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start highlighting my password very good I just want to reset the kind of motion motion thank you Mr a second second thank you Messiah all in favor all right [Music] thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign [Music] motion motion thank you thank you Mr Zucker II session thank you miss high give me a roll call please Mr Dawson yes yes miss high yes yes thank you item 14.1 he resolved at the Bound Brook Board of Education approves the resolution has outlined the approval of HIV cases of elementary schools this is 14.2 and 14.3 promotion motions is that Mr Dawson today was so moved a second look at that Mr Bowman can we have a roll call please yes hi yes Mr Homer yes yes thank you we have now exhausted the agenda for tonight's meeting can I have a motion to adjourn hi
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so you can see the growth over the years and we've included some highlights on different things that have come up in 2016 this course moved from being um you know what you maybe traditionally think a high school experience in a personal finance class like just worried about calculating interest and um you know kind of those like the math side of it and we made it into the more skills-driven course it is now like Ryan said with the three skills that drive every essential project that we go ahead and assess on so we moved away from you know traditional tests into more um you know projects that let students have choice in those projects and focus more on the skills of why are you making this decision what's influencing it in 2017 we also went ahead and um offered the opportunity for students to go ahead and take an online section um so we do Run online sections almost every semester for students where that is maybe going to be the best fit for them depending on their schedule and other things so we've gone ahead and been able to open it up um to fit students needs as well and so we feel that this growth is due to the work that we have put into the course the course does help meet the graduation requirement for the state of Illinois for financial education and obviously Stevenson has a graduation requirement as well so um we're proud to say that you know over time it has grown hopefully in you know in conjunction with the work that we've done to help it make it more student friendly and the two areas this is the castle model the two areas that we focus on in the class are one self-awareness and then two responsible decision making um so self-awareness is being aware of your emotions thoughts and how they influence essentially your behavior and decisions that you might make a lot of people might say um you know that there's definitely self-awareness emotions that might influence spending um somebody has a bad day they go shopping they feel better right like there's that connection um where we can go ahead and make the tie to personal finance so um making sure you're aware of those feelings and what really you value when it comes to making these big financial decisions and being able to make these decisions responsibly and obviously this being one of our first skill is a big part of being able to make not only decisions that are good for yourself but also thinking ethically um you know considering safety especially right with Transportation involved you know when kids are selecting cars to be able to consider all of these things and so we feel like uh those parts of the castle model are the best fit for class additionally our growth and enrollment which like ends up being contributed to by building the student agency there's a lot of student choice in the class we provide them with an estimated budget for each of the projects and then they get the freedom to go ahead and use different resources um to be able to look up things that they're actually interested in so for the transportation project they can look up three cars that they're interested in compare them and then communicate their decision at the end for the housing unit um either buying or renting they get to choose which state which city they want to look at and then we provide them with the budget and they get to go ahead and kind of compare different things between the states and inside the end they're able to communicate that decision where they decided to live um so we feel like identity and belonging are built through this student agency the student Choice gives them the opportunity to really invest in that decision that they're making Express their own values when they presented to others at their group or even like in like larger groups or in class to really say you know this is important to me and this is why I made the decision that I made all right next I'm going to speak a little bit about personal finance and its connection to our district initiatives so here is Stevenson's portrait of a graduate and we've highlighted a few important areas that we feel really connect strongly to our personal finance course so in the first category commitment to self Weebly personal finance enables our students to pursue a balanced High School experience Foster responsible decision-making skills and helps them demonstrate self-empowerment so as a team we really stress the importance of making sound and informed financial decisions and we hope that this helps with self-confidence as well as self-empowerment for our students now but especially for their future selves um secondly in commitment to others We Believe personal finance helps develop a sense of empathy for others as well as engage in in our students Civic duties um so for example we have a philanthropy unit where we talk about the importance of giving to others and students get to choose where they want to contribute money to and it's based on our students values uh being said we hope that we are stressing the students the importance of responsible spending and in hopes that they become contributing members to our society and then lastly in commitment to learning We Believe personal finance helps our students develop problem solving and reflective skills so for example in every unit students are faced with some type of problem which forces them to make decisions at the end they're evaluating those decisions based on their values and goals that they set for them in the beginning of the unit lastly in every unit we have some type of reflective activity as well so this gives you students the chance to really reflect and evaluate the decision that they made what they liked about it what maybe they didn't like about it and what they would change for next time all right so let's get to the student voice survey right now so there are six main areas of the student voice survey we've decided to focus for this presentation on valuing of subject now Beth earlier talked about the year's 2016-2017 we're really starting to see a shift within this class we went from the kind of the traditional ways of kind of learning in terms of like you deliver content students take a test you move on to the next unit and then uh 26 2016 2017 we really started to incorporate some of the decision making and communication skills that uh Ryan talked about earlier and as you can see when we first rolled out the student voice survey in 2017 all the way until now we've grown exponentially in the area of valuing the subject so two questions I want to kind of focus on that come directly from the student voice survey the first one being how relevant do you think that this class is going to be in the future so you can see obviously with the uh favorable response um that we got on the survey um we're very proud as far as where we're at with um within this skill and within this area and we think that the students are receiving our message in class we think that they're receiving the message at home as well and having good conversations with their parents and their families and also Society in general I mean if we think about the last several years personal finance super relevant not just only adults lives but also teens and high schoolers lives as well so I feel like a lot of the stuff that we're doing in class is definitely working and we'll work for them in the future so in terms of right now I think one of the really kind of like fun things and cool things that we see in class is that our students come to us in the beginning of the semester with kind of just their experience of what their family's doing what their parents have seen and they leave kind of you know with their own kind of map our own kind of like map way for the future as far as what they uh what they can use so think about right now I mean we have a lot of students who of course are going to be uh going off to college in the next couple years they're asking great questions uh in terms of um this morning too um what a great question in terms of student loans and also um oh sorry not this oh yeah I could share some stories about what I've done pretty good though but anyways all right so back to where we need to be so I have some good questions in terms of student loans and also about credit as well and then we have some students who are also you know going into the workforce right after graduation as well so even today in class like we're dealing with our budget uh our budget project right now and a lot of students are um asking I'm oh okay yeah I think the fact oh man I'm sorry that we're able to we're able to bring these want our own experiences in and I think that also helps see some vulnerability that we should we can share our life experiences and with hopes that our students are able to do the same thing right they're able to open up to us they're able to feel more comfortable in our classrooms being able to share because we all have different and unique experiences that we get to bring to the table which I think is really great and also helps with that sense of belonging that we've talked about a little bit earlier so all right now that now that I'm not going to pass out all right so valuing of subject and where we are at in terms of this year we started out 82 at the beginning of the year we're still at 82 we're not going to leave here tonight bashing our heads against the wall or anything like that upset with ourselves maybe myself but um but in terms of that we've grown exponentially in other areas such as classroom student relationships and also classroom blog so um again we're a team of seven plus teachers throughout the semester and throughout the year it doesn't matter who's going to be in front of them the entire time you know they're going to get the same great experience as far as what they're doing so something that we're really proud of and that hopefully you can see through our student voice data is that our students really value our class and the student voice survey is an amazing tool but it's not the only data source that we use to evaluate ourselves as Educators and personal finance teachers um so next up you're going to see some student testimonials from students that took our personal finance personal finance class um this past fall and we're both taking personal finance this semester so my favorite project we did this semester was the really liked getting to look for someone else's day and we were asked like where they wanted to be they wanted an apartment a condo or a roommate and I thought that was really fun we got to present it to them so yeah just go for the future and then my question was Will personal finance be useful to me in the future and I definitely think it will I learned a lot of good information that will be used in the future such as like filing taxes and totally save money and we learned just a lot about budgeting and being able to save up for housing and transportation which would be very important yes [Music] [Laughter] all right so personally in my future full of like being successful and being financially safe to this class helped me learn what I need to do to become Financial financially safe like how to do taxes how to save how to spend how to invest and just overall like I thought it was a very good class to learn [Music] and for this class I don't really know a lot about budgeting a lot about investing but now that I do I feel pretty prepared for like when I'm like out of college I'll know like how to like find a house and find a car and stuff um so we went ahead students are actually working on budget projects currently this semester um but we were in kind of you know researching some of our past student examples we found a great example um that really goes back to seamless and mission statement not only thinking of themselves and being able to make responsible decisions but also thinking of others so this was a piece of student work from a previous semester there is a donation donation section on the project they have to go ahead and make a goal for themselves and then say um if they're going to donate where time money or things um and this student went ahead and selected best buddies they said how much was in their budget per month to be able to donate and then they go ahead and just give a little bit of information about how best buddies goes ahead and splits up the um like essentially the money that gets donated to them so they went ahead and researched and said hey this charity on charity Navigator has this many stars just um we went through that in our donation unit and they went ahead and then connected bets themselves but also to others and said they wanted to donate to best buddies because it has special heart since they were the chapter Stevenson but also believe in really the bigger mission of bus buddies as well as to developing those one-on-one friendships with individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities so um we thought this was just a great example to show you guys what some of the budget Project work looks like and there's a variety of sections but this just happens to be one of them foreign things out here uh in all of our classes we feel like we're fortunate in the business world that there's a lot of real world experience a lot of real world application and having students see the why they're doing something in class I think is so important I mean we all think so important but we get to do things like uh great uh Lakes Credit Union is the uh isn't that picture there they brought 20 volunteers to school to help provide kids with an opportunity to go in choose a career and actually make financial decisions throughout their lives to see the impacts that those decisions make over decades and decades so a really cool experience students really enjoyed it they had a lot out of it and it's just one of the ways that we try and again create those authentic learning experiences for the kids when they can see real world application of the things that we talk about in class so uh hopefully that that home is true and as I think everybody mentioned today the student choice is just integrated throughout this whole class students get to choose because I make the joke personal finances personal right like it's different for everybody it's nobody has the exact same needs wants goals and values when it comes to their finances so they get to explore that at their own pace which is a really cool thing I feel and then feedback again feedback from their peers feedback from us is always integrated throughout all of those things and hopefully all of this together they'll be able to promote that Financial Wellness which is the whole mission behind and the purpose behind the world is doing is hopefully we're gonna try and break that cycle um that we found that way too many people have so and lastly we know we're not done but hopefully we continue to realize and we continue to grow in all these areas of the student voice survey focusing on things of valuing subjects and at any of every semester we listen to our kids we every semester this classes look different because we pull our students we say what did you like what did you not like and what's missing what else do we need to know or do you need to know or do you want to know and we take those things into consideration when we build the curriculum for the final semester like there's a lot of things happening it's mid-year in personal finance because of the conversations that we have and also making sure that the world's changed a lot in two years let alone the last 10 years or five years or whatever that may be incorporating those those big Global Trends and Global topics into the things that we talked about as well so again we'll stop talking thank you all for your time great job any questions for the team I have a lot but don't let her touch it I apologize for the computer if no if no one's jumping in I'm gonna jump can you take us which slide would you like Jesse would you take us back to the side where um where you had the growth it was in the 38 13 there was um I I thought it was really interesting how your focus how you use the SEL um in developing the wellness and it matches with the Financial Planning and it's a circle where it you end up using that skill really in everything you're doing and then I thought it was interesting that your relationships and your belonging uh increase the way they did and I'm I'm curious if you saw like a difference in how the students were engaged in the class as this was going on as as this relationship and belonging increase the interest going up was there any kind of comment a manner I feel like um we probably all share our own personal finance Journey so like we're pretty open about it from the beginning like hey I rented and bought and how many cars and you know we go ahead and kind of hopefully create that culture of belonging or ability to share to begin with because it is a one semester class um and then as students um practice really writing down like what they value um and what's important to them when they have the opportunity to share that in either the small group that they're working with or either larger groups that they might present you know groups of eight instead of groups of four um I feel like that naturally gives them the opportunity to say hey this matters to me because my parents didn't go to college or hey this matters to me because um you know we've always had you know we've always lived in the state um and so they're actually able to share a little bit about themselves and what is influencing their decision making um based on kind of you know how they were raised and things that are important in their life you know currently even if it's you know sports activities and things like that and and it is really fun to kind of hear about where they think because we do make them kind of say hey where are you going to be at 25 which when you're 18 is only you know seven years away um but for them it seems like a such a bar reach but just to hear um when they were signing their tax forms like they had to pick an occupation like where do you think you're going to be and um you know so I think that that's kind of just automatically built in when students have the choice and get to communicate that choice is um there's more classroom belonging because they get to hear about each other's lives and things that have really affected their decision making yeah just to add to that really quickly the first video that you saw when they were talking about I was chose my partner's house so we created a an opportunity for them to kind of like house hunters right where they they were a real estate agent for another client in the class and they had to interview them they had to find out what were they looking for what did they want what was most important to them what were their non-negotiables and then they went out and found three properties and presented them so very similar to the house hunters like experience and they loved it like it was a cool way for them to well again see other people's perspectives and really get into it like I think I found the perfect place for you and those types of things so yeah I think a lot of the curriculum that we've built in it really lends itself well to those two things specifically do you guys find that that there's a like a wide spectrum of like Financial savviness that the kids come in with so absolutely absolutely yes does that create problems because I would imagine that that the the students who are less savvy might feel really intimidated maybe even more so in your class than someone who's like less Savvy math you know like because because it's such a personal thing right you know there's maybe sitting next to somebody who's like way into finances and you know has all that all figured out yeah I can touch on that I actually had an example in one of my classes where we were doing our entertainment project where they were uh picking where they want to go on vacation I had one table one student who um goes on vacation with his family like three or four times a year next to a student who has never flown on a plane so the interesting thing about that was that student got to help out the uh one who hasn't really gone on vacation that much so it's interesting to see that interaction because you know you really don't see that every day yeah you might not when we do our stock simulation as well um I'll have the students break up into small groups and those that maybe already invest are helping those that are very new to it um and to add on for this class as well we don't just see a range of financial savviness it's also a very diverse class in terms of learners so we have a lot of ell students we used to have a sheltered special education section that now has been incorporated into our section so not only as teachers are we seeing the diversity in terms of financial Wellness but also the types of Learners that we have in our and as a junior in senior class and a lot of seniors have had maybe even a summer job so when we get to talking about taxes and paychecks you know you're getting students who are like oh yeah I've saw taxes or you know Social Security taken out of my paycheck and might maybe they don't know what Social Security is but they've at least seen a paycheck and then some of especially maybe some of the younger Juniors who weren't 16 maybe at the previous you know or not old enough the previous summer um or driving whatever the situation is they might not have worked a job yet so there's definitely you know the difference between Juniors and seniors when it comes to like job experience and kind of even I think right second semester seniors are ready to go live on their own in two and a half three months um versus junior still have that other that that year so it's easier for the seniors to kind of picture um this being relevant in their life in a couple months when they choose kind of their careers or however that's done do you give them an amount of money or do they because I know my son would be like well I'm gonna make three million dollars you know being ridiculous yeah so we we use throughout this course we use the ever salary of a college graduate we use that number for everybody to go with and we get to tweak it and personalize it at the end when we get into the budget project but throughout there we're using a budget a realistic budget yeah I'm not going to buy my Lamborghini can't afford a Tesla and again and just showing them what 55 000 looks like from a monthly perspective on a take-home salary um it is eye-opening enough for them yeah it's a good it's a good thing for them to see and to be able to kind of work through um and again back back to uh that's why you see people who are like this is a ton of money and you see people who how am I going to buy my Tesla and all those things with this amount of money so it's again it's a great experience and I think we get it through that small like group setting and those conversations that are had on a daily basis with those topics do you see changes in students in terms of their sort of consumer identities and their relationship to stuff in the course of this work in like from like the day one of the semester to the end of it you you definitely see I don't you definitely see some change um if anything is we hope we hope that it's just eye-opening enough for them to realize that there are different perspectives there are different there are different experiences and again I'm back to the the personal finances personal we get to let them tailor it to the things that are important to them like the person who wants a really nice car realizes that well I can't live in Lincoln Park and have a really nice car right there has to be pros and cons and gives and takes so those types of conversations um just are awesome to see and awesome to hear so please wow amazing yeah thank you so much [Applause] thank you guys thank you welcome to stick around uh however I will tell you I don't want to break anymore all going downhill from here all right bored how we doing you ready to roll or do you need a break or keep rolling keep going all right that's a long one tonight okay okay so uh next we have uh letters of intent um we've talked about these briefly um but generally speaking um this is your first opportunity to take a look at the conversations that uh Mark and Troy are leading out at the administrative Team level um by approving these tonight you are not approving these as courses at all you're just telling the administrative team that yes it's okay to continue to have these conversations and explore the possibility of bringing curriculum proposals to you in the fall so getting to the course book is a multi-step Journey for our new board members it begins uh tonight essentially um and Mark do you want to just maybe rather go through every single course are there some highlights that you would want to share with them sure so we spent some time talking about Science and Mathematics about a month and a half ago I'm sorry we spent about a about a month and a half ago we spent some time talking about Science and Mathematics we'll probably revisit that conversation with the board at the school board retreat in August which we think would be a very good idea but some areas where we've been really focusing in on are certain changes in our English program in communication Arts they're looking to adopt a new course to replace another class sort of drawing on student interests and myth and folklore and then in a really interesting way our computer science program is really getting more Innovative as to which courses they could offer so beyond our AP programming class they're looking to offer a course and algorithms which is a course that's parallel to what they would be taking uh next in the college level experience so we're noticing a lot of students top out on that AP programming class there's a lot of interest to continue on in computer programming so we're really working with that team um and Jack has been doing a great job working with that team to create this course and then to rethink how students can enter into that course and so that we're better serving the Freshman experience during the summer in that freshman year beyond that we are looking at offering um a change for our El students they've usually taken a two period double course um so we're looking to split that so that's a number of our students would be able to take and free up an elective which would be really good for our multilingual students and then in social studies we are going to offer the African-American studies class for 24.25 and that's one area that we're really interested in spending some time thinking that through and getting that conversation going within that social studies team to develop that class get more exposure to the class and then as a sort of follow-up to science we just found out that um anatomy and physiology can be offered as an AP course so we've worked with advanced placement of the College Board to connect with them about that curriculum and then to replace our current anatomy and physiology class with that AP version of it so we're looking forward to that and then one little final note um we're continuing to work on our dual credit relationship with Loyola and we're having a conversation and they're very interested in our Fine Arts courses earning dual credit through loyal um so a theater class dance class and a true arts class so we're pretty excited about that too continue to expand that person sounds like a great class yes yeah no please yes second um so when we make a change to an AP from something we already offer is there generally a significant shift or is it pretty similar you know like pre-calc and we have several of them that are shipping yeah is that a big difference you know it's interesting um you know I think what we'll find with our you know our anatomy and physiology classes and like reviewing the curriculum side by side the course we're offering right now is more complicated and deeper than the expectations that are listed out there it was an interesting you know like it's not Apples to Apples um so that's been an interesting conversation with Christina wood and um Amarillo and then with pre-cal I think what do you think Troy that's pretty apples to happen it is I don't think you'll see big shifts with these two courses because the kit the kids who are kids are taking pre-calc anyway to move through so we're just going to give them the AP credit because the College Board is honestly our breakout class might be more rigorous than the European part yeah and then designed to go to AP exactly so and with this class the kids who are taking the current accelerated Anatomy physiology are the med school kids so they were going to take it regardless if it was an AP and their kids who are still going to want to go to med school are going to still take it regardless of whether it's AP so I don't think there'll be a lot of shifts that way and you know it I think we're looking at some pretty exciting new courses so can you explain so what difference will it make that it's a dual credit what will change in the class itself that's a dual credit with Loyola um well a couple of things um one is the course needs to meet parallel expectations with the college level syllabus so we work through an application process with Loyola to make sure that those courses pass the sort of the Department oversight with those expectations so that is sort of a piece of that puzzle and then our teachers have to meet certain criteria for Mastery in that particular academic field so if they're teaching philosophy or if they're teaching sociology or a fine arts class they have to have earned at least 18 credits in that subject area at a graduate level so there's a little bit there's a difference in sort of the expectations of the teaching credentials with the course and then what we do is we partner partner them up with a mentor professor at Loyola and that Professor comes observes them and offers them you know advice thoughts there's a real good partnership there and that's one of the more exciting pieces about our relationship with loyal love is they've just been fantastically supportive with that relationship and really about you know entering into those conversations and then I think the final piece really gosh I mean it really has to do with um our teachers earning sort of an adjunct status at the University of Loyola so they have access to research facilities access to the campus things like that and it's been a really good I think it's been a really great sort of moment you know for that any other questions about letters of intent again you will see we're pretty confident that the board will not see all of these in the fall but but some of them the admin team is still working through um some conversations regarding these but we need another kind of pass at these probably in August and September before we're ready to bring these back as curriculum proposals didn't we have that whole meeting with the science and math people about realigning yes those things and realigning them with our Center Schools yes and that's this is our result of that meeting yeah well I mean for the methods the math stuff not the science we're still working on that yeah that's right any other questions okay Tara would you please certainly thank you uh no uh Joseph hi so hi a moon's eye Tire right Frost I carry six to nothing okay and the next item is approval of our 2023 summer curriculum projects um and uh generally speaking um projects from year to year are similar though different obviously uh we we generally bring forward to the board um projects that our teams are working on in the divisions that they would love to have time during the summer to do that work and you can see a whole um kind of host of different projects there and then the financial commitment uh kind of year in and year out Sean and mark is almost the same no real change it's been a steady amount for the last I'd say 10 or 15 years for that matter um Mark any any other highlights I mean each one of the projects is tied to our gpis um is the real focus and the effort is to make sure that each one of those projects is tied to a collaborative relationship so they're very team based and they have an output that the director oversees so it's about a lot of time so all of these projects essentially have been promoted by the team leader of a team it's gone to the academic director goes from the academic director to Mark and Troy then Sean takes a look at it so you know we feel like these are ones that we would recommend to you for approval okay so can I have a motion to approve the 2023 summer curriculum project proposals some more second any questions during advice okay Terry would you please hi so hi Moon's eye Tire all right cross no I approved six to nothing okay and we have three first readings tonight um so we don't need to vote on these but the first is approval um of our board policy updates we're going to be bringing this forward to you in June um and I just have to say that uh Pia is absolutely amazing for lots of different reasons that the least of which is this organizational project that she's done um with these board policy recommendations from iasb and if you haven't looked at it already you can look at the spreadsheet that she's created that has all of the different recommendations notes that um we have added and then on the far right hand column the recommendation and Pia do you want to give just a quick overview of the five levels that we've identified or our policies that we've reviewed with your board attorneys there's more significant changes it is something we do want you to become very familiar with level B um there's some proposed changes nothing that needed to go to our board attorneys not very substantive but still want you to review um level C very minor changes [Music] um some changes to Legal references and footnotes but no major policy changes um Level D is footnotes legal references cross-reference changes there are no changes to the policy itself so um those are if you want to review and level E are administrative procedures and Exhibits we do not adapt those into our policy so they are not going to be adopted but if you do want to spend the time to take a look at them feel free to do so yeah this spreadsheet was great okay yeah that was great great yeah all of the policies with all the track changes if you really wanted to take a look at them super easy to follow it makes a lot of sense great appreciate that great and I think the what I also appreciate um as Pia shared this with band kind of for thinking around this um is again it's that level a you know policy that that's the one that um we look at each other Pia Sean uh and I and sometimes Mark and Troy and we kind of look at it and go I don't know if we should do this or not like this seems interesting we don't have an educated you know kind of perspective on this and then that's when Pia works with the attorneys to have them make a recommendation for us so those are the ones that you know we've worked with the attorneys we've gotten their recommendation um on it but we're also forwarding it to you to get your perspective as well we just feel like you should be aware of that um level B is and those happen sometimes I would say not not too often but sometimes and then again the level B are the ones that in the past we would probably just decide so anyway first reading tonight please feel free to take a look we'll bring this back to you um in June and then we'll probably turn around and do another one yes press 111 and then we'll be caught up correct so during the transition with p and Carol there was just a little bit of a lapse um no fault appears all my fault um but she's got us fixed so okay and then uh we're also bringing forward a first reading of our student guidebook uh you may recall that student guidebook has to be um approved each year by the Board of Education and I know that some of you like to see the actual edits um kind of the the strikeout version um and that is included as well there are really no substantive changes Droid to the guidebook Troy leads a process out with the Deans with Ken we have parent involvement as well and this year there was no substantive changes right not really yeah it's interesting you put in the yeah yeah the board does need to be updated uh don his name yeah uh uh so if you see anything other changes again if you're needing to put yourself asleep at night feel free to read through that and let Pia know if there's any other changes great okay and then the final first reading for tonight is the 2023 school calendar uh we'll be bringing this forward to you in June each year we have to finalize the school calendar send it off to isby um this year knock on wood there's no changes to the calendar so maybe there's two weeks left I did the thing because they did they did the thing right I think it's gonna snow now supposed to be 82 tomorrow I think it was supposed to be used all right well I'm sorry I'm sorry uh and then you'll see our Personnel section in there uh with a number of changes um and uh uh or I'm sorry um recommendations for appointment resignations retirement lease of absences Etc so you can take a look at that that's all included in the consent we will not need an executive session following the meeting and Sean that takes us to you and approval of resolution of beta University cash fund of the district correct thank you um we as you might recall we have a series of different types of funds that are created by ISB and the working cash fund is uh designed by SB in the school called to allow a district to kind of maintain uh funds necessary to meet the Dan the demands of ordinary necessary expenditures as you recall we are using some of our fund balances to pay for eba2 as a result of that we do need to Abate 7 million ninety seven thousand nine hundred and sixty nine dollars of the working cash fund and distribute it to the operations and maintenance fund imrf Social Security fund and Port fund so tonight we are recommending that the Board of Education adopt the resolution of beating the working cash fund as presented can I have an emotion two or three so move second thank you any questions okay Terry would you please pull the board certainly so I Moon's eye tired Frost no hi Ben Joseph Hi here's six to nothing second uh uh item for tonight is the approval of the Ombudsman agreement for our student Support Services Ombudsman is a uh an organization that we work with they provide services for some of our students who require a different type of a school setting um we buy a purchase of five slots um every year and those are utilized throughout the year sometimes we actually use a little bit more than that sometimes it's only three we only lock in for five which is the minimum number to lock in for and then they charge us if we go over that um but uh as you can see we are recommending the Board of Education approve five additional or five slots again for next year after some negotiations we were able to um get the increase uh down to three percent Which is less than the cost of living so tonight we are I'm asking that the Board of Education approve um the odd Buds and I'm budsman renewal agreement as presented like can I have a motion to approve so moved a second any questions for Sean hey Terry would you please pull the balloons I Tire I trust no hi Joseph hi so hi Gary's six to nothing okay the next item is approval of the treasures Bond um so this is something that we do um annually uh at this time um and as it's stated here the FY the FY 22 AFR and audit and financial statement have been sent to our um are insured for insurers for review and determination of the amount of the bond and based on this our insurers recommending a Treasures bond in the amount of 31.6 million at a cost of thirty one thousand six hundred so tonight uh the board is asked to approve the purchase of a Treasures Bond and the amount of 31 million points 31 million 600 000 at a class not to exceed Thirty One Thousand six hundred for our very own Sean Carney so moved okay who's the Mover yeah thank you any questions to pull the board 's eye Tire hi Prosper no I been Joseph aye so I here's six to nothing Sean I'll say the same thing I say every year which is we know where you live um thank you uh Dr 12 um the uh the next item is also an annual one that we do um uh John Bryce uh and his team constantly take a look at the inventory of our musical instruments um and we have a kind of a rolling replacement plan as they become past their useful life um this year one of our new district office in place Samantha Bennett if you haven't had a chance to meet her she was the one that um followed in Pia's footsteps um she came to us with some experience from Lake Zurich in conducting bids so it was very refreshing to have her be able to control the bid and kind of know everything that she was doing right from the go she did an amazing job um and so just uh one thing that we'd like to point out so you know we bid these instruments we don't actually have to bid these instruments but we bid them because we get a variety of um different Bitters and also try to get the best price that we possibly can and while John and his team put forth a list of items that need to be replaced he works with Brittany and I in developing really how much in our budget will actually allow him to purchase like in other words how much room in our budget do we have for musical instruments so we kind of keep track on this two ways right not only do we go out and bid it to get the best price available but then we also limit kind of the the amount that we purchase in any given year to make sure that we're fiscally responsible um so as you can see in the attached document there's a list of all of the bidders and who won um and at this point um you know we we have come up with a dollar amount that was in the budget and can be purchased um so tonight oh my where did it go hold on a second oh that's why there it is um so tonight we are asking the Board of Education to award the music instruments bid to Grand Rapids violins music and arts uh and Washington Music Center at a cost not to exceed fifty thousand dollars in total can I have a motion so moved second thank you Sean can I ask um I'm a little I know that you do this in a way that you condemn select the lowest bid from the different bidders to reduce the price correct and I thought aren't there one two three four five yeah there there was one that I had already talked to John about and he is just going to not purchase that one um the winning bidder and then tiles and styles we are going to reject that bid for believe it or not they actually tied to a carpeting company that we did not have a good experience with and we threw out their bid before so okay it looks like they're the only one who offer that product yeah there are there are that is something that they can purchase elsewhere we just didn't have any Fitters on it okay so this is where they'll have to make their decisions but again spreading it out amongst the variety of bidders also allows us to sure um save some money as well and those blue lines there were no bins on them yes correct so when we don't have a bidder that's responsive to an instrument that we're looking for um then by law we have the ability to go out and just purchase that from any source that we deem necessary we'll still follow up with John though and say yeah I need a couple of quotes we don't just get to pick one and say where's this is what we're purchasing we need to make sure that it's still getting comparison price even though it's not a formal bid so those aren't captured in the number no not in the total dollar amount that he gets to spend correct [Laughter] uh usually it's only a year on most of the instruments any other questions all right first no all right all right so all right curious if you do have one um first reading about our virtual Network um uh in consultation with Gary had asked a couple of questions um that uh Doug and I responded to I'll include those in our mid meeting memo for information for the rest of the board because I don't think he copied everybody um but uh this is really kind of an annual review and what we believe the cheaper option is right now and the best option for the district so we'll have more about that as we move forward and then you can see we had a little bit of a busy month in terms of foia requests and Records requests um there for you a couple of repeat um requesters uh there as well and that is all I have for the board this evening okay okay can I please have a motion to approve the consent agenda second okay Terry would you please request right no hi Ben Joseph hi so hi Boon's eye Tire all right approved thank you okay um just to find a couple final items for uh tonight um the first is just a reminder to the board that um we will be meeting again um we won't have to wait a month to see each other so next Tuesday evening right uh we'll be doing our uh administrative team uh reviews uh starting here at five o'clock um and although you may have gotten accustomed to hour and a half or two hour meetings that one will not be as short so um you should fully expect to be here from about five till nine ish if that's okay of course if you need to leave early you can uh but we have a you know a lot of folks that we want to uh kind of share um wonderful kind of news about them um and Mark uh and Troy will be leading to those conversations Terry and Grace will be working out in menu I understand so yeah we might need your help with that PSR okay got it okay so just want to make you aware of that that's next Tuesday and then Pia on that day will get us our graduation gowns as well right and then you'll have those uh for graduation which is so um let's see what else we have uh some Kudos uh Dean Bradshaw was announced um as uh the 2023 journalism educator of the Year yep very cool um he just does a fantastic job and our very own PR was recognized uh for administrative excellence and public service from the admin Awards program so congratulations [Applause] and if you have a few minutes please take a look at the tribute video that was put together by um the what is the organization organization yeah but they put together a really One Direction there's there's lots of Clips in there from they put together a video of all of the honorees but um a significant portion of it are folks from our district office staff here and our very own Jamie oh was the producer and director of that video I understand so probably want to watch that uh you can see some you know there's so many um wonderful things that happen here all the time but we just included some student profiles uh some things that you might find interesting there's a couple interesting articles uh some uh information about board member training uh we just wanted to um provide that information for you Pia will follow up with any of you um individually who needs you know help completing all the trainings but I think everybody's caught up for the most part yeah oh the new one sorry the trauma informed practices practice so I signed everybody up um once you do take that training it's online if you can forward me the certificate and then we'll publish it are we gonna get a notified something or now we can so you should have already received it yeah right so I'll I'll follow up on that did anybody else receive it um and then um each month on the day of board meetings Troy and I host a parent breakfast um and we had a small group of parents today that were just really wonderful with their feedback they did have some really I think good suggestions for us about some of the processes and procedures and student services and helping kids make College selection choices and it was really good feedback so again we do those meetings once a month we intentionally tell parents that although we'd like to hear Kudos we don't really want to hear them right now we just want your hard feedback and um help us get better and they always do a really great job and then the final item um is uh you received an email today from Jamie which is a copy of a letter that we sent out to all of our parents asking us for feedback about District Communications and so I think Jamie and her team now that Jamie's been here three three years wow so Jamie's been here three years uh and she's done an amazing job however she's always she fits right into the Stevenson mold how can we do things better so she sent out a survey to all of our parents um asking for feedback about um if there are any changes that our parents felt were necessary or they'd be interested in seeing with our Communications um is it too much is it too little is it just right what are the Avenues they like more social media less social media more email less email Etc so we're all kind of anxious to see that data and take a look at it and we'll come back to you with some ideas that Jamie and her team are kicking around to improve communication so thank you Jamie for leaving that out we appreciate it yeah yeah it's a good idea so that's all I have for tonight can I have a motion to adjourn moved second uh Voice vote sorry all in favor aye opposed
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like it was pretty fun to as especially somebody who didn't understand what it was all about once they called our name and the room went nuts like people are cheering and like stopping to shake your hand as you're going to the St you realize I kind of realized oh this is a pretty big deal so so it's a pretty big deal uh yeah all right and uh yeah also 136.6 million dollars spent on the two projects and there can be no doubt that we were great stewards of that trust that was put in us right so this is an acknowledgment of the high quality that was delivered well the board expected the team to deliver more than what was expected and I believe Thursday was a testament that we were able to do that very good very good so uh that's all I have except for the recognition of outgoing board members first I'll start with our our two students Caitlin Luca thank you for a wonderful year uh and for all of your reports I feel like you did a great job of representing uh both South and North High student bodies and we appreciate the all the times we're able to just put you on the spot and ask you what you thought so thank you so much [Applause] make sure you guys come back and tell us how you're doing you're welcome back at any board meeting yeah I know how much you'll miss this you've shared it before but let's just share what your plans are going forward look at why don't you start I am going to Indiana University at the Kelly School of Business for accounting very good very good very good and I'm going to Mizzou political science major pre-law track all right very good so look when we expect you to come back and take Mr Stalin's spot I am a happy enough you've seen the spreadsheets yeah yeah yeah and Caitlin the school district's always looking for attorneys all right and then uh our board members leaving the district Joanna thank you so much for your service [Applause] like Davenport who's currently serving as vice president thank you sir thank you thank you to open it so we can you guys gotta open them so we can see what it is I gotta let Nancy here we gave you the most important things oh my stamp and your cat oh this is what I wanted [Laughter] thank you all for your dedicated service to District 99 uh through the best of times and the most challenging of times I have appreciated all of your Insight and Leadership and guidance thank you for your service to District 99 and to our community thank you thank you this is traditionally if Mike Joanna and Nancy had anything that they wanted to share this would be your time it's been you've heard me say this a few times it's been the most rewarding volunteer work of my entire life even thinking about the last few years of the pandemic and it's been an absolute honor and privilege to serve with such high quality board members and with the best community educational School District staff on the planet so I know wonderful things are going to happen going forward and I know that everything's in great hands with the board members that are here and the ones that have been elected to serve so thank you I had to write it down and you ended up being more eloquent than I was oh come on so I just want to say what an honor and privilege it has been to serve on this board and at the risk of sounding like an academy award speech I'd be remiss if I didn't think the many people with whom I have learned so much first of all are our students those who've represented on the board have presented to the board have written to the board and just met with us one-on-one over the years our exemplary teaching and support staff who bring talent and commitment to a difficult job bettering the lives of our students every day I look back on the impact teachers have had on my life with on respect it is the Nobles profession our other staff members who keep our buildings safe and secure clean preparing food for our students and all the other jobs that keep our mission chugging along day after day after day our administrators past and present including Hank the two marks Julie Scott I'm going to get Whiplash here Gina Rob jury Jill Rod Courtney Erwin Ryan and anyone I missed Tony I miss Tony we've all been so kind and teaching me so much over these years while improving the lives of our students and staff no small feat that our community so many community members contributed to the district through the foundation the boosters and those who come to the board meetings to express concerns with their only agenda being improving education and finally my fellow board members past and present we haven't always agreed but we have always been a true team and that I have found is not something that many boards can say and as we see our three new board members I finished with this thought the community has demonstrated its support for you and your commitment to public education for all students there will be detractors there will be people with different opinions than yours that's okay vote in informed conscience and you will look back on your career here and be proud so thank you very much second reception of visitors Joanna did you have anything I'd like to thank you all I have enjoyed working on the board with everyone I probably learned more than what I gave to the board I mean it was a rough time to be on it it wasn't what I had expected but I thoroughly enjoyed working with everyone and um I I just respect all of you so much for the job that you do every one of you um and you always listened very uh thoughtfully to any comments that I would make and I appreciated that and best of luck to all the new board members yeah uh yeah we could do the introduction of the new students because then they can come on up as we do the transition between the two So Courtney hmm good evening everyone um I'm here today I'm from North High School and also representing South High School in Irwin's absence she is out celebrating her own son and his accomplishments this evening so I would I have the very much pleasure of introducing our two new student board members for the 23-24 school year and first from Downers Grove North High School we have MS Gianna hunchi and then from South High School we have Nala mochath so each of them are going to come up and just give you a few little words about themselves um hi my name is Gianna hunchi um and I can't reach mics um I do soccer and Tennis through North I actually just came back from soccer practice and I also I'm the president of our model un um I founded The Debate Club at our school I do Scholastic Bowl I'm on the peer jury and I have done a couple um political internships that I've really enjoyed so and I can't wait to do this so I needed one more thing to do hello I'm Nala mokath I'm from South and I'm also in a variety of clubs at dgs so my main ones are I'm in Deca so I even got to compete at Nationals in Florida so that was amazing experience and then I'm also in research Club change makers and I'm also on the principal Advisory Board and then with that I also play tennis and I'm also on the ultimate frisbee team so I love trying new things and meeting new people throughout wonderful very good and I can speak for Arwin that we are both super excited to have these two on board and of all of the applicants that we had both of these young women showed a genuine interest in being a part of their Community being a part of their school and being a part of the board so it was really cool they stuck out to both of us and we're really excited to have them so thank you very good yeah yeah we'll do the trade in a second after cake laughs uh we do have one reception of visitor but I need some clarification Miss Weiss would you like to address this board before they leave or would you like to address the next board there's like two board meetings tonight so well we can I think everybody's in the room so if you want to do it now we can do it and then you don't have to stick around if you don't feel like making it through the entire evening yep well then you're welcome to stay for kids you're welcome to stick as long as you'd like I appreciate it just trying to be respectful of your time thank thank you my name is Laura hoyce I've been a member of Downers Grove a resident of Downers Grove since 1985 and raised four children in this community and we've had quite an experience leading up to the last School Board election we were disappointed in the results in that candidates Alan Cox and Erickson were not elected to the school board would have truly represented the interests of parents and wanting the best for their children that is what I believe and was hoping for but we have newly elected board members that are coming in starting tonight that's my understanding so I welcome them and for those who are elected I can only hope and ask that the board will make better decisions than they have in the past in many areas for example no more lockdowns no more school closures no more masking of students no more invitations to vaccination clinics we ask that this board can discontinue diversity equity and inclusion in favor of merit-based Education that will do much more to restore real academic excellence in District 99.
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it can be a staff member who greets a student at 8 45 who is in their classroom every morning who remembers to ask the kid how their sick pet is doing it could be the custodian who has known some of these kids since kindergarten and sees them in the hallway before the start of the day who offers them words of encouragement it is how we treat each other that has made all the Dartmouth schools a home away from home for many of our students so last week we celebrated staff appreciation days and on behalf of all of us see it tonight I would like to take my hat off to all the staff at the Dartmouth Public Schools but being there for kids and always knowing what's best for children I think they deserve a round of applause lastly when you hear these essays you'll be reminded that as we as adults need to remember that sometimes it takes a kid to find the silver lining and even the most difficult times but enough for me now you need to hear from the experts so Cameron will you lead us off tonight hello my name is Cameron Leverett my time at Potter School is extraordinary because it is like no other school it is a very special place the lunch ladies are Master cooks and their lunches are yummy part of school does a great job getting all fifth graders ready for Middle School Potter School is special because the catch me at my best slips if the school gets enough slips then we have a school-wide activity also on morning and afternoon announcements Mr Porter and Mrs McHenry called out to announce two people that have learned earned a slip to pick out a prize they have many good lunches at Potter my favorite lunch is the chicken spaghetti meal is 10 out of 10.
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we ask the new members of the board to respect and acknowledge parental rights and everything that they do most importantly keeping parents advised of any issues concerning their students we asked the district to discontinue the safe to help program that puts students in touch 24 7 with a trusted adult from the state agencies that address various issues instead put them in touch with the parents that most most care about their own children and need to know about these issues whether it relates to bullying or preference given to minority students or desired gender transition all of these are things parents must know we asked the newly elected board members to consider its time for school districts to support laws in Illinois that will limit the power of Public Health institutions so that what happened during the lockdowns that was hap damaging to our students and caused them to not be able to go to school and learn from their teachers will not happen again so in light of that we endured three years of useless and divisive policies that included the vaccine mandates and discrimination discrimination against the unvaccinated so before the pandemic um I thought that uh things would continue to improve uh in that way but but they got worse and so we're hoping for a resumption of merit-based Education that treats all students equally because Equity is the opposite of equality a lot of people don't understand that I understand it well so we ask that you gracefully accept limits on power of Public Health institutions what was given by the CDC was guidance it has since been determined to be wooly and correct and bad for our students so from this point forward to make local decisions thank you thank you Miss Royce okay [Applause] that that is our do we have any other slopes one more my son it doesn't matter but I signed it out out there oh you signed a guest register yes yes is it okay yeah yep I'm Julia Beckman I'm a former board member you think I'd know how I'm supposed to sign in but I just wanted to congratulate the retiring board members you have done great service over some very difficult years Nancy Joanna Mike you've done wonderful work for us I know the newly elected board members will do great work but we hope that you will sort of be mentors for them as I've been a mentor for some of you just don't don't run away with all the experience that you've gained and I'm also here as president of the District 99 foundation and there's always room for one more for those of you who don't have anything else to do with you so here I am to sign you up but no really congratulations on some great service and we hope you really won't be strangers thanks right did we miss anybody else I've got nothing here all right okay uh a German we need an emotion for a German Sendai so moved sorry I'm gonna give it to Joanna you should Mike and Joanna all those in favor aye aye all those opposed we are adjourned Cinder all right uh we'll take a short break and then we will adjourn uh with the next board meeting I believe there's cake there is cake he's drunk with power foreign [Music] you can't the minute you run you and they're going to sit down and you can't like you don't have a goalie it's like it's really easy yeah frisbee though but there's a lot of running and ultimately [Music] sometimes all right let's be like your folder let's start with this meeting could we have a roll call please we start with uh inviting our new board members forward that's right we haven't sworn them in yet I am so sorry invite them for it and their families yes if any family members are here and would like to do one time you'll want that piece of paper it's a long oath yes up here yep just up in here in the middle that's fine yeah yeah there we go this only happens every couple of years so so if we make a mistake don't hold it against us are you ready and we have judge thank you thank you thank you for joining us we solemnly swear that I will Faithfully discharge the duties of office of member of the Board of Education of Community High School District 99 in accordance with the Constitution of the United States the Constitution of the state of Illinois and the laws of the state of Illinois to the best of my ability you solemnly swear that it will Faithfully discharge the duties of the office Community High School District 99 in accordance with the Constitution of the United States the Constitution of the state of Illinois and the laws of the state of Illinois to the best of my room I further swear that I further swear that I shall respect taxpayer interests by serving as a faithful protector of the school district's assets I shall encourage and respect the free expression of opinion by my fellow board members and others who seek a hearing before the board while respecting the privacy of students and employees I shall encourage and respect the expression of opinion by my fellow board members and others who seek a hearing before the board while respecting the privacy of students and employees I shall recognize that a board member has no legal Authority as an individual and that decisions can be made only by a majority vote at a public board meeting I shall recognize that a board member has no legal Authority as an individual and their decisions can be made only by a majority vote at a public board meeting I shall abide by majority decisions of the board while retaining the right to seek changes in such decisions through ethical and constructive channels the majority decisions such decisions through an ethical and constructive channels as part of the Board of Education I shall accept the responsibility for my role in the Equitable and quality education of every student in the school district I shall Foster with the board extensive participation of the community for relate goals Define outcomes and set the course for Community High School District 99.
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I'm not being biased because I'm Italian but it is really good two of my friends also said it was a 10 out of 10. the Lunch Ladies make the pasta perfectly and the chicken is mmm so good like I said oh no the chicken pasta is 10 out of 10. like I said in part of school part of school gets you ready for Middle School the fifth grade teachers give you a bit of sixth grade work so you're repair the work may be hard but it really will help you out when you start sixth grade all in all Potter School is a great school they prepare you for the next grade they have great food and they have really cool activities When You Get Enough catchment by the best slips [Applause] hello my name is Chloe Tripp Pottery school is so amazing many things make it special just just a few things that make it make pottery school special is the way it made me feel when I first came to Potter also how the teachers made it fun during covet lastly the many things Potter School has taught me my first year at Potter was in first grade Mrs filoso was a big part in why my first year was so special she was kind and always made learning fun another reason why my first year was so special was the friends I made because I did not have a lot of friends because I moved school so my sister was basically my only friend when I came here the girls in my class were very welcoming and kind so that helped me with my conference because I knew I could make friends at the end of second grade covet hit and we all had to stay home and do school from home it was hard to do school from home but the second grade teachers made it fun for us with the second grade play then when we went into third grade we were still online for one and a half months then in October we came back and cohorts A and B Mrs Oliver helped us with everything from computer problems to teaching us how to multiply my favorite part of third grade was when we would play around the world with our multiplication facts then at the end of third grade year we got to get rid of all the cohorts but we still had mask on that is how we finished our third grade year then we came back to fourth grade still on mask on for some of the year then we finally got to take our the mask off and it was almost back to normal Potter School has taught me a lot of things how could I possibly write everything down to name a few I learned how to be kind and treat others how you want to be treated I also learned how to be a good student and listen to the teacher I also learned about the moon phases in multiplying fractions one of my favorite things I learned how to do is to read this is my favorite Rhythm because I read all the time and if I do not if I do not have this scale I would not be able to read all my favorite stories in conclusion Potter school is so amazing many things make it special just a few things that make Potter School specialist the way it made me feel when I first came to Potter also how the teachers made it fun during covet lasted many things Charter Schools taught me foreign I thought about only one thing the fact that my school accepted me so fast hello my name is Rafael gargas and I'm a student at George H Porter school I am in fifth grade I first came here in kindergarten I'm about to tell you why I always wondered about this and why I was so important part of school was special to me because I made good memories everyone was so kind and finally because I spent a majority of my elementary schools there the first reason Porter school is special to me is because I made good memories when I first arrived on the bus I was lost everyone was talking on the bus I didn't know anyone but when I stepped foot into this the school building I immediately felt like I was at home with a warm welcome and some kind Hearts from the teachers I felt good I walked into the classroom and suddenly I froze when even when my heart was frozen I still felt good at recess I didn't meet my friends right away I met them on the fourth or fifth day everyone at the school was very nice my first friends were Landon Eckstrom and Nathaniel irovitsky they were very nice to me and I made memory many good memories with them which means I also made good memories in the school I remember making many games outside at recess those were some of my greatest memories the second reason Porter school was so special to me is because everyone was so kind to me in first grade I knew most of the people and everyone was nice to me I had made a good relationship with everybody and everyone accepted me as a student every time I wasn't happy they would comfort me and make sure I was okay hmm my friends were now very nice to me and they comforted me they always asked for my opinion before theirs I had many more friends such as Avery Ben and Isaac nobody on the bus seemed like a stranger to me not all of them were my friends but I still knew most of the people on the bus that was the same year I was introduced to a kindness plan to prevent bullying these were the many ways that my school was so kind the final reason Potter School was so special to me is because I spent most of my elementary school years in this school in fourth grade I felt like I knew everything about the school the way to the classroom the teachers I even felt like I knew every single classmate in the whole grade and on the bus I knew almost everyone in the whole grade and I noticed something in my ears every year I had made more friends in fourth grade I had new friends such as Isaac Parsons and Ryan Reilly at the same time I was making a better relationship with my original friends these are the reasons why Potter school is so special to me because I made good memories everyone was so kind and finally because I spent a majority of my elementary school years there okay [Applause] hi my name is Olivia Berry and I've been at Potter School since kindergarten and both my parents went to Potter school too you might think it's hard going to school if you're shy because you have to talk and answer questions but at Potter School it's different Potter School is special to me because my teachers make me feel at home we have a big space at races so we can have more fun and there aren't too many rules Potter School is special to me because the teachers always make me feel welcome and kindergarten my teacher Mrs Heller never made me talk when I didn't feel comfortable talking in first grade when I was sad my teacher Mrs Martino always comforted me and made me happier in third grade my teacher would let me go up to her when I had a question and my fourth grade teacher Mrs Porter would also let me go up to her instead of saying it across the class also my fifth grade teacher Mr Nutra let me go up to the teacher table to ask a question Potter School is special to me because we have a big space at recess so we can have more fun when I went to my cousin's school they only had a little bit of space for recess and we have two playgrounds called Bigfoot Littlefoot Bigfoot is bigger than Littlefoot and we can also play at the picnic tables or in Mrs Goodman's Garden Potter's school is special to me because there aren't too many rules the three main rules are called P to the three and they're Paws to be kind posed to be a learner and pause to be safe at recess an example is there's a buddy bench for if you have no one to play with and you cannot jump off the slides Potter will always be special because the staff are kind we have room at recess and there are not a million rules [Applause] my name is Catherine Ramirez I'm in the fifth grade with the most amazing teacher Mr Anne I've been a student here for about two years I moved here in second grade left and came back in fifth honestly I couldn't be more happy about my decision these are three of the many reasons why Potter school is so special to me one is the amazing staff members next are Potter traditions and finally how Potter has prepared me for middle school every morning I'm always so anxious to get ready as fast as I can to catch the bus at 8 30.
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Michelle Foster with the board extensive participation of the community formulate goals to find outcomes and set up a course for Community High School in District 99. I shall assist in establishing a structure and environment to ensure all students have the opportunity to attain their maximum potential through a sound organizational framework I shall assist in establishing a structure in an environment designed to ensure all students have the opportunity to attain their maximum potential through a sound organizational framework I shall strive to ensure a continuous assessment of student achievement and all conditions affecting the education of our children in compliance with state law I shall strive to ensure a continuous assessment of student achievement and all conditions affecting the education of our children in compliance with Statewide I Shall Serve as as education's key Advocate on behalf of students in our community schools to advance provision for Community High School District 99 I Shall Serve as education's key Advocate on behalf of students in our community schools to advance the vision for Community High School District manual and I shall strive to work together with the district superintendent to lead the school district toward fulfilling the vision of the toward fulfilling the vision the board has created fostering Excellence for every student in the areas of academic skills knowledge citizenship and personal development I shall strive to work together with the district superintendent to lead the school district toward fulfilling the vision the board has created fostering Excellence for every student in the areas of academic skills knowledge citizenship and personal development congratulations thank you [Applause] we'll give you a week really this is all right oh okay okay here thank you now uh we will uh have 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 and justice for all right well it comes to our our election of officers for the two-year term of this board so um do I have any uh nominations for president well we don't need a second but that's okay you know one time right down Chris and Jenny put it down anyway yeah yeah any other okay well let's uh take a vote okay um do you want a voice Vote or do we just do a hand vote you can just do a voice okay let's just do a Voice vote all in favor of uh don Renner as our new president um say aye aye opposed will Don is our new president welcome John because of that I am now turning the gavel over there you go short term so we should take nominations for vice president yes you can have a nomination for vice president please I nominate Terry pavesich any other nominations hearing none uh hearing none then I'd like to hold a Voice vote all in favor of nominating uh Terry pavisich as vice president opposed hearing none carries thank you thank you [Applause] I am having trouble logging into my Chromebooks oh here here it's fine thanks we can just figure this out we'll do a little text describe the camera I haven't tried to sign in um I don't recommend that anybody take it over jewelry Because by the way if you're looking for an administrative recommendation I'm telling you I've seen what she does you don't want that job I then uh can I can I have a nomination from the or office of secretary for d99 I nominate um Julie nydek any other nominations [Laughter] serving as secretary for District 99 say aye aye aye any opposed hearing non-motion carries thank you moving to the first reception of visitors do we have any uh comments any slips no slips this would have been fraction for this first one those are our action items all right we're good all right so item six of the agenda establishing um 2023 2024 recommended Board of Education meeting dates and times we have a slip there I'm going to need a motion for the Board of Education to approve the 2023-2024 recommended Board of Education meeting dates and times so Chris moved and do I have a second second Mr Dawson Christopher Espinoza aye Ken Dawson hi Cheryl Fuller hi Jenny hagstrom aye Trey pavasich aye Kara Caston aye Don Renner aye aye motion carries um moving to item number seven of the agenda appointment of board committee and Liaisons um given that I don't think we've had any discussions up to this point I think it would be prudent um for each of the board members to send me an email before the next board meeting with their uh requested committee assignments I certainly think we should give deference to seniority and also for those board members who are previous are currently serving on existing committees just to take advantage of their experience in history and those committees and just to review currently on these committees shirelle is currently curving serving on policy committee Chris is currently the representative to iasb um assassin governing board the structure of that change I will go to the majority of the meetings but this is for the for the operations board this is the governing board that will meet two to four times a year now instead of it being a monthly meeting a representative to lend has been Jenny up to this point District Education Foundation has been Terry and then Downers Grove planned commission we're not up this year right it's the next year correct so we alternate between District 5899 for that committee position this year it's District 58.
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even if that means sometimes I have to tie my shoes on the bus just so I can get just so I can greet Mr Lena my bus driver as we get dropped off at the doors of school almost every day I see Mr Nick the custodian and wave a hello his way as always he waves with his blue latex gloves on and says either hey hon or hey sweetie this always makes my day I could never forget about my fifth grade teacher Mr Anne let me tell you she's awesome especially when she put it especially when she put up with my at times Behavior at the beginning of the year in second grade I was so lucky to be in Miss Lawrence's class in 2019 and 2020.
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it was Mike serving in that role so so do we need a board member serving on sassad or am I hearing that you will serve as the representative for district we still need a board member to serve so there's a operational structure and a governance structure now I will serve as the bylaw as the superintendent I need to serve as the operational member and then there's a governance member that serves much like being on this board we're setting vision and accountability and and those kinds of things but for the sacid organization that'll be like a quarterly meeting can I ask a question can we only have one board member serving on each board or if is there only enough committees for board members that's a great question so policy is two board members the rest have traditionally been one okay they don't have to be but you can't go more than two otherwise it becomes an official board meeting but if there's someone who's on a committee that wants to stay in the committee there could be a second person it's up to the board president okay is open okay mind explaining the policy committee committee's role for the new board members sure so policy committee is probably the it's one of the heavier uh commitments of being on the board because uh two to four times a year we receive updates from the Illinois Association of school boards I almost said ISB I gave you the non-acronym um they release two to four times a year an update of recommended changes to policies generally due to review of those policies or because of changes in state or federal law when that packet of information comes to us Julie does a great amount of preparation that then goes to the administrative team we then take the recommended changes to the policy committee those two board members we have a meeting that the public is invited to where we discuss those recommended changes we mark up any recommendations and then it goes to the board then for first reading of those recommendations at that point the whole board has access to all of that information the whole board can provide feedback over the next month to either the administrative team or to the two members of a policy committee we mark up those changes and bring them typically for final approval at the next board meeting so if you're on that committee you're at least two to four meetings a month that you're meeting outside of or not a month a year where you are meeting yeah that got real busy where you're meeting outside of this meeting to review that it's a lot it is a lot of reading you know it is a lot of material to read through we will do our best to make it so that it's digestible and understandable but it it's a good amount of content but that committee is really important to the operation of the school district as the policies serve as the laws of the school district so when we are trying to figure out what to do administratively the first thing we refer to are those board policies because those those don't even guide our work those are the must do things of our work um how do I do that that's great thank you Dr Daley appreciate it uh I guess the other uh you asked for kind of work ISB governing board Chris it's a couple of meetings a year you know it's it's very below effort uh intensity um you serve as the representative at the uh convention in November um that meeting itself usually takes four to ish hours depending on if there's debate um which is it's a it's an interesting experience to uh be there in a room with all the other uh delegates from other school boards around the state yeah it's uh not as intense as the policy committee and the the lead up to that you know is preparing uh reading through all the recommended it you're serving as kind of the policy Committee in some ways for the the state organization right so uh whoever's in that role takes those recommended changes that are going to come at that delegate meeting reviews them brings them to this board as to should we be voting those up or down because we get one vote as a school district in that room of all of the 850 other school districts in the state so Chris has a lot of work to do in November to prepare for that but then once that one is done it's just attending kind of the the uh division meetings yeah for DuPage we talked about sacid lend is pretty much a monthly meeting sometimes more when the legislation is in session yeah um some are virtual some are in person um and then Jenny does a great job job of taking notes about all the legislation and changing and changes that are being proposed and Reporting back out summarizing those back out to the board and that's it and I'm going to be uh taking over Nancy's role on the executive committee oh congratulations there we go okay any questions on committee assignments okay moving to item number eight on the agenda recommendations and reports of the superintendent uh the first one is district auditor services I don't know who has this tree or Mark yeah I will so we asked Miller Cooper our auditing firm to provide us with a three-year cause proposal for the fiscal years of 2023 2024 and 2025.
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let me tell you one thing I love Potter Traditions they're all so fun and so fun and exciting for example the Halloween parade it's so fun but also kind of embarrassing walking in your Halloween costume in front of everyone but that makes it more exciting in second grade I was a blow up dinosaur and I needed help getting on the stage because I almost fell and oh the Super Bowl this one's not embarrassing but whatever class brought in the most canned goods holds the Beloved Super Bowl trophy my class Miss Duran had it until this year Miss pimento won it over and even at the end of the year the fifth grade recognition night you come with your parents in your car and their streamers balloons people honk everybody's clapping Etc it's basically a fifth grade graduation let me tell you fourth graders you're in for a treat next year the final reason Potter is so special to me is that it's prepared me so well for Middle School especially Mr and for teaching me so many new things and helping me this year as she would say we're in the year of the sixth grader even though it's gonna going to be really hard moving on to middle school and leaving all of my elementary teachers behind in the friends I have that might go to different middle schools I think I'll be able to move on even if it takes time this is why Potter school is so special to me and how I will never forget my awesome time here at Potter Elementary School [Applause] thank you beep beep and there's bus 11 coming to pick me up for my first day of school I walk on the bus I see Becky my favorite bus driver ever I step into the aisle look to my right I see Raphael sleeping I look to my left I see Dominic staring out the window that's how it all started my name is alecuff and I'm at Potter Elementary School for my sixth year and I'm still loving it but the but these are just three reasons why Potter is special to me first of all I've made lots and lots of friends here at Potter I almost I also love Potter traditions and last but certainly not least Potter just wouldn't be the same without all the great staff memories the first reason why Potter Elementary School is special to me is all the friends I've made my friends at Potter have helped me make so many great memories if it wasn't for Potter I would be lonely and bored every day of the week I also would probably have about two friends my friends just make school so much more fun I couldn't imagine it without them most of the time they even make hard projects fun I guess School wouldn't be so bad without them but they're just the cheese on my pizza I couldn't go without them the second reason why Potter is special to me is all their tradition one example is the Super Bowl although I've never won it's always fun competing with the rest of the school another fun part of tradition is the second grade geography play even if I had to do it online this was still found a way to make it fun it's always been very fun the last it's also been very fun the last few years watching the play the last part of tradition I'm going to mention is the Halloween parade it's all you could ever ask for you get to show off your costume and walk through the whole school and look at all the other creative costumes and finally the last reason why I love Potter School is the great staff I've never had a teacher that I don't like I'm going to horribly miss all the staff memories when I go off to middle school they all do their job perfectly I look at them as a teacher while I'm in the class but when I move up a grade I look at them as a friend all my teachers have made school so much more fun with their great activities but Mr Porter has taught me more lessons than any teacher that's just three reasons why Potter Elementary School is special to me but I couldn't go but I could go on and on I don't know what I'll do without this place [Applause] so now for a few thank yous and let's start with the students first thank you for your hard work and your bravery in coming out tonight and sharing all of your wonderful memories with all of us so can we give them another round of applause and thank you to their parents who took time out of I'm sure a very busy home life schedule to bring them here tonight we appreciate you and we love that you we get to share every weekday with your children so thank you thank you to our staff and we'll start with the fifth grade teachers uh Mr Dutra Mrs Durant and Mrs Goodman and the teacher assistant in fifth grade Mrs Braga for their guidance and the time that they took to have our students work on this project so thank you and to all of our staff that have created the memorable experiences that the student so eloquently shared with all of you tonight it is obvious that they value the importance of building relationships with students Beyond just academics so we thank you and lastly thank you to the school committee for giving Potter School another opportunity to share our happy place with all of you and we'll we'll be happy to take any feedback or any questions and I'll have the students Perhaps Perhaps answer those questions [Laughter] in all services It's a Wonderful presentation the students great job you were very articulate and very well versed the teachers and that helped you out I appreciate it great job keep up the good work and good luck in middle school next year yeah I'll agree they were great presentations you all did a great job and it's also it's clear the quality of instruction that went into writing those essays you all did an awesome job and your teachers did as well and getting you here so thank you uh yeah I would like to say the writing was exceptional and I loved that each of your personalities shown through you are all individuals wonderful wonderful presentation all very different lovely so this is why I enjoy being on school committee for nights like this between this presentation and the presentation by Quinn earlier what a great job to each and every one of you like some of my colleagues in school committees said very very articulate very creative and I just love the presentation and there's certainly some things to be said about what's going on over at Potter school so great job to all of you and to the to the Educators at Potter as well as you too yeah I think my colleagues said it all I um I just will add that assuming you're all moving up to Dartmouth Middle School um you've got something to look forward to because uh there's a wonderful group of teachers and Educators and programs awaiting you so I look forward to see how you move forward and thank you for you know your staff and and your leadership and and helping you know facilitate these you our future so thank you very much and so I received word that are we're ready for that next item on the agenda I'm going to turn it over to you Mr Kylie wait a sec just well everyone's leaving okay you too you too thank you hub [Laughter] really great job yeah a little future leader I know those were great yeah yeah almost as good as my budget discussion I don't know why they're taking so long to file out here yeah so they can't get it yeah they're only opening window and they open the boat now keep walking I know right a good thing there isn't a fire there's a very slow accident [Music] it was fun that was very nice enjoyed that so tonight we're going to welcome Mr Shea to the podium to present us with two outstanding winners of the superintendent certificate of academic excellence there's a reason why the high school lights usually go first just so we all know I'm not gonna be that cute [Laughter] I thank you everyone I have really really the honor and the distinction and the pleasure to introduce or reintroduce to students on Sean and Serena um you know and just to take a step back without the efforts of those Elementary School efforts and the Roar and the relationships I don't know if all of our students would be here so we are truly grateful of the process that gets our students to the high school um I want to um introduce you to Serena today Serena is is fresh off a track meet so talk about dedication talk about school not ending at 2 30 that this is two students that define it the term unsung hero is fitting for Serena she's a student who continues to meet expectations placed on her while never seeking attention for her efforts Serena has maximized her experience at DHS thriving in both academics and athletic leadership she has earned a 4.23 GPA out of a potential 4.3 she has done this while participating in rigorous coursework she has taken a total of six AP classes earning the distinction of AP scholar Serene has the passion for stem coursework and has served as the impetus for her success attention to math and sciences have helped her achieve her goal of entering the world of Medicine not only is Serene and academic scholar she's also a three-season athlete Serena was a member of the cross country team as well as Captain of winter and spring track Serena leads by example and respected by her peers in Meet she'll often run the one mile turn around run a two mile or a four by four which I don't know if anyone wants to run the 400 but that's okay um depending on what is best for the needs of the team her coaches describe her as responsible student athlete she often leads the distance Runners on her own she is always willing to do whatever it takes to support the team outside of support outside of sports Serene is a member of the Medical Careers Club she has been a lead organizer for this year's Blood Drive organizing is a massive task it includes but not limited to working with the Red Cross prior to the event recruiting volunteers and Gathering students and teachers to donate blood her involvement at DHS has modeled her as a leader and paved the way for future success when talking with Serena's teachers the most common terms to describe are hard-working and kind in terms of hard work it's not evident through the only her transcript and track accomplishments it's also the little things that teachers have noticed Serene is constantly trying to learn from her mistakes she's always willing and wanting to do rework redo her work even with minimal errors she doesn't want to just fix the era she wants to know the why she is focused on improving always in addition to her dedication to Excellence in learning Serena's kindness and compassion for others separate her from the rest it is difficult to see Serena leave DHS however she will succeed and represent Dartmouth well and she continues her education at UMass this fall um this fall congratulations Serena [Applause] the next student I get to introduce is Sean Martin is the example of what it means to take advantage of all that DHS has to offer he embodies the definition of academics leadership and service he has earned a GPA of 4.27 out of a potential three 4.3 meaning in his entire career DHS he's earned an A-Plus in every class but two he earned it a instead at the end of his career at DHS Sean will have taken a total of 12 AP classes in which he excelled Sean has earned three College Board Awards and a Capstone diploma in his sophomore year he was identified as an AP scholar with honors by surpassing the average AP score of 3.25 with a 4.25 then not to be outdone his junior year he kicked it up a notch Sean was named AP scholar with distinction by earning an average AP score of 4.5 out of 5.
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their proposal reflects the two thousand dollar increase for each of those three years it's nominal we are very pleased with the level of service that we receive from Miller Cooper in addition to conducting the annual audit they also serve as a valuable resource to us throughout the year with many different types of accounting accounting advice so we recommend that the board accepts the three-year cost proposal from Miller Cooper any questions for a jury or Mark all right this shows up as an action item later on this evening the next one is English Department novels and this one is Terese as well all right we've been going out to bid for English novels for Maria you've you're here what do you say about six years now I think it was maybe my second year in the district so probably six years yeah uh this year we had 11 vendors that responded to our English novel bid the lowest bid was from book source and that bid was in the amount of a little over a hundred and seven thousand dollars however they did not bid on 76 titles there's 148 titles in the bid so it's it's a non-responsive really bid yeah the next lowest bid was from bookpel in the amount of 122 598 dollars and four cents they just had one title that they did not bid on book pal has been awarded the English novel bid three times in the past few years they've provided us with excellent service and they are the lowest bid so we recommend that we go with bookpel now what about the one that they didn't bid on can well they eventually get to that I think it's out of print no one bid on it oh oh okay all right so what do we do when they're out of print then and the teachers have to find another novel Finding them yeah because yeah they missed something I'm just curious I don't know I I believe this is the same company that's bid a couple of times and they usually bid about half of the title so I just don't think they can fulfill the order um wow then we'd rather not go with them if they can't fill the order yeah okay bless you all right any other questions for jury all right uh our next one is the Illinois State Board of Education Consolidated District plan for our new board members this comes every year at this time May or June uh jury does it or jury Gina does a lot of work leading up into this and she's going to walk you through some of this Philly said every year we are required to submit a Consolidated District plan this is actually our fifth year so this came around about five years ago and it's a very comprehensive plan in that it basically covers our El grants our title grants so like title one and it covers idea special education and also now the Esser grants so these are the grants that the plan must encompass in that sense it it also is very comprehensive in the sense that we are required to show in the grant how we're using funds relative to these grants and there are a series of questions that we need to address some specific about specific grants some of the questions are more General so to go over these grants so that you know basically how they work Title One is based on poverty level only South High School receives Title One funding North does not qualify title two is used for professional development at both campuses title three both title threes I should say liep which is our language instruction education program Grant and the Immigrant student education grant both are for El students English learners they are used to support our bilingual and El program title IV is a relatively new Grant it is used for well-rounded education it is by far my favorite Grant because we are able to provide all kinds of resources through that grant for our students there's idea which relates obviously to special education and then the Esser ARP which is the American Rescue plan Grant coming out of the pandemic so those are the grants that this plan encompasses so part of this plan requires what's called a comprehensive needs assessment and it requires that we look at data certainly the board has seen Data before and we look at data all the time but we look specifically when we're working on this plan at these different data sets and we don't just look at our all numbers meaning all students what is the average for example of all students but we also look at various subgroups of students ninth grade on track is basically looking at our freshmen our ninth grade students and whether or not they have earned five credits and have not failed more than one semester of a core content area we have been looking at that data those data sets for years so we continue to look at that one we also look at graduation rates focusing more on the four-year graduation rate than the five or six but we do look at all three we have been looking this year extensively even at executive Council on a regular basis at our first semester failure rates second semester hasn't finished yet so obviously we looked at first semester and SAT scores with the exception of the first semester affiliate rates we are pretty much looking a year in the rear and we use the state report card as well as local data sets in in our review and as you go through the needs assessment we're looking for what interventions we have in place how those interventions are working any new interventions or resources that we can put in place so the Consolidated District plan focuses on these major headings student achievement and graduation which is appropriate since that's something that we've really been focused on professional development special education youth in care which used to be called foster care now the state refers to students in foster care as you think care and we write a stability plan related to that safe learning environment College and Career Readiness it focuses a lot on Title One and there's specific questions we must address for that as well as our bilingual service plan which this is actually the first year that the bilingual service plan is embedded in the Consolidated District plan in the past it's been a separate plan that I've had to write but now it's encompassing it as well so I was actually very excited to see that because you're able to reference different parts of it throughout the other areas so I'm gonna try and give you key highlights and summarize the different areas so the first area is student achievement And Timely graduation this is really talking about what is your curricular program so for example we have over 200 courses we have 27 advanced placement 10 dual credit courses two dual enrollment courses you've heard about Project Lead the Way at various times we have the complete engineering strand we also have the biomedical Sciences pltw we have an English learner El program as well as a bilingual program so we have both programs now at both campuses our bilingual program is Spanish we have obviously special education supports and one thing that I'm really excited about that is included in the plan and that we reference is the Seal of by literacy and the Commendation toward by literacy we adapted and and really promote programming around the seal of by Literacy for about the past four or five years what that essentially is it's awarded by the state of Illinois and students who can demonstrate proficiency both in English typically through an SAT score sometime and it's an AP language score an access score as well as a foreign language that could be in AP Spanish French German test score we also administered the Apple test and stamp test can actually earn the Seal of by literacy or the Commendation the seal is the higher of the two levels so that means that you are proficient in both levels Commendation means you're working towards proficiency so accommodation toward by literacy and I share that with you because I'm really excited about that in the state of Illinois if a student earns the Seal of eye literacy and attends a public university so State University that school is required to give them college credit for that wow there's a whole process for that the way the law reads but essentially many students get at least eight hours worth of credit there are other states that honor it as well but it's here and there I cannot say for sure oh it will be honored in you know any state school Wisconsin or Indiana or something like that um so my knowledge there's only one school that Awards credit for Commendation toward by literacy and there are some private colleges and universities that award credit as well so I wanted to share that with you that's something that we've embedded in the plan now especially relative to the bilingual service plan being in in there so together sorry sorry if a student doesn't get credit many times they're allowed to skip a level right in advance and that when you skipped over tcd we are literally still testing um so I cannot give you data on this year yet also AP scores don't come in until usually like mid-july um but last year we had 62 students earn the seala by literacy and 47 earned the Commendation our five-year average is 51 on the seal and 50 for the Commendation so really excited about that um and that's something we've really been promoting we've opened it up we're now issuing it in Polish and uh Mandarin I mean a host of different languages so something really exciting um as Dr Phillip pointed out I skipped Technology Center I should have just known but I'm also a really good question so regardless of the language if you went to a State University you'd still get regardless of the language and not only could you get credit and also as that Technology Center DuPage so we are really excited a year ago or roughly a year ago I shared with the board that we were at the highest number of students for this year attending tcd in more than well over a decade and I'm excited to say that that's continuing so we are seeing a huge number of students in some cases we had to put students on a wait list and then as we worked through things we were able to add more students to the list and that is true by the way of many DuPage high schools as I work with my colleagues in the area but very few of them have seen the increase that weren't seen so I'm very proud of that as well and on that same thing I think it would be a really good idea for us as a board to take a field trip to tcd because it is such a phenomenal place you know I don't know how many of you have ever been there but it is well worth the trip to go and and see all of the different uh technologies that they provide so I don't know if they have something open up they have an open house in the fall okay um I go every year as a deos deos is the governing board of Technology Center DuPage as a board member I go every year but certainly we can invite them invite the board yeah to attend it is phenomenal in fact I did some professional development in the Summers pre-pandemic it was called Building Bridges for teachers and one and we toured various companies but one year we toured tcd and the feedback I received was that was by far the best tour of the four or five that we did that summer yeah I I hate to say this but when I was first on the board back when the dinosaurs were walking the Earth we all went up there for uh for a tour of tcd and it really impressed me as a place that our students would really get a lot out of and so I think sometimes if if we all went you would you would understand um you know what Gina is talking about and there's a lot of programs there so many it might might actually surprise some people like fire science and cosmetology culinary and programs where students earn a substantial amount of dual credit and their dual credit a lot of students will obviously graduate from District 99 have started their studies there at tcd they go for roughly half the day and continue they many go to a four-year School sure some go to Cod and continue their studies or they can go into an apprenticeship course with um trades the trade that they have chosen so it's it it's very worthwhile so that's a phenomenal it also sounds like we do a good job of promoting that because if we are seeing the increase and it's not being seen that it's so much across other high schools we we have to be doing a good job of letting people know how great it is and I think that's part of the work that we've been doing in terms of like career pathways and the board adapting our internship course several years ago so we've really kind of tried to focus and I think students are are really responding yeah they're reaping the benefits of that program yeah it's a great program that's what we want yeah and we've seen a big shift in the community of being receptive to the like when I got here almost eight years ago there was a real reluctance of some families to to engage in alternative Pathways that weren't a four-year plan right and uh people have come along like we've seen the rising cost of colleges we've seen that you know every kid has a different path uh towards success you know I met I was doing interviews with students the other day you know practicing interviews it was very interesting in the group of students I had I had a four-year student four-year college student going to an elite University I had somebody going into the Armed Forces and I had somebody that was going right into the world of work and expected to own his own business within a year and was on a pathway to doing that so it was just you know and it was just success in three different ways and it was so exciting to see like the impressiveness of our students in each of those career kind of Pathways I love that because I know one of the things we talked about maybe two years ago is that success doesn't look like the same path for everyone that's right so everyone that leaves the art school in our school systems we want them to know that there is Success you know they can carve out their waste their own path and be successful Gina um just for uh I remember being a new board member uh a while ago in my first couple of meetings and you know listening these presentations and thinking what's going on what language are they speaking um can you talk a little bit about just uh the number of AP courses that we have at a District 99 I know there was a lot of work when I was on the board previously to improve the offerings can you talk a little bit about that for the new board members and maybe also touch on what dual enrollment actually matures for the new board members sure so we have 27 advanced placement courses advanced placement we refer to it as AP and these are courses and we have them across content areas these are courses that are taught really at a college level content so very much like an entry-level College course um there is a there are guidelines provided by the College Board the College Board overseas AP oversees advanced placement and students take an exam in May so we just finished up last week it's always the first two foot so what I'm talking about um so the exams are given the first two full weeks of May the dates are set by the College Board students can earn a score up to five and depending on what college or university they're going to they may are in college credit it also can very much depend on what their major is so it is dependent on that score the school that they're going to and the major that they have selected so dual credit is a little bit different dual credit we currently have 10 courses we are certainly working on Dual credit it has been a challenge for us but we continue to work towards dual credit I think a few years ago we were at four if I remember correctly we have dual Credit in for example we have a lot of dual Credit in CTE we even have some in PE which was really excited thank you sorry Career and Technical education um so we have for example some courses like AP Computer Science advanced placement computer science that are both dual credit and AP therefore dual credit is based on how the student does over the entire course whether it's a semester some of ours are semester summer year-long courses and that dual credit for our courses is through College of DuPage and so students would they can transfer that credit to whatever school they go to so it's not based on one test one day it's based on performance over the course of that course whether it's a semester or whether it is a year-long course and that's the this the school has to be willing to take that so it does vary so it there is an articulation agreement with over like 100 schools in the state of Illinois so some courses are pretty much accepted but you are correct there is some of that however we have found huge success with dual credit courses counting whereas not we've seen success with ap too don't get me wrong I used to teach apus history a long time ago um but it is very dependent so for example if you're going you're going to be a science major some schools will not accept AP science courses I learned that from my own job yeah yeah so it just varies out but dual credit they would have accepted because you're building a college transcript you're basically leaving school with a transcript yeah as opposed to just a test score another thing that's I'm sorry to us with the rising the increase in college costs that's absolutely yes and go ahead I was just going to say that our it is free to us the Dual credit courses are free to our students so they do not pay any tuition extra tuition right AP they have to pay for the test and AP a three or better does become college credit in a Illinois public institution yes it doesn't necessarily count towards your major right but it has to be accepted as college and they could count as elective credit for example you know those tests all around the same cost I I don't yeah uh 98 almost 100 101.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
Sean has been an active member of the school Community a school Community he has t he has been a member of the football and basketball teams as well as unified track as class president for all four years Sean is leaving a lasting Legacy he challenges me every day he was in my office today challenging me he challenged me to take risks and Trust in the student body often times when we meet he ensures the administrative team that the student body will make the right decisions his peers respect him listen to him and make decisions that better that benefit the entire School experience Sean understands the effect of the pandemic and he continuously strives to make sure his class has the best experience coming out of it I look forward to all the wonderful things for Sean as he enters the next educational career coming September Sean will enter Harvard's class of 2027 studying Finance where he will make a difference congratulations Sean [Applause] I can let these two talk if you want but um please go ahead I Just Want to Thank You Mr Shea so much coming in this year especially after covid years before he made a huge impact on my senior year especially unifying um Dartmouth with the one Dartmouth slogan it really unified us and brought us together and I really do appreciate him I also want to thank one of my favorite teachers here like my favorite teacher here at Dartmouth High School Mr Reed he like he had a huge impact on my whole experience I took u.s2 honors with him and AP Psychology and they were the two best courses ever um I'm a stem person but Mr Reed make me made me love history and psychology so I just want to thank him so much [Applause] hello everybody um I'd like to start off by thanking the school committee for hearing us out spending some time I know you only meet every two weeks or every week so this is uh extremely special for you to give us this time um I'd also like like to thank Mr Shea and the administrative team for um considering me for this scholarship I know truly what an honor it is to be one of the two people selected out of such an amazing class um I think during our time here we've gone through a lot we've we've gone through a pandemic we've I've walked in Halls marked off that tell me which side I can walk on which side I can't I've worn The Masks um I've seen two different principles about to be two superintendents and I think with Mr Shea coming in he's done a great job of communicating as the class president I've had the honor of being able to talk with him very often about issues and making sure that the student body is represented in their best interests so I just like to thank Mr Shea the administrative staff for as we kind of return to normalcy continuing to prioritize communication and allowing us to set the smoothest return possible and ensure that both the interests of the staff and the students are represented it's been a real honor thank you [Applause] just congratulations I think Mr Oliver said a perfect uh when part of school was up here this is why we do what we do and we get the opportunity to see what our students are doing and it never ceases to amaze me and it's just wonderful and I wish you and the senior class nothing but the best in the years to come yeah I'll just say uh congratulations you also did a great job and Mr Shea put you on the spot to speak without notes so super impressed by that and good luck next year um yeah super impressed and I know that you will represent Dartmouth very very well yeah what a great accomplishment to you both Mr Shea had some wonderful things on behalf of the uh your teachers and Educators and staff here at the Dartmouth High School to say about both of you so you should both of you as well as your family should be extremely proud of your accomplishments so I wish you nothing but the best in college so congratulations yeah and congratulations I'll just Echo what my colleagues have said you know really impressed and look forward to seeing what else your uh unfolds for you in the future so congratulations [Applause] you may want to say you may want to turn around and see everyone standing behind you [Laughter] excellent um so next on our agenda goodness we are in Old business we're going to talk about the towns indigenous people's history and culture committee can I turn it over to you Mr Kylie to give us an overview and and step proposed steps forward sure thank you Mrs Amaral so it's been such a good night um we're now going to talk about the town's indigenous people history and culture committee that the select board voted a charge and have now forwarded that charge to you folks for your consideration so I know you've all had the charge there are a few steps that I think the committee could take with this charge if you find the charge acceptable in its current format you could vote it and then um discuss membership of the of the voting members of the group um if there's anything that you want to consider for revisions um you could also you know proceed in that direction um and forward those back you could forward those back to the select board for their consideration um I do know I noticed that we have Mrs Waite here tonight who has actually uh you know actively served in the school committee capacity on on that group as well so I've not been a part of that group but I know she's represented the committee in that in that so you could certainly um ask her to share her thoughts as well her official capacity would you yeah thank you Mary if you don't mind coming up just to give a people like all those amazing presentations just remember it's a lot easier out there than it is back here [Laughter] our committee has been um you know just to keep you up to date you know we started really as a working group with uh David tattlebaum and I like first meeting I'm talking about you know what this would look like what our like charge was um certainly we wanted to make you know since the talent voted overwhelmingly and we did as a group we voted to maintain the Indian as well as a logo we wanted to move forward and make sure that we're educating the community and that was like our main charge so David and I started meeting and then we like reached out to see what other committee members you know who else was interested in like throughout the community as well as in the schools so to that expanding committee it was like I said it was Dave and myself as well as Sean McGinnis then Heidi Brooks had joined Sally Aldrich who came in as a you know really a member of the historical society and then we have a number of our school folks of course we have Ross and Katie Dr Gifford attended those first initial meetings as well and then in addition Mike Martin Lily Chamberlain and Beth NATO so I feel like had a really productive like group meeting and in those meetings you know our as a group our mission was really to support the schools and the educational side the curriculum is certainly not within our purview as of course you all know like from a school committee lens but on the other side the mission is to educate the town at large um so we did you know reach out to a number of various in you know folks within like the aquina so in particular David tattlebaum met with those folks to try to like get their input involvement we also met with Peter Crawley in anawan from the Wampanoag experience so we found out a little bit of what they're doing they're the ones who erected the the we too over around the bend farm so we talked to them and they like provided some of their like you know ideas and we also more recently met you know under and I have to give Miss Chamberlain back there like certainly a tremendous amount of credit for organizing the meeting with the members of the cassett who we met to talk about um here within Dartmouth to talk about erecting a display case to really like right in the central like uh Lobby to really show like an honorable history and the current culture of um the um our unique history with our Mass well I was just say like logo and our name and so we talked at Lanes with those folks as well to get their input and that was a very productive you know strong meeting so you know so you know again on the town side while we've you know been supporting the schools and the town side we've been talking about you know what our next steps are and again um the select board themselves like moved to make this a formal committee which again entails formal um appointments with voting members that have to be residents of the town with that said you know the lens forward is that this is a three-year commitment for each of the members um the goal is that starting this fall we will have erected some kiosks around town at like different spots that are really like critical um to the cultural history as well as the the history itself of those indigenous folks who are first here are certainly places like Russell Garrison would be one at the stadium we're also talking about in a relationship opening with the YMCA I know that Katie Pavel has been working on that Beth NATO as well to talk about working with like share the harvests enjoying our Three Sisters as well as having some kiosks there and possibly even doing a we too so we've looked at some other sites as well we're also hoping to do a land acknowledgment coming up at you know ideally it would be initiated at the fall town meeting and then you know go from there and that would be opening up all of our you know meetings throughout town I know David talked about Mr tattlebaum talked about having those open up you know Town meetings select board meetings particularly Finance you know all the meetings throughout town is starting with the land acknowledgment and we have a model that you know we we spoke to the picasset um looking on model that was used at the Russell's Middle School House is one like possible start so again I feel like we have had a you know a lot of you know really good Movement we also have Aaron kadu who has done a bit of documentary work going back to the um the celebration for dartmouth's anniversary and so with that you know he looked into King Phillips war and I believe he started having conversations with um Rob perrotti as well so they're working on kind of expanding that documentary so again I feel like there's been a lot of great traction now it's the question of like you know where we go next and again the lens from what I understand like this was again outside of this happened on select board to like formalize this so my understanding is that they're looking at and you probably have the specifically the charge as well as a membership there is that they're having a member that would represent the school committee as well as a members of the select board and then you know two at large members hopefully someone from the historical commission and so forth um I would say like I would love to see the membership largely for those folks who are interested that are still in the committee continue I think we've made you know have a lot of people who are very dedicated and have made a lot of good Headway and trying to make good on this you know on educating the two the folks in Dartmouth about you know what does the Indian name and what does this you know symbol really mean and put some true history around it so that's uh that's about it have a question for Miss way before we yes oh I have some comments but I don't have a question for Miss wait okay does anyone have any other questions and then I guess well just comments okay so thank you thank you Mary um at this point so I guess what we'll have to do is uh deliberate on um uh uh how we're going to move forward and I I miss Dr Jenkins you had your hand up and then so I I have you know um I kind of have a problem with the first bullet on the charge here this is a committee that's made up of two members from the schools um and we're talking about providing assistance and instruction instruction is the purview of the schools it should report only to the schools and I know they're not talking about you know dictating what curriculum and instruction is but I have a problem with a committee that is reporting to two places providing feedback or providing any sort of oversight about or about instruction so all of the other things I don't have a problem with but I my recollection of our discussion of this was this gonna was going to be the town side and the schools were going to develop something internal that was comprised of our of teachers right we have no no teachers on here right you know our our curriculum people right members of the community can be on that to provide input but I don't feel comfortable with the committee that is a minority of school committee members providing input onto curriculum instruction in the schools if I could just clarify so I I don't believe that the charge first bullet is to advise curriculum it says instruction in the schools I am not comfortable with that language and I cannot vote for this with that language in this charge we can't have the select board telling our teachers or giving feeling like they have the ability to give our teachers and our staff input about instruction that's just not acceptable Mr Oliver thank you madam chair see I see this a little bit differently I see this I I can certainly appreciate uh your point of view Dr Jenkins I see this as this group meeting with the curriculum directors with the curriculum team weren't we just recently invited uh where we talked about the the curriculum Advisory board or whatnot I see them meeting with that I I I don't have a problem removing um what you had spoke where is that uh the instruction piece um you know if it's that if if that's what's bothering you but I see this as an opportunity for them to meet with representatives from the school department and I'm fine with that it's just the providing a d ideas and assistance in the instruction in the schools like that language is a bridge too far I'm happy with them providing input right I even you know ideas but I don't I don't I worry about that charger on instruction like what if the committee decides that the school should instruct on something that's antithetical to our charge from the state government but that's not their position I guess that's not their position to make right and so that's why I would like to have the instruction in the school's piece taken out of this charge they're welcome to meet with groups in the school and they're welcome to talk that's totally fine but again what I remember when we talked about setting this up this was going to be the townside committee and the schools when we talked about curriculum we were going to do our own thing and and that having a group of teachers of staff and even some community members working on instruction understanding the Massachusetts curriculum Frameworks right that group I'm fine with them providing guidance and input about curriculum I think ultimately that's going to be the group that does right yeah so I don't have a problem if we want to remove instruction I'm okay with that I don't know if anyone else how anyone else feels I mean I'm agreeable to that as well I see your point um and so how would this work we you know that's just one bullet but we then would send this back for their review upon I mean I know we have other things to discuss but is that oh yeah okay yeah Madam chair thank you Saint Ronald I mean I agree with what Dr Jenkins I understand what Mr Oliver was saying and said I'm going I'm looking at the membership seven members I'm good with that I'm not one that likes big committees things of that nature anyway but um uh where it says this the select board May appoint additional resident voting members of the committee upon request I'm just concerned that this thing mushrooms out and then you you know and you you go from Seven members which is you know easy to you know to work with to how many you know what what becomes the limit and such I mean you could have you know 25 people because everybody wants to get involved you know God bless them for wanting to but then could in some instances get a little bit and I don't mean it in a disrespectful way unruly and unmanageable I guess is the is the proper term to use to uh to do something of that nature so you know I think this personally there's got to be some some tweaking or some uh uh you know some Maximum that that the select border gun if we put in there you know yeah two or four maybe I can live with but you know it almost to me sounds like there's an you know that could be an unlimited number of people and then it becomes you know unmanageable may I may I recommend we add the select board and school committee hour and the salt and select surprisingly probably since they wrote this but they get to appoint both of the at-large members and they get to a point the additional members and so I think if we're gonna change the size of the committee I think they need to come back to us too I agree yeah and and the way I'm understanding standing is understanding it is um that that issue aside is that you know we misweight you know is is so invested and has done so much work and the website and all of that in our comment about um hoping to see that the folks the other dedicated Miss Chamberlain and Miss Neto to be on it you know to continue on it now she miss way sat as a Committee Member um do we have to reword if we were to I mean my thought is to have Miss weight continue it does say one designee yes from the I mean could we does it could our designee be a non school committee member or would we have to revise to if we were in agreement uh I yeah to propose Miss Wade if she's so is interested in continuing I'm sure she is because of the time and effort would we have to then reword this a little to be more specific to have it not be a or does a school Committee Member want to sit in yeah I mean I would like to see him this way continue if it's helpful to clarify is that and again like your point around like the select award wait can you talk in that oh yeah yeah I apologize of course so the uh I will say this it was a working group and then select board and I was my understand that it was going to be a formed it and then select board did you know for in between meetings did decide to formalize it from the select board as as a meeting um I mean as the command excuse me but it was my understanding that the intent and again I think the language it you know again could be tweaked but the intent is that the schools still meet as a separate entity to work on this as and they and again with led by um miss paveo Mr Tebow you know again they're still working within that and again this as it was again and the language may not speak to that and then I haven't seen that language but I will say that the intent was that this group would be supporting the schools but we would not be at any point dictating the curriculum or developing curriculum it's more the support network the task of the group is to support the schools and then educate the town so that is that is why I you know again that was the mission and the Mandate from what I understood as discussed at our last meeting and I know there's like Miss Chamberlain there's some other members that are here Mr Martin there with that last meeting but again that was how it was uncertain I did not get a copy of the specific language but I just wanted to clarify from like you know what how we understood it and how it's been developed and on that Committee of course the bulk of that committee has been teachers and administrators with a few select other folks meaning now myself and and David and Heidi of course who was an educator and Miss Eldridge but everyone else has been is a teacher and we have put out multiple as far as like it being overwhelmed we've had multiple calls for folks and have not had folks coming up so again just I just want to provide that background I appreciate that but moving forward this group cannot continue to operate this per the language here right right the people that you've mentioned cannot serve on this committee right and so we have we can establish something else but because of that because all of those people who are involved in this cannot be on this committee I I will not vote for this with the word instructions I mean everyone else can but I will not I'm not comfortable with that I'm not comfortable with the committee that is a few people outside of the schools regardless of who's done this previously this is the language the second thing I would so that would be my first sort of proposed amendment following up from what Mr noons has said I would propose that the select board appoints a Community member and we appoint a Community member and that any additional resident voting members has to come by both boards right otherwise it puts I mean it says it reports to the school committee and the select board but does it really report to us if everyone's appointed by this you know what I mean most of the people are appointed by the select board I agree I would agree so you would propose amending to suggest we appoint someone a Community member and so there are two community at large members my proposal would be that we would appoint allow the select board to point one and we would appoint one if this board is to report to the both of us then we both need to have power here and to Mr noon's point that latter one about appointing additional voting members there's going to be a cap or it should be the select board additional voting members may be appointed to the committee upon upon the request of the committee and approval of the select board and the school committee with a with a cat also I agree well we can cap it right I'm happy to cap it yeah but I think we by our vote we went captain yeah could I just thought for a suggestion regarding that first bullet I was wondering if the committee might consider the part where it says develop appropriate Commendation commemoration sorry of indigenous pupils and act an advisory capacity to the schools on the culture history and diversity of indigenous peoples that's fine yeah that way they could be a resource correct but they don't have any say in instruction or curriculum yeah okay that's good that's fine yeah okay any other um defense or so now we would then I mean just go ahead I would think now this you know with these adjustments this has to go back to the okay to the to the select point so this is going to bounce back unfortunately sounds good excellent thank you thank you Mary yeah thank you for your effort Mary thanks Mary thank you okay so that'll come back to us all right good next um turn it over to you Mr Kylie the fiscal year budget thank you speaking of bouncing back and forth the fiscal year 24 budget so I guess first I'd like to say that I appreciate the support of of the select board and finance committee for voting in favor of the budget that was presented to them I also want to convey that I do appreciate Mr McGinnis and Mr carrero's um speaking with me and and ultimately adjusting their proposal I also you know would be remiss I think if I didn't thank the staff for their support in this budget process and I think that they made a difference um you know supporting what we do and I think it was noticed by other boards and I think it was significant so all that said we still have a deficit which I mentioned at the select board meeting but nobody really paid much attention to so the the current problem is that the budget that was voted by the select board and the finance committee is 99 275 dollars less than our budget that you all voted for now it's not an insurmountable amount I think there's options available to us but I do think that we should talk about those options and try and figure out how we're going to do this um I I when I so I discovered the variance when I was watching the finance committee meeting in which they voted the budget and I took screenshots of of uh of the of what they were presented with on DC TV and realized right away as soon as I looked at it I said okay that doesn't look right and it was a series of numbers that I had to add up in my head real quick and then I said okay we're still off I don't understand why who prepares those numbers for them um so the town Administration prepares those numbers so uh I immediately contacted the Town Administrator and the finance director and alerted them to the fact that what had just been voted was not our budget um so I know that they've communicated that they adjusted the budget into to its you know to the point where there was no deficit but that's not accurate so our budget was adjusted uh let's see 489 233 dollars we needed it to be adjusted 588 508 dollars I spoke with I've got to say you know I've spoken a couple of times since then with Mr Carrero and he has he's been making an effort um it's his his first time through this process and I think that may be part of the part of the issue so one of the things that he pointed out was that early on in the process when they calculated our um our budget they used a percentage increase on top of the um on top of the FY 23 budget so they said oh it's a 5.1 percent increase and they took the FY 23 budget and increased it by 5.1 percent however the increase is actually 5.1234 percent so it is rounded to 5.1 so that variance is twelve thousand dollars again not insurmountable and if that's all it is you know we can figure something out I guess but it's more than that and I don't know what what the rest of the variance is I don't understand it so um I will say that Mr Carrero has made an effort to um Lobby for us in terms of um maybe there's another way to approach this and maybe they could give us some Capital Improvement money at the next town meeting um that was an offer that I don't think is a sure thing offer but I think that was a way you know to to try and help with gap at this point both boards have voted I don't think there's any intent from the town side to to change what's going to be on the schedule a at town meeting so um that's kind of the start of this discussion but the other part of this is how the budget Gap was was resolved and the largest first of all we have done the bulk of the work on this obviously we we reduced the budget 361 thousand dollars on March 27th we meaning the school committee and me um on on March 27th we then the proposal was made by Mr McGinnis to eliminate our 200 000 amount that is in the operating budget but not directly in our operating budget so the town's operating budget for technology purchases each year so that's been done what that means is that we have to it's not a it's not an increase for us it's just something that we then have to absorb and we do need technology we can't go without we can find a way to minimize that for a year and kind of try and Bridge a gap but it's not a long-term solution for us so um the other way that was presented at the select board to bridge the gap was a discussion regarding less capital projects for the schools so I just want to remind everyone that we have millions and millions of dollars of capital projects in our in our five-year Capital Improvement plan that I think ultimately are necessary and um I think the town has historically been quite supportive of the sort of Maintenance projects that are necessary to keep these buildings in good operating condition not so much big projects right we haven't haven't really accomplished a lot in terms of big major projects more maintenance related projects I'll remind you that the things that you've already voted for for Capital Improvement projects that I think are necessary for this year are Roofing repairs for this building which we know we talked a lot about that we need to string along this roof until the mass School building authority begins operating their accelerator repair program again we have no idea when that's going to happen no sign that it is and we really need to extend the life of this roof as best we can we have technology secure and Technology security and infrastructure that needs to get done we have for that we have e-rate funding of which we are eligible and will get but we need the townshare to be able to complete those projects and um that's it's really critical that we do that we have a vehicle for the new 18 to 22 program we'll find a way to work without that for the short term But ultimately that transition program should have a vehicle it's something that you know we have high on our list we have bathroom Renovations that are related to accessibility concerns um we have fire system upgrades that I get calls from the fire chief annually where is it are we are we there yet did we get funding yet one of our fire chiefs so um we have high school track reconstruction we're fixing it it's crumbling on the edges needs to get done we have opportunities to do some energy efficient lighting projects that we don't have money for that actually would save us money and we need new schools let's well I was going to get there we need news to get there I had a bunch more on my list but I'll skip ahead um but but ultimately we need the big picture projects which are going to shape what education looks like in this community moving forward agreed and we do have to tackle it um so the way to fix this can't be ultimately just like not doing the these things right so so I'm a little concerned that that's the way this is being solved but at the same time it was nice not to send out pink slips on teacher appreciation week last week so that was good we avoided that it was very good um but it's you know still not a great situation I guess in terms of the the you know ninety nine thousand dollars that uh you know is still a gap I see a few options certainly would want the committee to discuss this but one option is that we could do something on town meeting floor so we could move if if we thought we had support we could attempt to to amend the budget on town meeting floor if we're going to proceed in that way I think it would make sense for me maybe others to have discussions with just about everybody involved right I don't want that to be a surprise so I'd want certainly the town Administration the select board and the finance committee to understand that this is still a deficit we need to figure it out and we're prepared to do that if that's if that's the strategy we could cut we've already cut we could cut some more um I don't like that but it's an option we could consider rolling with what we have not cut and then next year potentially seek a transfer for for funds from fincom um not sure how that would work because it's really supposed to be unanticipated and so I'm not sure but it could be something that we could have discussion with I think and and um we could ask and I might be a little late but we could ask for funds from a reserve fund like the kindergarten full day kindergarten Reserve fund be transferred over might be a little late for the warrant so I'm not sure that that um to tackle that or not yeah yeah that would have to be in October which it could be I was going to say we could do that in the fall right so so that's a solution I mean it's a one-time again one-time fund solution for a permanent problem not the best but it's something we could consider and there's probably other options that I haven't thought of yet but but um none of them are good but that's sort of where I am with this so certainly would be interested in what the school committee thinks about those options and the situation in general thank you can I open it up Mr Oliver so first of all thank you Mr Kylie uh for the details so it's very helpful to have the oversight in the high level um synopsis of our budget situation to me uh that it's while it's certainly unfortunate and I'm still trying to understand how we how the town ended up ninety nine thousand dollars short and the Committees voted on that and that's what's going to be put pasted on the warrant um you know I certainly want to think that I'm a team player um and I think the the easiest and the most logical thing to do is that I I would be in um favor of tapping the the kindergarten stabilization fund for the simple reason that we're never going to use it anyway this is this is a one-time um a one-time expense because I don't expect this to happen again next year I am a little bit concerned with the direction that the town seems to be taking um with with the school department and the while I can certainly appreciate the oversight by the finance committee um but the barrage in the Redundant request for information seems to be getting uh to be quite a bit and I think what they need to understand and maybe this is something for this committee is that for every request that the school administration gets Mr Kylie I'm in the business department that is time taken away to compile while some of it's readily available right a lot of it's readily available there are specific numbers that they're looking for and some of this is readily available on the Department of Education school and profiles website all the finance data enrollment data most of that's there so I am concerned about that the long the shot of it is though I'm willing to tap if we need to in the fall go after that money uh the kindergarten stabilization fund I will leave on this note we certainly do need to look um next year we're going to have some serious problems with the budget we all know this we've been talking about this for a long time and as a member of the budget subcommittee I think we need to start having these conversations sooner rather than later like sooner like maybe August September um because I'm very worried about what's what's going on as well as I do think that we need to take take a good hard look at enrollment this committee should be looking at enrollment numbers and Trends and seeing where we're at and under the reality is you know we need to make sure that we're keeping our enrollment up we need to be doing more Outreach to our and I know Mr Shea has been done in a little bit of it this year to our Middle School um kids keeping them in District but there there's a lot to be done and I will uh resign the floor thank you Mr Oliver start up with a question for Mr Kiley based on the comments that we had earlier this evening and there are some implication that we were being not transparent about our not implication it was stated that we are being not transparent about the increase in classroom staff but if I am correct that increase represents um proposed salary increases along with step increases is that correct sure so so the FY 24 budget in the classroom staff lines includes their existing salary it includes the a provision for collective bargaining for fiscal year 23 and fiscal year 24 because we're not settled in either right right it includes any contractual increases like the steps increase or longevity Milestone and so forth it also includes we increased in in ell staff member in our budget this year we increased the preschool staff member in our budget we then adjusted other things when we cut um so we also have the 18 to 22 program so there's a number of things that make up actually classroom staff went up 5.9 percent um I can tell you that I'm not going to talk about collective bargaining directly however I can tell you that my goal is to give all we can and um so I I just I just want to clear that out because uh you know because of because of what it was a good point um I don't think we're not trying to be transparent we've been not transparent we've had discussions about this that's what that represents um so thank you for for clarifying that um you know I I agree with Mr Oliver you know I'm I'm concerned about sort of where this is going you know as as we were sitting here thinking about this and thinking about how the proposal to meet our right our needs is well we'll take it out of your Capital right and the the insinuation was at the nutsinuation the statement was at our joint meeting that will they turn all this money back for Capital and we don't turn any yeah we run a lean budget right we budget for what our needs are right so we don't have anything to return back for Capital and so I'm not really sure why we're being faulted for only asking the town for what we need could we Pat our budget sure we could Pat our budget so that we're turning back a bunch of money to get Capital but we're not doing that and so that's why we have to look right because this community hasn't really sort of made a viable plan for addressing Capital needs aside from sort of fluffing you know some budgets and budging with some estimates to make sure we have enough for Capital we you do a great job in developing our budget it's a tight budget that reflects what our needs are and that's why we don't turn back in capital and so to say well because you don't turn anything back we're not going to give you we're going to take from your capital that really bothers me that it goes to Mr Oliver's point about the tone and the approach to the needs of the school and so I I also sort of have a problem with how this has been like we've been treated like some sort of Problem Child right um and I don't appreciate that that having been said I also agree with Mr Oliver that that we are where we are and we have to try to do the best we can my only concern about relying on full day kindergarten is it's not really a one-time need because next year we're going to need what we requested this year plus right so they're going to have to find that hundred thousand in next year and then some so I am a little bit concerned using a you know a non-recurring revenue to to close that Gap um so I guess my preference would be I know Mr Nunes has some ideas and I think he's been studying it's for us to maybe try to address this on town meeting floor and if that doesn't work then we come back to the plan b that's my two cents uh thank you madam chair Mr Kylie great job with everything that's going on having watched a couple of those fincon meetings and been at a couple of them type of deal uh in my 30 plus years on this committee no disrespect somebody's got to do that's the worst that's I've ever seen from the finance from a finance committee personal opinion my opinion only so before everybody goes flying off the deep handle they way overstepped what they needed to do type of deal when I get asked at a meeting oh can we have the new superintendent's contract why well the town accountant is going to have a copy of it get it from there get it from her that type of deal by Statute type of deal you know to sit there and pull apart school choice and you know without accurate numbers and say you know well those 140 students that you have kind of probably cost you a district 875 thousand dollars give me a break okay the schools are open you know I mean we're here the lights are on the lights are on if there's 10 students or you know 5 000 students in this building so you know get with the program sorry I'm ranting I apologize Jonas is what I do okay so correct Jim correct me if I'm wrong in all seriousness so we're actually shot four hundred and sixty thousand dollars okay that being the 361 that we cut because they didn't give us that back am I correct right they didn't give us that back plus the 99 so wish off 460. yeah plus the 200.
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I don't know I paid I paid for a bunch of them this year but it's it's so dual credit courses are taught by our teachers taught by the high school teacher even though the content is at the college level dual enrollment is different dual enrollment means that the student is obviously duly enrolled meaning enrolled in high school and enrolled at the college or university the teacher of the course is the professor at the University we don't have a high school teacher teaching that course it is solely taught by that professor at the University we have currently two dual enrollment opportunities for our students one is calculus three which is taught in the fall so first semester and that is through our partnership with Elmhurst University so it's taught completely by an Elmhurst professor students do pay a small amount as tuition is required for that the other dual enrollment opportunity is through Benedictine and this one we've been doing longer our calc 3 used to be with North Central we transitioned to Elmhurst we also have an astronomy course dual enrollment with Benedictine that is a completely online course that we typically offer second semester and there is tuition to be paid for that as well it's very reduced it's both cases extremely reduced tuition but there is a cost for the tuition again student earns a transcript of a college transcript so you can have a student who leaves us with ap hopefully a three four or five right one of our dual credit courses so they have a transcript from Cod three a transcript from Elmhurst astronomy a transcript from Benedictine we do have a few other different situations where we might have a student who duly enrolls and they attend a class for example in COD so they might get out a little bit early or take a night class or an online course but that's separate and that's just one individual student these are when I say dual enrollment opportunities those are the ones that we offer to students now there can be prerequisites obviously you have to take out BC to be able to take and be prepared for calculus three but we offer it to students who are eligible and I will sing Gina's Praises here this has been a board goal every year that I've been superintendent here and every year Gina has increased the opportunities in one of these areas or in all of them sometimes so she's done great work in this area thank you thank you the one I'm excited about them which I forgot to mention but I'm going to take my most excited our dual credit speech that the board approved and we have running next year at both campuses that's really exciting most universities do require speech course so that's really exciting I think I went through all of those right so addition in the plan we need to reference and talk about different interventions different supports and different resources that we offer our students it could be select groups of students it could be in some cases all students or it can be programmatic in nature and this is not an exhaustive list if you look at the summary which is in the board docs there will be things in the summary that are not mentioned here um I'll pick a few to go over but if you have questions I can explain the other ones as well and I'm just going to pick a few that you may or may not be familiar with a few that hopefully you'll be able to see what group of students it might serve okay so we have a summer bridge program the summer bridge program is for basically incoming ninth graders incoming freshmen who could use a little bit of support in reading and math we offer that program free of charge to students there it's an invitation only type of program and I use Title One funding for the most part to pay for that program talked a little bit about AP we found that some of our students could use a little help and perhaps a little bit of enrichment over the summer we have run different AP Summer Bridge programs this summer we are running our AP Chemistry Summer Bridge and that has run for years now so that's one that we're really excited about read 180 and strategies for academic success are reading courses read 180 focuses a lot more in the special education realm than in general education or experience for academic success tends to be more general education students than special education students you may have heard that we have math s classes that means extended time so it's it's like a period and a half for students who need that additional support we also have a transition math class that a transition math class is to really ensure it's a fourth year math class for seniors to really ensure that students are ready to go into credit bearing math courses in college and we are part of that along with other schools in the county through coordination with Cod we call that course pql or preparation for quantitative literacy so really excited about that that is one of the indicators to be College and Career ready so that's the reason I pointed that one out we have many different Personnel that are funded through our grants including we have a math specialist at South High School we have interventionists at both campuses to typically to itself and one at North and we also have an avid program which I'm excited to say it's really a college prep program but it has really started to morph a little bit and support even beyond that so we have students for example in Avid who will go into the military we have students that will go to Cod a two-year school as opposed to a four-year when Avid started with us and obviously Avid before it is it's Nationwide and really it's International there are other countries as well it was really focused on the four-year University and it has morphed over time and I'm really proud of that as it's supporting students in several different paths we also have Wi-Fi hotspots and we still do this is something that we have offered in District 99 since we rolled out one to one many years ago that was one of the things that was for me really really important that our students would who can whose families do not have internet at home would be able to have a hot spot that they can take home to do school work so this is way before the pandemic hit but we have continued that and that really served us well obviously during the pandemic actually District 99 was recognized when I first got here by members of Congress is like the first school in the country that guaranteed that every student had internet access at home so we led the way in that in a lot of ways full of other things we're Abby abscess period built in on Wednesday and Thursdays and we have different lessons that we lead like on Executive functioning social emotional learning so on and so forth through access and then also our resource which students would only have one resource period a week it's basically when their lunch period is their regular Lunch Period on Monday Tuesday Friday when it rolls into the block day and we have all kinds of programming that we provide during resource and will continue to provide and some new opportunities during resources well certainly did not go over all of them but I'm happy to answer any questions if you're wondering about anything specific a couple of things that are new or newer that our interventions that I reference in the CDP the Consolidated District plan is that we'll be moving to a full-time path coordinator at each campus that's really exciting as they work with students in that intervention our path program is our thank you thank you in our path program is our in-school Intervention Program so rather than suspending a student outside of school they would attend path there's lessons there's uh work that they do with the coordinator and with the isi in school intervention supervisors to um basically realize what they've done how they can improve how they can move forward and there's check-ins after they've you know made it past the discipline piece our team continues to check in to make sure that there is any recidivism around that behavior that we're trying to correct and we've only had a head of the FTE to have a full-time program at both campuses so that's why I listed it path is already in the cdb for from a couple of years ago but now we're moving it to being a full-time program we are also planning to offer an SAT prep class during resource next year the SAT is a college entrance exam that all Juniors take in April typically in April next year's a little different we have a window versus a date but it's typically taken in April it's obviously important that students do well on the exam depending on what school they plan to schools they plan to apply to so we'll be providing an SAT prep class to students that they can enroll in that will occur during resource and that will also be free of charge to students it'll focus on both oh I'm sorry will that be taught by an outside Source or will that be taught by existing teachers we post it will not be taught by our current teachers but we posted the position uh the positions I should say and we'll obviously be interviewing as well we're looking obviously for someone who has experience in that area do you think that'll have any impact on our overall SAT scores as a district I I believe it will and I also am excited about it because I think we really need to focus on certain certain groups as I said when we first started this presentation we de aggregate the data to look at different groups and we see for example that our El students sometimes don't perform at the same level so we can really in like invite and encourage and promote it with certain families and certain students to hopefully bring them greater resources not every student can necessarily afford or even have the time for outside tutoring um so that's something that we're going to bring in some of you may know that in I'm sorry how long I've been in the district but more than 11 years ago we started a program which was when it was psae so what was act and then the workkeys on day two and we had a psae prep program that was actually taught by our teachers and I had a couple of teachers at each campus who taught the courses we we may certainly reach out to some of them to help with the planning of the course so because some of them have gone on not just to do act tutoring even outside but to do SAT touring so we have some uh really great people internally that we can the challenges as our teachers are they're teaching or engaging in professional learning during that resource time so but Don to your point there's a very strong correlation between families economics and SAT scores part of that strong correlation is because families with resources can pay for s.a.t prep programs have time outside of the school day have transportation to those things so creating this opportunity during resource makes it accessible in every way to every one of our students in a way that's kind of unique in the fact that we have a schedule that allows for that and I think I asked this last time so this is apologies if I did what you mentioned we're going to reach out to certain people because just kind of being able to determine who will have access I would think for free it's I was apparently for free but I was saying I was a parent that paid for this so I would think that all students a lot of students would be interested in this I think we do so how are you mentioning we got to reach out to some people that we would give special or use the word special but have an opportunity to take advantage of this first and then I'm just wondering how we're going to control right the amount of people that could be interested in this so we it will be open to all students and we anticipate about 900 seats okay um so when you consider you know we have probably under 1200 but that counts students who are out placed that count students who don't necessarily have a lunch period because it's being offered during resource so for example we have approximately 170 to 180 students will be going to tcd next year typically those students don't have a regular lunch period because half their day spent at tcd they have to come back or sometimes they go in the afternoon it just depends so they don't necessarily have a lunch now not all 170 or 180 are Juniors because we send Juniors and seniors but that's a number of students as well we have some students who just do not have a lunch period while we don't necessarily encourage that that does happen so we're very excited to have about 900 seats for students and as we have different groups of students like I'm really hoping that we can promote this with our our El students our English Learners because oftentimes when we even pulled different groups of students and were last I checked about 250 English Learners in the district that's that's a significant number in fact we've had uh so many join us this year and we always get some students that that obviously register late we've had so many this year that we were able to get that immigrant education grant it's based on an increase and we've only received it a couple of times so we have had so I'm hopeful that we can reach out to different groups encourage it I attend for for example our bilingual parent advisory group and we just we just actually talked about this on Thursday and hoping to promote it for for families and for those students so if I'm hearing this right if we have about 250 English Learners and we have about 900 seats more than everybody will have enough but it's only open to Juniors it's for juniors because remember the SATs taken in that's right so we have less than 250 Juniors that are English learners does the AVID program they offer this so for their students already don't they so there are test taking strategies built into the AVID program however that would not preclude an avid student from taking this and in fact I would encourage them to in fact I just this morning met with one of our coordinators our South High coordinator and shared information about that about the SAT prep class and she was very excited about it yeah because I was going to say that that really fits into their program you know without any question absolutely 100 so yeah and Ryan has structured this in such a way where English is separate from math so we expect that there will be some students that will just pick one subject area or the other and not attend both right so that kind of stretches out the number of seats as well okay and this year our sophomores remember during the pandemic there were different years of testing did or did not occur certain years but they took the PSAT 10 so we will get those scores this Summer that will also be an indicator where some students who might want to encourage it'd be interesting to see if a student took a PSAT as a sophomore they take our sit prep courses in school and you see a dramatic rise in their test scores I mean that might be a quantitative assessment that shows that this program is actually having a true impact on our students yeah I'm looking forward to the data yeah me too yeah um so one of the other and I I know I've said this year after year but it continues we have expanded our English our El English learner offerings courses we have the board approved a new Civics course for El Learners which is running next year we have in you know more recent years we've been able to do what's called push-in support so where we have an El teacher that goes into different classes to support students small groups of students in those classes so that continues and as one newer intervention and support so professional development there's a whole segment of the Consolidated District plan that talks about professional development it's also woven into almost all the other areas so if you look at the summary you'll see it coming up several times and that's why again this is not meant to be an exhaustive list a couple things I will mention though that I'm really excited about we're rolling out a new program called elevation and that program is for English Learners it is a program that will assist us as we work with families in terms of like translation and not just all the required documents because there's law on what needs to be shared with El families but we can also use it to enrich and even beyond that it will also help us because after a student exits our program an English learner can exit the program by getting a score on the access test that shows that they're proficient in English we do monitor them for a couple years after that and this program will help with that monitoring really excited about that program and we're going to be working with our faculty on the program how to use the program what that looks like when you're sharing information about how a student is doing in your class why you would be sending that information because the students on consult and just graduated out of el so really excited about that I know our personalized professional learning is something that's not new at all we've been doing it for several years now but that was something that was rolled out this year more second semester as we spent a lot of time in in first semester on for example working you know in the hybrid block and and whatnot and I just attended the PD sessions last week was really interesting to hear teachers talk about what they did for what we call PPL personalized professional learning we continue to offer best practices training we have coaching and much of that goes to our coaches we still offer seed um and we still send teachers not as much perhaps as before the pandemic but we still do have teachers who are going to different trainings and workshops and those are focused on a variety of topics and then we specifically send for example there are a couple of conferences every year for El teachers another section relates to idea for special education a lot of those funds are used to support our AIDS whether um you know they are one-on-one working with individual students with special needs we do all kinds of professional development um and and Scott really works with our teachers and our support staff that work with special education students in that area so much of that section talks about professional development and how we use funding the youth and Care stability Plan used to be called the foster care plan it pretty much is the same plan it just changed names and we provide support to Youth and Care in a variety of different ways ways much of it is very individualized because each student's need could be very different and our counseling and student Support Services Department definitely works with any students that we have who might be a youth in care so those are very unique needs and it depends on the students we do provide in some cases special Transportation if the students cannot get to and from with our regular bus routes it used to be called a transportation plan which is why transportation is each component of it there is a section about safe learning environment where it asks about all the different programs that we might have in place to assist and ensure that our our campuses are safe and so these are just some of them um positively North and Mustang way you may have heard about those programs have been going strong for more than a decade I mentioned already seed and some of our equity and inclusion work we also have a Spanish-speaking homeschool liaison this was a part-time position that we started about five or six years ago and it was part-time just to serve North High School I was able to fund it the first year out of our immigrant Grant and then was able to grade funding with multiple resources and multiple grants at South for years we've had bilingual facilitators but as our number has increased of el students of our bilingual Spanish-speaking students we now employ the Spanish-speaking homeschool liaison full-time and between both buildings so that is something that's really expanded in the last year or so we obviously have curriculum that comes out of our counseling and student Support Services you may have heard the focus Pro heard of the focus program at South High School or discover U at North High School we also use a program an online program called Naviance that you may have heard of we will continue to use Naviance next year but we're actually planning or hoping to transition to schoolings which is similar to navigance provides greater resources a lot more in terms of College and Career Readiness a lot more in terms of those indicators under Essa so we are looking at transitioning many schools in the area have already transitioned to school links but we will continue for next year to use Naviance we're seniors upcoming seniors we're actually going to have Naviance for all of them but we'll use it exclusively for seniors we do lessons in different areas about bullying anti-bullying and harassment we have Student Assistance coordinators we learned a lot about that and is that the last board meeting I believe we have some social some SEL lessons through our access for example through our access period and then we already talked about the path program they use a curriculum called Why Try so these are just a few this evening you heard about safe to help that's another program that helps with our safe learning environment allowing Anonymous reports or not so Anonymous reports of things that students have concerns about um questions raised by Community member today as to why we are using it if we weren't using it it's it's provided by the state at no cost if we weren't interfacing with it students would still have the opportunity to report to that but it would bypass us and go straight to the local police and resources so by us intersecting with it then our C Triple S staff our counseling student support staff has in our Administration team has the opportunity to provide as a serve as a resource in responding to those moments of Crisis rather than being on the outside of that looking in so a lot of times our trained professional staff is critical in making sure that a student is responded to appropriately and with the right level of care where if we were on the outside looking in on this process our students wouldn't be served as well which was three would be closest to the student than having some so that's an extra layer of support is how I see it right but a student would be able to access that whether we were interfacing with it or not because it's a state level program is that recent that we're interfacing uh she said when did we move our second year second year yeah yeah we used to have a different system that we used that was we would have to do the handoff manually to local police ambulance those kinds of things now the way that the safe to help program is set up is that if we are unable to respond so something comes in at two in the morning we don't see it if they're unable to make contact with us it immediately turns over to the emergency service personnel and they're able to step in immediately which the stress on our team under the old system like everybody did not want to miss something even if it was the middle of the night which put a lot of pressure on our administrative team and our counseling team now at least we know if we're unable to see that if we're offline if somebody's on vacation those kinds of things it will pass off to somebody else who can intercede on our behalf currently how much usage is that program receiving oh Scott you're better I mean we have um I think we're around 60 to 70 reports this year so far pretty typical for the last two years and um even before that yeah so another section of the plan is called College and Career ready and it's really is truly College and Career ready so in that section we talk about and I just listed again this is not an exhaustive list but some of the things that we do to ensure that the transition not just from middle or or Junior High School to high school is smooth but also that transition from high school to whether it's College whether it's trade school whether it is a four or two year whether it's work a world of work so that section asks a series of questions where several of these things are pointed out and so um a lot of it's really important in terms of us working with our Sunday schools our partner schools in other words the junior highs and middle schools to ensure that students are placed appropriately from the start to make sure that we have resources for those students who need various resources so that course recommendations are really for the right level for the student we really want students to take the most rigorous courses is so that process is really important we are back to doing more articulation now after the pandemic face to face a lot of that was occurring either virtually or you know electronically through information being shared but we have a very well vetted recommendation process from eighth grade to ninth grade you may be familiar with our Saturday registration day which is usually the end of January and then we also have an orientation night which that is usually in January as well oftentimes falls on our board meeting night newer things not necessarily new because we were doing them this year but newer things include our access lessons which do focus on a lot of things related to College and Career Readiness also our counselors provide lessons during that time many of those relating to College and Career Readiness also our resource programming bringing guest speakers exposing students to the trades military those kinds of things and then we talk in the plan about our high school post-secondary planning and some of the relationships that we form some of which I've already mentioned but we even have some other relationships for example we have a program that's unique to District 99 with Benedictine where students take a certain series of courses with us and earn particular grades they do not have to take placement texts if they're going to Benedictine so we've tried to work with schools in the area that our students go to to provide that transition to be smooth and not necessarily reliant on one test one day another part of the plan and this is really an extensive part of the plan is how we use our Title One funding and remember I said Title One is only South High School so we can only use those funds for South South High School students we allocate a large percentage of it on Transportation particularly to students that are considered homeless students under mckinney-vento we also fund our read 180 Program and Avid a lot of our Avid is funded the membership supplies for Avid I hire tutors for the AVID program their salaries are paid through title one we have as I said a couple of interventionists uh at least one of those is paid through title one we have a math specialist we've actually had the same math specialist now for over three years which has been the longest we've we've had one and he's excellent provides he provides support not just for students who are struggling in grade level math but he will provide assistance for students who are in count BC and even calc 3 if needed so he can do the highest level of math we support Summer Schools some summer school salaries Summer Bridge salary as well as some instructional supplies and some software programming for example we use the Alex program it's an online math program we use that in some math courses we use there's actually called courseware of course product and some courses and in our pql which is preparation for quantitative literacy our transition math class we also use Alex and I fund it for South High students out of Title One and then the last part of the plan is the bilingual service plan and this is the bilingual service plan is not new it's nearly identical to what it was before it's just now embedded in the Consolidated District plan and we we have to answer a series of questions about what our program looks like so what kind of classes do you offer what are the endorsements of your teachers what professional development are you going to send your teachers to what professional development are you going to do for all staff so required by law is that annually we train all of our teachers on how to work with English Learners what it means to be an English learner how to work with English Learners as obviously a lot of our teachers will have El students in their classes but we also do targeted PD I talked a little bit about elevation which I'm really excited about and that's a program that will help us better support students and work with families in terms of especially some of the low incidence languages for students that we serve as well as teachers as they provide information relative to our El students who are in consult we need to show how we're integrating the Spanish language arts classes into our bilingual classes which we do that in our bilingual Global Connections we also do it in our heritage Spanish class which we the board approved a few years ago and we've been able to run every year at South High in some years at North High as well and then it also references what we refer to as our bpac which is our bilingual parent advisory committee where we need to meet the regulation law which is four meetings a year we exceed that every year but we need to give our tentative meeting scheduled what our agenda topics will be and some of them are required by law so for example on Thursday night I presented at our Bengal parent advisory meeting about the Consolidated District plan about the bilingual service plan about the ebf spending plan about how we use our liep grant how we use our immigrant education education grant and how our new award which we just received which is a new Grant the bilingual service award so for example that is a requirement that our bpac families can provide input on all of these different plans and grants that is believe it or not just a summary there is the four-page document is also a summary but I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have I'd like to do the accounting program that we use now we have dual credit for financial accounting which is relatively new too I have a question for you going back to your first slide you had spoke about the title IV yes and the different uh resources and opportunity that that it provides for students could you expound a little more on some of the ones which you are excited about at ietd Illinois Association of Title One directors about title IV and how you can creatively use title IV so you heard me mention the single by literacy and we give a couple of tests to students I mean obviously they can elect to take the test or not we offer them so the Apple test for example and the stamp test which allows students to show if they have Proficiency in various languages I fund those those are free of charge share students I do not want our students if we can find a way to fund it we found a way so we fund that out of title IV so that's very exciting you heard me talk about calculus three so as a way to reduce tuition for those students taking calculus three I it's called braiding funds I use part of title IV to support them wow prior to about three years ago we were able to use Title One funds at both North and South even though North doesn't qualify because I put in a waiver with the Department of Education because there's this little part of the law that says if your schools are basically about 10 less than 10 percent in a difference between your free reduced lunch population you can use it at both schools unfortunately and we had applied for it and received it for several years unfortunately our Gap ended up at 12 and we were not able to get it so I now fund part of the AVID program for North High out of title four I fund some consumable mostly consumable supplies for our project lead the way biomedical classes out of title IV and that's all I can remember off the topic yeah that's fantastic now I'm going to go and look that's great um so I apologize if I missed it no that's great those are programs that really enrich right the opportunities for our students right right and I think are beneficial to families for example paying for paying for the pull and stamp test using some of that for tuition it gives a little bit of a More Level Playing Field economically for some of our families I'd hate to think that some students wouldn't be getting the sealed by literacy because they they could record the test thank you and it's not funded through property tax revenues funded through grants it's funded through grants absolutely those are all federal they're federal grants and title IV is relatively new it's only been I don't know maybe four or five years now relatively new well there used to be a title four then I went away and if we're a different purpose so yeah all right any other questions for Gina as you can tell she puts a lot of work into this plan and knows it very well and is well recognized in the area as an expert and leader in this area we're lucky to have her yes that was a fantastic presentation thank you very much we'll check the tape oh gosh uh actually I I have a slide that didn't load here so Rob has one up here on a textbook approval uh that's in the agenda I've just dropped a slide from it um so uh in today's action item is a recommendation for a single textbook uh for accounting right fiscal Financial Accounting yeah I thought I also had an hour to do a presentation you do but it's after we adjourn you thought you had us uh any questions on the recommended textbook all right District repositories I think this is jury yes on an annual basis we provide the board with the list of depositories that the district uses along with the listing of each bank account and the authorized signers for each account in the packet today is a resolution that we bring to the board every year authorizing the use of the depositories and authorizing The District administration to sign and complete any documents that are needed for the accounts so new board members there are certain things that come back every year a few of these are you're seeing tonight like English Department novels generally auditor although we're doing a three-year deal tonight uh District depositories textbooks these are generally reoccurring items that you'll see quite frequently well at least once a year after any concerns with the banking failures so far no okay not not directly impacting our banking no not at all you have any concerns there at all that we should be aware of okay no thank you last item in the superintendent's report is Freedom of Information requests new board members will be going through a Freedom of Information training as part of your onboarding we do Freedom of Information requests and responses our public documents we post them on our website if you search for foia you'll be brought to this page behind Scott there's a little blue button where if you click on that it will open up the list of all of our recently fulfilled foia requests our Communications team and Julie update that as we respond to those so we at each board meeting I will generally tell you we have received them and we have responded to them and we have do you receive requests most months is it a fairly like a couple sometimes most days most days wow okay it just depends okay it's a lot yeah okay moving to the consent agenda item nine of our agenda um I need a motion from for the Board of Education to approve the consent agenda as presented which includes a Personnel report appointment certified reassignment classified appointment classified B Personnel report resignation classified c financial Pages d 2022 2023 final calendar e the student trip F acceptance of donation from The District 99 Education Foundation excuse me G acceptance of donation Margaret Lapine age acceptance of Grant Project Lead the Way I acceptance of award Samsung solve for tomorrow challenge so moved oh go ahead bro thrill moved and second yeah me Terry Patterson thank you before before we take a vote uh I'd just like to do a quick thank you to The District 99 Education Foundation for their continued support uh through their grants and then Margaret Lapine is a Community member that's making a donation to our fine arts department and then Gina can you say a couple words about the grants absolutely so you may notice that Project Lead the Way um Randy palmarin who is a South High engineering teacher so in our Career and Technical education department she is a go-getter and she applies for all kinds of awards and grants and so she really single-handedly was able to obtain the Project Lead the Way Grant which you don't get every time you apply for so I just want to point that out and that's ten thousand dollars in materials that's through Project Lead the Way as well as caterpillar Foundation she plans to use those in our pltw engineering classes they use Vex kits so she finds use it for that and then she also entered sort of a contest for Samsung and was able to get a twelve thousand dollar package for South High School and the goal is to replace the monitors that are in c163 and then get some programmable programmable excuse me circuit boards so very exciting very fantastic great work by Brandy yeah yeah go caterpillar [Laughter] I just wanted to make sure while we were in there that we mentioned those things yeah so thank you to everyone yes yes truffler hi Terry pavisich aye Kara Caston aye Ken Dawson aye Christopher Espinoza aye Jenny hagstrom aye and Don Renner aye motion carries uh moving on to item number 10 recommendations for Action I need a motion for the Board of Education to accept a proposal from Miller Cooper and Co limited for basic auditing supplementary accounting and acfr services for the three fiscal years ending June 30th 2023 through June 30th 2025.
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yeah so really we don't have the 200 we don't have the 200 so we'll shot 660 000 so my game plan is once you know and I know that everything's kind of put to bed because I guess they've got to get that out the door the the clerk has to get it out the door everything out the door this week and then what I'm going to do in all seriousness is once I get once I once I get it I'm going to take a look at it and I'll let everybody know and we'll let Mr Kylie know and uh I'll see what I can find for uh six hundred thousand dollars in uh cuts and get it amended on the floor for that six hundred thousand dollars that's my game I've said that before that's my game plan and that's what I'll do I may lose but I'll go down fighting [Applause] necessary I'm not saying anything different than I haven't said all year thank you thank you Mr Nunes can I just say can I just request that we perhaps have I don't know maybe maybe we have a plan for just the 99 000 but I'm not going to tell you what to do so that's fine if you're going to do what you're going to do and go for it yeah yeah no Mr Nunes I really appreciate you bringing that up that we're actually in the whole all of that amount right we've done a lot of uh collaborating we've been in a lot of um giving giving in in that respect and uh and the questions that we've received and that have been asked of um the data that's been asked of Mr Kiley and thank you very much for the the incredible job that you did on multiple occasions to really articulate um the value that we get um on the backs of of everyone involved and and the implications of that and and are um you know uh in reality are having such a low tax base and and leading to this and and and really um the questions seem to come from a place of not understanding the work and it and I'm sorry but also it seems that a lack of valuing what education brings to a community and the direct correlation or the implication of of the value of our homes down the line if we continue on this trajectory of of uh of of you know having such a low tax rate you know I work with families and they're moving in from other districts and they're saying well you don't have XYZ I was talking to to Dr saber about this today we had a nice conversation but you know we weren't able to provide the the extras we're very very lean and we do a lot because a lot of people come to the plate and offer their time and and and they value what this experience is for the kids in this community but if we keep going down this way this path it's not going to be what it is now it's it's not going to be we're not going to have the quality we're not going to have the the people people don't people can't move into this community right now because of the expense of the houses and uh therein lies the commentary Mr Oliver well what what implication is that going to have if we don't have young families moving in because they can't afford to live here who are we what are we doing I mean Dartmouth one Dartmouth I guess we're just going to be one Dartmouth and and we're not going to have you know what we have it's it's really frustrating to see the questions that seem to to seem to be coming fundamentally from a place of not valuing public education and what that means for our future so I support Mr Nunes what you're saying there in town I'm a town meeting member um I give you credit uh you know there hopefully we move through this and I appreciate um you know everyone's work on this Mr Nunes one one last thing too I know it's probably not lost on a committee but just on the people out there too with the 361 that we cut and what we've done and everything else and we've taken fifty thousand dollars from school choice for next year for supplies for right per se paper pencils books that type of deal so yeah use on a one-time source so we've got some proverbial potholes coming yes we do they're not bottles that are sinkholes and I think you're gonna need some buckets and new roofs and all kinds of things but does anyone else have anything to um add I'm good I'm good yeah I've said my piece thank you so next we have finally new business I'm gonna I'll ask you to uh to introduce the next topic although you know I do wear a hat but we have a CPAC annual survey results sure so so we're excited uh to learn some more about the CPAC survey results and talk a little bit more about what we do to support students with uh with special needs in the district so we have uh Miss Townsend is going to come up and start us off [Laughter] foreign members for having us share this information today so I wanted to start just by giving a little bit of an overview of the CPAC and and the slides actually go into this a little bit as well um but as part of our process the Dartmouth CPAC does annually conduct a survey which goes to all students All Families of students who have IEPs in the district and the purpose of the survey like I said the slides will go into more detail but what we really want to get out of it is to just hear from parents all of their experiences kind of what their thoughts are every year regardless of how many parents participate we always have a really good cross-section of the six buildings who which are part of our district as well as parents who have students who are in out of District placements so even in surveys that you know we might have wanted a little more overall participation we've always been able to get some really good data because we're looking at really that ages 3 through 22 and all of those services so um so in terms of you know how we got here we put the survey out and left it open for about a month actually a little over a stayed open a little bit past um it closed the first week of April and we had 65 responses and parents providing those responses um in addition to their feedback answering specific questions on a likert scale there was also an opportunity for parents to there was an open response section where parents could provide their feedback on any topics that were not specifically asked and then um probably the greatest part about the survey and the thing that I just is so wonderful about the survey is that we have a special section for nominations where parents who filled out the survey are asked to recognize a staff member or student who has gone above and beyond to serve our students with disabilities and so while you will hear Deb present Deb and I present the names at the end of our slides I just wanted to let the whole school committee know that we are actually supporting all of those nominees and those winners tomorrow at our last CPAC meeting which is at 6 pm at the Quinn Elementary School it is an open meeting so we invite all members of the public to join us where we will formally recognize and provide kudos to all of those who were nominated in the survey so I am going to ask Deb August to join me here at the podium to present those survey results and then at the end she and I will talk a little bit about the recognition and some donations that have come through for the CPAC thanks Beth all right so I'm going to start off with the survey here so this survey was conducted yearly for parents guardians of children who reside in Dartmouth and received special education services the goal of this survey is to help the Dartmouth CPAC which stands for a special education parent advisory Council advise the school committee and School administration regarding parents thoughts and feelings about the special education services that children receive I am the treasurer of the CPAC so one of the offices along with Kathleen there so each School District shall create a kind of the model for the CPAC district-wide parent advisory Council offering membership to all parents of eligible students and other interested parties the parent advisory Council duties shall include but not be limited to advising the district on matters that pertain to the education and safety of students with disabilities meeting regularly with school officials to participate in the Planning Development and evaluation of the school district's special education programs the parent advisory Council shall establish bylaws regarding officers and operational procedures and in the course of its duties the parent advisory Council shall receive assistance from the district without charge upon reasonable notice and subject to the availability of staff and resources um below here the district shall conduct in cooperation with the parent advisory council at least one Workshop annually within the school district on the rights of students and their parents and Guardians under the state and federal special education laws and Beth always does that of efrs role of the CPAC cpacs are State mandated local networks of parents of children with special education needs who work collaboratively with special officials to improve results for students cpac's act as advisors to school district administrators and also participate in the Planning Development and evaluation of school districts education programs CPAC members meet regularly with the local director of special education and other appropriate School personnel as needed to participate in matters pertaining to the education health and safety of special needs students CPAC members promote Communications and programs within the community to encourage understanding acceptance and inclusion of special needs students CPAC members communicate with local state and National organizations as well as councils and groups that support children with special needs by becoming involved in the CPAC parents can improve their children's learning opportunities by working with school officials to identify issues research programs and develop procedural and policy Solutions so all are welcome whenever we have the meetings to join us why encourage parents to connect peer support peer encouragement information common purpose build relationships with both parents as well as direct personnel widen circle of understanding for all build trust open doors to opportunities when families communities and schools work together students are more successful and the entire Community benefits services that were received IEP Services um from the total that into this 84.6 percent receive IEP Services 16.9 percent receive 504 plan accommodations um and 1.5 I'm in the process of going through uh through the two systems there uh School student attends I'll do the major ones here so at uh Dartmouth High we've got 18.5 percent Dartmouth middle fifteen point four percent Quinn 27.7 percent um Potters 9.2 percent and uh Pre-K Cushman or Potter is 15.4 percent uh the rate referral process uh one being terrible uh six being excellent there were 61 responses um 3.3 percent uh responded with a one terrible um 1.6 responded with a two nine point eight percent respond with a 3 16.4 percent respond with a four eighteen percent with a five and uh 50.8 percent uh with uh six being excellent evaluations reported explained in a clear easy to understand way they were 62 responses 1.6 responded with a one again be in no way 3.2 percent respond with a 2 9.7 percent responded with the three nine point seven percent respond with a four 27.4 percent respond with a five and uh 48.4 percent responded with a six being strongly agree opponents of the IP 504 were explained in detail 1.5 percent responded with one four point six percent responded with a two seven point seven percent responded with a three thirteen point eight percent responded with a four twenty three point one percent responded with a five and forty nine point two responded with a six meaning strongly agree parent Guardian concerns were addressed during the team meeting uh one being a no and six being strongly agree 1.5 percent responded with the one three point one percent respond with two six point two percent respond with a 3 13.8 percent respond with a four thirteen point eight percent responded with a five and uh 61.5 percent respond with a six being strongly agree parent Guardian concerns prior to slash after meeting addressed in a timely manner 3.1 percent uh responded with a no being the one 6.2 percent um responded with a two 3.1 percent respondent with a 3 12.3 percent respond with a 4 23.1 percent respond with a 5 and 52.3 percent uh respond with a six being strongly agreed that things were addressed in a timely manner do you believe your child's placement and Service delivery is appropriate one being closer to no and six being strongly agree 3.1 percent uh responded with a one 1.5 percent respond with a 2 10.8 responding with the three seven point seven percent respond with a four eighteen point five percent respond with a 5 and 58.5 respond with a six being strongly agree um question here does your child experience bullying as a result of their disability um we've got I'll start with the top twelve point three percent uh respond with the yes um 18.5 percent not applicable and 69.2 percent respond with a no I think Dartmouth has a pretty good um hold on Unified being unified with it with that so you want to join me all right so the 2023 nominees nominees uh we have students and staff I'll start with the students okay so the students um from Dartmouth High School uh Evan Moniz Piper Harrison and Jillian Hughes congratulations because we are being live streamed I want to just plug again um all of the staff and students that are recognized on this slide will be at the CPAC meeting tomorrow Quinn School six o'clock we'd love to see everyone there and your other plug is that they were all nominated from the survey from the survey yes so these are all named as part of the survey itself and so um so for the staff I don't know if you want to we'll alternate do you want to do the DHS I'll do the DHS sure got it right so from Dartmouth High School we've got Peter Banks Sandy Fernandez Melissa Fitzgerald that's got nominated twice Sherry cool Kristen Johnson Ashley I'll say KP uh Jessica Lassie [Applause] I'm from DMS Rachel Lassie was recognized from Quinn Lindsey Perry Michael Capello Kim Carrero and Ashley Couture raposo and from the Potter School Trisha Weaver and Melissa McHenry [Applause] I'm from Demello we have Heather Noyes Fred Freddy Fredette thank you Anna Paula would you give me all lazan all right Marianne Sorensen Sorensen Sorensen yeah you doing okay you get the names Marianne Sorensen from Quinn Melissa Sullivan from Quinn Lindsay vafidis was nominated three times from Quinn from three different parents Lindsay ribbing from Cushman nominated twice two different parents and Elizabeth de Barros from Cushman the last one and while we are on the topic of recognition while not directly related to our survey I did want to just share a little bit we we both have um some really good news that we wanted to publicly recognize so I wanted to just come on the podium and thank Stan and Paul's um local appliance center here in Dartmouth who really Rose to the occasion in donating appliances for our Atlas program as you know our transition program a large piece is to have all of the tools we need to practice life skills many of those occurring kind of with you know making and preparing food and we did need some updated appliances and I just want to say that Santa Paul's really answered the call and so thank you um you know they're a local business who really did a lot for our students or our incoming Atlas students and so I just wanted to recognize them [Applause] in addition to the atlas program uh the CPAC we had our resource Fair two weeks ago it's already been two weeks um and we raise money through that resource Fair slash craft fair to find some of the programs that we do have at the high school and one of those funds we wanted to donate 400 to the atlas program so I don't know where the camera is [Applause] yeah okay yeah stay still thank you Mr Oliver you're welcome perfect I'll spend it all in one place [Laughter] or so I'll be paying you um a couple more things okay so we also that's all right we also want to um say that we're going to be donating to the unified Bowling Club to best buddies so that's the other couple programs that we want to put some money towards that our best buddy program has like it's really really grown yeah we've we've been doing some great stuff I run it so we uh we have a good time we just had our best buddies friendship ball uh this past Friday it was Carnival themed we had such a great time it was amazing it really was amazing also a little plug to Phoenix Sun to fly for giving us a really generous donation at the resource Fair they were the food the food truck there and then after they did all their business they came in and gave us a hundred dollars towards our um and the food was delicious the food was delicious for Phoenix on the Fly okay you want to come up or you want me to do it on my own yeah if it's okay I can come up there too but um we also wanted to acknowledge that this is um Beth's last meeting with us and so um as representative of the CPAC we just had um we wanted to um recognize your time we have a little certificate and a little gift for you um because you know I wear two hats and Deb is my partner in crime along with Miss Mello as a liaison and others who are have graduated out of the CPAC who still participate in all of our good work and Miss Townsend has spent uh countless time meeting with me at least bi-monthly and checking in with the CPAC and has never said no to us and has always been supportive of our really wild ideas and suggestions and she has been wonderful to the CPAC and a friend I can say and has offered her ideas as well and pitched in in coordinating whether it be um I child care for our CPAC meetings making it easier for families to come or offering ideas of adding sort of a bingo component to our resource Fair making it more lively and fun for people to check in at every table and win a gift you know if they if they do that and it has been a pleasure over the years to get to know you and work with you and on behalf of the CPAC we want to read this out loud here so recognition of support water to Elizabeth Cabral Townsend pupil Support Services administrator Dartmouth public schools in recognition of your years of support of the work of this Dartmouth CPAC your ability to partner with and offer assistance as needed has not gone unnoticed we wish you the best as you embark on a new and exciting future career Endeavor with gratitude thank you so much [Applause] thank you you're welcome thank you that's all right all right sorry I did not prepare to be a mess tonight um thank you so I will say the collaboration with Deb and with Kathleen have been some of the most amazing moments I've had in the past nine years I agree Kathleen I just think you know we we gelled early and often and um you know our our Collective three heads have always been you know better than one um it's been such an honor and I just want to thank you thank the CPAC um thank the students families and staff um you know it's bittersweet but I do thank you all I really appreciate this grow up together I know Deb just said we saw our kids grow up together when I started my oldest was two and a half and now she's going to middle school and I've got one who's almost three and a half so my youngest so it's just um yeah it's been a wonderful Journey thank you thank you to school committee thank you so much I do appreciate it thank you very much thank you thank you any questions yes where where can I find past uh surveys so that I can see trends of uh how parents yeah we have those I can I can get those to you unofficially but they're within yeah and I could I can contribute yeah yeah easily for you yeah yeah it's been good to see because um there have been themes that have emerged over the years that have tripped planning and and things um you know uh for instance the transition program I mean there one year there was a definite obvious response to say something to the effect of a lack thereof already on the radar and so you know planning towards that end you know I'm sure I know uh the results have have helped move things forward in in different ways so um yeah but I can get that too absolutely anyone else nice job to both of you good job thank you Deb UT yeah you better you than me and so um knit without further Ado I'll move it on to superintendent's update Kylie thank you Mrs Amaral so a few things um last week again was teacher appreciation week I know Mr Porter acknowledged that and a few people have said something about that and I just wanted to continue to express our gratitude for our staff that does so much for our kids so we really do appreciate that it was also a school lunch superhero day since our last meeting and just wanted to say thanks to those outstanding cafeteria staff I know one of our one of our young friends tonight was particularly pleased with yeah he's Italian so he knows [Music] so uh we're entering in terms of Athletics we're entering the final weeks of the sports season most of our teams are qualifying for the state tournament and have great great Seasons um it was the FCC outdoor track Championship tonight at New Bedford that's where Serena came from I think she ran the one mile in the two mile and then came to school committee and looked it looked pretty composed so she she's uh obviously pretty talented um we uh we had a great showing of The unified outdoor track South sectional at Middleboro last week and I think they're looking forward to the state meet we have the Special Olympics coming up so May 19th at DHS if if anyone wants to stop by 8 45 rain date is May 22nd um we we've had so much participation that we've actually split it into two days so um that will be at the high school on May 19th and then there will be an event on May 25th at Dartmouth Memorial Stadium with a rain date of the 26th so that's that's how successful it's been which is which is fantastic um National Honor Society induction is this week Thursday at six at DHS here proms next week graduation June 4th so we've got a lot of a lot a lot of things happening before our next meeting on June 5th so a lot of activity thank you um I I just add I was looking at um my text because I I was able to particip well I was able to attend the Dartmouth High School day of no hate a couple weeks ago and I was actually invited there through um I'm on the Rotary Club so uh they were in um you know conversation with oh gosh I'm forgetting her name now one of the staff at the high school gosh sorry I can't think of her name anyway I thought I heard it but anyway um and so I was you know it was it was mentioned and I stopped by and I just wanted to look at my notes from one of my colleagues on the rotary where I said you know it was super interactive it was set up outside with a bunch of tables and games of information it was a proud moment I wrote to see these kids rising to the occasion and truly approaching this topic in in just a great positive way um and uh they were so mature and they were so independent so inclusive it made me really proud and so that was my response to Mr owls on the rotary when he was asking me how the event was um and it was just beautiful to see uh it was during lunch and I was really glad to be part of it and the kids just that your community Mr Shea was it was really impressive to see the inclusivity and the acceptance and the pride that the students took in whether they were the different clubs that that they represent or um it was just really beautiful and and the way that they made it so interactive and fun I still have my green heart glasses and I just really think that it just was a proud moment just to see that event come to fruition so I just wanted to mention that I don't know if my committee has anything else to add Mr Nunes anything no no I mean just uh I was tied up Thursday night I had a meeting but I popped in uh Wednesday afternoon and caught pot of the yacht showed that they had here again as always what our students do is I can't draw a straight line with a straight edge and what what they have in there is just unbelievable and congratulations to all of them how the judges judge I can't I no clue so I'll just leave it and have a congratulations to them and then just the uh the DHS theater company for uh I was here with uh Friday Thursday night for Mamma Mia and great show but they did an unbelievable job you know and talking to the students I saw them later on in parents you know after I got back as I was out of town but they said you know Friday and Saturday was just the same so it was great great to hear that so congratulations to uh Dennis and Shirley and everybody there that's all I have great so our um the next meeting of the school committee is scheduled for June 5th at 6 30 here at the library media center and if that is it unless somebody has something else to add I will um entertain the motion that we adjourn into executive session for an update on Union and non-union negotiations so I'm not returning to open session not returning to open session so moved second roll call Kathleen Emerald yes Chris Oliver yes Coughlin you're Shannon Jenkins yes yes I'm here oh we're Jordan [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music]
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so moved Chris second second all second yep thank you Crystal Espinoza aye Terry pavisich aye Harris aye Jenny hagstrom aye I'm Don Runner aye item number B um I need a motion for the Board of Education to accept the lowest responsible bid of 122 598 dollars and four cents for book pal to provide novels for the 2023-2024 school year Terry pavisich aye shirelle Fuller aye Jenny hagstrom aye Kara Caston aye Ken Dawson aye Christopher Espinoza aye and Don Renner hi motion carries item C I need a motion for the Board of Education to approve the Consolidated District plan as presented so moved Ken moves Jenny second motion carries item D I need a motion for the Board of Education to approve the additional textbook for the 2023-2024 school year as presented Christmas thank you Christopher hi Harry pavasich aye Kara Caston aye and Dawson aye Michelle Fuller aye Jenny hagstrom aye and Don Renner aye motion carries item E I need a motion for the Board of Education to adopt the resolution authorizing depositories and authorize The District administration to complete and sign all appropriate documents required to maintain District Accounts at the depositories listed it's almost second it's Jenny shirelle thank you Jenny hagstrom aye Cheryl Fuller Terry pavesich aye Carrie Caston aye Ken Dawson aye Mr Espinoza hi I'm Dan Renner aye motion carries item F I need a motion for the Board of Education to hold the June 5th 2023 Board of Education meeting entirely in closed session for the purpose of self-evaluation practices and procedures or professional ethics when meeting with a representative of a Statewide Association of which the district is a member so moved second Jenny and Chris thank you Jenny hagstrom aye Christian Espinoza aye Cheryl Fuller aye Trey pavasich aye Cara Kasten aye and Dawson aye I'm Don Renner aye motion carries so that that last vote just for the public knows our next meeting on June 5th will be entirely in closed session will not be open to the public as the board is doing self-evaluation item 11 old business I have none uh item 12 any new business I have no uh Dr thiely I think we may have skipped over allowing new board members to just maybe make a public comment this would be the spot at reception of visitors where okay new board members could absolutely make accomplishment sure you'd like me to do that in item 13.
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yeah if you'd like to do that now no yep okay we're there okay so first I just wanted to thank um Nancy kupka Mike Davenport and Joanna Vasquez Drexler for their service to d99 and I'm well aware that we have very big shoes to fill um and I have a lot to learn but I'm very motivated to be the most effective School Board member I can be I also want to thank the d99 teachers and support staff for their commitment and passion to our students and I look forward to learning how in my role I can better support and Empower them so that we continue to retract sorry retain and attract the best talent and then lastly I'm honored to work with you Dr thiely and the existing board members um to you know address the top challenges the district is facing and continue to just be an Innovative leader um among high schools so that you know students are you know Future Ready future focused so thank you very nice I'm honored and grateful to become a member of our d99 Board of Education I want to thank all of you in the d99 community who have made this possible I would look forward to supporting and working with our amazing teachers our awesome support staff our incredible principals our dedicated administrators and our amazing Dr Thiele who is leading the team we'll see what you think in a couple of weeks our goal is to continue to improve on the academic Excellence at both of our high schools to ensure that all of our students are provided with the support the guidance and the resources that they need to be successful both in school and in life and I promise you the best is yet to come I I want to thank the d99 community for believing in Ken Cara and me we're very eager to continue to make d99 the best it can be it's personally it's great to be back at d99 and I know we are lucky to be joining a positive and high functioning Board of Education I very much look forward to working with shirelle and Jenny and Chris and Terry um as well as Ken and Kara um I I think we have an amazing School District filled with outstanding teachers and staff as well as fantastic administrators led by Dr thiely but we're not without our challenges and we certainly have room to grow and improve we should never rest on prior success but continually look for ways to challenge our administrators and to support our teachers and staff to set up our children for future success I'm excited to get started and to take on those challenges that are facing d99 I promise that for each and every decision we make as a school board that we will always look through the lens of what is in the best interest of our students and I know if we allow that to be our moral compass as a board of education I know that we'll be successful so thank you very much welcome to all three of you uh item number 13 do we have any uh reception of his visit visitors no no okay any of our current board members uh anything that they would like to share at this time sorry no I'm just I'm just trying to make sure we cover all our bases I just want to say welcome to all three of the new members pa um an asset to our board and I know that there's probably a lot of the acronyms that you've heard tonight that um didn't register but with time you know it'll all come it'll all come and Gina can answer any of those questions and she would be happy to so anyway I just want to say welcome in and I think we'll do great great work here for our students and for our staff and so it'll be a great opportunity so I again want to welcome know that dumb question you know I they they let me know that all the ones I ask initially so so feel free to reach out for for help and we have a great staff as you guys staff that are willing to help and know what what they're doing so we are looking forward to helping you guys you know come up to speed and working very closely with you thank you it goes for our student board members as well yes if you need us to explain something just because you spend all your time in school doesn't mean you know like what's going on here right so feel free stop us anybody if you have questions around the table we're here to serve you we know where to find the answers just look right past me yeah all right moving on to item number 14 Communications and announcements uh Jenny do you have anything to report on lend I don't I was unable to attend the last meeting but there is a meeting coming up on Friday and Dr Tony Sanders the Illinois State superintendent will be a guest speaker um I forget if it's in person or remote yes it's in person okay yeah so it's in person might be probably a full house yeah related we did get several pieces of legislation moved through the houses including the changes in graduation scores so that our transition students no longer count against our graduation scores that were waiting for that to go through requirements for community colleges to share remediation data with us so we'll get actual student data around students that are moving into remedial programs so we can try to figure out kind of what's leading to that there was a Oh there's another one that impacts uh moving that from a 25 hold to 10.
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so those were all things that lend was actively working on and then I was recently added to a committee uh working with uh Tony Sanders through the superintendent's organization uh looking at our state data system called I was I don't even know what Iowa stands for Illinois uh something I don't know what it stands for it says for something but it's our it's our state data and reporting system and it is very Antiquated so it predates Gina probably um so not the genos I'm going to try to infer that Gina yeah um so I'll I'll be serving in that that was a lend initiative as well to get legislation that would require uh Illinois State Board of Education to revisit that but instead is B has said don't the law will work with you on that so that was a big lend initiative as well that we kind of worked through an alternative pathway she's got it here Illinois web application security I would have never guessed in a thousand years it's the first time I've ever Illinois web asset application security yes really yeah I didn't know that one actually it's isby it's an acronym inside of an acronym Inception here okay um I think Joanna was the representative for sassad I I have the first operation meeting with them next week under the new structure so um and then we need to by our next board meeting name that next governance person yeah yeah Terry a report from the Education Foundation yes we are meeting uh Wednesday so um uh this is the previous month um we did some grants tonight and uh we also want to thank the dgea for Their donation to the foundation um and um that really helps us provide more grants for teachers so it's uh it's a win-win situation and we are joining the National Association of Education foundations we have to write the check first but that is our plan and that is something that we have not done before and so this this is our our part of our steps to um to better our foundation so that is when I have uh Chris do you have a report from the Illinois Association of school boards uh yeah the so the joint annual conference this year is going to be held uh the weekend of November 18th uh it'll be there 17th through the 19th it's the Friday Saturday Sunday um this year's conference there is a full day of equity training available through ISB on the Thursday November 16th prior to the meeting for anybody who's interested in registration for the conference opens at 8 A.M on Monday June 5th um so all of us who are able to attend should uh talk to Julie yeah Julie will be reaching out with information yes and it's downtown uh at uh it's a great experience for new board members especially because um there's a lot of presentations on both days about topics that are you know facing board members and members of the board so I find it to be rather educational and it's just a fun time for us to get together outside the context of a board meeting yeah great presentation and I'll bake cookies this time but this is one of the three key professional learning opportunities for boards over the course of the year it's this one and then we have two DuPage division meetings but you know just your Prof like we talk about all the professional learning our teachers and staff engage with this is the opportunity for as board members for you to have professional growth as well and to model that for for everybody else and districts and see what they're doing because you know it's not we're not an island and and um you know the more we reach out to other parts and and that because um you know I think DuPage county is is is a unique part of Illinois where it's it's a large State and you find that there's a lot of things going on in the southern part of the state or or even the western part that is different than what we find so it's it's very much a worthwhile endeavor agreed uh superintendent's covers listed here that's just for the board and then uh upcoming board meetings is next so June 5th is the one we mentioned it's entirely in closed session then we'll have one business meeting on June 12th that falls out of our normal cycle because our normal date would be Juneteenth which is now a state and federal holiday and the offices will be closed on that day so we moved it up to the 12th and then the calendar that the board approved tonight then kicks in for the next school year so the June is the tricky one it'll be back to back yep yep I know it throws everybody off but remember the fifth is closed session then the 12th is a regular business okay um then item is 16 I need a motion for the Board of Education to go into closed session for the appointment employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal of specific employees specific individuals who serve as independent contractors in a park recreational or educational setting or specific volunteers of the district or legal counsel for the district including hearing testimony on a complaint lodged against an employee a specific individual who serves as an independent contractor in a park recreational or educational setting or a volunteer of that District or against legal counsel for the district to determine its validity so moved second so I paused it's it's me I just you know I dropped the ball Terry pavasich aye here at Caston aye Ken Dawson aye 0 Fuller aye Jenny hagstrom aye and Don Renner aye motion carries uh to announce to the public the board will not be taking any action except to adjourn after coming out of closed session a closed session will be held in this room so once everybody steps out we'll resume closed session if board members need to take a quick break this would be the time to do so good night everyone
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guys you will not go faster [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] thank you foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] all right now foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Applause] ladies and Gentlemen please rise for the presentation of the Colors by The Academy School District 20 Air Force Junior ROTC color guard and the singing of the national anthem by the Liberty Jazz choir foreign [Music] we're so good evening and the rockets [Music] over there oh say does [Music] come on [Applause] thank you please be seated good good afternoon family friends staff members honor guests and all members of the Lancer Nation welcome to Liberty High School's graduation ceremony for the class of 2023.
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[Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign thank you [Music] thank you foreign [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music] [Applause] good evening good evening thank you Rampart High School graduation band for your accompaniment families friends students and most honored guests please stand and remove your hats for the presentation of Colors by the Rampart High School Air Force Junior ROTC under the command of Cadet Haley McDonald and our national anthem performed by the rampart choir [Music] SE [Music] perilous ly streaming [Applause] [Music] through the night oh save us [Music] [Applause] except for the faculty standing before the stage you may now be seated good evening and welcome to Rampart High School graduation commemorating the class of 2023 [Applause] hi I'm Megan Sanders principal of Rampart High School it is my great honor to be with you here tonight and to declare that the Rampart High School 2023 commencement ceremony has begun I want to take this moment to recognize and thank all the teachers counselors and support staff who have helped the class of 2023 reach this point today their dedication to education and contributions to these young adults growth is appreciated they do this incredible work because they love students and know that Rampart High School students are among the best and brightest Rampart High School has a few staff members retiring this year and I would like to recognize each of them to start we have Mr Manuel mestis Mr mess has started his teaching career at Rampart High School in 1986 after graduating from Colorado College as a math major and cross-country athlete he has been teaching at Rampart for 37 years this includes 28 years full-time and nine years as a part-time teacher and yes we can clap for that Mr messes has taught all levels of math from Algebra 1 to AP Calculus over his teaching career Mr messes also coached girls basketball and track sponsored rampart's Regional Champion math bowl team for several several years was the teacher of the year in 1999 served as senior class sponsor and the math department chair Mr messes has enjoyed the most about what Mr messes has enjoyed most about Rampart is the diversity of both the staff and students and keeping Mr Anderson in line in retirement Mr messes plans to hike camp and hike some more as well as a more generic travel and spend time with family his advice to his students is to never sit down on the trail which means keep moving towards your goals Mr mestis next we have Miss Tammy pavlika Mrs pavlika considers herself a lifelong learner so a career in education was a Natural Choice in high school setting no two days are ever the same and she was consistently surrounded by creative intelligent people raised on a ranch nine miles Southwest of Calhan her mother three of her aunts her two sisters and a cousin were teachers of the 26 students in her graduating class 13 had gone through school together since kindergarten including Tammy and her husband mark Mrs pavlica graduated from Adam State College in Alamosa Colorado with a degree in English and secondary education she taught in the rampart English Department in 1990 taught English literature reading and composition classes at all levels she helped write curriculum for freshmen and sophomore classes when the international Baccalaureate program was brought to Rampart additionally Miss pavlica served as the rhs literacy coordinator for three years and worked on the district literacy committee she worked as assistant basketball coach for five years assisted with knowledgeable served on faculty Senate did Sports Action photography for football basketball and track and was a senior class sponsor in 2002 her husband's band went on the road for six years and she didn't think she could continue grading essays research papers and dialectical journals while raising three children under the age of six so she went back to school to become highly qualified to teach mathematics Mrs pavlika taught Algebra 1 and 2 function statistics trigonometry algebraic business calculations as well as SL mathematics for the international Baccalaureate students in all of her years she managed to avoid geometry which she claims makes her break out in a rash upon retirement which she refers to as the aftermath she plans to work on Creative projects to include writing photography and painting her travels will begin in the next few months with two weeks in Alaska and a Caribbean cruise later this summer as well as camping trips and concerts she and her husband have bought 80 acres of land and they are headed back to their Roots they plan to raise honeybee colonies and cows as well as host family and friends Mrs Tammy pavlica last but not least we have Mrs Tana schnacky Mrs schnacky has worn many hats working at Rampart for the past 28 years she has worked as a security guard Deca Diner supervisor assistant principal assistant nyp personal project assistant and an attendance office assistant all the experiences have pressed memories into her heart and brain she has enjoyed working with all the staff over the years and has learned so much from everyone Mr shinaki says teachers at Rampart are the best and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for all you do you are appreciated in her retirement she plans on spending time decorating her home more exercise and health healthful eating she and her husband like to bike hike and ski so there will they will be doing more of that they will be traveling more as well Mrs shinaki might even take some art classes who knows she also plans to get involved in meaningful volunteer work what she'd like to tell everyone who asks what are you going to do in retirement whatever I want Mrs tanashnaki on behalf of the rampart Administration parents and students I thank each of you for your dedication and service to Rampart High School you have made a difference for students in and out of the classroom thank you Rampart faculty you are now invited to please take your place on the floor with our seniors for the commencement exercises honoring the class of 2023.
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500 students you started your journey at the center for modern learning before we moved into our new building your sophomore year you endured a global pandemic a challenging political environment and increasing influences of social media but you're resilient you found your voice to speak up for justice compassion and those less fortunate your leaders and you seek to leave the world a better place than you found it and for that we're grateful and as we celebrate today my hope is that this is a time of reflection a time of laughter and a time of potential joyful tears please remember to silence your cell phones turn off your snap notifications and remove whatever distractions may get in the way of enjoying today joining us today in support of our graduates are the District 20 Board of Education representatives from District 20 Administration and the staff of the village students you are also supported by family and friends that are here to celebrate you at this point I would like to acknowledge your greatest supporters your parents with the parents of our graduates please stand and be recognized thank you so much for sharing your prized possessions with us as you all know I meet with each incoming student to talk about our school and explain the differences in our school model and I end each of these meetings by talking about our amazing staff I think we have many amazing elements to our school but the best part to me without question are the staff members you get to interact with on a daily basis at this time I would like for all Village staff members to stand so we can honor the amazing work you do with and for our students what an amazing group of professionals and I hope you truly understand the gift that they are to you and to me and at this time it's my pleasure to introduce Mr Tom Gregory superintendent of Academy School District 20.
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