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welcome to the May 16 2023 regular meeting of the Ann Arbor Planning Commission for detailed meeting on our detailed information on procedures and agendas do we not have any we don't have any paper we do on on the ends please help yourself if you uh are here and want a paper agenda um could you please call the roll Mr Leonard yes before I call the roll I just want to announce to uh anybody watching and those in the room and we are having some technological issues this evening any callers who are sharing any public comment with the Planning Commission via Zoom that is either by phone or by login via Zoom the Planning Commission will be able to hear those comments as is typical but those that are watching this meeting on either on CTN or via the YouTube feed will not be able to hear those unless our masterful CTN DJ is able to sort of works magic with the ambient microphones in the room but just to be clear the Planning Commission will get all of those comments and everybody watching will should we'll be able to hear all of the discussion within the council chambers uh with that uh as requested I will call the rules and commissioner give Randall present commissioner Abrams here commissioner sovay here commissioner Mills here commissioner Hammerschmidt absent commissioner dish here commissioner Lee here commissioner Clark commissioner white here we do have a quorum of seven members okay all right we will move on to item number three which is the approval of the agenda may I have a motion commissioner wife seconded by commissioner dish all those in any discussion did I see a hand no okay alrighty all those in favor say aye aye aye okay we have motion carries um all right minutes of the previous meeting this is for the May 2nd 2023 meeting moved by commissioner discounted by commissioner Mills any discussion nope no vote please all those in favor aye motion carries all right next are reports from City Administration City Council planning manager on and on so why don't you kick us off my pleasure thank you Cherokee brandl last night city council passed on first reading the 721 South Forest project but a promise to have a robust discussion on second reading and we passed a over half a billion half a billion with a B dollar budget which contains provision for a new planner and uh lots of incredible work on sustainability which will no doubt suck up immediately all of that new planner's time and um there was there's also you know there's beautiful social resources also Justice work being done so I don't remember anything else but if Mr Leonard does he should chime in uh those are the only items I recall from the agenda thank you council member dish last night and my staff from and enabling that I didn't have to be there to know that um as for our portfolio planning manager uh only one uh up uh we have an Ordnance revisions committee meeting scheduled for next week we will be discussing some proposed uh what I think are somewhat minor but hopefully clarifying adjustments to our plan unit development ordinance great any representatives from different committees Liaisons um I went to the DDA meeting last week and there were a couple of things one is um the Triple A ta is going to be uh they're they're gearing up for this this transition to being able to make the 30-minute trip from Ipsy to Ann Arbor and so that is that's kind of moving it in gear um and uh and then the other piece is that there I know there's been a lot of exploration and interest in public bathrooms and there is a an interesting pilot that's going on with a company called the throne and you may see some interesting things going on around town with that it's kind of a you have to use your phone to get in you can have a card pass that they issue there's some issues around security and privacy that they've been kind of working out um sorry yes and get a little closer there so stage tuned it seems really interesting uh in terms of what they're figuring out it's not um not an easy one to solve so correct yes those are Ada accessible yes all right so any anybody else nobody else all right let's move on to item number six which is public comment so opportunity for uh persons to speak up to three minutes about an issue that is not listed on the public hearing for this agenda we're calling individuals first here and then we'll move on to uh remote participants to speak uh remotely press star nine if listing by phone or use the raise the hand feature of viewing to the web link for phone access call 877-853-5247 and enter meeting ID 977-663-41226 to unmute press star six City staff will select callers that have raised their hand using the last three digits of your phone number or by name if accessing through the web link you'll hear an autonym that the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area for either method please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments we start with folks here in the room is there anybody present that would like to speak on an item that is not on the agenda for tonight Mr Garber I see I need no introduction um favorite court right I have a report yes no it's Haverhill Court I'm telling you the address I'm sorry what I'm telling you your address because for now um but um I do have a report because council member Edition um planning director Leonard omitted one item from yesterday's Planning Commission um you caregiver Brandon will reappointed for three years along with commissioner Clark and commissioner wife so I congratulate you and um also um I thank you for doing this you probably know this means another three years of putting up with my demented Rants and the deranged comments of other angry members of the public so um but I guess that's why they pay you the big money but in all seriousness no thank you for your service to the community um I really enjoyed these listening sessions I've learned a lot from from the three of you and from everyone else on the commission so I look forward to more of the same thank you thank you anybody else in the room do we have anybody in line virtually we do color with the phone number ending with five three four you have three minutes to address the Planning Commission good evening Harvard later tonight we'll talk about the Southtown Resort quite a lot of houses to offer especially in terms of sustainability features but that's uh for discussion later last night I raised the city council some issues about sustainability uh so I hope I know there's Planning Commission takes it very seriously I hope that keeps uh entering into our discussion for now I want to talk about a store zoning categories that are grouped together B1 B2 c1a and c1ar and their group together for a reason those are the downtown and downtown transitions category you'll call us downtown if you like to separate them with two groups YouTube the four groups together who treated the characteristics of their zoning uh the rules within them and that's what they're creating one that they were intended for and the last uh applications of c1a or C1 AR cameras business owner uh with the garden and if you recall that uh there wasn't on the appropriate application uh it's the same building was ended up being approved uh but approved as a tud which means uh nine thousand dollars just short of that any other per unit uh to the affordable housing fund when it was appropriately approved um as a tud rather than Tyra the Physicians as is request prior to that we know there was Morningside lower tax and that one went to school AR material system conditions uh that one if you compare that to a CD the exact same site plan if approved as a PUD would have provided us for nine million dollars just short nine million dollars in affordable housing fund and what we got was something that was accomplished compilation of multiple things we don't see one AR experiences my project modification those are no longer allowed I should not have been allowed at the time because our plan project ordinance was not in compliant the commission and Zoning enabling act so we got rid of it um but we should have lost 9 million dollars in terms of the affordable housing had that been approved as the PhD which was the only difference uh in what it's like 30 more seconds so I should think later on tonight about comparing the Bayside zoning that we have for South Town and the c1a are also compared to a PUD essay what would we get if we have the same building as a PUD thank you for that consideration thank you is there anybody else yes Luis Vasquez Vazquez you have three minutes to address the Planning Commission oh yes thank you Mr Leonard you are correct it's Luis Vazquez from uh a resident of upper lower town uh in the first ward in Ann Arbor um I just wanted to comment on uh 721 South Forest um I was pleased to see it uh pass at first reading last night in front of City Council but I was kind of just made um to hear that the developer uh wants to scale back that development and lose the opportunity for 70 uh Apartments within that development um and and also just to comment on uh zoning in general doing things by PUD piecemeal is really I think in my humble opinion quite ineffective in getting to the goals that we want unnecessarily delays the process of getting developments approved and I would like to see that change I am hoping uh through the reform of the comprehensive land use plan achieves this and and makes something like a 721 South Forest and uh what you're about to discuss with Southtown making them buy right developments so thank you for your time thank you no other speakers indicated okay we will then move on to item number seven which is the public hearings for the next business meeting which is June 6th we have two new public excuse me we have three new public hearings scheduled for Tuesday June 6th um first is proposed amendments to chapter 55 the unified development code section 5.15 permitted use tables and section 5.16 use specific standards to permit and regulate event space use and additional zoning districts and section 5.20 landscape screening and buffering to amend the requirements related to conflicting land use buffers the second public hearing is for 21.95 East Ellsworth Lockwood plan unit development text Amendment this is a proposal to adjust the East Side setback by four feet from 144 feet to 140 feet and the South Side set back by four feet from 68 feet to 64 feet no new construction is proposed and lastly 39.45 to 3957 South State site plan and special exception use a proposal to reduce the size of the existing building at this location by 1 384 square feet and add a drive-through Lane along the rear of the building thank you okay we are on to our um we don't have any unfinished business so we are on to item number nine which is regular business and uh 9A is the South Town rezoning site plan and Street vacation uh this is 1601 South State Street a project with three petitions to redevelop the block bounded by South State Street White Street Henry Street and Stimson Street a petition to rezone a block of 10 Parcels from r4c multifamily dwelling to c1ar with conditions campus business residential with an offer to reduce the maximum height limit to 100 feet set a maximum vehicle parking limit to 0.25 per dwelling unit and set a minimum active open space requirement of 50 square feet per dwelling unit two a site plan for city council approval to construct a 2020 square foot mixed-use building with ground for ground floor retail office and child care space and approximately 215 apartments and three of addition to vacate the public alley in the block site includes addresses 1601 South State Street 1605 South State Street 1607 South State Street 1609 South State Street 1611 South State Street 1606 White Street uh let's see uh and which is 72 140 72 148 square feet it's 1.7 Acres zoned r4c staff recommendation is postponement so the petitioner has 10 minutes presume that we are about to have somebody vacate our I'm going to leave at this point based on my involvement in the project thank you thank you wait for whatever yeah yeah unless there's some coordination that needs to happen between the two of you should be ready to go yeah General um yeah thank you very much for having us here tonight um we're really excited to talk about this project I myself I'm Adam Smith I'm the director of design of synecdoche Brandon Cheney is our civil engineer on the project from netterville Sydney mcgowski here from our team as well she's our studio director we've all been working on this project the owners could not be here tonight unfortunately but as you can see here on the the first slide this is our our full team here with aspect Structural Engineers out of Vancouver helping helping us on the project working on the project ETS engineering for electrical and Green Path engineering for mechanical and plumbing we've been working together for a year on this project so far to to get it to the point where it's at now so the three three points of this are the rezoning the LA vacation and the the site plan in context this is very close to campus between just south of East Stadium on South State Street be in between that and South Industrial within a half mile you have walkability to the stadiums to the athletic campus to lower Burns Park into multiple amenities around the neighborhood across South State Street you have the the full athletic campus and South State Street is a main direct thoroughfare to uh central campus and then down to I-94 and the tc1 zoning there called out and these are also the neighborhood that this is becoming a 15-minute neighborhood with all of these amenities you have things like Revel and roll Benny's Diner produce station beer Camp the tennis center down the street ruse Rose you know these are major local businesses and this developer Forum they've been working in this neighborhood they know this these neighbors here and this project is really a part of growing this even more into a 15-minute neighborhood for this space they've recently developed venue there as well so the land use plan uh calls out this area you can see in this little green square at the top here that's that's the site along number five it's called out to be an area where mixed use and residential could could happen and then area one of the South State Street corridor plan also calls out developing non-motorized Transit mixed use and you can see by adopting tc1 it's already blending into that area one for more mixed use and more um multimodal Transit along that Corridor knowing that that area is growing the zoning around there is pretty mixed so south of it is more um commercial and and then um M1 zones with R1 R before c uh right next right next to it and then further up the way is the cam is a c1ar zoning as well at Packard and then obviously to the to the to the east is or to the West is the Campus U of M campus so we chose C1 AR zoning because it not a lot of the needs of of this project and we think the 300 far it works well for this this site we also worked with a height so that the massing doesn't produce large Shadows across onto our neighbors who are the Ann Arbor Housing Commission right to the north so even in the winter time you get this this moment where the sunlight still moves across the facade of the building to the north so as to not block a lot of sunlight and the the building Mass on White Street is brought down as well so that it is not too too tall against the neighborhood and not producing Shadows across the neighborhood as well right now there's 38 dwelling units and 10 structures on that site and we're proposing to have a hundred and I can't see the number exactly right there 178 I think it is on there new uh dwelling units um in this structure here which fits into the the mix of of scale in that neighborhood and with the limited parking that we're we're offering here we also know this is a very heavily uh or a strong multimodal uh area with three bus routes directly uh on the Block that take you from uh downtown Ann Arbor to the Medical Campus on uh University of Michigan to Trader Joe's to the mall to St Joseph Hospital to Wayne or to Washington um uh to uh to Ypsilanti uh and and all over and the bike lanes that are that are there now and what's proposed is to have it all ages and abilities Network alongs the South State Street um connecting up to central campus and down towards the mall and then also the proposed Tree Line trail running along the train tracks that would be great and then also another connection across Stimson to connect to what's already a okay bike lane on South Industrial um so we see it's a very good uh non-motorized Transit spot uh the LA vacation is just for this strip down the center of the site that contains a overhead line there and then we are removing seven uh curb cuts that are existing and replacing it with two new ones that are only on Henry Street and White Street so there'll be no curb cuts on South State Street and no curb cuts on Stimson as to hopefully not have delivery vehicles stop on those streets and there's no uh entries off of South State Street so we've positioned our entries along uh Henry and white and the package rooms are also along those so knowing that deliveries are going to take the easiest travel route we've positioned lobbies mail rooms packages at spots where it's not on stimpson and State Street um we're using we're using the 10 foot setback around the the most of the site and then on the State Street site side we're actually using the five foot minimum which is an exception that we can use so long as the area of setbacks around the entire site meet a certain square footage we're well above that um per the per the zoning ordinance and also we have a couple public there's still a few engineering comments that are on the staff report that we're so working we've been going back and forth with staff and and planning to to address all these comments that we have addressed all of these knowing that the trash dumpsters will be larger we have a right-of-way contained for the street light at the corner and those are all addressed comments so it's actually three buildings um completely it's separated by a concrete Podium at the base and then two buildings on top of it because of the building code it can only be so big for the type of construction we're using so it's three separated buildings the parking spaces underneath we have 53 parking spaces with eight EV charging stations and eight and the rest are all EV capable we're going next week for a zba for a zoning variants because we do have an extra we we're looking to have the the parking indoor parking area not count towards the far because we have a high water table it's technically infeasible for us to put the parking down that low and then also have storm water detention underneath it we'd be in the water um so our proposed variance is to have the covered parking with a park on top of it and the other options are parking with no Park no parking which would be more of an issue and then not being able to get it into the water table so the building is built as a as a building on top of a park in this area is all accessible to the public on top and it's all it's all open flexible and Garden area we also have a lot of bike parking around on myself as a bike rider uh we have five times the amount of Class A Bike parking on the ground level so this doesn't include anything in units but at different levels of on-ground bike parking and racks of bike parking for more density but knowing that e-bikes are heavy and they should be on the ground as well a lot of these spaces around her for visitors as well not just for people living there the street design we've we've set back from we meet our minimum five foot set back on State Street and also get the sidewalk amenities space along along that street so it's a lot of space for people and same thing on Stimson where you see there's space for people there the sixth level and up have a green roof and solar panels all around I can address a lot of these later too and then we have a lot going on sustainability wise solar power we're working through geothermal um and a lot of wall insulation to try to meet passive house Baseline passive house standards we're doing a panelized system for construction which is mass Timber and CLT to reduce the amount of noise dark sky lighting bird safe glass will be installed throughout the site throughout the building the materials of the building are actually pretty sustainable they clean the air as they sit there we have paved drain pavers that act as a water sequestration in the on the site as well as the water detention these are some data we can go over about CO2 that's that's being built with and plans of units a lot of diversity of unit types two bedrooms one bedrooms Studios and that is it so I want to thank you before my time is up there's a lot to go through and a lot I'm sure there'll be a lot of questions about so looking forward to it thanks you got it you got it right there under the under the line yeah yeah I'm sure we'll have the opportunity to go through a lot uh but first uh we move on to a staff presentation thank you very much um I felt that Adam did a great job I feel opposite now and did a great job explaining the project um I'm just going to go over a bit in the staff report focusing on our staff analysis um but as mentioned this is actually three petitions in one so there are three motions um to pass tonight the first is a petition to rezone it is the current zoning is c1a nope current zoning is r4c and the proposed zoning designation is c1a r with conditions attached to the staff report included in the packet is our template that formalizes and documents the conditions these were voluntarily offered by the owners and applicant team and they impose a height limit um a maximum vehicle parking limit and a minimum active open space requirement project also includes a site plan and a street vacation petition bear with me a second um repeating myself but they are requesting and rezoning from r4c which is a multi-family dwelling District allows 10 dwelling units per acre to c1a R which is campus business residential with the conditions they had mentioned um the conditional zoning offer letter can be found in the file as well as a petition that addresses some questions to help the Planning Commission with their deliberations we have provided in the staff report a comparison chart of most of the zoning District most of the parameters of the r4c and c1a our district um I would note that the comprehensive plan as a whole encourages more dense development with a particular emphasis on more housing overall and a wider range of housing types and encourages more sustainable developments living arrangements that enable lesser no Reliance on personal vehicles and reduced vehicle travel Miles City Council and planning commissions do support have in their actions have supported projects that further these goals the proposed c1a our district designation is a reasonable choice to meet those goals given the site's proximity to campus and although the r4c district and c1a R1 is the residential district one is a mixed-use district they are a little bit apples and oranges in terms of being able for a direct comparison but for arguments um sake the r4c district probably has an far of 100 we suggest that because a typical development is a two-story building covering about half the site um so that's about 100 far and the c1a slash our district is 300 percent um so it seems that the proposed rezoning is moving toward about three times the density is what could be currently achieved again it's apples to oranges but for discussion purposes I feel that this is in the ballpark um but and are and although our City Utilities our infrastructure and our currently our desires to support the rezoning um the scale of the area um is is more in the residential category and so staff support the rezoning with two conditions one that the development uh provides 19 feet of setback from the back of the curb to the building face this enables the space needed so that this higher level this more urban level of pedestrian amenities for the number of residents that we can expect can be accommodated and thus the second condition that for our support is that the development conforms to the standards of the c1ar district to which it has to which it has requested um and with those two stipulations the proposed rezoning will be in keeping with the goals or applicable goals policies and standards for development I'll get into a second about why the the Project's a little bit too big um and speaking of which the site plan um is very well described Podium two buildings on top it has over 200 000 square feet includes ground floor stuff um and plus residential above I let me back up myself again one thing that is not in the staff report is a comparison of the permitted uses in the r4c and c1a slash our district so at a quick and at a quick and high level the r4c district allows for single family two family and multi-family dwelling units the c1a r District allows for all the kinds of household living that's a category just for labeling purposes and that is the single family two family multiple family um dwelling c1a our district also allows all forms of group living which is fraternity sororities student cooperatives shelters and and so forth it allows for some Community kind of uses like museums it allows for child care all kinds all levels of education schools it allows for nourishing facilities hotels short-term rentals Recreation and entertainment uses restaurants general merchandise laundry services personal services and veterinary services and all forms of office that would be general office financial and medical offices it does not permit many of the auto oriented uses such as Auto Repair Auto Sales and a lot of any of the manufacturing or research uses back to the staff report the site plan the project has a measures from exterior face to exterior face around 240 or 246 000 square feet which calculates to a floor error ratio of 345 percent the c1a slash R District allows 300 percent but it does allow pedestrian and Men The Pedestrian amenity premium which gives three or 800 square feet on top of what you can earn based on the lot size if you do that math the far would be then 311 percent they have requested a variance to not include the parking the floor area used for parking which is within the podium if you remove that then the numbers drop and the floor area ratio calculates to 308 percent some details about the site plan that probably have already been mentioned but the setbacks from the property line are an average of 10 feet as required in the c1a slash our district they have been flexed on the State Street side but if you add up all of the setback area around the site it balances with the minimum requirements um also the building has been set back so it provides 19 feet from the back of the curb this is not something we usually measure from but this is taken from the downtown Street design manual guideline for Destination streets and 19 feet is the width that was deemed ideal in the downtown to provide an eight foot eight foot walking Zone plus an eight foot amenity Zone that can include Street trees it can include parking meters street lights so forth bicycle hoops and it also includes some space for door swing or tablescape areas and so forth um and that has been provided for the the site as well site provides pedestrian amenities it has a pedestrian Plaza on its south side it's got active open space whereas none is required in the c1a slash our district um the reduction in driveways has been mentioned as well as the limited parking and I have repeated in the staff report the um some of the information provided on the site plan regarding sustainability and I'll just mention again that the development team focused on three main major components to prioritize for sustainability um for the building materials the lack of gas equipment and the electrification and its location prioritizing multimodal transportation finally the project includes a street vacation interestingly the Hat the north half of the site was plotted in 1890 the South half was um uh platted I think just about 20 years later and there is an unimproved alley if you were driving by on Henry you would the gravel driveway looks like a private driveway it's it's about in the location of the unimproved alley there are no Public Utilities in this alley just electrical service um so there is is no impact of vacating this alley standardized procedures mean that when an alley is vacated you put a line straight down the middle and each half the land goes to the abutting properties on each side all of these properties are under the single ownership so the owner will get all of the land um the project has been reviewed by a plethora of Service Unit unit comments um and I've included a planning comment in the staff report but it repeats nothing else than what had already been mentioned um that the development should provide at least 19 feet of setback from the back of the building face which it does and it should meet all the dimensional standards of the c1a slash our district without variances which it currently does not engineering staff are still working on their review I know that there have been discussions and Communications I think that things are well on their way the same with the fire marshal and solid waste and storm water Management's outstanding issues the staff report notes that a park contribution per dwelling unit will be made and we are still working with our transportation Engineers on the transportation impact analysis um I think that we will I think that we will get there but currently the transportation impact analysis needs to be revised and address more of the multimodal aspects and um be more robust in recommending the phrase I believe is changes in operations not to say these would be done but what changes in operations mean is switching from one way to two-way or from two-way to One Way adding turn Lanes taking away turn lanes that adding on-street parking taking away on street parking no left turns no right turns that those are examples of changes in operations um I believe I mentioned that the project has been scheduled for a variance to be heard at the zoning Board of appeal appeals meeting next week Wednesday which is May 24th um because of the outstanding staff issues um and the complexity of the project staff is recommending that the project be postponed thank you alrighty we will move on to the public hearing now for this project folks in the room can have three minutes or remotely if you're speaking remotely press star 9 or used to raise the hand feature for phone access call 877-853-5247 and enter meeting ID 977-663-41226 to unmute press star 6.

I know you have been all year long so thank you so very much for coming in and being on time and being ready for us to start this great show that we are so lucky and fortunate to have every year I have a very very special announcement before we start I would like our third graders to be stand up third graders third and if I can have their the third grade teachers where are you make sure you are standing as well on purpose this house okay so yesterday we received our third grade ACM to our state assessment scores and you know with third grade if you don't have the assessment in reading and math if you know past the routine it's a mandatory retention and I want to tell you that everything I want of our friend fingers past this day [Applause] [Music] all right because I want you to know that's the state average was 41 of the students in the state of Arizona eat anything standard and Continental students are right with the state at 41 of our kids needed families [Applause] right boys and girls we have some students that still are not need standards but we have a lot of kids that are right at the bubble of making it into proficiency those are the students that we've invited for summer school because we believe that with that extra Booth they can be ready so Mrs Cuevas has spent hours and hours along with the teachers identifying our students that are right at the cuff of proficiency so we can Target those students during summer school and after school tutorial when school starts in math so you know the state average of students need an exceeding standards in math in Arizona is 43 percent our Continental Cults we're at 59 percent [Applause] foreign [Music] Corps but we're just gonna get better as teachers happy on implementing me from number one we don't have the rest of the great double results yet we're expecting them next week so parents be on the book houses will be sending information out oh so again friend prayers [Applause] thank you all to our parents to our family family aids to support our 34th graders we've been really proud of their weekends for excited to see and we like to thank our Continental foundation for providing the funds for these wonderful opportunities to take place that are at our school and this is education I believe has been going on for 15 to 15 years with Miss Sherry and we thank you for being here in business over your rehearsity so [Applause] [Music] this series [Music] and I'm with the dance company fun house Movement Theater we've been doing dance residencies here in Continental for I think like 15 plus years now which is so exciting um what you are going to see today is the result of about eight or nine class sessions with each of the classes today and over the course of that time they have seen a professional performance put on by my company Cornell Community Theater they have learned about the elements of time space and energy they have really really learned about how they work together how they problem solve together how to compromise with one another how they are very gracious kind and supportive even when they may not agree with their peers and they've learned a lot about their own creative voices the choreography that you would like to see today is not my choreography it's the choreography that they have come up with and we have worked together to shape them to the dances that you are going to see I'm going to tell you more about those dances throughout as we go along but before that I have some thank yous to give because this is white fatiguing effort so I made of this you know kind of like at the Oscars so that I don't forget anyone important hopefully I just so um the first shout out has to go to the third and fourth grade teachers [Applause] [Music] of me of this process so thank you all very very much an extra shout out to Mrs Flowers who does the coordination for this event now [Applause] to Mrs Cueva to Mr Curtis Mr Jesus Mr Marcy Mr Ferguson Ms bayani regular close enough oh God I'm going to work on that for next year especially because she told me she has crossed the future tomorrow um [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] over the gym at different times and she has been really flexible in trying to maintain his individual curriculum but still give us opportunities to cast this information which I really really appreciate it [Applause] I also want to thank some of the funders for the dance residency I want to thank the Continental Foundation Country Fair white elephant and the Tahoma Enterprises for helping fund their residency so thank you to them [Applause] all right now on to the fun stuff so songs of the decade that's the theme for this year and the decades that are represented this year are the 60s 70s 80s 90s and 2000.

thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you so much for everybody for being here tonight we're going to go ahead and get started the Korean School District understands that our community of schools is located in the ancestral land of the honem Jude and some people who descended from the whole come and have inhabited these lands since time immemorial the Odom whose name translates literally to people are a vibrant culture and communities spanning countless Generations into the past continuing to thrive in the present and carrying a powerful Legacy for Generations into the future with this acknowledgment the crane school district formerly recognized that the traditional care and keeping of this lands by indigenous people is an aspirational model of community stewardship that we are committed to honor with practices policy and human relations and Miss Caleb can you please lead us into the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the Republic for which it stands here one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you and that moves us over to rokong um Miss ayers's present to miss McCaleb Miss Gibson McLean and myself we do not have Miss mcsheffery today we want to welcome everyone to tonight's meeting and remind the audience of the request to address the board cards must be completed and submitted to the board secretary they're on their left side if anybody wants to make a public comment if they wish to speak to an agenda item board policy provides for two cards White cards can be submitted in order to speak to an agenda item and the blue cards can be submitted in order to speak during public comments due to open meeting law board members are not allowed to address items that are not on the agenda this is per policy bedh and that brings us over to approval of agenda I move the governing board approve the agenda as presented second all those in favor aye Hilda do we have any public comments today no okay thank you and that brings us to our superintendent report well good evening Creighton community and governing board staff I hope everyone enjoyed a beautiful Mother's Day in whatever form you were able to celebrate or connect with and that this weekend was special for you in some way uh I want to give a congratulations to hour uh support person of the year Aaron Wilkinson to our teacher of the year Joannie Santiago and to our administrator of the year Jeff Guyer we just had our celebration of many awards of school teams that um sorry I was okay uh of many school teams that celebrated adventurous learning Collaborative Learning and kind-hearted leadership and boy what amazing projects have been going on in our school it was great to celebrate you last week uh tomorrow night is our new school design team I think this will be our final input night of community so far and that's Wednesday May 17th 5 30 to 7 o'clock P.M it is also May is Asian Pacific heritage month so we honor and respect and celebrate our Asian Pacific Community and that concludes my soups report next topic is uh to bring up our our Creighton kids Congress and Dr dupin does such a beautiful job in organizing for all this and while the board will be giving awards to our students I didn't know if you'd like to speak to some of the beautiful beautiful conversations we've had with our children over the year thank you very much Dr Lewis Madam president members of the governing board it has become a tradition and an important Cornerstone of the work that we do in Creighton to motivate and Inspire leaders to work with our Creighton kids Congress we have representatives from every school who participate in quarterly events this year they advised on the development of the new school Outdoor Learning spaces they also advised on the progress indicators relative to the goals and the Strategic plan that you'll learn a little bit or hear more of an update on this evening and most recently they gave input into the desired attributes for Creighton's future superintendent so we're so proud of our kids Congress Representatives they bring to us a diversity of thought diversity of opinion diversity of experience and they really are such an honor and a joy and I believe they represent the very best of the best when what crit when kids Congress representatives are selected we ask our school teams to identify kids who don't necessarily who aren't necessarily the typical leader the perhaps the student council president or someone else who maybe you've already recognized as contributing in a leadership role these students demonstrate the ability to speak confidently with adults they demonstrate the ability to share their ideas with openness and honesty they are out of the box thinkers and their creative Learners and we're so proud of them and with that we'd like to invite the five students who are here with us tonight to come up and if you're comfortable share one thing you have enjoyed about being on the uh Creighton kids Congress and then we would like to present you with an award and take your photo if Miss wazolik are you here there you are okay so uh we'll start with uh Santiago Avendano come on up [Applause] go ahead and go to the microphone and just share share something you've enjoyed about being on the kids Congress this year [Music] I'm just thankful to even have the opportunity to be on the kids Congress especially since I get to give out my opinions on stuff that is currently going on with our school system and just having the ability to share my ideas and thoughts on how um you know the school districts are going it's just an absolutely joy for me well we're so glad you're here tonight will you come up in front of the board and now get ready for a photo and we're going to give you your certificate when all five are called up so come on up and stand and then we're gonna call the next awkwardly stand here while everyone that's right he's used okay he's part of the team yeah you're part of it you're part of us um and then um uh Katie Dustin from Biltmore come on up foreign I really liked having the opportunity to like share my opinions um with like people from other schools also I really like going to the other schools yeah we're glad you did it thank you Emily J Lopez from Mackin come on up I really like I really enjoyed what's it called expressing my opinions and helping design a new school [Applause] come on up from Macken I really liked um expressing my opinions and going to the other schools and seeing how they are run in seeing the community around them and things like that yeah yeah it was invaluable thank you just face the audience awkwardly as we've stood first that's that's the standard now uh Bartolo quizada come on up Creighton Virtual Academy [Applause] hi how much I just want to say I'm very honored of being part of the kids Congress um I just want to say thank you and I like that I was able to to express my opinions on the different um aspects of what is going on in the district and everything um that you guys have done for us and yes an even difficult like you could give critical feedback right guys is that all true for all of you you could be critical yes okay good that's what we want working for the picture yeah one two three [Applause] don't forget their little glitch back yes oh yes yes a little swag and I just want to say a couple words um I think us as board members this is crucial for us having this Korean kids it's amazing to see leadership roles in our students and I think at the end of the day this is what we want to see we want to see kids thriving that their opinions matter and that they are part of the process this is why I'm so thankful that we have this and you guys are doing amazing you guys are going to be the next one sitting up here I already know that so thank you um and we also heard that we were like the only District that our consultant had worked with that had students give feedback about superintendent qualities or improvements that could be made in the district when doing a superintendent hiring process which is a little surprising because they've even worked with high school so um unbelievable I think I think if if we uh are trying to improve efficacy with our students the best thing we can do is create high expectations that they can rise to and they can certainly do that and giving feedback obviously so yes we're super proud thank you guys [Applause] all right so that brings us and I don't know if everybody knows but we have Spanish translation in the back just for us board members too so if we cannot talk so fast and in English is um that brings us over to governing board reports Miss Ayers can you go ahead and get us started sure um I'm sure that most of the teachers and staff are probably as tired as I am right now um I don't know why but may always seems to have like a million days in it um especially when you're trying to end your year and finish out 90 internship hours in five weeks um and do homework at the same time um it is um pretty demanding um so I did get to go to my graduation last week um I graduated from college great um my wife before she passed away made me promise that I would go um so I I went um on her behalf and um it was hard but um I'm really proud of myself I still have two more weeks of work until I'm officially done which I will probably then hibernate for a week and sleep which I usually do after school anyway um and so now I'm looking for job opportunities to become either an assistant or a principal so I'm really excited about um taking on the next step of my life I've been teaching for 23 years and I love every minute of it and I know that I will also love being an administrator as well so um have a great break because I don't think we have a meeting have a great summer um enjoy your time off get some of that rest that you so desperately need um and we'll see you next year if we don't see you during the summer May 26th last day thank you so much and congratulations I know schools it's a hard thing Miss McCaleb um yes congrats Miss Ayers um I also was really excited last week we all got to go to the end of year ceremony as Dr Lewis shared um some amazing people won awards um and I just love being a part of that um so congratulations to all of our staff members who were nominated for awards and of course are big Winners um I'm also excited Thursday I get to be a judge for a coding showcase at Biltmore prep so I'm excited for that um that Ed Tech coach in me is really nerdying out about it um and then yeah seven more days so let's finish strong I know there's a lot of amazing fun celebratory events over the next week and a half I have some here as well as my district um so just please enjoy enjoy these last moments especially our 8th graders um if any 8th graders are listening enjoy these moments before you leave our district for your high school adventures and our staff please please please take an actual Break Even our 12 month take a break um everybody needs it so thank you so much Miss Gibson McLean I mean you all have already said a lot about the end of the school year um I definitely uh can relate um many of the experiences I had were with seniors which is a whole nother level of not caring at the end of the school year but I can imagine it's much the same in many places the end of the school year um so you're almost there I know next Friday seems like a long ways away but you're gonna make it it's gonna be okay um so I really appreciate what everyone does day in and day out and I really hope people are able to take some time off that isn't also just working another job or doing work here that you're not getting paid for I hope that people are able to do some self-care and personal time over the summer um and yeah I don't think I I'm excited for promotions I enjoyed the awards ceremony I'm enjoying going to all kinds of events whenever we can it's fun um and you know I have I have my days at work and every time that there's a very rough day at work like maybe today um I am reminded why I do this outside of work um I for so many clients have to get school records IEPs um talk to social workers learn about who they were when they were younger and it's so so apparent the connections you can make between kind of the the childhood educational experiences of people and where they are as adults in the criminal justice system and I see that every day when I come here after a particularly hard day it helps me kind of justify what I do every day during the day and helps me feel a little bit better because I know we have some great folks here that are making a difference in people's lives every day so I really appreciate everyone thank you um just for me um yes end of the year everybody's pretty much said that um I'm actually in a naleo conference this morning and tomorrow it's a two-day Phoenix conference and naleo is the National Association of Latino elected officials and it was really interesting to get the data that we've been getting um today we got some reports from the nap achievement level percentages we specifically got for Arizona fourth grade and eighth grade and it was really startling to see that our eighth grade math is really below State average it was just crazy to see these numbers how you know 8th graders are it's important for them to get a grasp of literacy and math because they're going into high school so this was an eye-opening experience of what we can do here at school district to make sure we're supporting our eighth graders to get them ready to go to high school also another interesting thing about going to these conferences is that you get to meet people from other states other cities other places in Arizona Nogales which is a Border Town in um in Arizona that actually has kids kids that are being bussed from the border into Nogales or San Luis their actual literacy and math is way higher than a lot of the schools that we even have in Phoenix so it was really interesting to see how the way that they're operating whatever it is that they're doing that there so now I'm going to take a drive down there and figure out what it is that they're doing because these kids are not from this country they're being bussed into the United States studying and their achievement levels are through the roof so I'm not sure if that's something that goes into to dual language which I'm sure it is because there's so many you know statistics out there on how kids learn better and they adapt better so that's one of the things that I'm I'm looking forward to the next school year is really going into that and expanding our Horizons and seeing how we can actually learn off of those schools and school districts to implement things here so we can have you know better achievements for our kids and student outcomes because at the end of the day that's why we do this is that our kids are being set up for Success so it's really interesting I know a lot of the times and I like to talk about these conferences because I know that there's a sentiment some things out there they're like oh you guys just go to these conferences but it really is deep diving learning figuring out what other people are doing this data and what we can do to this District to have better outcomes um and yeah that's my board report oh um yeah and then Everybody's Free To Stay I love it when we have parents students here but I know that the student portion of it was over so if anybody wants to leave oh yeah yeah or the Congress kids but you guys can stay that's right sorry yeah okay and we're almost there anyway so um that takes us to our next which is our approval of consent I move the governing board approve agenda items a through H in accordance with policy b-e-d-b-e so I'm sorry so I'll approve I'll move the company board approve agenda items a through b and d through H impulsi okay I second that motion all those in favor aye aye and C was pulled so um Steve was just pulled because there needs to be an amendment made on it um and it's on there's a bunch of donations and we need to take one of them off um the Christopher Conti for Amazon for the Kindles um we just need to strike it from the agenda it was meant for a donation to PTO and not the actual School thank you for making that um Amendment if everybody's okay might have a second motion um Hilda did you get that yeah yeah okay may I have a well I second that motion oh those in favor aye aye aye perfect yeah pass this all right that brings us to our Junior Ambassador Adventure report it has been great pleasure as our student speakers our teacher and our wonderful coordinator for the program gets set up for the presentation I want to let you know that Creighton School District is one of the few districts who have this opportunity and it's been offering for many many years for all of our students to experience and learn about other cultures cultures and also uh culminate the year study with a trip that allows the students to implement everything that they have learned so they learn from United States history and culture and then they're also from other countries in the past they had traveled through Germany and other places China and currently for the last three years Costa Rica in Japan Japan Kenya yes Puerto Penasco is the original one I think that right yes there we go yeah one second so this was wonderful student speakers that we have um they just came back from Washington DC and they can't wait to share their experience with you um my name is board members it's very nice to be here this evening I've been in charge of the program for five years I think but I've been involved with Junior ambassadors since I first started teaching in the district which was over 30 years ago so thank you thanks for staying with us I've been an advocate of this program forever because I just really believe that there is so much that students experience and learn from the after school program as well as the um the travel part so um okay so the program that we have with the junior ambassadors there's an after-school portion to it and for the kids that go to DC that includes aspects of U.S geography a deeper dive U.S Constitution and U.S history as you know the mission of the program is to provide Creighton students with an understanding of our world it's diverse cultures and America's relationships within it our students went to Washington DC and spent five days there you can there were 13 participants this year we've had as many as 60 in the past but covid kind of well that year nothing happened and then we're slowly building our numbers back so we're hoping that people will be excited about traveling again and as you can see these are the schools and how many came from each each district here are some ideas some of the places that the students went as part of their itinerary pictures of some of the places that they saw more of their itinerary I mean there's so much more they were exhausted every day I can tell you um were you guys able to do the move I'm sorry to interrupt were you guys able to do the museums this time I know oh yes yes yes they did yeah I saw the Holocaust Museum on the phone yeah yeah I can't remember okay oh the Aerospace was on there there's the memorials so now I mean I'm just kind of going through this quickly just to give you a a quick idea I think you know about all the wonderful places that are there and they did get to see just about everything you could see in that time period so now we're going to have them come up and speak the first pro let me just talk about the year-long learning which I kind of spoke about already but we also tried to get the kids to to learn a little bit about responsibility life skills um they did a presentation where they had to dig dig a little deeper into a state and do a a whole vacation with they had seven thousand dollars and they had to do a a trip for four and what would they go see and do a whole budget and everything so we did some interesting activities as the as part of the after school program to learn more about our country so we're going to start with museums who's doing museums come on out introduce yourself like you let her go first and then you'll go okay introduce yourself uh infinity you need to get up nice and close to the say your name vanity and then tell tell her what okay so on Monday we went to the Holocaust Museum uh we learned about a lot um what happened during World War II and the Holocaust the this was cool because we'll be learning about this in eighth grade um later on each of us got a victim identity card and we learned about more people and what they were um doing yeah during the Holocaust yeah that's live um hi my name is from yahir Cortez and we first went to the air and space museum we saw a space about space shuttle that actually gone to space and we saw a lot of planes from World War II he also found some really old places some Modern planes and my favorite thing there was the Space Shuttle because I liked space and um our last stop before flying home was the National History Museum we saw a lot of fossils and other animals we even got to see some scientists working on exactly fossils of stone we are all became very good friends on a trip thank you [Music] okay we went to the World War II Memorial this is the first tomorrow we visited we learned that Americans came together to fund this Memorial in honor of the people who served military and World War II we also got to find out our state and other states that were meaningful to us this Memorial was also really cool because we could see the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument from there at the cemetery in Arlington National Cemetery at the cemetery we learned more about our country's history we saw the President Kennedy's grave and Ruth baders skin spur grave we also watched The Changing of the Guard for the unknown soldiers I thought it was interesting that we have a guard at the grave at all times thank you now the next several are about famous homes and just different places that they visited outside of museums and memorials uh one of one of the things one of the places we went to go see was on the Mount Vermont where Vernon where George Washington lived and it was really interesting to see because like you could see all the slaves and like how they were kept in his house like underground in the tunnel and you could um you could um connect the history to it because it was really interesting to see how they all survived in like a really dirty and unsanitary Place yeah we also got to see his grave in Mount Vermont and see like how beautiful it was there because there was a really nice view that George Washington got to see when he was alive and I just I personally found it really interesting um uh the next place we went was Monticello where Thomas Jefferson lived when he was alive and it had a lot of interesting stuff in his house too like George Washington and it was it was like a museum almost because there are so many cultures in there of like the Native Americans or like Native American people and you could see other like weapons that they used we also learned about the enslaved community in Monticello because there was also some enslaved people there and it was it was really interesting to to see how they both like lived in the house during the time and like all the slaves going through it through the houses and stuff thank you so much [Music] hello my name is Kaylee and one of my two most favorite places uh on this trip which one of them was the University of Virginia um I learned that books and learning were very important to Thomas Jefferson and also he started a university uh he started the University of Virginia and a lot of famous people went to their school there including Edgar Allan Poe they also have secret societies that you can join like the seven that focus on giving charity and giving the school National Funds for more activities for the students we learned about what we can what we have to do to get ready for college my second most favorite place that we went on the trip was air Lincoln ghost of our ghost the Arlington ghosts of our past tour oh cool was it after dark no it was about around this time even though this was a ghost tour we learned a lot about history from our guide she taught us about historical clothing and traditions my favorite story was about the Unknown Soldier and you were supposed to touch the gate or you'd be follow home but majority of us did not touch it were you followed no no following nobody no okay thank you so much we don't know yet my name is Johnny and performance he saw was Twilight tattoo we went to the Army base we saw different historical army uniforms and the performance was really fun to watch I'm sorry I have to ask what does twilight tattoo oh it's called Twilight tattoo because I guess when they do Taps that's Tata tattoo I was like what kind of performance I know I looked it up but it's at an army base and they have all the historical different historical uniforms that they do marches and it's very very entertaining nice we also got a tour of the capital on our last day we got to go on the tour of the Capitol they told us about the founding of America we also saw a lot of statues because each state gets to send two statues of people from their state that have contributed to America wow wow thank you so much um we have we're going to have this young lady talk about skills that they used or learned on the trip just a few of them so during the trip we always have to be flexible because sometimes we'd have to get ready faster than we would normally do on a normal day-to-day basis um it's like this like showers had to be cut shorter it would also have to be like more responsible because we'd like always have to listen and pay attention to what um the tour guides and leaders teachers would always say and we'd always still have to get up like on time even if we were tired and do what we had to do perseverance yeah and it was long days yeah yeah we'd always get back to the hotel like nine those are it's a lot how many days total five yeah okay nobody mentioned this but was there any good food on this trip yeah I was gonna ask did you guys go to the food trucks outside the there's a whole bunch of food trucks outside the museum we didn't go to any yeah Mr she was one of the chaperones that went on the truck trip she would just like to say a few words about what the experience was for her yeah it was really fun um the kids were amazing I feel like they were making a lot of connections to things they've heard about in class but being able to experience it was like a whole new level like our eighth graders who went red Diary of Anne Frank this year and learned about the Holocaust but actually going to the Holocaust Museum like added a whole other level to it um and then the the younger grades learning American history learning about George Washington and Thomas Jefferson the founding fathers and being able to actually like go to those homes they were like oh this is what was going on at the time and it really I think made things a lot more real for them so yeah I think it's very valuable experience finally we just want to know do you have any questions for any of these young people come up here guys come up here just questions for any of them do we have any questions go ahead Miss so how many of you this was like your first trip out of like the state into another state I mean uh how many of you was the first time on an airplane yeah oh nobody wow this is impressive yeah okay and I have to say we could talk about it in class most of the kids have been to Arizona California and Mexico okay so like I was gonna say yeah how many outside of the Southwest yeah yeah California or Mexico raise your hand this is the first time you've been someplace else nice yeah outside of the Four Corners yeah the backy back East is like really different isn't it yeah there was green plants and cherry blossoms did you guys get to see the cherry blossoms no it's too hot oh let's do that okay oh interesting I didn't know that I'm always jealous when you guys go on these trips because I've been to Washington a couple times but literally I I like really haven't been anywhere there um it's always been for conferences so I love that you guys got to go to so many museums and you got to experience so many things and that you did make connections because that's what it's really about is seeing things um like visually and being able to be there to have that experience because just looking at a book really doesn't do it for us most of the time right so I'm glad that you guys had that chance thank you Miss Harris Miss McCaleb yeah I know you guys come into those interesting that it became more real raise your hand if you felt like emotional in some of these museums or the memorials and again a little bit a little bit the train car did that like impact you when you've been in the train car I remember that oh yeah no I think this is an amazing opportunity um and I know you know it's one thing to read about it in books and watch videos but I'm so happy that you guys got this experience and thank you guys for presenting to us I know you just got back and you're like processing it all too so thank you for coming tonight yeah yeah thank you Miss Gibson McQueen um thank you all for coming to present I really appreciate you taking you and your family or whoever brought you this evening thank you for taking your time out and coming to present um you know when I went to school in this District Junior ambassadors was newer but very well participated in and I think I went to DC with an entire Tour Bus full of kids from across the district and I made friends with people from other schools that then I could connect with when I got to high school and I'm still friends with some of those people today and I had some really big experiences like at the Holocaust Museum and other places that were like very impactful to me and I think another thing just from and it wasn't evident today but I think it's a it is evident and a big deal is like kids that grow up in the neighborhoods that we do and go to the schools that we do don't get to fly in planes and go on a ton of trips when they're kids and so there's a lot of experiences that are counterparts in the suburbs have that we don't have and so I think just having programs like this really opens doors for us and and our youth that not necessarily be there if these programs didn't exist so I think I'm glad that the program's been around for so long and I'm hoping that we can get more participation kind of back how it used to be in the old days I know there's a lot of barriers to that but I think part of the other thing I was going to mention was back in the day um just kind of the community that we built when it was time to fundraise and at Monte Vista we would have a night where we would all make tamales in like in the cafeteria and then we would sell them all to raise money we had like rummage sales we would do all these things and part of the fun was like spending time with everybody and their families and trying to figure out how you're going to raise money to go on these trips so I think it's just like a super all-encompassing thing rather than just the trip itself and so I really appreciate everything you two have done and I hope you guys even if you're not thinking about it now maybe you'll process it later and think well that was pretty cool I'm glad I did that yes thank you so much for being here I appreciate you guys so much thank you for your many years all right and that brings us to our next item which is our strategic planning goal progress thank you madam president for the last 18 months or so as you know the team has been on a journey to reimagine the strategic planning process and to progress on new goals and aligned attributes of progress so this evening our facilities are very skilled facilitators um Amanda K and Colleen Conley are here to lead us in conversation this evening while we present some of the highlights of this year's work see it your patience is appreciated while we connect to the Apple TV Maybe five more seconds here foreign [Music] thank you for um inviting us to talk with you tonight about the updates on the strategic planning process um when our presentation comes up we will kind of go through um what there we go we'll go through the process that we went through to come to the priorities and goals that we got to this year and we'll be able to talk a little bit more about the specific process that we use to gather all the information and the data and to to learn about the outcomes that we've seen so thank you [Music] all right we can hop back in like nothing happened so good evening thank you for having us tonight we are really excited to be sharing with you this progress and actually the progress um updates won't be coming from us but rather from the goal leads so we're really excited to have them up here and share all of the progress that the school district has made just as a bit of a refresher um you'll remember that this process was a year-long process to get us to a place where we had goals in a set Direction um we heard from hundreds out in the community we spoke with um kids Congress we heard from parents other students other community members Partners out in the community and gathered all of the data to then inform what the goals and the um priority would be moving forward uh and this like I said goes back to the last school year the one previous to this what we heard was that the vision the mission our beliefs who we are those were all really core to who we are as a school district um and that those really are our hearts and what guides us they're sort of our North Star so so using those then as the compass here they are we then worked with the strategic planning steering committee which was comprised again of parents teachers community members and worked with them as well as um teachers here at the school leadership and administration to then put together what the goals in the direction would be moving forward and using adventurous thinkers collaborative Learners kind-hearted leaders because that's core to Who We Are these were the Strategic goals that were then generated and this year a lot of our focus last year a lot of our Focus was on Gathering data to create those goals and this year was creating a benchmark for a lot of the data that you'll be hearing about tonight so in the past a lot of this data have been floating around but there wasn't necessarily a way to capture it so that we could measure ourselves year over year and that was one of the big pieces that we heard from the whole process leading up to is that we want to be able to measure our progress we want to know is it working is it not working if it's not working how are we going to change it so this year our big Focus was to really start to gather that data in one centralized location to create benchmarking opportunities so that year after year we'll be able to compare and move forward so we will have the goal leads come up now and present on these four goals to be clear there was a lot of progress that was made we'll be sharing that tonight and as Colleen mentioned as we look to the Future there's two more years with left with a strategic plan we expect there to be even more progress to report out on awesome thank you just want to thank really quickly and introduce uh Miss Martha Hernandez Martha is our special projects coordinator for innovation in the Arts and Sciences Martha is standing in this evening for Dr Michelle Berg who is out uh uh post-surgery good evening Madam president Dr Lewis members of the governing board and cabinet as we can see oops oh we can't see that our first goal um is academic excellence and we can see that our first um highlight here for first of all my name is Marta Hernandez special project coordinator for Innovative in the Arts and Sciences and I'm an honored I'm honored to be here to present our progress on goal number one so as we can see here we have our first highlight is um our elective courses so for these two highlights number one and number two um we were able to collect data from all schools in order to determine what enrichment opportunities were offered at each site across our district throughout the year we were able to monitor these opportunities as we all expended um specific opportunities for example we were able to hire another band teacher that provided extra classes for all of our sites we also were able to hire two gifted teachers that also expanded um these Services um and um in addition to support the programs um we also form new Partnerships for example the Phoenix boys choir and our partnership with the University of Arizona with project wet through these efforts up to the beginning of the fourth quarter um we had nearly 3 000 students participating in participating in enrichment opportunities as we think about um and we move forward about these two highlights and this goal our next steps are to include and ensure that there are Equitable access for students by looking at the participation of students by subgroups when we see our highlight number three um and a continued effort to ensure Equitable access for all of our students um this past year a subgroup of the adventures learning committee was able to work and develop a special education parent advisory Council we they were able to look and research-based models in Arizona as were across the country to create a model that would allow the community to assist in supporting providing input on future decisions related to our special education student population again we look forward to beginning that work through that Community next school year um for our highlights four and five an important part in determining how to best support our students in learning is to have a clear understanding of their strengths and and their needs so this year over 90 percent of our students were assessed multiple times throughout the year using our new Benchmark system which is and our literacy portfolios initiative teachers throughout the district have had training and opportunities to utilize our new assessment platforms to report on the reporting system this specific system provides reports to meet the user needs by providing multiple ways to interact with data at the district and school-wide level all the way down to the student question and level analysis the wide variety of reports allows Educators at levels at different levels to make informed instructional decisions to support students learning throughout the school year additionally to support our literacy initiative through Esser we were able to allocate over three hundred thousand dollars to support the teachers development in the science of reading this past year we have been able to provide over 6 000 hours of professional development on the science of reading the elements of the science of reading directly correlate with the data we collected through our personalized literacy portfolios building teachers capacity to intervene appropriately for the next two highlights we have highlight six and seven it's the Baseline survey data and then a new survey that we're looking into for this um to Highlights um the Baseline data has indicated that there has been an there is a need I'm sorry there is a need for our teachers um they they need more support and how to use our district adopted resources and materials this past year we have had um an addition literacy support as I mentioned earlier in a prior slide where we did the professional development um and we also have provided um specific math professional development for our new math adoption to groups of teachers through Affinity groups and learning cadres these are choices I'm offering for for professional development with the goal of developing our teachers leaders in specific content areas we're looking forward as we put in place more systematic means of determining whether I'm sorry means of determined teacher needs for support So a new survey is being constructed with our partners Hanover research to better capture teachers curricular strengths preferences and need as well as board priorities this information will allow was to more effectively diagnose the support of our teachers needs and will help our department plan relevant and meaningful professional development that's for goal number one any questions that I can probably answer or not do we have any questions or comments I do not well you do you do you do not thank you so much for the information yeah thank you good evening it's a pleasure to be here um Madam president members of the governing board Dr Lewis members of the executive team students parents staff and community members it is my pleasure to be here tonight to talk to you about our highlights and our hopes for goal two which is access diversity equity and inclusion my name is Linda McKeever I am the special projects coordinator for child Justice and advocacy so in terms of the work that we have begun to do within the district one of the most um the most eventful and one of the most intriguing and engaging events were the youth Equity stewardship events which were delivered at every one of our campuses and through those delivery options over 900 students participated as we typically had two grade levels who were participating so they were able to participate in sometimes two days and then another class might be invited in for the second day all around the conversations and concepts of culture Community Equity self-awareness social awareness differing dimensions of difference identities different perspectives and it's all wrapped around stewardship and includes art music movement dance and poetry and so students were heavily engaged because we had some amazing amazing facilitators who really brought forth a lot of conversations with the students to the point where by the second day when they arrived to to youth Equity stewardship they were ready to get on the mic and to recite their poems they were very powerful and in many classrooms those poems are still posted within classroom walls and kids often visit them so in terms of sustainability Dr dupin really helped us to discover how we could move towards sustainability so we've already begun developing the sustainability model and in that sustainability model at each building The Advocates who are there because we have one Advocate at each building and two Advocates at Mackin The Advocates present to all of the students rather than only a portion of students so it may be to a fifth grade group of students three sections of fifth grade and maybe three sections of sixth grade so all students are encouraged to to apply to become a youth Equity Steward and that's what we're calling the sustainability piece because engendering the the concepts that are critical and the principles that are critical within youth Equity stewardship a lot of it resonates already within our our exceptions not our exceptions but our expectations within the district so those students will be able to apply be selected and then they will be pulled and next year to work on lessons and to turn around lessons for students and part of the goal is about accessing student choice and student voice so rather than selecting a group of students who could have been whose names could have been given to us by their teachers we are providing the the presentations for all of those students and the individuals who facilitated the youth Equity stewardship made a great video for them just to give them the reminders of what what yes is all about and so our goal is next year to have students co-develop lessons for grades K through through eight and to be able to deliver those lessons with support either in trios or in in pairs and with some adult support additionally we had our Advocates work together very quickly and very um very intentionally with the support of Pam Burkhart who is here as our grants director she provided his training offered as a great deal of support and we were able to submit nine school safety grants to support the funding for our Advocates under the terminology as counselors because with the credentials that they have we can do that we can make that that that realization happen so we've not heard anything yet and it is a first come first serve um situation so we are waiting to hear more from the state um I have a quick question what happens if that Grant does not go through so if we if we are not um if we don't receive the grant then we have the year 23 24 the upcoming year will be paid for with The Advocates through Esser funds we're hopeful that at least we perhaps have at least four or more buildings that are approved and should those should we not receive those grants we will be searching for other grants and other opportunities perhaps to leverage some funds so that we can continue that work I've also had conversations with The Advocates as they're we're doing data Gathering right now which we will have after the school year is over we're creating the baselines but what I've explained to the stat to the to The Advocates is you need to be indispensable in the building and recognizing as I look through their use of time documentation they're being used in a lot of different functions and this is our first year so as we go into the next year we really want to focus on 80 Direct Services to students because there's a lot that goes around that but that direct support to students is also a part of the ask of the Arizona School counseling associations model so we want to be able to to do the very best we can through grants through the school safety grants and any other grants that we can and also perhaps work with other districts that that may may perhaps did not maybe they didn't also receive approval for their grants to identify if there are ways that we can kind of consider different options and be able to put our heads together and work harder not smarter okay thank you for that um in addition to that um a hope for us as this summer we are going we are beginning to work on some um some lessons and and uh and social skills groups groups for students using um some different identified uh curricular opportunities as we have three vendors that we are seeking um to to bring forward probably by the end of August we're doing a lot of the the back work right now uh but by the end of August we'd like to start the adoption process and the goal is to have um six people at each building be able to participate in the adoption process and to be able to uh I'm sorry the piloting process so it would be one one primary one intermediate one middle uh specials teacher a resource teacher and The Advocate and then we will work to get them the training that they need to be able to navigate um in those particular uh platforms and when we begin when we begin that that process of the adoption the then we know that we have community members that can can access the the materials our staff our family members everyone will have access to those different platforms and then we will have scoring identification so that it will go into a Google form to give us additional Data before we move forward to the adoption process those are the hopes is that we'll be able to uh to have a good flow in terms of of the pilots working well and providing instruction and then we'll ask for specific feedback from from those individuals piloting so there will be at least six at each building but it won't stop other teachers from being able to get into those adoptions or not the adoptions but the platforms to perhaps find some lessons that might work well for them as well that's our hope secondary to the access diversity Equity inclusion piece has to do with our with our facilities and I apologize I'm sorry that's okay good question I'm going to full disclosure I want to continue to call it social emotional learning however um has the district thought about different terminology based on some certain things coming down from our state so Linda I'll take that this development has been referred to and whatever I just want to make sure that we can effectively go through an adoption process our kids our teachers absolutely need these resources and I want to make sure that we don't get blocked so the couple things we've been thinking about Madam president members of the board absolutely this is heavy on our minds as we think about what is discussable and what's not also what's fundable and what's not as you are likely aware the Arizona Department of Education has put limits on what federal grants can be used actually limited we can't use federal grants to fund social emotional learning resources anymore so we're looking at other funding sources like curriculum Capital which we would normally utilize for math or science or Social Security just explain that some more about how Ade is allowed to dictate how Federal monies are used I'm sorry I'm just that I'm generally honest question and I know it could be brief I'm just curious I'll do the best I can the way that that is overseen is they have to approve all our grants yes and they've explicitly stated that with Grant requests that include social emotional Learning Materials will not be approved and no one's that hasn't happened yet no one's obviously challenged it yet not as far as I know I think it's challengeable cool so that's why we've leaned in heavily on the concepts of access and advocacy access and inclusion those are terminologies that really do reflect the spirit of our work but also are more General in in terms of their controversy and controversial nature and to add to that when when we were writing the grants as the as The Advocates were writing their grants we were very specific about the language and the rationale behind the language change and so they're very they understood that very very well um so I'm going to go ahead and shift to the facilities piece and Linda can I jump in real quick okay sorry sorry um just it might these might feel a little like out of place why would a facilities piece go under Equity however we were very intentional in building the idea that access to facilities access to facilities resources very much an equity issue so as the district grapples with challenges and and space enrollment we have to be very mindful to ensure access and Equity as those decisions and conversations are made and Mr Man can I put you on the spot for just a moment to kind of just address seven and eight real quick or six seven and eight yes um so one other thing one of the activities we've been involved in is taking a look at the various properties and the reason that this fits under goal two is we've had conversations around you know what's efficient for the district to operate and what are the desires of the community as our student enrollment declines and yet we still operate the same number of schools that we operated when we had you know seven or eight thousand students in the district there have been some deep conversations and there have been some Partners brought to the table some that did pro bono work and some that were hired to do work for us and so when we talk about the assessments ADM architecture group did do assessments of all of our facilities to give us a sense of their current state what types of repairs and maintenance they required to have that factor into conversations around what should we do with facilities in the future they're also working with Davis demographics and they're still getting a an updated demographic survey completed for us but beyond that we had some conversations we received some pro bono work from Roi which is a real estate Consulting Group that helped us with the valuations of our properties and if we were to lease those properties what might those lease values look like so those were really big pieces of work and pieces that that team assessed but the other big problem that team ran into is it was small and so they wanted to increase participation representation so they built a plan to tap all of the other committees to have them weigh in and it made sense in logic because budget advisory as an example would have budgetary things that they could share with the group or the equity working group could talk about well what are the equity concerns related to these conversations so at the end of the day item Aid is that we're still gathering this information with the desire to continue the work through the summer so that we're able to have hard conversations and fall thank you so much if you have do we have any questions or comments we do not thank you so much you so much you did have a comment there's a comment about the section not like a question I mean I've brought this up with Jay I briefly touched on it with you about getting creative about how we can utilize programs and you talked about this too that don't cost us any money or provide value to us and don't cost us money and so I'd love for us to explore becoming a Vista site an Americorps Vista site I'd love for us to explore hiring in MSW so we can have MSW interns I think all of these things are valuable ways that I have personally worked in an environment in a school district with that have really provided so much help in in kind of aiding some of these issues in goal 2 particularly and and we are having conversations with the Creighton Community Foundation that already has some of those relationships to leverage their relationships to perhaps expedite being able to do some of those things cool thank you thank you thank you Linda good afternoon members of the war um I'm Ivanka rochal Your Community Education director and slash bishar um so I get to speak today as a goal three community and family engagement which is dear to my heart and everybody's here um and so these are the highlights that we are choosing to share with you and so members of the meeting conferred team pandemic prioritization task force and governing board approved the following stipends why because we are retaining the talent that we have we are trying to be competitive and attract new talent and we know that after the pandemics great needs have been uh exacerbated in our community and part of our community and our families our employees that's where we start and if we don't have uh employees that can find affordable housing or be taking care of their families how do we expect them to be ready to attend the emotions and all of the needs and academic needs of our families and so this is an attempt and you rightly so supported these attempts you know the other highlights that we would like to share with you and oh perfect I skipped that one thank you so sorry I skipped this one it's very important one uh as we hear from the community um and we are lucky that we have a research specialist that is one of our uh schools we didn't have a system in which to capture all of the needs of the communities on the students so part of the goal was to create a referral system for support and services and as of 5 pm today they have been 2509 um referrals they're not have only been received but they have been fulfilled and you may wonder what type of referrals we have and where are they coming from so mostly they're coming from the southbound of our district and the person who are referring because we know that we have lots of caring staff members but also members of the community so 1800 of those 72 percent have been referrals initiated by our staff members and when I say staff members from administrators cafeteria workers teachers para professionals everybody families have self-preferred older families or their own family 15 so 381 and the coolest thing is we need to teach our our students self-advocacy and so these referral system allows for self-referrals for the students and we have received five percent of the total of 2500 so 124 that were initiated by the students saying I need help my family needs help how do they do that there's um posters around all of our buildings with a QR code and the teachers displayed in their classrooms and so in the front office next time you're in one of our buildings look for those posters and you can see the website it's also the website or the link or the QR code and family can just scan them and then it just goes to someone it goes directly it goes directly to um no phone number at this time only Google drive but it's something that we can strive to it goes directly to the Outreach specialist and to the administration in that uh in that building or Department I was asking like is it Google form yes okay cool yes and is it like what kinds of things is it clothing food just you're one step ahead of me so 49 of the referrals have to be with basic needs such food clothing and housing uh 15 of the of those sort of referrals are for resources for schools needs that they have for school 21 are for families experiencing homelessness and those are the big highlights so again our community uh it's needing a lot of resources and so this is a good way not the perfect way but one one another way to capture all of these needs did you say 25 21 21 experiencing homelessness part of the highlights of the of this goal is to also engage and make sure that the voice and representation of all of our community members and families are in every committee and everything uh and everything that we do that we receive their feedback and so as you can see on number three an instructional model has been created for the new school which focuses on providing learning experiences in the outdoors and that's one need that came not just through uh Educators but also from family members is something that they appreciate also Partnerships were established to find resources for Outdoor Learning and spaces and then a complete package which all of the members of the team have seen and for the schematic designs of the new school was was completed and so all of this is to provide voice and to make sure that at every level of our operations there's input for students families and community members because we're not alone we're a team and they need to be at the table do we have any questions or comments weird data question but were any of the did you keep data on whether any of those referrals were like repeat families or people or some of those referrals are repeated families because maybe you have some problems or needs in September and then you got back on your feed with the agencies and so forth provided and then back again after break is usually when we see those experiences um and in January you can self-refer so that's one of the creative things that just because you use it once you're not limited we want to hear your needs and we want to hear them as often as you have them so any other questions or comments this is a comment that I love that and I'm gonna steal it and try and bring it next door we we can share whatever we have yeah thank you thank you so much Madam president members of the board my name is Emily wazolik I'm a communications director it is my honor to go through the quote the goal for highlights so the first thing I want to highlight is there was a garden landscape manager position created and staffed and that person has made sure that there is infrastructure created at all the schools so garden beds drip systems soil and has started creating Partnerships within the community and writing for Grants to make sure our Gardens are sustainable he also worked with each school to identify a garden Lead Teacher at each site that's going to bring the curriculum into the garden we love Gardens here yes so does the community yes um a new employee health plan was fully deployed in January so that uh increased our in-network providers and so gave our employees more access to um a more Superior health care and it also upgraded our employee assistance program that offers um access now to spouses and dependents that are under the age of 26 and it's open to all staff in some variation of that program A new mouse notification system is in use at all schools and was deployed at the beginning of the year and one of the highlights of that system is its ease of use so now it's a one button touch for text email and robocall instead of having to go through and do each thing individually so that actually increased our ability to communicate in the event of emergency much more effectively and we have heard from our families that they really like the texting capabilities and I will attest to that as a parent we had a weird early release day and night you know totally spaced it and if it wouldn't have been for that text message my kid would have been left without a ride so that is very important because text messages come right to the phone so it's effective and in our school I don't know if it's every once we get them in English and Spanish so yep our uh our new system to uh translates really well in actually every language that our families have identified that is home language so we have a long list of translation capabilities our system before now you parents had to opt in to receive text messages so our opt-in rate was pretty low and so our text rate was low and now we can just text and then they can opt out if they don't want to receive it so that's really increased our communication with families and then lastly under the health wellness and safety umbrella Wellness Champions committee was established to create Wellness Champions on each site and the Safety Committee and compensation committee continued and just evolving with the new goals and and plans awesome do we have any questions or comments from the board what is the math what is the mass notification system uh Blackboard Blackboard yeah which three more years thank you so much and so Madame President members of course you have here from the facilitators in our sternum Consultants but I have to get speakers that would like to introduce to you one is one of the agencies that we collaborate and she's going to give testimonies of all of this beautiful plan that you see in writing how's your experience as he she collaborates with with us and then the second person is Alicia antiveros which is one of our family members from Gateway school and she's going to give us an opinion about how we're doing as a school district and then what she expects for the new superintendent okay so it's like that hello um everybody um hi everybody my name is Shelby klitso I come from the Red House Clan towering house Clan red streaks into the water Clan and um I always forget this one where's one of them um um the reason why I introduced myself in that way is because um I am Navajo I come from the Navajo Nation um called kanta Arizona um and the reason why I introduced myself with these four Clans is because each one comes from um a family member of mine so my mom my dad my maternal grandparents and my paternal grandparents I introduced myself in that way because that is how we show our respect and you know we respect you um I would just like to say which is thank you so thank you to all of you for your wonderful planning that you have done throughout the year especially the team behind me they are doing an amazing job um and let me just introduce myself further on what I do and why I'm here um I am the student enrollment coordinator at an emergency housing shelter that caters to Native American families here um in Phoenix with our shelter we transport families from the reservation to come down here and to explore the opportunities that the city life has and during their stay in our shelter they work on their parents are working on their sobriety whether it's with alcoholism drugs um and then they're also receiving housing so what I do at the emergency housing shelters I work with each family and enrolling each student into a school now this is my very first year in this position is my very first I'm the very first person to do what I am doing with the shelter this shelter was established three years ago um and with those three years they said they needed somebody to work with the kids and I stepped up and I'm doing it so that's why I am here um and coming here each student um I coming here I really just wanted to voice how thankful how grateful we are at the shelter for each and every person teachers staff members Liaisons and just everything that you guys have done for us um uh from my point of view I see parents who are scared who are confused and they just want help they just want help with their life and getting um you know back on their feet and that in order to do that they choose to leave their home they choose to leave the one thing that they know and that's the reservation and sometimes life on the reservation is very very harsh it's cruel and they they see that there's a future in the city so that's why they are here and when the kids come they they tell us like they're shy and they're nervous and they're scared but with all the faculty members and all the planning that you guys do um I am proud to say that we did an amazing job this school year with enrolling over a hundred kids and keeping them enrolled and sometimes you know they do leave but they always try to stay within the school district and that's Creighton so we are very very grateful um just for the help that we've received the not feeling too scared anymore and we do plan on staying here with the Creighton family one thing I would like to say is Yvonne and Lucy Gonzalez who they were the first person first people that I've met when I started my position in finding a school for the kids to go to and the first thing that he said was welcome to the family and me not having a family here in the city and they're all five hours away that was the most heartwarming thing that I've ever received since coming here and being I always say coming here became easier and easier as the year went on but that's not because of what I do it's because of what everyone here in the Creighton School District has done so we thank you and we I can't wait to be a part of more meetings like this more planning meetings and hopefully seeing the Creighton School District grow so thank you oh yeah thank you so much for that thank you so much I can't even imagine The Bravery it takes I mean I already know on a day to day working with my clients just to go through substance use treatment but to like leave your home bring your kids and The Bravery for the kids too is like it's just wild so thank you so much for everything and I wanted to say It's a Small World the board has a very good friend named Joseph Bia on the Kayenta School Board oh wow um so um anyway it's a small world yes thank you so much for being here for everything that you do and I'm so thankful that we have this partnership with you guys because like I said before our student out comes every child deserves the same love the same opportunities and I'm just so glad that you found a home with us so thank you for entrusting us that we're going to do the best for them I just want to Echo that I spent my first three years teaching in pinyon okay um and I just and I actually currently partner with kind of a similar situation um with getting some more students whose parents are going through that all Native American families and so I truly appreciate what you're doing for those families um it is huge and they're going through so much and so I appreciate you thanking everyone here but truly you're doing something amazing yeah so thank you so much thank you thank you if I cannot do that because Shelby is very humble but she works I think 23 hours out of the 24 hour day and she's a great role model and inspiration in the the force behind this program so we're very lucky to have this partnership yes thank you thank you everybody thank you now we have Miss Alicia and she's one of our family members from Gateway and she's a little bit nervous but I told her I said don't be nervous muchas gracias estancasa um Gateway foreign a medication foreign [Music] [Laughter] she said so her name is Alicia tenorio and her daughter attends Gateway School many years ago her son was in fourth grade and they have to move and so they went out of District some was really not like in the school and having struggles over there so she just tried to come back to Gateway and for some reason her enrollment application was denied and so she tried again and then she went to District district Helper and then the following um the wake of days they said your son your your kiddos are ready to to begin and then they were very happy to be back at Gateway School and now she's going to talk about the experience so far [Music] easy with gracias opportunity he's saying things are going well since she's been back and then she really appreciates to be included in this type of meetings um and she enjoyed the presentation about Union Ambassador because she thinks the students learn new skills that was going to help them in in the future and she says thank you for including her gracias oh I forgot about that part here we go is mm-hmm gracias participating in some of the community forums yes I remember she was there and so she said unfortunately she was not able to be present and the last um when the decisions was made to select Mr jaymen and she says that as the newspaperintendent she expects you to visit all of the schools she knows that the other superintendent was here for several years and the schools are are doing well but with you she expects them to bring him to the next level and even improve them gracias and I just told her thank you for being here and that she has a space in that this is her home and she's welcomed anytime thank you gracias [Applause] thank you and thank you for hearing from many of our goal leads and members of our strategic planning steering committee so where do we go from here um the goal leads all heard from the from the community around what they thought about the progress had about the progress on goals one through four and then also what they would like to see over the next year in each of those goal areas so they are taking all that information back and coming up with benchmarks for year two and you'll get to see those you should have received in your packet also the highlights but also all the other work that happened behind it so um if there are other questions or concerns we're happy to address those or hey we'll be happy was very pleased to see it in Spanish as well as in English yes yes I was everything should be translated yes that's very important and thank you guys for taking that extra step and making sure that it was bilingual do we have any other questions or comments under request I don't know if it's happening already but is there any way to have this live on our website as well as board Docs I promise not to hate on board docs at every board meeting but yeah I will put the update on as well and we've got some ideas for other information we could add for Progress monitoring along the way next year thank you thank you guys so much I appreciate your time thank you [Applause] thank you all right that takes us to our next item which is 10A um I just want to take a couple of minutes and say some words um I just want to thank Dr Lewis for the years of leadership that she gave I know that under her leadership we got the crane Academy and that vision for the school is not normal it's very unorthodox and it's been great um my daughter's been there the last two years and within one year I've seen the growth and the the good things that it's doing for those kids so um I'm really appreciative of that Vision that you had obviously with the previous board but um so thank you for that and thank you for you know all the years that you gave to Creighton um I'm super super proud of our board with the process that we did we had two Community Forum meetings where we allowed the community and I say aloud because we didn't have to do this but it to us it is very important to make sure that the community's voice is always heard so we have two Community Forum meetings as Miss Gibson McLean earlier said we were one of the only school districts that has ever had a student voice in this new superintendent search so we really wanted to take our time make sure that we heard um we also heard that we were the school only School District to have so many applicants they said that they haven't had another school district that had so many so that says a lot about our district and how we're going to move forward and I am so so excited and I am so honored that we're going to have a new superintendent you know that has been with the community that he's basically one of our own I don't think we could have made any other best decision I've seen Jay advocate for our families I think that's just my social worker side of me to mean numbers tests none of that matters that the whole child is not being taken care of or looked at and I've seen Jay you know show up for these families they know his face they know who he is and it didn't just happen you know within a week or two weeks that he decided to put in for this position so it's obvious of where his heart is and with that being said I would love the governing board approved to offer a superintendent to superintendent contract to Mr J Man beginning July 1st 2023.

wonderful we would like to begin our regular board meeting and welcome all of you here thank you so much for joining us tonight we just adjourned from an executive session and I will call to order this regular board meeting Tuesday May 16 2023 and I will begin with a moment of silence and then we'll have the Pledge of Allegiance led by Mrs Sheila eugetti if you will all stand and join me for a moment of silence please I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all [Music] thank you all Mrs Wilson if you could please call roll Mr Chad Thompson here Miss Laurie wood here Michela eugetti here miss Jill Humphries here Miss Rhonda page here Madam president all board members are present you have a quorum thank you we will now move to the approval of agenda 3.01 board members is there a motion so moved thank you Mr Jetty it's been moved is there a second thank you Miss Humphries it's been moved and seconded that we approve tonight's agenda all those in favor please vote by saying aye aye any opposed with me thank you that passes five zero we'll now move to the superintendent's recognition Awards Dr McCord thank you madam president governing board members if you join me in front of the dice for tonight's uh celebrations [Music] good evening you guys did the like church good evening oh good thank you well welcome this is um arguably the best part of every one of our board meetings so uh and that is because we get to recognize our students our staff and all the Great accomplishments they've had over the last few weeks or quarter and we're going to kick it off tonight with track and field we had we had some good stuff go on for Tre raise your hand up here for track and field in here oh nice yeah good well let's start off with Highland High School if I could have a head coach David Montgomery coach Monty or oh well thank you where's Steve McDowell at come on up Dave Johnson right if you want to bring that money guy you can how are you sir good to see you did uh did Coach tell you that you'll probably have to talk a little bit maybe that's why he sent you up here huh way to go money way to go well this year Highland High School girls became division one state champions please give them a hand come on up if you're here from Highland High come on up this is a tough time of year just because a lot of Banquets are going on a lot of things happening at school so I appreciate all of you being able to be here tonight um not only were they the division one state champions the girls but the girls also were the open division state champion so please give them another hand Laney Jones are you here no matter she's not here that's okay Lainey Jones took second place in the 100 meter are you Emma I saw by that smile 1600 meter Champion 3 200 meter Champion congratulations Chloe ba is that your sister well are she older younger here's why Chloe took second in the 1600 meter congratulations and uh also well who was that was and then it says Caleb or Kayla case Cameron Delancey were they also in that race or were they part of that uh congratulations to them boys Josh Howard are you here are any of the boys here Josh Howard and Zach Bingham [Applause] hello gentlemen how are you Josh Howard raise your hand hi Josh Josh 3200 meter Champion congratulations and Zach Bingham pole vault champion this is what it says here so I'm not making this up number one in the USA with a vault of 17 foot 4 inches congratulations coach I'm going to turn over to you to talk a little bit about your students but before I do I want to say one other thing I think we had state champion in the 4x800 is that correct yes four by eight hundred they ran a 902 which broke School record third fastest time in Arizona history and seven fasts fastest time in the nation congratulations to you guys you want to talk a little bit let's talk about your season talk about these kids brag about them this is your opportunity ready well pretty much uh myself and Coach Montgomery you know we give her everything we have to try and bring out the best in all of our student athletes and you know we're both still kind of in shock of how everything turned out you know we continuously say you know it's a blessing we put a plan together for you know these young athletes to go out there and try to excel but what it always comes down to is their ability to grasp that concept and bring it into fruition and they gave everything they had and you see what the outcome is I mean it's rare to see the situation especially with the girls to where you have seven girls go into a state competition and pull it off by themselves um again give them a round of applause for that I mean they were out there against some really stiff competition schools that had a number of people in the division tournament as well as the overall state tournament but those seven pulled it together and it came down to the very last event and uh I remember telling the kids to say okay how can I motivate them to really give everything they have so I told them I said okay we looked at the points it comes down to the 4x4 relay and um if you guys win first or second you can win the whole thing and you could kind of see at the end of the day because it was a long day it was really hot on Saturday that they were feeling kind of drained but when I said that the competitive Drive in them jumped up Lainey Jones jumped off the ground and she was like okay let's go and they went out there really all they had to do was place in the top four and I mean those kids battled they battled hard and they pulled it off and took third and won the whole thing and it was just again a blessing to watch their excitement to you know see that okay we placed where we needed to and we won the whole thing two weeks in a row and again it's an amazing feat to see that happen from Seven girls so again give those those young ladies around and with these two young men I mean they they battled you know a lot of the other boys didn't you know make it out of the divisional uh competition and they went out there and battled for themselves and again you see Josh came out on top uh winning his race and then Zach has just been phenomenal all year long and he was going for the overall state record and came close twice or three times I can't remember yeah a couple of times he came close and we're all there cheering him on and I mean and it's exciting if you've never really watched the pole vault go to a track meet and watch the pole vault because you look at these young kids and you have to say okay they're not normal because when you look at it again 17 4 and I mean he came so close on the way down and clipped it with an arm and we're all like the whole stands is watching it and they're like whoa and excited and you know Zach one track meet was like coach I heard you all the way from over there at the stands because I mean it's exciting to watch them perform it's exciting to watch them be competitive and go after what their goals were and his goal was to break the record and he came so close and you know he fell short but he's not done he's continuing on and all these young athletes are continuing on to excel as great individuals great human beings and like I said it's a blessing to coach you foreign coach thank you so much one more time for Highland boys and girls track and field do me a favor and this is how we're doing it for the rest of them so everybody pay attention we're gonna go through shake hands with the governing board and then stay here with them for a group picture okay all right thank you just go ahead [Music] well kind of we're gonna scoot into these guys so [Music] all right Jonathan go ahead um [Music] [Laughter] I'm sorry thank you again next can I have the coaches from Campo Verde track and field come up your mic right avenus thanks for being here can I have all of the students for track and field up here from Campo nice Campo Verde I'll start with the girls track and field division two runner-up for this year you have my hand if I butcher your name please don't hold it against me hold it against my abilities to read as a young child Leah spindell second place 400 meter are you there did I say it right close hey Brooklyn Mark Montgomery discus Champion well done girls four by four hundred girls four by four hundred meter relay Champions Leah spindell Zaria Zaria zarya where's zarya say your last name Iola that's what I was gonna say Ella Kindle and Bianca Hurtado is that right yeah there you go and can we have the boys come up are you guys come are there up there just the girls who are you guys are you moral support you can still come up we like you get up there [Applause] they were in the front just kind of snickering and laughing at each other now you're up here ha ha boys division two runner-up congratulations to the boys [Applause] where are you Jace McGavock ah Jason McGavock second place 200 meter and 400 meter [Applause] um say your first name magell just like it sounds Migel moronis is that right Michelle moronis Javelin champion thank you Leah where are you again did you win something else what did you win Leah she won the division open which is the granddaddy of them all um 400 meter state champion congratulations what was your time see huh well well done see you didn't even have to do your best to win it all congratulations coach would like to just say a few words about these kids absolutely thank you well the first thing I want to say is congratulations to Highland um great program obviously something that we're going to try to Aspire is to get to that state championship level but um the other thing I want to say and they're not here tonight is a big shout out to my assistant coaches um this wouldn't have happened without them I had a kind of a rough start to the season I got really sick and then my dad who's my idol Mentor track coach uh extraordinaire kind of person I went to passed away in the first week of the season and made it kind of a unique situation for me but this is the reason I want to shout out my coaches because they really took over and gave me about a week or two to make sure that I could deal with all of those kind of things and yet you know then get back to the season but when it comes to these kids uh unbelievable how they were able to kind of go through the grind it's a long season you start in February and a lot of them are doing pre-season work so you know you go through February March April and then you got to show up in May and that's the money time and that's what they did when we got to Deer Valley High School You know despite the hot temperatures and the windy conditions everybody really stepped up and competed at their best I will say that and I said this last night we had our banquet last night actually and um we have a group of four boys that came up the Ninja Turtles and that's can I get to raise the hands of the Ninja Turtles so they know who you are there they are these guys do everything together but um you know we had a little bit of an injury during the state meet and I know that kind of affected all of them but the rest of the team really did their best to kind of Step things up so the boys could end up getting second uh we really tried to chase down North Canyon they have been the top team for girls in division two for the last I don't even know how many years quite a few years and so we gave them a good scare came up close um but these ladies up here were a big part of what we did to be able to have uh Brooklyn as a state champion there she also set the state meet record she's also ranked number one in Arizona she's in the top 25 in the nation Migel moronis he is in the top 25 in the nation for the javelin so a lot of our kids are putting up big numbers and if you look at Arizona overall and I know we can include Highland obviously as well as we have some of the best athletes in the United States and it's really nice to see our kids be able to kind of perform at that level I know it's D2 but it's like we're going to compete with everybody so whether you're D1 D5 doesn't matter to us we're going to give you give you all you can handle and we're looking forward to getting after it again next year but just super proud of these guys it was just an awesome season for us [Applause] congratulations coach congratulations uh how many seniors are up here any ready to graduate too no young men and women congratulations thank you for representing your school your school district and your state so well one more time thank you all right congratulations and congratulations thank you let's have the guys there you go watch gentlemen gentlemen scoots this way a little bit there you go you want us to move up yeah there we go next could I have Gilbert High coach Mark Sullivan come on up [Applause] good evening Mr Sullivan how are you sir doing well good to see you how are you tonight all right all right well he has some folks that um can I have those Gilbert High School Trek and field individuals come up ladies gentlemen Gilbert hi you have some winners correct we do you do so again disclaimer goes if I mess up your name it's coach's fault Vance is it Vance Nelson yeah Vance how are you good 110 meter hurdles Champion for division one 300 meter hurdles champion congrats second place boys four by 400 relay Connor where are you Connor say your last name latau Eli Jackson you're Eli good to see you Eli Preston Roar where are you Preston hello and Vance Nielsen second place four by four hundred relay give them a hand you say a few words about your kids nope he's done thanks for coming I'm just gonna do an addendum great Vance was easy Vance was also second place in the 110s and the open division he took first place in the 300 meter hurdles in the open division yes and these young men took first place in the 4x4 setting a School record a number four all-time in Arizona you want to say anything about they're just great young men I've had a Joy I work with for the last four and three years this is my last year coaching um it was a great way to go out they put in the time and the effort they began the season in the 4x4 by breaking School record and then dropped six more seconds by the end of the season and did a great job coach if you could use one word to describe these guys what would you use tenacity they they worked really really hard one of the comments that some of them made was that they were the shortest four by four hundred meter relay at the State open meet except for Vance but they were determined and if you saw a video of their um 4x4 on last Saturday night you could see that the determination in their eyes they've worked really hard they put in the effort they listen to their coaches came out and practiced got their grades up so they could participate and three of them are ready to graduate and I'm really proud of them really excited for them to do that and to move on to better things I think a couple of them right now are planning to go into college to participate in track and field who's that where are you going MCC nice and then um there was a great article written about Eli in the AIA 365 young man from ASU came out interviewed him and did a great job about his background and where he came from here you are today congratulations coach thank you for your years of service especially to track we've known each other for a long time and it is it's it's a difficult job as well as being able to work with these young men and women and look at what you give back in return so congratulations to you congratulations to all of you good luck in your future endeavors thank you one more time for Gilbert hi I'd like to invite Dinah wait who's a assistant coach Furman villagrin Rose is back there I think I don't think I missed anybody else come on up good to meet you thank you [Applause] all right if you guys would shake hands of the board we'll take a pic is that okay all right thank you we'll just scoot up and in purpose all right Clarissa and Carrie are you here just you oh God support they don't even know what you're up here for and they're already clapping for you congratulations of course introduce yourself to everybody and tell them what you do at Campo my name is Clarissa monreal and I teach and direct the biomedical program at Campo and that's the only program available at the Gilbert Public Schools great and this is zarya who's sorry this is zarya she's a senior at Campo and she's actually it's a four-year program and she's actually taking year three and four as a senior foreign high school has been recognized as a 2022-23 Project Lead the Way distinguished school it is one of 262 high schools across the United States to receive this honor for providing broad access to transformative learning experiences for students through computer science engineering and biomedical Pathways Project Lead the Way biomedical science introduces high school students to medicine and a wide variety array of biomedical science careers this is an excellent program and it's run by phenomenal people who care I get to see them every single day on Twitter and I gotta tell you what just some of the things that I get to witness are extraordinary and what I know of these two folks especially when I say these two I'm talking Clarissa and Cara they truly care about kids and want them to make sure that they're moving forward that is why they're being recognized tonight and that is exactly what we want out of all of our Educators here in Gilbert public schools to provide great things for people like Arya so thank you so much for uh being a part of the project lead the way and thank you for being here tonight congratulations to you foreign [Applause] [Music] where are you going to college Emory University in Atlanta Georgia congratulations wow well done and last but definitely not least we have representatives from the Desert Ridge High robotics team how are you I thought you guys had a banquet tonight okay you want to introduce yourself and then tell everybody who they are sure hi I'm Mandy Scott um uh I am a mom of this Parker over here as Parker Scott this is the other Parker Parker Wakefield and this is abanov jinka yeah sorry I don't know everyone's last name um I'm officially not officially like the assistant coach right now our coach Wendy Hardin is um ended up going into the hospital and didn't make it to the last part of our season and so we've been doing wonderful things for her um we're missing three of our team um yes we had a banquet tonight that we're going to next um there's an engineering thing going on tonight that some of our kids are at um but these boys um qualify they double qualified for states in robotics they made it to worlds in Dallas um a couple weeks ago yep a couple weeks ago I got to go that was really fun um and they did so awesome so amazing they are 10th in the world out of 800 teams in that um yeah so it's not really like sports you can't explain it the same way um this is new to me this year um but they have been through so much we host about five things at Desert Ridge as our principal knows and these boys are there the night before for about what's got five six hours setting up the day of on a Saturday they're there from Seven till about nine or ten because they have to close and clean up and everything plus they're competing all day it's been a very wonderful ride to see and very um educating for me because I don't speak robot but um it's been really amazing I don't know what else to say do you guys want to say anything they don't um yeah just wonderful amazing things thank you Mandy so I don't know much about robotics either but I have a niece she's in her 30s now and she was the president of a robotics Club they went to Nationals a few times while she was in school and even at her in her 30s with two children she she has been a part of it and continues to be she's a judge they call her up to judge and so to get to know what this does for for individuals and how it applies for the rest of their life is truly amazing because I got to see it in my own family members and so we're so very proud of all the things you guys have accomplished and I know you have put Robotics and Gilbert public schools on the map because of the things you've done so congratulations to all of you you guys would shake hands with the governing board and we'll take a quick pick and then you can get to your banquet back-to-back state champions as well thank you get up here in the middle guys Jaguars that's right right here oh you invite Wherever You Wanna who else uh Mr Spence Mr spets they would like you to be a part of this Desert Ridge High easy said they owe it all to you oh yeah yeah because you know what I get to do I get to tell them yes to hosting all the competitions that's what it is I've got the easy job I tell them yes and they come out and do it there we go again Desert Ridge High robotics thank you guys governing board members that concludes our presentation for this evening uh thank you guys and one more time for everybody else oh sorry okay foreign [Music] thank you all thank you to all the students families staff that were here to be honored what a great a great night to honor him thank you Dr McCoy for all of that we are proud of all of them now we'll go to our superintendent's report Dr McCord thank you madam president governing board members welcome to everybody who came and then who are still here the end of the school year is fast approaching we have six and a half days left of school for the 23 20 or 22-23 school year we are very proud of our students teachers support staff and administrators for all that they have accomplished this school year our students have a habit is remarkable both academically and in the extracurricular Realm and to our families thank you for sharing your children with us we're very thankful for all that you do for our schools and for our community this year we will be graduating approximately 3 000 seniors 13 years of hard work will pay off in the coming days our first graduation ceremony is this Friday for the students at Canyon Valley as well as our adult learners for our adult education program next will be GCA on Wednesday of next week and the remaining high schools will graduate on Thursday May 25th to all of our seniors and their family members congratulations we're so very proud of you and can't wait to see and hear about the great things you will accomplish also this year we have 78 employees retiring on behalf of myself in the governing board we thank you for your years of dedication Devotion to our students and Gilbert Public Schools we hope nothing but the best for you in the future and please know we are here if you need anything at all Miss Wood that concludes my report for this evening thank you very much Dr McCord we will now go to requests to speak to the governing board surgery uh request to speak to the governing board pursuant to ARS 38-431.028.h the board may make an open call to the public during a public meeting subject to a reasonable time place and manner restrictions to allow individuals to address the public body on any issue within the jurisdiction of the public body at the conclusion of an open call to the public individual board members May respond to criticism made by those who have addressed the board may ask staff to review a matter or may ask that a matter be put on a future agenda however members of the board shall not discuss or take legal actions on matters raised during an open call to the public unless the matters are properly noticed for discussion and legal action and legal action during an open call the board requests that speakers refrain from voicing complaints against School Personnel or any person connected with the district as it may impact due process rights policies e Keb and Ked are provided by the board for the disposition of legitimate complaints including those involving individuals forms required for use of these policies can be obtained from the Gilbert Public Schools website thank you we have one individual to speak to the governing board tonight Jamie Weinberger if you'll please come to the podium here and yes thank you so much and we have three minutes that will be a time you'll see on the on the board all right and talk fast okay um I want to start this by saying that I've actually dedicated the last 14 years of my life to public education I've had the privilege of serving as a teacher an instructional coach an educational consultant an assistant principal and principal all in high needs schools and areas where I'm aware that ability levels are diverse and learning needs are not created equal while it's difficult for me to remove that educator hat it's important that you hear me from the lens of a concerned mom today I am a mom of a kindergarten student who is different he is not and will not be the cookie cutter compliant well-behaved kid that he must be in order to thrive in existing Gilbert schools environments of which we've experienced to this school year he likes to be creative he asks incredible questions he sings dances builds he appears as though he's not paying attention but knows exactly what to do and I get it I'm his mom and I think he's great but I also realized that he is the common denominator between his educational settings and I only want to support him and his teachers when laying the most crucial Foundation differentiation is the sole responsibility of a teacher despite barriers like lack of time and training and insufficient resources like existing curriculum that's over 10 years old as a result teachers end up turning to Teachers Pay Teachers or Google they print worksheets that sadly become the go-to learning modality for students regardless if they're low or high performers how is one teacher expected to deliver individual or small group instruction with varying degrees of difficulty in an environment where the average student teacher ratio is 24-1 all primary age students including my own need time to explore Concepts and manipulate materials in order to learn worksheets test rope memory a way for children to spit back information we must give kids the opportunity to test the concepts in different situations so they can understand how those Concepts can be applied to different areas of their life I have challenged Educators at both Gilbert schools where worksheets are the sole learning modality I was told that we do that Gilbert schools do not have opportunities for stem or engineering related activities and there's no gifted or accelerated curriculum for students like mine I was told to consider Neely a traditional school or Highland Park with accelerated options which instead refers to the practice of presenting curriculum content earlier or at a faster Pace not the enrichment that I am asking to be considered where curriculum content is presented with more depth breadth complexity when I asked for my child to be tested for Cog Ed I was encouraged not to do that because it's a three-hour test All Battery tests have to be completed in one sitting regardless of age which essentially is a torture chamber where only the survivors are rewarded and why because I was told that's the way it's always been done it's a scheduling nightmare despite the reality that it's a tool to ensure that kids have appropriate tools for learning when I asked the school psychologist to administer an IQ assessment she told me that wasn't something she could do because it doesn't fall under special education eligibility sadly I can't ignore this reality when I put my educator hat on I consider the bigger issue far bigger than me or my son Axton I think about the countless kids who are likely labeled a behavior issue who hate school who are bored and the parents who think something is wrong with their child and that this is the only way Mrs Weinberger I'm so sorry to interrupt we appreciate your comments and Dr McCord if we could have someone reached out to her thank you thank you for coming we appreciate that and I also wanted to acknowledge we had we had comments online that were also given as part of the as part of the um online opportunity that we have to address the governing board thank you very much that will now take us to our reports 7.01 fiscal year 2023 monthly financial report for month ended April 30th 2023.

I pledge allegiance and justice for all right um the world for a brighter thank you all right because everyone called the tunnel foreign good evening board members Administration ladies and gentlemen on behalf of Crete Monet Education Association we'd like to congratulate and welcome Mr Alejandro Gallegos and Miss Jamie Knight numbers to their new roles as board members and to congratulate Mr William Williams Wallace and Mr Maurice Brown on the re-election to the board we look forward to working with you all we also wanted to take this time to thank the administration and board of education for their continued hard work and commitment to work collaboratively with us to complete our contract negotiations with the diligence and respectfulness of all parties involved it's deeply appreciated sincerely the Crete Monet Education Association thank you appreciate that comment all right I'm gonna have board updates right now and assigned to a point the speed represents representative representative and I would like that to be Mr Gallegos Alex thank you yes I'm also to appoint the issb governing board representative I'd like that to be Dr Hall um thank you sir thank you so much and next on the agenda is I need to board members to take on the appointment of the discipline Review Committee members and like Mr Nelson it's a idea and it's the same Jamie thank you Tammy I don't want to chop up your name that's okay okay all righty and doc did you want to chime in here yeah as far as we have a superintendent appointed committees as well we've got three of them one is for our health committee I just need to find out we need two people to serve on Saturday anybody who's interested in serving on that I'm currently on it and I would like to stay on it okay thank you anybody else going once you get free insurance coverage okay so we got bills okay we need two people to serve on that anybody else I'm more than happy okay and um before we go into item three I just wanted to also move to invite um I've got Ms Carolyn Daly I believe here this evening and Mr Holly Phillip to make a few announcements about our special graduation and uh ceremony event so Ms Daly would you uh share with the board about the special Arrangements pulling up for um yes good evening thank you for having me um I am here to cordially invite you to attend our eighth grade recognition recognition ceremony on Thursday June 1st at 6 pm our event will be held at the pre-money high school in the competition gym we are excited to return to our pre-covered ceremony setup the ceremony is facilitated by our principal MS crisos in our program consists of student speakers who will share words of wisdom and encouragement for all of our eighth grade class families are at a meeting actually this evening that's why Miss cresos is not here where she is conducting a parent overview and families will receive their ceremony tickets Miss heideline has tickets for our school board members that we sent over a few reminders uh Miss priesos wanted to make sure we remember that students and guests must enter through the athletic entrance at the high school students must report to the field house by 5 30 PM wearing their cap gown in tassel the doors will open for our guests at 5 30 pm and all guests do require a ticket now each student gets three tickets three of them are blue tickets which is seating for the competition gym and then they do receive one yellow ticket that will give speeding for the Performing Arts Center um we want to let her know that our guests if they are bringing flowers and balloons will keep them in upon entering the high school and the ceremony will begin promptly at 6 pm we look forward to a great evening with our eighth graders foreign it's just weird it's like a voice commitment good evening good evening first and foremost you have two programs from the high school the first is for an event that occurred on last Friday uh it was the distinguished Scholars dinner and award ceremony this was for 63 of our students who have gpas 3.75 or higher we didn't want to take up a lot of time in the graduation so we honored them in advance and we will acknowledge them on the program the second program you have is the program for the commencement ceremony which will take place next Thursday May 25th 2023 at seven o'clock P.M at the Tinley Park Convention Center uh we decided to go back to pre-covet status due to a survey that we put out to our parents furthermore the parents requested that we moved the ceremony they were not very happy with receiving three tickets with this venue we are able to give each graduate eight tickets so that's the reason the rationale for the move to Tinley Park uh all invitations have been sent to miss Heinlein so I am sure that you've received them by now I recommend that you arrive at 6 30 we have reserved parking for you and you will be receiving an email with further instruction on what to do when you arrive we will have students speakers the program is pretty much totally student driven we did not have a guest speaker because I'm on time we want it to be 60 Minutes or Less 75 on a wing and a prayer but we're going to stick with 60.

uh Cheshire Board of Education policy subcommittee meeting to order this josinski please call the roll here right thank you well please I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you okay all right so um according to our agenda we have audience first um so if there is anyone who's joining us this evening who would like to speak on anything that's on the agenda tonight or anything else about policy you're more than welcome to make any statements three minutes uh it's uh just like a regular board meeting if anyone has anything I don't have anything prepared okay but I was curious about the equity and diversity and also the survey of the state of the still here for tonight oh okay and so um I just was curious on what your policies are and how you're going forward with this well that's why we're here tonight we're going to be discussing those things so okay all right okay great okay [ __ ] Mr White I said um so there's no one else from the audience tonight okay great uh we'll move on to uh for discussion uh Transportation policy so this is a continuation of the discussion that we had at our last meeting um where we started to really look at a couple of uh current situations as it relates to our transportation policies but also kind of considering what will the multiple years down the road when we open our new North End in new Northern schools and redistrict and how that will impact things um you know Luther and Vin contributed uh greatly to the conversation at our last meeting we asked them to come back and take a look at you know the the policy is exists today and any considerations that they might have for future policy review and talking to Mr grippo and of course with Lucy Marciano and Mr Miller too you know it would it would be pretty insensitive if we were to Institute a new Transportation policy on May 17th or whatever after a couple of readings for for September 1st or whatever so um I think you know given the fact that we are in the process of bringing in some new buildings and we're looking at the policy now is a good time to start to review it to evaluate it maybe even Institute some changes over the course of next year to give families enough lead time to make any necessary adjustments if there are any um so with that I'll turn it over to Luther Miller our transportation director and Mr maciano Chief Operating house I mean I I would just you know offer a couple of things that I know that you know it's a relatively long policy and certainly there are some recommendations that that we would make um really to tweak what we already have the one thing that is probably the most important that I think was discussed at the last meeting was you know what what are the maximum walking distance right now we're actually a little bit under where the market is you know for k-6 you know most school districts are on the mile you can go to a mile and a half to a middle and high school we're at a mile and a half our school districts are two miles um The Only Exception really that we have that from a policy point of view we'd like to adjust as kindergarten is that a half a mile and it creates a conflict for those families that have a kindergarten have a second or third grader where you know there's a pickup in a kindergartner but not for the third grader to give us the most flexibility you know we would be recommending that we move everything k-6 to a mile where we need to have bus stops at less than a mile we do that already you know so I don't think it would fundamentally change anything but it will give us greater flexibility and I think we're going to need it as we go through the next couple of years even before the new schools are built you know whereas we see enrollment increase you know that flexibility will help us to try and keep our costs in my um and then some of the other you know changes that we that we would be discussing when we bring you know a formal review about the policies you know would be to tweak some of the the explanations of you know what's uh you know safe or hazardous area because it does create some ambiguity and we'd like to clean that up you know when it comes to safety we've always defer to police um and public works if there's a safety issue we circulate petitions if there's a concern about safety and we're very prudent about as how we established you know our walking and our pickup zones so that's kind of the long and short of what I wanted to say that anything I miss Luther just jump in I think the only thing to add is that the are half mile kindergarteners was basically set up when the only kindergarten in town was Darcy all kindergartners went there so so our policy became outdated when we went to all day and as as our um children that have been kindergartners have started to go into their their home district for lack of a better description that's what has created that conflict with having a sibling who could be a third grader who has to walk a mile you have yeah so I I mean moving it from a half mile to a mile I mean just very uh off the cuff it seems reasonable to me um with regard to with regard to the uh sorry I lost my train of thought I will come back to it I should have written it down I'll just jump in here to you know further validate uh Luther's point about when this policy was established was 2008.

uh to bring the to our our subcommittee uh and reconcile April April 2023 . John would you like to take it away or Kevin do you have an introduction some opening remarks sure my pleasure and good good evening everyone good evening Jesse Kate um though um Julie Theresa everybody who's on and anyone who's watching um so the the update certainly and just want a quick review and scan of the agenda for this evening uh certainly the agenda is going to talk about our report for the month uh but we also want to talk about um some other things which is impact in the district or the 23-24 school year um and so it's April 22 I'm sorry 2023 financial report um on your on your committee agenda it says city of Danbury meeting regarding Boe reserves we want to make sure we update you on that that meeting uh was originally scheduled for today um did not happen today so we make sure we have an opportunity to walk you through the Y's on that and then last but not least reschedule date for June 20th finance committee meeting um because that is now in conflict with the visit our scheduled visit from our folks in Nashville so John and I will kind of tag team the agenda itself um and then we have a new development that did not make the agenda itself but John I think it's important to talk about um very broad Strokes kind of the audit that the city is in the middle of right now um and of course we can't have an audit at the city with the school not being involved in some way somehow with the 141 million dollars as part of that audit last year um in a couple of years prior um so the the city the city of Danbury itself is in an audit there have been some a lot of information kind of last minute that's been requested uh from our respective offices meaning John's finance office so John and his team has been working hard to deliver that paperwork to the city um and so that's kind of started on Friday spilled over into Monday now Tuesday um which requires accessing um reports from A system that we no longer have which is certainly stalled the delivery on it um John and the team have found a workaround to deliver a lot of it and it sounds like with the exception of a couple of um minor tweaks to the submission it sounds like we're gonna bring this thing home soon but the city is again they're in the middle of their own audit and of course given the significant portion of that the budget is the city of Dan I'm sorry the Danbury public schools um John has been joining in his office have been working hard these last few days trying to deliver that and so um Mr Moosa that's why we're not able to have that meeting today and but I do want to speak to the committee again about the conversation about the reserves so with that I'll hand it back over to John and John and I maybe we can jump in uh together and talk about item number two um okay um thank you Kevin um and uh continuing with um I'll call it the theme um in the last couple months I've been uh preparing the reports and what I've um what I'd like to do is use the cover page um call it the narrative as a way to transmit I think what are the bigger issues that we're facing sometimes um they don't they don't show up in the line items um so you know if there's something um trending or what have you then I'm going to mention it and so in in my first paragraph I talk about um what we've seen a sharp uh increase in health care costs and as you know we are self-insured uh yes we use Cigna as a third party to administer the claims if someone um gets sick or goes to the hospital the claim goes into uh Cigna and they pay the hospital the doctor but then we pay Cigna the actual claims and the way they do that is they every week on a Monday uh they uh through an ACH take the money out of our bank account it's just the way the system was set up and we get a monthly report from Cigna of everything that's happening in different uh things Uh Kevin there's a email showing up on the screen and can we certain we'll see in your emails right now thanks John um so uh one of the reports we got recently it looked like costs had gone up quite a bit uh in the last three months compared to the first three months of the Lanier so I uh got on the phone with Cigna and asked him if they could help explain uh what was happening and um what we saw was the claims um for the first three months of the year were 6.8 million dollar or the the last three months were 6.8 million the first three months 5.8 million um an increase of about 17 percent so Cigna put a little report together for us I don't know Kevin if you could show that it's um I think just one page I'd like to talk about I'm trying to get in touch with Canon I don't think he realizes his emails are showing okay um but anyway uh so we'll we'll show you that when we get it um but they showed I'm putting it up now John I don't know okay um yeah and as as Kevin puts it up there there are a number of different things going on in medical care right now or um one one of course is the consolidation of the uh the hospitals and as their buying up different groups as they're buying up different hospitals uh they're demanding uh more money from the insurance companies for the same doctors who were getting less uh when they were not part of the the hospitals we've seen that you know certainly here in in Connecticut with Yale New Haven Hartford health new bonds but that's led to some higher costs you ready for the next page John yeah I don't know can you put the signal one up uh Kevin the PowerPoint I think that was the email I sent you um so so that's going on there's also um medical inflation uh that's out there that's not helping um the insurance companies here in Connecticut have found a way um to take advantage of out of network costs that were here it is yeah so if you just um straighten that it's kind of small if you scroll up a little and I'm I'm sorry it's in blue but you can see it's it's from Cigna uh they have a section called cost trend on four there it is in the in the navy blue there and the lines that are important are the the first three the medical the pharmacy and the total plan spend are you guys are you on this side John yeah this is perfect just what yeah okay um so in in this report they've compared uh calendar 2022 with calendar 2021 and in the third line down you could see the cost at that point were 15.5 percent higher year over year um the 17 I mentioned uh is since 2023 began it's it's continued to go up um they go through different statistics to explain it also affecting us is we have a number many more high cost claims than we've had before or claims that are more than fifty thousand dollars I think we have a dozen of those some much higher and of course we have an insurance policy that kicks in once those claims get to 125 000 then the insurance pays not us but that Corridor in the middle uh where we're seeing more expense come from that so uh all as all these things come together our our claims are much higher and and um just uh in April we uh in one week alone they were 625 000 uh we had a week in March they were uh 725 000 so they're they're big numbers uh coming through and and what it's done is it it's eroded into the savings uh we thought we'd have this year we um the salaries uh the savings and efficiencies um this is eating away at it um so in addition what you'll see if you went back to the re the original report Kevin for a second what we have at the end of April um is 991 000 unencumbered uh as you can see in that the Box we usually use and then um the report that follows uh we break it down there at the bottom uh the major line items um and then further detail follows uh line by line but uh what What's also happened is you know we've been trying to fill the vacancies that we had back in December when we first put the budget together we had close to 60 some of those uh Personnel we needed to deliver IEPs and 504 plans um just needed to film we've been trying to fill them but you've also heard me talk a couple times about just the high school and what it's like to try and staff that with their vacancies and with their scheduling uh the overloads I won't get into that again you know what that is there's been what we call period coverage where Dan will just if there's a teacher in the lunchroom or taken on break and we need some coverage we'll ask them to cover a class he does a very creative job up there but it's um it's it's costing some money I mentioned that my second paragraph um and then we've you know the the inflation that we've had and it's starting to come down if you you know I think the latest statistics showed it for our area around a little over four percent uh some people think that will stay for a while um but uh over the winter we were seeing increases of six percent our electricity our heating oil just like everyone at home had gone way up we we didn't expect uh that when we put the current year budget together remember this budget we're looking at that was built 18 months ago in December of uh 2021 brought to you uh the following January um just I I don't think anyone thought inflation would be uh what it is no one thought the Federal Reserve would be raising rates the way uh they have been um so anyway uh what all of that has done is it's eroded into the savings we were expecting to have and that's now down to nine hundred thousand um well let me just mention the last thing in the report and then maybe Kevin we could talk at that point um about the city and what we think should happen next okay um I just I mentioned uh the governor's uh budget um right now that's still with the general assembly the Senate Republicans have proposed a version to the budget um that hasn't been approved or reconciled yet um but both versions of the budget increase uh danbury's state aid for Education by nine hundred thousand dollars and the uh what's what I think is more important um you know there's a plan to increase accelerate the alliance grants to folks like ourselves that plan is untouched from a year ago I think it's still two years away where we'll see a big increase but no one's talking about slowing that down or anything like that as they did a year ago we should uh I think there's a statutory date uh for having the state budget done but we'll we'll know in a couple weeks how that falls um so um Kevin I I don't know if you want to uh start but we uh one of the things we think with the with the gap of the the shrinking Gap um is it's really it's not just a board of ed um situation it's um it's everybody and what we want to do and they're they've been very receptive is we've talked to the City Finance director um and to find a mutual solution and and proceed uh together as to what's best um Dan Garrick uh he's enlisted um a rep from the mayor's office and we were all set to meet uh today um and they had to cancel we'll explain why uh boat we're talking about um our reserves and let Kevin explain but the the thing about reserves and you know last month I think I showed you it was uh close to eight million dollars uh those that those don't affect the tax rate the mill rate they've I mean you could say that they've already been taxed and they're uh for school purposes so uh Kevin why don't I uh turn it over to you maybe you could fill in a little bit here sure my my pleasure John um so what John is referring to all the reserves and this is the unexpended monies from 1920 school year 2021 school year um the two years that we did not have a full year of schooling and so um we we have an agreement with the city that if there are ever any monies at the end of the year instead of have to having to race and try to spend down monies you know without without any real plan um that the city would essentially hold the money for any unexpected cost that might come our way so what John has essentially just walked you through um or some unexpected costs that we did certainly did not expect uh for for this school year and so what we're looking to do is um go to the city um and again these would not be reoccurring um costs so we wouldn't it's not as if we're asking to tap the reserves for Staffing however it is to cover these health insurance claims and increase in utilities and power and gas and propane and so um we're looking to go to them for and ask of close to um was it 3.8 John or four point I think so 3.8 yeah so 3.8 million um you you may or may not be aware um the city to get to our 9 million um and so I think John said that we have 8 million now uh prior to that we had 10 um two 2.4 billion I believe was used to get to the 9 million uh that we received from the city um and so we're looking to go back to the same well um our savings if you will um to pay down on these costs um which would keep the nine million dollar ask keep us whole at that nine million dollar ass so you might recall initially um there was kind of a subtotal and I asked for this year of 13.8 uh our ask of this to the city was 9 million uh we were hoping to through cost cost savings and efficiencies find the other 4.7 4.8 million given all of the given all of the vacancies that we had and you know and and for those of you who are on the board for you last year during budget season you might recall you know at some point we were anticipating there would be an increase in claims because books just did not go to the doctor during the pandemic and so now we are starting to see that actually happen um and so the claims are you know going up at a and and frankly we're starting to now spin down on those monies from the 1920-2021 school year um and and this is kind of where we are so we were initially playing today to have that conversation with uh some City officials to walk them through the Y um you know just and frankly between our office and their office I think we both would have needed to reschedule today's meeting in light of the the audit the audit situation because John's office is really busy as well we needed this meeting to happen but you know there was another priority kind of in front of us so we will Circle back to try to make it happen um but we wanted to make you aware uh that we we there's a need to go to the city to tap our own kind of reserves to pay down on these unexpected claims we're expecting them um when they were going to happen we did not know but we certainly anticipated uh when we put the money in there that you know at some point they would be going back in and it it is now indeed starting to happen so that's what John was referring to earlier um we anticipate we will be able to reschedule this meeting um with the finance office at the city next week um and you know kind of formalize the requests and I believe this city has to go through a process in which the council has to approve it as well and so you know we're prepared to walk them through the wise as well so that we can address this kind of gap for the so that we could be better positioned put a 23-24 school year um yeah okay um so I think that um that covers it do you want to take questions Al about the report or the Reserve I know we kind of Blended a couple things together we have um has the committee had a chance to view the report it appears that that the line items are all reconciled and we are slightly below one million dollars at unencumbered funds at the end of April we still have May and June John are there or any additional unanticipated or now coming to the surface uh expenses led to further further draw down this number but there are things working both ways um a couple examples are um are what we call our our school district legal insurance bill that's the covers all of us board members administrators for lawsuits um that came in at 4 65 000 um about what we budgeted maybe a little less um but it wasn't encumbered uh however uh Bev our accounts payable supervisors in this afternoon and she felt that the fuel oil budget uh might be encumbered fifty thousand dollars higher uh than it needed to be so those two things offset um so that's what I've been seeing since the end of April things that uh balance both ways but what I'm worried about are the weekly claims that that come that just we can't predict uh what those are Teresa you are muted Teresa is there any way that we could uh strategize to get a uh or it's just not gonna happen you know to get notice ahead of time of uh bills or it just happens specifically the claims Theresa like the health insurance claims that we were talking about yeah I I get notified by the bank uh but two or three days before they're gonna take the money just to make sure we have the money there for them to take but uh beyond that it's It's weekly and it's just uh it's what they're paying the hospitals doctors and other services the previous week and and Theresa to your question we we actually do John isn't this the work sort of kind of that Gallagher does yeah it's it's almost like having a broker on your side trying to project the market on this um so we we do have someone uh who independently works with us and Teresa I you know something John and I can work on and maybe while it's fresh um we can have kind of that report and kind of what that forecast looks like for next year um you know to to your question because it I think it would be beneficial for the committee to kind of hear some of the things that we're hearing in terms of projections now of course it's you know like any broker in the financial Market it's still projection um but at least it gives us an idea on how to budget and that's kind of what John works from you know sort of like the demographer's report hey you're going to have 12 000 kids next year and the next thing you know we have 12.4 all right and so that's kind of what we're working with in cases like this and and they've made a couple of very good uh recommendations for next year for Cost Containment uh with some of our policies tweaking uh some of the coverages and programs we have in place I I think that'd be great to to share maybe at our next meeting Kevin they're suggesting John is there any other anti unanticipated uh teacher salary issues that that could grab bump a creep up on us um are we pretty that is all under control and yeah that um definitely um we're we're looking you know the next thing we'll be looking at is um who's going to retire and and start to replace those I don't think uh we have all the names in yet but there there'll be very little change uh if anything uh between now and and the end of the school year is referring to are there any contracts that may be outstanding that maybe need to be planned for um any retro that we might have to pay or anticipate we'll have to pay you know those big ticket items that could impact our budget so I think those kind of things so there's uh negotiations underway uh with the pairs uh but I I I don't think myself I don't think we'll be seeing anything before June it could always happen but um it's kind of late for that that anything that's settled would have to come to you of course as a board and right but I think I'm hearing budget how can we budget for that for the 23 24 school year so it's kind of trying to catch up is that kind of what you were referring to absolutely sir is you know a couple examples again the custodial budget you know that their negotiations work and just like subject matter right yes yes sir that's kind of what I had my or do we just have to wait till it happens and then react be reactive rather than proactive you know we we need to be proactive and um John um is you know of course he has the benefit of being in these negotiations and working with Kim on these things so um you know this is not something we necessarily have to share publicly because we don't want to reveal what's happening negotiations but uh we certainly can have a number in mind in terms of budgeting so that we can have kind of a buffer of those line items okay thank you sir any other questions Jesse Kate Teresa can I just ask a clarifying question because I had heard at one point that there were some concerns and forgive me if you answered this John um there were some concerns about our audit process but you had clarified at a previous meeting that our audit is complete for this last year and the year before is that right oh this this be a good segue um to describe what's happened this week um I think that will answer it so um at least from our side of things I alas I had heard from the Auditors was uh the first week of November of 2022 um and I know in conversations with Dan Garrick uh and even Warren Levy they were expecting uh they get what's called a draft report but it's pretty much um this is the you know the annual report this is what we're talking about it's a couple hundred pages of financial information they do every year and they they were expecting it they um uh you know they they wanted it before they adopted the budget uh because it would tell them how much Surplus they had and that would then tell you whether you're you need to Levy taxes or how much or what and um they didn't get it when they they thought they would I think Warren even mentioned at our ad hoc meeting uh he was expecting at any day now so all all of us thought that the work was done and uh we were each surprised a week ago Wednesday when um the audit field auditor and manager send emails both to Dan and and to myself uh asking for more information about the 2021 uh fiscal year and uh much less the 2122 that should be finished by now and is not still in the 2021 and the questions that we got um I found and you know some of you know I I started out as an auditor so I I know it as much about this as uh others and um the questions were very um routine meaning uh they were the kind of things they they could have asked long ago they were also the kind of things that as Auditors if you run out of time uh you just say well I'll check when I come back next year things like that for example um they picked out a line from our alliance grant for supplies it I think we had spent uh fifty six thousand dollars or something like that and they asked for the detail of what made up that 56 000 so you know actually we got it we had 14 questions um they asked about they had sampled four four or five people in the title one Grant four or five people in um the idea Grant and they asked typical work where they said let us see their salary notification letters so we know what step they were on and and what they were earning and then let us see the payroll registers for these they picked out six weeks in the 2021 school year so that they could match what the people were supposed to get paid with what they actually got paid they did they asked for some information on the priority schools Grant um it just things that um oh they asked for a list of uh purchase orders uh that were open on June 30th 2021.

[Music] [Applause] my name is Denasia Gibson and as many of you may not realize I am not a lantern native shout out to my fellow military kids specifically Air Force through this year of developing a new home and finding my community I couldn't help but share my gratitude with all those who have made the adjustment not only Timeless but also memorable today I have the privilege of starting our ceremony by commemorating our dignitaries and attendance today these individuals before us have sacrificed numerous even unimaginable hours of service not only Showcase in our celebration today but through years of excellence in District 20.

I now give you your senior class president and student body president Ali watts and Sydney Watts hi guys my name is Ali and I've had the honor of serving as the president of Rampart High School class of 2023. and I'm Sydney watts and I have served as the 2023 student body president thank you all for joining us today as we celebrate and I would like to give a special Welcome to our 2023 graduates we have all long awaited this day as you look around the room tonight you may see faces from the friends that you made your senior Year to your classmates from kindergarten all of these people have helped us to grow and change into the people we are today through every field day book fair field trip school dance performance sports game assembly continuation and now graduation we have all grown up together and now that we're making our own Journeys we will go through many more changes but we must remember the lessons that we have learned today no matter what you are doing make the most of it and live each day like it could be your last take every opportunity you can and take the chance to recognize beauty that can be found in life as far as today we must take in each Precious Moment three weeks ago I delivered my graduation announcement to the best math teacher I've ever had he shared with me something that I would like to share with all of you he reminded me that you do not get many special days in your life to celebrate for just yourself but graduation is one of them he told me to soak it all in enjoy your day and let everyone tell you how great you are also he told me to celebrate your accomplishment because you've earned it thank you all I want to say thank you again to the graduates families faculty and everyone else for making this day possible I'm so grateful that we all get to be here in the same room at the same time to share in the excitement of this special day I've got a hundred thrown out speeches I almost said to you but in the end I settled on this I want to highlight the value of the memories we've made and the moments that have led us all here today we're entering the next chapter of Our Lives where there is increasing pressure on us to grow up but to that I say even though you want to please try to Never Grow Up while getting older is inevitable I urge you to not lose your youthful Spirit or neglect your past and present in the pursuit of the future in our Haze to keep moving forward and moving on at times we forget to enjoy the now take a minute look around you and remember this feeling recognize how much you've accomplished the relationships you've formed and the experiences you've gained at Rampart High School I met people who made me feel I had a place to belong I had Unforgettable nights driving and jamming out to music with my friends and I had the time of my life at school dances and events I want you to picture one of your own memories now and In This Moment now capture it remember it though our time in high school is coming to an end that doesn't mean that we have to lose the relationships or memories because they'll always be a part of us no matter what is in store for you next we will always be Rams and remain United by this community we all take a moment promise me this that you'll stand by each other forever thank you all right welcome to the 41st annual commencement exercise of Rampart High School please let me Begin by thanking the Air Force Academy for providing us access to this beautiful facility furthermore please let me extend gratitude to all those who bravely serve or have served in all branches of our military especially those who are currently deployed if I could ask please our staff members who have served in any branch of the military and any member of the audience serving or who are veterans to please stand and be recognized it is my honor to introduce a distinguished group who joined me on stage tonight to my left I have Mr Thomas Lavallee president of the Board of Education and Rampart High School's Board of Education liaison Mr will Tempe vice president of the Board of Education Mrs Heather Cloninger treasurer of the Board of Education Mrs Nicole cons Board of Education director Mr Aaron salt Board of Education director and Colonel William Sullivan U.S Air Force Academy liaison who is unable to be with us tonight additionally I have cabinet members Mr Tom Gregory superintendent of Academy School District 20.

Mr Gregory joined the academy 20 staff in 1991 as a middle school math teacher at Challenger Middle School shortly after he transferred to Rampart High School where he served for 11 years as a math teacher math department co-chair football coach softball coach baseball coach and finally as the Rampart High School assistant principal and athletic director for four of those 11 years in 2009 Mr Gregory became our Chief Financial Officer and he served in that capacity until 2016 when he added the duties of Deputy superintendent along with being the CFO in 2019 Mr Gregory was named the superintendent of Academy School District 20. Mr Gregory earned his master's degree in educational leadership and principal licensure from the University of Colorado Colorado Springs hearing his bachelor degree in mathematics and secondary school teaching licensure from the University of Southern Colorado today is also a Bittersweet day for us as Mr Gregory will be retiring at the end of the school year Mr Gregory has led our district through many challenging times but he has been a fierce advocate for the village please allow me to tell a quick fun story if I may about Mr Gregory he said everywhere he goes is a bit of a roast these days so in keeping with the theme during the winter of 2019-2020 I was advocating for a bigger space for our school as we had quickly outgrown the center for modern learning so I invited Mr Gregory to come visit along with an area Superintendent at a time when I knew we would have over 200 students in a space that was designed for 120.

City staff will sell callers at a raise their hand or use the last three digits to your phone number you'll hear an automated an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak please move to a quiet area for either method please state your name and address at the beginning is there anybody here that would like to comment on this project hello my name is Michael Lewandowski I am a representative of the owners of 1513 White Street which is just a kitty corner across the street from the proposed development uh we have uh some slight concerns maybe more than slight about uh parking specifically we do applaud the Project's commitment to try to reduce car traffic in the area and have multi-modal transportation as a focus of the project however um we also uh live in the reality of residents potentially not always living up to the same standards that the project has indicated and that the neighborhood which is already a relatively clogged at certain points with parking would simply become overwhelmed with parking as residents use the public parking in the neighborhood as opposed to the designated parking that they would be able to get through the project this would be especially concerning given some of the use around the neighborhood as the project manager indicated it's very close to the athletic facilities around the University of Michigan campus and of course everyone who lives in Ann Arbor knows that on football Saturdays parking around that area becomes pretty crazy and so would be concerned about being able to utilize that space as well for those kind of activities not just for football but again it's near all kinds of athletic facilities and so if the parking in the neighborhood would significantly reduced based on the residents in the building we just wanted to make sure that the project is at least aware of that and that the commission would be aware of the potential issues given that this is being you know plopped down right in the middle of a neighborhood where everybody already lives that you know they still want to be able to park potentially on the street or have friends or something park on the street and it would potentially be an issue otherwise that's my main concern thank you thank you anybody else present like to speak on this project hello Adam Goodman 400 Virginia Avenue I'm here tonight because I'm really excited about this project I think that it is um almost everything that our city has been asking for from developers and it it's you know you some of you have described it as as well very difficult maybe with more colorful language than that to get developments that are for example all electric and and here we have one not only is it all electric it's it's pushing boundaries it I believe that this would be the first mass Timber development in in the history of Ann Arbor which is which is really cool I think that's that's fantastic um I of course also very much appreciate the commitment to multimodal Transportation here and providing very limited amount of parking uh the Planning Commission and and city council uh recently chose very deliberately to remove parking minimums from our zoning code city wide and I think that was a correct choice and you know the the public streets are our public property they don't they don't belong to any one of us so uh you know I I think it may be valuable to acknowledge that there will be an impact but I think it is consistent with the goals that the city hit that you and city council have have put in place for developments so you know with all these things with all these great benefits uh I would think that you know we should be the city should be bending over backwards to make sure that this gets approved as efficiently as and expediently as possible um and unfortunately it doesn't seem like that's quite what's happening it seems like this project is getting run through the the ringer that is typical of Ann Arbor and makes us somewhat Infamous among local and Regional developers maybe that's a broader problem that we can't solve for a particular project just because we'd like it but it's still a little discouraging and also I have to say I don't particularly understand the staff recommendation about uh no variances um but that seems weird to me are we saying that you want to preempt or override the zoning board of appeals on this um and and you know I I also bring this up because it seems to me it seems clear to me from the presentation from the developers that if this variants were denied the project could still move forward but it would be worse and not just worse for the developers in the future residents but worse for the neighborhood in the community as well thank you thank you anybody else present that would like to speak I can't get Randall Ken Garber again um as Mr Goodman said this project checks appears to check all the decarbonization boxes you can imagine um but it's a huge rezoning request from r4c to c1ar we heard Mr Leo talk about three times the far they're asking for a variance on top of that they're replacing perfectly good well reasonable reasonably habitable anyway existing housing so the bar is really high here this has to be a model project and maybe it is but um you know we don't see projects like this very often so it to me it's an opportunity to learn as well as to ask questions it sounds like there's going to probably be a postponement so I'm not asking for all my questions to be answered tonight but I've put them together in the form of a pop quiz um and like any pop quiz there's some gimmies on here but um maybe there's some toughies too I hope um first we're told that electric heating sources will be vrf ductless units with electric v-tac units on the roof VTEC stands for vertical terminal air conditioner one per unit these are less efficient than ductless vrf why do you need v-tax could you eliminate them and get more solar capacity on the roof number two well the vrf employ air source or geothermal I talked chatting with them earlier it sounds like they're 80 sure it'll be geothermal but not 100 sure so what's your backup plan if it doesn't work if the soil samples prove on um inhospitable to this sort of solution and if you do geothermal are you are you concerned about the issue of thermal degradation which we've heard from some reluctant developers in the past um three the 110 kilowatts of rooftop solar which I've read isn't very much about enough for 14 houses I know you're putting in two green roofs which makes sense but how do you expect to power the building during an extended outage with the diesel generator four is that diesel generator absolutely necessary how will the diesel fuel be stored and could a battery panel be used to satisfy the fire protection code and to deal with outages five will there be a gas connection to this building um pretty sure there's not but I just want to make absolutely sure um six where you have an Erv or energy recovery ventilation system and or heat recovery chillers seven will the building envelope comply with the 2021 iecc for multi-family including an external installation shell you mentioned something about passive housing I'd like to hear more about that eight have you modeled um your building energy use intensity iecc zero codependents sets a maximum for our climate zone of 47 kilo BTUs per square foot per year for multi-family residential how do you stack up nine have you explored Zero Energy path and mass Timber construction well it still include how much concrete and steel will you still be using I had a bonus question but I guess I'll skip it laughs thank you I don't know if we got all those down or you all got all those anybody else present that would like to speak all right well we will move on to the virtual list and this is where the folks who are tuning in won't be able to hear these uh the people in the room will be able to hear them that's correct uh Lauren you have three minutes to address the Planning Commission hi thank you for accommodating my question I'm Lauren I live at 801 Rose just right across the street um I want to iterate what a few folks have already surfaced just briefly um certainly this area is known to be a high traffic area so in terms of the infrastructure accommodation I I do like what I'm hearing around supporting the 15-minute neighborhood but I do have some questions in terms of really addressing the infrastructure needs not just of this immediate neighborhood at these addresses but also then extending with the projecting growth of the current proposal and these infrastructure needs lie around grocery store cycling infrastructure noise ordinance in terms of accommodating the train that regularly honks in this neighborhood and then also the growing infrastructure around autonomous vehicles with a2go from Main mobility and so I'm just wondering and uh like the similar speaker was bringing up questions I don't immediately expect them to be resolved but I haven't heard how some of these infrastructure needs will be addressed again for the existing neighborhood and then to accommodate this projected growth of the development I want to come back to the grocery store in particular because 4M a big figure in this proposed project they themselves have a lovely venue that's been out since October a great new space in the neighborhood however it did take away a very significant need for grocery stores and while I do understand that this is a mixed-use proposed development with the potential for retail on the ground floor I would like to see some greater interest in acknowledging the grocery needs of again this neighborhood but also to meet the projective growth I have a hard time leaving similar to discussions around five corners proposal further up north on South State Street that the few places mentioned will really accommodate grocery needs for the targeted Market it sounds like of students and young professionals produce station is a lovely place for Specialty Foods banana One-Stop shop for all Groceries on the cycling infrastructure side 30 more seconds I 100 support 15-minute neighborhood but there needs to be further investments in the cycling infrastructure to accommodate everyday traffic along with the sporting events that occur in this neighborhood overall I support this project and would like to see further improvements to elaborate on it thank you thank you to everybody else in line Abdul Rahman you have three minutes to address the Planning Commission hello um I'd like to address the Planning Commission in saying that I am very much in support of South Town uh I'm a columnist with Michigan Daily I recently wrote a column about how Ann Arbor needs more mid-rise buildings um and I wrote about how we need them in places that aren't downtown and this is literally almost exactly a home run of what I was saying we need I mean this is this is going to add more housing to the area this is going to be a very Sustainable Building it's going to be a very Innovative building first with second master in the building of Michigan First National Building in Ann Arbor Fishman and so investment um like there there couldn't be more hope like smash hit home run City gold things in this in this whole entire plan uh I think that the variant should be approved uh the one that says something about you know setbacks um the plant team fee whatever fee it's like across the street from Yost Yosh is like taller and closer to the streets than this building is so um I just think there's almost literally nothing wrong with this building except for that it's on how parking which makes it taller um like there's I mean it's just like a very much hope run building it has a lot of things right it's very little wrong um I mean it's gonna be great it's gonna look nice it shows pictures like renderings and whatnot uh I really hope to see this building be built I live down the street um I live in a taller building in it uh but like it's great I don't see any reasons against this building um it's a human master plan uh it's close to downtown it's close to building the same size as it close to uses that are similar like there's all these reasons that the developers iterated um all of those reasons in the master plan to approve all the different uh requests that the developers asked for um yeah there's just a lot there's a lot to like here very little dislike um and I really hope to see this get built the way the developers the vision with the public spaces and all the stuff that they're asking for variance is for um yeah please approve this thank you Luis Vasquez Vasquez my apologies uh you have three minutes to address the Planning Commission uh thank you thank you Mr London no problem um do we fast guys from upper lower town uh just wanted to speak very briefly in favor of this development proposal that you see before you uh obviously the developer uh and City staff and um others have put in a logger thought into this project I would like to see it move forward expeditiously with or perhaps some of the minor tweaks um and variances Etc uh this looks like a uh a great project overall thanks thank you call her with the phone number ending with zero four three you can press star six to unmute your phone and address the Planning Commission go ahead good evening um this is um I am ma'am you might mute your the sound on your computer we're getting some feedback oh is that better because I'm on my phone so I'm not on my computer yeah that sounds better thank you yeah it was so um I so if I viewed it I don't think [Music] if you can focus on muting the sound from the meeting however you're watching that via the phone your computer or the television um we'll be able to hear you on your phone but if you could mute the meeting sound however you're watching okay thank you can you hear me yes White City has a valid concern um because I get 810 um there's a lot going on on that student has been for the last few years my particular concern is parking um I uh I was concerned about parking when the Airbnb was built um I understand all of the housing and and um and uh having walkable areas but when the house was built on at 8 30 Henry Street there was supposed to be parks and spaces in the garage and they were never used so I was very concerned about parking for for my guests on a homeowner they had a renter up in one part of my unit it very very difficult to park in the Stream I did my due diligence I got the number of neighbors or owners to ask for if these parts implements for that street I was our our request was basically denied or they said if it wasn't warranted but after the building was built 8 30 there were additional parking spaces that were taking away for buses to kickoff so I so I I really concerned about the parking issues the other thing is that a few years ago I asked what the 10-year or 20 years plan was for um this particular street it's already a one-way Street and I thought I heard the woman mention that the possibility of Transportation having this as a two-way street we really concerned so my issue is really to have to do with parking and with all of this going on are we going to be able to have a practice permit um with certain hours of her just like we have on all other streets that are busy my petition was denied and I I got to write the number of uh uh owners 30 more seconds business happens uh getting a person permit for at least our size of the Street between states and on the stadium thank you anybody else in the queue yes Brandon dimchoff you have three minutes to address the Planning Commission [Music] less than half a mile from the proposed site I'm calling today to say how excited I am to see a mass Timber project proposed in Ann Arbor and I hope you approve the project tonight uh without delaying it I don't need to repeat with the petitioners and the other callers have said but I do want to reiterate that the extra far requested by this project is used purely for putting a roof over car parking to provide a publicly accessible Plaza with about the size of the Library Lane surface parking lot it would be a tragedy in my opinions including also the zba that they should deny that variance as it would simply make the project worse by having exposed cars instead of a publicly usable area why should we prefer a surface parking lot to a public Plaza if it would make any sense so please prove this and please encourage the EPA however you can to pan through your hands thank you thank you Alex Lowe you have three minutes to address the Planning Commission hi this is Alex Lowe calling in from South Southeast East Danada uh first thing I want to talk about it is while I'm not a fan of dudes really this kind of feels like it should be a PUD because the requested uh c1a Slash are bad zoning kind of limits it we the this this site should be way better there should be at least three multiples of it so I I think that it's a little different uh uh a little bit uh we should add we should have more here but you know we've got uh we're going to work uh like what we uh we have I do hope get uh uh given all of the uh let's talk about uh thing that the developer uh has plans for uh for antipartum that goes unused in their uh in their parking structure uh uh a lot of people who are going to eventually living in this area may not own a car at all and so you know people people would be talking about game day party and everything this would be a a a opportunity for them as well uh on uh on one street is it is the parking problem is uh is so bad in this area it sounds like what we uh uh what we need is for the city to start putting in t-shirt parking at the same mode that's uh that should resolve at the issue of uh partying for uh for individual uh individuals uh who are coming for the game versus homeowners Etc everyone will uh will have an opportunity for uh to have Legion parking even if we only turn it on or to turn on the legions for say large events or whatever other than that I think that that this development is really good and sad that it can't be any bigger but yeah you you take what you can get right thank you no other speakers no body Chris all righty I will read the three motions the first one is the anniversary Planning Commission hereby recommends at the Marin city council approved the South tone rezoning South Town rezoning petition to C1 AR campus business residential district and accept the conditions that the maximum Building height is limited to 100 feet the maximum vehicle parking limit is one space for four dwelling units in the minimum active open space requirement is 50 square feet per dwelling unit subject to executing a conditional zoning statement of conditions second one is the anniversary Planning Commission hereby recommends that the Marion city council approved the Southtown site plan in 1601 South State Street and development agreement subject of variance granted by the zoning board of appeals to exceed to exceed that the maximum far of the c1ar district due to the enclosed parking garage and combining all Lots priority issuance of any permits and the last one is the Ann Arbor City Planning Commission hereby recommends that the mayor and city council vacate the unimproved flooded alley in block three of the Hamilton Rose and Sheehan's addition to the city and town of Ann Arbor moved my commissioner Lee seconded by commissioner Abrams we are in discussion commissioner weich all right um first of all thanks for bringing this project and developing it for our community I have a I have a lot of questions I will start by first thanking you for including the post and ring hitch for the bicycles that is something I asked every developer to do and when I looked at your plan I was like look it's already here that's a good sign um I wanted uh to address one of the callers comments about Lucky's Market uh that was an invest a joint investment out of Colorado with uh kroger and Kroger withdrew their funding which uh required them to close immediately they closed 39 stores in 10 states so I don't know why that came into this part of the the conversation but I just want to clear that up um I think oh wait sorry so let me start with this one uh why did you request uh c1ar instead of a PUD because of the we started this building off with the building type and I want to address also why it's that height and this is where it see what AR works with it uh we're proposing using a a newer version of the Michigan building code and this version limits the height of this construction to 85 feet and so see when AR met the far of what 85 feet would do on this site it meant a lot of the the goals of the project we felt it was the right scale for the for the neighborhood and we also use the the setbacks that were on the chart and what what we ended up with uh that makes it I think a proper use and everything we wanted to do would fit it came to the variance of of the parking uh which we can talk about later but that's our only only variance on top of that okay so then uh with the parking um can you bring back up your slides where you showed the options for the variants do I have control yeah here we go it's a few slides back oh yeah okay so then if the variance at the zba is denied um which how how are you planning to address that or is this if it's denied or how we address the variance you can do both uh I mean as you can see here we laid out our five what we we looked at as options what would be buy right and uh the four down below they always miss something in the project if it's denied uh it's I think it's a failure we wouldn't have the ability to have as much of a park on top of that area uh as what would be more beneficial to the project so I think with the technical and feasibility of building the water detention into the water table we have a fairly high water table in this this area that even getting the parking halfway down getting the volume halfway down we looked at that as well we'd still be pushing down into the water table and then our water our storm water detention which is fairly large would also be in there um so if those four always miss something and the variance gets everything for for every part of the project storm water parking that that's needed there and then uh Park on top for for everyone so then we're looking at and I did send some questions to staff um when when this got on our agenda so we're looking at 300 what is it 308 308 percent of far with this variance and then Mr Leo you you talked about the fact that they wouldn't qualify for the square foot pedestrian amenity or do they okay so that brings it down from 311 to 308.

so a little blast from the past weird way you know um and we hope that you all enjoy it we're going to start off with um with this house class doing Hey soul sister from the thousands and they chose to dance with frogs right or objects that condensate so you'll get to see them dancing with crops um you'll get to see groups who we had in that class multiple uh small groups that works together to create choreography and that's what they wanted to put together for their dance so Mrs House's class for Hey Soul Sister [Applause] [Music] I know I wouldn't forget [Music] Soul Sister tonight [Music] foreign [Music] oh sister [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] this morning [Music] this is flowering Supply who chose um I just I can't ever say it without giggling I'm Never Gonna Let You Down by Rick Astley [Applause] so let me tell you a little bit about [Music] I sure wasn't the scene that came out so even though each class each class should choose their own song Right each class chooses their own song which is a super cool um and they choose as I told you their own choreography but what was interesting is throughout several of the classes we had two things that came up a lot one was partnering so you're going to see several dances tonight or this afternoon morning you can tell I'm a teacher right because I'm like wait what's the other day is it um so they chose partnering and then they also chose piggyback so during this performance you'll see a lot of those you're going to see some phenomenal partnering in this flower's class Rick asks please never going to give you up so you're also going to see wait I have to tell you two other things that you're gonna see if it brings back any memory [Music] sprinkler bow so they decided to group those in nice flowers I think um [Applause] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] welcome foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] each other [Music] [Applause] [Music] don't tell me [Music] and hey [Music] goodbye [Music] [Applause] [Music] remember [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] come on [Music] yeah there's just a lot of students in this show um so we're next uh class in this way to class and they chose the 1960s they chose a fantastic song called gigoloa it's fun artist named Olatunji from the country of Nigeria and you're here that driving driving beat and then you'll hear a switch because they wanted both the original and the remix the remix by Fatboy Slim so jingle go Bob here we go Mr Wayne's club [Applause] [Music] thank you foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Bubba Bubba Bubba Bubba go back [Applause] [Music] laughs foreign [Music] foreign [Applause] [Music] foreign [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] okay this is absolutely amazing you guys are just doing an amazing job I wish I could today in words um how hard these kids have worked to pull this off in like eight classes how they had this group had to work together to do those lifts and that and the pyramid anyone doesn't take part and a kid goes down right and they were so good and so careful and it was super challenging there was a lot of problem solving that they had to work out with one another to make that happen same with every single group that you're seeing so so proud um the next song that you're gonna see takes us to the decade of the 70s the biggest Jones class Today's show was called spunky Channel and I want to tell you hold them just a moment here [Music] I just have a couple things I want to tell you about this thing because if you blink you might miss you they also chose to work um with a partner as I mentioned that was a theme that came up a lot that they wanted to do and my job is to say yes yes yes to their creative voices so I said yes to them doing so partner moves and they have seen in the performance that my company does for them a move called a tornado's spin it is a fairy very challenging Move To Learn and to feel not terrified doing and they were Relentless in their work on doing the tornado Center and I'll tell you I'm the one that does the tornado who's been in the company they do it far better than I do I'm like watching like wow that is absolutely amazing so you're gonna look for something called the tornado spin I'm not going to tell you exactly what the move is but if you'll figure it out and once you see it let's see what else do we have anything else to tell you besides the trip oh yeah it's companies so it's Disco Lady right so watch out for those disco moves yeah I see some of you are like oh yeah that must mean there's this going on you got there's that going on and much more so Miss Jones class Monkey Town [Applause] ship [Applause] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] foreign [Applause] [Music] [Applause] cakes that I made for the day what I want you to show what I want you guys to show that they worked on so hard just in front of the tornado spin you thought I want you to see it again we had set up for the Trussville okay so if you're about two people please do it twice they work so hard on this I want you to see it and uh give it up for them [Applause] [Music] are not too loud they also chose uh the 80s and they took they listen to several musical collections from the 80s and they were immediately captured by waking me up before you took off by around and so they also chose to work with the partner and you will see some fantastic movements that they connected to the lyrics and some great partner work isn't it come on down to your thoughts for waking up before you go [Applause] [Music] before we get started [Music] I'm very lucky that for this dance I get a little assistance from DJ Aubry acoustic seated right here [Applause] one two one another bird [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] believe me [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] my way [Music] [Applause] it makes me [Music] all right wake me up before I get broken believe me [Music] tonight [Music] [Applause] foreign [Applause] [Music] and for any of you who've been to the dance residency it will probably sound very familiar it's called Sonia so set your feet in parallel position backs tall they're going to show you sodium they were so excited to do this [Music] step back Sally Sally Sally step [Music] I went to the plaza what did I see a big fat man from Calgary 25 I can catch that man I bet you five dollars I can catch that man [Music] to the side the doctor said ah I got the pain in my stomach you [Music] here we go sodium [Music] to the to the Sea Side to the front [Music] [Applause] all right [Applause] okay [Music] we have one more class tomorrow [Music] I'll talk to you about them we have Miss Hoff's class and we're gonna do a dance with all of us before they do um the dance that they choreographed for songs of the Decades so miss host class if you would just walk out to your spot set up facing the audience and we'll talk about our first steps [Music] we would also like to invite the third fourth grade teacher [Music] [Applause] attention has some instructions to it what I'm gonna need you too and to stand up because we're going to teach his dance to you it's a family works for me what [Music] [Applause] do you like um One Direction and then the other your shoulders go up and down up and down I'm gonna put the microphone down and just use my two tables foreign [Music] [Applause] bubble don't pop this one you just blow it away we'll do that two times and then we're gonna do four different body part movement but one way check which ones they want to do come back this morning for just a minute I'm gonna check on these to our body parts [Music] thank you [Applause] [Music] Miss Flowers but [Music] but I heard she's retiring liquid because she retired okay [Music] do you know somebody [Music] bye okay we're gonna have been working out here then we're gonna have knee and arms go to the Head hand knees arm and we're going to do this sequence one last time and that last bubble goes to 45 so you really have to reach for it maybe it is let's do this oh okay [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you foreign [Applause] let myself [Music] [Applause] foreign [Applause] [Music] here you go I was prepared [Music] it's final key for your performance class shows the 1990s I'm not going to tell you what song is this time it also has a shot it also has the Mark Simpson and also has perhaps the kid and play Charleston this class also wanted to use a Canon right so we move in unison where we all move together and then we're one person goes and then another and another that's part of a cannon have you seen many of the classes use it already it's a main focus of what happened in this class so here we go this is host class the 90s the mystery song here it comes [Music] [Applause] [Music] forehead [Music] wealthiest [Music] your last hit the show Once Again [Music] [Applause] [Music] get the show up [Music] foreign [Music] myself and we could change [Music] [Applause] thanks [Applause] again dancing to the pen and I can't boom thank you all so much we're crying I'm pulling up to you for being a great one [Applause] okay foreign [Applause]

a second all those in favor I I congratulations I'm excited [Applause] I saw your eyes getting a little watery over there I'm going soft you can say a few words yeah speech a little speech you know this is the perfect evening for this to happen what [Laughter] there's no one scared there is no evidence this is all public record no it's a here's the reason why we recognize the the um our Creighton kids Congress this evening and this is going to sound really weird but the hardest part of the superintendent selection process is I have never missed a Creighton kids Congress meeting and one of my greatest Pleasures is being the person to serve pizza to the kids and um just to try to make sure we kept the process clean I stayed away from the one where they did superintendent attributes and that honestly was the hardest day in my eight years at Creighton was staying away from the students so having them here tonight meant a lot to me hearing our strategic plan progress our our Junior ambassadors so this really reinforced why I had a desire to be superintendent in the district and work with this amazing board that's doing the right things for kids and community and so you have my heart you have my dedication and I'm so happy that it's official now and we can get moving and move forward so thank you all very much yay thank you so much [Applause] and thanks to everyone in the community that really helped us and everybody here everybody else I mean it feels good to me to do make a decision that feels like it's an integrity and in line with our community so that's a very good feeling okay well that brings us to 10B which is the proof the Arizona School boards Association asba proposals for the 2024 political agenda I have one submitted I I emailed this to Hilda on my phone with a note of I for I don't have my notes with me and now I have my notes with me so I don't know if we want to create can we create our yeah this is something that we can actually just add in and put in as a recommendation um so yeah we can because I know last time from everybody we also had maybe you could say it out loud so everyone knows what we're talking about so for the ASM everybody has this paper for the asba legislative political agenda um I was able to remember for my notes um submitting a priority of adding limited voting rights for student board members with the rationale that some states have allowed limited voting rights for student school board members and Arizona currently has limitations that prevent that prevent this this allows for student voice to truly be represented in decision making and I do want to say when I say limited voting rights it's because the states that have that limited voting rights isn't a bad thing currently student board members in Arizona have no voting rights and the reason it's limited in other states where they do have them is for things like Personnel hiring and firing and some budgetary things that because they're minorities we need to place limits on that um but might heiners oh geez I'm sorry um I'm also on a lot of Benadryl because I had a horrible allergic reaction um so I wanted to add this but also now I have my notes and I didn't know if we also wanted to create something because we had AEL someone had said you had said uh joining nsba and then I know we wanted to all double down on the social emotional Wellness yes um I definitely think that the nsba national school board associations went and I'll put in a request for that do we have to do that she the rest if you just we do it okay thank you Hilda okay and I'll submit it and I know it has a due date the 24th yes okay cool thank you Hilda um and the only one other thing that I wanted us to um see if we agreed to put on there is for them to lobby for our aoi funding just because I don't think they're really doing that and a lot of our schools are depending on Esser funds for our online schools and I really think that asba could use their lobbyists to lobby at the state legislator to do something or create some kind of budget for next time or include somebody in the budget that will keep our online schools running um that's something that they're not really talking about and you know especially in the rural districts and all those other places that they have it they're going to get hit really hard when that Sr money is gone so I would love for us to add it on there so they can figure it out and see how we can pressure our legislators to get us some actual funding for that and Madam president you might want to incorporate the notion of Wi-Fi as a utility um and and a common utility um that would parallel with the city of Phoenix agenda right now thank you for that yeah and another piece um to think about too and I believe there was something on their priorities already that revolved around food for kids um free school lunch yeah the free and reduced lunch however our aoi students are not eligible for free or reduced lunch okay like they can't get fed for free and even if they qualify you assume there's like Federal stuff so yeah and I don't know but I think that's something that we can advocate for okay perfect do we have any other additions comments or discussion on what else needs to be sent to the Arizona school boards Association for their political agenda I had written down AEO was it already on their list so you think it is yeah it's on the list already okay perfect okay so hearing no further discussion I'll send over those to you Hilda and then we'll get them there so thank you for that guys awesome I appreciate it uh motion because there's a motion oh yes I moved the governing board adopt the suggested action agenda items as outlined by the board which will help establish the 2024 asba political agenda all those in favor hi and that brings us over to our legislative political report um we know that finally the AL was signed so we we're good at least for a year and so we're not okay again so that's good um I don't know if we have any other additions I think that was one of the biggest the budget has been approved so our budget is now not waiting for a budget so that's yeah that's what I just said I mean like overall like sometimes it's not just the AEL it's holding it up yeah we have our next meet and confirm meeting to talk about mno budgets tomorrow in this room and so we were a little bit skeptical as to whether that timing was right and we're thrilled to actually have numbers to work not sure what's left both are the house and the Senate are recess until the 12th there are still some bills that are going to be on the floor I don't know how many of those are education bills but there have been a lot that they haven't gotten through yet so we'll see awesome any other additions to that no okay that brings us to Future agenda items do we have any future agenda items no just that I know I have not sent you mine Hilda and I promise it'll happen I'm just trying to finish the school year awesome all right and that brings us to I move the governing board um conclude this school board meeting wait a second all those in favor aye aye aye thank you guys so much have a great night buenas noches my pen ran out

I think you madam president governing board members I will turn this over to our associate superintendent of Business Services Mrs Bonnie Betts governing board members president wood Dr McCord this is a fairly short presentation and I'll get right to it we generally show you the district operating funds today focusing a little bit on state Grant funds our Enterprise funds and then finishing with our bond funds so first district operating funds maintenance and operations is always highlighted just wanted to share that you can see the available balance of just around 12 million dollars which represents that four percent Target that you all established in policy about a year ago I wanted to remind you that they that we are and ending the current fiscal year and so this available balance will be fluctuating as purchase orders are unencumbered as invoices are paid off and as we complete our year-end processes also note the undershaken capital outlay this is notable because the year-to-date expended encumbered of that 24 million dollars has increased by about two and a half three million dollars since the last time we presented I wanted to make sure that you all were aware that we wanted to facilitate the work of Technology services to get equipment in even though we haven't realized the bond proceeds yet from the most recent Bond sale which we come completed last week and so as soon as those proceeds are in we will go ahead and unencumber the understanding capital and make sure it's encumbered in the bond funds so I wanted to make sure that's clear too any questions on either of those okay great so then the state Grant funds the two I wanted to point out is instructional Improvement there was a Statewide meeting of the Arizona Association of School of Business officials last week at that meeting one of the Personnel from the Department of Ed Mr Charlie Martin shared that there will be a third instructional Improvement payment made this year expected to hit our coffers at the end of June and so when we presented the probably the final presentation at the end of July for June you will see that change in our pending budget for instructional Improvement in addition the governor my understanding is the governor has now signed the budget the education budget in the state budget for fiscal 2024 as part of that budget we had anticipated a two percent to the base increase but it will be a 2.92 percent increase where the 0.92 percent is reflective of the results-based funding formula going away so the money that was formerly allocated out through that results-based funding fund is now going to be put on the maintenance and operations base for school districts and charter schools and I wanted to make sure that it was clear you will still see this results-based funding on these state grants for some years as we are still spending down resources that we have earned in the past okay so the third area is the Enterprise fund so nutrition services just wanted to share that that year-to-date expended encumbered money of just under 17 million dollars does include two to three million dollars of capital spend I know that we've been talking a lot about about Capital needs also it's important to note that many of the capital needs that were expressed by ameresco when we had the master Capital planning presentation does include assessments of nutrition services so nutrition services does however fund their own equipment and their own upgrades of their serving lines and so about two to three million dollars of that encumbrance is reflective of that in addition fortunately our community our community schools department has been successful at procuring a couple of Grants over the last couple of years and this DES Child Care grant that you see highlighted on the grid you can see it includes about four million dollars of resources with the assistance of Mr Jared Ryan we have worked over the last six months on a physical access control system this again will give us an opportunity to move into being able to have staff and students actually sign in to our schools for this particular in this particular case the access points were needed for our vik our very important kid families to facilitate access to the programs by the the parents and students coming really early in the morning or leaving a little bit later in the afternoon in addition also facilitating our rental our rental renters who need to access our auditoriums our athletic fields Etc we have put that on the agenda for tonight under consent for your approval I wanted to just make sure that you all knew that as as other resources were coming to us that we were working hard to make sure that they were being utilized in a manner that allows us to be sustainable well into the future so I'm just wanted to make sure that that was clear any questions on any of that okay and then our last group of funds so bond funds 630 this is the 2019 Authority note that we've highlighted the bond proceed column and note that it reflects 82 million dollars the next time you see this grid it will reflect the full 100 million dollars we're supposed to close on May 31st where that final 18 million dollars hits our coffers and you can see the year-to-date encumbrances and the remaining balances please know at this point in time those remaining balances are reflective of the 82 million so it'll be 5 million plus 18 that we'll have available in this fund for the summer projects and next fall and then oh yeah I meant to share the cost of issuance so because we had to open up purchase orders to pay the underwriters to pay those that are supporting our efforts to be able to sell the bonds you can see that there is a negative remaining balance of that minus 236 000 but that of course will take care of itself as soon as we receive those Bond proceeds okay and then the final grid is our bond fund 630 31 our 2015 Authority note that our remaining balance is zero to date you can see that there's about four hundred thousand dollars of encumbrances those are reflective of Technology security as well as transportation we do expect that the vans that were purchased for transportation will be here before June 30 so that spend will will be completed and I do believe that we can expect that two hundred and forty thousand dollars or so to also be expended by June 30 as Mr Castellano is also working to use that money to buy the equipment to complete the auto Vision the audio visual projects in our multi-purpose rooms throughout our elementary schools and that is my report for today if there are any other questions I'm very happy to answer any of them board members are there any questions under the Enterprise fund here the results available balance of 1.8 million dollars he said that will increase over time as those funds are spent what can those funds be spent on so um they have been historically used to provide stipends to all staff members at the schools that have earned them so there's been about maybe you can help me Json 10 or 11 schools historically have been received typically they're each year there's been anywhere from 10 to 13 schools that have qualified for the results-based funding so we've given that the last few years too we've started using the district allocation that you see there Mr Thompson for advancing some of our programs that have proven to be successful such as traditional programs accelerated the IB program too that we're looking at Patterson and Gilbert High so there's a variety of uses that are allowable with that results-based funding [Music] it was just during the legislative session it was one of those items that Governor Hobbs had put in her original budget proposal for 2024 was to convert the results-based funding monies into increases the base level amount you bet I think it was because it only went to specific schools and it was there was a formula and um oftentimes rewarded High performing schools that were already high performing and I think originally I might be wrong it was supposed to be the opposite correct Jason that is my understanding but you're right and the formula has been hard to follow and it's always two years in the rear on the testing results which is interesting as well too so you were always looking at student performance from two years ago when that new allocation was administered and now it's just going into the budget so everybody it was a priority for the past Governor and a new governor has a different priority I guess my question would be do the then do the same stipulations apply to the result space funding the money now in that account that was given to us I know that we've had to use it to like to replicate programs those kinds of you know PD different things like that do those now go away no our interpretation is that the rules surrounding those funds that are left over still stay there so we and we have every intention to continue using it in a manner that was intended great thank you very much anything further oh yes so just to reiterate you said we are going to continue to do result based based funding in Gilbert Public Schools or are we going to eliminate that also uh no we're going to continue spending the money that we have received to date in the manner that it was intended so we will we will not receiving and we will not be receiving any new results-based funding minis so that program in Gilbert Public Schools will go away and then over time okay so then the money will just go into the main Coffer that's correct okay thank you okay nothing further too thank you Mrs Spitz appreciate that that will take us to the consent agenda for tonight 8.01 board members is their motion to approve the consent agenda items so I moved thank you Miss Humphries it's been moved is our second thank you Mr Jetty it's been moved and seconded that we approve the consent agenda items as presented all those in favor please vote by saying aye aye any opposed with nay thank you that past five zero that will take us to the action items we begin with 9.01 the appointment of Rod Houston as the Director of community of education for the 2023-2024 school year Dr McCord thank you madam president governing board members it's my honor and pleasure to bring to you tonight as the next director of Community Education for the 23-24 school year Mr Rod Houston thank you board members is there a motion I move that we appoint Mr Rod Houston as the Director of Community Education for the 2324 school year thank you Mr Jetty it's been moved as their second second thank you Miss Humphreys it's been moved and seconded that we appoint Rod Houston as the Director of community of education for the 2023-2024 school year board members all those in favor please vote well I guess let me ask is there any discussion no okay board members all those in favor please vote by saying aye aye any opposed with me thank you we passed 5-0 congratulations Mr Houston please come and come to the podium and share a few thoughts [Music] it's just to to the board and to the cabinet thank you for your trust in me and this opportunity um I also want to thank my family um as we talked about a little bit in there that that's been a huge part of why I'm here today and and kind of what my family does and so thank you for that I hope that what you found with me is my passion for Gilbert Public Schools the passion for the town of Gilbert and the families in the community that live here my hope is that I can continue the the good work that's already started um and to grow and and just continue to expand the footprint of the community Department um and and help Gilbert schools continue to grow and get better and in the end just making Gilbert it's already the great place to live right it's where we all want to be and it's what that is but just to continue to expand on that and make it better again thank you for the the trust and the opportunity I I appreciate it very much [Applause] High School family those people who have been there with me and done that and allowed me to learn what I have over the last few years but this decision was really hard to decide to leave there and to go to do this and those people there have put me in a spot where I felt comfortable that I could do that and Mesquite would continue to grow and so I want to make sure that I thank the Mesquite High School Community too so thank you foreign board members could we take a brief recess to thank you foreign nowhere [Music] well thank you all and congratulations again Mr Houston that will take us to 9.02 action item our calendars for school years 2024 2025 2025 2026 26 27 Dr McCord thank you madam president governing board members tonight we bring before you well let me back up we had a presentation at our last work study from Dr Martin related to the proposed calendars and I think he did a phenomenal job hopefully you got a lot of your thoughts and questions answered and we bring this to you tonight for approval if you have any questions Mr Martin will definitely answer them for you so I guess we want a motion but I we didn't specify on here exactly what calendar we're looking at did all three all three know what I'm saying did you just want to say the 222 or how do you want to call it so that we know what it is yes is that the best way to say that yep I guess that would be what I assume so I guess board members I'm asking for a motion please include which calendar your you would like to move for I'll move that we adopt the uh 222 calendar for the school years 24 25 25 26 and 26 27 with the um the addition of the fact that both of those were very highly rated in the survey by both parents and staff members thank you it's been moved that we approved the 222 calendars for these school years um is there a second second thank you Mr Page it's been moved and seconded board members is their discussion I would like to just add on to what I what my motion was is that when when this was presented to us we saw the difference between the survey that was done I believe two years ago what before we adopted it and the survey now and it was it was an overwhelming difference from both staff and the community of really liking the 222 calendar I would say also that um just there I really haven't seen one email against the 222 calendar I talked to some people that were had some reservations here and there but I think on the whole everyone has really enjoyed this calendar and feels like it's been a good change for us and I also think I look forward to seeing the data from what when we have those intercessions and help kids along I think I think it will be really important to look at that data in a couple of years and see how that helps our kids so I think it's been a popular calendar and and while there are a few who may not be as excited about it it's overwhelmingly a favorite as far as I can tell thank you anything further I just want to say I know it mirrors a lot of our other districts that surround us so we're kind of coming into kind of normalizing the East Valley with the 222 just for clarification it can maybe Mr Martin can you just explain what 222 means yeah good question for those out there so that just simply means two weeks of fall break two weeks of winter break and two weeks of spring break compared to what we might call the one two one which was one week of spring or fall break two weeks of winter break and one week of spring break thank you so I need to make sure I speak into my microphone I was told I wasn't being picked up earlier so um in speaking with a number of parents about the schedule the 222 versus the one two one the feedback that I got and I just want to get this on record the feedback that I got was that most of the people the teachers and parents that I spoke to were not in favor of the 222 for various reasons some of those being the length of time those two-week breaks are difficult because uh it's too long for in in in from a teacher's perspective it's too long for a child to be out of school and when they come back it's like they're coming back from summer break all over again and so it's basically to a teacher it's like we're having students come back from a summer break you know an extra two times during the year also from parents it's uh it's a difficulty with uh with working parents and finding um uh finding uh child care and it just adds another week of of that that those parents have to consider um and then the last thing I wanted to say is I think it I think it dramatically limits our students abilities to find summer employment because there's a couple weeks Less in the year it's harder for employers to uh to take on the responsibility of training somebody training a new employee when they know that they've only got them for uh when they have them for two weeks less than you know they did a couple summers ago so those are some of the issues that I that were communicated to me um and so I just wanted to get that on record I so would say let's see if we we went over this in a work study two weeks ago if anybody had any questions about it was on the agenda the calendars were sent out we had a survey that had been sent out to teachers and families we reported on all of that do you remember the date of the work study if someone wanted to go back and look at that that would be May 2nd May 2nd okay thank you so that would be to go back and refer to that as we went through all of this I think that night I also said and I just wanted to reiterate that it kind of it comes down to we asked have asked about academic performance is there's a huge difference one way or the other with either calendar asked about fiscal and costs and those kinds of things if there was a huge difference and we haven't seen a noticeable difference on either calendar so in some cases it comes down to opinion and preference and so um again we saw what those who responded to the survey said and we acknowledge those who have different concerns and hopefully can work through those and find Solutions as well so is there anything further Miss Paige I just wanted to ask Mr Martin since the work study on 512 have we received any emails it's against 222 not to my knowledge no honey okay thank you is there anything further okay thank you for the discussion and seeing no further comments I will call for the vote all those in favor of approving the calendars the 222 calendar for the school years 24 25 25 26 and 2627 please vote by saying I I and any opposed with name nay thank you that passes for one that will take us to 9.03 to consider discuss amend if desired and if deemed advisable to adopt a resolution ordering and calling a special budget override election to be held in and for the district in declaring the deadline for submitting Arguments for and against the election to the Maricopa County school superintendent as of August 11 2023 at 5 PM Dr McCourt thank you madam president governing board members tonight we bring before you 9.03 as well as 9.04 9.03 has to do with uh the budget continuation also known as an override as and 9.04 has to do with a possible Bond and we had a retreat the other day last Tuesday I believe and we went over some of these um some of the the reasons why we need to move forward with this and we'll have Miss betz give a presentation just to kind of recap that for the general public so we can have further discussion [Music] thank you uh so so the presentation is related to both of the action items but I wanted to make sure that you all knew that we did have a few people in the audience that I wanted to make sure that you are um introduced to so the first individual is from Gus Rosenfeld they help us with our our bond our bond Council as well as Provide support in our elections so I'd like to make sure that you knew that brand in K wood was here from Gus Rosenfeld so I know Mrs page had some specific questions regarding the resolutions and stuff like that if you'd like to ask him those specific questions he's prepared to answer them for you so after the meeting yeah okay when we get to the answer thank you for bringing that up there you bet you bet and then also I wanted to make sure that you knew that Mr Albert dutchover was here to provide additional support on any of our operational needs and then Ms Jackie matinin to give you some details on how we're handling some of the um the specifics related to the 15 override continuation so with that I'll go ahead and get started so this is what we're going to go through today the budget continuation the need the possible Bond request the need again understood Capital versus bond making sure it's clear of the uses of those two funds tax rate impact and then election timeline and costs so the mno budget continuation the need so why continue the 15 override as you know in 2019 we really were focusing on uh retaining and attracting highest quality teachers and staff we also wanted to make sure that we're maintaining the student and staff safety within our buildings so at that point in time we did expand social workers as well as mental health counselors and now we'd like to to maintain our campus security Personnel that we added in the current fiscal year and then finally maintaining that two million dollar allocation to class size reduction so those are the three priorities that we would go out with with this override budget override continuation so there's a huge focus in these requests on our employee Excellence strategic priority just to remind you remember that all functions of Gilbert Public Schools contribute to the achievement of inspiring excellence in every learner even in the finance office we were talking about it the other day well how do you contribute to the learning of students and go to public schools until the answers is very simple actually let's be as efficient as possible and put as much money as we can into the classroom and so if we don't have to spend it on the finance office we get to put it in the classroom all employees regardless of their role contribute to the achievement of this Vision strategic operating plan employee goal again I already mentioned that and then finally compensation increases when possible shall be consistent across all employee groups we need good people in every function in Gilbert Public Schools so these are the detailed budgetary priorities wanted to make sure there was some information to you all indicating how we have put our money where where our mouth is uh in the past since we were successful in November of 2019 so in 2021 so remember the election was in November of 19 which was the the 2019-2020 school year which meant we were able to use utilize those monies in the 2020-2021 school year so the additional override dollars amounted to about 11 million dollars but we were able to allocate out 14.3 million dollars to salary increases going into 2021 and then after that we were able to allocate out 4.4 million dollars more going into 2022 and then finally in the current year due to the very favorable work of the legislature we were able to okay 23 million dollars into compensation increases going into the current fiscal year in addition maintained student and staff Safety and Security continuing to employ Mental Health Counselors social workers and campus security Personnel 1.8 million dollars in 2021 again that was the first year in which we were able to utilize the the additional monies from the override and then an additional about seven hundred thousand dollars at the beginning of this fiscal year and then finally maintaining that two million dollar allocation to class size reduction making sure that we have an opportunity to add FTE in those classrooms that need it the most so average teacher salary how has our average teacher salary changed over time given this focus in the Strategic operating plan on compensation increases so note in 2020 our average teacher salary was 52 446 went up to fifty four thousand three hundred or so in 21 went up to 57 228 in 2022 and up to sixty three thousand three ninety seven going into the current fiscal year note that I've also included a number at the bottom underneath the 2023 column reflective of the sixty seven thousand six seventy six so we opted to share that if we added all of the compensation that I received average on an average basis for our teachers throughout Gilbert public schools there would be an additional about four thousand dollars associated with pay for performance associated with the stipends that we have awarded in the current fiscal year as well as other additional pays for extra Duty that our teachers do either as coaches like you saw here tonight with all of our coaches providing support to our students in extracurricular activities so given all of that so focusing on 2023 and then so how how do we compare with our local school districts um in order for us to be competitive it's important that we have comparable money you know to our to our peer districts and so this is just a grid sharing that most of our comp competition in the East Valley all have 15 percent overrides I'm already approved by their taxpayer and then finally here's the Local District average teacher salary note that for the Gilbert I put the 67 676 in there and we have shared though on our budget documents that that how we're arriving at those numbers and note that we also went out and looked at Chandler we looked at Higley Mesa Queen Creek and Scottsdale and if you compare those numbers primarily to that 63 000 or 64 almost 64 000 well 63 000 and a half I guess of our average teacher salary we are very much in the market with our peer School peer school districts throughout the East Valley are there any questions on that at all I had a couple I had a question um back to the detailed budgetary priorities on letter C maintain 2 million allocation to class reduction size can you just go into a little bit more detail about that what do we do what is that money being spent for the reduction I know you said FTE is there any other programs or or anything else we're doing for that so generally speaking when we when we set up the the budget so we have a position budget as well as an actual dollar budget and the position budget is is managed by Ms matinin in the finance office she has set up a sort of a contingency grid for otm to access and as they are looking at their student counts at the beginning of every year and knowing that they've already allocated out what they expect for the entire enrollment but if they were to add an FTE to this particular school at this particular grade level it could make a positive impact on the student staff ratio in that classroom at that time so the two million dollars is worth about um 20 to 22 FTE and again it allows otm the opportunity to determine the greatest needs whether it's at the elementary at the junior high or at the high school level okay just for clarification FTE full-time employee full-time yeah full-time equivalent employee I'm sorry that's okay right so it's yeah full-time equivalent versus a body you could have a body that has a half FTE that's the distinction yeah so roughly you said 26 to 27 possible new higher teachers probably 22 oh 22 years to keep those class sizes reduced down to manageable numbers and the other point I wanted to make sure that we shared is if we were to reduce across-the-board district-wide one FTE so we have allocation formulas if we were to go from say 29 to 1 at the high school down to 28 to 1 and then make the commensurate changes across all of our grade levels for every one student it's 1.2 million dollars and you could make an easy case that if you go from 29 or 26 down to 25 it's probably a minimal impact if you can make a case where in one in a few classrooms you could go from 26 down to 23 or 22 that would be a greater impact and has this always been in our budget or is it only since the 2019 since 2019 request for the additional five percent on the budget right I want to add a comment on that because our report from Mr McIntosh was showing our class sizes and they are much better than I expected and they are much better than they were prior to having these funds available to us so I'm I was very pleased to see that I agree thank you bet so and this is just our mno override history and we are estimating about 35 million dollars going into the 2024 school year which which is still um a year in which we have the 15 override the request uh for the election is to go out in November of 23 which does represent going out a year early so in in the current fiscal year we still will have the full 15 and going into 25 we will also have the full 15 it doesn't start ramping down until the to 2025-2026 school year okay if we're not successful so um the bond authorization the 100 million dollar uh request so here are our specific recommendations regarding the 100 million dollars so critical facility upgrades and Replacements allocating out 63 million dollars of the 100 million to that a career Career and Technical education extracurricular spaces nine million dollars Safety and Security we still have secure entryways at our elementaries that we're still planning on doing there's exterior fencing that needs to be upgraded along with alarms and then you also have the technology infrastructure so this is a strong recommendation that's actually directly related to Safety and Security making sure that we have that intra and inter-school communication equipment that we have not had here in government public schools and so that work would be about 12 million dollars allocated to that and then finally the small amount of about oh my math is off there um it's it's it's 4 million but I only have three million dollars reflected sorry about that I'll fix that but four million dollars then allocated out to transportation for a needed school buses and vans Etc I have a question on this page on the Safety and Security the secure entryways and the 12 million dollars does that cover all of our elementary schools or will we still be in process after we spend these bond funds so um we everything is still in flux in terms of priorities so we wouldn't be doing all of them all at once and we have to react to something that we're not expecting however each Elementary School is expected to have a cost of about 150 to 200 000 so it depends upon our priorities and how we allocate out those monies for that first Bond sale how quickly you can get through that but in in the I guess you've got four years here on the bond would we be able to complete all of the elementary schools or would we still need to go out for another bond to finish at the 12 million dollars if the secured entryways were the highest priority against fencing and other security needs um the if at about 150 000 per school it would get us that would be about four and a four and a half million dollars total so the 12 million dollars would be enough to complete that project all right thank you yeah okay Miss batzer are these the only areas are these the only areas that bond funds can be used is there or are there other areas where that money could be used so this is fairly uh it's a fairly comprehensive list um critical facility upgrades and Replacements you can see that that encompasses all of our main systems at every single school it also would include our some of our our press boxes as an example I've been walking with Albert talking to Mr McDowell about the status of our press boxes that are and and our even our stadium bleachers I mean those arguably are a critical safety component knowing the use that our stadiums get here in Gilbert Public Schools but that would all be under that critical facility upgrade and replacement so this would cover anything that is has a life of five years or more we could use it for Chromebooks as an example we have opted over the last three years to move that expense into unrestricted Capital so we're not using Bond dollars anymore you note the the asterisk there about equipment amounts so we do have equipment though that's in our buses that will last about five years so that we have to make sure that the bond how quickly we pay off those bonds matches the life of the item that we're using the bonds for so that's the biggest constraint is the the life of the item that we're purchasing curriculum materials would not be eligible under Bond as an example something very specific thank you and I I just want to add for the community that one of the reasons we're able to move our Chromebook refresh into our unrestricted capital is because the legislature has fully restored that we have more funds there that's correct than we had in the past that's correct so instead of using Bond money we can now use that that comes from the state yep so I had a question um who makes a decision on what the priorities are so so going down to Safety and Security secure entryways we're talking the cameras the Plexiglas at the schools correct but who makes those decisions to determine will fencing is more important than the secure entryways we do as a Cabinet you do as a kid yes so we would take in the considerations from our assistant soups over Elementary and secondary as well as feedback from our principals based on their needs so okay thank you and it would also stem from as an example Albert and I would take that priority those priority questions we talked about that ameresco shared and indicated okay based upon this these criteria and based upon what Albert knows we would come to Cabinet leadership team says well we really need to put the money here now because that's our greatest need um and then if there's anything that we're a little bit concerned about and we've done this numerous times where um a week or two before we're actually going to present suspend to the governing board we may spend the time to call each of you to say this is where we're going on this project and this is why and this is why we're prioritizing it before it's actually presented to you for approval so we've done that also thank you so this is just the bond spending and a little bit more digestible way to take a look at it so you can see that that 63 million dollars representing those critical upgrades is the biggest chunk of the 100 million dollars that we're recommending um this is the information that we did receive from ameresco and this is just a reminder that we have 4.8 million dollars of gross square footage here in Gilbert Public Schools most of which was built in the 1990s and early 2000s note that the total current replacement value of all of our facilities is about 1.8 billion dollars and then again just a reminder 75 percent of what they term our portfolio of all of our facilities was constructed the 1990s and 2000s so put that into timing so that's 20 between 20 and 30 years so we're at that time where these critical components are beginning to show their age this is the district-wide capital needs profile wanted to make sure that I had that that deferred maintenance backlog of 198 million dollars up there again I wanted to share that 198 million dollars does not include the 20 million dollars or so that most you have already approved for the summer so really the backlog is about 178 million and we continue to prioritize as we go through the summer and into the fall based upon available resources you can see and you can see that that backlog likely the the 100 million dollars will address uh the large portion of that of that backlog and also the other point I wanted to make that when you look at all these categories whether it's electrical services interior mechanical building site work equipment furnishings Subs the substructure all of that does include such things as technology so in this in these costs does include the communication the intra and Inter School District communication that's also on the grid for technology it does include the secure entryways they did allocate out a hundred thousand dollars per elementary school as they were doing their walkthroughs so this is a pretty good representation of our our needs to include those technology needs the only thing that's not in here is our transportation Vehicles they're definitely not in here okay so this you've seen too I'm sharing this we have been spending between 20 and 25 million dollars per year you can see how that will address this unfunded liability over the next 30 Years we're really not looking at the next 30 Years we're looking at the next five years and so I wanted to share this this is a very important slide because you can see on this one between how darn it um between the years of 19th today 2023 to 2029 you see that small blue line there that until 2029 2030 we're still at that facility condition index of that 8.7 percent so with the 20 million dollars or 25 million dollars per year we would still be in a very very good condition in our facilities at least through the next five to six years and the 100 million dollars would definitely help us to help to achieve that for us Miss betz yeah so looking back at this slide for my own understanding so you're saying that for the next four years 20 to 25 million for Building Maintenance is going to keep us in that in that yellow that good area right yes and then but then after that use it looks like 2029 that blue line takes a sharp turn upwards yes can you help me understand that does that mean that even if we continue to spend 20 to 25 million dollars a year the rate at which our buildings are declining in or I don't know the way to say that but are getting worse will outpace our ability to continue to invest or the 20 to 25 million would no longer be enough to keep us in in good good condition right so um one of the areas that the Consultants from ameresco shared is that the first um let's see the first half of a facility's life so through 25 years the maintenance costs or upgrade costs would be about 35 percent of that facility replacement value but once you hit 25 years generally speaking our buildings and all the components in it lasts about 50 years that they're built for 50 years so between year 26 and year 50 that's when you would spend 65 percent of the total replacement value which corresponds to that sharp uptick what I wanted to share is that there's a couple of things going on here um I mean according to this we need more than 100 million dollars right we'd like to maintain our facilities as best as possible but today we know that spending 20 to 25 million dollars is going to get us through very successfully for the next five years and we don't know what's going to happen during the next five years would we see additional resources from the state of Arizona would the school school facilities board be fully funded where we have access to additional resources would we I mean there's the most recent thing that happened is the legislation was passed and um as part of that new legislation for 2024 there's an allocation of one-time money it's expected for Gilbert Public Schools to be right around 8 million dollars but that was totally not expected so we have another eight million dollars um that will that we can allocate out and prioritize based upon our highest priority needs so it's more of we know what we need right now for the next five years we don't really know what's going to happen in history in the future seems like an appropriate thing to make a request for 100 million dollars also understanding the impact on our taxpayers and the fact that that we don't want to have an adverse impact on their homes and their their ability to to maintain their own budgets on behalf of Gilbert Public Schools so it's the best way I can answer it I think I appreciate that there is one other thing that um wasn't mentioned and that is that there is a lawsuit from the asba to the government to the state government because they have not kept pace with capital funding that was for I believe it's around six billion dollars um it the trial was to start um in January or February but our new governor and attorney general asked for that to be delayed while they work through and see how they can handle those issues hoping not to spend the money on the trial and settle somehow that hasn't been I haven't heard any more of an update but it's definitely something where if it's settled favorably we would definitely have more Capital funds so there are other things as well I did have the same conversation with Miss betz just because it is worrying when you see that blue line go up and you know we want to be sure that our buildings are in good repair we've done a lot to renovate them and make them look nice and we do want to keep them in good repair but I did feel comfortable that 100 million dollars right now will keep us where we need to go and we need to be just careful that we manage that well and when the needs become more we'll have to be able to address that but there there are other opportunities um besides going out for bonds hopefully our state government will provide they're they're supposed to provide Equity Equitable funding for all of our students to have the buildings that they need based on a lawsuit that was like probably 30 years ago now um Roosevelt B bishop and um we're still working working that out Mr Thompson thank you did you have yeah I've got a couple more questions about this back to slide 16 and 17.

uh but we are very proud of our students and we would be honored if you would attend so just know that you're welcome and we thank you for this time to present this information to you thank you sir the other item that I will go back to was just sharing the Press plus this is a first read There were 15 items for policy review again most of these if not all of these were slight changes in a couple of the warning as well as some legal reference and updates so unless you have any questions about those we'll move those to um next month or next week's meeting well just moving forward after this for a secretary you are going to be communicating with Dr congoles when it comes to the policies prior to them coming to the board okay okay all right we get them probably quarterly having said that um yes that is correct I actually did have a comment um one of them I noticed their schools in session but November 7th I thought was a was that a committee on the whole that we moved up and uh that's election day I don't know if that matters to anyone five bills yeah going back to White Delta you know when I went back okay so which state you said you had a November 7th we had moved everything up because of the triple I conference to have our regular board meeting on the 14th right which would have put our committee of the whole on November 7th but I guess as rube is saying that's a like I don't know if that matters I usually work the polls it will be a big election a comment it doesn't matter so it's up to the board I think as far as um is there a significant election though on in 2023 I don't know oh wait am I am I ahead myself I think you are oh I am I'm a year ahead of myself [Laughter] yeah I was looking through my calendar I must have it wrong in my calendar all right thank you sorry so if you look at the sheet that has in front of you we've got all these I guess uh in your in your board packet we had the one that's coming up we have July 11th and July 18th uh I wanted to see if the award was willing to entertain eliminating the committee of the whole meeting in July um usually July is a very light month we do not have a lot of action items at that time and usually there you know a lot of folks are on vacation during that time so I wanted to leave that for a discussion if you were amenable to that and we used to try to take that whole month off for board activities we haven't done in several years it was always Financial Obligations that had to be addressed and things of that nature so I'm all for it at least having you're just saying have one meeting we could have both I think typically what happens is we've got bills to be paid but I think uh Mr surma can address that as far as how um that would be can you work some magic in yeah that that was we'll be fine with that when would they be approved just take the committee as a whole but meet on a regular and not take the entire month off okay so what we would end up doing similar to tonight we did not have a committee as a whole to vent things out and here we are with a regular meeting and it was especially for a new board members kind of overwhelmed for them to Seattle money hours figures and have added with those things and so for us to go right to a regular board meeting without venting things not having a committed as a home that might be a little challenging that's going right to a regular board meeting without that's what you're saying eliminate the committee as a whole rather made the committee of the whole or eliminate the board meeting have the committee the whole so we can talk about must come I don't know but I would like to have at least one time that month yeah you're going to have to have the meeting of the past pay the bills but that's what he was saying that's what can't say he can make it happen would we approve July payroll and sure payrolls are always true are always approved after the fact anyway we do the payroll and those are always approved after the fact because we have to run payroll to get you the right numbers yeah there's a couple things I can do if you don't have a meeting in July I can do a a pre-resolution allowing me to pay those up to a certain amount I can do that I've done that we've done that before uh if you're gonna have one meeting in July then I can pay the bills in July then too so you know it's up to the board's pleasure I my preference would be to skip the committee the whole if there's discussions we can have them before the before we vote on anything at the regular meeting go ahead and have a regular meeting and is that consensus at a board to at least have one meeting yeah yeah okay thank you we'll adjust the calendar and then um you'll see we've talked about a couple other meetings we just bumped them up a little bit uh we talked about the November 7th meeting the other one will be January 16th um we would just move that a little bit because due to winter break the week before and then the other one would be April 16th one week later due to spring break so those would just be some minor adjustments so and we'll vote on that later tonight so are those all okay then okay sounds good all right we'll vote on as presented thank you okay thank you thank you so back to you is that it with the meeting days we're all good with that yeah okay uh did we finish up with your admin yes we're all done okay all right I don't know if we can have a motion to approve the consent agenda so moved moved by Nelson second by Dr Hall um is there anyone want to pull anything out of this consent agenda prior to discussion of talking about it hearing none uh any discussion on the consent agenda hearing done Madam Secretary roll call please could we have uh superintendent Reed the items on consent agenda for the record um oh he was going to let me just say thanks Nelson item one for superintendent he has approved regular meeting minutes of April 18 2023 Adam to approved regular meeting closed session minutes of April 18 2023.

when the policy was lasted reviewed so and at that time all kindergarteners were right and they were half day right and what was it this is my question what was it before Darcy when we went to Norton school there was no Darcy for at all I don't think used do you know what I did not know that I I all I know is what our policy states now yeah yeah and then I did get the even mentioned it I did uh pull up our surrounding towns and our surrounding towns are all a mile for K through throughout Elementary including okay so I guess my main question is um the parents who have the kindergartener it changes totally acceptable to me change can happen um but what's the impact have you thought about that like how many parents are affected you said that right now it's a gray area where it comes to safety and walking along sidewalks so you're gonna work on it and for parents who are watching at home first of all there's no requirement that sidewalks exist correct and just because sidewalks are there does not necessarily make it safe I'm assuming correct um so you could maybe go to the police or something like that and ask for traffic accidents or any sort of incidents that they yeah and what I was referring to is if there's a petition this is the way the ambiguity becomes an issue you know parents as well I need to add a bus stop because it's not safe and our language is kind of ambiguous so we'd like to clean that up but when we do have a petition like that the the rule that we use is we circulate the petition including to the traffic officer and so the police will look to see you know is this an area where it might be prone to accidents where there's not clear visibility you know and good Sidelines for when the bus stops which you know we think we do a good job of that but when those petitions come in we do defer you know to what police um you know would rule on so that the so government we provide services so you're taking you're effectively we would effectively be taking away a service not looking at the parents looking at the kids does a kindergartner in September have the stamina to walk a mile and stay awake in class for the day generally it doesn't have to be every kid but generally speaking I'm I'm thinking they probably do but I'm not really sure so but you said other towns do it so right and so you know I guess you know I'm sure that somebody could say my child does not you know I'm just talking I'm talking about 90 of the kids like most of the creators could say that too yes they're gonna they're gonna be out there gardeners and the physical stamina to do that and the parent the parents would be doing it the following year anyway right so it's not like it's something it starts let us start developmental difference between kindergarten and first grader um necessarily also it really doesn't impact Darcy any of the kids that go to Darcy because we would never have any child no more well yeah so that it doesn't impact them at all it actually and I'll make this the argument it makes it easier on parents because they now can have both students and potentially at the same stop as compared to having one be a walker and whatnot that's where our conflict has been we've had where one student is a walker and the other one gets a boss because they're inside the half mile it's for I'll give you the little ones it was one of the examples we had where we had one student who's kindergarten going to do a little and he gets the boss put his sibling was a walker and we didn't have enough room for that student to petition on an available seat to get on the bus and the important thing is that it's up to a mile or up to a mile and a half that doesn't mean you know we don't draw a mile in every direction and that's where the stop is so yeah we do use reasonableness you know and most of our stocks will not have a full as long as yeah I mean as long as you're doing what you're saying you're doing I think it makes sense to try to alleviate the administrative burden that you know that you have if you can well in the parent frustration too when you know like Luther said I have to be in two places at once if I'm the only parent you know walk maybe walking my you know right watching my first grader walk on in my kindergartner and taking them to the bus stop and you know that does create some frustration can I just go back because you know and I don't know what the criteria is are setting 1.5 versus 1 the versus half because I used to always thought my kids went to Darcy driving there I said if my kid was a walker how would I even get to Darcy right now because it's not safe so what what is built in that we would consider okay we have enough Walkers where we need to force the sidewalk onto this I just yeah the sidewalk if you're talking to me well not everywhere you guys know how to hear me all the time but you're right yeah that's a town decision right and you know I think I don't know if you remember more recently the hullabaloo over uh a sidewalk yeah the community that didn't want it and um but you know if that sidewalk does not exist then we're going to provide the bus that's right I think we'll have been the same reasonableness we look at yeah we wouldn't want any student walking on 70 especially at that age you know a good one by High School wouldn't want to walk on 70 myself a good example is is again it's do a little because within that mile walking area for the for the elementary school students that takes them almost all the way down Mountain Road going towards West Main pretty damn close right sidewalks end where those sidewalks end we start picking up the kids so we we don't have those two we're not going to let a first grader walk even though it's inside the walking area where we pick them up and that's the discretion that we do the last thing I want to do is have a student out there and so you know that's that's where I'm always saying I always say our sidewalk policy and gesture is very schizophrenic I have a sidewalk then no sidewalk then the sidewalk again and then there's a sidewalk on the other side but then I mean it's all over the place there's no Rhyme or Reason and the same thing with the new North school I'm driving over there I'm like where are these guys walking uh that's how I keep telling I keep telling these guys in all directions and we did already communicate with Sean okay um about that scenario and about where sidewalks should be and or extended in that neighborhood um and that'll be certainly in the top of the conversation soon the example I used was The Courier Woods kids that's a bus almost by itself that back entrance or the Jarvis entrance it you don't put sidewalks there you're gonna pick up kids you're going to use a whole bus most likely to pick up kids to take them driving across 200 feet yeah but you wouldn't want to walk in there no without sidewalks so is this an ongoing discussion that you have with the town manager it goes on year after year about places where it doesn't have to be every year but this is an ongoing discussion highlighting places where well there's definitely more urgency as we start new construction um there's definitely more of a an intentional focus on that uh you know I don't know that there was much appetite for it after what what's I can't remember the streets the block the side of the high school oh you know I don't know if there was a lot of appetite on the council side after that experience but um certainly now it's worth revisiting with the new school being built so well we have the situation on Coleman Road where there's student developments went in with one's once built and has sidewalks but then there's two houses right on Coleman Road that have no sidewalk and that's relatively busy road so you know yeah and they're obviously family houses yeah they're meant for families and the kids that live there if they want to go over to those new developments have no choice but to go out to Coleman Road and I'm talking about just socializing with friends with us we're picking them up we're picking them up probably at the house so one thing I I encourage you to do is to identify if you if you identify the places where it would make sense especially gaps like on Mountain Road and I don't know where the I don't know where the public works department is on this right now but I know I've spoken with him about it in the past which is basically to try to keep tabs on the homes with respect to sales when I was on the council I mean one of the things that was really difficult for me would be you know the little old lady she's got a reverse mortgage people tell you all sorts of things when you're going door to door relatively little money can't possibly shovel their sidewalk can't pay someone to shovel their sidewalk she leaves the house for some reason it's a new home you have the kids move in they're that is a sidewalk let's say the so that's a that's a bad example right there but right next door you have another home that moves the kids move in they probably want the side there's a good chance they would want the sidewalk there if you do some sort of like annual follow-up with the particular gaps on Mountain Road Ron Coleman whatever you're talking about just a reminder email it might uh poking Public Works might remind him and say oh yeah let's look at that as a possible um expansion of the sidewalks to fill in gaps yeah I think if we're going back to the table to talk about the North End sidewalk situation it's not a bad idea to kind of cue up some of the other hot spots that we know around town um no I know them all yeah I know you do but I mean if you if you could if you could jot it down and give it to Public Works I think that's I would like it if you did that yeah because they're open to it and the big the single biggest thing for them I believe is basically connecting the gaps so getting that sidewalk over on Jarvis or Marion is not necessarily something high on their to-do list you consider Peck Lane in that category because there's a section of Peck Lane that has about 400 feet of sidewalk and then there's a gap and then there's about another 100 feet and then nothing yeah yeah I mean would would should that be connected at least the peck where the new the new sidewalks are that can come down from the top of guanabear and give them your list of priorities yeah I know yeah again I think is worthy of pursuing the conversation with them we've already notified them about the intention to have that conversation and they've been very receptive and so you know we'll we'll get that squared away in terms of at least having the conversation you know obviously we don't have the authority to dictate what they do but you know we certainly can express the urgency and the need so in this policy Jeff what are the possible relations so I think you know some of the things that we're talking about are like we shared tonight with the um you know moving it from a half mile to a mile from kindergarten um there's some language in here that's a little big in places um There Are Places again where we would just look for agreement in mileage so it says like uh there are some things that we would take up in the fall with the more comprehensive review of this policy but um just wanted to have some more preliminary conversation on it and make sure that we can dive in with a little bit more detail hopefully even when the fall kicks around we might know a little bit better about what the sidewalk situation might how that might be an improvement um and then we can kind of work on the three readings for the public made sure there's a lot of information about it and then you know making any modifications some of it is just clean up we still in the house you talk about mailing postcards to parents which I haven't done that in years is there a defined I didn't read the whole thing but is there a defined safety there there is actually a quite elaborate compared to other you know communities so we'll propose the language and you know kind of work it through as you normally do in policies I I think the biggest thing really has more around the walking Zone I think there's some language about ages that's the easy stuff all right um when we're measuring a mile I know we talked about this at the last game so I've forgotten that is it from the door to the beginning of the driveway or to the front door of the school it's from the corn it's basically the corner of the property of the residence curb line to within a hundred feet of the nearest entrance of the school based on the policy without a hundred feet okay so so it would be a significant change then if we did it to the door of school because we're going to have some new schools they're going to have pretty long driveways well that would sort of bring up it would still be 100 feet to the door oh I see what you're saying that extended driveway in the school property where you can choose up mileage right yeah as you're kind of bringing it that would be correct yes right yeah if there's a much longer run point we're on the Bus Loop you know as you know preliminary designs hold true that both the driveways at Norton that's why that's why the policy I believe the policy is set up to start it basically the end of the driveway because we have some pretty long driveways yeah I know we have some driveways there Hi Well actually hi there too I guess yeah all right I just want to consider that um any other questions okay move on thank you gentlemen thank you uh to equity and diversity this and our um our next policy around civility are things that I want to say we I had to discussed this at one point a few days back yeah briefly yeah and so this is just a proposal it's not a statutorily required policy but it seems to keep in mind and see if we can pretty out a copy why don't we give you a printed copy that might be easier that'd be great easier to read these guys have already seen it um you know I can go through I'm not going to read verbatim so is this where where uh where did this language come from this was designed by Cheshire Public Schools people um there's uh this isn't Kate no okay no this is uh you know from our teachers administrators here um and it really what it it talks about is trying to ensure the success of all learners that we're committed to the success of all kids and a Workforce that's reflective of our student population community um I'd say those are some of the Hallmarks the uh when did you travels okay let's say the fall because I thought we talked about this ability one and then wanted to entertain this since Kate does have their own Equity about this example so I'm not sure if we can kind of merge the language to align with you know the work that's going on out there publicly too so when you say the words you know I mean it's it may not impact with Cave's example I think it's a bit more comprehensive um you know even in my own District it's not just one page it's pretty outline to yeah this is four pages yeah it's three it's pretty extensive legal references um you know I think also just kind of mirroring some of the efforts of minority teacher recruitment that would overlap a little bit into this policy and I'm not sure if that's included here yeah the minority future recruitment piece is is referenced here in terms of attempting to diversify our Workforce and efforts that we have made in that respect you know the minority teacher recruitment is incredibly challenging right now as is recruitment of all teachers really unfortunately but um we have engaged in practices uh like the um for lack of a better term grow your own program where we had a african-americ American male who was you know working with us peripherally who we went through uh Cheshire High graduate went through the training program and will be hired next year he worked all year at Norton and will be hired next year as a as a teacher for us which is great to diversify our teaching quarter um because he had Norton alum was he born [Laughter] so I mean I'm more than happy to share some of this language is this Kate derivative language but generally it's what what our group put together and I can share with you guys the cape version if you not well I mean I was able to read through this um almost all of the language feels familiar like it's it's already in a lot of our um uh what is it our diversity uh policies that we have already in some of our existing policies yeah you know hiring practices uh a lot of the equal treatment of people and students and employees are all seem to be sort of covered right this is more of a declarative summative statement yeah that it does I mean it should have hints of a variety of things whether it be current existing policy or uh vision of The Graduate or some of our goals as a school system so uh it's not it's not law right it does reference law though for example if you know if you look at the last the reference page it'll be pretty clear that you know obviously we can't discriminate in our Employment Practices and things right yeah yeah so there's certainly many references to law and or um cases that have gone through office of civil rights or whatever so again this is more of a declarative statement about a board Community belief system so I guess my the biggest question I have is uh section d where it's it promotes the equitable distribution of resources how would we do that so um right now in a in our budget we do uh highlight where we're required by law to illustrate where the resources are spent by school um you know I think for example it is hard to illustrate that but I wouldn't I would say for example that we don't just assign every student a dollar amount right if we took our per pupil expenditure we know faith is is asked and we've provided the average per pupil expenditure for special education it would be wildly inappropriate to say well you know I don't care what your needs are X dollars you know and so I think it's again some of this stuff is uh more uh aspirational than it is something that you can clearly measure very easily but um for example if we had a group of students that were historically underachieving this would say to me that we wouldn't engage in something where we would say well you know that's they they got X dollar now it's you know better luck next year that we would say with that then that requires us to provide more resources as we've done with special education you know and our special education scores are parallel with our our achievement on general education in terms of a rank so it like like I said it's not some of it's a little bit aspirational in the sense that it's hard it would be incredibly difficult to put a dollar amount on how much money you're spending on each individual because I mean for budget wise we don't necessarily have an equal distribution for every school like to say for our elementary schools these budget is different right the requirements are different um they're not necessarily based on uh the racial makeup of our students right it's more based on need in general um so I was just concerned that this adds another level of consideration because it says child doesn't say must um and and we don't necessarily and I'll have a section of town that's more diverse than another you know I think the makeup is pretty homogeneous for good or bad right yeah generally speaking so I don't know if you know a set section like this is necessary because you you use special education as sort of your example but that's not what this is talking about I think it's talking about any sort of differences of I mean if we had um while not in a general sense right Equity is not talking about especially I guess maybe not in a general sense yeah the resources for special education could you give a specific example hypothetical that how you would Envision that based on what Adam was saying well I think if you know multi-language Learners okay [Music] um that you know if we need different resources than we have I mean we've invested in that respect that you know one of my favorite educational books is titled fair is not always equal and you know what's doing what's right by our students in our community does not mean giving every student equal resources some students we know require more resources when we identify groups of students who are not performing on par with their peers but it's I think this is more of an aspirational statement that says when you see that we're going to try and do something about and we've never not done that agreed I think that's I I agree with that I think that's been a you know a source of Pride for us to try and support all students who need that and that we help them find success I know specifically for me one thing that has concerned me since I was in high school was the student sports figure after school activity fee I never had a problem with it as a kid I don't have a problem with it now philosophically but I don't want any kids left out yeah of course and if that kid needs to have some sort of extra resources whether it's a credit of you know fifty dollars I think that's important to have that I don't want I don't want that kid feeling like they're poor and they they're not allowed to participate I think that would be frankly really awful yeah so in spirit I understand what you're saying yeah yeah and they provide access and we wave fees yeah you know you know the multi the the language Learners multi-language Learners so kids who English is not their first language right I think Marlene said there was like 80 or so kids um I think we're about over a hundred okay well over 100 at this point so this is for people watching at home there are kids here in Tamil English is not their first language yeah and they have every right and it's important for them to go to school and have a public education and that's gotta that's gotta work and so I think it's important to have some sort of resource for those kids and they're not special ed they just chose the language these are children in our community who um you know their families live here and they said English was not their first language and we provide them the resources they need to be successful uh academically and and socially you know I hate just the idea that oh I'll always worry about the academic success we want our kids to be successful in all frames um but yeah I'm in the same way we provide resources for students who have different needs whether they be socioeconomic to your point not available to able to afford a participation fee um we would provide that access if you need more support for special education you provide that access and the reality is if we found that you know our our black students were performing significantly worse than our white students we would make efforts to intervene there too which may mean more resources and that's what a I think a Humane and uh you know an educational Community should be about is elevating all students to find success that's what public school is about for me I definitely like the language indeed I think it's also speaking to the reallocation of resources depending on your population of the schools you know when my kids are at Highland Highland was the High maturity special ed school so I would hope that you reallocate special ed support to Highland and not just equally sprinkle out special education resource teachers oh everybody has an equal amount of teachers well that school there does not need it because they don't have a high number of you know said needs I hope Jack would be able to then reallocate those resources to the areas that would need it you know so I think the D language wise I don't have a concern with it and it encompasses um DNE not just race the socioeconomics and academic needs as well too as well as you know what you address very Tim so yeah I was gonna ask you about that check so I just I I personally think this is a step in the right direction most districts have this just to name the fact that we are doing these things um we're not not doing them um and so I think the public should know that there is diversity amongst us majority of which are homo genius but there's still a diversity of needs and it's not just about race you know um in social class yeah I think you know one thing that we tried to focus on in our group is that there is a lot that goes on in political climates outside of Cheshire um and I I could care less about that necessarily you know if if we're as we look at this we're looking at Cheshire our students our families the kids that attend our schools what is it that we want to try and do to support Cheshire and our community and not engage and all the other stuff so you all maybe find some language that says far left is some people were like I don't think you're going to find language that's as far right as other people would like but um what I think we do try and focus on and if you reread the the policy and you look at other policies is the students who are attending the Cheshire Public Schools what is it we're trying to do for that and that that's that was the frame with which this was really drafted but you know this is a discussion item there's not a advancement so you know we'll discuss putting it on the next agenda or not and I'll share the other information from cave and we'll go from there is is it from your perspective is there anything new in here that's not happening right now you're just because what I'm hearing you say is you're basically codifying what you're already doing yeah and some of it is codified but it's in one concise policy right here yeah I don't I don't think there's anything new that we're not doing um you know I think there's also value and like you know writing down what you do stand for so no I I you know but you're right absolutely it's not like these are new things that we're doing I mean to me my analogy is drunk driving there's drunk driving laws yeah before that there were reckless driving laws drunk driving law were basically they were just saying keep this one in mind especially type of thing right people could still have been arrested for reckless driving sure that's it so I'll share that other stuff with you guys um civility policy this is a little bit different in the sense that um this is one that came you guys uh were acknowledged with the award from McCabe about their efficacy and capacity as a board uh this past fall uh this is one that would help Elevate to the next level that's not why we do things chasing Awards but I thought that was interesting that it stood out with with Kane uh is something that would you know Elevate the board to the next level um we were the motto particularly I was gonna say particularly given all the work that we've done around Civility and navigating difficult meetings um and I think what this does is uh we invite public discourse whether it be in public session or hit the building level um this this does a lot to address other venues beyond the board meeting this isn't the board meeting policy this is as a community um we believe that the free exchange of ideas is appropriate you know you we can criticize each other um without losing our civility um and when people are threatening or engaging in repeated use of profanity and things like that that you know this is something where we would say Hey you know we have a civility policy it doesn't change what we can do legally um so I the school district has the right to ban parents and there's a very high threshold for that and there should be you know but if a parent continues to come in and use a lot of profanity and it's threatening people then we there's a in this kind of outlines what we do in line with law you know you direct that parent to stop doing that stuff then you have them direct all Communications through the principle and if that's not effective then you know you would cease that we would only do Communications and writing sort of thing um but that's all Guided by current law anyway in uncivil conduct includes directing vulgar obscene and profane gestures or words that other individuals taunted engineering inciting others to talk or cheer as an individual shouting at another individual or repeatedly interrupting and other individuals speaking in an appropriate time and place imposing personal demand to time your own settings where they can flip through the same duties that reasonably we met personal epithets you know shaking your fist and somebody invading the personal space of getting up in their face and and I'm not stopping doing that when the other person's backing away um you know rifling through somebody else's things that I think is a society we generally all agree or not okay you know and um and again I think it's important to note too that it doesn't include expression of controversial and differing viewpoints things like that um it's okay to say to us you disagree with things that we do or even have perspectives that are controversial as long as you're not you know shaking your fist at me while you do it and swearing a storm so in the second paragraph Jeff are you implying that you're going to have restorative circles here with you know as some of the actions that you'll be taking I think it depends on individuals and on the circumstances um that may not be appropriate for yeah some parties but I suppose the problem I have with this is that the definition of uncivil conduct is depending on your point of view again which goes back to free speech and First Amendment and it says it's okay to express your opposing point of view as long as you don't raise your voice or shake your fist or do any of those other things that we all experienced several years ago in meetings already and if they did that in a public meeting that's still an expression of free speech and unless there is an incitement of violence you know we had already um you know steps in place to you know for through Robert's rules to you know the control needing so is this meant for like during the school day like what if you had some uh someone rent out Thorpe Auditorium and have a speaker come in and things got wild is that is this does this uh Encompass yeah that would be abusive school that would be a private event property so you know at a PPT you shouldn't be using profanity toward the future okay and threatening their personal like generally accept the sort of behavior already or accepted I'm sorry discouraged certainly discouraged yeah but yeah all right important clarification right yes but um yeah of course and there's already measures in place and I've been in meetings before where I've said you know we can't this isn't productive um we're not going to be able to continue if this Behavior continues and unfortunately we've been in meetings before where that has continued and we you know what we're gonna have to uh terminate the meeting at this point we'll reconvene when we're able to do it in a productive way um so yeah that exists uh that practice would exist um I think you know a lot like the equity policy this is a public statement to that end um and so again I I don't know that you know this is if we adopt this is this gonna reshape the the life of the Cheshire Public Schools no I don't think so I think what it does do is support more or less principal communication as needed with individuals who might might benefit from reviewing it so as an example I think of is I think during covid there were student walkouts there are protests if I recall um if there were counter protests like let's say another group of students wanted to protest that protest is that considered you know because it was a school sanctioning walkout in the first place if another group is the only one the only School sanctioned walkout now we're not in the business of you know hey let's walk out of school every day yeah it only happened once the one that I can remember was after Parkland um yeah that was you know hundreds of kids right in order for it to be orderly and appropriate you know we did facilitate you come out you can speak and go back but what if there was another group that wanted to also Express their point of view opposite to that yeah and they did that would that be considered uncivil if they no came out with a bullhorn or something like that um and this more disrupted to the other walkout yeah I think in the sense with each other yeah I think we would say you know this isn't productive you have hundreds of kids out in the parking lot though yeah I mean that's uh one event in the 18 years right no I know but it was an unusual time absolutely yeah yeah I also think that the tenor of society has gotten increasingly oh that's fair too uh yeah this is a really good sign or what if they weren't even students what if they were just other people yeah who came on their property I mean I don't know at that point is it a legal issue you know yeah right yeah the teachers had yeah yeah this um because it doesn't seem like there's a lot of teeth in this anyway there's like a lot of because you said talking circles or whatever there was it wasn't a lot of restoration yeah this as I said to you you know I'm not gonna pass that this is you know it's a game changer for the Cheshire Public Schools um but it would likely be used less than a dozen times a year um and it you know I think it's just a statement of decorum for our community and some people sometimes need to be reminded of that it's not meant to be the playbook for protest or anything like that it's it's again just kind of a statement about the expectations for decorum in the community in the Cheshire Public Schools community and you know doesn't have teeth you know but your song clear this is meant to be during school hours on school property yeah I mean that's the the gist of it it's not like you said if somebody's renting out the auditorium that's private that's that's their own event so even though it's school property it's not this conduct this policy does not yeah you know I can certainly look at Clarity of language again this is a discussion so if we wanted to bump it around if I rent that out called in Tucker Carlson or something like that to call you I think there would be a lot of people would have a lot of things to say sure and lots of crazy things in that Auditorium right and you know would that this civility policy kick in because people would be screaming at each other or uh you know that that's not a school event right so it's private when you're under private insurance and all that kind of stuff that's considered a private event yeah when you rent it out that's your thing I mean there are we have rules I mean like we had this massive Indian wedding it died when I was a little vice principal there you know we have rules about what you can and can't do um but it's not governed by decorum our expectations for your social it's just like don't destroy the building yeah I already have to pay for it right it was more or less that stuff right but um you know we can always go back and take a look at this in the summer and see if we wanna on Thursday I'll bring it up there yeah it's just kind of important well I'm sure it'll bring up some discussion yeah I think yeah yeah if you're good to get other board members so yeah take that you know even if we wanted to solicit something more formally for the board you know we could do that too I mean this does apply to our board meetings as well too so yeah you know respectful discourse here tomorrow yeah and you know and that's why I'm gonna have a problem with it though I think for me anyway because as as crazy as those meetings were it's the public does have their right to speak and however they wish um we have lots of lawsuits more definitely have the right to speak with the reason and you know right and those protocols have been effective right right um when necessary and right and again marginal percentage of the positive yeah 99.9 at the time it's it's fine you know and and I remember Tim saying at one point when we had discussed this that you know whether it's fair or it's not um I tend to agree with him that you know there's probably a different when you say subjective right whether or not it's appropriately subjective I can manage a different level of criticism or lack of decorum than I would expect my average kindergarten teacher to have to navigate you know by virtue of position and experience you know whether that's fair or not you know I expect to use public officials perhaps whether it's fair or not to navigate something different than I expect my luncheon to have to navigate you know what I mean and how do you you know that isn't necessarily articulated maybe it should be maybe it shouldn't be I don't know um but I I think the intent on this was just a general level of decorum and expectations the same way we would you know the community would expect us to treat them with a certain level of professionalism into Coral so we can you know yeah kick it around down the road yeah I think my my I think my problems with an application to uh a member of the public coming to speak um then employees you know we could look at Carbon that out yeah you know not that we would say No Holds Barred the board meeting because there's other we have standards right yeah so like maybe we're more specific about that right if we're to say that because I don't know anybody in our community who's comfortable with somebody berating their fourth grade teacher they don't like where you know you can get upset you can get you know especially in this world we live in if you're getting there you need to talk to somebody else to support that conversation a principal or somebody else like that nobody's nobody wants their like I said the teacher or rated in this community I definitely think this helps to prevent twos or you know concerns later on if we have something that's named and you know the other thing I could do to that point is ask Cade but why do you prioritize this as a does he mean by title I miss you well there's not a safe space I might feel as though you know you're insulting me as a female I can go on and then it ends up being a Title IX concern because I could report that that's an interesting you know well I think it's a good point to ask Kate yeah like why why why did you elevate this particular potential policy um because it's not statutory either um and see what their answer is I'm curious probably won't have that for Thursday but good good to know yeah they do prioritize yeah it keeps us on a level too right I mean you know yeah right yeah Hold Us Down Hold Us Down I want a better place just yeah so in spirit I agree with it but I'm I I'm very hesitant in doing anything like this in terms of elected officials yeah um but in terms of staff I think that's a different category and maybe students are even a different category I'm not sure how to look at it not yeah I don't feel it's all the certainly a lot of rules that protect students from harassment you know whether they be statutory or building you know practice based but you know this is more about adult stability but there is a message in here about you know how you carry yourself at athletic events and things like that um you know there's another one where we've seen an uptick in kind of outrageous behavior toward coaches and officials and you know there are laws that protect people too but this is just more or less a statement about that sort of thing and I appreciate the carve out with the elected officials um this is not and that'll include YouTube yeah you know you're in a different you are not a classroom teacher and I appreciate that yeah the same way I appreciate to a point yeah the principles are probably going to tolerate a bit more than we should ever expect our teachers to tolerate you know or have to endure is probably a better word tolerate you know criticism I expect that in this role we expect um harassment is different you know any of us should expect it but I kind of do you know to a degree because of the position I have and the roles that you guys play I think there's a difference you know but anyway but that could be subjective too though yeah it is yeah if you're not in that sea in somebody else's that's you know not how they're going to feel absolutely right absolutely right so let me go back to Caden see what their perspective is on some of that one other point on this this is a very minor detail but I don't know if it's a bigger issue as part of a pattern within it one item in there was uh personal space yeah that's very much cultural yeah and we were just discussing about how we have over 100 Kids yeah in the school system and English is not their first language my guess is their parents probably weren't living in Cheshire for their whole life or anything like that probably came as immigrants right and that personal space may very well be different from what people would expect here in Cheshire again that's a very small small detail but just as part of this overall policy I think it probably needs to be flexible and depending on on the situation yeah then you go back to the equity right yeah you know there's some overlap here between these days all right next item up forbidden international travel as it relates to the superintendent staff yeah so the simple thing um is as far as I know we have no policy related to international travel we for staff correct and I think it is entirely possible that something like that could happen I could easily see a conference say in Montreal or something like that where um zonia my civil request is a draft of some sort of policy that could mimic or mirror the student international travel policy which is you know it gets board approval sure the um just so you know the only thing that we really have in place now is not even a it's more of a practice than it is any sort of policy around uh professional development as we historically do not send people to Vegas for conferences that's the only thing you know that we kind of attribute to now so there's not a lot of guidance on this topic when we went to look um I gave guidance on the council about 15 or 20 years ago on that I said because it was a conference in Vegas student Paul it seems like we approve trips for students knowing that the adults are part of the package I guess attending so wouldn't that come out of yeah the student policy anyways I'm just trying to figure out how we would extract well I think I think what Tim is talking about correct me if I'm wrong is you know for professional development experiences out of country that you know a three months Advance approval maybe that goes uh through curriculum that uh you know just have advanced approval from curriculum that it kicks up to the full board for approval something like that and correct me if I'm wrong here but here's a hypothetical that could happen I think a a trade of teachers for one year that may not even have let's say there's not even any cost to the school system but they remain on Cheshire Public Schools insurance policy Health Care sure there's there's a tie-in they're not leaving it um so if something like that happened I think the board should simply be aware of it um and get yeah have some idea I don't think it's necessarily something will require a big discussion but uh no different than a sports team going to Germany or something like that where it's generally paid for I think by fundraising the parents yeah yeah I don't want people to think that these are you know all this millions of dollars being spent on international travel or anything but I just think it would be worthwhile to have um the board aware of stuff okay do we have an out of District conference pop like guidance or nothing no nothing so you would most it will go directly to you somebody asked to attend an outer District event not generally um usually that goes to Marlene if it's something more significant in the company but it you know there's a conference in Middletown or I mean we actually it's Unique that we have casts in our backyard I mean sometimes we have cast and that's you know they go to that Connecticut Association schools does a lot of PD um but you know you might go to a PD at the hotel in cromwell's another you know Lively spot for educator PB that's not going to come to me for a one-day conference something like that um you know uh uh college board has a uh two-day event in New York City if we're paying for somebody to spend the night I'm probably gonna see that one um but it's really depends kind of if it's an overnight I'm likely to see if it's not a state or I'm likely to see it but just out of town one day Marlene's gonna so what's your checklist of criteria to approve or you pretty much just I don't know only if it's aligned to curricular needs or yeah absolutely we look at relatives okay yeah we look at relevance to our curriculum needs our goals the person's role so I mean this might be tied very closely to our curriculum goals and needs but you know not for a seventh grade teacher there's no reason for you to have to go to this you might love Orlando but this is not or conference relevant to your standing so it's relevant to your role so you wouldn't approve that so we evaluate each one on a case-by-case basis so generally in state and conferences and stuff does that go to ubin because this is an expenditure or is it just no it you know the mileage comes to say mileage reimbursement um no registration registration fees yeah those will go through Marlene yeah yeah we and again we evaluate cost benefit analysis I guess it wouldn't hurt to have something I don't know what the process is it's probably why I'm asking these questions like what's the difference with that kind of thing versus out of state versus at a country you know what are the criterias that you set to approve yeah so um I don't hear that being the request for the policy from Tim but uh we and I don't know that that's a board policy as much as is it procedure but yeah in our procedure the the teacher let's say that it's generated from the teacher right right sometimes it's generated from the administration to the teacher saying hey this is a great conference you think it'd be a good fit for volunteer for your role yeah and sometimes it works out sometimes it doesn't but um if it's generating from the teacher level they'll say to us hey this is a something I was looking at be good good opportunity um and then it goes initially to depending on the school age the department chair or principal um ultimately if it goes to the department chair at the high school level and it's elevated to the principal and the principal would then give a blessing or not through Marlene and that's the vast majority of stuff that we overwhelming majority of stuff we then prioritize you know for out-of-state travel it's probably affiliated with your review cycle and our curriculum review process which is a five-year review cycle and so we've done most of our out-of-state travel aligns with the content areas that are being reviewed for the curriculum review process so nctn the National Council Council of teachers and Mathematics may have their National Conference in St Louis um this is the year that aligns with our curriculum review process we might send three people to that because that's where Cutting Edge information is that's where a lot of vendors are that's really rich professional growth experience so we'll maybe send them to that um but like I said most times if you're going to a conference like that that's overnight uh multi-day out-of-state conference that's tied into our curriculum review process so it's time there's a limitation I mean I would think it has to be a billing exists throughout you know the year not just when yeah they have a regional and a uh right they have a multitude of PD experiences as do other content areas and vendors ascd I don't want to come across like I'm limiting professional learning here I just you know we have to teach how we do it but procedural informs policy you know form follows function here so in the the same holds true when we're developing the other policies we're going to need procedurals and you know I think you know the the part about out of state or international travel is pretty rare and it's always affiliated with more money you know we're almost always you know even if there was a big National Conference in there had been in Hartford um yeah most people are not staying there but it's usually a big National Conference it's more expensive to attend but honesty those things are you know is an easy place to start by looking at what are the what are some of the protocols we follow in terms of notification an approval and to mimic that for staff it's I can easily draft that up I don't have all of the protocols that you you know have to think of every yeah and I'm just thinking from my point of view I guess it would just be I guess it would just pertain to you specifically since that's the only um the only purview we really have I think that the International Community for students isn't that more ceremonial or no that's no I mean the board approves that or not approves uh international travel I mean that's part of our policy so if we extended out the staff yeah then that's that's I mean are we voting every month on something no no [Music] it's incredibly rare so why not yeah if you're if you're approving the student field trip obviously as part of that right our staff are going well curriculum tends to Bunch them together it's like everyone like every three months or four votes on it though yeah right when it comes to the board and you know I think this this where we're beginning here is looking at just uh the certified staff because we would be approving out of state and international professional development experience International or uh you know domestic honesty experiences for PD okay so I can draft something up there based on the yeah you know Foundation we have for students that's easy okay okay um all right now we're past discussion it's like you know this is like an old-timey policy meeting [Music] oh yeah back in the day yeah I know yeah foreign so the first one um teacher aids uh Carol we looked at this yeah not just a para educator not the teacher a so the I think what made this more confusing is that this was um kept switching yeah it kept switching and it was um kind of directed to if you remember kind of tied to the uh Title One School language around para versus Aid so just to make it more straightforward acknowledging that this could be um confusing I just added this note at the at the bottom um the directs people to you know look at the contract if you're looking for more Direction around what the role actually is so that training does perf does um refer to teachers aides as well as paraprofessionals or is it because there isn't it inferred that paraprofessionals have more training to begin with right don't they have like a two don't they have to have a two-year para Educators um well I'm sorry I say paraprofessionals that's right very very educated yeah para educators uh we've required to yeah we don't right that's all in high school diploma and uh same with teacher aids however like a para educator doesn't necessarily do lunchroom duties a teacher Aid that is a recess aide kind of different names this is formerly IAS right para Educators is formerly okay yeah it's hard to keep up the lunchroom playground AIDS in the contract are still lunchroom and playground AIDS they're not they're deaf power Educators even though they're in that Union it's and that's why I say you know look at the contract if you want Clarity around because this was a a mandated policy around the the language if you want Clarity I want the a specific person is doing check out the contract I used took some of the ambiguity out of it that way rather than trying to Hash through those so every time it says paraeducator should it also be slash teacher's aid or is it supposed to be one in the same no they haven't is one of the same in the version that they give us and in teacher eight we don't technically have a teacher Aid we have a lunch grunt lunchroom um playground Aid so so should the term teacher's aide be removed the part I don't is there a contractual difference I mean I guess there is because well they're in the contract they're in the same Union with different responsibilities right and so when you talk about lunchroom duties that is not a para educator necessarily doing that a para educator may have a lunchroom duty to assist a student in the lunchroom but nah you traditional Cafe so in the in the contract there is a title teacher's aid any title career educator there's a title lunch room playground Aid and then there's title para educator so I hear what you're saying about the teacher's aide yeah but this was you know the the legalese that was giving to us that I'm afraid to mess with so I'm just asking at the bottom consult the contract for clarity around what people are supposed to be doing okay that was it's just because it switches you know it's teachers not in love with how it's written um you know I mean what was the one that the bullying policy I think it was that we were like God this is so much easier when it was just filled with jargon oh yeah right yeah yeah the new one it's much like oh my God this is like such a relief the number of people that are actually going to access this policy they it's probably going to be incredibly limited but if they do if you're looking for Direction I wouldn't point to this as the best place of information about what teacher uh para educators are doing and what playground resource uh recess AIDS are doing that's really got to be a contract and this is a statutory change there are a contractual change or both it was a statutory and that and it's really all around the title one pair of educators which they refer to as paraprofessionals it's not it's ridiculously confusing uh so we comfortable with leaving it like this I mean it would be modification of the contract yeah I think it would be good I'll go back to Cave again because I'm talking to them anyway about the the you know did this come from cave or did they give it to you like this yeah please don't go back and they've done really good about it they've been really good about it like actually they got back to me on the next one pretty quickly uh the survey one okay I think what Adam is suggesting is something so can we Define a teacher Aid in our world to equal yeah educator delineate it somehow and then I think that makes us because you know sometimes you go on a posse you're like oh well this is the policy and this is what it says and you read that you're like well I'm not sure what it says title we do see that's teacher Aid but yeah they're not special education they're just classrooms yeah para Educators that are classroommates it's hard to have 17 definition or 17 titles for the same job which is kind of where we are and then you know we still get IA mixed in there all the time too yeah we're trying to lose IA it's been a as a vernacular around yeah um the surveys of students what do you call them we actually had an issue with we have kindergarten AIDS but we also have Paris and when we hired the kindergarten AIDS the pairs have an issue because it wasn't the job descriptions were very right Junior they're not oh that's a bigger problem because it was a temporary well based on as they're funding well that's yeah the this is uh did we come to a conclusion on that I'm just curious Jeff has to go back we're gonna not move that forward right right this is so we just got this so we do not have this on the books currently we do we do because it said we're buy so this is our current policy this is not our current policies okay but the Law changes just so we see because like this is pretty robust yeah now it's five minutes because I'm like well this this is our policy then why do we have a problem so remember yeah yeah she's on the homepage now yeah uh Colombia the lady on the homepage was a preschool teacher for Adams and my kids she was over masonicare yeah I guess we paid better she's not a teacher she's not a teacher for those of you keeping track so this is okay so this is the original that was done in 1997.

uh that was what Kevin referred to our our system has long since been uh put away in mothballs it had that information but we opened it up we went in we were able to get most of the things um so on Monday we answered I think maybe eight of the 14 questions uh there were two questions we invited them to come in and look at because the stacks of paper were so big but they chose to have that scanned to them so that was scanned early this morning we finished the rest of the questions around 11 o'clock this morning the um when Dan Garrett called uh to postpone our noontime meeting he said he had just received something from the Auditors they were asking about a grant they hadn't asked about before and in addition they had given him 24 questions to answer we said I got to do that we'll we'll meet another time I I was feeling pretty good um kind of hesitant looking at my email but today at around 4 15 they came back and they said um we we're seeing some differences between What's called the single audit report which is just state and federal aid from again 2021 with a report you filed with the state Ed Department showing those same grants what was spent so explain the difference so that was at 4 15 um and we'll answer it tomorrow uh but my point is those questions not only could have they been asked six months ago but they could have been asked a year or two ago so none of us know what has um caused it to come back but we're just we're making it a high priority um before we do anything else tomorrow we'll we'll answer that question for them and see where we're at but again my sense is it's it's both the city and ourselves that are are faced with this right now I don't know if I answered your question yeah I think so um it just like you said it's just kind of odd that these questions are coming about now right okay the only thing I I said to Kevin is there there seemed to be more uh there aren't as many questions on the general fund as they're they're more on different grants um I don't know why but you think they'd either be 50 50 or even more about the general fund than it's just my observation so and none about the Esser funds you know a lot of questions all these other things who knows is this make work or just to fill in fill in some small gaps or so I I think it's important to differentiate this is not an extension of this at least I don't believe so an extension from the other audit process I think this is a different audit I think is that is that correct John are these the same Auditors that were yeah RSM and this okay okay and why are they coming back now I I don't know um but they have been back um obviously starting with the city first and then from there um additional requests coming from us yeah so the these requests started again last week um and so that's you know that's what John and um the city's office have been dealing with going back and forth you know what what's what what's slow about the process is it was such a long time ago uh one of the things they asked for and I'm sure it was just a simple test uh they do this kind of work uh they wanted to see they picked a employee and they asked for a copy of his term they said we'd like to see his termination letter and uh the payroll register immediately following that so I'm sure they were testing to see if um there was extra pay or we weren't able didn't take the person off the payroll um it was and and when we looked at it it was a guidance counselor who just happened to resign in the summer of 2020 uh to go to another school district nothing unusual at all about that um our guidance concerts work a couple extra days in the summer and we um you know we pay them all the same and and there was no extra payment to this or anything else but what struck me was if you remember in August of 2020 we had just been shut down by the governor's order there was no one here our schools were closed everything was remote so even a thing like the payroll register there was no one here to print it it was probably the information was saved and we were able to get them information after we spent a couple hours trying to dig into the old system but you know most of the Auditors um in the 20 the 1920 year in the 2021 year they recognized that business offices just weren't there for all 12 months and they couldn't do everything that they usually do so they they they kind of took the foot off the gas a little bit and said you know we understand those were unusual times this firm hasn't done that now 2122 absolutely back to full uh full work and everything like that in this year but those two coveted years were different and I I think we should be given a little benefit of the doubt on on things like that so okay Jesse did I see your hand up before no okay anything else any other questions Mr Walston sir so uh Mr Russo my my comment is unrelated to the agenda so maybe I should wait until the end um to really just thinking uh some of our board members who attended National Honor Society so I'll wait and see your questions have done it that's okay okay anything further Teresa okay thank you Jesse Nick actually I have I do have one more question Mr Russo if I might um in terms of strategy I know that we've held on to uh we've been trying to hold on to those Reserve dollars that the the city has been uh storing for us um and I'm thinking ahead to next year to the next budget cycle uh because we're done with this one so why not look forward um but basically what I'm trying to get a sense of is like the likelihood that we would be drawing down some of those reserves to make up uh any potential deficit if we don't you know if we don't meet the ask next year are we looking to draw down those funds even though they're not sustainable if permissible okay and and I say permissible meaning if it's a strategy that's you know accepted and approved by the council and the mayor's office so certainly we'll have a proposal we'll talk about a strategy with the board next year um and you know I believe it was 20 my first year as a superintendent 2122 and I think one of the strategies that we try to deploy was actually incorporating some of the reserves as part of the ask the issue is the city of course needs to commit to that the following year and include that as part of the reoccurring budget and so um I I would not be surprised if we have to go back to the reserves again to tap it as a potential strategy um you know whether it's something that will be well received on the other side I don't know um but I I would not be surprised if we didn't have to go to do that very thick thank you further questions on the reserves going once going twice next item on the agenda is uh we need to reschedule our June finance committee meeting what did you have in mind Kevin and so we have the 20th of June which is the day before our board meeting so initially well timed um however now we don't have that time we do have a policy committee meeting at six um at Beaver Brook I don't know if if it's possible to meet before the policy meeting in person I I'd certainly be open to that but I don't know if you know everyone's the committee is available for a five to six meeting uh prior to the board meeting what day um on the 21st I mean it would make it would make for a long evening honestly um but because we have policy committee from 6 to 7 30.

without further Ado please help me welcome this special group of people from Academy School District 20 School Board Mr Tom Lavallee president Mr will Tempe vice president [Applause] Mrs Heather konger treasurer thank you Mrs Nicole Khan's director and Mr Aaron salt director [Applause] from our Central Administration Mr Tom Gregory superintendent [Applause] Dr Jim Smith assistant tumor attendant for planning and engagement [Applause] and from our Liberty Administration Mr Masterson principal Mr Mike Sibley assistant principal for the class of 2023 and athletic director [Applause] Miss Leanne Thiessen assistant principal and activities director [Applause] Miss Kelly Hoyle assistant principal [Applause] Mrs Sarah Ricky assistant principal [Applause] Mrs Melissa Hernandez dean of student for the class of 2023 and academic interventionists [Applause] Mr Jody Jones dean of students and academic interventionists and of course our impeccable student speakers for this afternoon including myself although we publicly recognize you today throughout our time in high school you show any care for us not only as students but also individuals ensuring that the most fundamental years of our lives were filled with support and love as we go off to lead our own lives we recognize all the effort you put in to push us towards our utmost success thank you good afternoon my name is Christina Flores and I have the honor of speaking on behalf of the class of 23 and thanking our outstanding staff from whom we are blessed to receive guidance acceptance and comfort from the custodial staff who keep our building clean from the security and secretarial team who welcome us every single day from the teachers who spend countless hours teaching us not only what to learn but how to learn and finally from the administration who hold it all together I know each of us have found someone within the Lancer Nation who we can approach and hold the confidence that they will not judge us those people not only listen to all we have to say serious or not but they also make us feel as though we are special in each of our own individual ways personally I was able to find multiple versions of those people in fact too many to name but I would like to highlight on one Miss Hernandez I was able to get to truly know her at new Lancer day when she told us I'm here to show you that I'm not just the dean who gets kids in trouble I want to form better relationships with all of you and that she did bringing her daughters especially Cali was a smart move because Cali named us her teenager friends so by default Miss Hernandez became one of our close mentors from there we grew closer and closer she was a person I'd find at games and student events to talk to and laugh with but even after the Sports Seasons ended in the senior craziness subsided I made it a point to see her in the office nearly every day I always look forward to our conversations even the really short ones because regardless of length those talks always left me with a smile on my face she has made me feel an abundance of comfort and joy that allowed me to truly cherish my senior year I won't forget the impact she made on me in the final and most important two semesters of high school thank you Mr Hernandez so many of us will miss you more than you could possibly know it's not only we but also you advance into the next stage of life and staff a final thanks to each one of you who have made every student in the class of 23 Phil welcomed heard and loved you make it possible for Liberty to not just be the house but the home of the Lancers and finally in the fashion of Troy Bolton with you we really are all in this together because one's Lancer always will answer Liberty staff please stand and be recognized [Applause] good afternoon everyone my name is Ava Lee and I'm the student body president for Liberty High School foreign today I have the honor and privilege of introducing the amazing class the amazing students in front of me the class of 2023. [Applause] what a journey we've had together through the what I transition into our freshman year to the minor inconvenience of the global pandemic to Choice events our junior year like the near shutdown of the glow dance Sorry Miss Thiessen to the staying paint in our hair from our senior paint fight all these little things and more leading up to this moment four years ago we walked through Liberty stores as scared little freshmen and today we will walk across this stage to receive our diplomas turn our tassels and walk through the very same doors parting ways as graduates the 376 beautiful souls that you see in front of me have seen and done it all early mornings late nights performances events trials tribulations triumphs even failures we've done all this alongside each other and are ready to Take On The World Together We are armed with the experiences and friendships of those that brave to the wild of high school together so those that have supported the body of Awesomeness you see before me thank you your effort support and belief in us has made all the difference and so the Liberty High School class of 2023 in the wise words of Elwoods we did it [Music] [Applause] hello my name is Peyton pontino and I'm a proud senior of the class of 2023.

and Dr Jim Smith assistant superintendent for planning and engagement I also have Rampart Administration Mr Andy Parks assistant principal and athletic director Mr Kyle Chamberlain assistant principal Mr Daniel Kirby assistant principal and Mrs Michelle Tucker assistant principal all right to get things started I just want to say good evening and welcome graduates and families and staff last year as I drove home from the rampart graduation I knowing I would need to come up with some final words to provide to the class of 2023 I couldn't shake one story that has impacted my life greatly I want to talk to you about a man I know who taught me to be brave and follow my heart and passions regardless of the opinions his name is Barry Barry was raised in New Jersey his mom was a four foot 11 school teacher at an all boys school that Barry attended very often found himself in some trouble at school and became accustomed to hearing The Stomping of his mother's shoes down the hallway and a walk together to the office she was serious and loving and pushed Barry to engage in school and be respectful she challenged him to believe in himself as a student Barry grew up to be an educator and a Collegiate swim and dive coach before later going into Finance when Barry started a family he wanted his children to have even more opportunities he challenged his children as his mother challenged him when his daughter wanted to be become an educator there was a feeling in him that wanted more for her the determination of what that more could be is undetermined but it could have been a mix of make more money and him knowing just how hard work a teacher is and that as he watched his mother serve their Community for years she majored in mathematics which she saw which he saw as an opportunity to explain all the other careers she could go into he was relentless in his pursuit of convincing her to become an accountant an actuary or a variety of other professions article clippings would often show up on his daughter's dresser of the salaries work descriptions and education needed to go into these other professions stories of family friends who had just taken two more classes and become an accountant were shared at the dinner table the opinions were constant yet through it all the answer was a math teacher then one Thursday night after the math degree was completed and she had accepted a teaching position she called her dad Barry on the other end of the phone Barry cried big happy tears and said that is incredible I am so proud of you at that moment his daughter realized all he ever wanted for her was to know her options and find her way Barry is my dad I've learned a great deal from Barry I have learned a great deal from Barry but the most important thing I realized in that moment is to be brave enough to be me and make an impact on the world and that is enough today you have people filling this Arena who are proud of you and what you have accomplished they will continue to be here and be proud of you as you go in the direction that inspires you As you move on to what is next there will be a lot of opinions continue the to this in the pursuit of your dreams bravely so Rampart class of 2023 be brave brave enough to take risks brave enough to be kind brave enough to do what is right brave enough to do what is hard and brave enough to be you always congratulations class of 2023.

during that visit Mr Gregory turned to me and said we need to find you more space as a district we began to mull over possibilities and then I got a call from Tom asking me to meet him at the old Air Academy Credit Union building to walk through it as soon as we walked in I could Envision It ultimately what the space has become but I also know Mr Gregory is a very pragmatic man so as we walked around my heart was beating faster with excitement but I knew Tom would want to explore all options so I tried to play it cool at the end Tom at the end Tom asked for my thoughts and I said sure I think we can make it work I later got a call from my supervisor Dr Jim Smith asking why I didn't like the building Tom thought I should be much more excited about the space than I appeared to be well we did work through that misunderstanding into Mr Gregory's Credit in foresight we were able to purchase our current space and it has been a perfect space for us so please join me in welcoming my friend Mr Gregory with a round of applause well thank you Mr gorsh and good morning Village High School congratulations graduates you've made it it's each family that's with us here today congratulations to you also because you've made it too before I start I'd like to take a few minutes to introduce some folks on the stage up here um from our Board of Education which none of this would be possible without them our vice president Mr will timby treasurer of the board Miss Heather Cloninger director Miss Nicole cons director Mr Aaron salt and from our central office and the supervisor of our high school's assistant superintendent Dr Jim Smith I'd like to take a moment before I get started here also to recognize one of the students of the class of the 2023 class of the Village High School Sienna Rivera you've met Sienna earlier Siena represented the village class of 2023 on my student advisory Council she was the village high school student voice to District leadership for this past year and represented the student perspective with maturity honesty dignity passion and compassion thank you Sienna for your time and your commitment I appreciate you and know that your feedback made a difference today's a big day after 13 years in school you are closing the first biggest chapter in your lives normally I would stand here and say I can only imagine how you must be feeling because let's face it it's been a few years since I graduated from high school however this year graduation ceremonies take on a whole new meaning for me because I'm graduating with you as Mr Gore said after 33 years I too am graduating I'm graduating from my career and on June 30th I will officially retire from a fulfilling career all in Academy District 20.