and he was planning for how much a school would cost we took what current cost to build the school was and we thought we were really really clever because we said well we remember back when Katrina happened and it drove all the constructions across the University and he said we're going to plan as if there were two Katrina Allen when we went to school and we thought we'd had way over built our budget and in reality Katrina was horrible terrible natural disaster but on the scope and scale of the impact it had on the construction costs was just a lip on the radar the global pandemic and some of the other things that were happening in the supply chain space right so I'm not going to be a bashed about it we have we'd have budget challenges and have from the work that Dean's done we have some pretty good and innovative solutions and it's one of the things that drove the field trip to awaken and see because one of the concepts that came up was how if we have a limitation how can students and families and partners hopefully that's a good set and not a bad set though that's perfect thank you very much so members of the governing board it's a pleasure to be here with you this evening um I'll be very brief on the design part because I know we're running a little bit long on our time and have other topics we need to cover as well uh the design that I think most of you have seen in previous presentations is is kind of Fairly consistent it has not had any kind of major changes from what was presented with a governing board back in the fall we've really kind of focused on the design aspirations of really trying to focus on adventurous learning health and wellness indoor outdoor connectivity uh creating Community impact and kind of stewardship and sustainability as some of the kind of driving goals that have been driving the design process so as you can see on the screen that's the site plan design very similar to what was presented to you and Paul and this is consistent with what we have actually just recently submitted to the the City of Phoenix for our first building permit review as Jay was mentioning alluding to some of the challenges we're running into in terms of construction budgets and trying to make sure that we can deliver all of this within the budgets that we have available we've been really focusing on uh this Zone that we're calling Zone a and which is really the heart and the core of what the project is that includes the new school it includes all of the kind of primary outdoor spaces that are immediately adjacent to that so the learning Courtyard which is really the heart of the new school is all included in that as well as vegetable gardens and pollinator Gardens outdoor play spaces what it's not including at the moment that we're going to get we have designed and we'll get pricing for but we don't have high confidence that we're going to be able to deliver within the base budget is a lot of the areas on the Northern portion of the site which would include the Eco play and the community garden and Orchard area the multi-use sport field will be able to repurpose the existing multi-use sport Fields so that will be there on on day one and the the Eco play and some of the Community Gardens are some of the things that we're thinking could be built as projects as as we're able to obtain grants or additional funding to kind of implement those uh going forward and the wetlands is included the Wetland we are working our best to include in the base budget that is something we are trying to include in the base um so that's the kind of strategy for the for the site in terms of how we're approaching the budget it's really about kind of prioritizing that core area and then strategizing on how we can look at phasing and implementation for the balance of the site um through grant funding and other opportunities and then as we go to the next uh slide uh the the plans of the building itself really have not changed any major way from what we've talked about previously on the scale of the facility has not changed we're still two stories organized around a learning Courtyard that's the heart of the school um the the kind of interior spaces are all fairly consistent with what we showed you in the fall and then the renderings that we showed these are the same renderings that we shared with you in the fall just kind of a reminder this is a view from the pollinator Garden looking back toward the multi-use sport court and the uh indoor dining and then the next slide is a view from the multi-use sport Fields looking back towards the north side of the school and the uh outdoor player one of the one of the concepts that keeps coming up recently in life for me it's about sometimes when you're doing a vision it helps such to become a realized and so you know we talked a little bit about some of the challenges that we have but one of the interesting things that started to manifest itself because every time we talk with Partners we talk about these challenges and the things that we would like to be able to do a little bit from them weeks ago we had a member of our actually of uh professional who lives in our community who is working on her PhD and needs an engineering project as part of her dissertation she has found donors who are going to provide all the materials of construction work and her dissertation is uh has to do with how concrete slabs here in Arizona because all of the standards apparently that are used right now are based on Texas and we use Texas standards or hypothesis is that we may have better standards for everything we figured out how those are symptoms so uh the theme from Little Gilmore is currently working to figure out how that might integrate but it would give us the opportunity to have some concrete slabs of either a part of the existing design at no cost to the district very limited cost or if that's not a fit to be able to perhaps create some of these spaces that we don't have to budget at work to be able to drop those in as a solution in order to create some other spaces so so there are some things that are in motion out there in the universe that seem to be trying to help us out even though up until this point everything in the questions right sure it sounds like they're going to receive this super magic and we've been working with the Creighton Community Foundation on some grant opportunities to fund elements that are in that Northern portion of the site so we're already working hard on that and and I feel like there's some good opportunity there there's some great stories to tell I think and I think there's some really worthy elements there and it it I think it'll something that will draw interest for Community organizations around the valley so with that I'm going to take us through the so thank you Cindy thank you thank you before I turn this over to our project managers I'm going to kind of take us real quick through where we've been where we're going and and if you have questions it doesn't have to be political but many of you was kind of experienced this as we've gone and we worked with Molly Smith and then start planning originally engineering um thank you so much for that um that we began in early 2021 we had actually um originally talked to Molly in November of 2019 but as I mentioned earlier we had we had some delays there um we did get the architect and the contractor um hired through the selection process and then the full design process began in summer of 22.
Please stand and join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. And Miss Rof, would you please recite our mission statement? Yes, it is to empower each student to positively impact the world for a bright new future. Okay, next up is public comment. We have one tonight and it's Mary Bragg and the topic is thank you to outgoing board members. Good evening ladies and gentlemen of the board and administration and uh community members and guests. I wanted to take this opportunity for our board members, for all of you for your hard work and dedication and commitment. Um, people do not realize the time and the dedication and everything you do for everyone in the district, our students, our families, and most of all, our employees.
in savings that we just realized we could get in our health insurance account we could count that toward the 000 reduction so um what we have done and this could change in the process but uh we re-implemented the special ed teacher for the Thrive program at Cherry Brook Primary School we reinstated the Paras that we wanted to reduce from the budget and Donna was also able to forecast some some cost savings and electricity because we're now going with Constellation Energy as the service provider through eversource then we'll realize about eighteen thousand dollars if I believe the other correct so that's where we are now with our budget reduction Monday evening um we have the annual town meeting which is the public budget hearing that will be at 6 00 PM um in room app so 6 p.m right here on Monday night and um Lou will say a few words on behalf of the board that budget Bob Bessel will say um some words on the board of selectman's budget and we will be present to answer any uh taxpayers questions and then the budget will be sent to referendum um at some date to be scheduled in May so the mailer is out you each should have gotten the mail from the board to your homes um so are we in a quiet period now where we can't Advocate that's correct we cannot we cannot Advocate using Board of Education you can work by now but we can't do anything more than what's already out there now that's correct you can't use technology we can't improve the Flyers everybody has big excuse on Mondays pound meeting May 9th is the uh is the vote the votes here there has to be a minimum last time it did not meet the minimum although I I tend to think I was talking to Mr scheiler here and I tend to think that this one might stir up this is this is a one of the larger increases that this town has seen in some time so it may still have some emotions yes the most important thing you can do is encourage voters to vote in the referendum right any questions about our budget where we are at this point so Monday night is the next budget meeting all right to go into my report I don't have much to report on um tonight I was going to report on some of the items the students reported on to again let you know the Disney trip was successful as the students mentioned the choir received the superior rating of the band was rated first in their class and then congratulations again to our student Jack bendinger who was uh given the recognition of the best student accompanyist so congratulations to the band Inquirer and blue and I'm going to take a look at our upcoming meetings before the end of the year and invite the students to come and present their PowerPoint we also had a very successful student trip to Ecuador they would also love to come and present to you um what they learned throughout the trip just as the music teachers in the parent chaperones on the Disney trip deserve to be commended both teachers who took our 13 students to Ecuador deserve to be commended we earnings to Breezy and Andrea Shack both veteran Travelers and did an outstanding job and I believe well I know one of the highlights was eating a guinea pig I thought they were joking was why I saw the guinea pig on the platter so we'll we'll hear from the students in the future we'll we'll hear from the students in the future about their wonderful experiences I can't I can't thank you enough for providing both opportunities for kids and especially the international travel opportunity because that really is something that our district has valued and the students take so much away from that so thank you so much for that again I want to let you know that following our last meeting where we had several and um Lou and I met Adam brazar as we look at staff who report back to you but what our staff is is saying but I wanted to make sure you knew that we were following up on that I sent the notice out today about our next uh Equity Community Gathering being tomorrow night um I received feedback from several key members of our group that um the date wasn't communicated out enough frequently so many have conflicts tomorrow night so we're going to postpone tomorrow night's Community Gathering and hold it on our next scheduled date which is May 17th and I'm asking here and now the first thing in the morning send that message out to the community somewhere I apologize uh for not communicating that more on the April 19th day that was a date that had to be rescheduled um but I look forward to our next gathering on May 17th so to be clear our next Gathering will be May 17 7 to 8 30 through zones I worked with Claudia today to put together a calendar through the end of the year yes with all of the important dates to get us through June 30th so what he will be sending that out to you but there are three dates I really want to highlight for you right now June 9th High School graduation will have a reception in the high school beginning at 5 30.
is like 30 days um that enables someone within a large parking lot to say store vehicles um for the defined period of time which I believe is 30 days to more effectively use a parking lot um but again it's for how to better utilize super large parking lots so your site has to be zoned p and it has to have a certain size area um so those uses are not permitted in the TC one yeah I just want to kind of get a definition to be like does this fit under the you know why isn't Car Sales uh medium or short-term car storage you know outdoor car storage sort of thing that's uh that's I just want to kind of like understand why we have these separate categories and what exactly falls into it so yeah um so it could be I'm just trying to think of it in a scenario like Briarwood might give space in their parking area when they get an extra like an oversized shipment of cars for their dealership that don't fit on their lot yeah Briarwood has asked this came from I think of the time it was written there was a manufacturer that was doing recalls maybe Volkswagen or something and a nearby dealership received a big influx of cars that they needed to address and they couldn't store them on their site so they restored um I'm off-site and I yes I think this is um that's what you're getting at say you have a large shipment of vehicles that are not personally owned you don't need there's no point in you don't want someone to build a new parking lot just for this one purpose yeah let's utilize existing parking lots but that's where it is I think maybe what you're going I wonder if you're um when we when staff was considering allowing the automobile sales and sales and rental I think that the dealership the showroom portion is not the objectionable part that's where if you are inside of a building yeah you know um there's a population out there who may think walking past a showroom is great like see the new shiny cars it's the outdoor storage of the new inventory that's the objectionable part and in and I would argue in the tc1 district though that dealer owner will have to make a hard Choice you're only allowed so many parking spaces based on your building size are you going to use those for new vehicle inventory are you going to use those for customer or employee parking and if you're in a mixed use with like an auto dealership on the first floor something above it you've got to balance if you're providing that parking I think this is where some of the short-term medium-term parking come into play you can you can buy even a car online you don't you that we can have businesses that separate the showroom from the inventory spot and I think this was some of our reasoning why if a business such as auto sales or rental was willing to meet our Forum standards we can you can be that first floor use they will have to figure out someplace else for where they store their vehicles in a more appropriate spot so I guess I'm working kind of backwards from the logic of if we're selling cars versus TVs you know storing a product for sale um a car is a product in storage is that different you know is that different than car you know a car versus a product relative to what we call the space that it's stored in uh and I guess what I want to confirm is that there's no wiggle room that a parking space is also a car storage space relative to these two uses like there's no other space that a developer could build out to increase the amount of places you could put a car on a site in tc1 like we have maximum parking requirements and that would be kind of the one-to-one measurement of our form-based code of how many cars you could store relative to like fixing the truck or selling you have 80 parking spaces you can only have 80 cars and pick how you use them for customer parking or your stock and that you can't say oh well that's my outdoor sales area and you park them you know bumper to bumper like is that a lot like can you park cars Bumper to Bumper an outdoor sales area for a dealership I I do think that um so absent permanent outdoor sales I think the tc1 district is tight in that regard um I do think the definition of permanent outdoor sales would allow an outdoor auto dealership um outside of their parking counts it yes now now we could probably also have a discussion about is inventory storage part of the sales area or is that Outdoor Store outdoor storage right like are we is it right are they is that a sales there that people can walk through to look at the inventory or is it long-term storage that only staff can access to be able to like grab the keys and Shuffle it around yeah I'm just trying to break this into what's a Savvy car dealer would expand the amount of footprint for a car you know outdoor cars and I guess that's where I really see outdoor sales permanent is vague enough to maybe allow cars to also creep into that area along with that 100 building footprint parking area as like a moment of conflict or doubling down on how many cars we actually are going to see on any one lot does it like is is that hazy to you too like well like I'm I would as staff I would say I think I see in black and white the thread the needle I think in a highly motivated person might be able to present this at least apply to do both right like yeah okay but I think of all of the uses that are permitted in the tc1 district and where the tc1 district is going to be located I don't see that as being a car dealer's best option to do like car the sales and use is not the only use permitted in the district it's one of many uses and I don't see the demand for brand new auto dealerships I think the Classic Auto Dealerships do not want to be on Stadium anymore they've moved out actually what we may see are the sort of online based or something who just wants a showroom a more newer modern the newest car dealership on Stadium Boulevard that we've seen is it was a Fiat Dealership yeah an extra post office and no it's the post office and now it's turned into the car right I think that that's probably more likely what we're going to see just because that is the way Auto vehicle sales are are moving um and with land values the way that they are I I don't see it worth somebody's effort to work that hard when it would be much easier to um much easier and so that's my I don't know a tiny Bank footprint well it's worth three million dollars to buy a vacant office building and demo you know I so that that's what I I have concerns because there are especially a couple of large lots that if building construction is exceptionally High being able to build the minimum viable building uh utilize the maximum amount of currently available land area to just turn cars actually seems like a feasible option to pack them in our experience in downtown however has been not the minimum size building that you can possibly get but the maximum size building that you can get right but I like there there is right now all of downtown is walkable we're trying to move that way and change that kind of value and love restructure and I don't think we're there yet and so that's where we need to put be able to kind of stop Gap momentum in the wrong direction and my concern is what will pencil out now might be a tiny dealership with a lot of cars if you can fit some of them in your parking area and some of them in your outdoor sales area um as a consideration so I so I'm jostling with that one parking structures are an accessory use right that's what I have too so I'm just going to kind of like parking structure or an accessory use in the tc1 district which means that's just the use case so you have to have a primary use and and I know we kind of have gone back and forth for clarification I think it's pretty clear the footprint of vehicular use area which is outside of the building can be a hundred percent of the building footprint but once you get inside of that form that can be a building structure as long as it doesn't exceed our parking maximums right so I can have like three stories of parking in the building to get up to my parking maximums even if the square footage of parking area between the vehicular use area and my parking structure is more than the footprint of a building yes and that's what it says it says we we are limiting the surface area devoted to parking but we are not um but that is not one and the same as the maximum number of parking spaces yep so then I'll go all the way back to repeating myself about adaptive reuse and parking structures and how we typically in America build them as slope floors which are very hard to adaptively reuse versus doing them as flat floors with you know like uh spiral access points um and so if there is alternatively another way for this to kind of get leverage to really you know I know we have parking maximums but to really maximize out that parking storage there may be a higher likelihood that we're seeing parking structures which are not readily adaptable unless we write into our code a form-based requirement of how those are designed to be horizontal slabs right which I believe like is that I think it's applicable to UDC or is that building code like are we threading a needle there too um no I mean we currently do not have any um such standards for parking structures they can be added that's a form-based okay thing so I'm just going to put that one out there too um and yeah I guess that just circles back to Car Store does car storage equal parking maximums and relative to a Savvy outdoor permanent sales person we might be able to thread that needle um I will say what I did find interesting was 5.16.3 C which allowed or required in the c2b district storage and repair of automobiles trucks and construction equipment must be located in an enclosed building um that seemed like something when I talked you know I was thinking about amendments to include along with c2b tc1 to make sure that the repair of automobiles isn't happening outside that we kind of capture more of that maybe in the ground floor back of the building sort of thing if we're trying to hold more in a building to get more building doing the same measures that we're doing for c2b relative to the same use might be a another restriction we might want to apply alternatively uh special exception use so I saw that um as maybe a benefit for the repair it may it isn't applied to anywhere for the auto sales or rental um I and that's where I jostle with like is it a benefit to put that in a building do we get more slope fillers do we need to go write another you know portion of the um Amendment two so I'm just going to put that on the table before I come back if maybe that's opened up some thoughts for other Commissioners um and I think the last thing relative to the the 70 30 to 45 feet um it says adjacent to residential zoning I know we're going to talk about Club should be residential use is it relevant should it just be adjacent to districts requiring a club a conflicting land use buffer just semantics of calling it residential zoning versus residential use but say that first part again so um in the sorry let go to the table in the table if I can find it again sorry is um 70 lot width provided this allows 30 feet between building and side Lot normally or 45 feet between the building and side lot when energy when adjacent to a residential zoning and I understand that to be purposefully to help support a conflicting land use buffer like to give some space there because that's not a required setback it's just 70 with that wiggle room for that reason right yeah um that is purpose that is purposeful the conflicting land use buffer section in the Landscaping section says the tc1 district only needs to be buffered um when it adjacent to a residential zoning District okay or a park okay so we don't have to worry about the other club because yes language tightened right in the downtown area and in the tc1 district we do not require buffering from land used for residential this would be introducing completing languages buffers almost maybe every single lot would need to buffer from every single line right you'd be possibly having 30 feet of building breaking up that street wall which is not what we wanted right right okay um um okay those are mine for now so I would say like in summary the things that I'm considering are how much do we open this up for car storage based on what we currently have as permitted uses um concerns about what we're doing exterior versus what we might want to include in the building similar to what we have in 516 3C for repair um and what we think about parking structures and their building form standards if anyone else has comment commissioner Hammerschmidt okay um you may hear me think a lot and it's too late for that um so I have a really easy question to start as you were just sort of going through them because you're like the TC one like Guru so the 100 feet first of all the table clarifications look so much easier to read so thank you um 100 people signal intersection awesome change if you had a building that was like part of it was 100 feet but part of it was 200 feet it was all the same building could could you could have residential use past 100 feet right I just wanted to clarify except okay perfect um okay the reason that we're including Sales and Repair and rentals all sort of together from the council resolution was sort of to provide flexibility right so like if you had a car rental if we didn't if you have like an Enterprise that wanted to locate on the corridor if we didn't have them all sort of together if they wanted to like sell a vehicle as I think they do that would not be allowed right like is that sort of why we're considering these all all these uses sort of together well they're two as in our current format they're just two uses one is sales and rental oh that's one together okay and then repair is one pair is one got it okay and the definition of repair almost makes it seem like putting windshield wipers on it when the staff of the auto parts store puts windshippers on that becomes a auto repair I mean and so like um and yeah the and the rental part and even technically the sales part even if you are if a classic car kind of guy and you're just sitting at your home on your computer on the internet like dealing like buying from one guy and selling it to another guy you never take possession of the car you're still a car dealer but it covers the gamut but sales and rent sales and rental is one use okay I mean I guess where my head is at right now like I am I guess more leaning on the the form-based code aspect of it so we we know that we're limiting any use to be to look like how we want it to look to you know have the walkability as aspects of it that we want them to have um but what you just said about like kind of breaking it especially with the parking garage thing um I would be open to like form-based parking garages if that's something that we can do because like I hadn't even thought of that until you brought it up the other week about like the angled parking and like you can't just re adaptively reuse that um and I do still sort of think that we're in an inflection point in the city where like people are still relying on vehicles for better or worse and and I guess I'm maybe a little more cautious and maybe I'm being naive but like I'm sort of on your like what you were saying about like just the way that people are doing business like I don't I don't see like these big car dealerships trying to come and like locate on Stadium like they're gonna go out to the townships where they actually have room but if they want to if like there are urban car dealerships I was Googling them like they can look okay and you know if they're going to replace something that isn't a form that we want like maybe that's okay um I would like to have more of a conversation I think around this special exception you aspect of it because I'm torn because I think that like we already know what we would approve if we made these social exception uses so I'm kind of like what's the point like maybe we should just like say what we want instead of pretending that we would actually consider something that we don't want if we don't want some of these things so I've been saying like I'm ready to vote Yes I want to move this along but like if there are things that we think are like deal breakers like now I'm a little concerned about this like outdoor storage thing then let's talk about it before we send it on Mr Clark so can I just can I just uh clarify about the parking the sales um to kind of pick that apart a little bit further I'm sorry um so I know it's like on Jackson Road um there's a couple parking lots that are just um I don't know the buildings are long gone and there's just like an air parking lot and it's kind of just like a budget used car lot wouldn't I mean I wouldn't necessarily think that someone would go and build a car lot for that specific purpose but I worry about it delaying progress with like well if you can just rent it out for your vacant parking lot to put a you know a very makeshift car dealership there is there incentive to invest in that parcel or are you just going to keep renting it for that immediate purpose for however long um I guess there might be something that's already preventing that um but yeah there are a couple examples on Jackson Road you just go a little bit West and yeah and they've been there a while so just curious that's a question I believe that our we we do allow that right now your parking lot for car storage but it's not permitted in tc1 so we have a so we have a way to if that would were to occur in the tc1 district that's a violation of the zoning ordinance um and we would and we could enforce it in that way um if that was occurring in a P Parking District that was um met the threshold um that's actually not a violation that would be conforming but in the tc1 district that would be a con um a not not a permitted land use and that could be enforced okay just for our own understanding I'm just um what's the distinction between the scenario the commissioner um described with the with a enterprising dealership if they wanted to find that technicality what's the distinction there between them just like kind of um like what would be the limiting factor there so I I as it's we're on our working interpretation here um on a site they could have a a building of exercise and maybe the first floor of that building is a car dealership and they can have a parking lot of the same X size um and so maybe that because of the dealership size and the building size maybe that parking lot is um 50 spaces or something like that and that would be have that 50 spaces would be unless they built a parking structure that 50 spaces would be for every use on the site including customers and employees and car inventory and Sales inventory and so forth but if they also put a permanent outdoor sales area on a site plan so they had not only their building and the vehicle loose area they could have an undetermined size Outdoor Store outdoor sales area where they may display X number a few or a lot of cars and so they would be trying to say that this this big area of cars on is not car storage they're like this is our outdoor Car Store thanks it kind of clicked part way through it's late and then one more question just kind of again um for just another scenario to kind of so if we're worried about things like let's say um minimizing conflict points with pedestrians and you're having uh you know a showroom there would we want a scenario where let's say however many customers per hour are driving in and out of a vehicle and adding those you know entering and exiting through as opposed to a different use where it would be people may be walking up to an urgent care or people walking up to just you know at any other business versus something that's actively encouraging cars to be coming in and out um and I just you know just something to think about outdoor sales yeah like Network I guess I know this isn't yeah this isn't what was on it but kind of running through the scenarios if we open a valve I feel like there is kind of a valve to kind of close to mitigate the compounding effect of this and I guess I I see a few ways forward which if we maintain the outdoor sales um it really is the special exception use allows us to measure the full site plan as presented if they are trying to do that parking area and the outdoor sales we have some discretion to then evaluate oh they are trying to thread this needle this is not the intent and then we can kind of push back on the kind of doubling up of outdoor area versus building volume that we want so I think maybe like the cleanest way for me I guess is I either want it in the building or and I want that building to have flat floors or I want it to be a special exception use um because it's it's just too many open valves to add this in I absolutely like I understand um kind of sales going for like yeah I've been in a lot of cities and you walk by any other thing and it's I mean I think it's things like we talk about vehicle sales this says automobile and truck but you know it's like scooters like all sorts of Mobility can really be in a lot of these storefronts um the test driving I hear you um so I don't know maybe I'm just going to open up the discussion and see if there's an app like which way I'm happy to make a motion but it's either special exception use or including it as interior space with a horizontal floor somehow maybe staff can weigh into like what's actually cleaner to move forward it sounds like I think the second one sounds a little messy because we're inventing a new kind of form-based weight recommendation moving up the ladder to city council but I think uh to my opinion um is a special exception the special exception use should be used when it's just the character and the intensity of the land use itself is not appropriate throughout the district um and an example I often use in talking to someone is um um the residential districts a lot of the residential uses single-family uses all over the place that says if you're in this District the the home the dwelling is permitted but a child care is a special exception use because it's not really appropriate everywhere there's cul-de-sac streets not for example probably not appropriate um but if the if the site for child care is a big enough lot if it's on the corner if it's you know then that's why it's not just up loud everywhere it sounds to me that the the concerns which are legitimate the concerns of maybe automobile sales are not because it's not appropriate everywhere I've not heard like I don't want it I I it needs to be on the transit line or not it needs to be here here I'm not actually hearing that so I'm not hearing that it should be a special exception use what I'm hearing is it needs better standards or maybe the use needs to be broken down more individually so it's not all forms of vehicle sales um we have found an example where there was you know it could be personal vehicles and then heavy equipment the same thing with repair so that I mean if it helps the discussion at the table um I'm not what I haven't heard is um that these uses now they can only go on a street of a certain size they can't go here they can't go there they have to be within this proximity I've not heard that it's more what I've heard is more about the unintended consequences or just the broadness of the use and so therefore I think the answer is to add um better definition or Nuance to permanent outdoor sales I've heard Maybe levels of auto sales or and Rental maybe even repair oh that hasn't been as much of a discussion but that's what I've heard the concerns are and I don't think that special exception use is the tool to address those um to address what I've heard and that's my opinion feel free to disagree Mr Clark can I just add one quick con I'll keep brief um I think something just that I haven't heard come up a lot is the relationship between the use of the property and to the like the idea of a Transit Corridor of like moving people efficiently in general and just the maybe one of the core issues with the auto Centric uses is the limiting flow of things like buses and having cars turning on and off and limiting it from being a primarily any literally anything that doesn't interfere with like a rapid bus transit or something but you can't really have a rapid bus transit going down you know Stadium if you're going to be having people testing out a brand new car they've never driven trying to drive in and out or you're going to have even like you know the existing repair shops that are there time um oh that was another side I was just um curious what threshold like percentage if the auto repair sorry is a separate so I'm kind of jumping around um just a question how what percentage like would they have to be uh renovating their building to then have triggered the T1 I can't remember that offhand um the it's addressed in the non-conforming youth section and I yeah sorry I think it's 50 for a non-residential use and 70 percent um the expansion when it's considered a new build would be the 50 of the value so be pretty substantial uh renovation for any like repair shop or whatnot that's there yeah I guess that would just be my concern would be looking the only other Factor would be just how it interacts with the idea of Transit and efficiently moving people in the future of like a rapid bus um and having minimizing conflict points with that yeah I do not have the numbers in front of me but I do believe I'm fairly confident that in terms of trip Generation Um Auto Sales are much lower than other uses that are permitted in the tc1 district for example restaurants would have a much higher trip generation than auto dealership including probably test drives commissioner which just a question about the comparison between the tc1 and the D1 as it relates to the auto use so in the T in the the D1 D2 It Is by special exception use I'm double checking that right now and then I wonder why if it was in the council whereas Clause it didn't come across as a special exception use was that a staff decision to ignore that and when I say ignore I don't mean that maliciously so don't don't read anything into that Mr Leonard um for the vehicle sales and rental it is a special exception use in the D1 and D2 districts it is a permitted use in c2b and C3 for repair the same special exception use in the D1 and D2 and a permitted principal use in the c2b and C3 um I think that as staff were for the sort of the reasons I articulated previously I didn't think we thought that it should be a special exception use because of our form-based controls we thought it could approach the contact it would fit in context everywhere that tc1 was zoned um and if the and it is very valid if the commission disagrees would a car multi-story elevator work that is to say it would have a short setback because they're those elevators they probably would have to do a 15-foot first story but outside of that they could go up because the far would probably fit the footprint so we could get a bunch of car elevators in the in the structure that we have right now is that we could but that would be yes we could and that would be I think I think it'd be considered a building either way it's a structure yeah and I'm pretty certain that's not what we want and what we'd like to do so that's for me that's why I'm trying to figure out why we didn't bring the special exception use over because it gives us the most amount of flexibility as the district transforms into what we want it to become and if I understood the council member's concern was by excluding it early we harm the transition I didn't hear the concern from Council say that this is something we want to permit in perpetuity it was something that we wanted to create to create a easier transition and this it would seem that the special exception use would allow us to enact that and then there was something else you said earlier around um it's been my it's been my understanding that we do have rules for non-compliance but we don't always enforce those rules uh I don't I don't think no I don't think that's why that is not what I was trying to articulate oh sure and I don't need to put that into your uh in your comment I think it was in response to something that commissioner Solvay said which would be we would be able to correct that through enforcement and so I'm trying to understand how because we have a lot of non-conforming things within planning but we're not like a lot of the conversation that I've been trying to have around um r4c is non-conforming but we're not going and saying this is not conforming and it needs to come up to code we wait till there is a change then we bring it up to code and so the the enforcement is a lagging indicator in a sense it's like a lagging tool it's not a a primary enforcement tool so I just wrote that down as a like I don't think that's going to get what we want um but it was then it was in something that you were talking about like if somebody tried to like pencil in the the parking lot and all these things to like like really thread the needle we have a tool to correct that I think is how it came across which is through enforcement and I don't know if that meant you would prevent that through the building or through the enforcement of like the inspection of the site plan if somebody tried to do some trickery or some some non-conforming things so anyway it was just something that I I noted and I I just don't see us using those enforcement tools so you can clarify like you know if we had a stenographer we could read back the transcript but I'll have to do that after the meeting offer up the thoughts maybe similar to drive-throughs and special exception like we there was kind of a consensus of the intent behind it like near Highway interchanges on off that you're not kind of coming into their community and disrupting the flow of the neighborhood we are opening and considering it once we get into our neighborhood corridors that's where we drew that line and kind of set it on West Stadium with a second bank and then Plymouth Road and it's almost like we want to say with special exception uses here it's a special exception use when it's modifications to an existing building we're not interested in special exception to allow this into new construction is at least what I'm hearing as part of the discussion and I think that's where I I hear both sides like uh staff de Leo and commissioner Hammerschmidt about sometimes like sales can move and is sales in a building doesn't matter like does that matter but I guess what I disagree with is when you're changing windshield wipers that's not a primary use as vehicle maintenance because we're talking about primary use table selling cars online is not a primary use of a space and that's what I kind of distilled down to like we're talking about primary use of these projects not accessory uses or kind of you know Fringe uses and so if we're if we're selling cars online or like coordinating rental pickups that's that's a desk job like an office use it's an it's an office use I don't see that if there's anything in the plan that is about myself instead of the use of the space and the impact of the space um that's why I think we have the uses delineated differently so that we can measure intensity differently and when we start talking about the future of some of these uses that intensity dwindles to start becoming office or something similar that we currently allow to be permitted and I think that's maybe another kind of piece I'm grappling with is if it's lower intensity use it might fall under a different category when we think about primary use table um because I think you could change out a battery and that's not the primary use of a AutoZone that just happens to be some subsidiary thing that you do it's just good service but it's not like so I don't I want to move this along and like this should be it feels easy and it feels very hard at the same time so I'm really like I feel like I'm really pulling all the weeds at this one um and I really threw in that outdoor sales thing um um but yeah I like I understand not the special exception use but I actually think it's probably the clearest way to send a message about how we need to have early and Frank discussions with projects about this that um without opening up too much potential for new like new projects in tc1 and so I I think it's maybe the message I would say and I'm going to make an amendment so we can kind of move with discussion somewhere the message I would say with an amendment to include these two uses a special exception is that the intent is to request that staff maybe encourage any petitioner that brings a project to maybe bring to a working session to have a priest Middle have an early conversation to see what it like if it's a big addition or something um but I think that like that's the intent I think we're trying to convey and I don't know the clear other clearest way to do it I think one way if I yeah be so boldly butt in would be to um uh make a right because there's five members present tonight maybe make a recommend maybe break up the motion and make an amendment on the parts that you feel confident to move forward and to postpone the um and postpone other elements that maybe need more consideration revision or maybe need to be and then included with more amendments to to to be I I get the sense we'd like to look a little more holistically and there's probably a couple options but to look at some things more holistically maybe this entire package of amendments is not ripe for um forwarding to city council commissioner Hammerschmidt there was a part two right there was a part two of something else we were bringing back to us for tc1 and I'm forgetting what that is but there was a part two related to the narrow rights of way thank you until that even comes back and we move that on to city council they're not going to let us resume any other corridors is tc1 right so but even the amendment that brought this to the table said these changes should not delay the adoption of tc1 so I just wanted to give that Counterpoint no thank you I was trying to buy us more time no because because there was a separate amendment to uh briggs's original motion that struck something that was like and we recognized that this will slow down or delay the implementation of tc1 and it was struck from the amendment because it is my understanding of watching Council that they want the TC ones to move throughout the city um okay somebody said something here tonight that made me think that we weren't literally with you so I I commissioner watches right that but I I propose I just want to be frank I propose that language because modifying this district has consequences and yes that was struck struck but I I would reiterate my position the reason a factor in that resolution being presented back to Planning Commission was there was ambivalence from my perspective at the city council table of rezoning a corridor to tc1 because there was concerns outstanding on those matters those are specific issues that were raised and I I'll just reiterate my premise that until those are resolved I think bringing any additional areas those questions are going to remain in the minds of city council I'm projecting that I'm basing it on the experience of the past rezoning but that's why I think it's important that we advance those changes prior to pursuing additional geographies okay what is the timeline for the um setback thing um my voice is going we're hoping to shift to that after the automobile uses was resolved oh so you don't want to do them at the same time I mean I I do sort of to miss Celia's suggestion like I think that maybe makes sense um or I mean if it was a special exception use for everything you commissioner said something about not on new buildings just a special exception news for this season these uses on existing buildings or well I think similar to drive-throughs we've kind of taken a position right special exception is about a certain context and so to Mr Leo's Point what we talked about was context and so drive-throughs it was like it's close to an interchange you're quick on quick off you're not coming into our neighborhood that has context Ambitions but at least it was kind of like clear like we drew a line This Not That in terms of special exception is about the expectation is there a way to clearly communicate This Not That in a similar fashion with special exception here and I think that's where it's it's different because it's not about context relative to you know the the planning opinion of you know how we use our ordinance policy to do it versus how we're talking about how we want to try to regulate that land use so different but the same in terms of trying to draw like splitting hairs on when it might be appropriate or not so at least we can communicate that earlier so that we don't have people like coming all the way to site plan and be like we told you like this was not part you know qualifying as a special exception use okay can I can I just yeah um no yes go ahead I'll just well I know but I wanna yes I'm supposed to give everybody the platform I'm practicing um I think there's equal ambivalence at this table as there is a city council uh relative to tc1 on the other side and we will Instant adopt maybe at city council until things are cleared up and I think ambivalence to make changes until we see more movement uh so that's where I also see kind of a conflict of should we do should we wait should we wait should we do between these two tables um and I'm trying to kind of reconcile and like appreciate you know a lot of the professional opinion and then poke those loopholes because we want to have projects come before us that set a positive and ambitious precedent for the types of projects we're trying to see and if we see a dealership with offices on the second floor with a parking lot a parking structure and an outdoor sales use as the first project in tc1 like I feel like we would be taking so many more steps back in terms of where this where I think there are a lot of strong moments of this policy instead of keeping it tight to the things we know we can get out of it as it stands right now say maybe it depends on what it replaces but maybe it doesn't actually depend on what it replaces and I I think you're right about the ambivalence like I want to keep rezoning and just sort of fix TC well Plymouth could in Washington could bring up issues again that nobody had thought of um Mr Leonard can you remember me where are they on our work plan right now are they sort of postponed because we're dealing with this or next year this year so generally our time frame with CC1 was to resolve the tc1 direction that Council has provided then we were contemplating simultaneous rezoning of both Washington and Plymouth So based on timing um I mean you were in the midst of this as we are at this table trying to predict how long the first part of that will take um I I want to be clear we've been having a lot of conversation as staff with other property owners and potential developers regarding the tc1 and I want to be clear we have 10 other suggestions that have been proffered um and I can't sit here and tell you which among those I think are good which of those I think we should pursue which of those that don't rise to prominence for me we're trying hard to get this District in a form that works I I do want to be clear and honest we have yet to have a tc1 proposal in any District I don't want to say that that is because the district is bad um I think the District of sound we um you you'll recall when we started this conversation we presented a lot of different scenarios we talked about varying approaches different TC districts we talked about trying to build upon some of the known quantities and Regulatory Frameworks of our existing districts we very intentionally tried to use building blocks from some of the things that were within our ordinance so I think it's sound but I I think it's fair to also sit here with the experience that you as the Planning Commission have not yet seen a tc1 proposal and so I there could be a lot of factors to that I frankly think that economic factors are a big part of that building right now is very difficult but I will say there are other proposals happening you are seeing other proposals so um I I just want to I I I put that out there to say I acknowledge that tension of trying to rezone more areas to tc1 and getting areas tc1 zoning more appropriate I advise my opinion is that we are having this conversation because there was unease uh at the council table I I can't speak for a council at that moment I'm telling you how I interpreted that and I'm projecting how that unease might carry forward to the next districts there might be new issues as well so I don't even want to suggest that resolving these two will be a Panacea that those similar questions won't be raised but I think it's sound to try to be responsive to what the council's asked us to do before we lay that next conversation on their lap because there's more people to talk anymore if we if we said we want these uses permitted with it we need a special exception use can we put conditions around special exception uses like can we say like if you do a parking garage it has to have flat floor plates or yes but that suggests to me that we have some more work to do to present you that text okay that it achieves that okay thanks uh just to clarify um this came in at the transition point of the old Council to the new Council and it was championed by if I remember correctly a single council member um so when we talk about unease I I just want to contextualize it that it was not a majority of the council so it wasn't a mandate in terms of it I hear use it in a very unique position it's a different position than I sit in and I respect that position and I respect that you see the proposals and you hear from the developers and you are talking to the policy makers and you're trying to create a vision for what's going to work and what's going to move through but we do have a new Council we this table I think to be kind uh to use the kind words that commissioner so they sort of intimate it there's some ambivalence is how I would look at that um and so I just I I see this I'm I am struggling with this because it it's slowing down what we need to do and then we're seeing petitions that are getting in in this transition that aren't in our 50-year plan we know in our 50-year plan we do not want to dedicate this much land to these kinds of uses and so if that is what is known and that is the trajectory or to use a term that I use in my profession are Telos it is our future it is time for us to activate our future at the table um and if that means that we do it by Special Egg use exception or we just ban it all together and send it back to council and say we looked at all of this here's where we're going we do not agree I I that's where I would sit to give you feedback to miss DeLeo because I didn't say much at the beginning um so just some more piece and let me just say I did not say this tables look great thank you for those changes I I would love to have seen these separate so that we could just um just Heap Praise on the changes that you are making and thanks for your both your expertise your knowledge and your diligence uh in this work we are the beneficiaries of your good stewardship foreign okay I'm gonna do I'm gonna rip this Band-Aid off and I'm gonna make a motion to uh amends to make special exception for the Auto Truck Repair and the auto sales and my reasoning for this is I do want to move this forward it's going to technically fail and we can continue this discussion uh whatever Council wants to kind of do next with it but also if the intent is that some of these uses are moving forward in a way um that are reduced in intensity to what we're seeing now like we're selling more things online and we're having inventory off-site we might deliver it and things like that then it might fall under a different use category as the primary and the special exception should be evaluated in terms of what level of use is it actually doing an intensity of the site versus these so really the question is not um where but um like does I I think it when it applies that they need to request a special exception it's to the discretion of is this cutting the threshold from like office sales to Auto Sales relative to a primary use when we're talking about how sales are transitioning in this modern era so I think that's what I'm also kind of hearing that there's some gray area in the type of sales and if Auto Sales looks the same and when it does look like this there I have concerns about car storage and what we're prioritizing there for neuroform and how much more parking structure we make it instead of Apartments so I have two amendments one is a motion to change the Auto Truck and Equipment Repair and the auto sales and rental to a special exception used on the table my second motion and I can take them at one at a time but okay yeah yeah I need your first one okay move by move by Me seconded by commissioner sorry so I guess we'll take that one up for discussion for that motion sorry uh it is to change from a permitted use to a special exception use for the Auto Truck Equipment Repair and the auto sales and rental so the two first two of the three bullet points of the original motion to be a special exception use instead of primary use any discussion no thanks Kelly can we have a roll call sure on the motion presented uh commissioner Hammerschmidt yes commissioner yes Mr dish no thank you commissioner you said it wasn't the tool to use and so I am not in a place where I can think about this commissioner Clark yes commissioner Weiss yes that would carry back to the original motion I'm going to make a new motion that is to apply the use specific standards 5.16.3 C uh two the automobile truck Construction and Equipment Repair which currently is applied to c2b which just to kind of read for everyone's edification um requires storage and repair of automobiles trucks and construction equipment must be located in an enclosed building so I want to motion to apply that use specific standard um without a yeah because it's called out in the uses for just c2b relative to that table by commissioner wage discussion question does that that sounds good to me but I remember us discussing this at some point either when we were having the endless maker discussion or some other time about would you be able to fix your bicycle in your driveway or something like that is there anything that staff would like to raise about why not to do this or implications that we need to think through really is actually what I mean to say foreign I would um not want to evaluate or analyze at the table okay but I would offer that um when preparing the next version of the ordinance and we all and we'd also prepare a briefer transmittal memorandum to cover if we have then flagged something we would articulate that to council and expanding or saying that a different way when we're then working to fulfill the planning commissions recommendation to council um we imply a recommendation to city council as well and we could say this is what the city council has this is what the Planning Commission has recommended we have we do see this concern though and we may then suggest suggest something along those lines but that it would be in like the worst case scenario but I'll go back to my original point I'm just not sure at this time like you know yes do i do I um see an under consequence with that I don't I don't see it right now but as part of our work to forward on to to forward your work to city council if I do then see um a concern I would articulate that as well and make some sort of recommendation whether it be I have an alternative that fixes or whether it should be postponed and returned for more work depending on what I may or may not see okay I mean I will say that as the attentive traveler that I am when I'm in urban places like Paris it is all inside and you appear in the windows and you're like oh my God that's an auto repair in there and so I can see that that makes a lot of sense and is a clean amendment I think commissioner hammership which can you say it again Five Dot yep it's 5016.
um we have had you know it's It's never enough um and and we want more and um would like more but we have had quite a bit of community input throughout the process and then at each phase of the drawing development we've been reviewing the budget to try to make sure we're managing expectations based on the resources that we have available to us so you heard you heard Phil mention the final plans and going to the city in order to generate a GMP for the governing board to consider that's one of the precursor steps and so that's why we're in that portion of the process right now in order to be ready to bring a guaranteed maximum price proposal to the board um and right now that's estimated to happen on June 6th at the June 6th governing board meeting so if we look at milestones and this is certainly not 100 inclusive it was just a portion of what we could capture the point of fact as we go through these I had forgotten we had even gone to Boyce Thompson until Martha reminded me so um we had we started with the new school planning Committee in February of 2021 we originally started with WebEx because of the pandemic and then we had an in-person meeting for the first time at the Creighton academy one of the pieces again that I had completely forgotten until I went back to review is that Molly Smith did quite a number of small group interviews and so these interviews were with parents tip majority of those parents were former Kennedy parents I think we did it have a few Loma Linda parents in a Monte Vista Baron that asked to join in we also had teachers that were interviewed staff members of the site the leadership team at the site and then some of our community members and and some of those community members that were interviewed stayed with us through both committees not a large number of them but there are a few kind of diehards that have been with us all along the way um and then we from that following committee work we had the governing board study session on April 6 the 21 we did bring the concepts to Community Council on uh April actually almost exactly two years ago and that was Avia WebEx Community Council but it was very interactive and we came away with a spreadsheet full of feedback from the participants in that session and then we from there we took it to Creighton student Congress to get student input back to the planning committee and then we did have a community feedback session in July of 21.
Sandy, I've worked with you. I've taught your children for so many years. Um, so it's bittersweet to see you end your term on the board, but I wish you nothing but the best as you move forward in your future endeavors. Janine, all the different committees we have sat on and worked on and different events and laughs and again your dedication and commitment um to the district is unwavering and we will see you at many events throughout. I thank you ladies for your service to the community, to the board and to all of us. Thank you. Thank you. Cheryl, are there any other public comments? Okay. Uh, next up is board updates. Any board members? I have one, but um, let me just jump on just to piggyback off of Mary. Um, I just wanted to say that I didn't realize until I was a board member how much work it took and how many hours have to go into it.
so please mark your calendars graduation starts at 6 30. but we always have a reception prior for our staff and all of you that'll begin at 5 30. June 9th Wednesday night June 14th will be the grade six promotion ceremony between 614. yes June June 14th thank you we're checking on the time for that but you can save that evening if you'd like to come to the grade six promotion and then the following evening on June 15th that will be the grade a promotion and then the last day of school for our students will be June 16th that following Friday we're preparing for two weeks from tonight May 2nd to have our County celebrates and as you know from our discussions prior to tonight um we're breaking up the evening it's still going to be one evening but our Cherry Brook students in Canton intermediate students will be recognized beginning at six o'clock then we will have a brief reception following those of those honorees of being recognized and then we'll have our middle schoolers and high schoolers we've recognize the second happening that's two weeks from tonight May 2nd at our high school I'm sorry starting starts at six correctly if I'm wrong John or Claudia and we're putting the final touches on the program right now for that this is the second portion of 7 30.
5.16.3 C okay and I was like I just want to clarify that's artist studio yeah okay C1 is hearing c2b District storage and repair of automobiles trucks and construction equipment must be located in an enclosed building which I believe the intent is don't have junk yards and your intention is to add tc1 to that list correct so it's in I would say C automobile one tc1 and c2b District because right now relative to that table it Flags it but when you go to this it only calls out c2b as the applicable use scenario even though there's more than one District permitted to have this in it so that's how I read the UDC yeah yeah I'm following this okay any other discussion okay ready for a vote and the motion is presented commissioner Hammerschmidt yes commissioner yes commissioner dish yes commissioner clerk yes commissioner white yes that carries okay back to the original motion staff are weak clear can we help um so the two modifications are shifting automobile sales and repair the two uses from permitted uses to special exception uses and modifying 5.16.3 to list both c2b and tc1 correct and uh I mean Alexis helped me I think 5163 is probably already listed in the use table for yep repair yep yep let me check my version say p i want to just ask about one more thing if it's possible or if it's too stupid and too nitty-gritty that we can't do it but would there be I can see why we would not want to prohibit what is it called now permanent outdoor sales from tc1 because that can be like a flea market you know like people like those that's what we want that can be pedestrian friendly but I cannot Envision any moment of my life in which I would want a car dealership to have a permanent outdoor sales because it's more parking lot we are not interested in parking lots so could we prohibit that from uh things that sell rent in repair Automobiles and trucks and machinery I would like to do that so outdoor sales of other things is okay but outdoor sales of vehicles motorcycles electric vehicles cars is not okay I think it's if if I'm understanding there's a distinction between outdoor sales area and the regular use area you could still sell cars and motorcycles and things in a vehicular use area they're using parking spaces yeah but you couldn't do that and do it in the outdoor sales area if but you could have a parking area and an outdoor sales area we're just saying that we care about what's in that outdoor sales area and vehicles we prefer not but other outdoor sales items trees landscaping materials are okay but car vehicles not there no it's permanent outdoor sounds lumber yards yeah okay this is why I asked if it doesn't make sense to do that well it's a it's a question like I understand I think that our perception is that outdoor sales of vehicles is gonna be more adverse to the goals of the quarter maybe than other outdoor sales I'm not absolute about that it's still open space it's still gonna have often not a feeling of protection maybe to the sidewalk it is a question I mean people choose Christmas trees they walk around lots that are filled with Christmas trees and it smells good and it's festive and they hang lights a lot filled with cars looks a lot like a parking lot whether they're parked or whether they're in inventory and people walk around and look at them they do they can do that inside too or online I mean it's it's the I don't mind walking by a Christmas tree lot it doesn't make me comfortable walking by a huge parking lot and I don't know if this is a distinction without a difference but but I do know that when you raise to the issue of you know what is it called when you stack parking I guess it's called stack when you just line up one after the other that's an unpleasant pedestrian experience which I do not want there to be any doubt that we can't do commissioner Clark can I add a distinction I see there is not an earlier vehicle trips was mentioned vehicular trips and I think that it might be less about a point in time particular trips but the trajectory that's possible so something like a Christmas tree sales lot you know in the future 50 years from now you could walk up and get your Christmas tree I did it in New York when I lived there you walk up and get your tree and get only one you can carry um there will never be a point where you can walk into a car dealership and walk out with a car you you just can't do it so the trajectory there is there's a limit like you it will never be zero in even in like Utopia whatever because it's a vehicle so it will have some interaction with the corridor moving people which is the primary function of you know our ideas to have a efficient way of moving people throughout the corridor um so I guess that's why I see the distinction I'm sorry if I got wildly off topic because it's yeah but later I maybe I just like when we look at um the right-of-way if staff could provide comment for that I feel comfortable like leaving it as is especially like having that special exception but it would be interesting to have that discussion at a future date with the right of way yeah it's fine and plus I do sense discomfort with that so let's not do it we don't have to do everything yeah right at the table right okay so we have a double amended motion any further discussion to vote yeah questions Steph yep I'm not 100 did they vote on the Second Amendment to apply the 5 16 piece yes that was voted okay yeah so I think so now you're at your Amendment commissioner dish was the only one that toggled no and then yes was there already a mover and a seconder for the it was overall motion as amended or when we started started right it was commissioner Hammerschmidt and commissioner seconded by dish okay yes okay on the motion as amended in this meeting commissioner Hammerschmidt yes commissioner Solvay yes commissioner dish yes commissioner Clark yes commissioner white yes that motion carries that motion fails it's sorry it fails it does all that work it looks like it carries it does not okay so um with that let me toggle back make sure but I believe we are now back on to public comments this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes about any issue that is not listed on the public hearing any issue I'm going to strike this on my typo speak for three minutes on any issue uh we will first call on individuals present to address the commission and then remote participants to speak during this public hearing remotely plus star nine if listening by phone and use the raise hand feature if viewing through the web link for phone access call 877-853-5247 with meeting ID 977-6634-1226 City staff will select callers that have raised their hand using the last three digits of your phone number or by name if available for those accessing through the web link you will hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sound so that we may hear you clearly for either method of participation please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments scene no one in the room we're going to move directly to remote callers Kelly do we have anyone on the line we have one hand raised at this time Adam Goodman you have permission to speak hi there Adam Goodman 400 Virginia Avenue again uh so I just wanted to re-emphasize something that commissioner weich said which was that city council did not direct Planning Commission to delay applying tc1 to other corridors when they passed R22 390. yes you may have heard that sentiment expressed by certain people in the discussion but a majority of them voted to strip out language from that resolution that would have contemplated such a delay I believe it is urgent to move forward with tc1 on all of the proposed corridors even if there are potentially some changes come in and I further believe that the instruction you have received from Council such as it is would not be inconsistent with such an approach I also think specifically if you if you look at Plymouth Road for example it does not have the same right-of-way constraints as West Stadium does so that I I definitely don't think that particular concern should should be a reason to delay here um more broadly I I guess you know I I do understand on the other hand that it seems cleaner to solve the open questions first but you're already seeing the downsides of this delay uh with with just as one example this umcu project we talked about at the beginning of the meeting that nobody seems to like so okay if you all think differently if you think it's best to delay rezoning then um I don't agree but I believe you do have that prerogative but absence explicit Council resolution speaking to this you are the ones who need to own that decision it is not correct and it is not proper to say you are doing this because of Direction you have received from Council thank you thank you uh there is one additional hand raised Alex Lowe you have permission to address the commission hi Alex again calling from South Southeast East Ann Arbor um as Adam pointed out uh before me we're starting to deal with issues related to these uh cities uh slow pace of rolling out tc1 and this this is starting to cause some real friction between the city and businesses and community members so let's let's get cracking let's let's just uh do some more uh TC warning we can improve we can improve it even uh even after we've res uh reserved Plymouth Road after we've re-zoned Washington after we've resoned flat after we've rezoned packed after we've resolved that as an out we can do all uh we can do all of those and still make improvements at GTC one after that so let's yeah use use both hands we can work on tc1 with one hand and we're going rolling it out with one hand and work on improving uh that's you know what uh why we have multiple people here that's why we're uh we've got uh we've got uh multiple members of Stuff Etc so let's remember that pc1 is uh is supposed to be different from from what we're used to seeing in every little trashy little city in America where you've got the 17th Lane uh Strode that uh and no ability to uh to walk anywhere tc1 supposed to be different than that tc1 is supposed to be more like downtown so let's uh let's not take that uh take that and say oh well we'll we'll make it like uh we'll make it look a bit like downtown but we're still going to learn that that people have cars just everywhere it's ridiculous this is this is supposed to be different from that this is supposed to be an example for the rest of America let's let's make it that give you there are no more callers thank you so uh next we're on to commissioner proposed business commissioner witch just a quick uh clarification for the sake of being accurate um the I misremembered the motion that brought this to our table it did happen with the new Council and um I was focusing on the six to five vote that was deleted at the urging of commissioner Iyer who said there is a huge sense of urgency around tc1 rezoning in Ann Arbor so I apologize for misstating it and I just before the end of the meeting wanted to correct the record thank you anyone else and we moved to adjourn move behind commissioner white second by commissioner Clark we are adjourned
and and then moving into the design team we did a recap with the design team in May of 22 to get them ready for the work that was going to start in the fall that was actually a subgroup of the design team that was brought together to go back and review everything and then as you can see we've kind of bounced back and forth between the vision and design team student Congress uh the community input sessions there were some field trips like I don't have Boyce Thompson here but we go to ASU Prep it was I think about four or five of us that were able to attend that we had the community council input preview session back to student Congress a number of committee meetings and that takes us to today's governing board study session which will be followed by a design committee meeting tomorrow evening and then a community feedback session in May and then the guaranteed maximum price to come back on June 6th so so just some comments um I mean all the way along this process I have said I don't feel like we're getting enough Community input um I have heard I've talked to um people who live in our community for years and years who have said it would be great to have another dual language um program at Creighton so that I don't have to go all the way over to Biltmore um yeah and when little big Minds moved into that space um that was a very exciting um and I mentioned that to you and I don't I haven't seen any surveys um I've never received a survey as a community member um have we asked on a survey what type of offerings would you like at a new school like have we asked that question I I do not believe I would have to go back and check the things that we've asked to find out for certain I don't recall a question that was specifically that that's been asked um I also don't believe it's too late to ask those types of questions and so you know as we look towards both that may Community input session and opportunities to reach out to the community for input through other methodologies um I I think we would be excited to be able to open the doors wider and get more of that feedback and then put as soon I don't think we're heading in the wrong direction as far as Outdoor Learning I've never not liked that idea but I think we are really missing the boat here um this this is not you know something that a parent who's not a teacher would have any clue what this is and why would my kid benefit from it um but if you say we we are successful at dual language at Spanish Immersion so that's what we're known for right now um and I think if we could like just let's just ask and I don't know that we ever asked about middle school that's still floating around there too people are saying is it going to be a middle school that's because that's what I heard you know people have no idea what's going on so that tells me we haven't done enough engagement and yeah we had the pandemic that's super challenging I get that um you know I did go to one of the design meetings I asked to be invited to all of them I never was invited to go um like like right in the cat I heard about the Creighton Academy tour after it was done um so that was disappointing that um we didn't have any board input into that process that would have been nice especially since I specifically asked several times so um that's a concern I have about the process yeah and and um the one thing that I can say is I'm a middle school piece we did do a significant amount of investigative work on Middle School well in advance of the pandemic I had a guess I'd say it was probably in 2018 or 2019 and there was at that time very low support for it but that doesn't mean that it's not worth asking the question again because the community changes over time and there may be and opinions change in education Cycles so certainly you know there's no harm in finding out more but that was something I think we did some focus groups and we did some survey work and it was a pretty negative reaction to middle school and I don't know how much of that is historical to you know stuff from 30 years ago I know and talking with Libby Goff I've got some interesting different perspective on that so it's um you know certainly something that's between to the perspective on that are different between teachers and staffers could we do something like a flyer with a QR code I don't think we've ever tried to do that it's not a bad idea I mean a lot of people are like really good with QR codes now and it would be so easy to scan and not send out something huge just some really short yeah then they can just take the survey right on right take a survey yeah got we're both of it I think we really you know did improve our surveying capacity so we we can reach our parents within the district and we have social media to reach those outside of the district where we wouldn't even I don't know that we even need to have a paper survey you know sent out unless you know we have um if if you've got we could use the um the mailing list we have for potential um kindergarten you know whoever those families are you know um because those are the ones who really are going to be and want to be involved in also a little big parents like you know we don't get all of them but man it should have like just one drop off you know that's really um huge for for families well and we have a very good relationship with the Head Start folks Mindy is a great part of her so so I think yeah all of those preschool Learners and coming here as well so definitely good input I don't know um I'll be honest I don't know that we've done a great job of making sure we're surveying and having you know conversations with the place but they're clearly the families that have our future kids so that's certainly a place that would be uh sort of a treasure Trove of event absolutely yeah and I am a product of the language um one of my concerns and definitely what the community wants and needs but one of my concerns is we already have two schools with the language and it's really hard to stop those schools with Spanish teachers so now thinking of a third school with adult language um initiative and I was adult language I'm going into market for many years it's it's a really hard to find um and now we will competition among our own District right like to find those those teachers and be crew teachers and keep them um it's it's it's something definitely that I'm glad that you brought up because I think it is a conversation and and people are buzzing about it but it's all we really want to um have a conversation with the community about the possibility of if we do start doing which how do we stop that right right well and I don't think that should be something that prevents us for them no definitely that's not what that's not whatever yeah certainly and I I actually I'm a part of my board reporting about it's about that um stopping more diversely so I'll bring that up yes it is on board and I had I did ask to have um again looking I asked if we could have um can we add two board docs what positions these people yeah and and I did go back and Hunt that down and I printed out 10 copies and they are still sitting on the printer at the district office I just I have to be honest when I mess up so um I ran out the door with the handouts and then when this feels thin maybe you could feel it to all of us but um just so you know I'm not shining you on there we do have the list for um the left hand side is the 20 22-23 vision and design team do I have that right yeah that's correct and then and then the list on the right is that planning team um that was from 2021 and so you guys in thinking from that lens of parents is we had four or five parents in 2021 I'll be 22 23 team um other than staff members who also happen to be parents we really only have one parent we have several community members but we really only have one parent who isn't also a staff member right in that group so so that feedback is well taken um and uh so it was a it was actually a good exercise to go back and drill into that and take a look at it but I have that I can make sure that's shared enough to everyone I think in fact we should have a board update coming up in a week or so so yeah that would be great yeah I think you know just let's just not miss the the point of we can build you know something they may not come you know what I mean I mean we need to make sure that people will come that's all I think like chilled my yeah that was genius on my book no Allison you do not get off the hook I will get us back on track momentarily here and um so Allison is going to take us through kind of the next steps um since it's been a while since we've been through a GMP and um can you tell me what GMP means again that's a good idea thank you I'm Allison director of this Orchestra I'm trying to keep everybody moving forward staying on budget staying focused on your goals on your behalf I work for you so you so you're an outside vendor who's working on our behalf we used to have an um an employee of the district doing this job and yes you can do it either way so yes and that's what our company does for districts throughout the state so we're managing the high school in Maricopa you know that we do this for you we we are your advocate so um I never want to bring something to you as a board like the GMP in June if you do not understand the process of the GNP or if you don't know what GMP means and I have seen a board meeting where that happened it's the guaranteed maximum price so through this selection process which is called construction manager at risk in the statute there are certain um steps we need to follow to get to that point where we operate the board the approval of the guaranteed maximum price and that means that the contractor at risk through reviewing all the drawings is coming to you and saying this project will not cost more than this guaranteed maximum price from GMP that's what that means and what I've done here is I want you to understand also that it's not that we're going through some quick process there Chase has the plans right now from Weddle Gilmore they're going through them they distribute them to their subcontractor Community who by Statute every single one of those subcontractors has to be pre-qualified so they're not just going out to some guy on the street they have a list of qualifications that these people all have to meet and then only then are they invited to bid on the project it also gives the district the freedom to say you know and Scott especially probably would have some opinions if there's somebody who has done a horrible job on one of your projects in the past you don't have to use them you can say to your team I don't want to allow them to bid that is part of the process it's completely open book what are some of like the the requirements for the qualifications um that's in here we've um I believe I didn't cut that slide we're trying to um bitter pre-qualifications I've listed that for you it's licensing they have to be fingerprinted they have to follow basically all of the requirements for being on an occupied School site as every one of your staff does so um so they're going to put this out to the you know the thousands of people that are qualified in this Marketplace they're going to get bids from them three bits is what we would like to see on every single part of the process so for concrete masonry Roofing you know we're not just going to get one bid maybe for you know pencil sharpeners whatever right but um and then they're going to put that together and they're going to analyze those bids along with us we're going to look at those bids as well we're going to say does that meet what we've heard in all of our meetings is that meet the the concepts that were provided in the drawings and um if we're you know then we're going to see where the budget Falls and we're going to start working at us at a team before we bring it to you we're not going to bring you a project that doesn't meet your budget parameters so there's for the next few months a lot of work going to be going on in this project process and I and I'm not like I said gonna read everything I've put here but I want you to understand that it is a clear statutory process and I am our company is responsible for overseeing that on your behalf so that you are assured that you are getting a fair price when we present the guaranteed maximum price to you if there are specific concerns hey one of the things you'd really like to do is we're not what you're seeing is pre-qualification items there's a minimum seven qualifications that are required but they are not a limited set so if there are other things that are important to the district we need to put that out there to make sure that that lens right so that we were ensuring that the subcontractors that we're working with align more those expect earns issues expectations whatever so we really want to make certain that we're not we don't want to get down the line in the process of working is a concern that those will be didn't know that X Y or zat out at the beginning and make sure and you know we're out in the market we know who's has the bad behavior so we're going to protect you from that the market lines as far as subcon the subcontractor pull those for these things and he's already pre-qualified and is the Mark is the pool pretty small I mean speaking like is there going to be are there like four pre-qualified subs and we're getting three bids from that I guess my in like certain areas so I'm just curious so and and I and the folks from Chase are here tonight yeah and they're just starting this they've got a huge response obviously like I said I want free from everyone um what I'm hearing I think is the market is hungry right now so we're getting good response I don't think we have to worry about that I think a couple years ago maybe we would have only got like for masonry two guys because everybody was busy but now everybody's looking ahead and they're saying I need to get in on this project so I can and is that correct so um for small things you know flag holders or what not we're not going to get three bits but let's just primarily yeah it's not always the case so if report has if anyone on the board has any concerns I agree let's get that on the list fire what is the timeline for that and what's the process yeah process they have it they have it out on the street right now to their pre-qualified bidder so we would need to know pretty quickly within the next week or two if there was somebody that you didn't that you wanted us to look at Harder or exclude from the list if you haven't thought about that tonight this is a good night to discuss it yes well we haven't received any feedback on what the process has been like for you guys so this is the introduction to that okay like for instance Creighton Academy I don't know I've only heard like rumors and things so I did do a report on that I have copies with me tonight and and I can okay that would be great give that to you all yeah okay we'll do one after so it's not in complex if you so you guys let me know what you want I have I'll give it to Jay yeah that would be a good start yeah um yeah I wasn't prepared to come with yeah anything happening right now what's our timeline yeah and I you know I don't know that we're you know in order to have something official in public you know clearly we've done in my uh I don't want to mace so our next meeting is made second I don't know if that's too late to get that type of thing well so they're Gathering the information from the subs right if if somebody let's say the Mason contract was somebody that somebody had a heartburn was one of we would need to know that pretty quick but if it's just doors or door hardware or you know so it's not and we're not gonna they're not gonna finalize any contracts with a subcontractor until you approve their contract they can't do that right so you you have time it would just be better to know sooner so it is if any board member had uh oh this subconscious company or this limitation like I don't want company like this is that something that has to happen in a public movie but something that can be shared I I would say you want your principals and your criteria in public so that helps just with the transparency so it's not like I don't want my cousin's firm to do this or I would have to recuse myself because my cousin's firm would do that or whatever or if it's you know I don't like the hiring practices of that firm or whatever I've read about that firm I would like that firm omitted uh you know if you have some I just want to be sure you can stand the test of time or grounds right right but I can't skip this processes right it sounds like we would need yeah I mean I'm you know I know at times we have talked about doing you know giving preference to um like Phoenix Union did um to Union shops or whatever um and giving preference to vendors that um support the Creighton Community somehow and um I don't know you said that that would be illegal at one point so I don't know like what our options are um I think there are ways for you to express your preferences and then that could be factored in yes okay so but we would need to have another board meeting in order to express those I think if you would like individually to send me your preferences and then I can vet it through a couple of of You Know Places and then we can come back and just overtly say it out loud collectively just to help you get moving right and and that's why I put the qualifications in your handout for you so you can see we're already vetting for quite a few qualifications so you might not have to worry about this as much as you think yeah no no I just wanted to make sure that we don't get too much on the line and someone goes I wish that right well the question is let's say we ask you to vet a subcontractor for a certain attribute and the attribute is violated and that subcontractor is hired anyway what would be our recourse to say uh so you're saying if the lowest bid for a certain trade came back to be somebody that you did not approve of yes and this was who chase recommended awarding the contract to so you have your guaranteed maximum price that you've approved and this is after that point when Chase is awarding their subcontractors if you had a red flag at that point we would cover the Delta probably with to we would go to the next bidder and cover that Delta with contingencies which are built into the budget did that answer your question that would be how I would see that going you want to speak the same thing you know I told you not to their contingency in that number we give you there will be contingencies first step like that okay okay and really that's I just want you to be prepared for the the June meeting where we present this guaranteed price and know how hard we're working behind the scenes to make that um a fully vetted Fair number for you for the district um if if um what happens if we decide if we end up voting no on the the GMT what is our time what is our deadline for the bond spending the bond money so so the way that the bond works that from the time of the sale of the of the portion of the bond that's being used to fund this project you have three years to have spent I think it's 85 of those spots it might be 80 so um if you don't do that there are IRS penalties because these are pre these These are non-faxable bonds so there's a tax penalty that goes along with that sorry um I mean it can be impactful but I don't know that it's a deal killer because it's typically keep in mind while the money is sitting in an account that's gaining interest and it's not intended to gain interest so those penalties are meant to punish you for the energy I shouldn't say punish you the basically balance out yeah so um subpoena life is probably a better word so um I don't know that they that it would be crippling to moving forward I think the bigger Challenge and I'm going to jump ahead to our last slide here is that the data we currently have says each month we delay with the project it has about a two hundred thousand dollar impact on the project so um so and then you also have the long lead times for materials so if we wanted to be able to open in Fall of 24 August you've got to worry about you know can you get all the parts and pieces you need within that time frame to build the school within that time frame we don't necessarily have to open in August I mean we could make a different plan if we needed to um and we could hold on to the money to do that the the biggest concern that I personally have that I'll share is that you know one of the things that that I've had the great pleasure to support Dr Lewis on the board in over the last eight years is trying to help with planning for our bonds and overrides and trying to figure out what's the right time to go for these things um we probably need another bond in 2026 and and Mike and we oh in November of 20 I'm sorry I take that back November of 2024 is probably when we need to go for another Bond yes so so you're very insightful uh Mr Caleb because you know to go out to the taxpayers to say and now we need more money but we weren't able to do this project I think would would pose some challenges for us so it would in my mind be in the best interest of the board and the community and the future needs of the district to have this project completed prior to that November of 24 election we could wait till 26 but we are on track to need both the maintenance and operations and a capital override in 26 and as Miss mcsheffrey experienced she did it successfully in 2014 I think it was but there were a number of attempts prior to that attempt that she was chair of that really struggled to get two elections passed on the same cycle so I think putting a bond in with an override and both a capital and a maintenance and operations override probably is not best practice or a good idea and so to me that would be the biggest pressure point in wanting to get this project completed in a in a timeline that would align with that election I don't like a school year delay Community is building and changing so quickly and so I just think about how many families who are because you don't have a tool there are already opting for somewhere else and that just compounds um and I know I hear from you know neighbors and people in the community like that's been a lot for a while or that was abandoned for a while like so I think there's some restlessness too and we do we do I'm not saying rush because of that I want to do this right and well um but I also want to be mindful of the longer it sits there there's an interpretation in the community as well so and we've had several families you know kind of take a look and wonder what was happening in either I think Russell's had a visit over at compass center um Scott's been flagged down in the neighborhood and they've asked well what's the plan for this and in just giving a high level overview of well conceptually what we're trying to do is build an outdoor learning school a lot of those families have said well when's it going to open because they're thinking about their child um and I know you know it would be nice to capture those families that have that excitement while their kids are young and get them in there to have that experience throughout their while it was like pandemic Falls like we can't keep using that forever so so but you know like I always say our job is to give all the information we have um just to empower you to make the best decisions that you can and so this hopefully you know gave more detail and information than than you had also creates an opportunity you know certainly um please reach out to Dr Lewis if there's questions that come up between now and June 2nd because we have board updates that come out we can certainly provide additional information to make sure everybody has all the info they need thank you really excited I mean I think about this the city of many cement places and the notion of a Outdoor Learning environment just invigorates me I know we had lunch on a patio today in between our meeting and we came back energized just because it's that spring gorgeous weather and we were outside and could smell the trees so Martha thank you Allison thank you chase people thank you Phil thank you thank you they needed a seat right okay so that adjourns a special board study session um and we will go up on the Deus and begin the regular meeting perfect he's here he's good oh right now um important okay thank you oh maybe there's something says I know you always sit next to me but I don't okay okay sorry please my husband and just tell them I don't know where my phone is oh yeah that's worse certainly foreign way better okay better now we're going to like a picture um October I'm not paying attention I'll get it I don't know I don't know I'm very confused when in school presentation experience yeah my my agenda is not really working is it the Kennedy at Loma Linda yeah okay that's why I was like trying to run a bathroom and getting a lot yeah okay it makes more sense now that's what I do um is that okay this is this is on I know it works together long enough by doing that question possibly is all right okay good idea Eric mine was doing weird things I guess and I don't know why because at least put everything on here Outlook [Music] all of them maybe they can be alive right here there we go hold them he was just talking to me hey I've seen him too um puts the meaning that's awesome yeah it makes it through last fight when I leave oh yeah right honestly yeah the microphones so like how Katie's is and how we usually can see it yeah this is how Amy and eyes both are awesome I've quit out of everything I haven't done anything Amy would you like my hard copy yeah yeah that's weird and you went out of this browserve it out of the tabs and reloaded it all together yeah yeah I did that I pulled both of them tonight that might make it easier for me if you don't mind I know the people one also as well and yeah yeah and I know that Amy I don't even give her a heart yeah okay so the land acknowledgment is the very first thing right yes okay good evening everyone thank you for your patience I'm sorry we're a little behind schedule Welcome to our meeting Creighton School District understands that our community of schools is located on the ancestral land of the oharam Druid and akamil oh Odom people who descended from the hohokum and Heaven habit inhabited these lands since immemorial the Odom whose name translates literally to people are a vibrant culture and Community spanning countless Generations into the past continuing to thrive in the present and carrying a powerful Legacy for Generations into the future with this acknowledgment the Creighton School District formally recognizes that the traditional care and keeping of these lands by indigenous people is an aspirational model of community stewardship that we are committed to honor with practices policy and human relations principal Burgess would you mind leading Us in the Pledge of Allegiance agents speak to the flag of the United States to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty thank you and roll call we have a member Gibson McLean myself member McCaleb and member Ayers Miss Korea doll is absent this evening we want to welcome everyone to tonight's meeting and remind the audience of the request to address board cards that must be completed and submitted to the board secretary if they wish to speak to an agenda item board policy provides for two cards White cards to be submitted in order to speak to an agenda item and blue cards to be submitted in order to speak during public comments due to the open meeting law board members are not allowed to address items that are not on the agenda I move the governing board approve the agenda as presented second all those in favor any opposed and motion passes and public comments I have one from Freda Edwards I have on your good evening Madam president but she's not here uh members of the board Dr Lewis and Creighton leadership I'm Freda Edwards I currently work at Gateway Elementary School I'm speaking up for transparency and the reputation of our district thank you for your service and desire to help students families teachers and staff be successful there are many district level committees departments and staff who have and are willing to give you the information that you want without spending our money on Audits and investigations please ask us first politely I personally in some other current staff do not like how you speak of or to staff in a disrespectful or unprofessional manner we do not feel valued by how issues are brought up or addressed so many have applied to be the new superintendent because of the great reputation of Creighton created by Dr Lewis administrators and each of you on the board to our community stakeholders I hope that Dr Lewis can share her insights from the world-class education system in Israel her comments were inclusive including Palestine I I'm sorry we had not yet seen or at least I have not been able to find the public list that was mentioned of those who have been selected for the future superintendent's position I hope it will be made public to all of us in the case of it was mentioned by the board president last meeting um believe the best we are doing the best we can with the resources time and the knowledge we currently have curriculum wonders is hard to use for some as a professional ask for help ask colleagues or coach every adoption is research vetted and reviewed with the money available we have had surveys and we do Diversified monthly training Food Service they work under the Department of Health just like my classroom they have staff and Equipment restraints and I'm sure they have been addressed when adopting cardboard plates special ed we're not perfect we're understaffed and have many teachers doing their very best ask us it is uncomfortable with accusations that there is so much wrong our program and demographics are not for everyone referring to those who have left when did you recently have a large student cussing at you by a student with behavior problems who is also threatening you we do not have specialized programs for higher needs students like many of the larger districts in our area please check with our principals Dr Hart stuff the administrators of all the Departments we are trying to keep students in school and safe parent participation is a greatly needed commodity we are a team I want to continue to be a member of this District that values adventurous thinkers collaborative Learners and kind-hearted leaders I look forward to working with each of you in the future thank you for your time thank you superintendent report Dr Lewis I'm going to pass because we have so many amazing poets in the audience and that's going to be where I would like to yield my times [Music] Miss Gibson McLean yeah so um uh I if somebody else I mean I don't really have much to add our whole board and um Hilda and Dr Lewis we all went to nsba in Orlando um lots of it was my first time it was very interesting um and some interesting ideas from that but it's also um and it's just a lot to absorb I guess I should say um so a lot of things that are possibilities but may not be the right fits or things that you don't know if they're the right the specific need for our district that sort of thing um one thing um that I will address because I know it's permitted by Statute as far as criticisms go is um the way that I work as a leader and Just My Style um and I'll joke about this the only job I've ever been fired from is Netflix customer service because my voice was not pleasing to the customers and so when I ask questions I apologize if my tone comes off in a certain way but I don't speak in a hip happy fun way every day and so when I ask questions they are just questions it's what I do for a living so I'm not necessarily asking them in some way to get to a desired end or that I already know the answer to which is how I practice my job but in this case I don't know the answers to the questions I'm asking there's a reason why I'm asking for them because I want more information and I'm the type of person that researches things I stay up late I read a lot of information so if I'm asking questions it's because either someone's come to me with a concern and now I have a question about it or I've done a bunch of research and and then have questions from that research as well so I would hope that folks know and and um know that as board members where we're coming in from and I can tell you and assure you specifically given my background and why I'm here and my why is that I would hope that there's also some Grace given on um uh coming you know just giving people the benefit of the doubt on best intentions and and where they're coming from when they're at when we're asking questions that sort of thing very last thing and I'm glad you contacted me before this meeting tonight and I'd love to explore it more but Amy had touch base with Emily in our district as you all know I'm an Alum of this district and there are some fantastic fellow alums out there and I had brought up the idea kind of when I was campaigning with Amy about um highlighting how great our alums are um and it's I know plenty of people in my age group and I know there's people older and younger Pilots doctors dentists scientists lawyers athletes Olympians even um and I think that's a way to like Market our dish district and show how successful people are from our district that our neighborhoods and our communities because I don't know that people necessarily look at us and think of those things and and that's a disservice to our kids to our families to the great staff and teachers that work here and I think that that's a great way to show um kind of like what is what is the future outcome because um you know working I worked in high schools you see some of those outcomes a lot sooner when you're working in K-8 you know there's a lot of seeds that don't Sprout and sell further on down the road so I think it'd be great to highlight our alums and even maybe get that into some sort of marketing thing something that we can be intentional with and not just you know for fun but so just putting that out there but that's all I have thank you Miss McCaleb um again I want to be brief because I see a lot of excited faces out there um and I'm super excited we did go to nsba I really enjoyed it um I am still also processing because we came back and then I jumped into State Testing just like the rest of you all which I am still wrapping up so I hope at a future meeting to be able to bring back some specifics from some of the sessions um I just honestly haven't had a chance to go through in my notes and my Reflections but I'm looking forward to everything tonight and Miss heirs good evening I'll keep my comments brief well um I hope that are you guys done with State Testing here yes oh my gosh are you guys still relieved I know there's a bunch of teachers there I'm sure you're relieved I don't understand why it tires us out so much but I'm like exhausted when I get home and we just finished our last one today so I'm super excited um and then uh Florida um just wanted to talk a little bit about that of course there was a lot of good PD there but the thing that I think that I took away the most is um hanging out with my fellow board members I think we are probably one of the only groups there that actually had all of our board members there and we're actually mostly together most of the time so I really appreciate especially learning about Katie since you're new um it was fun hanging out and learning more about my fellow board members um so that's probably my biggest takeaway thank you thank you I will be briefer than I was going to be but how brief I can be but um uh there are a couple of great things that happened since the last meeting I attended the kids Congress on Friday um to get their feedback about who our next leader of the district will be and I was so impressed with them um they were uh they were just they were so genuine and so mature um we heard a lot and these were middle school kids so sixth seventh and eighth grade we heard a lot about wanting to do away with uniforms and I know that's a controversial thing um but I think it's something we really should look at it at least start perhaps with Middle School um I think that parents love uniforms I know I did so but the kids it's a totally different story and they had some really valid reasons for why it's a way they can express themselves number one um they want more time learning outside so um so we're on the same page with them on that they want more Sports they something that else is going well they love the snacks they get in the afternoon passion fruit strawberries peaches plums watermelon that's a grant that we have and they love that um some things they like to improve upon they say racism is prevalent and normalized um you know that's something we always want to be working on there's an exception to that rule according to the kids that were there at Papago they signed a contract promising not to say the n-word which um you know may not be the only place that has done that but but highlight to Papago for that and we have a language barrier obviously in this District um some kids are translating for their um their their peers and and that makes it hard on everybody but I appreciated that that student for helping out his peers um and they want like they want more outside shade more trees so I'm with them on that and then they had a few things to say about um you know what not to do as a teacher um don't have a fit in front of the students choose to make adult choices which I just thought you know out of the out of the mouths of babes right um let's see an SBA maybe we can have a report on that at our next board meeting so that everyone can share what they I have I have a longer one um I saw one of the last sessions I went to was given by Pendergrast here in Arizona um a common sense approach to increasing employee diversity um it was given by um their superintendent and all board members were there um it was really great um so I won't go into that right now I will save it for the next meeting and we can agenda is that one other thing not related to this one was regarding nutrition and cafeteria and lunch you know kids always complain about that but one District had a food fair for kids to try and find out what items the kids you know really liked and wanted to get their feedback on things the the young lady who was saying how much she liked the fruit um I said but we hear that you guys want chips and she said no I don't I we love the fruit so I thought that was really cool um back to Pendergrass I would like to meet with Mr carbajal because I met with a couple HR people and I did share the their presentation with all board members I think this is not something that costs money it's a lot of really cool ideas about um just thinking out of the box when it comes to hiring for diversity so I'll talk about that more at the next meeting one thing really quick just so we can address to direct someone as far as making sure I think when we went into this superintendent process we wanted transparency and so I would just like to make sure that gets addressed that that was brought up in public comment at some point with Miss Edwards yeah and the Greater Community and I think I've talked about this before but meeting people where they're at maybe things don't go on board docs but they live on our website as well because it is on board docs right right um okay that brings us to approval of consent I move the governing board approve the oops hold on I move the governing um I I moved the governing board approve um the consent agenda item as presented a through k all those in favor aye aye aye okay so that brings us to our recognition of District poetry contest winners thank you madam clerk members of the governing board this evening I'd introduce Miss Sarah Beth George Ms George is our special projects coordinator for Global languages and literacy and she's worked very effectively with teams district-wide to elevate the quality of poetry it's National poetry month and it is a tradition in Creighton School District to honor our student poets at this time so without further Ado Ms George thank you members of the governing board and cabinet I am thrilled to be able to present to you tonight along with our amazing poets it's been a couple of years that we've been able to do this at the governing board and so it's really exciting to be back in person live to celebrate our poets in honor of national poetry month so to just give you a little bit of a background each of our sites used District rubrics aligned to our curriculum to hold their own site contests and then they nominated their winners to the district level test and from that we have two get two categories we have both the novice category as well as the practitioner category and we're really excited to be able to honor the creative process that is involved in poetry and to give students a voice at this level uh we are honored to present our top five tonight we have three from our novice category and two from our practitioner category and so each poet has their very own uh poetry anthology of all of the winning poems and so I will invite them um one at a time to read their poem to you and then after they read their poem here then they will be presented with their certificate and we are going to start with a novice category we'll have our honorable mention first from Serena Robinson then our second place Elliott Lovell and our first place Zoe drakenberg and then we'll move into our practitioner category so I am really excited to invite Serena Robinson from Kennedy at Loma Linda to read her poem to you hello my name is Serena Robinson I placed third place in the poem contest at my school um this is my poem it's called the Copycat by Serena Robinson everywhere he goes she goes everything he does she does every time he says something she says something he's had it he shouts keep out he screams stop doing everything I do stop saying everything I say enough that's me and our second place is Elliott Lovell from Biltmore Preparatory Academy to read um my poem is called snakes snakes quiet venomous hunting searching bathing mostly dangerous to be around ophidian and our first place in the novice category is Zoe druckenberg from Biltmore Preparatory Academy my name is Zoe drachenberg and my poem is about ligers it lives in the jungle so fearsome and fly it's cute like a cat but it's a person in the night it's fluffy and it's soft and it really so bad all right that concludes our novice category so now we're going to have our practitioner poems read we have have Miss Fisher is going to be reading the poems in honor of her students so second place in the practitioner category is Anaya James from excellencia school all right good evening my name is Lauren Arrowwood I'll be reading Anaya James from excellencia school she's a fifth grader in Miss garman's class her poem is I am a track star so I am a track star yeah that's me you can see the wind beneath my feet when I run I stride I Glide I fly against every Challenger near my side the Gale wind against my face yells move faster push harder as I focus my strength on my target I made it I set the goal 114 and the 400 is how it goes I am a track star yet it's me our first place from the practitioner category is Glenda Nunez it is my privilege to share with you tonight I won't cry by Glenda Nunes I wake up to the sound of the family's anger but I won't cry I get ready for school and burn my toast but I won't cry kids ignore me and call me gross but I won't cry struggle in school and disappoint my teachers but I won't cry okay kids get picked for PE but I said in the bleachers but I won't cry my friends have stopped talking to me but I won't cry all I want is to be wanted but I won't cry I don't want to deal with the pain anymore but I won't cry there's an ocean of Tears ready to pour but I won't cry I tell my counselor the bad things the bad memories while repeating the line I won't cry but I won't cry I won't cry and we embrace and they say they're proud of me start to cry thank you members of the governing board and cabinet just as all of our winners and each School library you are going to receive a copy of our 2023 poetry and poem we'll take a moment to do some pictures okay sorry friends congratulations everybody what awesome teacher can we just have a real quick uh I'd like to invite the parents of our award winners to stand to be recognized if you're a parent would you please stand and also a huge thanks to all of our teachers and our poetry contest coordinators at each school we couldn't do this without you thank you thank you members of the congratulations to everyone poetry test winners you may leave if you want to so you can get home and get your homework done if you want to we're going to move on to Kennedy at Loma Linda School update this time it's an honor to introduce Dr Amy Burgess and the members of the Kennedy at Loma Linda crew who are here to talk about this year's progress this year's challenges and the developments that are occurring Dr Burgess okay thank you there we go all right good evening members of the board Dr Lewis cabinet and audience thank you so much for coming my name is Amy Burgess and I am the proud principal at Kennedy at Loma Linda we are here tonight um to share the really amazing progress on our school goals but before we get started I'd like to introduce Miss Carl and her students they're going to walk you through a brain Smart Start just as we do every single day in our classrooms Dr Burgess and they come over here and the chairs are a little high too do they might yes very good thank you coming up so close hi everyone can everybody hear me my name is Rachel Carla and I am a kindergarten teacher at Kennedy at Loma Linda today I'm going to lead you all through what we call a brain Smart Start which is a component of conscious discipline that helps us start our school day by getting our brains ready to learn so I'm going to ask the board members and cabinet to come down and participate in our brainstart smart you can find one of our Kennedy at Loma Linda students grab a partner everybody needs a partner and audience if you would like to join as well get on your feet get your blood moving thank you thank you okay so while you're coming down I'm going to go over the components of a brainstart smart so there's four things so first are unite activities so this is an activity that we all do together as a group to Foster safety build connections and release endorphins and our second one is to connect so connecting is with one other person that's where we make eye contact and let that person know that we have their back and our third one is to disengage stress so we like to take deep breaths to Center ourselves release endure friends and start our day off on the right foot and then our fourth one is to commit to make a commitment so we focus our efforts towards one goal throughout the day so does everybody have their partner nope everybody in the audience you have your partners okay we're ready to go awesome okay so first up is our uniting component so we're going to recite a poem that reminds us all of the things that we love about ourselves so we have poem we have some things we're going to say and we're going to do a little hand motions too so we're gonna say I like me I like my hair I like my chin I like the skin I'm wrapped up in so now we're going to move on to our connecting components so you're going to turn to your partner you're going to look them in the eye and you're going to say I like you uh you're pretty cool too and give them the peace sign um so now we're going to move on to our disengaging stress component so we're going to take three sun salutations so that's where you breathe in you move your hands up to the Sun and then you breathe out and you touch your toes we're going to do three of those all together so deep breath in your breath out deep breath in deep breath out last one let's make a count deep breath in deep breath out [Music] now our final step is to make a commitment so for our meeting I'd like to ask that everyone commit to our district goal of creating safe schools that nurture mind body and spirit that's all right laughs tonight we're going to be tonight we're going to be sharing with you our four school goals and how they aligned the district polls we've worked really incredibly hard as a school family and we're proud to share the progress that our two schools have made Loma Linda went from a CSI school which is in the bottom five percent of the state to a very high letter C and for this first time since I've been um whether I was assistant principal or principal at Kennedy we have moved to a letter B so that's nine years and while test scores and letter grades are not the ultimate end goal we would be remiss if we did not share the tremendous progress that we have made as a school family I have an 8th grade student Elena that's going to be coming up to share with you some of our progress hello my name is Elena Rojo and I'm a proud 8th grader I love Kennedy at Loma Linda I have been in Loma Linda since preschool tonight I'm here to talk about the increase of academic achievement during Power Hour we have three different rotations three different classes writing science and math when I was a science class I helped me more prepare for the Arizona Science assessment when I was in writing class it helped me improve my grammar and help me and help me improve my essay writing skills in the morning in math class I had trouble focusing when I went to Power Hour at the end of the day it helped me understand the questions better and what they were asking Ms ring to talk about how they would choose the standards and review of the data from the future instruction hi my name is Jennifer ring I'm an instructional coach at Kennedy at Loma Linda as Educators we know how challenging it is to expect teachers to teach each standard and students to learn each standard to complete Mastery it's incredibly challenging so as a staff we use the ASA blueprints as well as our professional knowledge and understanding of vertical articulation to really determine the big concepts of understanding across each grade level from there teachers determined what would help students be the most successful in their current and future grade levels and they were able to determine the focus standards which were focused on um like Elena said during Power Hour which is happens at the end of each day so each standard was explicitly taught um using a specific strategy and practice during this power hour every single day so miss Kuma is actually going to come up and talk about her experience and work for the each Focus standard and how it led to student achievement hi I'm Helen Kuma and I'm a fifth grade math and science teacher at Kennedy at Loma Linda each quarter we spent three week rotations re-teaching and enriching our Focus standards and Reading Writing and math through collaborative planning meetings with our coaches and data chats we reflected on our Common Assessment scores and we were able to adjust for upcoming instruction with each one of our homeroom classes we were able to use this time to really dig deeper into those standards using small group differentiation and rigorous activities so we were able to truly know where our students were at on those core standards that we tested in now Ms Lockwood will discuss pod cycles and how these were used for teachers professional development this year good evening I'm Patty Lockwood the other instructional coach at Kennedy at Loma Linda we know working together on common goals allows for maximum collaboration so through our professional development this year we learn skills around phonemic awareness phonics thinking maps and other research-based instructional practices the teachers were professionally developed on these on these topics then they were offered to go watch a model of an Exemplar in a classroom they then planned with their coaches invited their coaches in for observations and received feedback through this process teachers working on all of these common goals were able to plan together they were able to share experiences from their observations and they were able to collaborate on future lessons next we have Mrs King and zanika to speak about our eighth grade experience with High School enrollment hello I'm Mrs King prod 8th grade teacher at Kennedy at Loma Linda so in eighth grade we're always thinking of the future and of course High School our discussion about high school began the third week of school and included a virtual High School Gallery walk-in class here students were able to learn about the enrollment process High School requirements and explore the options available to them throughout the Valley High Schools we also had presenters from many Valley High Schools visit our classes throughout the year and ask a ask questions but answer student questions about their programs we also know in our district that accessibility can be a key factor for families when enrolling a high school so I worked closely with the high school offices and coordinated to have enrollment packets readily available in our classes I assisted students in completing this paperwork and families and if needed and if Transportation was an issue I delivered the packets for families or worked with their front offices to have someone pick them up from our site I keep families and students informed about future freshman nights High School Affairs and I attend teacher information nights for our highly selective schools to ensure that our students meet the rigorous application requirements and are given all opportunities and chances to be successful of our current 122 8th graders 53 are already enrolled in high school and have their classes selected that's over 43 percent and of our remaining students we only have 10 who are undecided with parents filling out their pockets this year we proudly have students accepted to Metro Tech bioscience Madison Highland and Camelback Montessori my students Anika will share her experience with this High School process hi oh sorry hi my name is Anika Lewis and I am in eighth grade in Kennedy at Loma Linda I was speaking about the high school process when I was thinking about which high school I wanted to go to it was difficult for me because I was new to the area and I didn't know many schools the high school's visit showed us the specific programs they had to offer and how they could help us plan for the future after the visits I realized my options and it helped me narrow it down to the those scores that would benefit me instead of just going to a school that my friend chose teachers help students with the application progress in order to choose the classes that would best benefit the student I'm really excited to be starting high school next year thank you an Anika Anika I'm sorry my apologies okay what where did you choose to go um it's between Camelback and South Mountain okay okay thank you [Laughter] I'm trying to get her into account back Montessori and commit to it I'm working on it so another way we achieve our goal of academic Excellence is through collaborative planning our second grade team will share their experiences related to academic collaborative planning um hello I'm Emily Forster I'm on the second grade team this year and the past couple of years I've really enjoyed working with my team uh every week and every day honestly collaborative planning has helped us get to know not only our homeroom students but all of our second grade students this allows us to take responsibility for the academic and emotional learning of all of the second grade students not just our own homeroom ones every week after school during our prep we plan as a second grade team with the elits this allows us to prepare for each week and make sure we're on the same page about what we're teaching in our classroom this also is a time for us to make sure that all of our learning activities align with assessments and standards hi my name is Brittany Alexander and I'm also part of the second grade team during this time we also share any misconceptions or struggles that our students are having with the content and brainstorms ways to teach them we talk about our data and plan using that data hi I'm Tiffany Nguyen another second grade teacher um to piggyback off the data we use the district literacy portfolios to inform our literacy instruction to help us guide whether we should do a quick whole group intervention or dive deeper into small groups and we assess based on the needs of the student either weekly or quarterly again depending on the need now it's my pleasure to present Mr Poland who will speak of a student's experiences in the garden uh good evening my name is Matthew Paul and I'm a sixth grade teacher at Kennedy at Loma Linda that was the easy part okay on our campus we have several of these designated Outdoor Learning spaces including two gardens we appreciate the garden space regularly by allowing and encouraging students to access the space from abiotic to biotic to nurturing and collaborating students get a hands-on experience with the focus standards and the concepts they are learning in the classroom next Miss Bowers will speak about the growth of the whole child good evening everyone my name is Jennifer Bowers and I am a behavior interventionist at Kennedy at Loma Linda um at Kennedy at Loma Linda we are a school family as a school our goal has been to decrease office referrals in order to help support the whole child and this year we have been working really hard on conscious discipline and us as the adults learning how to recognize our own brain States in order to be the calm for our students Tiffany is going to speak on some of the strategies she's learned hi it's me um one aspect of conscious discipline is regulating the adult before the child knowing that you can't make thoughtful decisions in the emotional brain state has been very helpful regulating myself and my emotions has been my main focus this year in and out of the classroom and the classroom it helps me refrain the moment and remind myself that I am talking to children I tried to make sure the students see me regulate myself whether that's taking a deep breath taking a moment for myself or repeating a class Mantra to myself I choose my own attitude we say that every single day and I see my students starting to use these strategies and so far I can see a tremendous difference in the way that my class interacts and I'm really proud of them and me also really proud of her through brain states were able to notice when our students are not ready to learn and needing some supports um we then offer tools different strategies for them to help self-regulate um different processes like the peace process the safe place called breathing strategies we also build School family within our classrooms with wish dwells and family boards and creating class agreements with each other um as a school family we have also really been focusing on how to communicate through our conflicts we've noticed our students really struggling with needing that so us as the adults have been modeling and supporting our students with the language they need to communicate how they feel and how they want others to treat them through the time machine process students are learning how to better solve their conflicts and use self-regulation strategies Dr Wells will now speak on some of the restorative approaches that we've been using in the empowerment room this year good evening my name is Dr Wells I'm our school's child Justice advocate as part of my role I manage our school's empowerment room the empowerment room is a space where students learn about behavioral choices repair harm when it occurs and resolve conflicts most of this is done through individualized projects and over the course of this year we have completed over a hundred projects we have a video here and it's just a few examples of some projects that students have completed do that emotions and how they affect your body a rumor is a piece of information or a story that has been verified what is conflict conflict is an active physical treatment between two or more individuals or groups [Music] sadness anger disgust content I started a rumor in spite of it I was immature and told a student that another student wanted to fight her because of a boy sources of conflict or misunderstanding miscommunication different value and competing and competing goals and or excitement it hurt the other girls and started to fight and turn them against each other no matter where you go you're going to encounter conflict but you can avoid unnecessary conflict or mirror much or minimize it by thank you before asking or you could think of the consequences you can also try to see the products per section per section of the other person we can't control what someone else does but we can control what we do oh that one so with all this hard work we've been doing conscious discipline our empowerment room building our school class families we've had a significant decrease in our office referrals this year as you can see from our chart um we know that this hard work starts with us as the adults being able to regulate our own brain States so that we can meet our students in need rather than reacting good evening my name is Eddie O'Neil and I am the effective School coach here at Kennedy at Loma Linda I'm here to share with you how we have been building meaningful relationships with students staff and families this has been done through many community events celebrating the whole child such as family game night and student recognition assemblies through academic achievement where we focus on growth and the Jacob Eisen award which is celebrating kind-hearted leaders now Dr Burgess is going to talk to you about our new playground going into the school year we knew that our older coming up here with me we knew that our older students needed something to do our K4 is over on one side and our fifth through eighth grade is on another side and we knew that they needed something to do they needed to be outside they needed to have fun they need to just engage and play and be kids and we're so happy and thankful to Kaboom fairytale brownies the Korean Community Foundation district and our amazing volunteers for the support of our school we have two students here with us that tonight are going to speak about the process of building the playground and what it means to them good evening my name is Daniel shago I am in the fifth grade I had a chance to design the new playground for Kennedy hello Melinda we created our Dream playground and presented our designs in front of students parents teachers Kaboom and fairy tale brownies we were able to vote on other students designs that we liked we also looked at components that we would like to see in our playground I liked I liked the different types of spinners slides I also like the variety of colors for the playground now I'm gonna pass this presentation on to Serena to talk about what a playground means to her my name is Serena Robinson and I am also a fifth grader at Kennedy at Loma Linda the worst thing about going to fifth grade was knowing we wouldn't have a playground to play on the older students did not have one but now we do it makes us happy and we get to have fun before there used to be lots of fights now people are more caught up having fun then starting rumors and being mean to each other yeah and the kids are more playful and have more options than just basketball or soccer now we get to do different things some of the girls don't like sports but we need it something to do the playground is really helpful for this and I'm very thankful to Kaboom and fairytale brownies for helping build this playground and for making the kids dreams come true hello my name is Jesse valenzwell and I'm one of the behavior interventionist at the Kennedy and La Melinda family the Creighton School District cultivates a safe and thriving community Through healthy habits social connectivity and emotional nourishments we supported this goal through building we're building a school family by the implementation of conscious discipline at Kennedy and Loma Linda we have regular check-ins with students in need that in need of that extra care and support building relationships with our students has allowed them to feel comfortable opening up to us and knowing they have a support system at school now let me present Miss Tiffany Wynn will now speak about the equity process and committee at our school um I'm also on our school's Equity committee our committee has written daily morning announcements related to The Heritage or History Month that we're celebrating in addition to that I've written a monthly newsletter with resources for teachers some of them are learning resources for adults and others are for teachers to use in their classrooms with students in the newsletter I like to include at least one action item for example like checking classroom libraries for representation or signing up for a free sign language class I also include resources for adults to further their learning we've touched on topics such as colorism and code switching so far this concludes our presentation for tonight we're happy to answer any questions that you have for any member of the group questions comments it's lovely I loved it um I just the second grade team you remind me so much of my fifth grade team it's so awesome like when you have such a great team of teachers and your kids really benefit especially when you know all of the students and sometimes when you even forget that those kids are not really in your homeroom class because I always forget like who's in my homeroom class so um I love that and I also love the ASU shirt the guy was wearing Miss Michaela um no questions just um I'm biased I miss lzk um no but you guys did a wonderful job um I remember when uh conscious discipline first came to lck um and it was Miss Burgess remembers this it was a very slow roll out and um it when you put programs in practice such as conscious discipline um mindfulness we do in my district and you start with the staff first really understanding how that plays like how they feel and how they manage themselves it's so much more powerful it also is scarier for staff at the beginning so um but we know research has shown it's made such a huge impact rather than just kind of here's a canned program teach the roles to kids um so I know firsthand how powerful conscious discipline is and I'm really excited to see and I got to see even during a school visit it is prevalent throughout it creates a culture a language and the kids own it and the staff on it so that was really exciting to keep seeing that so but thank you guys and wonderful job let's make it let's get some includes sorry I just enjoyed the presentation I Echo what Lindsay said about the conscious discipline you know um I think anyone who's been working in the school knows that if the staff and teachers don't own something the kids can tell and it just kind of crumbles from there so it came through tonight everything was just um great um and I would love and some things I wrote down was were just about like consistency across the district and I know the ownership thing's a big piece but I would love to see a lot of these same things at other schools and I I don't know what other schools have some like the conscious discipline or the um the high school resources and kind of I mean forgive me I forgot what was your last name Miss King what Miss King obviously you're doing is going above and beyond your job description right and at the same time I don't know that everybody across our district all the eighth graders get the same kind of ability to figure out the high school situation and I would just want to make sure that all our kids are are getting where they need to be and I thank you because wow it's a lot of work to get all that done and in such a weird world now having to pick where you go to high school and all this it's too much to even think about so thank you for all that I I'm sure it's it's no easy task to get all that done can I add to that Miss King I might be reaching out to you because I'm trying still trying to help my eighth graders and it is a feat so if you have a question oh I'm I'm a principal in the baltz school district now for the online school and our district next door Miss King yes yeah I think the other thing though was I've even before I got on the board I've watched all the presentations this might be the first one where I saw somebody talk about high school articulation in their presentation so I really appreciate it well you know um thank you very much to all the presenters especially the student presenters um very well done um the high school thing I know there's lots of opportunity to um make things easier I'm sure you work with um principal aren't um he'd love to work with everyone and I think the application process is overly cumbersome and it doesn't need to be that way we can be partnering unfortunately because we're not a unified um district with Phoenix Union we have two applications that need to be filled out really it's the same info so at some point going forward I think we need to sync that up and make it a lot easier because it's hard on the 9th grade teachers to to then input everything um and and that sounds like there's a a step we can ultimately skip at some point so I was impressed with the conscious discipline when we visited your school and so I'm really glad that you're seeing results from it now and you know again listening to those kids on Friday you know recognizing that yeah you know sometimes adults like just need to get it get it get control themselves for a moment and so you know recognizing that all humans need to be able to have that space to do that is really important so thank you very much for recognizing that and for everything you guys are doing I need anything else thank you thank you guys yeah and you and and uh Loma Linda um Kennedy at Kennedy uh students and whomever um you may leave too so that you can go home and get to bed and or watch the Sun's Game or whatever you want to do um and that will bring us to the meet and confer recommendations it is wow sorry I used to use the F-word s well when we were talking earlier my husband texted me was like I can hear you guys and I was like oh yeah TV show or the TV yeah and I was like yes I know I know I'm just like whoa that's fine too bad goes yeah she just reminding me to check the sun score two days ago or whatever hey it was a while ago yeah Dr Devine in the fall or something it was in the fall it was early it was before I was on the board but they invited me oh yeah before fall break it was after I got appointed or it was like kind of close I was gonna get appointed because I was like and it was late in the fall then yeah yeah okay I think we're ready for the mean confer update if those people are here yep if the mediocre team please come forward I don't know why they're pretending to be shy they're not shy Madam president members of the war executive team uh an audience it is our pleasure to bring forward the members of the medium Comfort team they have been working very hard on the recommendations present to you today for input and review and with further Ado our members of our meeting Comfort team all right good evening I'm Kelly blakesley um reading interventionist at Monte Vista school and also a member of the meet and conferred team um tonight I'll just introduce us we have a couple of slides talking about um what the mean confer team is I know that you've seen us up here before but if you have any questions feel free to jump in um and then Lauren we'll talk a little bit about some of our dates and where we've been previously and where we're headed so these are the members of the meet and confer team most of us are actually represented here tonight there's a few that couldn't make it um and then I'll let Lauren talk about anything hi good evening Lauren Arrowwood I work at excelencia I'm the assistant principal there these are just a list of the dates that we have met we've met in person most Wednesdays for the entire day and then our WebEx meetings were after school so you'll see that we have one more meeting in may just to finish up the process as a part of the meet and confer process we do identify several topics and this is through a series of discussions among the team so these are the topics that came to the top this year some of them ended up being tabled as just larger conversations or more work or more investigation needs to be done and then some of them ended up being discussed and then our recommendations sort of shook out from there foreign Henry I'm the school psychologist at excelencia um I'm going to go over some of the recommendations that have already been approved by the governing board so rewind we have some uh that started as res or uh last spring the federal pandemic Relief Fund prioritization task force that was our first sign and stay stipend I believe one thousand dollars for all employees who were returning um we also agreed uh which was approved by the board on February 7th was that the district would continue to cover Health Care increases for employees for the upcoming 20 23 and 24 school year um and so listed are all those uh we've had quite a bit coming through this year so um in terms of some monetary stipends for everyone so we've already approved three thousand dollars stipend retention stipend last fall a fifteen hundred dollar retention stipend for employees who are signing their contracts and planning on returning in this upcoming fall as well as a minimum of a ten thousand dollar prorated on FTE funding stipend for all staff members next year and that'll be paid out in two increments of five thousand dollars per semester with the dates to be determined by the powers that be foreign there for a second um so uh part of the recommendations was related to health and wellness and um I don't know if you know this or not but there is uh policy in place already for uh the health care benefit information about uh stuff that we have that goes on every year in terms of our health and then oh sorry we've got I I was talking about something completely different apologize um so uh the and then the second part of that is the uh District forming Community to communicate and implement the district governing board policy gccg that's the one that I was thinking about which is the uh policy that basically uh comes from the idea of like I mean I I just see it as helping people out and uh being able if you've been around for a couple of years uh and you've had earned leave um and that is accumulated in there that you have an opportunity and this is already a part of policy to help somebody out and uh the immediate example that comes to my mind are friends of mine in the district uh people that I've known for over the years maybe people that others have known as well too that uh have um life-altering circumstances where they are no longer able to be at work they are out of earned leave they don't have those things available to them and they're serious conditions right and they're serious things that are happening so if you have the ability to be able to go and help them out and donate or offer a time that you have to help out in those instances I for one relish the opportunity not just it's a friend but if there were anybody that were in need if that's you know because you know 99 of what we do is all about relationships right building relationships trying to build a connectedness with everything that we have as employees so um really awesome policy that is not as well known as it should be so that's uh hopefully something that we can change moving forward so a quick question on that after you all reviewed the policy do you feel the policy works as is and just needs to be communicated or in the future do you think there's a need for the board and everyone to look at any revisions to it so at this point um I I think it it's a communication issue really um because they're uh uh the the policy in place is pretty detailed um it just needs a person a committee in this case to sort of uh take the bull by the horns and implement it in a way that I think is um I I I do think that there are a number of people that would really really appreciate the opportunity to both uh be a benefit and also to provide for it um it's just really it's it was just a loss I mean I don't know if you've read policy or not but there's like 50 billion different things in there and um it's uh I think it's the issue is just uh communicating it and just making it happen that's for sure y'all just love to go fishing and board docks every day I'm sorry I'm sure you all love to just go fishing in our board docs every day um I do actually I know that sounds kind of nerdy but yeah I I I I find it very uh uh helpful with conversations because it's black and white right you uh there's there's no arguing with that stuff it just it is or it isn't it's a data-driven type of conversations right it's you you have those conversations because you want to take the uh personal aspect so people don't think that it's you know I'm not coming after you I'm just trying to help you sorry that's distracted um uh uh any other questions oh yeah I hope board docs doesn't come after me after tonight no I just I hope it is just a communication issue and I'd be interested to see you know next year you know end of next year like getting some feedback as to okay now that we're actually communicating and implementing this policy does the policy work as it is yeah it was it was a fun conversation right we spent a great deal of time uh advocating and figuring out you know what are the pros and cons can we make this happen is this something that can realistically happen what's the policy I mean we've spent there were some in-depth conversations and then I saw Mr carbajal go on like that on his keyboard and he's like hey we already have the policy so it was kind of it was a little sad because we were like sweet Jesus we already have this so thank you Miss Carl if we had a district handbook that could be in there yeah for sure the next slide um so the next slide for Staffing allocations um there was a lot of conversation about Esser funds where we're at with us or funds where we're going with Esser funds and uh really the bulk of this conversation came from a level of transparency so people that are affected by Sr fund positions both site leadership and planning for the future in how that's going to look where that's going to go how does that work for schools and for the employees that are part of that conversation um what's what's going on right because after funds do not last forever and uh there needs to be a plan in place to make sure that that's something uh that that people are known about as well so we were very specific about uh going and having District develop a plan to phase out uh positions uh or not I'm sorry phase out funding for Sr fund did positions by the end of December 2023 I'm not I'm not going to use positions because we don't know yeah that's it thank you for me thank you thank you applied number is that 13.
And it's a lot if you just do the minimum amount of work. But Miss Walters and Miss Gelra did way more than the minimum. Um, as I said in private, especially um, well, with both of them, but I was talking to Janine, uh, there's a lot of things I would like to attend, but I just can't. But I would always be like, "Oh, that's okay. Janine will be there." You know, and and I always knew that, and I really appreciated that, knowing that we had representation no matter what. and Sandy, these last four years, it's just been so great doing uh bouncing information off you and just making decisions. I've really enjoyed the time we've all had together. We've we've formed a great team. I'm going to miss it. You know, I look forward to forming another team, but I'm really going to miss this one that we worked so hard to put together.
I can't respond or just was there a time 7 15 is our goal okay that's my report for tonight any questions any questions sorry sorry you can go ahead well just a quick question um for the um May 2nd award ceremony our kids being um recognized in the same categories that they were last year pretty much yes John so they are an academic um you worked hard for the administrative on that yeah it's a similar similar instructors we try to make sure that they're objective objective awards that would be something that they would be recognized for okay Nutella help I know it's still early but do we have any percentages on like uh submitted consent forms or usage rates or anything is there any update on there so Kim I will send that information out Donna and I don't have that tonight yeah um I'll verbally report on that on May 9th but in the meantime we'll get that information out to you I heard that it's uh so far so this goes back maybe three weeks ago it's on it registrations and hints so already so we're also um at the high school and going to remind our students of the service during their chat period this Friday April 21st so we have posters throughout the school so we're working hard to Market it when does that service end I'm sure I don't remember a relief everywhere so thank you for asking about it we'll get back to you said it any other questions okay [Music] um Coe report I I just um just want to Echo um how well Mrs San Antonio Chief Mrs Breezy this is Jack did you know having those there's always a little interpretation and worry uh when you're sending that many students out outside of the district but they did a wonderful job and I can't wait to hear their uh the reports to come back um and again just to mark your calendars I try to send out reminders Claudia sent out reminders I send out reminders just to make sure that we can get everybody at these meetings um the next so our next sport event meeting is technically May 2nd we're getting to celebrate it's an actual award meeting but the one after that is May 9th okay I mean I and that's our those are our two meetings we have three yeah we have three yeah um curriculum had just met when's your next meeting um Erica please uh you know May 10th May 10.
oh one thing that came up a lot is Staffing and realizing that we are a district that's um declining enrollment because of changes in the demographic and affordability to live in this area so one thing we talked about is being creative with our staffing so the district will create a ad hoc leader teacher model committee to research Innovative Staff modeling models to address staff shortages that's for sure suspect teachers psychologists counselors there's a shortage everywhere um and then the district could also investigate positions and a they're affected by compression um one point in time the district tried to address compression then led to more compression so we're going to investigate that with a magnifying glass um and then maintain Equitable longevity for all employee groups that was something well it wasn't discovered it was on the open but one thing there was was an inequity and Longevity so that's one thing we want the district to maintain and then um bilingual teachers they're teaching the Dual language program it's already on the salary schedule they're just not on the title so we're just going to be adding that to the title but they're already on that pay schedule do we have does this District have like a ratio a teacher to student ratio yes you do okay I think it's what 29 27 to 1.
So, thank you guys. We will miss you. Thanks, Cheryl. Um Okay. Uh the board update I have is um you'll recall at the committee the whole last week, Mayor Einhorn was here and had uh requested the board um consider an extension of the creep tiffs. Um subsequent to that, I met with our council John, Dr. Cara, and Ken Surma last Thursday morning. And my basic question was I wasn't even sure what we put on the agenda to approve because we haven't gone through this as a board in the past. Um at that meeting uh Ken discovered some information that um has three tiffs two three and four. Uh that tiff three and four had already been extended out until the mid two 2030. So 2035 I believe 2036. Um, and so at that meeting, um, I decided that not to put anything on the agenda for tonight until we kind of had a common set of facts between the village and us as to what we were what the specific request was and um, and so that you know, we knew what we were approving.
okay so May 10th is curriculum and technology and uh we'll get a reminder out on that if you like it and that Joe's policy would be um but we met earlier the week and it lasts before the last meeting in May what's in the last second thing it's May 23rd May 23rd okay thank you yeah policy it as is important uh if anybody like me that and then next Finance meeting is going to be that would be to accept those kids so the committee meetings are important and really that's I just want to emphasize that as the work of the board so any any member that would like to attend can attend but those that are assigned to those committees I just appreciate that we continue to keep the momentum that you have um that began at the beginning of the year it carries forward so that's it for the uh the chair report any questions for me okay hearing none we go to public forum nobody's in the audience why don't we open up on the uh on the screen all right yeah we've got a couple people online today if you're joining us online and you'd like to make public comment you can go ahead and use the raised hand feature zoom and I will call on writers his name they want to take bets on this one yeah and if you're one of the one of the attendees online go ahead and use the raise hand features on the bottom of your screen if you'd like to make a public comments memories and okay we appreciate you being online though and listening in and being informed so thank you for being part of the meeting tonight okay so moving forward um public form we move into the assistant superintendent and I'll be I'll be quick tonight um but a couple things that are important so I think I'm very excited about um yesterday Sarah Jones our new uh student and family engaging director again in the district which is she's wonderful just a couple highlights and we'll love to be able to have her get an opportunity just to think that maybe the second day of work might be a little uh precocious worse with us but um a couple things about about Sarah uh she joins the district from the state education Resource Center so it's certain where she served as both project officer or the school climate transformation Grant um and then as an educational consultant over the last eight years uh her consultation areas have included possibly intervention in sports uh restorative practices and restorative conferencing uh Equity culturally relevant pedagogy multi-tiered systems of support and stakeholder engagement she's got a wealth of knowledge and experience she is a trainer that we might have been Outsourcing for in the past who is now outsourced with us now um she has previously served as the safe schools and Community program manager at the governor's prevention partnership we're at her program supervision included School climate Improvement and bullying prevention she was a director of residential life for a global school she was the director of Student Activities at Manchester High School and actually has worked with Dr Grossman Ryan coming superintendent as well she's the state executive director for student councils through the Connecticut Association of schools and director and past director of recreation for the town of Bolton in his spare time he serves as the deputy mayor for the town of Manchester and on the planning committee for the Manchester Road right Road Race she's an outstanding hire a wonderful addition for us wow we're excited to be able to have her here yeah it was that was an All-Star honor and she was a student so we're very excited to be able to have her I also wanted to be able to let you know that um Mrs McLean and I have been working really hard on the mental health grant that the state has been offering that was submitted today um where it went totally what we're asking for is about 120 000 and we looked through the rubric board we feel like we've got a very good opportunity for it we're hopeful for that we'll report back to you um when we get an update on that is that great we'll give you support company um support staff Journal yeah so we're looking at it to be able to expand our systems of support with two additional social workers and a board-certified behavior analyst we currently um contract for some of those services and would love to be able to have ourselves in a situation that could um be able to have those folks in-house and then work strategically alongside within our Thrive program so this is a this is one of our strategies to continue to fill out that program and through some of the work that we do in them having a situation where that program again becomes self-sustaining with that and we would we would anticipate the grant serving us over the next three years nice that's what I have to share you want to say anything about space or I'm happy to share just a little just just so you all know um we continue to be able to work on the issue of space and we had a walk through with an architect um on um just this past week we're going to be meeting with the town leadership uh later this week to be able to share a little bit more with them about what some of the some of the considerations are and we expect to be able to have a report that would come back from the architectural firm um at some point this next month hopefully within the next two weeks or so as that information comes forward it'll be it will give us a good sense of what's feasible for us to be able to do based on the conditions that we have and then what would be are possible options to be able to move forward with the ballpark estimate of cost like that great thanks Joe okay well I don't have too much uh you have your packet in front of you uh and you can see the earlier this evening we had a finance committee meeting uh where we went over things in detail um but basically it's uh these special you know we're still watching our special ed cost but we anticipate we are hoping to get uh some funding through uh about 823 000 for Access cost reimbursement uh and also 853 000 was built in Hartford schools um that should offset those special ed deficits as of right now uh so we haven't gotten the funds yet but that's what we're we're anticipating um so we're just continuing to watch our regular ad expenses um mainly uh utilities and heating fuel District substitutes and some uh supplies and such dual inflation and we're just uh forecasting every day and reevaluating where we're going to be at year end and we're going to be allocating some items to Grants and such and working through our financial funding sources [Music] although better for forecasting you know as we go along in time but uh right now we're we're hoping that uh you know we should be on target good when he is the utilities is a big info the utilities is a big app so we'll have to see how that goes roast me in Miami everything for that one thing I will add and I I don't know if Kevin knows who's getting there but we did not we did not I know we did not get the age back Grant so I wanted to oh we did not you guys in fact the only reason um the only one around here that you got anything was really fun so we did not get that disappointed okay thank you Donna any questions from Finance keep watching it um I think we're on track though okay um Mr kitchen one lead is through the consent agenda sure so in our consent agenda tonight we have um the approval of minutes the March 28 2023 regular meeting in the March 28 2023 special meeting we also have leave requests for two staff members and go through them individually we have a regret request from Laura Eldridge she is requesting maternity leave as she's expecting uh twin girls on the June 14th that's great very exciting for um for Laura and her husband and she's looking to begin her leave on or around May 9th 2023 and to take the first half of next year off and return January 2nd 2024 for request Falls within the guidelines in the teachers contract so I'm recommending that you improve or maternity leave requests and then the second request comes from Allison McKay and I should say I'm sorry Laura Eldridge is a speech language pathologist in Cherry Brook Primary School and Allison McKay who is a teacher at Canton Intermediate School is expecting her third child this summer so she's also requesting maternity lien um for the first half of next year ending or I should say returning on Monday December 18th 2023 again her request Falls within the guidelines established within the contract so I recommend approval of that request of course so how do you um speech languages especially be clearly um and the classroom teacher is not easy either but how do you so how do you replace these two uh you know curious so fortunately um one of my former teachers who I worked with in the past district has been willing to come forward and as a speech language pathologist she's been working with us this year in the fall we had to leave and she's returning a name to finish up this year that while we State this it's it's also linked to our deficit in our District substitute account it's because of these leads of absences and needing to pay um substitutes coming in that has caused our budgets going to deficit in those line matters the good news is we have people that are like this person I'm mentioning so you're finding people the position great I'm also related to speech language um tonight I have a liquor of a letter excuse me I have a letter it's only one but um she writes Dear Mr Case please accept this letter as my formal intent he retire as a speech language pathologist effective June 30th 2023 after 43 years as an active speech language pathologist in 38 years with the Connecticut public school system I feel it is time to start my new phase in my life I've enjoyed my 19 years of employment with the Canton Board of Education I've always felt very supportive by both Administration as well as my colleague so I recommend you accept Vicki Holbrook Duran's letter of resignation effective June 30th 2023.
7.5 and it's the same for every single grade level by school it's by sight and so you take all the students in the building and you divide them up you do it by sight yeah Ours by grade level so oh yeah that's interesting well because they don't come in neatly packages you can't cut a kid in half I wish we could but we can't so much figuratively figuratively yeah yes now class sizes was tabled but yes and based on what Lindsay said it should just if we want K1 to be smaller we have that ability but then somewhere else is going to have to be bigger which is usually like Middle School so they're supposed to be more independent at that age supposed to be um I just wanted to add and I like this idea of this committee um Lindsay Sophia and I went to this it was very like the last Workshop or second glass Workshop we went to and it it was this study in Kansas was it in Kansas I don't even that doesn't even matter I can go back and look at it because I sent myself all the materials but they had basically hired an industrial psychologist which I didn't even know what that was until I started Googling it and they did basically did this entire like survey and study to figure out how to address their teacher shortages is very effective and it was interesting because most of the things they figured out that were going to be impactful were not the things that the district had assumed for years were were helping or would help so um it's something that I started looking at to see like is there an industrial psychologist at ASU that could help us or something I haven't gone down that route but I definitely am going to keep looking to see and that would be something I think this committee could maybe look into as well yeah I think some of the pieces that we like the sessions we went to I think you know we can share with Hilda and Dr Lewis I think some of those presentations and resources that we found would be helpful um for the meet and confer committee to have to look at it's the same issues that are happening everywhere and one of the really interesting pieces when they did this model is they it was like the fact that education is so siled and we're like oh we're working and and let's be Innovative about uh Staffing models but I'm not saying not to but they stepped outside of that and said well what does every other industry do and other Industries have practices that help them stay sustainable so why are we not looking at those so we'll definitely share that in organizational development and the control and there's some block where education is like no why would we look at it but like some of that stuff works hello our next slide the home stretch uh so we also had some opportunities to talk about and consider recommendations for protecting prep time and obligations for employees outside of the scope of the workday so the first and second year teacher the first bullet currently the practice is uh that the first year teachers generally are not required to participate in committee meetings we as a district value that there's a lot for them to do learn and grow as a first year teacher we recognize that that's also true of a second year teacher just because you hit that magic mark of one year anniversary doesn't mean that you don't need that additional consideration so this is kind of related actually to the paper performance plan that the district has that the board had approved regarding the requirement for 15 hours so our conversation was how do we alleviate that for those employees that are in their second year and not have the requirement of being on the committee is something that would be challenged or something that might take away from their professional development the second two bullets are kind of related and they were tabled and recommended to be looked at by the calendar committee for the 24-25 school year we had some philosophical conversations about whether how is uh are the Parent-Teacher conferences used at the end of the first quarter in the end of the third quarter are they reflective conversations yes and are they sharing grades but could they be something different where maybe it's a let's look forward to this quarter and have a different structure around that so those are really interesting conversations we didn't make any uh decisions about what that could look like we we felt like there were more pieces of information that needed to be vetted uh through the calendar committee and through getting feedback before we would make a formal recommendation about what that might look like but that's definitely something that we pushed to the calendar committee for future consideration and hopefully that'll come back to us next year in meet and confer um we also looked at the amount of late nights and we're talking about time outside of school days that are extra duties that might extend into the evening so um things like parent conferences things like uh PTO events Incredibles um looking at Meet the Teacher Night things like that so trying to create not just a work-life balance opportunity and making sure those obligations are not onerous but also recognizing that it may be inequitable in the number of events that are required across different sites or that um maybe there are teachers that aren't participating fully in or at an equal Pace to their colleagues in different sites so this was sort of an effort to standardize that obligation I recognize that each site is different and there might be opportunities at each site to do different things different ways um and recognizing that this is not a cap this is a minimum so there are going to be those teachers we've had the Loma Linda Kennedy Loma Linda teacher who goes out to high schools and and does all that wonderful work I know that we have teachers at Monte Vista who take on extra duties and extra responsibilities and they do that because of their love for the community not that everyone doesn't love their Community but they do that out of different obligation and different sense of needs so that was where that conversation sort of centered um the last one is looking at making sure that teachers have a guaranteed 30-minute prep planning period That's uninterrupted three times a week so we recognize that professional learning communities PLC meetings are really important data discussions are really important pre-conferences for evaluation observations all of those things can tend to eat into teachers planning time so we wanted to make sure that teachers know that we value that they need that professional time and that's why we landed on this last recommendation so it does say certified staff will be required to work up to six late nights a year so that that is a cap right well it's they can choose to work more so it's not that their cap is we're obligating six nights okay late nights and then anything to do above and beyond is really on their time okay and then I don't know if you guys have ever talked about this but um is there I just had this you know Wednesdays are always still hard for parents for some parents um early release Wednesdays is there a reason why we don't have early release on Fridays I historically I don't know where that decision came from that's way before my time so I'm sure that's something that could be a future conversation yeah I do know there are other districts that do that there are also districts that do late starts right rather than early release yes yeah so I think those are all conversations that could be had in the future thank you you're welcome for um well I think it's walking safe Just for information because it's any sort of recommendation I'm going to ask about that but I didn't want to dip my toe in that conversation I was just curious if you guys hadn't even like looked at it or anything yeah or a year-round school model um all right are there questions comments governing board members Miss Arif I'm glad that it seems that things are going better this year I know there's a lot of Kinks to work out when you start meeting her for a process I've been through those pains and aches myself um so I'm glad to see that the discussion is flowing and things are starting to work as they should yeah and just to be clear the the feedback or the um recommendations that we're bringing tonight are not monetary so that was just the working condition so it's not the last you'll see of us because we're we'll be coming again we're meeting again and then we'll be coming again thank you thank you let's kill him um no just second that I was a year back when we had a meeting converter I was here when it kind of dissolved and um so I know it's been you know a lot of work to get it back together and um yes some of it is is monetary but I think this is the first time in a couple years where the non-monetary the culture pieces that really have a huge lasting impact have really been vetted out and I'm just excited to see all of that again I was just going to say the same thing you know it's clear you all were very intentional and what you got what you arrived at here and so it's I'm happy to see that and also clearly all of you are also taking a lot of time out of your regular hours outside of work and so I really appreciate everyone's time and yeah thank you everyone hey that brings us to the legislative political report does anyone have anything break right now they are taking a break from floor votes while this appointment is happening yeah I would say there's nothing urgent right now the things that we're worried about obviously the governor we're still worried about there were some you know there were obvious bills that people were upset about that would affect the classroom that were many of whom many of which were vetoed by the governor or will likely be viewed by the governor if they're passed on the floor he's at a record high for vetoes yeah the stage yeah yeah I think she is protecting the interests of our schools and I think that's been made very clear yeah so I'm trying to keep my blood pressure low when I see the introduction of some of these and be like it's gonna be okay breathe she's aiming for some bipartisan Solutions which we'll see if that moves forward and um and just gotta watch that carefully I think the biggest issue that this board if it was to lean in on energy would continue to be to work on the aggregate expenditure limit that is our Long Haul with the with the two or three Cliffs coming with the loss of prop one two three with the loss of Esser uh these these pending Cliffs for your future uh I would highly encourage you to be put putting the pressure on uh in your legislative influences in terms of addressing the aggregate limit I I agree AEL and vouchers all right future agenda items does anyone have anything they'd like to add tonight uh just do we need to formally or can you note down that we want to make sure we have time set aside to really go into some of the nsba presentations thank you and then I know it's on the agenda but just to highlight obviously um we you know our process has already been out there we have interviews coming up and again we've already I I even get the letters I don't know if you guys do that on purpose but obviously we have the community Forum next Thursday so if anyone's watching out there please come next Thursday April 27th at excellencia we will have our final Community Council of the Year and that is when we will have a superintendent finalist um Town Hall Forum yes so you would be able to see these person people in person and submit questions um that would be um potentially asked of the candidates and we'd be making our decision that agent yes going to say that's importantly yeah yeah the intent to then make a decision after that so please please please this is the chance to give any feedback if you haven't yeah and I will um uh just reiterate that the current candidates that will be interviewed on Thursday they are on board docs under an agenda item but yeah that's can be a little tricky to find so what was the date of that special meeting just so we can say it I know it was the 25 uh March March so if you go to the March 25th special meeting on board docs on their item G you should find the list and it's a bit up there since March 25th and however a couple candidates have um about so um there are four remaining I think that's it so I move that we adjourn this board meeting second all those in favor uh hi nice job Nick Jeffrey thank you look for letting me
Um, my recommendation is the board continue. I think Mr. Iso is still doing some investigation and due diligence for us. uh once we can kind of get to a common set of facts, you know, that we treat treat kind of in the same vein that we've uh approached Mon is when they've approached us about uh extending their tiffs, we've said, you know, we would consider it if we got some type of compensation in return and I think it's fair that we kind of treat the villages in a similar fashion. So, we're still waiting to get some facts in. Uh but that would be the approach I would recommend. So, we'll keep you apprised of our progress in that regard. Okay. Any other board updates? Yeah. Um, Saturday we had the girls empowering day which was pretty great and uh out of the before lunch there were three seminars and I went to the one uh on entrepreneurs and believe it or not someone Mr.
all right uh could I have a first on the uh consent agenda thank you Felicia second joke any discussion on the consent agenda the FMLA the uh retirement Korean there was regrets or it's called works we can be connected to regret and I will say one thing about Vicky Holbrook I she grew up um I've known her because her kids grew up with my kids so it goes back a long time and when I saw the resignation it really hit me um you know and she's been here that long and uh so yes we we will move to accept her resignation when we bet and wish her well in her retirement how's that okay with those adjustments uh we have a person second all those in favor aye opposed that's 8-0 okay thank you um approval of the financials as uh provided by Donna first on that muscle thank you second thank you Erica any questions on the financials for the questions hearing none uh all those in favor aye h o no need to ask proposed that covers that okay so Mr shiver is going to walk us through the uh policy 6160 and policy 6164 then you're gonna vote on his first greetings tonight right you know at the end of hours three years not the best time to be discussing policies these are important all of our policies are important but these are particularly important policies at this time uh we all know what's going on around the country in terms of uh schools and materials things are being taught and challenged and that sort of thing and the policy is replacing and I would urge you to take some time to read it between now and our next meeting and certainly come with a question a lot of time and effort gone into rewriting these a lot of people have been involved so a lot of you are pretty familiar with what's here uh the policies in red in the front that's the current policy it's 20 years old it was a good policy but it needs it needs more so what we have come up with are on the next page there the 11 Commandments uh and they the goal is to set guidelines for how materials get selected how they wind up in front of our kids uh how they want to go to the library what videos we have all those all the educational concerns how do they get there we need to be able to answer the question how do they get there and why they get there why they in the curriculum why is it appropriate um because for folks to challenge that and we need to we need to follow guidelines to be sure that we have answers that we can support for those questions and that's the purpose of the the 11 Commandments there and also one of the item number uh and uh it it assures people the right to challenge but it doesn't give people uh anyone in On the Border in the community the right to say I want this off the shelf tomorrow uh there's going to be a process for that and that's actually policy 6161.11 that's at the back of the of the the separate policy John correct yep uh and that's a really I think well thought out uh form and procedure for folks who want to challenge something and you have to complete the questions on it and as you want and then John with the great lens to spell out what the what will happen then uh to to adjudicate your uh concern your request for for something to be withdrawn I'd encourage you to read that in between that are you know eight or nine pages of regulations what we decided to do as a committee was not to make them part of the policy a lot of specificity there for teachers or principals who are curriculum directors for the librarian uh I just love getting the library how to stuff get out of the library that there's there's too much specificity for our policy um that you know this or that might need to be changed over time and all the items and the regulations are based on the the 11 items that would be in the policy um so again I would it's late right now but I would encourage you to read through that if you have questions concerns comments and it's very very important that they'd be addressed before we can go on into adoption I would especially encourage you to look at the uh part where it gives someone the ability to challenge something that's being used as an educational material textbooks by state law have to be adopted by two-thirds majority of the Board of Education um so any textbook that we buy we move all curriculum committee and then it goes to the whole board what about all the other materials the thousands of books and all the rest of it well you know why did you pick it how does it with the curriculum and does it belong here teachers need to be able to answer that question we can and what's on the third grade reading shell we can't answer that the teachers need to be prepared to do that and I think they can now this just puts it in in writing yeah that's a good question about that um it's simply like literary merit I mean is that to match the curriculum or can you just be it's a damn good book so we're gonna have it on the show I John I would say for sure yeah right but it doesn't say well this matches up with you know in third grade we're doing a unit on holy Mammoth so we have to watch it right you bring up something that's really important because one of the challenges with this and this is why the the trust of the Board of Education policy and then regulations that we've fallen through with this this is why they're so important because it could be so nuanced if we wanted to be able to say it then it then hit then all the way along there are some things that are that that based on actually I'm going to take it a step back you hire great teachers you've got higher grade administrators to be able to do a good work and then their job is to be able to collect those things aggregate those things that are going to be of of interest and service to a wide variety of students and human interests and backgrounds so that those can be able to be available that's part of our responsibility to provide access for students so we we're able to do that and then when we do look to be able to purchase something that we're going to implement as part of our curriculum then we do really want to be thinking about what are the content standards for it how is it really going to serve us how is it going to help us to be able to be on a on a cycle of continuous Improvement so it's Ryan to your point then we kind of have an approach where this is how we can do things for overall School library media spaces an approach to this is how we do things for Core Curriculum and then when it comes to those ancillary resources and materials use professional judgment to be able to support it that should be allowable for us and the two point out that John ran all this by Librarians by teachers Department chairs by uh curriculum folks and made some adjustments along the way uh because what I was hoping we'd hear is well we do a lot of this already maybe we don't want to do that or we we should add this or and from what John tells us uh the teachers are supportive recognizing that we're looking to support them and make sure they're not out there on a limb by themselves uh that that here's the policy of all the policy made a mistake made a mistake but but it was all done in good faith and and with a good result hopefully but again experiment 20 minutes to read it I was just taking a look at it the I'm not going to rush it but it is like the second policy is uh controversial issues and the uh again the current policy is 20 years old it's not bad it's very brief but we felt it needed needed some strengthening and if you take a look at that uh it's not a whole lot longer the first paragraph first two paragraphs of that policy uh I think are pretty crucial to what we're about as a school system um if we're trying to educate and raise children to be productive adult citizens they need to know how to Grapple with controversial issues that and the need to have to listen they need to do research they need to have a way various opinions and they don't get practice doing that in school then we'll give it your gift so I I really feel that that's important that teachers know that following some guidelines that we would encourage them when it's appropriate and age-appropriate and those are tough questions uh for a youngster class to be able to deal with a controversial issue what happens when something comes up out of the blue it's okay and I'm going to go up on a three-day tangent maybe but it's okay to do that address those things with kids when they come up and address them more formally as a physical curriculum how do you jack well there I think one of the things that that um I was impressed by our committee and something that they thought strongly about was some of the some of the requests of the different players um we talk a lot about what we want our staff to be able to do but we also want to expect that our students are going to have the hotels a certain way we want to expect that our community will look to be able to handle themselves in a certain way as well we can't necessarily compel people to do things but this is it's kind of an onus of trust that we put out to say let's deal with hard things in the right way um so I appreciated the board of support on being able to wrap that into it we want to own this to say this is how we want to be able to handle hard things as a community and this one as opposed to the last one was a committee felt that regulations should be part of the policy because it's sort of a Hot Topic right now and they're being able to own it and be in position to support um teachers in the work that they do and encourage you to read through that too because there may be a sentence or a paragraph or whatever that you feel needs to be discussed or changed and then but what it's worth one final bit of information um after our after our last meeting with this we did say it was good to be able to just have a conversation from him to be able to get their Insight on it I spoke with Jody bowler who is the head of their of the policy Services he was thrilled thrilled with the work that we've done but also the process that we have gone through to be able to get to the point that we are so um grateful to be able to have support at a higher level with that as well if I can just thoroughly sure I think when we're all looking at this you know I I think it's well I think it's going to be the parent Crux of this is it's all I mean it's terrific work and but the question is what do you do and let's let's use transgender issues I think as uh as uh as a example here is you know talking about viewpoints that does not come to the rational breast intimidation bullying and uh institutions shall not the instructions shall not reflect adversely on the person because so like four and seven particularly the students actually earlier you know I I think that's going to be a flash point because let's get going back to talking about transgender students or the the issue of being transgender in general I mean that's something that elicits very passionate responses I think for people who take both sides of the issue and when you start to throw out you know there's there's a sense occasionally I think you see this in the media a lot that certain opinions constitute harassment certain opinions constitute threatening behavior right and who decides what is harassment threats intimidation or bullying that's a very broad word right someone says I think that your position that uh you know if you're the sex you're assigned at Birth is your sex for life you know that's not for some folks that's not a conscious Workshop or some it is that constitute bullying the student says I feel you know unsafe around this other student now even though that's a respectful conversation I think that's that's an issue that we have to be prepared to address well there were or sleeping guidelines about bullying right I mean I think but if you say that's bullying right if I say that's bullied your petition on this issue is de facto follow you yes it is right [Music] but one thing that I would say if I were to interject the one thing that I would say from the following perspective I appreciate the long thought that you provide for us with this too trying to be able to think where where might there be an unintended consequences or other opportunities for things like this is wrong um from The Bullying perspective I think what I'm what I'm confident with that is what the protocols look like for a bullying investigation and then you think you're right that the the term bullying and some of the information around it will be relatively subjective but coming back to um an actual investigation of something like that were to would have that would be able to shine lighter and I think what our hope with this too I I wrote civil discourse snacks to that to really think about um when our when we're speaking even if we disagree and we might disagree we might disagree passionate and we also participate passionately within the similar community and that's what we need to be able to come in I keep thinking about policies there's laying and you're waving with each other so the bullying piece the Civil discourse element the controversial issues the instructional resources that these all weave in together with the gender to be able to develop an ethos of what a civil Democratic instructional practice should look like for us and you know I appreciate that I think as we all read it I think the issue is how do we let folks know that a Viewpoint is not de facto intolerance or intimidation I think that's that's important that a Viewpoint that you don't like is not the fact of intimidation so you I think you have to come back to us on how do you think that should be sure I don't think ever again but yeah I think in other words yeah I mean you recently I think you raise a very good point uh I think it's a valid point um so I think we have to think about that okay we have uh two policies here tonight I um my first policy is policy 6160 because I'm a first this is the first Marine can I have a promotion on that thank you Kim second second thank you uh Cindy so first and second any further discussion I just want to say that policy is a very hideous uh function and I want to thank Mr scheidner and Mr Bishop because when we come to these meetings it's already laid out for us the summaries are there they they did all the hard work uh that went on behind it so I just want to thank them both for their their time and getting us to this point so the first and second on the discussion all those in favor I opposed okay so that's first reading on 61.60 uh 6144 motion thank you Joe first Joe second Felicia uh any questions on that okay that'll be a first reading all those in favor aye opposed okay I think Brian you really need these These are bad topics they really do have to read them and you need to be familiar with them in case you're asking Mr Case approval the healthy food certificate certificate certification thank you um Abe is held limit whether two webinars this past week one on the censorship of books and it was really an interesting webinar you can find that on the cave website and then today there was a great seminar sponsored by the Jody rail Center for civil discourse um civil discourse and what that means that that would be great for teachers to listen to how to teach that within a classroom it's also great for all of us to listen to as well so I think those two webinars are on the cave website if you're interested so again these are timely topics so to end our meeting tonight we have the approval of the healthy food certification so once a year Board of educations are asked to just certify that they will comply with the nutritional standards through the federal government so that we can get reimbursed the amount per meal I'm not sure if it's 10 cents or fencing is it 10 cents um and we also certify that for food that is sold outside in the school day for example through booster clubs or athletic events four big sales that we don't need to abide by the healthy school regulation so board the Canton Board of Ed for the last six seven probably more years has made his certification so that's what we are asking you to do tonight very complicated language basically the first paragraph is saying that all it has to be read a word but emotion but basically the first motion is saying yes we're going to comply with the Connecticut regulations of this uh of the state which are very similar to the federal just a little bit stricter so we're like why not just you know go ahead and get that extra 10 extra 10 cent per meal um so that's what that first paragraph is and saying yes we're going to do it and like seven said the second motion is so we can at athletic events it has to be an event uh not like a practice in an event that you can um go ahead and author from that policy a little bit of analysis sure yeah motion Kim um I moved that pursuant to CGS section 10 215f the Canton Board of Education of gov we're governing a hurry certifies to all food items to offer for sale to students in the schools under its jurisdiction and that Exempted from the Connecticut nutrition standards published by the Connecticut State Department of Education will confine with the Connecticut nutrition standards During the period of July 1 2023 from June 30th 2024 this certification shall include all food offered for sale to students separately from reimbursable meals at all times and from all sources including but not limited to school stores vending machines School cafeterias culinary programs and any fundraising activities on school premises sponsored by the school or non-school organizations and groups new second thanks Russell any discussion on that I know it's mouthful you have it in front of you we have one more motion I know all right all those in favor aye opposed I moved at the Canton Board of Education or governing Authority will allow the sales students of food items that do not meet the Connecticut nutrition standards and beverages not listed in section 10-221q of the Connecticut General statutes provided that the following conditions are met one the sale is in connection with an event occurring after the end of the regular school day or on the weekend of two the sale is at the location of the event and three the food and beverage items are not sold from a vending machine or a school store an event is An Occurrence that involves more than just a regularly scheduled practice meeting or extracurricular activity for example soccer games school plays and interscholastic debates or events but soccer practices play rehearsals and debate teams meetings are known the regular school day is the period from Midnight before to 30 minutes after the end of the official school day location means where the event is being held and must be the same place as the food sets thank you Malaysia any discussion on that all those in favor aye opposed okay um fantastic all right final any any board comments anything to come before you I think we didn't cover going to make your comment on it hearing on uh motion to adjourn thank you Ryan thank you Cindy all those in favor we're excited thank you very much thanks for coming tonight thanks for coming early
Brown has grown grown up with uh Wana Vance who is now uh she's got a married last name. But amazing that one of our students that came through here is now successful businesswoman and was able to at least speak to the girls. But it was good. It was very was really nice on Saturday to see the turnout that we did and have all the support from the communities. Any other board updates? Well, I just want to kind of pick back on on to that. Um, it was a really exciting day and all the panelists were great. Um, but we didn't have the numbers that we had hoped to. However, the ones that did show up loved it. So, that was great news. Um, we hope now that they will take that back to their friends and each year we can build on this and, you know, reach more girls.
But it was a great event and so I just want to thank all those involved and um you know hope we can continue on this path with this mentoring program and reach these kids. So thank you. Okay. Thanks Sandy. Yeah I do echo those comments that was a success story again on Saturday and Dr. Chicago Denise was working magic out there with the crowds and Sandy and and Bill and I had the task to make sure the tables were clean during lunch and after lunch and when it was all said and done I didn't get a lunch. It was oh enough. Oh, so but you made up for it tonight. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. good success to hear and see those young women like it was with the young guys to to see another side of life. And so that was a a great thing that was put on last Saturday.
And also I did attend a conference that was the how do you pronounce it? Caspa. Yeah. I don't want to say they took the place of the national school board conferences that we went to. So, it's kind of like split up. You still have the National School Board Conference out there, but I think it's like I don't know if all 50 states participated, but it's 26 states left the National School Board Conference, including Illinois. I think that CASPA stands for a cas what is it? Help me out, Doc. I don't know what it stands for, but consortium consortium consortium of state schools board association and get that out okay so this is the first time they hit the conference I believe and they had I'll cut through the chase on a lot of the classes I actually want to give you guys a write up if I could but the keynote speaker and the closing remark was the guy I can't pronounce his name John I believe.