and inclusivity week that also occurred at Stevenson um but the black student union hosted an event called operation Black History Month in order to unite the black community and also other members in the community and spread awareness about their culture by providing different foods having different games and it's just a great way to spread inclusivity and it is women's History Month as well so a lot of different months dedicated to promoting diversity and inclusivity within Stevenson and then salsa is salsa so that actually took place uh last Friday I believe but a lot of people had a good time it's kind of like a unique event to do um there was Salsa of the food and then salsa dancing so a lot of people enjoy doing something that they may not know how to do in their daily lives and just having fun laughing at each other dancing with everybody I know some people dance with people they didn't even know which is funny and crazy um but they all had a good time and also a great way to Spanish the or celebrate the Latin culture and then going on to some student experiences so I asked four different students about specific events that happen in their experiences with that so student a said shs hacks was a long but really fun event even though I got no sleep I had fun participating in the activities with everyone and competing student B said I really enjoyed the competitive atmosphere at the event so he's referring to kilometers Kenya so many people were running on the track at once and my team had a great time it was funny to see some teams bear crawling or wheelbarrowing after getting sabotaged so that was kind of like an incentive we had to get people to raise more money so you could technically purchase power-ups or sabotages to help you either increase your lab count or sabotage another team so one of the sabotages was a bear crawl where you had to like crawl on your knees for 40 yards I believe and then wheelbarrowing so like a person I don't know how to describe okay so like someone's holding them like this and then the other person's on the ground they're holding their legs up and then they're walking on their hands uh so just like a creative way to one of the sabotager stood been like Mario Kart for the banana peel over your shoulder we were thinking about that Mario Kart but I think that would violate a lot of safety precautions so we decided banana peels on the track yeah maybe maybe next year or maybe next year okay and then student C said being a part of senior showcase was always something I wanted to do since my freshman year it was such a fun and fulfilling experience to not only work with some of my fellow classmates but to have people come and watch us perform it was a night I'll never forget and I'm grateful that I was a part of students he said operation Black History Month was an event made to motivate encourage black students and to learning more about their Community it was a good experience to be able to lead and X and execute an event that impacted a small community of people in such a big way s thank you of course okay [Music] okay all right everybody um thank you one of the things that uh that we're really honored to do is to present our ambassador Awards one of the highest Honors that our school board Awards and so tonight we have uh the wonderful opportunity to recognize there's about 12 students 13 students bring me in a few coaches for winning the state championship for the chess team this year so we can get a big round of applause thank you call them in one at a time to come in and we'll get a chance we're going to do you'll you can have that individual photo uh when they mom and moms dance parties when when Steve shakes their hand and at the end we'll bring them together for a big group photo I'll help organize that so so here we go our first uh is zombie Adams Molly [Applause] turn around into a fixture awesome thanks Edward Italian [Applause] air again [Applause] roll it too hot [Applause] there's a picture okay so be a passion [Applause] that's okay [Applause] do not play Chess at that house route [Applause] thank you karinji Shiva Kumar [Applause] William Wang [Applause] Ray's son [Applause] and last but not least tugs yes and two more [Applause] we have three coaches to recognize tonight coach Scott Oliver coach Vince Springer come on in Head Coach Ken Wallick [Applause] all right so let me let me have you guys get in two rows put the coaches in the back okay two rows in the front so we just take one step out just a little bit so we'll get a group shot for parents you guys want to get up and get around to where you can get a good picture of everybody hold those up in front of you like this get a good one I'm gonna get out of the way look everywhere all at once so you're looking at the campus it's a good movie all right hopefully everybody got your photos now if I can have the kids stay here and turn around just gotta back up a little bit the board would like to know a little bit more about your experience so I'm going to turn it over to them there you go tell us a little bit about the competition what is the format yeah besides playing chess so it's a seven round tournament um there's 12018 from across the state and um Stevenson field eight players match um each board is weighted a little bit differently the first board has 12 points and then that goes down by one point so it's four to eleven points then 10 points gradually and then uh for each match we have to get 34.5 points to win and to Wednesday you have to be perfect you see that seven out of seven third year our third time in four years the one year we did it when it was like the pandemics are you a long time test players like did you have chess boards in your cribs or some of you you were arrivals to the game um yeah I feel like most of us have been playing for a long time some of us spend more time than others I play more than you yeah he plays a lot um I feel like probably like one to two hours a day so how many of your graduating seniors here a lot anybody having a chess scholarship or no such things I am curious when you watch movies and stuff and you see chess players and you'll often talk about studying games that other people have played in the different techniques and strategies do you guys study fire games and more everyone's adding yes okay so this is really serious ly you don't have ratings like like they're all rated and when in the tournament if you play like rated people like is that is that how it works or no no for high school has like nothing to do with like the actual ratings okay a couple of separate so like technically they're all like high school ratings but like they're like very inaccurate yeah but so what do you what is what are the ratings so he's like 2400 which is like the best in the state probably isn't the country oh yeah I am number 10.
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Mike Davenport here Christopher Espinoza here Cheryl Fuller here Jenny hagstrom here Trey pavasich here Joanna Vasquez Drexler here here and Caitlin Vincent here let's please stand please I'm like the indivisible part questions uh the first thing on order is we need a motion for the Board of Education to approve the minutes of the February 27 2023 business meeting the February 27 2023 closed meeting the March 6 2023 Workshop meeting and the March 6 2023 close meetings so moved second Terry and Mike no oh sorry Chris I heard a male voice yeah Fuller aye Jenny hagstrom aye Joanna Vazquez Drexler aye Mike Davenport aye Nancy kopka aye thank you Ms Kerry okay we're going to move on to the first reception of visitors do we have any jewelry no slips no slips so we'll move immediately on to the recommendations and reports of superintendents Staffing and curriculum overview all right I'm getting there I'm getting there all right I'm gonna invite Rob for her good evening everyone from the microphone today uh we have Georgia and Keith who are joining us for our presentation we are prepared tonight to give you our recommendations for our staffing and our sectioning for next school year uh we made it through our course requests cycle for the students and figuring out which courses we're going to be able to run and how we'll staff those also looking at the additional needs at t99 as that program is growing our buildings so when we look at those in addition to some needs within special services at the buildings we're overall down our 2.0 FTE in the district so we're going to kind of go through the rounds here Gina is going to take us through a brief overview of some particular classes that will fall below that 20 line George and Keith are going to talk through some things about the courses Scots available to answer any questions about special services and then Jeff will close us out with the recommendations around Staffing for all of that so I'll hand it over to Jim thank you good evening this year we have an increase in the number of courses that are recommended for cancellation due to low enrollment we had a few students who wanted to take the course next year and while it's up from last year when we only had seven we have 11 for next year it's really pretty typical in fact many years before that we've averaged from 14 to 17 in 2122 we came to you with 14 in the year before 17.
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23 can I have a roll call please Mr Cerrone president Miss Doyle Mr Gatewood president Miss Johnson president Mr ploger President Miss simultane present Miss Swanson I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with for all item 4.1 is our winter athletic recognition and our National Merit semifinalist I should say so bored at this time I'd ask that you joined me out front as we recognize our winter athletes good evening everyone the board of education is proud to acknowledge and recognize the award-winning efforts and accomplishments of our students both in the classroom as well as those who participate in athletic sports of choice this winter season we're going to bring up our groups individually this evening our first group of winter athletic students to be recognized are the student athletes from Oswego High School girls bowling team this team has turned into one of the top contenders in Illinois after last year placing third in the ihsa state competition and this year playing fifth coach oakrin coach Breedlove and coach rezner at this time we would like you to introduce your team and students as your name is called please go forward across to the superintendent and board to receive recognition okay first up we have our senior Captain Laney Breedlove [Applause] also uh um being recognized but not with us tonight is Sonny Boker a freshman [Applause] a junior who could also not be with us tonight she's actually working at the bowling alley Pro Shop Haley Jordan [Applause] we have Junior Amber lymanstall [Applause] a sophomore who could not be with us tonight is Rhiannon Reynolds foreign and next up we have the Watson family we have senior Caitlin Watson [Applause] next up in the birth order is Junior Maddie Watson [Applause] and freshman Sammy Watson [Applause] we also have a special gift for Dr sparlin so I have a team book for you Dr sparlin I know you came out for sectionals in state and you're actually pictured in our book so I'm going to give you this as I walk by so congratulations girls [Applause] oh congratulations to our girls bowling team we'll go ahead and let you all head out and feel free to head out those Center doors there and we're gonna move right along we have all sorts of fun tonight our next recognition goes to a student from Oswego East High School who is a member of the Oswego Co-op boys swimming and Diving team this athlete placed third at the ihsa boy State boys swim and dive champion in the 500 freestyle with a time of 430.29 at this time we'll have our student athlete Chase Meyer a sophomore come forward along with his coach coach insulin to be congratulated thank you go ahead and greet the board members there congratulations Chase [Applause] our next big group of students here are our student athletes from Oswego High School varsity co-ed cheerleading team on their way to their first ihsa state championship competition the oh cheer team captured the school's first ever sectional Championship congratulations cheer for having finished sixth in state we have Coach Hill Coach Henry if you would come forward you're going to introduce your team and students as your name is called please go across the board and superintendent to be congratulated Junior Ava Brown senior Anaya Brunson [Applause] senior Janaya Chapman [Applause] Junior Miranda cook [Applause] sophomore Sabrina Davis sophomore Briley Elizondo Junior garlic Jaylene Garcia [Applause] sophomore William Hawkins senior Connor Kehoe [Applause] senior Madeline Kohler [Applause] senior Sarah Nolan [Applause] sophomore Isabella potasnik [Applause] senior Sam potasnik sophomore Natalie smirowski freshman Gia Smith Junior Ava Smith sophomore autumn streisek freshman Bree Thomas senior L Tweedy [Applause] senior Abby Vilma senior Samantha Wade and Junior Rachel zwemke foreign coaches go ahead and proceed through the line for congratulations and then we will celebrate you one last time before you head out okay you guys can head on out congratulations our final group of students for our student athletes are from Oswego East wolves boys basketball team this team finished the year with an impressive 29-6 record a Regional Title a sectional title and a trip to the super sectional where they gave an eventual class 4A state champion Moline their biggest test of the tournament losing by Just Four Points Sun Times High School sports editor Michael O'Brien's Final Super 25 rankings for 2023 placed these wolves in fifth place overall tonight we have yes [Applause] coach Vasquez and Coach Mo are going to introduce their team and then please proceed across to be congratulated team manager Junior Simone Lockett senior Mason blacko [Applause] Junior Austin Karachi [Applause] senior Micah Gatewood [Applause] senior manager Patrick Holt [Applause] senior Tyler Jason senior Geo Johnson [Applause] senior Ryan Johnson [Applause] senior Makai Lowry [Applause] Junior Noah Mason [Applause] Jr Brayden Murphy [Applause] sophomore Andrew Pullman sophomore tauren Ross [Applause] senior Bryce Shoto [Applause] Junior Aiden Sims [Applause] Junior Javion Starwood and Junior Andrew Wiggins [Applause] awesome [Applause] thank you gentlemen [Laughter] okay our final student recognition for this evening is our group of students from Oswego East High School who were named our National Merit finalists these individuals are chosen based on their abilities accomplishments and potential for success in their rigorous College studies we have three students two are joining us this evening we have Arjun Ramesh is not here Nicholas Rondon please come forward [Applause] yes [Applause] Nick we're going to have you stay right there in our very own board representative here Anya Roy congratulations [Applause] any of our OE admin would like to join us up front we're going to do a photo with these students in our board and Dr sparlin thank you stay there we got some parents stay still [Music] you can head up there we'll share the photo with you I promise go on up here all right congratulations all right board stay put we're going to do a switch here we need to go ahead and excuse any of our remaining parents that are here for those unless you'd like to stay and we're going to welcome in our pride recognition awardees and their support crew thank you you're welcome there's cheers on the other side too feel free to sit wherever you'd like it's just one big party tonight okay so we're gonna move on to our pride recognitions our March Pride recognition tonight the Board of Education acknowledges Pride winners for the month of March Pride does stand for proudly recognizing individuals demonstrating Excellence the Board of Education implemented this program in the fall of 2015 to recognize promote and celebrate the many contributions made by teachers and employees across the district our teachers of the month are sponsored by Allied First Bank this recognizes what our teachers do day in and day out for the continued growth and success of our students awardees as your name is called please come forward to be congratulated by the board and Dr sparlin congratulations to the following teachers for our March teachers of the month first Jen ogenbaugh special education teacher Wills Crossing [Applause] next we have Angela Clint we're a social worker Boulder Hill [Applause] thank you next we have Patrick Molinari our physical education teacher at Oswego East [Applause] and Jill snell a special education teacher at Wells Crossing [Applause] special congratulations to our teachers if we have any administrators that have joined us this evening we'd ask you to come forward to join the awardees for a photo perfect congratulations [Applause] and our next awardee category this evening is our March employees of the month this is co-sponsored by Chick-fil-A and Huntington Learning Center this award is given an appreciation of employees who go above and beyond and are always willing to lend a hand awardees please come forward as your name is called congratulations to our March employees of the month Zinnia sister I'm sorry I'm going to mess it up ceneros the Senate secretary at Wolf's Crossing Elementary foreign corbel our teacher assistant at Grand Park [Applause] and again if we have any administrators here this evening from these two schools if you'd like to join front for a photo thank you all you just want to take one moment to thank our generous District sponsors the Allied First Bank Chick-fil-A Huntington Learning Center and Culver's who helped make to this program a success and we invite everyone to consider nominating an individual for this monthly award thank you all [Applause] thank you oh my God I met simulton there's no public comments okay 6.1 superintendent report well good evening board uh tonight I start my comments on a very sad note as you all know over the past few days we've been informed of two 308 students who have passed away shaquel Givens who was a senior at Oswego East passed away on Friday friends said they will miss his vibrancy his laugh and his contagious smile yesterday many of us here attended a balloon release for Chicago at the release friends and family came together in prayer to say I love you and to support one another on Saturday we were informed that Oswego East Junior Jack Silva passed away unexpectedly I'm told that Jack was a hard worker he had the best sense of humor and the biggest smile the family has asked that any donations be made to elim Christian private Day School in his name as this is where Jack attended School we are deeply saddened by losing both shaquel and Jack our hearts our hearts and support go out to their families and friends as they grieved the loss of these two young men who will be greatly missed by their friends teachers staff at Oswego East and throughout our community the tragedy and the loss of someone so young impacts us all and healing requires both time and effort over the weekend we work to ensure we had additional help and support for students and staff as they process the loss together we extend our heartfelt sympathy to shaquel and Jack's families our thoughts are with them during this most difficult time and at this time I would ask for a moment of silence as we remember both jaquel Givens and Jack Silva thank you and I would Echo those sentiments Dr Sparling and our heartfelt um we our hearts go out to shaquel and Jack's family and we are thinking about you and you are in our thoughts and our prayers Ambassador reports um um good evening everyone um I guess just to start off uh echoing Dr sparlin sentiments I wish this wasn't the second time I had to do this because I had to do this once last year as well um but I also wanted to send out our greatest sympathies that I know the entire student body feels too Shaquelle and Jack's family and to those that knew him and like I said it's really difficult that we're having to do this a second time and to have to go through this loss I can't even imagine what their families are going through but nevertheless I wanted to share that we are there um and we're always going to be here as a community for these families and for those who have to grieve this loss um changing around a little I'm really sorry um so the ssac met this afternoon as well as a couple other times in the past few weeks to um finalize our survey about mental health um as we've talked about before we really want to focus on the many different facets of mental health among SG 308 student body so that we can really get an idea of what we want to focus on this year so our survey is split into three parts including student-to-student interaction student teacher interaction and building accessibility these were all really important to us as each one shows a different part of mental health we frequently discuss safe space because a lot of students don't understand what a safe space is and they don't know how to access them in schools so we also focused on creating environments where students could both successfully learn and talk about Mental Health um which we all decided was one of the most important things in order for us to succeed uh so the survey we made will have multiple choice questions as well as free response questions we thought that the free response questions were the way that we would get the most truthful responses because if we have multiple choice questions for all of these students who are just going to pick what they think is the answer rather than really letting us know um their honest opinions and we want students to have the ability to freely respond so we hope that when this survey goes out that we can understand a little bit more about what students are feeling like in the school building and how the interactions between students are felt by the students um so Caitlyn briefly mentioned that we will be administering this we plan to do it after spring break we were thinking about doing it before but the week before spring break gets a little bit a little bit crowded lots of tests so we decided to push it back a little bit through the ypar strategies for research that I know I had talked about before we should have enough material that the ssac will be able to disaggregate and upon that we'll be able to build some recommendation plans and provide possibly updates district-wide to students and parents um about what the ssac has been doing and the purpose of the survey and I know that we administered this last year and it was really helpful to get even more responses back from members of the community through the survey we want to normalize conversations about mental health within the school environment because a lot of the times when we learn about mental health it's in the capacity that we need to learn it and apply it elsewhere and while that ultimately is the most important goal that we have to take out of it um it's it's sometimes easy to forget that we spend you know possibly up to 18 years of Our Lives within high school and elementary school and middle school and while we're going through this educational process we're not highly like people dense environment we're constantly collaborating and talking and learning and we're growing here so incorporating mental health awareness within the classroom talking about how students interact with each other how teachers and students interact with each other and talking about how we build safe spaces within schools not just you know outside safe spaces but making a safe space within an active classroom these are important conversations we need to have in order to ensure that students are learning better and not making mental health aware is some sort of you know tagged on learning aspect this is something that should be easily integrated and hopefully through the survey we'll be able to understand how to better do that and in what ways we're lacking I think that's everything from us you have anything to add all right that's everything thank you what what about the board committee reports okay are we doing does anyone is it board six point so 6.3 board committee reports all right so um our board committee reports are included in board docs for any Community member who would like to see them um I'm going to ask at this point if any of our board members have any questions regarding those committee reports and if not I'll just I'll just ask one question um I I know the answer but I'm just going to ask it sorry uh do we know who owns our taws yet yeah they've not been sold yet I think so they'll be sold in April 4th and then we'll close on those on April 28th so I'll have that information then thank you appreciate it is that it more questions I just wanted to um give a huge shout out for the policy and legislative committee the undertaking and the heavy lift that our administrators and Ursula have taken on this year we are literally going line by line through the policy manual which is hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pages so um to both create a more updated and uh easier to navigate version of it but also to make sure that we don't really leave any stone unturned so I want to let um or I want to thank Dr Kincaid and Mr Bell and um Ursula and Mr Miller they are putting this is above and beyond anything they thought they would be doing this year it's a lot of work it's been a lot of extra hours extra meetings um so thank you to them and what we are what Dr Kincaid is also doing is on the on kind of on the side creating an updated and new um AP manual so um that is so important to have um an administrative procedures manual for our staff to follow and understand uh what the expectations are so I wanted to thank them for that we are trying very hard to get a full draft into the hand of the board as quickly as possible but it is the work is um incredibly exhausting and we are doing our quickest to get it there we also have a huge update coming with issue 111 so we don't know what is um what that is going to have in store for us so that's another um a lot of work so I just wanted to thank them and appreciate also Mrs Swanson who has dedicated a lot of time to this it is it has been a little uh a little overwhelming thank you to all of you who've worked on that we really appreciate it we know what a heavy lift it is like um Mrs Johnson said all right any other comments if not we'll move on to 6.4 board member comments any comments uh you know tomorrow is going to be a unique opportunity um we're going to hear from students in our Equity committee meeting from 5 to 6 30 and they're going to share their perspective on equity and so that's over at The District Administrative Center my it's a public meeting so anybody can attend and then I also um just one other quick thing I attended a student Forum last week after the Forum I was informed of a fast-a-thon event uh here's some more info please join us we go in Oswego East High School students in a day of fasting during the month of Ramadan faceton is a chance for the SD 308 staff students become more culturally aware and experience something new attendees are encouraged to fast for one day from sunrise to sunset and break your fast with dinner at the OHS cafeteria the event is on Wednesday April 5th between 6 and 8 PM for staff this will open it up and not open up an opportunity to connect with your Muslim Students and understand more about Islam this event is hosted to spread awareness of the holiday to non-muslims Muslims are you up for the challenge RSVP as soon as possible for RSP and further information please reach out to Dr Waller via email at jwaller sd308.org and she told me to April 6th April 5th April yeah I think it's uh it's a five dollar dinner but uh you know it's a big unique opportunity so and it's for staff and parents or staff and students and that's that's all I am uh March brings uh cashmere Pulaski and Cashmere Pulaski brings a day off for Mr cloger but not a day off in Oswego so that means uh I was busy making trips to schools so first of all thank you to our building administrators for allowing me in I'll try to be quick but I could sit here and talk for a long long time about everything that I saw but I won't I promise everybody um I visited plank I had long conversations with staff members there thank you to them uh for those those candid authentic conversations um I felt better afterwards but I don't know if they did necessarily but we had a lot of conversations uh the social studies teacher to social studies teachers and it was they were good in conversations I went to Thompson lots of positive conversations there as well there's a lot of Buzz over the district Festival um I know um there's some celebrating over there when it comes to the Arts as well and and they do great work there Southbury is very impressed with how much is going on in that school I'm always impressed when I go there to say the least but a lot a lot of things going on I went to East View uh wow um I helped move some equipment they put me to work which was pretty cool I walked in and I started moving moving some equipment for them um I took a mindful lap and listened to a student during that lap they had lots of questions for me uh to say the least um and learned a great deal about trains and Maple Water not maple syrup Maple Water there's a difference but I did leave there very concerned about Staffing shortages and how that's going to impact Eastview Academy moving forward and uh I always say that it's our most vulnerable students that concerned me at first and you can see and hear that if you go there for sure when you when you listen to staff and when you listen to our Administration over there it's it's I left there and that was on my mind for sure uh Murphy was another great visit and I sensed the theme if you notice with the Murphy with the Thompson I went to plank and every time we bring up talking about our students needs and um every time I bring up the concept of moving to a middle school model everyone's eyes light up with enthusiasm and it's something that I think we need to have serious conversations about here I know those conversations have come up in the past unfortunately if we're being honest one of the issues and and obstacles that we've had is that's going to take resources at some point um but we are moving into a place we always we we've been talking about this a great deal and we have lots of staff that are doing great work at our junior high level but if we are going to really address some of what we're seeing on the social emotional level um I I cannot stress this enough that moving to a middle school model would definitely help us and would have a residual effect that would also help the high school as well um and I'm telling you that when it is brought up you will see staff members eyes light up please please they are asking but that's going to take it's going to take resources it's going to take um reconfiguring redoing things I think we have very talented people here who can figure some of this out it might not happen over I'm going to tell you it won't happen overnight there's no way it'll happen overnight um but um I I think it's something we need to look at especially knowing everything that we're dealing with so great visits great things going on again very appreciative that people let me in um I just again wanted to congratulate Anya I'm so incredibly proud of her and um and Robert as well and it's just such a fantastic um accomplishment to be honest with you just two things I wanted to bring up that I think are very important on the 22nd which is Wednesday from 6 to 7 30 uh is our next Community chat and it's building strong relationships with your children it's from 6 to 7 30.
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okay here Falk present I'm Phil yes Nolan here Hannah here rape here Gorman here I need a motion a second to approve tonight's agenda hello a thief yes bulk yes Hemphill yes Nolan yes pennar here yes Gorman yes all right please join us as we recite the Pledge of Allegiance thank everyone for coming out um first day of spring so it's pretty nice out everybody at home watching our YouTube channel too welcome um thank you for coming out tonight so we have some teachers with us tonight Administration thank you for being here um our vice president of cea thank you for coming out some of our community members and also thank you for those that are joining us remotely to move on a public comment we have a couple this evening uh first Mike McMahon a lot of item is here Mike McMahon yeah I don't know what else you want anything else okay all right a couple of topics the more last time I was in here I asked some money uh questions about the budget can you hear me okay okay I asked about the budget and um I'd like to get a direct answer that not sent to a website to look through everything else because I'm not going to find it I want to know about covet money and the money was allowed to you so I'm looking into it I want to find out more about that so that's another topic that I guess you don't have an answer for me this week right just look at the website that's not good enough for me I'd like to get some more Direction on that all right uh the culture blast oh Lord don't get me started on that first off I see that it's a mission it's a mission statement I'm going to look at the mission statement over here I went to that and I got um a lot of issues with that let me find my flyer on that there we go so I'm going to ask the board here you're incorporating more religious and cultural celebrations the school's always going we can't put religion in the school but right here it says you do so which is it one way or the other right I don't see crosses up in a building I don't see you celebrating Easter Yeah Christmas is fine but what else you're going to put in here then I have a question that says here opportunities to tell stories for transformation to take place what does that mean transformation of what what are we Transforming Our school to can someone give me that an answer to that when I go there I look at the booths the booths go we got this we got this we got that but there's nothing every booth there represents a country that wanted to come here for a reason but yet we don't have a booth about America and the cultures and when I ask students what it means when they say the Pledge of Allegiance they don't know so we're not teaching the kids about our culture because we do have a culture by the way okay we have a culture but if you're not going to teach that culture because what this is this is about diversity meaning division not Unity we don't want us having teaching diversity when it's about this that and everything else we're all Americans we believe they're same blood it doesn't matter what color your skin is we have United interest family monetary whatever it is we should be teaching what unity means that's the job of the school that's the job the taxpayers might be done okay now we can't do much about that in this election but we have board members going around the other direction we can do something about in the next election okay furthermore so let me see here so I'd like to know about to answer that why we're not talking about we're talking about division listening when I look at cities when I came from Chicago as a fireman there and I see that our city was so diverse but yet so segregated the more diverse these cities become and the more diverse we become in the schools the more segregated become when I was at the culture blast I noticed this group of people staying with that group of people kind of a natural thing the Pledge of Allegiance excuse me library books looks more like indoctrination when I look at things on lgbtq plus Z whatever it is I see more books there than I see in U.S history that's kind of a shame some are a lot of fictional books why are we having pornography in the libraries for kids things I can't talk about here we go and that would be oh you can't say that but yet I have things that came from the books they're pornographic material lbq stuff what's this all about what's going on here the citizens of this area 301 whether democrat or republican or independent are not for this stuff and this needs to change so if this is about grooming we're getting pretty darn ticked off about it a lot of things with the more I look into District 301 nice school scores you know okay you could use some improvement over there um I'm a little upset about when you don't include Township people when we're building the new school there's a lot of things we had to say about the budget because things are in that thing for the new school there's a lot of extra added costs down there staff there's going to be at a cost to the uh to the township for roads and so forth but we're on the table for those meetings I have questions on why we have so many new teachers coming through a lot of teachers being fired and what that's all about is that a budgetary thing what's going on there I don't know so a lot of questions a lot of things we're looking into and I'm sure there's other people that want to speak here but we'll do big things here because we should be teaching our students about becoming good citizens in a United Community not a divided community and furthermore pornography doesn't belong in our libraries thank you all right we have one more public comment Gene Meyer to think that everyone here might really know what's in the library and they still allow it so my name is can you hear me my name is Gene Meyer and I'm a Burlington residence I'm not a Burlington Burlington School District resident since 2018.
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call the the meeting to order or our our latest update on where we stand in our budget um I find it interesting that we have 12 million unencumbered I I understand that probably because of all the salaries and positions that have not been filled I do have some concerns that with all the negative balances I saw but I I'm expecting to be relieved and told that they're being paid for Grants or I'm sure there's another reasonable explanation I would like to turn the meeting over and to John Spang Uh Kevin uh I don't see you in there if you are please okay okay because I'm sometimes usually like to give an opening statement you are not on my screen John would you like to take it away sir yeah thank thank you Al um and I'm gonna have uh Ken uh Wallace here put the report up in a second uh here goes um but before we start on the first page what what I'd like to do something um just a little different uh this month uh because it's so late in the month you know we've been canceled um because of different things so what I've um what I did was I I ran some reports also through um today uh you know and shows the the three weeks that have um uh since we we ran the report the first time because it's it's a very busy time for us um A lot's going on and um the numbers um uh start the balance starts to go down pretty quickly this time of year so I thought it'd be be good to see both um but if Ken if you go back to the opening page I cannot I'm just seeing um someone's calendar here as a mom are you there Ken so reviewing Kenneth Wallace's screen which is yeah the culprit uh do we still have Ken now there is okay um well yeah there it is okay yeah we'll start with that one um so um I thought to um The Narrative is a little longer uh this month maybe uh because you have a different writer I wrote it it wasn't Eddie this time um and you can see there I I start by saying um through February uh 91.2 percent of the budget had been expended or encumbered and um doing the math that that would have left um but a 8.8 percent um unencumbered uh undesignated unobligated if you will and um in the in the last three weeks that number has dropped and when I ran the report uh today and you could even compare it to what's in the box are expenditures have gone from in three weeks from 66 million up to 82.4 million just to give you an idea of um uh what a busy month it is many of those are encumbered so the encumbrance has dropped have gone down to about 48 million and the unencumbered balance today is nine million nine hundred five thousand um and um operationally um what's what's very much challenging us and and um makes it difficult difficult uh to predict uh June 30th uh is uh what's going on at at the high school and uh what I mean is um we uh were you using a lot more substitutes uh than we had before um some of it's we're using teachers more for overloads uh if you remember an overload as a teacher if they're regularly scheduled for uh six classes uh we can force a seven class uh if a teacher's out on a vacancy or a leave or something like that so we we have we're spending over four hundred thousand dollars uh on teachers who are there just to cover vacancies and cover the enrollment increase that we've had you heard a lot about that when we presented the budget not only are is there a higher enrollment there but they're more graduation requirements for kids to graduate um and so with all that the day-to-day scheduling is is very difficult for for Dan and his staff the administration's complex now and what I say there in my my paragraph is um you know that that's the story of the budget that's going in front of the mayor in the city council as we've said we need more staff at the high school uh for all these reasons and and the enroll I think what I'm trying to say is the enrollment increase is there now uh it's it's been there we have struggled to keep up with it um we're hoping the budget would get us uh higher but it it just makes for hard to predict um day-to-day what's What's um going to happen in terms of substitute so I want to point that out financially that's the most difficult thing we're we're dealing with as we go through the year and it shows up in the line items the other thing that's important I think during February was that the governor unveiled his budget for next year so as everybody knows the way works the governor proposes a budget and then the general assembly takes it out the house in the Senate and they will and they're in the process now they'll probably come up with their own version of the budget that may be similar to the the governors it may be different on certain things you've probably read about some of the hearings they're having and they might add to it they might take away from it but and they may even come up with two different budgets one for the house and one for the Senate so there have been years we've had three budgets floating around and then they they bring them all together as as the session goes on and um I I forget what they call that but a budget will go back to the governor uh to sign or veto or reject or whatever but that's that's the process that's going on now and we read about it every day um the governor's budget though uh the way it impacts Danbury is uh for a couple years now we've been uh promised uh an increase in the alliance Grant the alliance Grant is our biggest Grant it's 21 million dollars and um or it's going to 21 up from 19 you'll you'll see it on on the page here but that's that's the state's answer to trying to equalize uh some of the funding disparities that are uh from town to town and community community some communities can just they can tax more than others um and this this grant is is very important there are you know 15 or 20 districts that get it and um they've promised uh Alliance districts that's what they call folks like us again if so we would get an increase of a couple million dollars a year for the next uh two or three years and the governor's budget does that it it sticks with that promise 19 million we have this year will go up to 21 million next year and uh I don't hear anyone talking about changing that the um what we would though is a little over a million and a half of that or almost a million and a half we'll need that just for the staff that are in benefits that are people that are in that Grant now and our predictions are that we'll have about uh five hundred thousand dollars in in new money uh so to speak um if the budget goes Governor's budget goes through a lot a lot of you know what what mostly what's in that uh right now our our kindergarten teachers we use that Grant to go from uh when it first came out from having a half day kindergarten to full day kindergarten and so instead of having one teacher teach two classes one in the morning one the afternoon uh you needed two teachers because it was obviously all day but this is how we paid for it so if you were to look into that Grant uh today you'd see probably about 40 kindergarten teachers um and so the increase will mostly go to their labor contract increases but they'll they'll still be a little left um yeah and and that money the alliance money comes straight uh to us the school district and you see we manage it like one of our grants um the other thing that that will benefit uh Danbury generally is a shift in uh all these things seem to have the same initials uh our state aid for Education also known as ECS or educational cost sharing there was some talk that started last year that said some districts are underfunded with this formula some districts are over funded and there was a lot of talk of of redistributing that pie of educational cost sharing Aid and the the governor's budget starts down that path there are you look at it there's some winners and losers of educational cost sharing we stand to gain from his budget uh our state aid would go up nine hundred thousand dollars now my own prediction is uh that's going to be hard to sustain uh because some of the places that are losing money uh are some of Connecticut's poorest districts uh in Eastern Connecticut so it doesn't seem like the formula is working and I'm sure there'll be some some uh a lot of talk about that but the educational cost sharing and all of the state aid goes into the the city coffers even though it's it's for Education there are other state aides that that come for other purposes there's Aid to pave roads there's aid for um a police act grants and uh other things like that but that those are all used by the city to offset the tax rate when it comes time to send out figure out the tax bills so yes it's it's earmarked education yes it's coming to Danbury but it doesn't uh necessarily affect our our budget and what what we get um specifically um but it's still I think in everyone's uh best interest to lobby and support that the more uh money uh we the big we the city gets the better off we all are so that's that's in there I want to point that out that would be an increase of 900 000 uh into the the town Revenue uh chest so um that was important in February the uh this month probably the most important thing I believe coming up um I probably next week we'll see the mayor's recommended budget for the entire city so the uh just to repeat the city Charter requires that the mayor deliver a city-wide budget I think it's the the first April meeting of the city council site might be April 4th I'm not sure but um last year and the year before uh the the board of education's recommended budget was reduced in the mayor's recommendation recommended budget in fact recall last year um it was 11 million dollars uh was reduced from what we had adopted the city council in their ad hoc committee the budget committee uh looks at the the mayor's recommendation it's kind of hard to do because if it's if it's lower we we haven't decided what we're going to do differently but uh they take up the budget I think it's the second week in April the date should have come around because they um the city council has to come up with a budget the first week of May their first meeting in May so it all happened fast I I've always thought that the here the mayor's recommendation was more important than what the ad hoc committee did with that recommendation so that we'll be hearing very soon um what's in in store for us okay so uh the report itself uh candijuana go to the next page that's the summary we've seen before it just um if you could go down yeah right there so the second page Ken with the the grid with the lines yep that's it um so uh yeah doing that uh myself it probably looks a little different than the way Eddie did it I wasn't sure you know we we've pulled this all up from uh our database and stored in Excel and um I don't think he was showing the lines like like I did uh but they're the the numbers uh through February and again what I said when I ran the report um today uh the numbers are are different I won't I won't repeat those uh Ken can you go to the next page yeah these are the line items and let me um John we're not seeing the presentation right now okay oh Kevin okay okay uh oh yeah I'm seeing it are you seeing it out I am I am seeing assistant I'm seeing it as well I'm seeing it can you see it Kevin I can see it now okay sorry about that okay so um to get let me um address Sal's question a little bit and um so we we've talked to you uh for the last few months about uh vacancies that we had unfilled positions you heard me uh describe how we're responding to that at the high school with uh overloads and the substitutes and where you where you see that money um appearing is on the line that's I think it's the sticks line down it says counseling and uh three or four there's a million four unencumbered there uh in special ed uh regular Ed teaching uh a million seven um I don't expect those numbers to change much uh between now and June our you know our teaching staff is in place it it's helpful for us um to in a year like this when you expect to see balances uh to also see what's going on with the minuses uh some of those are because we budgeted differently um it helps us know where to budget more correctly or more accurately uh the next year and if if you you'll start to add if you if you were to add them up all of our salary lines uh then back on the first page it was where they're summarized there I think we're saying a million six is unencumbered uh right now towards uh the end of the year and again those are from vacancies so that's um now when you when you pointed out the unencumbered balance that that's one of two places where it uh mostly comes from but the second place as you go down the page towards the bottom you'll see our health insurance about uh I don't know seven or eight lines up from the bottom and if you remember we're self-insured which means we pay the actual claims uh that are incurred and the way way it works is uh Cigna is the district's um third party administrator people go to the doctor they fill out a claim on a sigma form goes into Cigna or their doctor does and Signet ministers our benefits and all that but the claims that cigna's paying uh the doctors the hospitals employee reimbursements um we're we're paying those uh dollar for dollar uh every Monday uh Cigna has a direct pull from our bank account of whatever the claims were from the following uh periods and those can be anywhere from five hundred thousand to seven hundred thousand dollars a week um so it won't take long for that 6.5 million to to go down this is probably though one of the hardest lines to predict you remember the um last year we just couldn't get a handle on it it's just hard to predict some of these very high cost things that happen or how often people are are going um for care and normally it it wouldn't be that as difficult as it is now but we're still seeing ups and downs from covid and the pandemic in terms of people's care although people are back going to their doctors going to the hospitals like they did some of the effects of of the pandemic where people were including ourselves were uh stayed in uh stayed in our houses for a long time we didn't get some of the preventive care we might have uh some of the other things it that would have helped us uh those that's starting to Boomerang and as you talk to the uh Insurance in the hospitals some of the things they're seeing are things that maybe could have been prevented if we had more normal circumstances so it's that that that what's going on there it makes it hard to to predict so when you look at those two lines that's where the balance is is coming from which we now said was down to about nine point million uh dollars so um what I'll do why don't I just uh go through the grants a little bit and then we can discuss any and all does that sound okay Al or do you wanna yeah as long as we're on this page I'm okay I'm seeing several several deficits and a lot of them stand out to me and I'd like I'm sure you have a reasonable answer that we are nine hundred thousand dollars short in our custodial account and it's am I reading that correctly uh yes I know well I don't know if I'd say we're short there we have been um under under fun under budgeted uh for sure um I didn't I didn't think it was that I don't believe it's we've missed by that much 3852.
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The committee will reconvene to discuss any outstanding business at 3 pm on Thursday, March 23rd in this room 229. And a public notice will be posted on the legislaturator's website. Uh for those of you who are participating remotely, all testifier audio will be muted and video disabled until shortly before it's your turn to testify. And testifiers will be limited to one minute at the end of which the audio will be automatically muted. And if there's any other temporary technical glitches during your turn, we may have to move on to the next person due to time constraints. And we appreciate your understanding. Uh the committee does have your written testimony. And so uh let's see in the committee hired myself as chair, vice chair, senator Kanani, and on the education. In any event, we will start with 1204, House draft 1. Uh, first to testify on this measure is Keith Hayashi, superintendent.
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so not not as bad as I thought it could be an option now if you go forward one more picture thank you it you can kind of see there if you go by the Elementary playground you can see it if you when you're there you can almost see it on the picture there's a spot here where it's really it starts to get lower where the kids have just played and compacted it down here's kind of that yeah you got it right there there's kind of the high point and then down here it just it gets lower because this is where they travel I want to play kickball that type of thing so we have a lot of dirt now guys you know we got a lot of dirt we can haul in dirt and put dirt in there but we do not have any sprinkler system no irrigation we don't so we didn't pull in the dirt we can grow the grass but it's going to get trampled down and the kids will play on it it's it's going to look like that at some point in time is it one year two years three years four or five years I don't know we'll have to wait and see but what I do know is remember we talked stabilization a fee for stabilization for Turf they want that ground to be as hard and as solid as possible so let's just say we bring in a lot of dirt put it in a little spot we try to grow grass let's say we get a good stand of grass that kids play on it and they try and pull it down and it looks like this in two or three years and we say wait a minute we want to do turf they're going to come in and take all that dirt out that we just put on and they're going to charge us to take that dirt out so this isn't anything to decide on right now but we'll have some rain tomorrow maybe it will be really wet there for a long time see it's just really low so Darna when it gets wet out there then assume the kids just yeah we say that you know yeah or the concrete area the end down there on the very East End is their little old soccer fields do the kids yeah we use that that way East part like at play day yeah sometimes does teach construction out there but like in terms of recess we don't let them go that far because we're mostly up here watching the playground area they do like it after school they they can sign on the south um and they I would say they play mostly to about the area that Craig's yeah so it's just something to think about again no decision needs to be made um tonight but again it's at least something to consider I think again if you uh if we look at it what the cost is going to be and then how we pay for it yeah another playground of the north too that still needs some companies and there there it becomes a question do you look to almost say abandon that playground and all your playground area is in one spot does it become something that we look to I'm going to say abandoned and who knows maybe maybe it's just that's the way in my area maybe that's a Jones trust Grant opportunity to ride for 50 50 Grant um but anyway so uh then you just what are those cinder blocks block things doing there is that Turf coming up yes and we have waited and waited and waited for the company that did the play wreck to come and do it they're supposed to come the next this week it's either this week or next week the perimeter um had they had a perimeter that was kind of just rotting out and so they are coming in and putting in a better material perimeter if you will to a fasten it in a piece of the heat yeah on the edges it was it was right at Christmas break [Music] but by the central office so that they're coming in to do that and fix that um hopefully this week good question would the trees have to come out and return to that area I'm gonna say you probably would want to just simply because you'd have leaves and and branches on the turf and those trees don't really give us a whole lot I mean really the trees in that area I mean they're nice but boy they they're dirty they just leave branches I'm always fearful if we get a little bit of a windstorm they're going to drop on those cars and then you've got a you know a little bit it's a little bit of a liability issue um yeah I mean probably they would go I don't think that you you'd want you'd want to you know drop them on your new Turf so but anyway and they're on the inside of the fence anyway so then they would probably put a roots and stuff potentially out of damage to the church districts and stuff and I think we should support errors more on us okay and that's all I've got from this again I I cannot say enough good things about margarito guys so I made really you just he's dedicated Beyond dedicated to the district we have a lot of terrific ways and I don't want to just I hate to think about just one person but um I mean he he's he's up there all the time you guys you guys know I can see it if you drive by um anyway with that being said there's one other thing that I mentioned to you and then Friday notes about the instructional coach possibly looking at an instructional coach for our school district um we've had discussions in administrative teams meetings about again the change as far as the change of our staff the changing over our staff of it last year and this year combined you could put those two years together we're gonna have about 25 of our stats going to be first and second year people to us um we would like to try to look at at hiring I'm going to say a person who could be the the the the the model we're looking for as a retired type Master teacher hire that person maybe who knows us for three days a week to come in and work one day at the elementary one day at the middle my day at the high school they would work with the administrators in the building to go in and be a collaborative type person to work with support not necessarily an evaluative type person if you will or it's more of a person just to help support and make sure that these these these new staff members are teaching and performing their duties the way we want to see them the administrators would love to just that be the major focus of their days and every day but phone calls happen and you know student issues happen and and and the list goes on and on and they just aren't able to really I want to say really Dive In um I can see this being like I say again a three per three day a week type person um again I think it would be very very helpful for us I don't know if anybody administratively wants to chime in that person work in to uh I hear all the time and probably all to do about the AIDS that they never really did any training and just get thrown into the mix in the dirt you know that's the at any employer whenever you don't get any training you're pretty dissatisfied and you you need so could that person be some more of that to be able to you know everyone so I'll have some group a discussion like that'd be nice I don't know yeah I think that that's very possible yes I think that that's very very possible High School people up is going to start getting very difficult for us and the time that a new teacher somebody coming into the district no matter at their Veteran Center or not is the little the little things to find in that time but having that consistency of somebody that has as I was I spoke up in our meeting is is that I came from a district that it was mandatory that with every new teacher and then second year there were so many times per month that they met with them and it was that additional check-in well no with the instructions in addition to because there's some things that matter is like okay hey what what what is this when I bring trees you know that's a mentor type of question you know um what about that stopping it's been instructional is is goes above and beyond that I mean is that is that professional piece and so having that addition to because not always are we going to like in some of our departments be able to invent we have two science new people is we can't team them up with somebody in the Life situation and so having that instructional person that comes in just supports them you know feeding logins and maybe even having contact um you know the the textbook companies that there's just so many positives that can come from it so and just just wouldn't be for the new staff to our district so give me an example I could see like a day at the elementary school this person might be going in and working with the three kindergarten teachers half hour 45 minute time frame they go in and just watch and observe to each of those three then in the second half of the day maybe they're doing first-rate staff that's an example they just go in half hour 45 minutes and watch a joke give them constructive criticism and positive feedback and so on and so forth then the next day they would go to middle school they do set fifth and sixth grade teachers there or whatever the case might be the next thing I wrote was the second item I'll quickly mentioned is next year Jody and Taylor at the high school they will have all except four staff members that will be evaluated next year every staff member every circuit it's just the way the the the the the the right horse and the schedule has worked out for evaluations so they that someone will be twice twice in a year if they're new staff to us first and second year and their third or more it's just once in a year but they they're every staff member at the high school next year except four will have some sort of formal evaluation or two formal evaluations tonight so they're going to be busy next year anyway the only good thing I say on that since we do CLI and with our common assessments is having the time and you know at the high school a little different because we do have some Singleton people that teach only that subject but having them look at the intentional and practical um part of the assessments and our kids making gain so not just the state assessments but this unit assessments and things like that we can show gain in that way and having the time to do that so there's just so many different things that they're positives obviously I'm looking for it as usual but I think to kind of go that is on the special outside we meet on an evening I met with the superintendents to advertise a position that we call the compliance monitor is how I think it's listed um because and some of that's because of some things that happened at the state level but also because of new staff and being to really make sure all of our ideas are aligned but also we're going to go best person has time to go out and do training um which that may be training I'm writing the IEP but it could be data collection it could be with Paris you know what I mean even too it's got to be the right person and so not just anybody can have those tough conversations and be a good trainer and knows but enough to do all that but if we were to get that right person it just we're having such a turnover and we're going to continue I mean we're at that stage where there's going to be retirees I mean we're near two of a pretty good size group of retirees and um that's just where we're at and we're in with some shortages things that we're having to look at a little differently so you're looking at that position would be teachers and special education as well and you can when you're talking about whether it be full-time or part-time it is right now posted it full-time we'll see what we many other thoughts or questions on the comments also county-wide so they're going to have to travel to the others it's it's very and again a lot depends on the person obviously you're we all know getting the right person is so important and again I don't know we it could end up being a full-time person different districts do it different ways we could start out part-time it could be a full-time we could do an out some districts do hourly and set an hourly rate or they can do like uh like a base base a salary for a teacher because again this this person would would not necessarily wouldn't have creating they wouldn't have less than plans they would I mean theirs is going to be strictly again feedback supportive type um you know I say positive feedback constructive criticism it's just it's really going to be just a you know helping them to make sure that they're the best we all know how working you can make about teachers you've had that are just great teachers or kids have had that that have just have been great and just everything we can do to make sure that happens would just help make you know great things happen for students learning I think it sounds good it sounds like the administrator certainly like how would the teacher well I I I you know teachers don't like to be vulnerable that they're doing something wrong but it's also I think if done in a in a in a manner that is that non-threatening manner is that what they can gain out of it is this person can see what our teachers need professional development-wise we'll we ask we do do questions and say what do you think you need of course that's very personal to them but when you have an outside pair of eyes coming in it's like no as a whole we could be a better we can go from good to great um and it it's just the consensus it'll be it'll be a culture a little but um you'll you'll have a a few that might be resistance to it but it's it again is that hard conversations those conversations that need to be happy because you don't get into teaching to suck at it I mean that's in another way that's not you know that's not your goal um we don't always like to hear the construct this criticism but it's it's just part of it and that's why I mean lots of new people [Music] I mean we're talking about people coming into our district they're not going to be I don't in my opinion as resistant as Maybe like they've talked here a long time I got my business oh I'm here you know why so you know one of the people that we're hoping to support the most are those newer employees not that we don't want to support everybody but I mean I don't have any problem with them doing like exactly what Craig said like give me to the instructional piece of our job is very difficult when we're dealing with some of the issues that we're doing on a daily basis so I'm 100 behind it too you actually I think I've had this on those for a long time since I've been here um so I mean it's you know I think it's about making it a positive thing like that's our job to get our teachers to believe that that's what they're playing the point is I also think that's why the who isn't important and we talked about that on my position with the superintendents uh it's better to get the right person or to get no person if we don't have the right person and so um it's just that person's key and how they will handle those relationships and there would be some training opportunities for that if we forget for example we have somebody that was brand new to instructional coaching Greenbush offers some supportive training uh opportunities they also offer this service but it's expensive it's like if you want to go through them for a person and it's not it's not even as many as three days a week but it's fifty thousand dollars in that neighborhood this wouldn't be I don't see this as being a fifty thousand dollar position it would be negotiable based upon what it is if it's a 60 three days a week type job if it's a four days an eighty percent uh type job I mean we would take an hourly or based on the salary schedule those are just a lot of different things we can use anyway one of the positives too is that you know um because I have a ticket is it has one also is alleviating some time teachers want to be good at that they're researching and new methods you know it's they do build a professional development that this instructional coach is a person that says how can I help you and when they it's that's the essential question when the teacher goes oh they really need it that person researches it and maybe something if they try this you know some type of instructional strategy or whatever it might be and so if they're alleviating some of that in between where teachers their phone down and don't have all that time at you know 10 o'clock at night to research something like that so again I think it's the way you present it um and that all the positives that come with it I I appreciate that comment specifically because in my head I had someone comes to my room gives me feedback says try this and then left and I'm like yeah I got time for that and so if they go back and they do the research yeah that's well that's I appreciate it that's what I'm scared of power my cousin is a retired Master teacher Denver and she this is her like part-time retirement job now too is the same thing but um it's a lot of that experience too like getting that right person someone who has that experience to say online try this or yeah undo that research research I have I get lots of observations at my and then yeah that was great uh they told me whatever I did there but if there's more to that that's kind of what I was I'm glad you said yeah with any type is not looking valuation it's not evaluated but it is like how do you think that meant for you you know it's that person who has those skills and they said how can I how health can I have it what do you need from you and that's what that person's really for and then for us it's that collection of data it's like what is really going on our question we're in there and doing observations and no Journal walkthroughs but when that person is spending some specific time with with those individuals um we can get some really good information and collectively I think our district be streamlined so I think it's I think it's a good idea before definitely it's got to be the right person and if not then not at all because you can get someone that could be a great despise in here you know get to the feel for how all that stuff can be said but if the perception of what that person's really doing is is wrong with that so is there some kind of job you're cool I think it's definitely worth looking at so okay we'll start the process of creating I I've got some sample job descriptions and we'll look to open that up and see what type of Interest we get all right that's all I've got anything else for you okay moving on to board members Mr Marshall yes yes where are we at on hiring a new Bo AG teacher we had to put in an app that put out an application for an opening for a second Co AG teacher why not I have not heard from high school administration saying we need based on our numbers well my numbers were given to me last year by you that last year we had about 85 kids that were involved in one sport or another and we had about the same number in voag and I'm I'm not being critical of you but I'm challenging you and I'm challenging the administrators we just spent four million plus dollars that we had to borrow on turf fields and and they're absolutely beautiful I mean it's it's a heck of an undertaking and you did it okay and to take care of the students on those fields there's what 12 coaches and assistants probably somewhere in that neighborhood give or thank you give or take uh taken care of about 85 kids and we have one AG teacher one taking care of the same number of kids and I just don't understand why or can't you make this a priority to get another AG teacher because I I think we're really missing the boat for a lot of these kids and we're shorting them out of the opportunity to learn vocationally and you know the farmers aren't getting any younger agriculture is hugely important to this country these kids that can't afford to go to college or don't want to go to college if they come out of high school that's the only education they're going to get and there's a huge opportunity for them in if if we can't afford to get one maybe even two more AG teachers I think we could really supercharge our program start working on a school Farm and you would have as many or more kids that would benefit from that some of them will be the same ones that benefit fields but we got to start looking towards that and I know there's teachers out there and go to other schools and sounds bad but still a good teacher that's what we did with the one we got stolen from legal way but we can't overlift that and and I just that's getting away from us and it's I don't know does anybody have uh so I when we lost Mr Stewart I know that a lot of the AG kids did both of those programs right and I hear a lot that we don't teach our kids how to change oil well we have a very expensive lift and very expensive shop and a paint booth and all that stuff we just don't have teachers teacher and I would be hilarious if we hired another AG teacher then we'd never hire that person because the Clash space would be gone and I would love to do whatever we could get Doug Stewart's position filled if we can do turf fields like this we can we can do our vocational act program I have no doubt he wants a priority and it becomes a goal if somebody is passionate about it I think we we could draw just as many kids up here for for our vocational facility as we will for our Athletic Facility if I can kind of follow up here real quick and then if you hold on ahead real quick so I'll give you a quick example on Wednesday we have a meeting with hopefully we're going to try to we're talking about stealing where we have our meeting Wednesday that we're going and I haven't even had a chance to tell you because it happened all today you're coming you show up to work and you never know what's going to happen so anyway well let me call we have a meeting Wednesday and we won't say anything you know too specific but we have also included with this meeting two other partnership possibilities with this person that we could maybe end up with the next Doug Stewart that would would be off the charts great not only for our school district but also I'm going to say off the charts great for the community and what's going to start happening in this community I'm going to say with some housing I I can't can't tell you any more but you'll just say that there's there's something potentially Wednesday at 5 30 6 o'clock we've got I can't remember when we got this meeting I will say this on a positive note here big reason that he's looking to move and relocate here is what we are doing with our facilities here he has a connection he and his family have a connection with some kids and some families here that um are are competing athletically and activities with some other kids and families here in Burlington and so he's looking to possibly relocate because he sees the investment we're making not only in our school district but also for their activities our athletic fields and so on and so forth so enough said about that but we're we are actively looking to try to fill that position that position is a unique position it is that's I would say don't try to hire that combination person because I just don't think they exist it's not it's not a combination get the industrial Parts person hired like Lucas is talking about and get an act teacher hired the the next thing I want to make sure and I've shared with you information not only from the high school staff but also when you're looking at enrollment numbers I I rely on the high school administration and Donna Olin because they end in Crystal act and they are highly involved in in the in the in the student the student account and student population they haven't come to tell me that we need a second or third AG teacher they have it when you say we have one ad teacher for 85 kids we could say we got a map a person that teaches math at Burlington High School that has 85 90 100 kids each and every day they walk classroom so again that's not uncommon to have a teacher in six classes that they teach 15 to 20 22 kids in in their classes they're going to be in charge of 85.90 100 kids that's a totally different scenario I mean it's totally different I mean and it's teaching in so many areas and just for example if she wants to get him out on the road for competitions you don't have anybody to back her up in her classroom so I'll kind of speak to that so in our Sports the football coach is PE teacher but then you got a science teacher helping out and uh somebody else helping out doing class so would it be would we need to open it up for like a low act like maybe a competition families that are interested in in getting into livestock but they don't have a facility or or they don't know everything that we have the land out there and to start a school farm and the kids can build it I'm very I'm very interested in supporting all of our programs the science rooms when I first got here were atrocious yeah I just don't see that the intensity to get there yet that's what I would like to see I I what I need is I need people to tell me that it's time and I need the people to tell me it's time that we do this I will say this today and Jody and Taylor can attest we were in the welding shop today we were in the welding shop because there was something I was again when you work with Margarita over the spring break we we saw something that we didn't necessarily care for I'm going to address it immediately and then heck of a lot better I'll go into that my Friday Notes too the library but it's something that needs that needs attention but has never been brought to my attention I think it's out there it's just you have to look for it and I'll do my best to have people direct to you to visit with you about really they need to direct towards again High School administration that to me is that's that's the chain of command and also and and then they bring it to me like if they want to talk to me about that that's fine the the the classroom teaching piece really does come from Administration as well as the scheduling piece that's that's done in Poland I mean I'm happy to listen but if they come to me first I'm going to go back to them so the turf stuff came from you and there's no reason why an AG Farm can't come from you so much let me ask a question about the AG farm and all you talked about all that so my concern over the whole AG Farm thing and I know you said that for the last couple years we've been talking about that and I've talked to a couple schools have what happens when you no longer have this aggregatory you no longer have the kids to do this acworm who takes care of it then well if there's no animals in it at the time there's really nothing to care for I mean that's that's what it's for it's a program that you got available it's it's no I will counter your question what happens to our turf field if we don't have Athletics to play on it no doubt so it's a it's a risk that we take for our kids but I think the some of the turf field stuff we've talked about is the low maintenance that we're going to die that we believe we're going to have on that okay well there's not a lot of Maintenance in the school Farm if you're not using it okay I don't I don't know that so I'm just trying to understand yeah so so to me it first of all it you started out on a small scale um you have to have an AG teacher that has some Forward Thinking and and maybe that have seen it before and then you challenge the kids to begin to build it you know a pan at a time it's small to begin with and as interest picks up there's more pins and the pins are built based on what kind of livestock that they want to house and you know it just builds from there it may never get very big it may get huge you don't know but it has to be started so do you know some schools out there that have it right there you know when I was looking I found about 12 different schools in the state of Kansas that had School farms and of one sort or another I'm going to email my superintendent College because I'm interested I think we should look at a pros and cons both ways absolutely I don't know by just adding a ag teacher is going to solve anything well I think I think you're going to have to have another AG teacher if if you're going to start the school Farm off because I just think we would overwhelm one teacher I I really think she's overwhelmed at this point just trying to be in the classroom and then what what competitions they go out to and don't overlook those competitions I mean public speaking and things those kids are sought after for employment kind of leads when it comes to my mind immediately he's done and made a career out of him and got a lot of college paid for and I talked to Carl about the driver I very much Pro just different different activities or different different careers just such a variety of activities that can be harnessed up on so we we gotta we got this thing done we've got a lot done in our classrooms in our locker rooms so they think it's time to really start seriously thinking okay so if you could they'll do a little research we'd do a little research and get back there absolutely find out yes okay okay just because I said it forth on enrollment one thing I sat down with all of our teachers firms all day and and yes Julia's trying when you're a CTE teacher you there's so many opportunities no matter if it's business if it's in the interactive media if it you name it there's so many opportunities when there was no there were no industrial tech classes that that the large per class sizes now that we opened that back up because we will get a we have candidates we look at a teacher we're going to get this and um it even to back out because and you can ask her if she has trouble with some students that that they knew they didn't want to be Hands-On but it's not their passion so now they're able to flow back over here so what we did my background is heavy in CTE is I sat her down and said you have a four-year plan and I did this with our business teachers I did because we don't need to teach accounting every single year we teach accounting one one year and accounting the second year the accounting two and you alternate our kids can take a plethora of stuff in four years and get all of it done if our teachers alter me so we alleviated her schedule to where she's not teaching stuff in preps she tasks that album she also teaches allocative which we don't need to have her do but we let her do okay so if we started pulling Alley County we're going to start losing her because that's additional money for her right so we don't want that that's opportunity for our kids but you know online as an administrator I'm going to say well by golly we're going to teach all High School classes to get these in so we have to balance that out um ask for from next year's schedule she is balanced out and then for the 24-25 year she's balanced out okay so our kids aren't not getting anything they're getting everything they may need it's balanced out for her same with our other teachers so they're not overwhelmed the competition piece we okay we are using our full-time sub if we continue to use our full-time sub for the next year and I vote Yes um so that um the option there is when we get a sustainable person that in in ours is a museum are just amazing um that you get somebody in there that covers her class and get the kids in the shop right now I don't have that person to be able to do that once she's gone so some of our kids are missing on that time in the shop so we hear that we know it we're trying to have a solution for that so you get that person in there that when she needs to be gone she needs to be gone for kids she's the one that teaches them she's the one that coaches them he needs to be gone with them but also those other kids are staying back from that competition need to be able to continue the class so we're working on that we have the vision for that as for industrial Tech but the person we hope that this it comes through and um has it'll be great for everybody for our students for Julie for everybody how it works together for all of the department futuristic if I were to be a dreamer is that with the growth we're going to have two industrial and we could have two go ahead in the future just because of our growth okay we could have a residential carpeting person that's all they're doing we have the industrial Tech prison that's all they're doing now we have two teachers our kids everywhere but you guys be realistic right now we only have 260 kids we have 278 next year-ish pre-enrolled and we can't get ahead of ourselves in a moment right right so we do have a plan um yes and I would like to have all the information on the farm I know Allen county is the one that I'm used to they they when their person um I don't know if they passed away or retire I think what um they stopped the farm and that's college kids that I mean they they no longer do the farm up there um so it is a lot of work it is a 12-month job and there's a lot of conversation behind that great for kids though great for kids and I will mention you real quick too we we have invested in a lot of equipment in our auto shop industrial Arts our our welding shot between welders and plasma cutters and auto lifts and paint booth and restoration and uh chop saws and cordless drills I mean we the kids in those programs don't want for any of them until they it's just like you know again having a computer you got to have tools to be successful so we had done a lot of investing in in those because they are pretty much they're important and I'll I'll say this I haven't mentioned this before if there was just one question you could take if you're looking for General High School students in one class I think you're right in terms of like that FFA type where you've got public speaking and project work and math and presentations if you only enroll in one class at Burlington High School and it would Encompass everything that's probably the class that you would put somebody in because they are they're involving so many writing you've got to have writing skills you have public speaking skills you got to have math skills you have to group work so you got to have the ability to use your hands and and and and and and create things I mean I'm yeah I'm very much in favor of is there something if they go ahead is there something we can do to poll our kids to see what the interest would be if things didn't have facilities to have their own animals at their homes however they would take advantage of it sure is there a proper time that we could do that well that would be we did pre-enroll it what we did back when we did that's when we did the pathways which and so we expanded our Pathways by eight new health science I mean a lot a lot of new things happening um so we pulled them because we're not meeting the needs um and so yeah that I mean absolutely um but yeah it is uh yeah it's definitely something you can just pull the students because like even our animal science class this year only I think has three three four kids three hold so we don't even that you know so we have to we can't go on when you when you're enrollment you can't go on Trends you can't go you know if you not gonna say trans um fads like oh I'm just gonna do this because this is an hour it's offered or I don't have anything else to take like we've got to live longevity so we pulled the eighth graders to 11th graders and we always just need to keep pulling so we have that four to five years of what does that look like right we also have to be realistic and agriculture is one of them high demand High wage jobs we can't just offer things just to offer things we need to make sure that we're putting kids back out to the workforce right and we're preparing them for that and agriculture is not one that's going away um so you know things that we could bring in as drones finance and all that kind of stuff right talk about drones one thing you with with Julie she's getting certified to she can certify kids in AWS which is the welding so that's huge and so it's a lot of times a lot of effort and so you know next year we're looking that we need to know down the road and you can pull and you see that Trend happening and the kids say I have animals I want to do this but it's also commitment in the summer oh yeah and you've got to have somebody that that says hey I'm a teacher and I want to work 12 months a year I mean you really do you have to have that you have to have that those people you also have the kids because again I just brought up the yearbook I'm a brief opponent this is the student-led deal it's a student-led deal and it's not a an adult there that is babysitting it while the kids you know you guys are is everybody parents you know you teach your kids like hey look we're going to get rid of the dog you didn't want to feed it right so um that's what I mean but um but but it's true right and so the responsibility is but then but we also have to look at that that that trend line because do we have kids everywhere replacing that that will take over those efforts um so I mean it's it's a yeah no it's an exciting project um it is a lot of thought behind it I think this would be an interesting conversation to continue once we have the strategic planning session finalized because I do I do see aspects of it fitting into some of the conversations that my individual group has I hear a lot about agree a lot about the industrial work of course but I think it could fit in their son now so I think there could be a discussion for the future of strategic planning that's a really nice great discussion I think we'll look forward to some more discussion about later and as we get more information so any other anything else on that I just would comment that I remember us being in high school and our enrollment we is a small high school we had literally had 80 85 or 86 kids that I uh monetarily I don't know how we did it but we had two AG teachers and they were busy year round and and I can remember the the AG teacher was almost like your second dad and most of them were males then but he was he was your second dad and your dad wasn't helping you he was there and it it was year-round he went to competitions with us he went to livestock shows with us so it was it was made of a lasting impression on a lot of students and I also understand and maybe you can correct me if I'm wrong or um if if we get an an AG course or two in the junior high I believe there's State money available for those kids that go to high school as a freshman and enrolling boy am I correct um kinda partially no 8th grader or ninth grader intro course is funded and if I could attest to that okay it kind of runs that so um but you do get the that's we have the feeder program basically so that they if they're a freshman taking an animal science class then yes we're funded so anytime you offer and then we've been working we're gonna we're working on offering this industrial Tech position would offer something in the middle school so yes offering stuff in the Middle School like that gets their feet into interested so yes well I think that's where your numbers bill was when you start out in fourth and young and and tell them say that we'll probably see some of our Sports numbers probably grow in the in the years what we've done anyways very good thoughts thank you so then uh any other people on board us one so as I've been looking and actually over here I think margarito is a great I mean does a fantastic job in this District but if you think about the buildings and all the facilities all the stuff that he has that he's and he takes about the prize in what he does but he really doesn't have any help I mean uh and I'm I'm concerned about that not I think he's prideful enough that I've said it to him before you need some help you know I mean it's kind of like it's his baby doesn't want to you know mess with his stuff and I get that you know but but we're going to come at a point in time because I'm going to guess his age is about mine and he's either going to leave or you know I mean we don't know what his health is and we don't know and and we're going to be sunk I mean we really don't have anybody's going to have that corporate knowledge for all the stuff that he knows and I tried to talk to Greg and uh and margarito last year or two years ago about hey you got anybody that's in your Environmental Services or something that's really strong well yeah maybe but I don't really didn't really push it very hard I think it's time we have to look to get somebody in that in a position as an assistant or you know somewhat uh to be able to do some of this stuff and I'm certainly it's going to be there for another position but I I think I'm worried about in the future and if things continue to grow in the future we're going to be we're going to be in a bad shape if something happens you know James you might laugh at me for this and if you wanted to slow margarito down a little bit he'd be a super shop teacher okay we would but I don't think you could just look at it but I mean you could slow him down enough well if you took the way of all the responsibilities that he had and narrowed him up a little bit can you imagine what he could teach him he has a lot of knowledge with a lot of different stuff and you're right people he would but I I don't know Greg I think that's something we should we should put on the table and start looking at it because I mean it's going to cost us a little bit of money but we you know uh I don't know Dementors I'm sure that he works for those guys a lot and he's like wow can you imagine if all sudden he's gone I'm just gonna also say we've talked about that cross training piece because we've been faced with what happens when we don't have it right so I can't speak enough to how important that is but and also um not knowing I was going to say this so hopefully I still have to talk more but like his I will tell you like right now also it takes a lot of great time because the Craig did a lot of it over spring break and Craig has a lot in the summer whereas I'm sure that Craig's other job has a lot of stuff to do too so like um yeah margarito and I we were joking like we we uh I call my brother from another mother and I know he's willing to help but I don't you know maybe yeah and I know that Mark green was wrong listen to this or is going to hear about I said well I told you I didn't need any help right well I'm saying he does I mean and I'm not saying he does because he doesn't do anything you know what I'm saying he's he's fantastic but I think we have to give him some help and make him what what he knows getting someone in there that he is going to teach instead of this is my baby it doesn't need a porch forever right that's right there you go somebody that will carry on his legacy you're going to live out my legacy yeah sometimes that helps that helps you kind of give up a little bit so we want somebody to take on his life oh yeah we've talked a little bit about this and they even they're writing reports I've kind of shared with you but what we haven't done is put an opening out there for an assistant director James has mentioned we've had some conversations about this we've looked for some people that okay maybe let's say for example our custodial group is there somebody on a custodial crew that could be the next Margarita or the assistant to margarito and learn from him over the next two three four years depending on how long he's going to again either he may at some point time he may retire it's going to happen so that may be what we need to do is put an opening out there and see what we get um yeah all right I certainly I think I know he's doing but I think we have to force his hand a little bit that some hear someone that's going to be with you and now you need to train don't just let him wander off you're going to train him so so stop to take your job this is to train you it's all agree it's he he has a lot of electrical mechanical type background right and so we do these job fairs where we try to bring in teachers and that kind of thing where do we go we go like a free state that kind of thing is there something maybe we can go to a job fair like that or something like that you're like Hey we're looking for a mechanical electrical engineer type background affordable bank is there something that we picked since people or something like that that's a good point I'll check on that and see if there is um if we were just out of Pittsburgh state and even though it's education um people that were in that field and actually came to that as well because they're kind of weighing all their options knowing that they could get something in education so they have a great that great Tech um Institute there too so okay so that's just very much so like no way in agreement that we should maybe advertise and see what we can find out there it's all about her and I I will talk to him and explain to them again he's doing it terrific job this is not it's just it's we need to have somebody trained for for the future a second person you've got a lot of skills and buildings and talents to share with somebody buying a lot of equipment died 30 years being like I remember the thing is is once he once he hits a couple of years under his belt he might not need to be with Margarita all the time he can go do something recruit it can do something else and they can do something independently I mean you definitely get her money's worth yeah okay moving on the contracts good comments uh first one is the VMware cervix yes and Craig can come to China yeah yeah so um I mentioned several months ago in our check report that we'd be looking at uh upgrading servers we have a form of servers that are very aged and we are needing to uh they've kind of been put off due to other projects out there it's time we've got to do something um we're neat this will be part of our summer Capital outlaying but we're needing to get this by April 1st to ensure that the order can get in and ensure summer delivery and install um yeah we expected the project to come out at the cost that it did in the 60 thousands um the company has given us the option to do a four-year Finance where we pay a fourth of it each year that does cost about six thousand dollars more you would also have the option that we go ahead and pay it out of capital outlay and then we would as a tech reduce our annual budget by the a fourth each year or more if if available but it's a project that if we were to Encompass it all within our summer Capital nightly budget it would cause us not to be able to do our regular needs you know there's really nothing new or fluffy in the in the summer Capital outlay pre-plans that we're working on you know so it would it would cause us to really pull back on just regular annual meetings you know if we were to take in the whole bicycle system right this is this is the backbone of the whole system and what it does is it gives us um the protections right now like you've got one VM server if that motherboard would go out that would actually take down our email system our Skyward student system this gives us basically a dual system to where within a couple minutes if one of the two fail those images get picked up on this and operate on this other machine until the other gets repaired and then they offload so so would you look to do this in the summertime I mean yeah so that's why we're bringing it to you actually now so that um yeah they basically told us if we did not get an order in by April 1st they kind of guarantee that they could get done this summer and it would be my recommendation to go ahead and do it and afford the finance charge as much as we can and just rather not pay interest and this is a sixty thousand dollar item I think it would just again just make sense and we had the money to be able to do it so I'm trying to include it yeah I might really add too and there are some items that could be um that we have built built into our Ezra plan that could be taken that offer the tech project budget and the event through Esser to panels any more discussion okay emotion my mom's approved bid for legal Technologies for VM servers and amount of 63 325.80 is there a second someone did how about you oh yeah huh he's second I didn't I did the motion okay uh any discussion all those favorites shut up thank you moving on to BHS office furniture bit okay we've had two beds for this two diamond from options one from now bats and one from Great Plains design again there's a sixteen hundred dollars difference between the two again this was going to help us with improving the workspace functionality in the office and again this is just the office this is not when we looked at this a year ago we also were thinking about The copier room as well as the break room that number was quite a bit more including those two areas we're just going to focus on again the office space so I have rats out of Emporia they do office furniture for us a number of different projects they are very good product there as well that they have and and the Great Plains has a good submitted a proposal um go ahead I I I'm going to recommend that we do go with with Great Planes we do have a late fee associated with this project again needs to be done no later than July 15 2023 at Lake we have 200 per day will be assessed after July 15 2023 if the job is not completed so that is that completely if there were some obviously again extenuating circumstances that were I mean let's say if if for example Rod Steiger lets me know that uh in April hey I'm trying to order wood I'm not getting wood that'd be a different story but if he just comes up on July 10 and say I just I just got busy that's not going to watch there will be a late fee that will be Associated so again um that that piece is in there that uh damages pieces is in there for a late uh late fee and this will really make that office space at the high schools again just much more workable usable um yeah questions okay I only have the most acceptable for VHS office furniture from Great Plains Design Center in Atlanta 3517.21 cents and Great Plains is our local yeah any discussion okay motion care six zero high school office staff will be very excited thank you es office version yes so we we again put out for bid on this we did receive one bid from navgrads they went and they did meet with the Darla and her office staff again they have put in a bid the the again the furniture that they're going to be if this bids approved will be much much better than currently what they have it'll be very very nice high quality Furniture to a company called han h-o-n han Indiana Furniture there's a few of them that are very good that they work with out of from navrats so anyway this will be if I say a great Improvement to their office area much more functionality yes I just don't want to get over committed thank you yeah and he had already had some plans you know at least looked at this project with high school it's not that he didn't want to be Elementary because I just I don't want to get over overloaded yeah I'm going to accept the bid for Bes office furniture for map wrap Office Products and 1127 589 .27 you're saying and we were able to talk to these people stationed no I'm sorry about that I was just asking you were able to visit with the net but never mind oh okay they came one day but I wasn't really Sally and Darla piece and they're just also too there is a liquidated damage of their lately 200 same thing July 15th so very further discussion that's all I have well those are favorable thank you yeah either way promotion care is 6-0 we were selling the diesel Jacobson greens king or real mower correct um yeah she did not receive any bids or steal bits now I will share with you again this is a special League type item so it's a going to be like a golf course Titan mower if you will or something because it's gonna it's the real cut would be for like Bermuda or a tiger it's not something you'd have in your front yard and mow your yard with so anyway having said that I did whenever we have a vid situation like this that something that goes for sealed bids and I think there's somebody locally we've either done business with before I think might be interested in I try to contact so I did call contact Rock Creek uh Robert Kelly Collins sleeves are out there they have their board meeting tonight they are interested but they want to have that discussion so there's uh something that they're going to at least talk about so I'm gonna we'll just not act on this because we don't have any bids I will talk to kasb and say since we have put the bid since we put this out for bid do we need to put it out for bid again or I need to ask him can we just negotiate with whoever because nobody bid on this so I'll find out more information and go from there so there's no action to take on this I did want to let you know that it's so it's kind of in a limbo holding pattern do you like to table this and then you correct negotiate with them and then or he'll come back we'll put it back up for sealed a bit like for a one week time frame if kasb says you need to put it back up for bids again we'll do that or if they say since you put it up for bits you didn't get it any any bids on this but go ahead and you can you cannot do with it so um but I'll inform you and let you know what's uh what's going on with this and uh so right now in this table okay next one all right this is the Bluebird activity bus because yeah and nobody again nobody wants to get airbrake licensure so having said that um the bad news is is we haven't used this near as much as I hoped to but the good news is there's a serious market for this as we know buses are even more expensive now and I've shared with you information on Friday notes Brad Griffin and I just feel like it's time to get rid of this and again I I will take responsibility I didn't know there was a difference between hydraulic brakes and air brakes I'm not very mechanically inclined and so and I think Doug Roar when we purchased this I think Doug knew the difference and was hopeful that somebody was going to or somebody's we're going to get the air brake licensure since this is and again normally with sealed bit scenarios we put something out if it was a bus that's timed out 25 years and you may get 500 400 a thousand dollars whatever Line This is a significant type of an item so I wanted to let you know we're looking at some of this and I would like to put a minimum bid of fifty thousand dollars on this bus it is seventeen thousand seven hundred dollars we pay for it what we would do is I'll put out my superintendents Lister of tomorrow and say I've got a deal for you guys and show the pictures uh attach some pictures there this could be something really good for I'm going to say a district that has somebody with aerobic licensure and it can be a heck of a deal for them because they're going to get it now a bus like this brand new so you're looking at 12 months out to get it just it's just the way your your build on the bus used to be anywhere from four to six months now it's 12 months or more so it's just not being utilized as well because because currently right now Brad Griffin has Eric licensure and Jeff finlisson has their great licensure and nobody else does um that is a possibility I'll do some exploring but um I I think I think either way we're going to do okay with this bus before you know in the years before we might not have done it we might not do as well if we were to try to sell this bus but there's a need people are needing classes it's really really bad and if they had a bigger district has people with their brake licensure so I think it would be a good thing to do so resell something like this do we take further to our cats off the side and look forward to it yes yes so I just would like I want you guys to be aware of this again since this is a significant item this isn't a 500 or a thousand dollar type item so you're ready to move on yeah motion if you do a motion I'm sorry cool we have to accept bits on the 20s and delivered activity list last second one right here 6-0 feet there's a really 1950 Chevy pickup truck say okay so this is another item that has some significant value that they again suggested to be given the board approval on this again I've got the paperwork for this we purchased this 1950 Chevrolet pickup truck in September 21st 2005.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
that's incredible of adults and everything yes yes your sisters get so good by playing each other is that how yeah it definitely helps motivation for each other that's fantastic thank you so much thank you congratulations congratulations [Applause] thank you very much all of you that have come to celebrate with uh with this great team if you would like to take off now that would be a great idea but you're more than welcome to Hangouts and listen to us uh but it's downhill a good presentation coming up from the Fine Arts team right I think it's fine arts right yeah it's fine it's the best part I learned my lesson I don't say that anymore very cool so three out of the last four years the number one players in the state that is absolutely amazing yeah absolutely incredible hi team well it's good to see you hello could you bring us a state championship as well we are nationally recognized serving up there for you one of the parents is asking for you to be part of the picture [Laughter] yes we are ready so we get to the next item on the agenda thank you uh is our curriculum team presentation and as you know each month we hear from a curriculum team about the work that they're doing related to our uh SEL initiative so tonight we have uh representatives from our fine arts division and I'll let John introduce the members of your team yeah take it away uh good evening everyone thank you so much for allowing us to have time we're excited to share the great work that's happened in Fine Arts but specifically our theater program um in theater we know we teach life skills through theater and we're proud to share that today with me yes hi I'm Joey Fitzpatrick I'm a theater teacher and director at Stevenson and I also teach Spanish hi I'm aubryson I'm Joey's co-theater teacher and director and it was great to hear the comments earlier about the winter play just a couple weeks ago and you know on that point oftentimes we think about Stevenson's theater program we think about our big flashy musicals our fall play our children play actually our six main stages that we have main stage shows that we have at Stevenson High School but really we are we have this robust curriculum and the curriculum is really the foundation for our co-curricular program do you want to click the next slide yes um so students could really engage in almost a four-year sequence of classes here of being on stage or being behind the stage but through these classes we know that it's essential to teach really the foundational academic outcomes of Theater which lines so closely to social emotional learning so with that I'm going to pass this over to Joey and Auburn to finish up the presentation so to get us started we're going to talk about our mission we got to keep the door keep the door open we'll project over it's over yes we will feed of Your Excellence cult and cultivate mindful citizens in an inclusive community of well-rounded theater artists engaging in diverse stories this is a mission statement that we developed in the fall of 2019 with student leaders and took what was valuable and important to them as well as our professional uh and and Artistic Endeavors um and we revised this every year with our student leaders and we ask what needs to be revised what are we not focusing on where do we need to improve where are we really nailing it and in developing the mission statement with our students something that we realize is that this really closely parallels social emotional learning in the classroom and so we decided to use this as a guiding force for the areas that we wanted to most work on and celebrate within our students because when you think about it activating passion and inspiring Excellence those really tie so closely to a student's sense of belonging in the classroom in a fine arts World cultivating mindful citizens that's all about their interactions with peers and the inclusive community piece that ties so closely to classroom climate as well um so if we're looking at just a general comparison of where we launch with this student voice survey data and how it ties into acting we look at Stevenson on a general level and we already know that Stevenson does so well at nationally placing right our numbers are already so great um when you compare them to the National Standard but when you look at our acting numbers those really even kind of Skyrocket even more and that's something that we're really proud of especially when you look at that classroom climate between Stevenson Savage and our own um but really across all areas but that doesn't mean that we stop at just being content with where we are we still very much use our student voice survey as a springboard to determine what's the work that we still want to get better at and by the way if anyone's looking at this and saying what your math is wrong uh the classroom belonging and valuing a subject are actually flipped on the different sites so bringing that specifically to our SEL Focus uh here is the castle framework for SEL learning and commitment and the two areas that we chose to focus our work on this year are self-awareness and relationship skills as those are particularly prominent in the theater classroom um so thinking back to how there really is a close tie to our mission statement in PTC with social emotional learning um one of the things that we came to discover is that um really SEL in the theater classroom it's a formula and it actually very closely mirrors the portrait of a graduate here at Stevenson um so we know that our portrait of our graduate has commitment to self commitment to others and commitment to the learning so I kind of invite you to think of that commitment to self in the theater classroom is like the actor right that individual performance when you pair that with the commitment to others which is The Ensemble right our result is the learning taking shape in transfer skills too much yeah um transfer skills um and those kind of being those skills that students take beyond the theater classroom into whatever their elected area of study or profession is After High School and we'll talk a little bit more about those later on the presentation as well and so we're going to take each of these three areas the actor The Ensemble and transfer skills and show you some data about the work that we're doing as well as student examples first data point we have here is about the actor and the self and this comes from the SVS survey uh and the question is how much respect do the students in class shown you actually and we had 87 positivity with that um which we just think is absolutely so phenomenal makes us so proud because that is the focus of our work getting to know each other celebrating the students um as well as having that confidence to share part of who you are with the ensemble so we have some student anecdotes here I developed my consonant excuse me I developed my confidence especially speaking English in front of other people I was always a bit embarrassed because my English is not really good so I was a little scared in the beginning but what really helped me is that everybody respected my language and never laughed about it and these are all from students in acting one particularly freshmen and sophomores by working on my projection I wasn't cut off anymore and my voice was heard group projects were suddenly teamwork projects and here to see a little of this in action we have a student oh we have a student performing part of a slam poem from the acting three showcase and this is a project that we work on in acting three and then put on as part of the Showcase uh and a project where students are invited to write what they need to say and what they need to be heard and we'll just watch the beginning part of this student rayon Sheikh's poem hello my name is be upon you foreign [Music] it does go on for a quite engaging uh two and a half minutes um but hopefully that little bit helps to demonstrate the confidence in sharing his identity multiple languages um a part of uh tolerance and talking about his own experience in the world in front of the public audience this type of work this type of uh class project does show up throughout our curriculum that project was in acting three we have oral storytelling and acting one where students are invited to share a story representing some aspect of their culture in acting four we have Global Theater Research which students can choose any theater tradition from around the world to research and present time and perform and many of them do choose so they are not required but many do choose to share of theatrical tradition that is linked to their own family or personal heritage we are continually escalating our variety of Multicultural and multilingual scripts both that we have available for students to read and use for monologues and scenes as well as for in-class text study and in the theater design and stagecraft one place this shows up is in our sound collage project where students are asked to make a personal story of themselves through sound so if we transition to The Ensemble piece so what is an ensemble it establishes the sort of energy of a space the energy of a production it sets the tone it's a group of people working collectively right so our data point when we were kind of extrapolating data to to prove where we are in this it was pretty shocking that question about how positive or negative is the energy of this class um 100 of our students responded favorably which is pretty astounding to us um so that shows us that our focus on climate and connection increased engagement and overall success in our classes yeah and I'll add that one of the ways we do this you'll see in a moment part of a routine warm-up but we have many routines in our classes and we actually want to take a moment and have them invite you all to join us in one of our routine moments so one of the biggest things that we teach students is um you know obviously to to achieve certain levels of acting we have to build certain levels of empathy um and so we thought maybe a great thing for you all to empathize with us for a second in our students and what they do on a daily basis so you don't have to stand up and you don't have to participate if you don't want to but one way that we engage class every day is that we have them do a focus breath and to do that what they do is they take in the current energy of the space and so they take a nice deep breath in if you would like to stand up and join us and then they release that out for letting go of the energy that's currently there and then we take in the newly focused energy we take a deep breath in and then we plant that down into the ground does that feel nice um so that is one way that like three hours a week where were you two I know tools for everybody and acting classes yeah um so that is one way that we will start class and if you go to the next one um so this work in action once students have focused in the space um in my particular class we do something called psychological gesture um and what this asks students to do is present their name into the space that day in a way that they are feeling uh physically and also to demonstrate that in their voice and once they present that the entire class has to repeat that exact gesture that they did and that's kind of an exercise in empathy to put yourself in someone else's shoes maybe you're feeling on top of the world today but the person standing right next to you isn't so what does it feel like to be where they are today how do you gain that empathy and this is just a little bit of an action Maybe Chelsea Serena so as you can see they don't all I mean that's a pretty wide Gambit of emotions going on there in that day right um and so that's what we kind of do after that is just we talk about what's the collective energy in the space today how do we name that and then how do we transfer that into the work that we're about to do honoring how everyone's coming from a very different place that day and I think recognizing the courage individually and collectively to even share your emotions on a daily basis in your mental state um then some student anecdotes to highlight this experience of The Ensemble my acting one class Community is supportive diverse and funny I got to learn about different people's backgrounds from India to Uzbekistan to Germany and learn about some cool Heritage and the storytelling unit everyone in class has different strengths and weaknesses and all are very talented and funny another student said acting is my only class where I know everyone's name at the beginning everyone took the time to get to know each other and it strengthened the class Community I feel comfortable with my peers and they understand me as a person wow um so if we look if we continue to look at The Ensemble one thing that Abra and I did at the end of last semester was survey our students specifically we wanted to Zone in on um their experience with their student Tas to kind of validate what their purpose and presence was in class because we were sure that they had some type of determining factor in the student experience but we wanted to know how the students voiced it and to add to this yes or theater leadership class yeah and that oh you say these students um have most times I think they have completed our entire acting one through four sequence um so this is kind of a Capstone for them but if you look at one of the statistics so 79 of our students feel pretty or extremely connected to their Tas um which is huge huge because they come from a wide variety of experiences backgrounds Etc if you look at what they say about those experiences I felt like I belonged because of the Tas they encouraged me when I felt nervous and they helped me keep improving they encouraged me to put myself out there more and try new things overall they were extremely encouraging and helpful to my learning process so this is a very unique presence that we have in our classrooms um we're we're very lucky to have them to connect on that student level just to support the learning that we're already promoting with them and one thing I'll add to this is that uh we the student Tas learned that to how to model that empathy and that leadership and that growth from their Tas as well as from ourselves which goes back to the castle framework and how do we develop that self-awareness and that empathy so of course our the third part of our portrait of The Graduate we've gone to the self as the actor the others The Ensemble and now we get to the learning where we focus on the transfer skills as Mr Gray started our presentation theater skills our life skills so the data for this section uh is actually from our slow our student learning outcome for last fall where we looked at the slate and the Slate is an introduction before a performance you'll see some examples of that in a moment I always say on the very first day of class if you learn nothing else in this class you will learn how to introduce yourself to a room full of strangers as we are all doing right now and it's really remarkable seeing their growth on this not only throughout one semester but for the students who are enrolled over the course of three or four years to see their growth over that entire time period so you have in September 2022 62 of students in our acting one and three classes were exceeding or meeting the Target and then December 2024 uh excuse me December of that year 96 of our students were exceeding or meeting the target incredible growth for just a couple of months and here you'll see some student slates and these again were part of the acting three showcase so they were indeed full of a public audience hello my name is hi my name is Lily Brenner and this is Michael I am here at right now hello my name is [Music] I hope you enjoy it and Joey will go into some more student anecdotes about the transfer skills yeah so what students have identified for their own transfer skills they've identified things like flexibility I developed flexibility as a transfer skill when we started the project one of our team members wasn't there so we had to adapt and come up with a way to include them when they came back or I developed a sense of risk taking and spontaneity which helps in other areas of life because risk taking allows me to put my ideas onto the field and spontaneity allows me to be more flexible in short notice situations and come up with solutions for example when I'm working in a group setting in my other classes such as chemistry if a mistake is made I can quickly problem solve to fix the situation so what these really look like and there's a myriad of transfer skills right but when we think of some of the skills that most employers are asking for that's critical thinking it's citizenship it's growth mindset communication creativity collaboration um we just have a little Jeff Bezos uh quote in there for you he says top-notch communication skills are essential um and so that's just again something that we want our students to recognize that this doesn't just we're not building professional actors and technicians here if they go out into the field and do that Beyond high school that's great but what we're most proud of with them is that they're able to make these connections of how this can serve them in real life after so what's next what's the current goal that we have as we continue our work um while we've established that students have created we have created a climate for these students that feels inclusive to them it gives them a place where they belong our next step is that we want to incorporate more diverse playwrights and texts in the theater curricula to better reflect Stevenson's evolving population we want our students to now start to see themselves in the work that we're doing Beyond just the environment that we've created in class and so here are some of our action steps that we've already started to create and that we're working on one is that we're developing a forum for PTC students to suggest scripts for classes these are not just scripts to have in our library or to read or to access but scripts for us to study and engage scenes with and analyze as a class we also want to involve Tas in the process of authenticating and confirming text relevance so sometimes the Tas are our best friends in this planning of our curriculum because they're representing the student voice that goes into it they're going to tell us when something is out of touch or when something feels like yes you guys are on the right path this speaks to us students will be able to see themselves in this work I feel like I hear my voice in this work definitely use this text message or Mr Fitz and we've also heard this text old we need something new yeah and then the third action step is to research or continue really continue to research unpublished plays to continue to move beyond the traditional Canon this is the Canon of Tennessee Williams and William Shakespeare Eugene O'Neill who are extraordinary playwrights but not necessarily relevant and speaking to our student population right here right now and one of the ways we're actually working on number three right now in the Pro currently is that the advanced acting class has a project where they used all of their text analysis skills and their production analysis skills that they've learned in all the other acting classes and they apply that to propose a season for a co-curricular uh different plays that make up a variety of what does that look like students who are repeating this class as it is a repeatable course have the next step of that where they use all of their skills in text analysis and play production and their experiences in all the acting classes to propose texts that we can study in the various levels of acting classes and through this they're looking at the same questions that we continue to ask ourselves why here why now would I be engaged in reading this what will we learn and how will this represent the students and that's been a very exciting project to begin with those students so that brings us to the end of this part of our work and thank you for letting us be with you today well thank you fantastic any questions I thought you had a question no got it how do you how do you this is really minor in the grand scheme of thing first of all fantastic presentation what you've done is amazing I know often we see the scores on the surveys at 76 or 78 we wonder about it but we realize it puts us in the 90 99 tell of our kids feeling lying and yet you had a hundred percent um so how you improve on that not true how do you on the last slide you mentioned that you would research unpublished plays is there a source from English plays there there are many there are many sources for unpublished plays uh one is talking to people that we know other teachers um other theater artists working playwrights um there's also an incredible resource called uh new play exchange it's kind of like the Wikipedia for playwrights but but much more uh vetted than that but playwrights can publish maybe like the SoundCloud playwrights can publish their own work and there are thousands and thousands and thousands of plays on there and sometimes it's not even about finding a play to do in the context of Performing formally within our season but how can we get access to these scripts and then create opportunities for students to engage with them through it could be stage readings it could be through in our script Studio Club where they're reading new works just just so that these ideas are coming to them and they're seeing themselves for and getting ideas for future research down the line and giving students access to that same database to encourage them to research to encourage them to choose the selections what demographics or gender identity of a playwright are you really looking to find that will that will speak to you and I'm I'm also curious some of the the exercises that you're using to train the skills look like they're unique maybe to theater that you would have thought of them that others might not is there any collaboration with other teams and other divisions I mean some of those things seem like they would be applicable for developing the confidence and the belonging that um I mean for example so as someone who teaches in two divisions sometimes I will not on an everyday basis but there are times where I realize like Focus gets really out of control in the group setting so why not take a focus breath together um the buy-in sometimes is different right like students in a theater class are going to have different expectations for how they're going to engage with the learning but I'm sure that there are certain warm-ups that we do in theater that you know dance might use when it comes to things like breath movement Etc how many how many students go go from acting one all the way through the progression all the way back before I mean is there is there a drop off in numbers or we typically have about 75 retention from one to the next yeah so 75 from acting one to two active one to two is a little bit higher uh but then two to three is about 75 and then three and four to advance is about 70.
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so while that's an increase it is not out of the North yeah in terms of the number of courses isolation we have an equal number of courses that we are recommending that are under 20 that we would really like to offer our students next year and that is also kind of within the range we usually average anywhere between 17 and about 23. so we're right there in the range of 22.
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it is virtual you don't even stay in your pajamas and your coffee but it's great to get together with other parents and um talk about maybe what's on your mind and building relationships regarding building strong relationships with your children the other um event that I'd really like to point out is the college and trade Expo that is taking place at Oswego High School on Saturday this coming Saturday March 23rd from five to seven I know a lot of times we talk about college as as the path but there are so many other opportunities that the district provides and that are out there besides college and this will allow students and family members the opportunity to learn about career and training options that do not require a four-year degree this Expo will figure local College Programs vocational training programs Union construction apprenticeships and local businesses offering employment and training options I think this is really important and something that all students that maybe don't want to use the traditional four-year College path could take advantage of and there is never any shortage of Union construction jobs and apprenticeships they are so needed as my husband's in the commercial construction industry and they are always looking for those positions so I encourage any families to take advantage of that Expo this weekend go ahead okay so I would like to share some information uh with our community regarding the superintendent search and so all of our board members today received an update on our superintendent search and the information that I'll share with you now will also be available on our website on our superintendent search page and so as of at this point in the process there will be three ways in which our community our district Community can get involved in the superintendent search process one is focus groups the second is open forums and the third is a community survey so what has happened thus far is we have invited um we have reached out to anywhere from 30 to 40 Community district-wide groups and we have asked their lead representative to send and uh representative to one of nine focus groups so of those nine focus groups it represents about 30 to 40 of our parents our students our community members within within our building within our buildings and within our community and it represents a 500 plus people and so those nine focus groups are going to take place on April 11th and we have a deadline of this Wednesday in terms of those lead Representatives getting back to us with their individuals who will be participating and so you'll see on our website on April 11th that it will be by invitation By Invitation and then what we will have then are two open forms on April 12th they will be at 4 30 and 6 30.
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but anyway just starting to get involved in the school district and it's unbelievable that if I stood on a street corner and I asked a young person hey look at this picture that I just handed you all that I would be arrested I would be considered a pervert and yet most parents I would say would not want their children to have access to this material because it is pornographic it's sexually stimulated that and that's its purpose I don't see that it's helping anyone um and yet it's on the shelves that any student other people's children can see and so these schools belong to the people and we need to respond to the will of the people if those books are going to be in the library and I certainly hate our money to be spent on that kind of book it should be segregated on a shelf that a parent requests not a child that a parent requests for their child thank you so the politics and activities recognition um director Jessica is here uh is he yeah sir yes sir so um good evening great to see everybody again thanks for allowing me to come up here and uh kind of showcase some of the great things that are happening here on 301 in terms of recognitions uh tonight we had a math team that advanced to our state competition on April 22nd back in February 25th they had two individuals that took third in algebra fourth place in geometry and they had four different teams that either finished first or second in different categories like algebra or a couple other eight piece or eight-person competitions and then another team that took third in algebra two that those individuals will be representing Central High School down at the state competition on April 22nd the next group I'd like to recognize is our skills USA team we had four individuals who qualified for State uh as part of our skills USA both with a job interview category and a couple that based off career Readiness exams and like I said a lot with those job interviews that kind of have a skillsusa has a wide wide variety of different areas and methods that they can compete in these two in particular are more uh the video production and like I said the business interview phase so we've got some individuals going down there like to thank uh Mr Loomis Miss green and Mr billing with those individuals and that should be coming up here in April as well and then uh the last one we had members of our FFA again uh kind of the last time we were up here joked around FFA Supremacy here with uh Central High School kind of rain strong here uh they finished uh in the vet science they actually won the vet science and career development that was hosted down in Champaign uh back in early March so um out of 2019s and 110 individuals and competing our FFA program ended up uh taking first place overall so you know a lot of credit uh Mr Robbins Mr Robinson Mr dalen and Amber Ballard and a lot of the individuals that were here couldn't make it today due to scheduling conflicts but uh short of kind of mispronouncing some names I didn't want to take that and you know do that faux pas there so a lot of it is in there uh in that Port packet there with you but uh again can't thank you enough for providing these opportunities for our for our students not just Athletics but extracurriculars as well um and we look forward to seeing that continue and hopefully I'm back in here in April and May give me the results of some State competitions we'll actually ever leave Ted because I see you at the high school every time I've been there and I'm not there that often but you're there all the stinking time I mean are you living up over where seesaw was yeah I know we took it off maybe that's hopefully that was in your package when we hired yeah no I appreciate you know I'm in chat I appreciate all your time you've been spending here it's been great to see you and great to see all the Athletics that I've been attending I appreciate it feelings mutual and like I said if you ever need anything please don't hesitate to ask but again thank you for uh let me come up here and share this with you awesome thank you you can say all this because I'm almost done thank you the motion a second to approve the consent agenda you have your revenues and expenditure report revenues are currently at 43.35 compared to 42.53 a year ago expenditures are trending at 52.13 compared to 49.63 um a year ago impact fees we got this month was 36 518.5 Cents for six home starts and then the bills payable reports for both Northern Canyon Central are typical through March three questions sorry baby bulk yes Hemphill yes Nolan yes Hannah yes rape yes a thief yes Gorman yes next emotion second or needed for the Baseball spring trip second March 30th we skip forward policy and personal report of course yeah um I will ask athletic director jusky since we do have a motion a second correct yes yeah we have um athletic director Jessica talk about the baseball trip because um in a conversation with him found out a little bit about a softball trip also so I want to make the board aware of this yeah I apologize not getting in there here as we kind of came in and we heard coaches uh I did not get the softball memo in at the same time about our baseball and softball teams are going down to Jacksonville Illinois kind of same place nearly identical itinerary they've got some turf fields down there that's hopefully far enough South that we get some warmer weather and be able to get out there and play some games same weekend obviously staying two different hotels but I will get that I'll get that memo to you next time but uh that's that's an error on my end I apologize uh for not getting that in there but it's going to be very similar to that with baseball so next time we meet I'll have that information for you but uh an opportunity for our kids to hopefully get a few games in down there over break much like soccer goals and plays on a lot of turf around here just one of the closer areas to get on some Turf and hopefully allow the time to dry out and have some warmer weather so appreciate it as for approval for the boys Baseball spring break overnight trip and we'll be bringing the girls softball trip forward to the board I want you to be aware of that do you want us to approve both or just can't approve that all right rape yes a thief yes bulk yes Gorman yes are required to discuss and approve the aces team overnight trip second uh there is a memo on your board packet of coming out of covet it's kind of refreshing that our students are going to be able uh to do an overnight State trip for our academic challenge team we typically perform well at that level and looking forward to getting back in that state competition highlight um our academic abilities as well as our athletic abilities all right Nolan yes henr yes Ray yes a thief yes bulk yes and Phil yes Gorman yes Lexington motion second to approve the chs's ihsa membership still moved second again this was an annual renewal that comes forward to the board typically in in March or April to allow us to continue in ihsa scheduled athletic activities and events if there's any questions athletic director Jessica is with us all right Henner yes Rabe yes a thief yes folk yes and Phil yes Nolan yes Gorman yes election in motion second to discuss and approve the joint agreement between Fox Valley Career Center and Central School District 301 until moved second so um currently serve on the board of directors for the Fox Valley Career Center and as you know where the fiscal and administrative agent for our cane our Northern Kane efe 110 for vocational education um just like we had to update our joint agreement to meet new requirements in the state code for our Northern cane now this agreement is coming due um at one point we thought about withdrawing from Fox flight career center but meeting with other directors talking amongst our cabinet level team we currently do not have any students participating in Fox Valley but as conditions change in the future we may have students participate so we are updating the bylaws so that any school district if they're not sending students in a given year they would be a participatory board member but a non-voting member in that year and so it is that the board continue to approve our membership and Fox Valley Vocational at this time and there's no Financial ramifications for us if students do not attend correct all right rape yes a thief yes bulk yes and Phil yes Nolan yes Hannah yes Gorman yes we need motion a second to prove the contract between Central School District 301 and Erickson engineering so moved second good evening much like our last athletic director I get to provide the boring stuff and he gets to do all the exciting stuff um so we decided that it was in our best interest um to look at hiring and partnering with some um engineering firms with all the growth and opportunities we have moving forward this seemed like it was a good opportune time to do this so we vetted out we did an RFQ process vetted out multiple civil engineering vendors and selected Erickson engineering um as our our best partner moving forward with whatever we may may be doing so our recommendation is to move forward with their contract how many did we receive we received four and we interviewed three I was working with Erickson Engineering in the past yep yeah um Ericson's been a good partner to Batavia school district and head of goods has a good reputation in Kane County worked with the County of Kane on multiple projects so I think moving forward for what our needs are moving forward they'd be a good partner great any other questions thank you Dan a thief yes bulk yes Enfield yes Nolan yes henar yes Ray yes Gorman yes well um just as director business manager fluke spoke about earlier with home starts and housing permits would continue to grow as a district from this point last year until today we're up 134 students and that report is included in the board packet and that's kind of typical for every school year we've been up 100 and something about three percent annually three percent annually and then so there's been some concern that we're building something that's not really required but 100 students and that's been ever since I've been on the board we found a quote from superintendent uh what's his name um add something in 1970.
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yeah I if it I'd like to take a closer look at that one and um maybe report back what's what's going on it I I just don't know it sounds like something's miscoded but okay I'm sure it is but starting with consistent principle 110 000 over and forward and a principle of 257 a thousand over and covered supervisor directors 309 000 though those numbers are concerning to me and I and I'm sure there's an answer and I know in order to uh reasonable minutes for tomorrow night's meeting uh okay so if we yep if if we go back um if Ken if you could just go back on page um the best answer if you look uh up at the 100 lines the salaries um when you put that all together out there's there's a million six uh that's unencumbered so it it tells me um the lines we may have budgeted and are not the lines people are coded in um but overall it doesn't give me cause uh to worry um from looking at the individual ones so these are coding questions perhaps that I was hoping they were possibly something you were going to pay for with grants or uh but yeah okay um yeah I'm sure I'm sure you'll you'll get an answer for us yeah I would say this my child the um the budget we put together for salaries uh that you're looking at these individual lines that was a what I'd call our our table of organization um it was the people who were working here in December early December of 2020.
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Good afternoon, chair, vice chair, members of the committee. Kurt Ulturo, deputy superintendent, uh, testifying on behalf of our superintendent, Kayashi. Uh the department has submitted its written testimony. We we are in support of uh HB 1204.
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it got some work done on it probably it's about 50 completion I had Doug Stewart join me in the auto shop and the painting booth and show me what what else to this this truck he said we just never did get it completed we got x amount of work done and we just didn't ever get it completed he believes that it has some value in his his recommendation was I think to set like a minimum bid like four thousand dollars because this would be some type of project that somebody could put in from here it could be a really nice type is there a reason we're selling it well right again two things one we don't have a shot well I know but I'm we're not using the shop right so it's not taking up and if we're pretty secure that we're going to fill that position for next year I mean then next year we're going to be looking at buying another project track and which will put the price of vehicles uh we could hold on to it that that's a good point we could hold on to it for a year because it's it's taking up space but we've got some space it's not it's not a big issue you can take NC if the next person is interested in an auto type restoration we can do that and we can just hold off on it that is a really good point and that's my feeling on it it's not really in the way it's been in season five anyway let's there won't be any of those classes taught next year just because we have to put those up ahead if you're in advance um so this wouldn't be so this for this coming up here um but that teacher would be able then to decide whether they want to keep it or get rid of it yes correct I don't know it doesn't mean that internship care is somebody that has those skills now that we have a teacher that can guide them so I'm just putting that out okay it was part of a course that involved um a little bit of Auto Body Small Engines uh CNC router and lathe programming mechanical um more more of that it wasn't a true art yeah right okay so um and I don't know that you know the candidate that you'd be looking for would be a true Auto Body either yeah yeah all right well that's why I didn't know that's my one another reason like if there was a reason I think that's a good idea but we still have an unknown so I shared this a couple pictures of someone at work I'll give you seven for it right now yeah well I think we just hold on to it when someone there I mean not to cast guns but I think Doug might put in a bit for four thousand one dollars hold on to it okay I mean like you say it's sitting in a paint booth yeah it's not it's not according away okay in our discussion nope okay [Music] I don't want that Legend most recess in the executive session for 15 minutes discussed contract of staff member percent to non-electric Personnel exception under coma and to return to a possession at the end of that time including Craig Marshall secretary well those are voters here foreign actually I've already gotten texts from people I like this View usually when you see Chrissy's head her head and James and we'll go to Stacy knows it okay okay can I hear it hasn't been sounds good yes I was the first day back from spring break overall it was crazy yeah I'm still struggling with the time change I know my kids are so good I can't do trust oh anyway okay I'm so sorry okay we're back in session all right and we're ready yeah go back session now motion recess the exact concession for five minutes to discuss certified contracts pursuant to the exception for lawyer employee negotiation under coma and return to open session this room at the end of that time including Craig Marshall and emergency yeah okay on second day discussion go to the recruiter you guys have at 60.
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and sometimes what we see is students might drive off for a period of time and then come back to us a year or two later while they're trying to get some other classes in between um but they always come back to us saying like you know I really miss this time of my day yeah this was a time of day that was carved out for me to be me to engage with my peers in in a way that felt like I needed that you know and I think to Mr Frost's question about the how do we improve on 100 well one of the ways is reaching more students and that is something where you know I think people don't necessarily know what happens they think oh it's performing scenes and monologues which it is and a lot of people love that but also a lot of people might be afraid of that or think that's not for me and so by finding a lot of variety in the curricula gaining out to the school uh we hope to include more students you absolutely read my mind because because like I don't know how your your marketing this is incredible thank you thank you Senator curriculum you know and I don't know how you're marketing it to like eighth graders coming in I would imagine many of the people signing up for our for acting one I've got the buck already right yeah and part of it too is just you know capitalizing in our community presence and we have events like the Consortium event for the musical when students are coming out or those incoming freshman nights um and then creating performance opportunities for them to open up the doors have them come see what we're doing on stage backstage creating TalkBack opportunities showing them that these skills are not just happening after school these students that they see are getting these during the day and this is what's supporting and elevating what they're doing and not to not to bring into but I'm just kind of interested in this like because when I taught I taught it I taught in a subject area that's mandatory this is not right but I remember students who by the end of the year their year with me were like I've never taken another history class again do you what is the Journey of a student who signs up for acting one for example and you know this that acting is not for them or or they or they communicate that to you what is that Journey like it's interesting I mean I think one of them you ever noticed that I mean I think one of the things that is um unique and special about our curriculum is that yes these courses are called acting one through four but what Opera and I have made very clear to ourselves and to our students is that we are you know it's it's really for theater Artistry um we're building a whole theater artist here and yes it has an emphasis of performance so trying to help them discover other outlets that they can use within our curriculum still you know maybe there's a stagecraft uh and design class that's that's going to be really great for them or maybe there's opportunities within projects that we're already doing where they're really going to shine um that's that's one of the things we try to make really clear on the first day and I'll say that I think our our student Tas are really essential in those particular conversations and moments as well because I think talking to a teacher is always different than talking to a peer about what that peer learned we have a student ta now a senior who had never done acting before acting one was like I don't know what I'm doing I'm here because of my friend and has not only in every theater class but has now repeated uh the highest the Capstone theater courses is a TA for the third semester is pursuing uh theater education in college had a lead in the fall musical um because because of the journey that he started when he had no idea and so I think for students just and not that that's the expectation of every student for students to see that model you need to do I'd be fully open to explore the idea of graduation requirements yes but I'm just wanting to throw it out with friends I actually have a proposal that's been sitting in some of these gentlemen's email boxes a few years here but and I uh I do have experience collaborating with social studies departments on public speaking skills and I'm thinking I'm not even I'm only kidding a little bit about this but I happen to think that that everybody under the age of 18 should work in a restaurant and perform or participate in a musical or play like I think that experience is you know I'm only a little kidding about that but seriously it's your uncle Howard she said no how aggressive Your Mother wasn't a rustic I know that's no her married name it's just like it oh no Don and Treadwell and Rosie but thank you thank you thank you thank you all right so moving along thank you it's always great to hear those presentations uh yeah really impressive and amazing yeah so the next item is approval of our textbook recommendations last month these came to you as a first reading um and uh we didn't receive any questions but Mark is here tonight if you do have any we only have two textbooks that we're recommending uh for adoption next year uh one is a U.S history book and the other is uh principles of econ book and I think Mark both are online are ebooks uh I should say so both of those tonight are coming for your approval because we have a motion still moved second any questions for Mark would you pull the board please certainly no and Joseph so all right wounds eye Tire all right Frost all right Washington carries six to nothing okay um and next we have our human resources report all of which is included under consent but as you know March is always in most Illinois school districts the kind of heavy Personnel month um so you can see included in here our recommendations of appointment to tenure uh you will also note and you can see just the amazing work that our faculty has have done you'll see our recommendations to um continued uh probation for a fourth year for third year for second year um we have a resolution for non-reemployment approval of administrative contracts resignations and then we also note in there our retirements as well leave of absences support staff so this is a heavy month we won't ask you to go through and vote on each one individually but all of them are included in consent I know you had a chance to look at that I will just point out on page oh we've lost the page numbers uh I will just point out near the end of that section um the 25 the folks who will be celebrating um 25 years it's a healthy list and then wow there are seven retirees at the end of this year honor our faculty instead Alice Knudson what a loss speaking of Fine Arts so I know so we are looking forward to that retirement celebration wow and we already had our executive session for this evening so we will not need one following this meeting which brings us to Sean the business section um approval of lease for renewal of 954 Corporate Woods Parkway correct um so three years ago we embarked upon finding some off Storage storage facility for many of the things as Eric mentioned Fine Arts would be one of those things that we have a large majority of equipment fixtures costumes props scenes that type of stuff that um simply just don't fit on our campus as well as some of our athletic equipment and then the traditional storage things that we need extra tables chairs testing stuff and so we are that lease expires so we are looking to extend that lease and so tonight we are recommending that the Board of Education approve the lease renewal for five excuse me 954 Corporate Woods Parkway is we have a motion someone second is that Grace yeah thank you um Sean and I were talking about the lease would you mind because we were talking about the yeah renewal terms that you might explain the board about the industrial space and yeah so um what's interesting about like industrial warehouse space versus office space so um light industrial and Warehouse spaces um actually seeing occupancy very high occupancy right now which does not help when you're negotiating a renewal um very much whereas office space right now is um staggering low in fact I was at a comprehensive planning meeting with the village of Lincolnshire last week and they were telling us that in their Corporate Woods the office space is at 25 occupancy um so suffering very dramatically and has not rebounded um since covet so um this was kind of like fighting with one and behind your back a little bit so uh but the uh the Elise is the same as same same terms and conditions as questions would you pull the board please certainly Ben Joseph aye so I wounds eye Tire hi Frost hi no hi motion carries six to nothing second item I have tonight is for what we call a UPS or an interruptable on sorry try this again uninterrupted power source so these are in essence giant batteries that are connected to some of our Network closets in the event that we take power hit a power bump something goes out um we don't lose connectivity um to our Network um and that we're able to still maintain the educational programming that goes on throughout the day um we have over 30 of these different units unfortunately the five that were budgeted for this was in this year's budget um that need to be replaced are the five biggest ones that are on our main data servers and so um there tend to be a little bit more costly so the total cost for these five units is 138 265 um dollars compared to some of our other ones almost double so to night we are recommending that the Board of Education approves the replacement of the uninterrupted power source units at a cost not to exceed 138 265 dollars can have a motion so moved second questions was Sean was this what was the bidding process for this or how did this no this is not part of the binging process because there's a a exemption for technology shooting loss and it's just we do get multiple quotes though if that makes it because you do get quick okay yeah other questions pull the board please certainly so Bonsai Tire hi Frost all right no I uh care is six to nothing um in light of our I think we're gonna facilitate we're gonna make a motion yeah sure because I I make the motion and then as part of the discussion we'll discuss okay and I make the motion right so yes I'm making a motion to table the approval of the PMA Financial investment advisor program no you have to make the motion first and have a second and then vote to table it go to table if I May um there was uh at tonight's facility I mean our site facilities and finance committee meeting we had the conversation um around moving uh from moving our PMA managed uh or the managed approach with our PMA which is our investment advisors to a investment advisor program after further discussion we are going to ultimately recommend tabling it so I think tonight um I would start with the recommendation that the Board of Education approve the movement to the PMA Financial investment advisor program as presented before someone makes a motion they make the motion a table no yeah I'll get this by the end of the evening I'll move that that'll start the thing I've moved that we uh yeah we accept the advisor thing no we need a second second thank you no no you could move I I moved to table the motion regarding the PMA Financial investment advisor program thank you that leaves is there a second I'll second that thank you thank you and for discussion uh we did talk about this insurance during our finance meeting um but we'd like to have a little bit further discussion particularly with respect to if we did this what the guidelines would be for the Investments of course and some of the other issues that we discussed about inside we need to move the table we need a date to table until when April 17th purchase of the April board meeting yep regular schedule thank you any other discussion about the tabling motion would you pull the board please moons I Tire aye Frost no hi but Joseph hi ciao I uh we have approved the tabling motion of this um of the advising program until uh the April board meeting and then Sean you have one first reading tonight and uh ironically enough Gary had a um uh kind of an emergency pop-up so couldn't be here but this is something you've worked with him on as well correct yeah this is um basically to enhance our cyber security so we have uh I've worked with Doug Taylor and his team significantly and our insurers to make sure that we have um the proper protocols in place and procedures in place too really ensure that our network is protected from cyber security in discussing with um Gary he had us look into a couple of different options um one including adding some additional employees to manage cyber security at the end of the day there is actually a product out there from a company called Alchemy where they could provide us a vastly more oversight of our community our of our Network and compared to of the cost of hiring multiple cyber Security Experts so we'll be bringing this back to the board in April however you should know that the the short story on this is that this software will check every single basically log on our Network 24 7 365 days every year and um the log basically just means anytime anybody tries to access our Network they can do it so for example if I was accessing my the network from my office and then somebody was trying to use my credentials to access my network from Germany we would know that and be alerted and be able to stop any intrusion to our number one question I had reading through there was a lot of um language in there about identifying well a lot of languages yeah but no it's but it was a lot of identifying threats do they then are they going to help us if there is a breach do they help us or is that separate we actually have some we have somebody else correct so they're helping identify it and then there's layers of protection on top of the identification so this is kind of like an early warning system like a lightning siren going off outside and saying hey get inside Lightning's on its way this would be a warning sign and say hey somebody's trying to break your network in we could then take the appropriate steps to ensure that not only our other Protocols are working as intended but that we can actually shut down whoever's credentials are trying to break into our system so we're trying to eliminate we're trying to avoid it ahead of time before it happens exactly right think of it like the layers of security this is just another layer okay we get the logs and we monitor logs nowhere near the capabilities that this will be and you've seen districts around the country but also in Illinois fall subject to yeah you know attacks and you know it can your system it can cost you a lot of money I mean this is it's an insurance policy and that's why we carry the three million dollar cyber crime as well in the event that all of our systems fail and somebody does in fact get into our and network and hold it Ransom which is very common amongst school districts not only in the state of Illinois but also across the country click that were you know click our insurance Cooperative as I'm the chairman of that we've seen some very large ones as large as a 19 million dollar Ransom and you know some are much smaller you know a couple hundred thousand dollars but it's scary stuff yeah we need a motion and then of course you can see the foyas as usual it seemed like a lot more than you yeah what are these people looking for uh it's it seems to Common waves so sometimes it's quiet typically you know this is right after the um holiday season also typically comes after bidding that kind of stuff and then we almost always get these although smart uh procure you know we get all of the time but we do get some we're now starting to see more individuals interested in our retirees to try to gather their information so that they can of course reach out to them it's heartworm fashion as a marketer they use it as a marketing list yeah it looks like a lot of these different markets right most of them are can I have a motion to approve the consent agenda so moved second if you have any questions would you pull the board please certainly ruins aye Tire I crossed no aye Ben Joseph aye so I uh six to nothing we approved them okay and uh I actually only have just a couple informational items but uh begin with the Kudos we are in the midst of royalty our very own Justin Fisk was named the director uh or the vice president of the National Association of the District of Supervisors of foreign languages so congratulations very cool [Applause] from foreign language to World Language uh one thing that I'm going to propose actually is that it become the National Association of District supervisors for language instead of so that's on the agenda for sure it just hit me wrong you know oh absolutely it's it parallels the actual which is the American American which is from the 60s awesome uh you'll see I just included some interesting readings um that we have been working through uh one of the one of them um is uh from Daniel Kahneman about his very new book noise um in Troy um has been using that um article not the entire book which books are usually they're a little dick uh this is just an article but he talks about um you know the different ways that um we can make judgments whether it's mechanical judgment clinical judgment and so how does that relate to our assessment experiences so it's just fascinating uh and then we included another reading um in there that references the work um that our very own Sean Carney was involved with on the EPA on the new East Edition so very cool Sean thank you for all of that work [Music] um we listed a number of board dates that are coming up uh Sean and I included some information about [Music] um uh the current banking crisis and um short stories were safe short story is we're safe um our money is not um held out in Silicon Valley Bank so correct we're okay um and then we thought we would include some um student profiles some just not everything that's going on but thanks to Jamie and Carol for just a uh Pia sorry just a couple of the things that um old habits die hard uh just a couple of things that have been going on in the school so three little highlights of um uh our EDI work our Wellness great stories yeah yeah so thank you Pia and Jamie we appreciate you good night that is it for tonight a motion to adjourn both thank you thank you for uh
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