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page 19 use of facilities you know lots going on CAD meetings International night PTO plant sale all good stuff football Clinic let me start doing some summer Athletics headed by Mr mandeel in football and the athletic director Mr porfido so summer will be here before you know it and it'll be a fair amount of summer activities Going On Athletics wise in the district 20 is essentially agreements for Professional Services and tuition contracts page 21 again to piggybacks on that a fair amount of our special needs students really have school for almost 11 and a half months a year so there's a lot of summer school and Es we call it esy for our special needs students so you're seeing some of the summer tuition on page 20 and 21.

good great years and it'll be an adjustment for the board and uh you know we'll see how this goes with Dr Hayes he's got some extensive experiences superintendent and uh we'll take it from there thank you both for that any other philosopher questions observations from the board no I'm going to make a motion to approve the May 24 2023 agenda that was Mr capano as first may I have a second if I make that was Mr Russo okay thank you for that Mr Russo okay Dr pantaliano I'd like to take a vote if I may yes please Mrs Abreu yes uh Mr capano yes Freda was not here Mr Garcia uh missed in the Drew uh yes okay thank you for that that was page 11. correct Mr okay Dr ponteliano yes Mr rain Court yeah Mr Russo yes terabakia yeah that is so moved like the popular yes all right on another note uh Lou I know you you thanked this for your your appointment but but I believe I speak on on behalf of the all the board members we want to thank you for what you put in and what you're on a day-to-day basis we know you're not a nine to five guy uh you come in extensively early I may be in the building at that time and I can see your car outside and you may spend even in a simple 10 to 12 hour day every day so I commend you for that and we appreciate you always putting uh the taxpayer ahead of uh everybody and uh taking care of the finances because you do a great job with it thank you I appreciate it I've worked with you the last 10 years and it's it's just been a pleasant so thank you for that I appreciate the kind words thank you for that Mr Cabana Dr Plantera okay to have a motion to adjourn yes any comments questions concerns anybody last call yes please okay may I have a motion is there any public I'm sorry anything from the public Mr Savage I apologize no no worries it may have a second if I may I'll say that's uh Mr Drew okay

second second I'm sure any discussion uh quick question since we are adopting this financial report at this point um there's a board all our speakers are in mind that we're not in the changes am I correct as to what we're doing okay and um there has been some back and forth and I know John did a couple of more Millions ago that are trying to see that is complete without a portion of a single believer are we still waiting for some information concerned about what I think I think the information has been received by the finance committee um you know Mr Russo might be able to comment to Food Store we had a gathering and I had a chance to overlook take a look at our healthy financial report I had a finance committee meeting all line items had been adjusted to their proper balance uh any changes that need to be made to be shipped to One account another hit had already been done prior to the April report actually that the March report we got clarification so when we finally got to hang on again everything was in order as far as as far as the city's uh bought it to my knowledge and limited knowledge it is that they're about forensic plug it still has been it's completed excuse me so so the question is because it's going back and forth so I'm trying to clarify where we are if the board has said their part as far as giving the information um I have to whoever it is the state or whoever it is for the order then we are all clear that's my only question as far as the audit have we done everything on our end at this point it's one of the audience I want to interject and just clarify a couple of things as I understand them a couple of weeks ago about three weeks ago now we received the requests from the city of Danbury uh to submit additional information as a result of an audit of the city of Denver of course given that we're 141 million dollars part of that order and of course there is information we have to submit on in the city staff and so John's office received this request a couple weeks ago information was submitted a couple days later they asked for additional information not the same information but additional information we submit that couple of days later they have City for more information and then he came back and access for more information and so it's not as if it's the same information and we didn't submit it it's additional information that you continue to ask for and so I I don't know what we left off I Know Dan Garrett from the city of Danbury requested that the audit has actually come in that that might actually be more beneficial it's a strategy that John used last year and it seemed to be beneficially to stay here for a couple of days I'm not sure where we are with that I have not seen any additional requests in the last week I'm John I'm not sure if you have but I know him in his office I mean with with the entire year I was trying to close out this year open up next year my office is in the middle of an audit right now in the middle of all of our chaos right now and so John I'll just ask you just kind of speak to this question and uh you know what we're talking about is for the year that ended June 30th 2021.

the city had not really has not engaged the audit firm for the 2122 but the state of the apartment didn't care they said you still have to do that so we talked with the Auditors we talked with the City Finance director and so the state of department wants this third leg done they're insisting on it we like to we think we should hire an audit firm to do that irrespective of the main part and that's what we do so the the state Ed department is satisfied about the other parts are impossible thank you sir that's okay so we hired an outside firm to come in and complete the portion of the city yeah not the cities not the cities yeah right yeah about five or six thousand dollars I think that the city Auditors are closer to 12. we found a capable of former retired Municipal auditor who recently retired the state was approved him to do the report he's a CPA had done those before and he needed insurance so are we all cut up to 21-22 because our vehicles to reports yeah so we are good on the quarterback side and I think the state department yes thank you my last thing I want to thank everyone for uh attending our superintendent evaluation committed me to the other night I thought it was excellent um meeting and I'm going to ask both in your folder come back I think that we'll be ready to discuss and move on thank you so very much thanks Ralph um I actually just wanted to share a little bit of good news with the board I don't know if you guys remember Chapel zazar who graduated last year um he was one of the voice for change awardees he actually uh was just awarded a Fulbright uh summer internship so I just love to share that that's awesome thank you yeah congratulations thank you thank you anything else just real quick June 6 is the dsadc um breakfast so any board members foreign student in business yeah thank you where is it yeah it is lastly you just want to sound on committees and you're not going to be able to attend a committee meeting please let the chair of that committee know be there because sometimes we run into some too many people want the only level quarantine too long and that's time of time wasted and also on the suggestion for superintendents evaluation committee is if the full board can be there at that times on June 6th so we can hear all the hear all the information and do anything and ask questions or anything we need to then um so we can hopefully come to some kind of a discussion after and uh you know move forward with that now okay any motion novels or chain of motion to return [Music] thank you have a good night

and also on page 21 is the athletic bills being approved and Pages 21 and 22 two of our payrolls one at the end of April and one of mid-may being approved along with our bill list which was sent to the board a few days back that we send a few days prior each and every month this one is the May 2023 Bill list and our reports that obviously that we closed our month of April our Treasurer report our board secretary report in our transfer report that really runs you through the end of the agenda I don't know if there's any questions Mr savastana from the public I'm actually looking at numbers Pages 10 11 and I believe it carries on to 12. that saves the board a significant amount of money doesn't it sure because those family could run you you know 28 to 30 000 28 30 000 so we're probably giving someone what 2500 to waive a 28 000 package so that's a significance think of it biannually Dr patiliano runs about five thousand in total but again when you compare it to right thirty thousand it's it's a significant percentage not that uh not that I am aware of so that's true I believe that that would fall under the same as the superintendent evaluation so if you would abstain on the superintendent evaluation you would probably abstain on that I believe we got legal guidance signaling yeah but we we had voted already for uh Mr Hayes uh Dr Hazel's appointment and uh only x amount of uh board members were able to vote on it yeah we had those votes this evening we're just uh approving his uh uh per diem salary per day and everyone please understand he's working at will uh I believe Dr pantolino was a 30-day notice that he had agreed to so yes within 30 days uh if he decides to leave it so we decide to to move on to someone else or or make a full-time uh a permanent replacement well we can always do that yes it's important to note the distinction between an interim contract and a superintendent contract because I know I've even gotten that question well how many years is he there for he can only be here for a total of two years but the contract doesn't give him more than a 30-day notice so it's really I mean we hope it's a long-term commitment as far as it takes to the time when we can get a new superintendent but it is not a long-term contract such as you would see for a regular superintendent and we're not paying him uh benefits attention attention or any of that so this is where we are as you know we've been under the Helm of Mr Roman Gino for 16.

he's 20 21 fiscal year but the city is trying to close its books and uh release their results uh just this afternoon at 4 30 we had a conference called The City Finance director of myself represented from the mayor's office the audit partner and the audit manager and uh there are some new items for us that we've received at late Friday afternoon if they would like us to complete uh as did the city we each had two or three new things that we were trying to comply with and we hope to have those to them in the next day or two thank you thank you thank you for the information I just want to point out we didn't know those questions uh when we did the April financial report those requests from the teachers didn't come until after that meeting so just wanna so that report is technically clear to me might be difficult any other questions discussion okay I just went back by Rob um the audit that the city is in the middle of now through the 2120 is for 2021 uh it's not it has no impact on this Leo right now is that this one okay I don't want you to think it's impacting the work that we're doing at this moment it's World college football years ago well last school years but years ago at the city was still trying to close the door song being a discussion all in favor um would you mind doing e please action item eight 23 24 Board of Education questions like to make the motion that the Board of Education adopt an operating budget for the 2023-24 school year the amount of 150 million dollars in accordance with the exhibit 23-85 second motion and buy out seconded by Kate any discussion all right sure okay um I'm really excited to seeks and money coming into the organic City officials for that and uh hope to try and support the adult Career Academy I've been playing her about this for the next few years thank you thank you any discussion and all those in favor of substance to make emotional parents and things so we'll go back to recognitions good evening everyone um good to see some familiar faces in the audience tonight I am excited and have this opportunity to welcome our cave leadership Award winners as part of this process I am going to call up the principals from the school so that we can invite the students up and then we're going to hold for one big blue picture and then an exception so please so representing Broadview Middle School principal gen blue and I'm sorry you should have saw Jessica so representing Broadview Middle School is principal David Kimball and he is going to welcome two of our students from Broadview Middle School thank you we will hold the pictures thank you sir Rogers Park Middle School Dr Chrissy Delia thank you I'd like to call up Matthew Gibson and Emma martini [Applause] now for West Side Middle School principal Jennifer globe [Applause] well for West Side our student awardees are Allison Tran and Denison paw but unfortunately they are not here this evening because they are studying about our country's history in Washington DC [Applause] and representing Ace um instead of her Excellence um Daniella and Joanna here this evening thank you can you come up and introduce your students I thought I saw something maybe for Facebook good evening we're pleased to recognize Cole ferentino and CeCe Rodriguez thank you and Cambridge Awards last but not least principal Dan Donovan Danbury High School [Applause] s that's not sure what was yours good evening for the cape leadership awards we have Casey Ramos and Audrey caborf [Applause] foreign so before we pull our students up similar to our previous winner principal of the year I want to share with the community why they want this procedure support the cape student leadership award recognizes student achievement and Leadership qualities leadership is equality that is hard to Define and is not always demonstrated by all citizens okay developed it below criteria that helped define leadership in our principles selected these students based on the following skills and characteristics willingness to take on challenges capability to make difficult decisions concern for others ability to work with others willingness to commit to a project diplomacy ability to understand issues clearly and ability to honor a commitment congratulations and so all of our winners can join us up here we're going to give you your certificates and we're gonna well figure out how to manage the people of traffic over there and take a nice big picture with everybody jokes [Music] started off like what do you want you want to do individuals like we're gonna do an individual school systems to get the whole food picture yourself that's it [Music] thank you things alive [Applause] foreign [Music] the same time [Music] thank you there it is okay thank you very much is that the last one yeah thank you so for the next awardees it is a w c a sa award each year the Western Connecticut superintendents Association hosted award ceremony by outstanding students and each School District based on three criteria community service and service to others academic prowess and Leadership service to the school community the following students were selected by our principals and recognized at the recent wcsa and we invited them back here for an additional Board of Education recognition David Campbell could you please introduce you to students so good evening everyone I'd like to congratulate Lila Mira and rack off rematch thank you and our next school on behalf of Rogers Park Middle School is Dr Christine Selena I would like to congratulate [Music] and Bernard Olivia oliviera [Applause] welcome Westside Middle School Academy Miss Jones okay good evening again um on behalf of West Side our two students of course are in Washington DC however their parents are here so I like to recognize Soleil young and Shazam Gabriel Aladdin and on behalf of Ace we have two of our teachers our students aren't here today but we're very proud of them I'd like to announce Genesis Santana and Tyler shear and last but not least on manhattanburg high school principal and um [Applause] you'd like to recognize Lila social and Maria espertitis and we will start with pictures for Danbury High School anymore because it smells better exactly here thank you man yeah that's gonna be real quick [Music] foreign [Music] congratulations foreign is Essentials congratulations congratulations [Music] thank you exercise are we on we're on the superintendents report s good evening everyone I know and we have one agenda item for the superintendents update and wanted to bring to the Lord's attention that team and I had an opportunity to meet with members of the academies of Nashville this week in preparation for our for our visit and an opportunity to host them on Monday June 19th of course and Tuesday June 20th during that time we reviewed a draft agenda with the team gave them and kind of updated them on our process and our progress through the implementation of the academies of Danbury model we have three people committed for the visit a board member who has been in Nashville and part of the model for the last 16 years she is also a business owner oh she's a business partner and there are two other people who have also committed to the visit and that person from the Chamber of Commerce in Nashville and also in Academy coach from one of the schools we reviewed the agenda with them the three of them are as excited to come visit us as we are to have them here in Danbury just as a quick reminder to the board we are looking to host our guests from Nashville on Monday evening June 19th and we will start with a dinner here in town and the expectation is we will turn back right around on Tuesday morning they will have a quick visit with the cabinet and I for about an hour first thing in the morning from nine to ten and then the recommended schedule is an hour and am session with a breakout group from the board and then the PM session with the breakout group from the board and in the middle of those two there's a lunch and learn with the Chamber of Commerce in which we will speak with Business Leaders business owners um industry Partners across the city of Danbury where it's going to provide some more detail kind of walk us through a conversation with the folks at Nashville earlier this week and speak to the overall objectives for our meetings in a couple of weeks but also provide an opportunity for you to ask some questions so those questions could be made available prior to the folks of Nashville's visit when I will hand it over to you to the table here or speak to the board about our conversations they are very excited also I must say to see Mr Dean in action up here they are very proud and bonded his work in Nashville and very excited to see him now in Israel here in Connecticut and so right please thank you Dr Tuka I do want to start with this um as as the Education team continues to serve Powerpoints and give information about the academies and you all still gain the information the goal of this is for the board to be not only advocates for the academies but also get a firm understanding of this model so that as Community people will come to you outside of us that you're able to accurately and confidently convey that information to them so I think this is a great opportunity in which you can be fully immersed into the great work that Nashville is doing which we will assume living and surpass and so my goal is to or our goal just to make sure that you know you all build those relationships and you just really ask those questions those lingering questions and just get to know and understand why and how it's going to impact us as a school system so Doc briefly went over the agenda I do want us to really take advantage of it Monday night as we break bread and eat with one another it's an opportunity for you to fully understand their roles and for them to understand your role so that the conversations can happen appropriately and as we transition to that Tuesday section which which is that first session with the board we know that everyone may not be able to make it together but I I humbly ask that you can please if you can please please come out and learn um it's just a time just for you to understand all right just understand what this whole thing is all about and again asking those hard questions and so it'll be an opportunity for them to just kind of share with you where they started where they are now what the challenges were because you'll quickly learn that everybody wasn't on board for several years and now they're booming like that but then Barry is already ahead of the game on that because we have a ton of support not just with the board level but from the community as well but again it's a topic to ask those hard questions for instance what is the impact on Equity look like in terms of black and brown kids uh does this model attract and keep businesses okay so what does that look like from an economic standpoint how is it impacted your Workforce so again we really want you to take in uh towards is really carve out time to really ask those questions because typically when we we speak to you we know it's time to start but we want you to let your head down and just really get to know I can't stress that enough really good to know um so that will be the first session of the day we'll have two of sessions one in 11 15 to 12 15 pm and then we'll have another session which will be the same session from five to six so for those that can make it in the morning please come back for those who can make it in the evening please come by the next piece the important piece will be the well they're all important but the lesson learned will be satisfying as well you will be present with your fellow board members if you can make it his lunch I mean make time right you'll be in company with your board members but also Danbury leadership all right and then you'll get an idea of how those stakeholders how they're all interconnected with each other and how they're in line and how they all work together to make sure that this model works this is again it's not just a Danbury public schools initiative but this is a Danbury Chamber of Commerce uh this is a whole Community deal right this is all of Danbury we want us to be a spectacle and so they want to share information on how they align their efforts so that they reach the goals of everyone um so so this will be a good time for us to engage in conversation too and please don't hold back to ask us as many questions as you like so after this we will have our uh our second session as I mentioned earlier and then we'll have a quick dinner here after work we will have an official or Workshop here um and we will go over some of the same information that we'll share with you so that the public can get an idea of how where Nashville was where they are now and the benefits behind it but we can also include some some things about Danbury as well so again let's just take advantage of their time and just ask those lingering questions because you know families may want to know some things as well so I just want us to just think about it and I'm going to share some information with Dr Walston and care so that we will know who will attend because if you don't make it it just doesn't make sense so with that being said to you just if you if you have any questions about it and I'm looking for feedback on this as well if you have any questions about these two days that we had or um for this top here you please share now you can share with us later but we're going to send something out to make sure that you can attend and um if you if you prefer a regular old phone call like I do sometimes to let me know and I'll just call them we'll go from there so any questions for me I like that I have a question for that so for clarification so you want us to come up with some of the questions about to for you to ask or for us to ask the visitors from Nashville I could I can help you develop some questions but ask board members as we go into this model in your respective roles and you all thinking about the future of Education we would like you to develop some questions I can always help you do that you know we can bring some some nice hard buyer questions if you will but if you need assistance with that I'm more than happy to help them and we'll send it up to you and then he'll ask we'll ask them in those sessions is that important ask some plans I guess okay and I will just add on the idea is to have some FAQs available for our visitors so they can make sure to answer those questions and those one-hour sessions ahead of time right and of course any additional questions you have that that's your time but I just want to make sure they have an opportunity to be in front of those questions that they can come in and understand what they're addressing your needs I also want to add on in the workshop similar to the presentation that will be made during the lecture to learn it will be an opportunity for our neighboring community and then also for our Board of Board of Education and communities to understand why this model is successful and to discuss its impact and it's we we had an opportunity also in this meeting with the three folks of Nashville earlier this week and I asked a hard question from one of the board members board member Mays you know one day this superintendent will not be here one day the seats on this board will change perhaps even some folks District leaders what does that mean for the model and she kind of firmly kind of gathered herself in the seat because she was really passionate about this and in the way she was going to respond and one she said it would be it would be absolute chaos because it would not happen the model will not change regardless of who the superintendent is or who sits on the seats of the board because it is a community a model that the entire community of Nashville is into so that was one and then I asked the follow-up question and said well from a board members perspective what does this mean as it relates to policy it's actually surprised to hear that she recalls a policy because she has been after 16 plus years she recalls a policy with a commitment to the academies of Nashville live and so she said she will over the next couple of days see if indeed that is it's in policy or something different and make sure that's available for the discussion when she comes up so those are the type of questions and any other questions you might have they are ready and prepared for as a successful model in the country they have served as consultants to school districts across the country and so we are we we are at really benefiting from their expertise and experience but I'm also happy to say you know we will have feel free thank you and we also fortunate because to Britt's point that he made earlier um yes it's going to take some time but our expectation is we will do as well as Nashville and then one day so it has the work that they're doing there we understand that's going to take time but but also our people will be in physician or service consultants and so on Sunday hopefully this city we don't have the same infrastructure as the city of Nashville but hopefully this city will be the host to all the districts coming in to help observe our motto and we could be one of the leaders here in the state of Connecticut so Brent is where Brent is asking is and is suggesting is that he will send out an invitation for board members to um include any questions that they might have and if it's your preference to instead of email they'll put your questions in a Google doc and your preference would be to have a regular phone call then he will call and make sure it captures your questions so he can gather them all for our visitors in a couple weeks time so push it back to you no further comments okay I just wanted one other question so I mean your a lot of the reforms and stuff you guys can host of the community so are you seeing like a recurring question frequently asked asked question about you know whether it's you know matters and students is it business members like are there you know there's some some questions that you're coming across a lot more than others we are um uh basic questions I'll do um will students have access to sports um do they only just take three courses a year it's it's just very basic questions and I'm glad you guys that because we we do have a landing page or a website on the DPS website we click on schools and go to coming soon the academies of Danbury all of those questions are listed on the website those frequently asked questions so and that's for families to go and check out any other questions insurance when students go for internships and driving to working how would if God forbid there's an accident how are they covered do they have to pay extra insurance that type of thing so I don't want to speak to that because I don't know what process we're going to develop but that's years down a lot we're starting with our first quarter freshman next school year and we're building up to those jobs shadowing and internship experiences and that's something that we're going to connect with so that we can have it that plan to protect us and to protect the businesses and their students and that and I also want to add we have students at work place in roles now um I I don't know what the basic insurance responsibility is but we definitely have students working in these conditions now um so I I don't give a specifics to somebody on the on the on the location of the place and what the students are doing it's because they'll ask for our writer so we'll have to submit proof of insurance as a school system that the kids are covered if there's enough um so it really all depends on the relationship is established but we have um you know we have a relationship already now hospital for the CNA program and there's some papers that need to get signed off on the student side with what their responsibilities are I think that they've had a long-standing insurance right in place with us for for a while um so you know we generally cover those things as they as they come up in a consequential problems any other questions I don't know if this is the appropriate time but gross May 6th we attended a band function foreign thank you okay so um you know we initially were asking first uh generated the different academies and the pathways again all based on Research statistics job outlooks about why we didn't have an arts academy and our response has at that point and still is that the Arts are for all so we will still be offering very comprehensive Arts experience electives for students to take clubs we have theater well we have a full-size theater in the same way that we do at Denver high school over at the West Campus West Side campus the answer is no students can come back and if they're part of the theater program they can still can still do that we have art rooms over on the new campus music rooms as well we're not going to be able to offer and replicate every single room that we have at Danbury High School over in this smaller venue but certainly all students who attend um the academies on the west campus are are different high school students so these are all different high school students who participate in everything that we offer we're going to have to work through a few specific courses that kids might want to take whether it's a lower enrollment kind of course for example like a calculus or a unique course where you might have to run a van you know on d-days or students will come on AVS versus B days but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it but the Arts are for everyone and we have a little black box theater that we that we built over at the other campus that we're building so we may be able to offer something on a much smaller scale but all students are still part of the every High School community and we will always still have a very robust theater arts program band music everything that we offer now so they will have exposure to music absolutely okay thank you that was a concern sister Ben yes well being being folks will have to some some of the kids who band or Band After School some of those may be scheduled especially depending on the latter process of getting selected over there so we can make sure that those kids are still accessing excuse me access being a little hard of hearing I apologize it's on me kids at the West Side cabin will be learning music and they will be a part of the Gary High School band we will have he's over at the white campus as well as on the main campus the band Denver High School band is one entity right so students may have to come back for um to participate in banana the main campus but yes the courses and the classes on for music will still run at the other campus so students can elect to take those courses on the other campus exactly with a segue to and it is valid will it be transportation for students or back to the main campus okay yeah so what's going to happen with the the way that we're envisioning it right now is that students will Denver High School becomes sort of the trans person so at the end of the day we'll probably have to dismiss um a few minutes earlier uh from the West Side campus to come back to DHS so that becomes the transfer zone so as the buses all line up those are the buses from the west campus come in and they would drop students off and they would get on whatever bus that they were normally assigned to if you're an athlete now you're back at the school you're where you need to be there's concert theater programs after school clubs you're right back where you need to be in your inside at the same time it's positive that other kids in the school when they dismiss yeah exactly thank you Kelly it's what we do with Ace it's a great point so the ace kids leave a little bit early and they come back thank you for your patience sorry my voice is like failing today so I apologize okay thank you for your time thank you [Music] poor chairperson report just a couple things towards Karen left the room that I was going to thank her but um I just want to get a show anybody about the Memorial Day Parade I know Cara sent the document out um is anybody thinking of marching in the parade okay one two three four [Music] okay you'll be there every employment is yes [Laughter] thank you I would say since there's only four of us if anybody wants to invite like uh you know kids to march with us or you know so much yeah can we invite like our wise husband yeah see what else yeah we need some filler yes um kids but I don't know especially here all right so um yes uh just a thought you know if it's okay looking at that as far as significant other ones or whoever you know we've always said the young kids and what we do the flag I will make sure that um our system is protected and and I would have a conversation about the law of different yes it's done correct say that last part again yeah yeah I'm gonna have a conversation around in order to make sure we're bringing in cousins and someone else from somewhere else uh to join us as a board member walking into the parade I will make sure that I will you know have some alternative advice she's right back so you know we need to think about that uh I would suggest it's not gonna help it's coming to Memorial day but I think the dander High School group of kids and we start planning for next year to make us a photographer and I think they will be excited to do that and so we all can sit up I mean if you want to walk all right so what we can using our float is not accomplish this year we're not right yeah okay so we just thought we can use my little okay yeah okay you're good at what point we used to we just have that banner I don't know if that circle inside the band with all the schools on it and we had kids from old schools but then it kind of faded out like after a couple years but I mean like we used to get kids to come and then all of a sudden I was like hey it's Memorial Day we're not coming unless you're in a lot of point with like girl scouts or you know t-ball and stuff stuff like that um well in that case before before we leave Kim is there any issue with [Music] if I am my cousins coming and I'm working with David Waters Ed and something happened during that parade you know oh we like uh-huh about anybody wants to participating in this degree I mean anything can happen I'm trying to think of what the scenario no you know if they're willing to you I just want to make sure that it's um you know somebody get hurt or something well it's not it's not supported by the car [Music] you never know yeah I don't think Karen's going back in but I want to thank Cara and and baron everybody put this the reception together tonight it was uh it was it was I think it's very representative of uh you know what the honor was so I'm just happy with everybody who will participate in that we've made that up um anyone else have anything other um yeah I would like to thank the parents and all our students uh for coming out tonight and and especially uh Dr Smith her recognition and to me sitting on the forward and seeing our students and the parents come out um that's what it's all about sin and grow and seeing them and I I just think it's exciting when you get this time of the year and when you see all of the students that come out and participate in activities within our system my last thing is I hope that the board I will start looking at um board accepted evaluation we need to do that before the November okay so I saw a jot down you know open up so we're here in September October we need to do board self-evaluation because if we can't do so more self-evaluation and we are on the superintendent evaluation committee our relationship should be impaired and we shouldn't understandable so um we need to set up on the board self-evaluation okay when was the last one yeah remember oh yeah so maybe maybe three minutes excuse me so my quick comment is that for those of you who had the chance to go to the Music Festival Dinner is well on May 18th if you didn't have a chance it was absolutely fantastic uh they turned the up the lower parking level into Amphitheater and all of our students in the music program participated it was absolutely wonderful and so I just really Department of foreign um it's okay so I I just want to make sure that I understand this correctly um we're still answering questions on the city Side for the 2021 and October okay so the follow-up question to that is how we started answering questions from 2012 or begun prep room for 22-23. well we've not how does that impact your workflow because usually that's that's a year-over-year thing are you concerned about that many well I I believe in two years at once uh yes with the uh but we should be able to handle one year at a time um the uh the impact though is really from the nature of the remote auditing that they're going to do um it is slower it takes more time um I I think if they were to come in more often which simply going to put quite in any time look at anything you want um the back and forth before the questions go much faster they can look at different things methods that's that's how I uh the impact we feel is the does this impact our current application process in any way I know we do the other state auditing and I assume that's what we use the city audit to be completed in order to be correctly thus far you're correct there are grants that as with your application you have to show your most recent financial statements uh thus far all of our applications when we had that requirement we've submitted to 2019-20 financial statements and they've been accepted hard to say you know whether someone digs in their heels or not I can say that they have not so far again excuse me oh I'm sorry I thought it is yeah under the impression that the district was putting its own audit into play with the state and they understood and nothing has been Delight is that correct sir I think that's different years it wasn't that different years when the city Auditors are hiring uh there are three things they do as part of their contract one is to do the cities annual report that 200 Page Financial all funds all activities that's number one number two they do a report called the single audit the single audit is only a few pages it will have a page of all the federal grants that the city and the Board of Education received it just shows the grant who gave it to you and how much you spent um both paid for federal money and a paid for State money that's uh that requirement's been around for 40 or 50 years but the third thing they do is they have they audit a report that every school has to do with the end of August for the previous year we have to report to the state Ed Department uh how we spent our budget how we've spent Our Brands how we've what the city has done for us and other things here the state of Connecticut tries to put all of the towns and school districts on the same Level Playing Field so things that the city does for us but other places the schools do themselves they're equalizing all of that we get more grants than most places so they want to the state wants to know what did we spend from all sources for things like feature establishments and so that's called the EFS report and that has to be audited that's the third part of what the city it was good what happened this year was the the year that ended June 30 of 2022 that auditing report was still up in Hartford December 31st of 2022.

it was found that installing a speed bump is associated with 53 to 60 percent a reduction in injury or death in neighborhood children struck by a vehicle because the most severe injuries are often related to Vehicles exceeding the speed limit installation of speed bumps helps to ensure that drivers abide by postage speeds with adding speed bumps there's also more visual sidewalks crosswalks yeah and maybe with more colorful sidewalks it may attract the driver more to color which will make them feel that there are people there and would you agree with this and also with crosswalks crosswalks that have speed bumps um this will reduce the speed of cars and would you agree with this and as with the incident of heroin the incident with Carolyn yeah isn't it with Carolyn near the school um maybe more speed bumps close to schools because many kids walk across streets in schools because they're trying to get to the school and it'll decrease the probability of them getting hit and would you agree with this and another solution would be more um walking safety for children maybe education for them so they know like what's the danger in it and these are some cool Solutions like songs or maybe more yeah and I will continue we as stated in the letter we are discussing the bridge for more covered pedestrian bridges over major roads especially by schools we want one by the high school so that kids can feel safe and they don't have to cross the street by Quebec we we want more four-way stops especially by schools oh we got more four-way stops especially by schools because at some schools we don't really have this would you agree with this here we have some data about distracted driving sort of like the four major distractions when you're driving right visual physical cognitive and auditory yes you don't have to read them we here we have more data about it and this one says that 6 out of ten teen crashes involved driver distraction that chart is you can see the charts after this we started we tried to make messages for Billboards that could like catch the attention of people and like get stuck in their mind and be like think about it every time they drive and one of the ideas was one text can take a life what do you agree with this keep in mind that a lot of these were done in Spanish and then translated to English so if you read the Spanish it probably makes more sense than the English one because they did it in Spanish mainly in Spanish it says and the images are right there too the next one says this text can be your less is and I like this one because it has a cracked phone and it like what do you agree with this message the next billboard says getting distracted causes deaths don't drive distracted do you agree with this message the next message says pay attention if not you get hit don't drive distracted do you agree with this message the next one says Transportation Alternatives if you are drunk Uber taxi friends who friend who drives and is not drunk do you like this message the next one is save a life hands on Wheel um do you like this one next one says no distractions means life saved universe do you agree with this message the next one says be a good passenger don't distract the driver s do you like this message next one says don't wish for change be the change do you like this message and we Maria will talk about the survey results without extracted oh no no oh this is quicker because just passed so um the the youth Advisory board members just so you all know I work for them for an hour and a half every week and so they pretty much tell me what they would like and it's my job to get the work done so one of the things they did is they collected surveys and they collected quite a few at the Mile High Flea Market the last two weekends so I'm very proud of them and thank you for coming now on both Saturday and Sunday some of them came uh quite a bit on both weekends so it was fabulous so let me make sure that I'm going the right way it's down okay so they collected over a hundred surveys um and that's the breakup of the the breakdown of males and females adults children and then one of the questions we wanted to know is where do they get their information about safety and so other parents um friends as you can see internet is the big one along with websites uh television and friends are pretty much tied and social media is is also high so that was uh interesting to no surprise but interesting nonetheless because keep in mind that a lot of these people who filled out the survey were monolingual Spanish speakers as well and so as well as in English speaking oops so one of the questions is what keeps you from walking around in your city anything from Bad sidewalks to you know the distance that traffic irresponsible drivers construction speeding creepy homeless people I had to put that in there because so many people put that down as like okay um so just the fear of not knowing right um and then crime uh they just don't feel safe and drugs and bad lighting um it's just hard when you can't see where you're walking and then uh on a scale from one to five we ask people uh how safe they felt uh walking around in their city and as you can see um over 60 percent didn't feel as safe um and somewhat safe at 24 and 12.4 percent said they felt safe walking then we asked them what scares you the most when you're walking riding a bike or or a scooter in your city so homeless sidewalks and lack lack of bike Lanes car speeding distracted and drunk drivers crossing the street at intersections lack of lighting getting hit by a car and gun violence next one um what would you do what should your city do different to make you feel more make you feel safer so one sidewalks make them wider fix the broken ones better and bigger signage speed bumps lighting bike Lanes cameras car safety crosswalks better drivers driving rules being enforced more policing designated Lanes education less people on drugs less distracted drivers than pedestrian awareness um top three problems there were quite a few but these were the top of all of them that came up um were drugs alcohol guns gangs mental health and emotional health safety overall unsafe drivers and traffic violence and abuse bullying social media and video games bad influencers lack of positive role models poverty and basic needs and homelessness and then other suggestions we so it was a very simple five six question survey so there wasn't a whole lot so that people would actually come and what's really nice is they got to museum tickets for filling it out so we had quite a few of those that were donated um so thank you to the Nature and Science Museum for donating so other suggestions addressing gun violence emotional health bigger Science Focus on too many drugs that are on the streets more surveys to ask for Solutions I love this one more programs like these for youth more safety more school bus Patrol better and safer places to play sports like soccer and football and then they don't agree that marijuana should be legal and Reckless feeding is a huge problem a lot of the folks who took the survey were not all in Commerce City and so the reason that this letter is going to go to the county and the state is because many of the families that we talk to and I know that what the youth were talking to a lot of people they kept saying that a lot of these issues were in their Community as well they're not just unique to Commerce City so they're everywhere so with that we want to thank you for this opportunity and allow you to ask any questions I also want to introduce Mr Craig Cannon who's in the back here he's actually the creator of these signs that the kids were so impressed with um and when he brought them over they actually we tested them out in front of my office to see how they worked and so um we are here if you have questions we invite you afterwards to check out their display it's the same things that you saw up here and all of the information is on there there's also the youth create at The Squire that they were passing out at the flea market just it's a quick tips quick information road safety and just so you know Colorado has had over 29 413 crashes since January 1st and this was up until two weeks ago when they created this so this is why they're very invested in making sure that their voices heard and that they're getting the information to the right people so so thank you to the youth Advisory board for all of their work [Applause] amazing presentation yes board members uh Dr Lydia any questions comments foreign [Music] thank you so much for the presentation um it's really important especially uh I could think a lot of a lot of times that I've been wanting uh speed bumps on my road uh and I'm right by Alsip they put some right there in front of Elsa but I agree that they should be also on the streets because it is a dangerous so thank you so much for this I this is so exciting uh because actually just a year ago I got to do a tour with the County Commissioners and uh CDOT just exactly for this asking for Bridges most of a lot of the stuff that you guys got on your presentation so my question is uh because with have you met with Marcia Nielsen uh the chief Equity officer from CDOT that's one question and another one is because this is like you said Statewide is this like a bill that's going to be introduced to the I mean because this is really important not only for us but for stay I just my my cousin was uh hit and run by a neighbor he was 10 years old he died 10 years old on his riding his bike and uh he would be my age right now um and uh it was you know one of our neighbors that that killed him accidentally and he was speeding so this is uh very close to my heart thank you Maria and for The Advisory Group for doing this Migos and let me know what I can do for you guys also on how to how to support yeah okay so just to clarify so this group we had and I didn't mention this but they have until the end of December to actually solidify um whatever it is that they're going to recommend to see dot this is just the beginning there's more to come because there's many other things that need to be looked at besides just distracted driving um and some of the stuff that they put on here we still have uh quite a ways to go for what they're going to be presenting once the grant has ended and yes I do have a few um of meetings not only with CDA but we also invited our some of our commissioners to come visit with the youth and we're going to invite them back we had one that was able to join us and a few that it was to um because it was last month and it was too busy so we want to get started when school starts back up again inviting them as well as city council members and working with city and county but the request of the youth is is spot on because we need to make sure that everybody's working together on this because it's not just that whole jurisdiction piece of it's on your side of the street and it's not on my side or it's on you know who's responsible for what at this point they're youth all they care about is being safe you know the adults should really be taking care of whose problem it is and who's going to pay for it and at that point I think that that's where everybody needs to come together and figure it out and so that's part of the ask and the main ask is that people work together to make this happen and not necessarily um have the youth being bounced back and forth between everybody so that's what we hope to accomplish but just you know when we wrote this grant it was really empowering the youth for them to come up with the ideas and for them to present the ideas and it wasn't that the adults were going to be interfering and saying oh you shouldn't do that or you shouldn't think of it that way it's really what they wanted to think of so we proposed it as an open option as to they're going to decide and then they're going to bring it so it was never really um this is exactly clear-cut as to what we're going to do for you no it's like you have to allow the youth that opportunity for them to be creative and come up with ideas and one of the ideas right off the bat that came when um Mr Cannon came is he brought that that sign that you see back there that's standing back there it looks like a stick figure and you can easily recognize it when you saw on the slides if you go back to the slides you will see the the little thing that they put that you can barely read that says that it's a crosswalk talk but if you see this it's an automatic visual well then the youth are like well on the Crossway can they have the lights on it so um I'm sorry but I forgot the little remote but it has a little remote where Mr Canyon just took some lighting and put it around there so that we could actually have that lit up and so instead of just having those little tiny blinkers that you can barely see you would have a whole stick figure that lights up that as a driver you would be able to see from many feet away and granted these are you so I'm not going to go into you know how many feet and all of the you know requirements from CDOT for this this is the beauty of having our youth create because it is really up to them to come up with the ideas and then it's up to us as adults to come up with what Solutions match and what we can and can't do so that's and a short answer sorry any other group thank you guys for this amazing work um I'm just so impressed by the work and the recommendation that you've made um a couple of questions I um I know in your survey results um social media was really high on where do you get your information from um so I'm wondering if you considered um a social media like a public service announcement campaign where they really you know you can make fun videos and um bring your your pictures and slides to life um and then I love that it's not it's Statewide it's not just um Commerce City um I think it would be really great to include in that public service campaign considering things like buses in addition to the Billboards because like here in Commerce City we don't have a lot of billboards unless we leave one of the couple of ways that that we can go um but I just wanted to offer those as a couple of ideas um I absolutely love and commend you for bringing these various groups together um because I I think you know it's it's going to take coordination we're going to have to work with the city and the county to do everything from the speed bumps to I really liked the crosswalk ideas um because it can also you know be a pride thing for the schools you could do it in the school colors and um just a lot of cool ideas so thank you for your amazing presentation and all of your work because I know you guys have been meeting how many hours did you say uh over uh yeah yeah so thank you thank you so um and our other members are over here if you have any questions but to answer your question they did they were going to participate in a um there was a contest that CDOT put out for videos and unfortunately the day that they worked on it it's a beautiful video that Manny actually cut and pasted and put it together and we wanted to present it but out of um respect for um Miss Kincaid's family we did not put it out because it just so happened that the day before that accident that they created this video it was a car crashing into a little doll and you'd see it from the top and then her shoe flew off she was it was just very important taste had we put it out there so we didn't do it but it was a really good video that they worked really hard on and just out of respect for our fellow team we didn't put it out but yes that is it and your other question was around what was that other part that you said oh yes so just you know the the billboard idea was really just to get their juices flowing because I'm like Envision a message that somebody could drive by and they could see from really far away what would that look like so it wasn't necessarily that they're recommending Billboards because even they they mentioned to me they're like Miss but what if a crash happens because somebody's reading the billboard and I was like oh okay well it might be too distracting so but the idea was to get them um get their ideas going so I told them to Envision a message on a billboard and so that's why we have the billboard on there but that's really it was just a tool to get them to be creative well and then really quickly I will say your survey results are spot on I have a sad confession to make is my one accident I ever got into was right after I got my license and I was distracted I was changing this will age me my cassette tape in my radio and and somebody in front of me stopped and I ran into them so because so I'm just congratulating you guys I think that it took a lot of hard work and time to put this together um this is what leadership looks like um and so I'm proud of you all for this and and I hope that we get updates as soon as you keep working on this um to see how you are are moving forward with it thank you uh I'm really excited because this is what I do uh and uh so I and this is just a comment because um are you guys familiar with the infrastructure bill so uh so this Administration they passed a 1.2 trillion uh dollar package includes a five year allocation of 550 billion dollars in federal investments in America's infrastructure to upgrade highways and major roads Bridges airports ports and Water Systems so some of that funding is getting funneled here to Colorado it should be here already though um and this is really important your work because we really need I will connect you with uh Marcia um she's the uh they're the people that we did the tour with with the federal government and they need to hear you they need to hear this from you um because this is our this is money that belongs to our communities and if they hear you they'll know what to bring it here because otherwise guess what's going to happen they're going to skip us and they're gonna go to the next town that already has the money and the infrastructure so I will connect uh Maria uh with some of the people that we have already been working with at a federal level because this is really important and that uh funding belongs to our communities so thank you [Applause] please please get Pizza Ramona order just especially for you guys thank you again amazing work yes those are very cool yeah no one immediately yep wow thank you yes good job thank you yes it's a seat um next on the agenda is 1.3 review of executive limitations monitoring reports for June um Dr Lydia Madam president members of the board we have in front of Youth uh four executive limitations these are Under the policy governance framework um presentations or data that we bring to you based on the topics that the board has agreed want to hear about and this is also part of of the items that will go into my evaluation so we have executive implementation number six specific to education programming executive limitation seven instruction materials selection adoption el9 treatment of students parents and community and executive limitation 12 staff treatment so I have staff members here that will be supporting with the presentation these are my monitoring reports on the board educations Etc executive limitations uh and the reports that you're going to hear are presented in accordance with boards monitoring schedule and I certified that the information is true and complete so for eal um is there any particular you want to start with I have my first one is el12 here but I'm not sure if they are the same I can go any el6 in regards to Executive limitation six educational program of the I have employees it's just in other words oh I see what this is thank you executive limitation program um your the policy that you approved in February says the superintendent will not fail to adopt and develop the educational program of the district as necessary to make reasonable progress towards meeting content standards fulfilling the board's ends policies and meeting the general academic educational needs of each student in the district um and it moves along saying um that the superintendent will not and there are a number of items in here I'm gonna I'm not I'm gonna quickly read them I will not fail to develop a plan to implement content standards that meet or exceed the model State content standards ensure that educational programs of the district actively address the needs of exceptional students consciously avoid gender or cultural bias and conform with all timelines established by law number two superintendent will not fail to take reasonable steps to involve Educators parents students business persons members of the community in the district accountability Committee in the review and revision of content standards curriculum and programs of instruction is necessary to ensure maximum Effectiveness number three superintendent will not fail to revise curriculum in programs of instruction and align them to the district's adopted content standards to provide students with educational experiences and opportunities to achieve the district standards and make adequate yearly progress as required by state and federal law superintendent will not fail to develop assessments that will adequately measure each student's progress toward achievement of the content standards number five superintendent will not fail to include both formal studies to meet the general academic needs of each student and to extend possible opportunities for individual students to develop specific talents in interests in more specific fields uh superintendent will not fail to take reasonable steps to address the different learning styles of students superintendent will not fail to include all legally required courses and programs and lastly superintendent will seek waivers of state law in regulation that impede the district's progress towards achievement in the mission Madam president members of the board if you go to the last page of that first one five page 505 in green you will find um you'll find my interpretation towards this and this is specifically important for us to have Clarity and given this to be the executive limitation that you have provided me as a guidance and as the vision on how you want me to report my interpretation is that it is my responsibility to ensure consistent implementation of research-based instructional practices using rigorous curriculum that support High student achievement and actually this is a draft in for conversation for us so I would like to add in here actually achievement and growth this is accomplished through professional development opportunities and effective instructional practices for teachers and staff clear curriculum adoption processes best practices in instructional leadership and differentiation in program in course offerings to address students learning styles and strengths so as we hear our chief academic officer go through the data in the interpretation of or the reporting for this em I would like for you to consider is is are these points here that are being reported in alignment to not only what you are expecting for me to report but also is it in alignment to the interpretation added here and as I said there's been a draft for us in in conversation I will I would like to add support students achievement and growth at the same time any questions before I pass it on to miss Burke the interpretation I um and I don't know if this is more of a comment or a question I see the number one um the superintendent will not fail to develop a plan then looking at that last piece of the sentence just around um conscious having curriculum that consciously avoids gender or cultural bias and I'm just thinking about in your interpretation if there is some or if we can discuss maybe how cultural responsive curriculum aligns with that in your interpretation or if you see it that way at all um third line of the interpretation best practices in instructional leadership and differentiation in programs I do believe that without wanting to go into all the details and mentioning all points in there I do believe that part of the work that we need to continue doing and Embark doing right now and continue doing is establishing those practices best practices to ensure that that bias is not there and that Equitable opportunities for students to access the curriculum are in place so as we move forward and we start looking at how we're going to better organize ourselves to serve the schools better next year when I say organize I mean in the central office we are considering putting structures not only in the monitoring of in a monitoring of the live delivery of instruction at the school level but also monitoring and reviewing policies that will ensure um that our curriculum is not only um uh not biased and culturally relevant also that going back to the schools is it's been implemented that way or delivered that way um so my interpretation the way that I see the superintendent's interpretation is what are going to be the steps to ensure all those are in there all those um limitations that you're giving me are going to be included in there without necessarily having to go into detailing you know each one of those um does that answer your question um my question was uh very aligned to that because I I think we need to be very intentional especially as we review the executive limitations and the the reportings um for me I struggled with uh culturally relevant uh curriculum I didn't know if it belonged better in el7 where we're talking about instruction materials selection and adoption um or the educational program and I think to me I would love it to be in both um I I think uh we need to balance the curriculum to meet the standards but I also um feel like it's such an importance from this board to have that um you know we we have a rare opportunity in Adams 14 to learn about the true history for example of Colorado and Indigenous people um and I just I want to ensure that we're calling it out and monitoring it because um I just think it it's an important part to the entire educational program that makes sense actually both of them well no both of them are um closely related that uh el7 and El six um it could be satisfied by adding that last line that we have in el7 I mean in El six um ensuring that the educational programs of the district actively address the needs of exceptional students consciously and avoid gender and cultural bias so adding some of that language as well number one because the first one is not is the um development of the plan to implement those whereas eo7 is the selection of those materials right so they go hand in hand it could be um I guess my question is would add in that last piece of the specific topics that you want to make sure our curriculum not only the delivery of our of the lessons but also the selection of the materials call it out to to your point well yes this is our first time and I think actually the beauty of policy governance is it needs to meet the needs of the board what you're looking for as you set the vision for the district so we'll make that change this today are here for discussion as you requested area will be here for discussion uh and then in the next board meeting we'll bring the final not to say that the final cannot have any changes we can adopt um that took it in there as well but then we'll make those changes and send them to you in the updates that you can look at them before the 12.

knowing where we live work study and recreate does not change the past but a thorough understanding of the ongoing consequences of this past can Empower us in our work to create a future that supports human flourishing and justice for all individuals hey thank you would you proceed to the Roll Call I will uh let's see here um councilmember Ekman here Ann Arbor thank you uh chairperson Brown here in Ann Arbor thank you commissioner kalawart commissioner Curtis here Ann Arbor thank you commissioner Dale uh council member dish all right um commissioner Gib Randall here in Ann Arbor thank you uh commissioner Graham here Aberdeen Drive thank you uh commissioner Gruber thank you commissioner Merson I'm here in Downers Grove Illinois thank you uh commissioner mursky you're in Ann Arbor thank you Vice chairperson Mitchell you're in Ann Arbor thank you uh commissioner nedrich you're in Ann Arbor thank you commissioner oriel here in Ann Arbor thank you and commissioner wahing all right uh and that is a quorum all right thank you Sean um the next item on the agenda is the approval of the hmdoc let's see are there any suggested edits okay do I have a motion to approve the agenda as submitted John mursky do I have a second Shannon give Randall all who are in favor of uh accepting the agenda as drafted as submitted raise your hand or say aye hey okay it looks unanimous um the next item is the approval of the minutes from our last meeting from our April 27th meeting um I moved to approve the minutes uh John opens any second um Shannon seconds um if you approve the minutes as drafted raise your hand or say aye okay and he knows any abstentions um here hearing and seeing none the minutes are approved as submitted um so this proceeds to the first opportunity for public commentary this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes please call [Music] 877-853-5247 and enter meeting ID 922-9696-1644 this information is also displayed on the meeting agenda and video feed City staff will select callers that have raised their hand one by one using the last three digits of your phone number in order to electronically raise your hand to indicate your desire to speak please press star 9 on your phone you will hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sounds so that we may hear you clearly please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments and be patient there can be a delay of up to three seconds before connection is established now do we have anybody online as yet Sean we do not okay well let's wait 30 seconds anybody on the line yet uh there is not okay well this ends the first public commentary period there will be a second opportunity to submit public commentary online or by phone at the end of this meeting so the next item on the agenda is unfinished business and so uh there is no unfinished business and so we'll proceed directly to new business uh the first item is the officer elections for 2023 um are there any nominations uh we do have on the list candidates who expressed interest we have uh commissioner Rita Mitchell for the chair of the environmental commission uh and um commissioner Stephen Brown for the vice chair of the environmental Commission um I will open the floor also now for any other Commissioners uh who would like to um state that they would like to run for either position I second those nominations all right um seeing and hearing no further uh nominations um I would anyone like to move uh to uh have a vote to elect uh Rita Mitchell as the chair of the environmental Commission I see box Curtis um would anyone like a second uh Lisa dush thank you let me make those notes really quick sorry um all right um all in favor of electing uh Rita Mitchell as the chair of the environmental commission please raise your hand or say aye aye aye all right um are there any a post any abstentions all right hearing none and seeing none uh that passes um so congratulations uh to commissioner Mitchell now chair Mitchell all right um I would now like to ask if anyone would like to move to elect a commissioner uh Stephen Brown as the vice chair of the environmental commission does anyone like to move uh Shannon gibrandel thank you uh any seconds John rusky thank you all right um all those in favor of the of electing Stephen Brown to the vice chair position uh please raise your hand or say aye all right um any opposed and any abstentions all right hearing that and seeing none congratulations uh to a vice chair uh Stephen Pratt all right um so um control of the meeting now goes to Rita Mitchell as the new chair so Rita all right thank you and thank you everyone and thank you Steve for being an excellent chair for three years it's been it's been good to work with you um and I look forward to working with everyone on the commission as we move forward we have as our new business um a a nap natural areas preservation overview and our presenter is Remy long and please be welcome Remy and we look forward to your presentation and a discussion where our goal is to keep to approximately 15 minutes for the presentation and we'll have lots of time I hope for discussion afterwards thanks thank you um start by sharing my screen and everyone see not yet there Perfect all right so as uh chairperson Mitchell mentioned my name is Remy long I am a deputy manager within the city of Ann Arbor Parks and Rec Services where I have the great privilege of overseeing the park systems conservation operations so one part of which is Natural Area preservation division of parks and rec um Natural Area preservation or nap for short Works to protect and restore Ann Arbor's natural areas and Foster an environmental ethic within the community so thank you for the opportunity to come here and share exactly what that means in practice see if I can advance slots there we go so a little background nap was established in 1993 when a the voters approved the latest iteration of the Park's maintenance and Capital Improvements millage which provided nap with its seed funding if you're not aware the city of Ann Arbor Park system is comprised of 163 Parks which contain 82 natural areas which fall under the purview of naps Management in total the park system is nearing 2200 acres and nap's share of that is 1400 Acres so just over 60 percent of the Park acreage is managed by now here's the organizational chart so that here's everybody that's getting the great work done um we'll start with Becky hand uh who is uh Knapp's ecological assessment supervisor that supports our two field biologists and together that group um inventories all of the plant and animal species that are present in our Parks um and their quality to help us understand better what it is our Park system contains we have the Intrepid nap volunteer and Outreach supervisor Tina Stevens that does an incredible job leveraging this community's conservation ethic to put it into practice and make nap a powerful Vector of the expression of that conservation ethic we shoot for about 10 000 hours of volunteer effort per year and naps nap and Tina deliver on that goal year to year and it's an extremely impressive feat we have the nap stewardship supervisor currently vacant position that oversees the day-to-day activities of the backbone of our conservation work which is our field crew that is out there clearing Trails removing invasives treating Etc so together the crew and the nap stewardship supervisor work collaboratively to set the weekly daily weekly monthly yearly management priorities across um uh acreage and then we have the nap Environmental Education and engagement coordinator position which is a new frontier for nap which again our mission statement to protect and restore Ann Arbor's natural areas and Foster an environmental ethic within the community this new position is focused on the latter part of that mission statement and doing more proactive and giving approach to fostering that environmental ethic whereas nap does a ton of excellent work in receiving support in developing that ethic through our volunteerism but this is one that will engage with Community groups schools Etc to further Advance awareness of nap's work so all of those positions all that great work is funded by the parks maintenance and Capital Improvements millage but within the nap office we also share space with Rosie Paul Donaldson who is the land acquisition supervisor for the city of Ann Arbor Rosie is charged with overseeing the day-to-day activities of the city's Greenbelt program which is a regional land preservation millage funded program as well as the Parkland acquisition activities within the city limits moving back to the nap side or and that is a separate funded through open space and Parkland preservation Village I'll share a little bit more on that later but moving back to the nap side of things I just can't overstate the role that volunteers play in supporting and uplifting naps Mission fulfillment so thanks to all of them some of which are here today so breaking down our work into several different categories we'll jump right in so as I mentioned we conduct ecological assessments and we do that through both animal and plant inventories on the animal inventory side of things we have our Frog and Toad survey where our field biologist trains volunteers to go to several different uh observation and listening points throughout the city and they are trained to hear the different types of frog and toad calls and then log that data we also have the salamander survey so if you really like traversing parks at night in wet conditions this is a perfect program for you to engage with where we have trained volunteers again going out into the parks carefully flipping logs and observing the different salamander species that we find throughout the park system we have a turtle stewards program which if you were to volunteer with you may find yourself paddling down the Huron and doing observations of different um sunbathing Turtles as well as helping with our Turtle nesting Mound efforts and protection of those nesting bones we have a very robust breeding bird survey program where volunteers go to various listening and observation points across the city much like the Frog and Toad surveys all of that data is logged and uploaded and curated by Naps ornithologist Juliet into eBird for public use and then complementary to that is our nesting box monitoring program on the plant inventory side we conduct photo monitoring so similarly we set up photo points throughout the park system and record and track the progress of our stewardship efforts across time so here's an example of an early 1900s photo of uh Cherry rock at bird Hills and a picture of what that same space looks like actually just this April and all of these photos we have photo monitoring volunteers that go to points across the city on different intervals and then submit those photos to nap which are then uploaded into a public-facing database an interactive map where you can click on the various photo points across the city and see the changes and conditions across time uh Becky and other staff also can conduct uh floristic quality assessments which is a method of assessing how natural a community is or a site based on the conservatism of the species and the plants that are present conservatism could be interpreted as how picky the plants are for growing in certain site conditions so depending on what is there and its relative Rarity and picking this we can say that it is an exceptionally rare or high quality or Remnant site and which would then prioritize our management activities Within through that plant inventory work we've identified over 1200 species of plants within the parks 22 of which are State listed as endangered threatened or Species of special concern and moving on to our actual stewardship efforts the ecological restoration that we do uh day to day again our photo monitoring has yielded the pictures to the right which is a firstenberg nature area you'll see a photo from 1997 and then below what over 25 years of active stewardship and management could have revealed in terms of change and condition so on the stewardship and restoration front we of course remove invasive plants and shrubs from the parks and we also utilize somewhat uniquely a very um effective management tool of controlled Burns within the parks I uniquely I say because of the urban context in which we're conducting um this prescribed fire programming we you can look Statewide and you'll find very few examples of other agencies that are operating with within an urban context that are safely deploying this tool in the field many others are using working in large expansive rural areas where smoke management Etc is less of a concern um and less sensitive but here our team has immense expertise and utilizes various tools to ensure that we're able to safely use this effective Land Management tool within our Urban context we also do see dispersal in collection we collect local genotype seed and then disperse within the parks for our restoration efforts and then Knapp has 50 miles of Trail within the natural areas which is the bulk or rather there are 80 miles of Trail within the city of Ann Arbor Park system but 50 are within our natural areas and so day to day we're receiving reports from the community of trees over trails that need to be cleared cut you know erosion that needs to be addressed Etc and so our conservation crew is out there making sure that those needs are met and then we not only can conduct an urban controlled burn program but we do so with volunteers and we invite them into that experience so every year we host a training in February there is no experience necessary and then the burns actually take place Monday through Friday in the afternoon and it's in the afternoon because my phone starts chattering around five in the morning when the crew is busy or when the team is busy deliberating conditions weather smoke models Etc and which sites are suitable to burn that day and then by eight or nine o'clock has settled on which site is most appropriate and safest and then move on to the public press release and social media postings and then going and posting signage at the burns site flagging the burn site creating burn breaks Etc so then finally after all that work from early in the morning the team's ready to go and put fire on the ground usually around noon or one o'clock and then we'll actually actively be burning for a few hours but the team can be there long after that because they are doing what they call mop up which is putting the fire out if any there's any Remnant smoldering they're taking no water packs around and making sure the entire site is quote unquote cold which I'll get the site is cold text sometimes as late as nine o'clock or later depending on how much they burn that day so really a huge undertaking and hats off to everyone on this team that gets it done so other stewardship activities within our restoration scope we have stewardship work days private and public where folks can come out and remove invasive plants with us by pulling or cutting sometimes we'll do plantings we'll work on trail improvements of note and then also as I mentioned native seed collection and dispersal usually March through December and typically almost all on weekend mornings and afternoons because that has yielded the most participation whereas weekday ones have been yielded far less and again you know experience necessary will teach everyone what they need to know when they get there as all we're looking is for Willing folks to come and volunteer we have our Park stewards um uh commissioner Curtis here is a phenomenal Park Steward you can explain all about it better than I can most likely but this is um effectively a natural area adopter who spends a great deal of time in these spaces um they have nap approved management plans and a longer term commitment to see that management through to to actualization removing plants on their own time and then they also act as the eyes and ears because with 1400 acres of land to manage you can imagine with the limited staff of 15 or so that we have we can't be everywhere all at once um so that we really rely on these Park stewards to be uh uh take an active hand in managing these Landscapes but also just keep a surprise up to date on what the Park's needs are we have in addition to those volunteer opportunities and these we also do Outreach so we're doing nature walks in partnership with the Ann Arbor District Library we are present in the community at Earth Day the greeting Fair here on River day Etc and then our volunteer opportunities are not just limited to field work we do have in-office volunteers Craig here pictured on the right is with us a lot and does a lot of great in-office work we have interns regularly research projects in collaboration with the universities we have community service volunteers and then occasionally special projects coming from Eagle Scouts and then finally as I said this is a totally separate program but Falls within the totality of the parks conservation operations which is our land acquisition functions nap does support this in terms of sharing an office and collaborating and sharing ideas as well as when the city receives a Parkland acquisition application from a landowner Knapp does assist with the evaluation of that site to assess its flouristic quality so quickly the breakdown of the Greenbelt millage technically called the open space and Parkland preservation Village there's a 30 year millage that passed with overwhelming voter support in 2003 67 of voter approved um 0.5 mil for 30 years and after The Debt Service to the bond is paid it yields about 1.8 million a year in Revenue which is divided into one-third for Parkland acquisition and two-thirds to Regional land preservation efforts outside the city limits but within the Greenville District here is the Greenville District um as you can see the city of Ann Arbor this is a map of the Greenbelt District Circa 2000 and the public and private conserve lands inside and outside the city and here is a map today after 20 years out of 30-year millage we've added 7 600 acres of permanently protected land to the Greenbelt District in partnership with other agencies Scio Township Ann Arbor Township Webster Township Lodi Superior and other Ann Arbor Township we secure Millions upon millions of federal funding to leverage our city taxpayer dollars to add as much protected Green Space to the map as we can so again outside Knapp's programming but I wanted to make a quick mention of that should you wish to connect with us obviously reach out to me directly if you want but you can get involved and see our list of nap events and work days coming up follow us on social media and be happy to engage so I wanted to keep it quick so we open it up for further discussion but thank you for the opportunity and I really appreciate it thank you Remy um I just want to say as a park Steward myself I want to I want to acknowledge that nap has been um essential to my participation in the city and I appreciate very much the education that I've gotten from staff um and the experience in in working with um native plants areas and and just being out out in nature the team is great and I really appreciate them um and thanks for being really timely with your presentation um what we want to do for tonight is just to proceed with a short presentation by John mursky and then to kind of merge uh discussion of of nap in general and have this be kind of like a brainstorming session or discussion of how the environmental commission can work with nap and and as most effectively because I think we all have very similar goals and um yeah let's just move forward I'll try and keep this bare balloons and John if you would proceed with your presentation that'd be great do you see it yes okay uh I'm gonna go through uh hopefully 125 slides in around eight to ten minutes so there's going to be a lot of fast clicking and uh what I'm would intent to talk about is what we and I mean all of us have done to our parks in terms of the impact of invasive trees um I've done some photo documentation and uh I'm gonna end with a question what can we do to reduce the negative impact of invasive trees on our parks and in particular I'm going to focus on the impact of um Bush Honeysuckle and common Buckthorn so let me see how can I think there we are so um here's some general information non-native trees only support a small fraction of the insect biomass that are supported on native trees um the diversity of those species obviously also declines and those impact insects are the base of the food pyramid for many other native species and not only that non-native trees shade out native tree seedlings when our mature native trees die that means we're not going to have progeny to replace them and Native shrubs and force for plants including wildflowers are also negatively impacted so the first I wanted to do is just show you photo documentation of um along the border to border Trail um it would it's my contention that the Huron River is certainly Ann Arbor's most prominent and perhaps our most valuable natural feature um and what I think you'll see is that dense thickets of non-native trees are now obscuring in many cases totally black views of and hinder access to the river and so I'm going to click through a bunch of slides showing you two sections of the border to border Trail and what invasives that many of us and certainly our predecessors planted as ornamental trees have done to our border to border Trail um certainly this way so this is a border border trail from Gallup Park um to the pedestrian bridge um and bike bridge that is near Huron towers and Mitchell Field um I walked this and took a photograph roughly every 100 feet and you're going to see that almost in all cases you can't even see the river anymore except where it is cleared near uh places where there are benches and the lights so I'm going to click through these real quickly so this is the beginning and I'm just gonna go click click click and you can see in the lower left hand corner the border to border Trail I believe this is an area that is maintained by nav it's a a prairie or a field area and you can see here on Towers to the left and there's the pedestrian bridge there we are on the bridge there's Huron towers and that's looking down the Iran River so this is another section on the border border Trail further Upstream from the intersection of Maiden Lane and Wall Street up to the Cascades and Argo Dam so this is Riverside Park Parks really on the right and there's going to be a few uh bad photographs here but that don't detract from the overall message foreign so this is actually now looking to the right the river is on the left this is the Cascades on the right and this is back looking towards the River on the left here we are at the dam there's Argo Pond looking down stream to the Cascades and I'm gonna also run through photographs of several other parks so this is Ruthven nature area Ruth Ruthven is on the north side of Gettys across the street from Gallup Park so this is entering on a path that is right across from a parking area on Gettys in Gallup Park and you can see um it's invasives all along the border and you can see the nice nicely maintained area um in the background and there we are in the Natural Area and you can see here undergrowth which is all invasive species as you can see also here this is firstenberg nature area walking West from Gallup Park so all these low-lying shrubs on the left and the right are what appear to be shrubs are Honeysuckle and Buckthorn same here this is it marshy area but the trees the low-lying trees in the background here are all invasives there's nature Miller nature area also low the understory all dominated by invasive trees and this is married Beth Doyle Park this is a picture taken in 2017 and you can see what wonderful stand of Trillium and my wife and I went back um this year unfortunately we were earlier a year late so it looks like there's less Trillium actually there's the same number of Trillium but what you really see is right next to this beautiful stand of uh or floor of of Trillium you've got all kinds of invasives in the background and um this is um approaching a bridge that leads to Packard Road Again invasives and this is a pathway going west also invasives on either side of the trail and I'm just thought I'd put a plug-in this is my favorite Park this is my backyard I installed a native Prairie in the foreground and which you can see in the background is what my property used to look like where there's a wall of invasive trees starting on my neighbor's lot in the background so this was an area that had been full of weeds and grass it was mowed um and a pain demo I might say and I um removed all that turf grass and weeds and this is all now a little native Prairie and you can see in the background here all of the dense understory that is on my neighbor's property it's basically a huge Thicket you can't even walk through it so um what I wanted to do is end with the question what can we do about the impact of invasive trees and open up the discussion about Remy's presentation and what we might be able to do collectively going forward and have maybe that end with a discussion about what in particular the environmental condition commission can do so thank you John and I want to also acknowledge Michael Coast who has joined us Michael I'm sorry that I can't tell you I can't say your your title but if you could introduce yourself as well and let us know your background we welcome you to this meeting and to this discussion we may have another guest coming a little bit later um but let's just start with Michael and then I'll get to you Brooks thank you for the opportunity to be here my name is Mike cost I work for the University of Michigan I'm an associate curator at the Botanical Gardens and Arboretum and I also teach in the school of environment and sustainability thank you um you have been at our meetings in the past and I really I appreciate your input then and this time today um Brooks you have a comment or question uh sure if you um one comment on the picture from Miller nature area um Miller is about 22 Acres I believe and I'd say a roughly 50 of that has been cleared of Woody invasives in the past year between the park stewards public work days from nap staff helping out to get that done that's the first cut which means it's all down which means now we have a lot of garlic mustard Dame's rocket and we have a big seed bank to deal with from the Woody so it's a work in progress but it things can get better over time with work um and a few questions on Remy's presentation first thank you for pulling it together with me it's it was a great overview um on slide three for your organization chart for the conservation crew I know they're all seasonal workers I know there's always going to be high turnover for seasonal workers if you've got budget for five to seven people can you hire ahead hire eight or nine knowing that they're going to leave during the end of the year and if you don't look great at the budget standard Parts start shedding people near the end of the budget year I don't know if that's something possible within the city framework it's it's really hard to know how long someone's going to stay with us we do have crew members that come back for multiple Seasons with us others that are only here for one or partial part of one season um so short of the crystal ball we do uh you know do Hedgerow bets at times and over hire and have a larger crew and other times a leaner but it is the kind of the quarterly projections throughout the year and seeing where the budget's at but needing to keep it within the budget okay um the second question was on the floristic quality assessments I I've never participated in one I've seen the output so I can tell it's a significant amount of Manpower and labor that goes into doing them um I think the ones from nap are 25 plus years old do you think they need to be updated and if not how do we know if we're getting better or worse overall no it's a great question I absolutely think they need to be updated but it is about resources so right now uh nap is working I'm working collaboratively with uh the Forestry Department and OSI to submit a joint proposal to the USDA Forest Service inflation reduction act grant funding to have they have about um a billion dollars that came to the forest service to grant for urban canopy management is the way they're branding the bucket of funding um but it really can address uh Natural Area management more generally not just canopy so together we are jointly applying for uh close to a million dollars for different efforts at OSI nap and Forestry one of the objectives within the Naps nap area of that Grant proposal is reprioritization funding my projections for the cost uh right now are 150 000 to fully re-prioritize all 1400 Acres okay thanks yep but I think it's really important as you said uh the prioritization was done early on um and we need to understand the value and the success and the impacts of the work that we've put in but at the same time as you mentioned it is iterative it is uh decades centuries-long work so finding the right interval for reprioritization is another consideration because doing it every 10 years may be too soon relative to its cost so looking at the opportunity right now at 30 years talking about it being quarterly or uh two times a century something along those lines the grant funds are available now so we will pursue them now but setting a standard for the intervals is a big consideration that we can extrapolate information from uh for future repriorizations if we are successful in this grant ask and learn things from this first free prioritization that makes sense even 25 years in the life of a tree is somewhat short but for herbaceous and in Woodies it's we've had a lot in Generations so yeah that makes sense exactly Mr mursky um Remy I would appreciate it if you could share with the rest of the commission which you shared with me in emails and also in even other meetings about the prioritization of natural areas and in the one to five categories you'd also shared um with the distribution of acreages and uh I I did some quick math and it looks like 70 percent of the uh total air acreage under nap control is in priority four and five areas which means that they're basically minimally if um if not at all uh maintained so I was wondering if you could it's and that would be 70 of the total so I'm wondering if you can explain what that's done what the resource constraints are driving that um and possibly what if anything could be done to um inch inch that down if you will the the the percentage right absolutely so I'm going to start at the highest level which is the the working philosophy that now has in approaching natural areas management which is we are looking at the work and prioritizing the work that we do through a natural community's lens we are not prioritizing the work for the most part that we do through a human communities lens we are here to protect and restore and Safeguard the biodiversity and ecological function of these natural areas within the parks and so to do that and to take that lens and translate it into a set of priorities we've developed a prioritization the prioritization is effectively a scale of quality or restorability one through five or rather one through four and then five is a term called Green Space which I can get into um but your priority One areas within the nap World um are going to be those Remnant prairies those high quality Woodlands Oak Savannah uh type conditions that are pre-settlement Circa 1800 land cover um very uh not invaded and relatively undisturbed and therefore take far less uh time and investment to manage because they're already in high quality condition then you move down the scale and you add in levels of invasion decrease fluoristic Quality Index scores and you get your priority twos and threes which are still relatively high quality areas but do have invasive present do have management needs then you get down to your priority 4 which is heavily invaded and then finally uh priority five which we call Green Space which is that that site is so irreparably Disturbed in the soil condition and makeup mycology soil structure uh and then plant um matter above ground is so Disturbed and invaded that it doesn't have the potential for restoration back to any type of pristine Condition it's not just removing a few invasive plants and then suddenly we're looking at what could have been a high quality ecosystem that existed 200 years ago it is that it is an old uh fill dump or was bulldozed over and tilled and then now has regrown but doesn't have a lot of chance of getting to the priority one level of ecological condition or floristic quality so uh to John's question about the spread of our varying priority areas across the 1400 Acres that we manage we have about 400 Acres of priority one through three areas within the natural areas so that is where the vast majority of our resources crew time volunteer efforts burns are targeted is within that high quality what I would generally categorize as higher quality natural areas that means the remaining balance uh is priority four and five areas that is about a thousand acres um so this is these are areas where nap isn't prioritizing much of our resources that said going back to the high operating uh lens of um stewarding for natural communities benefit first uh there is a caveat to that we have Park stewards and we have volunteer groups that are highly motivated to do work in their neighborhood natural areas and that's fair we appreciate that and we want to support that so where there is volunteer say Sweat Equity uh tied into a lower quality area nap is going to try to support to some extent with some follow-up so in Miller nature area if some invasives are cut and need herbicide dabbed on them to follow up to ensure that it's killed we can send the crew out afterward to follow up and uh treat those cut customs with herbicide so you'll see the majority of our year-to-year Acres falling within the priority one through three uh spaces but you'll also see a good chunk of our work um uh drawn to lower quality areas given the volunteer efforts that are happening on the ground there John if you can refresh it and where I should pick up on the list of questions if you had more um no that's fine I think um we'll just open things up and we'll take we'll go from and anybody else and anyone um can refer to the list of questions that we provided you but I don't really want to specifically guide the conversation just based on that so go ahead and hi everybody thanks so much for that presentation um it was very interesting and I want to say actually that I I was in um it was I was on walking around Argo on Monday and got to see um a burn happening as we were we walked right through it it was interesting um what priority does nap place on helping Ann Arbor residents to engage with natural spaces natural areas aside from volunteer work um you know is there any emphasis put on getting people out into these natural areas um and then kind of as a follow-up to that um how much does um use of these natural um spaces contribute to um invasive species flourishing in them so to your first question um that is exactly why um we have uh have a newly established position at nap for Environmental Education and engagement the volunteerism aspects of what we do you know I've been in the conservation field for a decade and looked at a lot of different agencies volunteer work we have somewhere between 80 and 120 volunteer work days a year I mean it is just out of this world I'm so impressed with what the knap staff is able to pull off um with the budget they have and that is a really important way to engage the community but it is important to acknowledge that not everyone wants to meet us out there and get their hands dirty not everyone can and there's still a lot of value to Maps work to communicate just by presenting by engaging by speaking by informing so the Environmental Education engagement coordinator will need to come in and basically from scratch be building out our framework for what does it mean to engage and educate the community about Maps work I would imagine that that will look like some concerted conversations with the school system and their Environmental Education efforts um creating a pipeline of interest from the schools or communities or senior centers whatever it may be to say we're not this is what we do this is why it's important we hope you care too if you want to come and volunteer with us that's the next step but we wanted to come to you first and familiarize you with our work and its value should you want to join us we have spaces for you to join us in and if you don't want to maybe you care about these other resources in the community like Leslie science and nature center or others and so we're just trying to first get people understanding what it is that nap's role is but then meaningful connections for those interested folks to wherever their conservation ethic wants to take them next which could just be a walk in the park and that is a success in and of itself um but to that point about walking to the parks yeah not all of our sites are equipped with boot brushes and people may be um bringing in seeds uh on their boots in high traffic areas um but that's just the human management component of the invasive species spread while we also have birds and wildlife and other things that we can't control um as easily uh doing that same thing throughout the park system so we're not taking uh exceptional measures to my knowledge to prevent that spread other than the management work we're doing but yeah boot brushes are kind of a basic low-hanging fruit that a lot of agencies implement um see another Park Stewart Shannon yes um uh like Rita I've just been so impressed with you all over the years um and I just feel like I've talked about this system to other communities and things like that through my work and I just think you all do a fantastic job I just want to commend you for that um I want to bring up the thorny tissue of deer um uh I uh will be very curious if you end up achieving this grant to understand what you find with the um the the floristic quality and and some sort of inventory with that 25 years ago it's about right actually you know in terms of when we really started getting crazy numbers of deer I'll be really curious to see if you get that I'm also concerned about um you know the canopy management and all that kind of thing and getting grants and then the deer just eating the seedlings that we are trying to trying to grow and um I know you all are not in charge of that um I'm wondering if you uh during the kind of you know period that we had where we had deer control uh which was not super long whether and again I know you weren't here um but whether there was any kind of reporting from staff and things like that especially folks that have been there for a while that noticed any kind of difference I know I've seen um I've seen some heartbreaking things in some of the natural areas around me in terms of Trillium disappearing in terms of other wildflowers disappearing um that have been really tough to watch um and feeling kind of helpless about that and um it's uh I think it's something that um you know as the environmental commission we might want to think about potentially moving forward again given the change in Council I I don't know that would be a commissioner dish question or commissioner you know I mean just we wouldn't and and Ackman whether that's something that there's any appetite for um but it really is in direct opposition to our climate goals in many ways because we are trying to uh plant trees all over the place and I can show you pictures of them all getting you know severely damaged by deer um so I'm just wondering if you have any kind of thoughts as in your position that you have seen or um hope to see or are just that that issue for you all as you manage our natural areas I'm going to disappoint here and I'm going to say that in the year that I've been with nap I have been largely focused on uh the backlog of uh onboarding materials and and getting up to speed on prioritization current management efforts budgets prospective Grant applications Etc and uh the history of um the deer call its outcomes Etc uh efficacy and the reporting I have not uh delved into yeah so I wouldn't be ready to speak about that I I look forward to just any um especially if you all get the the grant to some sort of reporting back about what you find in terms of diversity there's a lot of impacts on that it's not just direct I get that um but I'd be really curious to see uh what you know if there's if if staff feels like that's been a part of kind of how things have developed my other question is um around West Park which I don't believe is one of your the areas that you actively manage for but there are a couple of natural areas in there that have some of the most spectacular big folks that we have in the city um that are actually making babies and there are so few places in the city where we see Oak seedlings anymore and um there are you know as expected a bunch of tree of Heaven all coming in there as well and they're young and small and I'm wondering if there's any kind of um just sort of scanning Outlook awareness of some of those places where we actually have successful regeneration of local genotype Oaks happening and making sure that even if they're not I don't know if that's a Parks question or what something to be able to kind of stay on top of trying to help these little ones be able to regenerate so we have a Next Generation that can start to take the place of these big beautiful ones that are actively starting to decline in that part so is there any mechanism um within nav for areas that aren't necessarily under your normal um uh zones that you manage to be able to kind of Leverage some of your skills that maybe Park staff doesn't you know maybe they're not using all the herbiciding and things like that that you all do on a kind of daily you know on a daily basis is there any way to have some of these kind of more urban areas that you're not necessarily part of normally but to be able to use some of your skills to take care of problems that are small that then could become a lot bigger in 10 years because there's just real opportunities happening in a couple of spots that we might be able to some of the good news that we have you know with small Oaks regenerating I can say we'd be happy to consult and share information for sure we have great expertise on the staff but you know the flip side um or the the rub is with that philosophy of minimal resources minimal staff time capacity we really want to deploy it to those highest quality natural areas and safeguard that capacity to do that important work because we have these sort of tangential um no less important but tangentially related things we could be doing all across the community and so to make sure that we're staying true to our core mission is really important but we are collaborators we collaborate with Washington County and other agencies around to share information whether it be about prescribed fire Etc and I see this as a space that if Parks as a whole is able to develop some capacity or if there's capacity over it say give 365 which does more of the volunteerism within the mode Parks rather than the natural areas um will absolutely share expertise where we can okay great so that may be more of a kind of collaborative advising kind of role that then we can engage other parts of volunteer management within the city to be able to maybe take some of that on yeah okay great there's I will say since I in the last year there have been a few inquiries that have come through about folks interested in transplanting seedlings in the Parks and where's the natural area where I can take these local genotypes and you know Young Oak saplings and I can say It's actually kind of hard I've gathered from the staff in Fielding those inquiries that it's kind of hard to find an appropriate site for that um that doesn't conflict with our current management priorities or long-term plans Etc so uh there is a bit of a challenge there as well not just the information necessary to properly take care of them but where do they go next is another challenge so I just want to acknowledge that all right thank you yep um commissioner Curtis uh thanks um just going back to like when we talked about removing Woody and bases one of the things I've noticed like in Miller or Mullen or Sunset Brooks is once we open up the areas we see a lot more people families kids on the trail so there is a benefit for that I know it's not necessarily the biological side but there's a benefit for the public when we start doing some of that stuff and knowing that in every Park Steward or they agree with you that if we have priority five the best we're ever going to make it in our lifetime is probably a four if we're dream maybe it's a three it'll never be a one or a two so if we have fives and we start clearing the Woody bases out it'd be nice if the park stewards had the flexibility to go in and plant other trees shrubs their money their time without you know using staff resources you know we know we're not going to put an invasive one in if we put a service bear in and it doesn't have the right sunlight or it's Miller which is a gravel mind and so the soil is pretty much crap it might die but you know it's our time it's our effort it's our money it would be nice if we had that level of flexibility to do some of that stuff or understood I over the year I've been here you know one thing that I've been able to bring to Napa's fresh perspective and so to have you know desires you know kind of a thorough inquiry internally and it takes time but I'm hoping that we can build more and more flexibilities and and really look at you know long-standing policies or or standards within an app that that do increase the flexibility and and address everything from climate resilience and adaptation to you know the added capacity or flexibility within certain natural areas that are very low quality and therefore easier to experiment with them they don't keep having that discussionist step number British I would wait until uh my cost speaks because I think he wanted to speak to the deer thing also is that right yeah I was gonna say something I was going to say something about deer and a couple other things so um I'm happy to wait if you want to go ahead no you go first and then okay all right well Remy thanks so much that was a great presentation it was really good background and um to understand uh some of the some of the depth that you're some of the depth of the work you're doing and I've been a big fan of of the Natural Earth program in Ann Arbor since I learned about it when I was uh an ecologist in Chicago area where there's a great amount of stewardship uh volunteer stewardship effort in in the Five County region so so yeah it's great to hear about so thank you um I want to address a couple different things that we've talked about uh first I'll just say you know the prioritization is fantastic it's really critical because as we all know in our own lives and our work lives if everything's a priority then nothing's a priority right you have to have priorities I mean somewhere along you have to draw the line so you know where to focus so and and focusing on where there is biodiversity that's where you need to focus on protecting biodiversity and stewarding that biodiversity so it's really critical to have that um that scale and to be putting your effort toward where you can protect biodiversity so I was really glad to really good to see that um the deer um we've you know there were about 80 deer taken out from about from around the Arboretum because there was an adjacent small preserve and they started a little bit earlier with the USDA and then the Arboretum through the city city call we took out about 80 deer when I got there in 2014 um there weren't really any Trillium to speak of in the Arboretum you'd see one once in a while under a blowdown but in 2021 after taking out 80 deer we had just like an explosion in other words the Trillium were there they were being eaten and eaten and suppressed by the deer but after a few years of that deer pressure being taken off they started to grow larger big enough to flower and this year again great flowering and the the wonderful thing too is we've had Jacqueline Corto Dr Jacqueline Corto doing research at the Arboretum she's done uh research projects I think she's got sites that married Beth Doyle looking at the same thing um studying Oak regeneration or studying Oak seedlings through planting seedlings monitoring them caged and not caged looking at a variety of native plants as well as Trillium so that research is continuing and continuing to fund that research if there's any opportunity I think would be important because it's it's detailed monitoring and that's one of the things that's really helpful um you know and it takes some expertise so and that's a project that's already going on but yeah we have seen Shannon there was good representation of Trillium you know after taking out deer so in other words we it that's a really good news story we we have to have data to be able to say that but in this case we do and we can make a difference so I think if we could get the call back that would or some kind of regular thing so it's not a political thing that we have to go through but in other words not a huge process if we could just get it as a standard thing where we're calling deer at some reasonable level and the Heron Metro Park is able to do that really well and they have a standard of and I remember the exact number of deer but they have a like a number per acre they're shooting for um and no pun intended there but um so so yeah and they're interested in you know I think if we could Court Nate dear uh Us in southeast Michigan so it wasn't just Ann Arbor that would be great and there's efforts in Southfield and elsewhere to do this so there might be some collaboration and the university would be interested in collaborating on that too the other thing about Oaks so Shannon talked about open regeneration and and the lack of seedlings there are lots of seedlings you can see them there's nothing in the sapling layer in other words there's nothing in the deer browse layer like they can't get above seedling the seeds will germinate little year or two and then they can never get above the browse line but it's really critical that we have a good sense for our understory Oaks in other words Oaks that are like four inches above the browse line but not in the overstory nothing but big we know that the overstory will someday send us what we really need is to find identify and protect and Steward the understory Oaks that are there that's what we call Advanced Oak regeneration Oaks that are 20 30 40 feet tall because that's our next crop of Oaks and then in the meantime if we can control deer and we might need to plant in cage or just simply cage some Oak seedlings to get them higher level in other words above the Brows but you know in your in your management this grant that you're talking about you know like having a good sense of where the the next crop Volks is and it's not in the seedling layer it's in the understory if you have it at all and those are really uh that's like uh you could think about them as gold nuggets you know that that's what's really critical and in terms of invasive shrubs I've heard talk tonight about area fives and area four and I I understand that and it is hard to to prioritize but um it it you might you know I don't know if it's possible to do this but the University is doing on some of the lands and they're it's very heavy-handed but there's equipment where you can mow these down right you know brush Hogs and mowers um vent tracks and I wouldn't want to use those in our natural areas in our pristine areas but but it'd be something to consider where it's nothing but Buckthorn and Honeysuckle and privet and um and in especially in Upland settings the ventrac machine and others where they could just kind of if you've if you've gone through the area you know you're not going to be cutting uh young Oaks like you would want to do that where you're going to be cutting young Oaks but if there isn't anything else there and uh it would might be a way to kind of appease the effort for getting more people on the trails things like that thank you Council number dish thanks so much for those words and I'm sorry I've got unstable internet as usual so I've been in and out I missed a little bit of what you said about deer but um councilmember Ackman and I have spoken about this and um we we feel [Music] um you know we share the concern and it might be one way to begin would be to do some education with Council and I'm not quite sure what form that should take but um I had spoken a little bit with uh Chris dick about uh doing some kind of education and um Mike your name came up as maybe being able to be part of that it would be great to just raise awareness about the progress that the call made and one thing that really struck me about what you said Mr cost is that or Mike I'm sorry that um is that uh you saw the Trillium bounce back by 2021 which is interesting because that means that's after we've stopped calling actually for quite a while so that means that some of the positive results might even still be seen and might even still be felt which suggests also that we don't need the huge thing that that was done some years ago we need something more like what nap does just regular Burns and I don't mean I'm calling on us to roast deer I just mean that we want to have a a maintenance program and that this would be something that wouldn't necessarily have to be voted on every time but it's just part of our Force management and so you know it would be great uh if if anyone has time to think about that uh and I mean so I'll just put that out there of like how that might be able to get started and and also how we could do some education because um council member Ackman as persuasive as we both are I don't think that we can hit people with the force that those who have been doing Forest studies and can say things like what you just said Mike about the Trillium I don't I don't think that we can have that kind of persuasion on on Council and if we could just get up you know a handful more uh uh council members who are open because this is Icky territory to wade into you immediately get barraged and I know people have strong and valid feelings about animal rights and against guns in the city and these are all strong and valid feelings but but I think what isn't um what's harder for people to this the side that isn't getting as much AirPlay is the stewardship side and I think that we have a strong ethos of stewardship and so if people understood the connection between deer management and stewardship I think that that would be helpful so that's that's all I wanted to say thank you um Mike did you have more that you wanted to add happy to hear I've I'll forward um maybe it should go to Remy but I'm not sure but um I spoke at uh at the Society of ecological restoration conference along with others from Ann Arbor um about deer and you know the deer cult program and what we founded so there were folks from um the Heron Clinton Metro Parks that have this guy they mentioned them and I think Remy you know Michael Han was there and so um so yeah I can forward you the apps forward run me the um the the program where everybody you've got people's names because there there's a effort to do a regional a regional approach but uh just to reiterate that here on Metro Parks you know I'm sure they went through a difficult time to get the program established I realized they don't have the constraints uh all the constraints we do here in Ann Arbor but but their program just goes every year and it's you know that it's just part of their management you know so so that's really great and Mike I wanted to respond to what you said about those Oaks that have made it above the browse line uh and the protection of those so the Grant application proposal that we're putting together right now uh Sean is working with with Knapp and Forestry um to develop this is is twofold for the nav portion of it one re-prioritization so we understand in a reasonable interval 25 30 years what has changed from Baseline conditions to present with all of our activity and investment but also the development of a public engagement process to um initiate a conversation around restoration forestry and what that might look like um so not commercial forestry by any means but what does it mean to selectively cut for Forest Health and that would involve an inventory of our forest you know assets including those Oaks that have made it above the browse line and are set to be our next Generation um and so developing a plan and engaging the community in a conversation and what successful restoration forestry might look like within the parks so hopefully this funding comes through for both of those efforts um but it we've learned a lot and then be poised to enact a lot more effective management if we get both of these things funded that's great yeah and we'd be interested in collaborating with you as well um yeah and one of the of things that we're witnessing is the tree diseases coming through right so we've got Beach Leaf Disease which is a brand new disease in Michigan just came in last year and it's now even in it spread into um uh Sinclair County and then Oakland County Miss McComb or what hasn't been spotted but now we know it's in Washington County as well um it's one of the research projects I'm working on and um there are some beach in the parks in Ann Arbor so that's a tree that's probably going to that's a disease that kills the trees Hemlock willia delja just showed up at the Arboretum and uh first identified we haven't planted a a Hemlock there in 20 years so um so it probably came in through Birds most likely so that means it's elsewhere you know including on if there's Hemlock and then Parklands like the bird Hills so or anywhere else um so I I think um we might not have to do any canopy removal there may be a tree is just dying just like the Ashen Elm and um have taken you know been so but knowing what the what we have in the understory is great so yeah so we're really interested in that process as well uh Chris Graham thanks unveiling Remy welcome to I hope a Fearless leadership of the anti-race program you probably don't know but um it began in a uh parcel of land owned by the University of Michigan east of the Veterans Administration Hospital wherein the city agreed to allow Oakway to be moved East and to be put through this parcel of land which would be transferred in part to the VA right over the top of Heritage bur Oaks some of these big guys we've been just talking about we the natural feed early versions of the natural features committee got the entire Council and the mayor to come out and look at these big trees the road was supposed to go right smack through the middle of them most of them would have been destroyed the council unanimously agreed to work with the university to move that right of way further east to save those trees the deal made was to allow for a short time parking along Fuller Road below the hospital where some people want to build a train station today uh most of those Heritage trees are now gone they began to go because the university did not enforce their property rights and keep the VA from clandestinely parking Vehicles down below the new parking structure they built between it and the new Fuller roadway and then more recently by the construction on University property which again they must have transferred the destruction of the largest one of those trees underneath that new north parking structure um the council agreed that this was very important and members of the natural features committee present were also advised about the understory of that area which was police ramnis cathartica Buckthorn and Chinese Hammer honeysuckle big guys very large still covering that area um they went away from that being fully aware that we really had a problem not just there but across the city of Ann Arbor with these invasive species thank you Don mursky you do ride on a trail of tree or tears when you go on the port of the Border Trail we have made some progress on our parks we have made a huge amount of progress with our citizens when I first started in business in the 1970s not a single person I worked with knew what a Buckthorn was new and Hammer honeysuckle was now every single client I have knows what they are and many of them ask us to get them out of there and we've taken thousands of cubic yards of those plants to the city's landfill on compost center over the years and that result of all this was Kim Waldo who helped write the natural features master plan with us who helped write the amendments to the code that currently govern the regulation of natural features went to the Sierra Club and mounted an effort to get a millage developed to support the original natural areas program and it passed unanimously through the council and overwhelmingly and ever since in the renewal of that millage to support the work of the natural areas program it's really a stunning statement of the wisdom of previous councils that they really wanted to work to protect the biodiversity of the city of Ann Arbor especially in the natural areas on its parks and the first step was to remove invasive species Second Step was fire third step is the many other net invasive species that have come and are coming maybe a fourth step is to managed for disease maybe a fifth step is to manage for climate change and maybe a sixth step is to get really back busy about deer um thank you thank you Shannon for talking about deer I am uh kind of uh rabid about this subject as many of you know I believe that we definitely educated a previous Council and they showed their wisdom about that education and supporting the deer call over unbelievable Flack from all over the world the current Council doesn't seem to have the same courage my suggestion about that is to get it out of the uh discretionary part of the city's budget and get it into perhaps maybe the parks division budget so it's not voted on as a line item in a discretionary way could be enforced or budgeted in some way but anyway get it off the front page um remyi had a great friend her name was Peg coring for many years um uh you know her pretty well she was a great help to the city in developing the green belt program and I thank you uh I think you probably consider a great treasure I'm wondering to what extent we are paying any attention to natural features on those parcels and they're now beginning to be quite a few of them clearly the idea was open space to begin with but certainly some of those properties have uh wetlands and maybe Prairie elements and certainly native Forest fragments that um we could guide and work with the uh homeowners and Farm managers and farmland owners to perhaps expand our Outreach I uh the your funding is too Limited and I think maybe we're getting to a time where we really need to step it up a notch it'd be great to have some federal funds but this whole coveted thing is going to run out one of these days and we may need to come back to the taxpayers and suggest that uh we need to do more I have said that we need to look across the entire city for all properties about our forest management plan about our Outreach Outreach with regard to natural features we need to teach and Outreach and encourage and spun to the extent we can clearly we can't work on private property clearly the university doesn't want us on their property but we can have a lot of influence if we have the time and money to give a lot of influence and guidance so I guess I leave with a question where I mean what about the green belts Greenbelt properties um what's valuable out there what what should we be doing if we had the resources to do it that's a great and complex question that I will attempt to answer um uh no no it's it's a question um that has been asked before uh but effectively when conservation takes a lot of different forms the Mosaic of land conservation is is many different titles that create the picture of success and the funding that goes into it um is investing in different types of conservation outcomes so what the green belts funding does is protect private property and the rights that are restricted through the voluntary conservation easement agreement between the city and the private landowner do guarantee the city this Perpetual benefit of the property remaining largely in its current natural or Farmland condition any further diving down beyond that natural Farmland condition uh is limited there are no management requirements of the forest except for that um any landowner who wants to commercially tender their property has to do so in accordance with a Timber management plan prepared by a certified Forester because that is the level of enforceability that we're able to guarantee through these legal agreements there's checks and balances but we do not mandate organic agriculture um Etc because the legal Agreements are only as strong and good as they are enforceable so if we say we mandate organic but then um it is Our obligation to enforce that standard we also are signing up for Perpetual soil testing requirements to see and check whether or not that agreement is being upheld so the the conservation easements will provide a landscape of open space Farmland natural areas the quality of which is assessed at the time that the properties are brought up for consideration and I'm pleased to report that uh things look like they'll be improving in the future in that regard because previously you had a lot of acquisition Specialists like myself running these Green Belt transactions who are a conservation background is grant funding um complex real estate uh negotiation um and and that acquisition process and less of leaf and bugs and so we were going out to these properties or we go out to these properties which are primarily Farmland at this point with the green belts strategy and there are incidental wood lots of 20 acres to the 100 Acre conservation easement with the 80 acre balance being productive farmland so we I or similar are not trained ecologists and didn't know what that 20 Acre Wood lot held now that the city has brought the green belt programming in-house we have a better opportunity to collaborate with the expertise here at nap and bring that over and help with these assessments early on in the application process to assess uh the floristic quality of some of these prospective applicants and then um place a conservation easement on those high quality properties that said the easement terms or the easement terms and they can't mandate and don't mandate additional stewardship requirements however there are more resources and we could be doing a better job of connecting these private property owners with natural resource conservation service USDA Land Management funding should they be willing but the bottom line is all going to be about their willingness to participate thank you thanks that's a great question and go to John and I just want to let us know that it's 8 30 and we should probably close I would like to ask it one question myself that could please go ahead Jen thank you um kind of keep this short uh I want to pick up on the opening um that Lisa and a few others uh touched on and that is what can we do to improve the situation um and I just wanted to clarify at least what I had hoped was going to be the thrust of my presentation and that is not critique um but a recognition of what we all did by introducing ornamentals into our yard and what could we potentially work together to undo and I I'd like to know I mean we we talked about how the value of prioritization and I think that's really important I I also lived and seen also the city recognize the value of not only prioritization but also setting goals for example Vision zero goals for traffic and pedestrian safety and carbon neutrality targets and I'm wondering um if for example would make sense to set a goal related to um the the general topic of Natural Area equality whether it's invasives or whatever the case might be and I'm I'm thinking of a few actions um that we might be able to take towards those goals for example um Remy you shared with me last year maps of firstenberg national area and it's pretty highly fragmented into area coyote areas one two three four and five where there's for example an area number one almost completely surrounded by priority four area and I'm wondering could we reduce the fragmentation and reduce the boundaries between our our areas and then take the pressure off our higher quality areas I also looked at the pros plan and if you look at the number of Acres burned it's dropped from 160 or so Acres um in like 2016 down to 60 some Acres the last three years what could we do to increase that again um and um I'm wondering you know what could we do in terms of the millage so what I wanted to just simply do is open back up this idea of what are opportunities that the environmental commission could advance and Steward to hopefully undo to some degree and set some targets to move in in the other direction as opposed to to seeing this inevitable March of invasives and the loss of our our natural um areas that's probably that's a long question and probably lots of different answers but I I hope that yet this evening and maybe in subsequent meetings we can actually think about what what we might do to to actually improve the situation well I'll start that big conversation with an invitation um which is that in July nap will be launching a public strategic planning process and we will have several public engagement and listening sessions we will in all likelihood develop some type of survey and mechanism for soliciting this type of feedback so at a very high level what is the vision of success um at a very high level what should naps lens include obviously we use a natural communities lens right now but as has been mentioned a climate adaptation and climate resilience lens and so forth these are all the types of things that we want to hear what the community wants and then what success looks like because just like our Baseline prioritization and 30 years of work and the need to re-prioritize the the land that we manage and see what our progress has been nav's been around now for 30 years and it is time to to re-engage with the community about the Strategic vision for what it is we do and how we do it um so the invitation is for everyone here and your community and networks to please attend those sessions I'll be sure to pass them along when they come you'll hear about them in press releases undoubtedly but I want that to be as robust as possible so that we can go another 30 years knowing full well that we've had public engagement and support for the uh the nap vision that sounds terrific um and I think it's kind of related to my question because when I think of of all of our areas I kind of mentally erase the boundaries between public and private and think of us living collectively on this space that is shared and I'm wondering what what we can do in the commission to address issues of of what our boundaries between public and private space where there might be invasives that come from one side or the other from sometimes there's an invasive that's on a public property that's moving into private property and sometimes it's the opposite um and I'm wondering what we can do about those kind of boundaries and I'll toss into that things like managing um The Tree Of Heaven that I think is is a potential problem for us that we haven't addressed yet because I think a lot of those trees are on private property and it would be really nice to come up with a way to inform the community and address how to best act on that because of what I understand is the support of that tree for the um spotted Lantern fly coming our way um yeah so I don't know if you can comment on on boundaries and and how we can work together you know and maybe that's in the education that you're talking about I can I will support you in that uh human dominion and real property law is a very tricky thing um and messy in this regard because natural systems don't care about human Dominion uh and our property boundaries and so forth um where nap lives right now is firmly within our lines because that's where the millage funds our work um there was a time uh where that spilled over into some Public School properties and the line was blurred but we had tightened up that line for about the last decade and we firmly invest our resources just within the parks there are other agencies around that I'm not sure what their capability and capacity is to help with private property management like the Washington County Conservation District um you know they are developing through their own millage this influx of resources to the community tool rental uh and then they have a community Forester on staff that is helping advise general property owner inquiries about management and you know ecosystem health so uh they among others might be good resources outside of nap in the short term but long term um nothing short of kind of changing the rules would allow us to kind of blend uh cross over and outside of our our current property boundaries right so I wasn't trying to suggest that Knapp would reach out but it's more like in the in the education of it and and the the um when you talk about the prioritization it's it's kind of letting people know that we all share our space yes and um pointing out those things and I think that those of us who have engaged with an app directly get it but but I think there are a lot of people that don't and yes and then you're you're right on that's exactly what I'm hoping the function of the education and engagement coordinator will be or part of their function um some of that will be determined about the candidate that's selected and what strengths they bring to it um what community ties they may have or not what programming experiences they have I'm hoping it's not a duplicative effort and it really does lean into the value of nap within the city's functions but also it does spill over inevitably into private property management because it's just learning overall about what is this big issue we're trying to tackle here and the intricacies involved with it so I I see that function doing a better job uh clearly communicating what it is we do and how complex it is within this Urban context right thank you uh Brooks the local system organization will also answer questions from homeowners I know I've talked to them before about some of the work I was doing in Vision setting and and they were very helpful for that so that's another place you can contact good thanks um I want to say thank you to um Remy and to Mike for joining us tonight and your input is really important um and I'm hoping that this is just the beginning of more conversations that will continue and move us all into a positive and healthy ecosystem thank you thank you for asking for input thanks yeah thank you we want to continue um I'm oh Steve mistake okay mistake in hand um I am going to so y'all this is my first meeting running as this position so um bye thank you um uh I'm gonna move on to the reports from the Committees from the work groups and I'm just gonna go through what I can read here um uh let's see could we go have a report from I commission council member dish on the Zero waste working group any updates no updates okay that's fast thank you um pollinator working group well I'm going to say briefly um and I appreciate it that's really appreciate you jumping in um but we're in the midst of um want the launch of the pioneer where Yard Care Program um we've distributed many signs uh is it Sean can you tell me the count again is it 200 200 store um we have uh 202 folks who have registered for a yard sign 235 who have registered for the email list and 247 who have registered overall nice really nice and we've had really good support that I appreciate from Sean keeping some records for us and communicating with people um getting the signs um as well as the Communications Department of the city and getting out some extra messages to the community about this um and more to come so one of the things that I'll just say that pleases me about this program is that we are not just focused on May that we have the opportunity to engage with people throughout the year based on the way it's been structured and I'm really excited about that and although I have to admit it took me a while to get to that point um I think this is really excellent and I appreciate it um Bridget would you like to add anything from your perspective I think you guys covered all of it I think I'll just add that in addition to the the people that registered this year we now have 450 on our 450 folks on our sort of communication list that we'll engage with throughout the year and we have some ideas as to how we might engage pollinator week is coming up in mid-june so we're Brewing some some ideas to continue that engagement in the summer great thank you okay let's move on to the water quality working group um I'll just say that um uh commissioner nedrich is uh pursuing chloride contamination of the river and I'm still uh pursuing nutrient pollution of the river both through storm water and wastewater treatment plant and we'll bring this to the commission at the appropriate time but we've also started looking into trying to figure out the source of petroleum Motors in West Park that occasionally crop up so uh we're working through the databases and with the drain commissioner just to see if we can identify a source for those um you know some kind of episodic petroleum contamination that's evident so we'll uh we'll bring that to the commission when we have something more substantial thank you um natural features Chris Graham well thanks to Remy and thanks to John and thanks to Steve and Rita for bringing Remy and bringing the subject of natural features before the commission and the subject of invasive species both of them heart and soul of things with those of us involved have been working on for decades now um I think it was three months ago the council commissioned passed a resolution asking the city to open the door to three of our members two of which are now officers of the commission to participate in the internal discussions about how the natural features master plan will be Consolidated with the rest of natural that rest of the master plans of the city we have gotten no answer a no will not be acceptable I assume the issue is that they're organizing and trying to figure out how to do things and at some point very soon we will be included thank you thank you um Parks commissioner Martin hi thanks uh we just met last week and we had a presentation by the Lower Town Conservancy they gave an update on on a park that they're developing called Broadway we call it Broadway West it's the old mishkan site the Seven Acres of that development will be uh Parkland managed by this Lower Town Conservancy um and uh progress is being made on that they're doing environmental remediation this summer and then I think development starts in the fall we also had an update from the farmers market um it's super busy right now they're just two days a week in addition to all the other things that happen like food truck rallies and things like that at the farmers market site um and I think we approved a couple of um very straightforward resolutions and um that was about it for are meeting this month great um Transportation Commission council member Ackman have anything to report okay um city council neither council member or both so I think that this is probably the good time to bring up um uh email that uh commissioner Brown sent earlier in the month uh to council members and then specifically Lisa and I and maybe some of you too about uh Senator Irwin's efforts to put forth a bill that bans pfas from food packaging and we were talking about how you know what what might the city's role be in showing support to this because it might actually have the ability to pass um I reached out to Senator Irwin and he said you know official support is always welcome um he did specifically call out the municipal League which I believe uh you brought up commissioner Brown um but uh councilman R Edition I thought that we would go ahead and draft a resolution that is basically kind of a statement of council's support for this and we'd be modeling the language after the bill uh that Senator Irwin is going forth so I'm not sure people saw that email that he sent around or if people have thoughts about uh what we should be sure to include but basically this would be a letter somewhat like I think our letters of the password we've asked the legislature to act on gun rights and things like that so thank you for bringing that to our attention I really appreciate it anything further that's my British yeah we just say feel free to email us if there's you know somebody else I'm happy the bill is Senate bill 0327 and it was introduced um the 4th of May I don't really know what the legislative process is so I'm not sure how long it takes to actually make it uh to the floor for discussion but uh council member dishes kindly offered to start working on this so okay sounds really good um chairperson report Steve do you have anything left over from here no I just wanted to remind you that the Planning Commission and the energy commission should report out oops well thank you I think I did Planning Commission right didn't I oh no I didn't I'm sorry I found this list and I missed it let's do planning um not a lot since we last met since I last reported out I think the only connection I would probably make is that we um started talking a little bit more about the potential for amending our Transit Corridor um uh code to be able to make very narrow rights of way that is basically behind the curb up to the sort of edge of the sidewalk the inside there to the sidewalk that is right kind of at the property line there's some places in some of those quarters where it's very narrow and that um staff put together a really good analysis of how while we how wide we would need to make it in order to be able to get three trees in and some of these other amenities that we want to be able to have like you know like shade on the streets when you walk you know which is not you know the the natural areas preservation groups you know Zone at all but all these things make a profound difference I think for just our quality of life and and all kinds of things uh even even in even urban areas um so I would say that their um the Planning Commission does not all feel the same about this um I would say that I'm a huge proponent of this I'm trying to convince my colleagues um I think other people are more um at peace with uh the buildings being closer even if it means to some of those areas get squeezed so I just would report that you know people are of different Minds about some of this and that um I am trying to Advocate my own position which I'm where I believe this is actually critically important for many many many reasons um so it is undecided um at this point but um and I think the tension is mostly around we just need to get these other areas um uh like Summit Road and wash now we need to get them branded as tc1 first and then we can go back and make changes and then some of us are saying hey let's just make a some tweaks now to kind of get us through and then um bring in uh Washington Plymouth so uh we are not all of the same of the same mind on that um so that's just you know get a bunch of humans together and that's what happens thanks well um maybe we can join in on some comments okay there you go okay um all right who else did I miss energy yes uh we had two agenda items um and elections uh first agenda item we had a report out from uh Brian steglitz on uh hydropower uh generation in Ann Arbor uh it may not be widely known that the city owns four dams one of which was actually um at least one of which is outside the city limits those were taken over um from Detroit Edison long ago um two of those generate hydropower and the question was uh whips the opportunity on the other two as well as Maybe increasing generation on the existing two and unfortunately it doesn't look very promising the city has a long-term contract with DTE to sell that energy to DT to edte um and then I generally the the bigger problem is that um it's very expensive and a very long process to permit new dams and to get hydropower uh from those dams and also the maintenance costs on dams are very very high I know Council and Brian mentioned this is in the past has actually looked at whether or not we should even be maintaining all of our dams um and let the river be float free-flowing um so unfortunately in terms of Base load for the SCU or a municipal utility it really doesn't look all that promising unfortunately the other agenda item that we had was a review of the nine circuit Federal Court decision to strike down the natural gas ban um in Berkeley California there's an energy commissioner that is a lawyer who did an analysis and presented that to the energy commission um the take on it is a little bit different than the city attorney's take and I encourage the council members to take a look at that um and uh just want to mention that there are 104 municipalities or jurisdictions in across the United States that have passed what they are calling generally zero emission building ordinances 104 um after the ninth circuit Court's decision the state of New York reached a budget agreement that will include a natural gas ban this official spokesman said without exceptions so knowing what the Circuit Court did in on the west coast New York is still proceeding with a natural gas ban so uh I know that this is a priority issue but uh I would just point out that maybe this is not a set case that I would encourage people to look at that analysis um the last thing that we had was elections and ours were not as quick and clean as yours both Carlene Calvin Garcia's Vice chair and I are both turned out and um the two of us didn't do a swap and so there were no new nominations for chair or vice chair so we are serving for another month and hopefully someone else will step up and and take over as chair and vice chair so uh I commend I commend this commission for a a an efficient transition so that's the update from the energy Commission thank you um I'll just say um I'll just chime in as a chairperson then just to add one more thing to um pollinator-oriented things um I've been talking with some of the park staff about alternate lawn maintenance that is being done in some of the parks there's a group of about eight parks that have some designated areas that are being not moaned for the month of May and there will be some testing on on what it looks like what it what people's reaction to it there's a survey that's active and I encourage you all to participate in that survey and talk with your friends and Neighbors about it um they are also going to do an informal testing for ticks because that's been a frequent comment of concern in the community about which we really don't know I know that there is concern but I don't know what evidence is available and so we're looking towards at least an informal test in those Parks which I think will be really a good start for using some some data to get us moving towards a confidence in the community toward alternate approaches to lawn care and installation of native plants um and I think that that is the end of this agenda oh um well Sean submitted his support his report and so we all can read that and thanks Sean for all your work on on supporting this commission our next scheduled meeting is October 22nd sorry um just uh adding on to the um kind of Staff updates um well it's a commission update I believe that this is uh commissioner oriel's last meeting with us as her term is expiring um so I just want to thank you lunia for your service on the commission um and let everyone know that I am working with um uh our commission staff member to get the applicants for the Youth positions um and we will have someone in lunia Siege hopefully for the next meeting but it might be the meeting and thank you Linea thank you munya thanks for for being with us and contributing and best wishes on your next steps thank you chime in real quickly uh the energy commission has four openings um we have applicants but we'd like to have a broader set of applicants and uh eventually hopefully then uh Commission in terms of diversity um and so uh if anybody knows anyone who might be interested in serving on the energy commission particularly young people please encourage them to get in their applications thanks Looney amazing many friends send them our way um all right so then I think uh for our next agenda if anyone would like to raise some topics that you for sure want to consider um please do so or send an email um yes I believe the um plan currently um and please chime in if if you have something else to suggest um but the plan currently is to have it be a working session um where we will be discussing the working groups um that the commission has um just going over through those working groups um looking at um if uh we want to add new working groups if any of the working groups that exist need to be removed or restructured um and I'm also looking into the possibility of getting staff Liaisons to each of our working groups um so that is that's good okay any other specifics from anyone okay um that we have a second public commentary and is it good for me to read the phone number again for the feeling I believe the next scheduled meeting item is first um before we get to the public company didn't we just do that uh well just announcing the date oh the date June 22nd yes June 27th at 7 pm yeah right and um okay so if there is a new member of the public watching oh Steve you know I still have my crib sheet here you want me to read it oh sure go ahead okay so um I got it from Emily Dryden in like 2007 17.

2018 and 21. I think that's a strong case for the appeal if it's going to be a future code Edition that it's uh sometimes yeah yeah so it's equally or good or what the future code is going to be here's what the uh and and under the mixture you separated it's equally or wait an hour better on a horizontal um the difference would be we'd have to fire suppress the parking structure which we could do that too it gives you an additional height and area it gives you additional height by doing the platform there that's the advantage of doing that or we don't need it it's we're under the 30 feet we're we're not asking for any extended areas increased areas are high now this has been approved by zoning there was a rear yard setback that's nothing to do with it okay thank you anything um a staff report on this um the property at 1211 White Street it's a mixed-use building consisting of S2 and R2 occupancy there are two units are proposed to be 5B construction with an nfpa-13r fire suppression system built over a type 1A Podium with three hour separation PS2 uses type 1A construction parking garage with nfpa-13 fire suppression system the proposed construction includes three hour vertical offset as part of the horizontal assembly making up the type 1A parking area the petitioner is requesting relief from section 510.2 of the 2015 Michigan building code no height or area increase is being requested the petitioner is presenting what they consider to be an equal or lesser form of construction staff has no opposition to this application being approved based on the more recent code language considered this design is acceptable and addressed in the 2018 International building code and the 2021 International building code and maintains maintains a three-hour continuous separation between buildings thank you any uh board questions for the applicant or the so sorry and the walls are built I assume the door is going to be a fire door three hour rated door uh Podium is continuous on the CMU wall it jogs around that and the podium continues over that so it is a continuous continuous Podium okay no no door requirement continuous vertical and we have a motion believe it or not okay great in the case of BBA 23-001 relief is granted from section 510.2 of the 2015 Michigan building code and the requirements of section 510.2 of the 2021 International building code shall apply the building board of appeals grants relief for the reasons that the applicant has proposed an equal or better form of construction including section 510.2 of the 2021 international code and as noted it complies both with the 2018 and the 2021 International building codes any comments on the motion those who pay for the motion okay all right those in favor of the motion passes unanimously four to zero all right thank you [Applause] looks like next time I've been doing this old business and the old business of them from the board members on the new business can we have a motion to adjourn so move what should you adjourn at 1 47 pm thank you

now therefore be resolved in the Board of Education will go into session for the following reasons as outlined in njsa 10-4-12 is 2.1 through 2 for dying promotion Mr Thompson thank you second thank you any questions or comments roll call please Mr Bach yes Miss Fox Mr Canton yes Miss Lee Yes Mrs Ryan yes Mr Thompson yes motion carries and we will see it approximately 7 30.

so in 2012 to 2015 we had about 48 to 64 of our kids that were well below Benchmark when we when we looked at Dibbles with the implementation of 95 that's been reduced between 23 and 44 depending on the year um that's a so we decrease the amount of kids in well below by 20 to 25 depending that's a big number we got a quarter of our kids out of that well below or below and we got them to Benchmark where we want them to be we also had success in first second and third grade although not as much those results varied between 7 and 11 depending uh so 95 percent has made an impact in moving our kids and helping them to be better decoders which in turn is going to help with their fluency Anita Archer would tell us that fluency is the biggest predictor of being a great reader and I will take any questions um just hold on one second so I know that it says here that the governing board um the materials were approved in 2014 so but they were not implemented until 2015.

Mr Bowen is a valued teammate at MCAT and assists our students as one of our social studies teachers Mr Bowen is an acknowledged leader on our campus and always goes the extra mile for our students and staff he is thoughtful caring and a trusted member of our team more importantly though he brings an energy and enthusiasm to learning and is highly committed to helping students achieve higher levels of personal and academic success I give you Mr Bowen thank you thank you Dave well hello um uh and I'm I'm pleased to speak on behalf of this staff um it's always an honor to be asked to do this it's also a big responsibility and a challenge you know trying to sum up an entire year and what that year means in just a few words is a daunting task and before I get into it into the details I want to give a shout out to a guy by the name of Carlos Gonzalez who who can't be with us tonight but I want to acknowledge Him a little bit and go into a word that I think sums up this entire school year for for all of us you students we as a staff and that word is success um you know the word success just feels right um and I want you to know that success is you not just being here um success describes more than just you being here tonight it really encompasses everything you've overcome in your life to get to this point it's not the end of something it's the process it's the process every single one of you went on choosing to come to MCAT choosing to pass classes choosing to put yourself first and get to this point tonight I think that really summarizes our experience as a staff with you and I think it's more than just a simple word it really describes what all of you get to celebrate and what you are celebrating tonight and so here's the party in words I guess the success you've achieved at MCAT is now a model for how you live your lives you set your goals you overcome the things that challenge you you learn from them you grow and you live a successful life so on behalf of the staff I think I want to say we're happy that we've been given the opportunity to be part of your success so congratulations [Applause] tonight we celebrate an amazing group the graduating class of 2023 sitting in this space tonight are young people pursuing their dreams in every area you might imagine students who have completed career and Tech educational certifications and construction Dental Assisting or robotics programs students who have been awarded scholarships and internships to continue their Education and Training Beyond High School our students interests are diverse so much so that several of them have applied and been accepted to all three major Arizona universities Dr Streeter you'll be pleased to know that at least one of them has decided to attend ASU we also have cerebral sibling sets graduating together tonight you will see them stop briefly on on the landing to my right to celebrate together the class of 2023 is a group of talented and amazing individuals the graduates tonight remind us what it means to persevere learn new things and Thrive even when life is difficult during challenging times sometimes you have to look a little harder for the good but it's still there the class of 2023 is that bright Beacon showing all of us that challenges won't last forever and good times are ahead I encourage the graduates tonight to carry those good times forward in spirit with our school mascot Vegeta here are some facts about cheetahs that you may not have considered that show how our students can be like cheetahs cheetahs set goals and they pursue them with intensity and speed cheetahs are the only non-domesticated cats that purr indicating their kindness and connection with others cheetahs also tend to lay around and sleep in trees when they don't have something to do but we're not going to focus on that tonight overall cheetahs are one of the most awe-inspiring land animals around when they display their strength their speed and their focus at MCAT we tried to help you keep your focus by using the Three A's academics attendance and attitude I hope that you will remember the power of having a positive attitude how it can help you achieve the impossible and how a belief in yourself is something no one can take away I hope you will go into the world with that same determination and belief that you will accomplish great things just like the cheat As You Are a blink of an eye ago I was sitting where you sat wondering what the future held for me while I don't know where your paths will lead you I do know that you're in for an exciting time enjoy every minute of it as we prepare to present your diplomas and recognize your accomplishments this evening go out into the world be focused and intense and more importantly believe in yourselves congratulations my little cheetahs I wish you every success in the world now that I've told you all about these amazing students it's actually time to hear from them yourselves so our graduates are going to join us as an important tradition in this ceremony which is to encourage any student that wants to give a graduation speech to have the ability to do so so we have some Brave students tonight that have volunteered for this honor and we'll start tonight with Nadia all day [Applause] thank you Waters right here hi everyone good evening evening and thank you for joining us graduates tonight my name is Nadia and I would like to share a little about what I've learned from MCAT and what I will take with me in life before I get into that I want to congratulate all graduates tonight because we finally did it it was a long and bumpy road and a lot of us hit points where we completely lost Hope on the thought of finishing but today we sit with a tassel bugging our face and that makes this more than just a diploma looking at the bigger picture the piece of paper indicates that we're more than what that we're worth more than what we imagined at some point it clicked in our head that we were going to continue with our lives and we realized what we needed needed to do and we did it we showed ourselves that we matter and we can get things done alongside we had those peoples who all those people who saw our struggles but still knew we'd make it even in the moments that we didn't I never even like school to be honest but when I made the switch everything changed I met amazing lifelong friends and we kindled some friendships it was like the school was for people who felt like they didn't fit in but somehow we fit in together it was a whole different environment and of course like any other school there are strict rules but that's what made it feel like we were cared for the entire MCAT staff changed my perspective about school as a whole Miss green being the first principal to know my name and engage with me on almost a daily basis Miss Wren teaching me how to read the most complex English stories Miss Binion finding ways to make reading a book fun Mr Todd that crazy cool cat who showed everyone what college may look like and it and if you look away for even a second you miss the entire formula and the first four problems Mr Ewing definitely had to stead your way with his teaching but he still made cash flow pretty fun and because of Miss rainierson I'm leaving high school knowing how to do my own taxes also Bowen prepared us for how heated debates can get last but most certainly not least my the most influenced influential teacher I've ever had Mr Kennedy Mr Kennedy's optimistic way of life helped his classroom become a safe space for me in his very classroom I did the most work and when I would doubt myself there was Mr Kennedy with his positive energy reminding me I'd figure it out and I'd get here thank you to all the MCAT mcat's teachers and staff because without your guidance we would not be here miss long and Miss Rivera who were my biggest some of my biggest cheerleaders never made me feel like it was too late Miss Garcia and Miss Hayes keeping me in check when I had a tardy slip Miss Luna who'd write my tardy slips that she tell me but look at me now miss Luna all MCAT staff has been so incredibly supportive I always felt truly cared for and recognized at the school but after all the hard struggles I'm finally here no more tardy slips to my dad who has been waiting for this moment for years and tonight he finally gets to see his hard work pay off my son who reminds me I have somebody who loves me unconditionally and the family that found me thank you for believing in me to my best friend who made sure I was on track and was there every step of the way my mama and my little brother who watched me take too long to get ready then blame him for making us late hard lectures and early mornings but it's finally over with my angel above is with me daily watch me sink then rise I feel how proud he is and I'm so proud of all of us personally 2022 was the worst year of my life everything I knew slipped from under me but had it not been for MCAT I would not be receiving a diploma today I knew they were all rooting for me and waiting for me to finish and wherever life may take me I'll always remember I'm an MCAT cheetah now I'd like to introduce our next speaker Mariah Bowland [Applause] foreign good evening I would like to thank you all for coming here tonight and celebrating this new chapter with us my name is Mariah Bolin I am 17 years old and transferred to MCAT from Marana High School last year with the goal to graduate early before I begin I would like to thank my family because they are the reason I am standing here today with all of their love understanding and support they have given me every opportunity to succeed they have praised me along the way for my accomplishments and continue to lift me up whenever I was down or struggling with something they have helped mold me into who I have become and how I have gotten here today so thank you again I would also like to thank all of the other parents out there of my classmates for being the love and support for them that they needed also I would like to give a special shout out to miss ryanerson Mr Kennedy and Mr Bowen sorry for telling me every day that I entered their room that everything was going to be okay that I was fine and I was doing a great job and to just running focused on my goals I swear it sacrificed felt like they sacrificed so much of their time just to make sure that I was doing okay lastly thank you to all of the other teachers and staff for everything you have done for us and for keeping our school an easy place to move along I would have never thought that I would be standing in front of my graduating class speaking for many as to how thankful I am to have made it here after we have been through such a roller coaster of events in 2020 the entire world changed in the high school years I wish to have filled with bright spirits and laughter wasn't what I was expecting as too many others our in-person classes became isolated at home in kitchens online some of my friends Dropped Out Sports and other activities were put on hold I lost friends to Suicide others lost friends to drug overdose and most importantly we forgot how to socialize although these were some very challenging times and we have shared a few tiers we managed to gain strength and fight in order to be recognized here today I wanted to share a verse with you that has kept me going through every obstacle it says see I am doing a new thing now it Springs up do you not perceive it I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the Wasteland in other words God is always making a way and regardless of the conflict and to never give up on yourself or your goals because everything will be okay for those of you interested that was Isaiah 43 19 in the Bible to the class of 2023 our lives are just getting started don't ever give up be the light that other people want to be be true to who you are Stand Tall walk proud and remember to do a hundred percent and everything that you do remember if you can dance in the rain you can stand in any storm congratulations we did it next is a classmate I value and respect Melissa hartog [Applause] good afternoon everybody my name is Melissa Hartzog okay dear fellow graduates teachers parents and guests as I stand before you today I feel a mix of emotions I'm sure we all share and I'm proud that we've made it to this moment the moment that we've been anticipating for years we've all worked very hard to get here and we should be proud of ourselves graduation is a time of Celebration but it is also a time of reflection is it a time to look back on our high school experience and remember the moments that shaped us into who we are today we Face challenges overcome obstacles and made memories that will last a lifetime it's also a time to look forward to the future we're about to embark on a New Journey one that will be filled with new opportunities and challenges we'll face new experiences meet new people but regardless of where life takes us we must remember that we are the future we have we have the power to make a difference in the world and we must work hard and stay true to our values remember the importance of hard work determination and perseverance and never give up on our dreams I want to take a moment to thank our teachers and parents for their support throughout our high school Journey without them we wouldn't be here today they've helped push us to do our best and they've been here to pick us up when we've Fallen we owe them a debt of gratitude that could never be repaid I'm thankful we've had a place like MCAT to continue our education at our own pace it's important to remember we are all on our own Journey with our own problems and obstacles to overcome that money does not mean success self-worth does and success comes at different Paces for everybody finally to my fellow graduates I want to say we made it we've accomplished something that not everybody has the opportunity to do we've proven that we have what it takes to secede and we should be proud of ourselves as we move forward we must remember to take with us the values of Integrity respect and kindness and use them to make a world a better place congrats class of 23 we did it thank you sorry now I'd like to introduce my friend Jamie k [Applause] foreign but MCAT changed me a lot um made me realize life is going to make me want to do uncomfortable things but I'm better for it so bear with me after a concussion left me unable to finish my junior year over at Mountain View my time at MCAT started in a way MCAT gave me a chance to get back on track with graduating but unfortunately for me my senior year happened to be in 2020.

I have in all my history not have had a banner year like this it is quite incredible um he's Graydon Grayson scored first place in baking and pastry out of the best 26 Bakers in the state of Indiana which is incredible which is going to be really exciting [Music] Hayden Brooks who's at our table right now if you want to go see her placed second in culinary I mean she plays third in culinary because our second place finisher is right here Jesus Tello Perez so I congratulations I'm reading the names in order that's why I flipped but Jesus received 82 000 in scholarship money from Johnson Wales University Hayden Brooks received 92 000 in scholarship money to Johnston Wales University so when you add this up I mean our program's only been around really for two years our students this year have received close to 350 000 in scholarship money to one of the Primos Premier culinary and Hospitality programs the United States so it just gives me chills to even think about where we are uh Rowan Cavalier uh she scored a second place in public speaking with skills USA skillsusa has a multitude of different programs where students can compete in and it gives everyone an opportunity and not last but not least freshman Brady Richards he is on the leadership team for skillsusa at the state level so truly a banner year for our students my educator heart is so full but I won't cry I promise guys I won't cry bad picture but thank you to you guys for your dedication thank you to the school board thank you Dr Henderson and your team for constantly supporting us and believing in what we're doing [Applause] foreign and up next I'd like to introduce Andrea t-van Andrea will come up and speak with you about the successes of our students who competed in HOSA events Andrea good evening thank you my teacher heart has been incredibly proud of all my students this year the things that we accomplished this year through our coursework and Beyond has just been incredible from our Project Lead the Way course we started a club known as hosts a couple years ago and it was really to develop leadership skills in Future Health Care Professionals and I undertook that task and I am blown away with where it's where it is today it is really a student-led club and introducing tonight with me is Gotham mandala Gotham was our first state representative vice president so he served he planned all the leadership events he trained other schools he got on the stage in front of what 1400 people he did the whole conference with his team so it was incredible um I brought Gotham up here so he can talk a little bit about HOSA himself because he is my resident expert so hello everyone uh good evening so many of you must be wondering what is a HOSA while HOSA is a Career and Technical student organization like a skills USA like a BPA and uh but hosha specifically focuses on the healthcare industry hosta serves as a pipeline for future health professionals into the healthcare industry so students that are interested in healthcare like me and everyone that's lined up back there and throughout the room it helps them get into the healthcare industry or if they're already in it it helps them get ahead in the healthcare industry now as a state vice president I was elected last April and my duties officially end this June the June 2nd so it's a little sad but I'm extremely proud of what we did at the state level but even more proud of what we did here at CG HOSA having a special View and a unique view of the behind the scenes I can tell without a shadow of doubt that CG HOSA is one of the best chapters in all of Indiana HOSA uh we've had over 60 top 10 finalists and top three finishers two years in a row and that's like pretty much impossible that we're actually the first chapter to ever do that and you have chapters like J ever like career center that Focus heavily on Jose and always bring in hundreds of students that haven't achieved this task and that mostly comes down to the students in CG hosta that are putting in the hard work we start at the start of the Year all in preparation towards the state leadership conference our big event in April and the students work from the beginning of their year not only to balance their course load but to also take on these challenges and learn all of this content that they need for their specific events but I also have to thank Mrs tevan and our other advisors that play an instrumental role in helping us achieve the achieve these achievements and giving us a resources necessary to do such amazing things at the state level and I'm really excited for next year because as I've heard we've have an even more motivated and even more members joining house in next year so I think it's not too much of a wild shout to say that we'll have more hosts of people here at bacteria sport meeting so thank you and that was just a little bit about hotel I'll let Mrs Steven Ann announce everyone that did a tremendous job at CG HOSA this year and so they get the recognition that they truly deserve thank you yes so um this year um like I said I couldn't have asked for a better group um my chapter officers were simply amazing this year will Eberhart as my president this year and he did such an amazing job for us he planned Service events he brought in guest speakers he led our chapter with every single meeting along with our future president to be Sharia Jain we did a service learning where we made Valentines for the local nursing home and we took them to them and it was such a special special day that I will never forget um through the course so of the event um about 1400 participants we had 65 top 10 finishers a newly elected State historian Sophia crawl which will serve on the council next year we had a Barbara James award a winner for completing 175 Plus hours of community service we had three bronze medalists six State runner-ups and six Indiana State Champions um and so I will bring will up first will is my chapter president and like I said he did such amazing job will place second in forensics along with Alec Gardner okay and Ella can come up and do I'd like to bring up Lena tesaveris Elena was our Barbara James service award winner Elena killed it at State she also received two gold medals with Family Medicine physician and job seeking skills um Gotham was received two first place medals and Health Care issues and medical terminology Megna pillai received a medal in medical assisting I should have had them wear their medals or big old state championship medals um Second Place winners were Mary Wang in career development and cultural diversity and disparities Mary placed in the top last year as well and she got to attend the National Conference that was in Nashville Tennessee um we have a Zoe Carpenter in research pursuit of writing and speaking and Ava Martis Jalen Coffey Eliza La favors and Ali dieterle in medical innovation placing in third was Mary Wang who's already up here in Allied Health statistics Magna Pella and dental terminology and Elise Armstrong in Clinical Laboratory science placing in fourth was Lexi Krauss in biotechnology and Macy Pascal in extempreneurious writing and placing fifth Sean Liu in Family Medicine physician Zoe Carpenter and veterinarian science NASA are saying wary and epidemiology Natalie Sanders and extemporaneous writing Leah Murray in job seeking skills and Ava Martis and Ali diederly in health career display so as you can see I'm extremely proud of these members and can't wait to see what we'll do in the future [Applause] you guys are probably going to have to make two rows to get your photo in also short people in the front as always okay great thank you bear with us we just have two more um unable to be in attendance this evening but definitely worth a mention we have a seventh grade student who takes high school math classes who participated in the moo Alpha Theta IUPUI math competition and won the spirit award as a seventh grader in a high school math competition so incredibly impressive and that is Jackie Sutton Jackie Sutton who is a seventh grader but was unable to be here this evening and our last award this evening um Madam McClellan could not be here this evening so I get the pleasure of introducing to you the only two students in the last six years that we have attempted to do this with our students to receive the Indiana Department of Education certificate in multilingual proficiency which requires that they demonstrate proficiency on an external assessment not given at CG in their language of choice so I'd like to introduce to you this evening Maxwell Barton and Aminata diagona [Applause] okay I just wondered one is Spanish and the other is French guys which two languages French and Spanish okay that's what I thought but I want to make sure okay and last but not least I'd like to invite Mrs Norman or Mr Norman and Mrs dice they're not married I do that too frequently and it happens all the time Mr Mr Norman and Mrs Dice and the members of Shaboom back in just to talk a little bit about their organization and to get their photos so okay great thank you I'm gonna let these guys introduce themselves real quickly and they are most of the members of Shaboom we have a couple who are over at the awards program this evening Ryan is the group's leader and you got to hear them sing earlier and what you should know is that they are completely student-run so everything that you see them perform they are rehearsing on their own we try to give them the skills that they need to be able to do that and then they go out and they do all sorts of performances and gigs throughout the community so we're super proud of all these guys and especially to Ryan who's been running the organ or this group for the last two years and I'm gonna let Mr Norman talk a little bit about Choir in general sure our season capped off at Nationals in Nashville Tennessee where we competed at the heart of America competition where all three of our Varsity groups debtoned sound system and CG singers received Grand Champions so we were very excited about that it was the second year in a row that debton's and sound system had received Grand Champions at a heart of America competition and just kind of like your knowledge of show choir in general there are four Heart of America competitions that happen and this year at three of those Four competitions an Indiana school one um so it's a hotbed for show choir and we enjoy being very competitive and very successful in the state of Indiana and then also at National competitions thank you for having us this evening so as you can see this is just a small sampling of all the kinds of great things that are happening at Center Grove High School we are incredibly fortunate to live in a community that supports education and to have parent support organizations for all of the extracurricular and co-curricular activities that we run and we obviously have incredibly talented students but none of these things happened by accident and they all happen under the watchful eye and direction of very dedicated staff members so we thank you for the opportunity to be here this evening just to share a small sampling of the kinds of positive things that are happening at Center Grove High School and I'm going to duck out to go back to senior scholarship night across the street at the high school so thank you very much thank you [Applause] that's okay and as everybody can tell we we have a lot going on at the high school Dr Henderson is one busy guy in the month of May I've probably seen more the month of May than I do the other remaining months of the year all right next up on the agenda is public comments and Mrs Howard we have no public comments this evening all right next up is the consent agenda do I have a motion Mr President I move that we approve the consent agenda as presented thank you Mr Daniels do I have a second thank you Mrs Kemps we have a motion in a second any questions about the consent agenda all right all those in favor signify by saying aye all those opposed motion passes 4-0 thank you next up under action items is approved resolution for purchase of property Dr arkanov thank you Mr Alexander this evening I'm recommending that the board approved a resolution purchase property and Dr long will provide you with some additional details thank you um to purchase land we have to follow the following procedures number one is the school board has to adopt a resolution indicating the corporation's interest in purchasing this specific land or structure the district should then appoint two appraisers to appraise a fair market value of the land or structure and the appraisers must be professionally engaged in making appraisals or be trained as an appraiser and licensed as an appraiser under Indiana code the appraiser shall turn in their separate appraisals to the district and we need to keep those on file for five years and attached tonight is the resolution that indicates we're interested in purchasing property on South Honey Creek Road in Greenwood it permits the corporation to appoint two appraisers and allows the corporation's purchasing agent to enter into a purchasing agreement for an amount not to exceed the average of two appraisals and it authorizes a school district officials to execute the necessary documents to complete the sale as many of you know we've been looking for land for a future Elementary School maybe land for two future elementary schools so this is the first step in in finding some land that we're going to be able to build on so tonight we're asking the board to approve the resolution for purchase of property thank you Dr Long any questions for Dr long and this is land attendant for elementary seven yes correct yes sir all right any questions for Dr Holman do you have a motion a motion that we approved Revolution for purchase of the property thank you we have a motion by Mr Robinson a second by Mrs counts all those in favor signify by saying aye all those opposed motion passes four zero thank you next action on 7.2 accept biz for the Wellness Center Dr arkanov I think Mr Alexander this evening I'm recommending the board accept the bids for the wellness center and Dr information thank you tonight we're fortunate to have Jim goley the project executive and Chad Peters senior project manager from Acom hunt with us um wanted to tell you that we're very pleased with the turnout for bidders for this project and I think most of that credit goes to hunt for drumming up business and making the phone calls and getting the interest out there all together we received a total of 21 bids for the six bid packages so we are very happy with with that so on May 18th of 2023 we received bids for the Center Grove Wellness Center project we received bids for bid packet one General trades and site work bid packet two structural steel bid packet three for roofing bid packet four mechanical and plumbing bid packet five electrical and general lighting and bid pack at six access control and Communications on May 19th and the 22nd a com hunt held d-scope meetings with the lowest bidder person based on their review of the bids the d-scope meetings and the budget they're recommending we accept the following bids so no the bid pack one did Domin Contracting Corporation the amount of 2 691 366 dollars bid packet two to all met Incorporated in the amount of 328 800 bid packet three to Foster Contracting in the amount of 163 thousand dollars ran out of breath bid back at four Greiner Brothers in the amount of 607 thousand dollars bid packet five to All-Star Contracting in the amount of four hundred and six thousand dollars and bid pack at six to Central Security and Communications in the amount of one hundred and twenty one thousand one one hundred ninety dollars the award of these six uh bid packets totals four million 317 356.

[Applause] [Music] that was a nice pass [Music] thank you foreign thank you foreign I know [Music] a good day [Applause] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] oh oh no really foreign [Music] here's your chance [Music] thank you [Applause] [Music] oh my God [Music] here we go away hello there was a flop I don't know if that was a Hollywood movie or what wow [Music] he's over there [Applause] [Music] go go go go go oh my God listen [Music] ing all right [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] I don't know I don't know any calls anymore oh my God thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] talking about [Music] all right [Music] there you go good job Grace there we go [Music] there you go [Music] [Applause] [Music] all right [Music] oh no [Music] [Applause] [Music] that's fine that's fine [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] okay [Music] dude one more one more [Music] there you go white behind out thank you [Applause] [Music] thank you Reborn [Music] hello seriously [Music] someone slide in [Music] it why [Music] are you ready [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] all right there you go oh they don't do that more just switch feels like soccer and you get it easy [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music] oh no [Applause] [Music] talking about [Music] come one life pick it up [Music] thank you [Music] oh my God why don't you ever look at the door thank you [Music] thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] come on [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh it doesn't count oh my God all right [Music] he's not available [Music] thank you [Music] this woman stops things [Music] horrible um [Music] make sure I'm going back to 13 gaming series thank you once more [Music] [Applause] who's that assistant [Music] scoring goalie number five Addie Jordan [Music] oh my God [Applause] [Music] [Applause] come on [Music] foreign last time I said three and it was it was like it was fun because we're in the Lexington was five five or two two probably later I could do no remember um that came out winning girls yeah I know it's Blue Cross okay one no yeah wait no no no they won we didn't yeah against Northampton yes yes it wasn't a shootout though daddy scored on uh oh you're right you're right you're right in the overtime yeah yeah I'm insensitive okay that sun is tough right now on the other side [Music] oh boy [Music] thank you [Music] oh my God oh my God thank you [Music] oh my God that's absolutely delay again you just stopped it no yeah that's how this game is out wow [Music]

at this time would you please stand as Kennedy's JROTC presents the colors please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance place your right hand over your heart ready begin 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 please remain standing while our very own Kennedy symphonic band under the direction of Dr Joshua Parsons honors America by performing The Star-Spangled Banner [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you laughs [Applause] [Music] [Applause] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] thank you all out thank you Kennedy symphonic band The Kennedy symphonic band is a part of the Shamrock regiment and is under the direction of Dr Joshua Parsons next I would like to acknowledge our distinguished guests that serve in the Anaheim Union High School District that are on stage it is my pleasure to introduce the president of the Board of Trustees Mr Brian O'Neill [Applause] trustee and clerk Miss Anne-Marie Randall Trejo trustee and member Miss Anna Piercy [Applause] trustee and member Miss Jessica Guerrero [Applause] superintendent Mr Michael matsuda [Applause] assistant superintendent of Educational Services Dr Jaren freed [Applause] assistant superintendent of Human Resources Mr Brad Jackson Robert Saldivar executive director of Educational Services [Applause] the principal of John F Kennedy High School Dr Sema sidhu English and film teacher Miss Christie Bettendorf and health and Sports Medicine teacher Mr Ian sabala [Music] [Applause] thank you for your service to Anaheim Union High School District and Kennedy High School students and Families our first Speaker today is Angelique christinos Angelique is a dedicated Angelique is a dedicated and hard-working individual she is a four-year honorable student who has always strived to put her best work forward in her various honors and advanced placement classes she has contributed to both her school and Community by serving for two years as an RSVP officer volunteering through the California scholarship Federation and acting as a school representative for dial magazine she has also volunteered at her local library for two years and has had the pleasure of serving as an ROP aide in a first grade classroom at Miller Elementary School through our school's educational career pathway in the fall Angelique plans to attend California State University Fullerton where she will major in Psychology she aspires to one day pursue a career in which she can work with children and positively contribute to their lives with that it is my pleasure to welcome Angelique racinos [Applause] [Music] I'd need at least five sets of hands to count on my fingers the amount of times I've been told high school is going to fly by every time I was told this I rushed it off saying I have time as I stand here today looking into this crowd filled with Brilliance and accomplished individuals I realized that I could not have been more wrong about time today is something that we have dreamed of something we've only been able to fantasize about until now 10 year old us thought of high school graduation day and felt that it was so far away yet here we are in that very moment we dreamed of today like a glimmering gold trophy we've strived to obtain working through deadlines in difficult classes struggling with extracurriculars and clubs all the wild devoting time to our friends family and ourselves is finally in our hands we did it so what's next we're always asked what our plan is what it is we want to do in the future the signature question of what do you want to be when you grow up it seemed like such a simple question answering with I want to be a doctor a police officer an astronaut we have worked tirelessly and devoted countless hours to meet the expectations placed upon us we dreamed that we would walk across this stage and we would know all the answers because to our younger selves this moment symbolized adulthood wisdom and freedom now as we actually walk today many of us aren't going to be as sure about the future as we envisioned but the truth is we don't know what's going to happen in the future we spend so much time worrying about what will be and about tomorrow as we make our way through this fast-paced world many become blind to the moment and to the things right in front of us consumed by our own goals and ambitions when you reminisce about high school it's going to be the experiences that you think of those times where you laughed with your friends until you couldn't breathe or those late night drives were you all belted out to your favorite song those times where you thought I wish I could be here forever well remember the laughter the love and the friendships that supported us throughout High School even now we are surrounded by people that love and support us in the sea of green and up there on the stands I want to thank everyone out here today you have contributed mentally to our lives and we are grateful to you so as we move on to pursue our desires and dreams do not forget those moments of joy that make life worth living remember to stop and appreciate the people around you the meaningful connections you have created strive to find beauty in the world even in the midst of chaos and uncertainty remember that it is okay not to know life is about Discovery and experimentation and if at every moment we knew what was next it would get pretty boring do not allow yourself to become consumed by stress of the future actress Kerry Washington said your life is your story and the adventure ahead of you is the journey to fulfill your own purpose and potential each and every one of us has a unique purpose in this world and we will all eventually find our way to it and so I leave you with this though I'm sure you know it by now time does indeed fly by for now let's focus on this moment this wonderful occasion that we are here to celebrate today and the amazing people in this crowd I am so grateful to be here and I am so proud of all of us thank you I would like to introduce our next speaker Stephen Ramos Stephen Ramos is an IB diploma recipient and has been involved with several film projects on campus including the 2022 every 15 minutes video as well as a Red Ribbon Week public service announcement for the city of La Palma he runs a YouTube channel alongside fellow senior Luke Blackburn called plot hole Productions which together they have seen great success at the auhsd student film festival for the past three years with this reputation they have already earned paid internships for video production at the district office an aspiring filmmaker Steven will be attending Cal State Long Beach in the fall for Film Production and is working to become a film director it is my pleasure to welcome Stephen Ramos to the podium [Applause] first off I want you the class of 2023 to understand that the reason you are sitting here this morning is entirely a product of your will for most of us it took True Grit just to get a seat on this field today despite the obstacles we have faced whether that be commitments outside of school unfortunate living situations or a lack of a support system all of you held a resolve strong enough to overcome these challenges that had once felt impossible whether that was by the skin of your teeth or with a 5.0 GPA the weight of this paper is no different it is proof that we are capable of the responsibilities of adulthood and thus capable of having an impact on the world around us you may have heard from your parents or teachers that we are the future that we are their only hope we always try to imagine what the future may look like with technology rapidly progressing and new Artificial Intelligence being created every day threatening our future careers and livelihoods yet in this world of Pure Imagination we seem to forget the influence we have over how Society really turns out now I know to some of you it may seem fun to imagine a cyberpunk lifestyle seeing Ryan Gosling and Blade Runner and saying that is literally me but these science fiction films these stories they allow us to imagine a future where Humanity Embraces these technological innovations whether or not these worlds become reality is up to you every one of you wearing a green gown you are all taking on this burden of keeping this heavy torch of human Innovation moving forward now I know that I'm also wearing a green gown but the thing is unlike all of you who will have Majors that will actively benefit Society I'm I'm going to be going into debt trying to make a living by telling stories of my film degree that is not to say art and storytelling are not important aspects of The Human Condition in fact we're all storytellers we are all the writers of the script that is our lives as you all go off to complete your second and third acts of your stories I want to leave you with advice that I have learned from reading about some of the best screenwriters and that is to write your story backwards come up with your desired ending then everything that comes after it must facili that comes before it must facilitate this outcome here I want you all to close your eyes and imagine your future self think to 2049 if you will most of us will be about 44 years old but forget about physical appearance or potential social class I want you to take yourself through the experiences of your future self travel through the life that they have lived accomplishing everything you have ever dreamed of all the strutting and fretting of your hour upon this stage but actually making it signify something because not all of this is just Sound and Fury our actions will decide our happiness let what you see right now this glimpse into your future be the ending of your story today marks the beginning of the second and the second act and the rising action towards the climax of your life Kennedy class of 2023 I hope to see you all again before the credits roll okay high for life [Applause] we would now like to introduce the Kennedy senior senior singers under the direction of Miss Jane Morales singing Unwritten already [Music] can't read my mind [Music] foreign [Music] there is always [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you Kennedy singers and Mrs Morales please give them another round of applause [Applause] it is my privilege to recognize the students who have earned one or more academic honors during their time at Kennedy High School these Scholars who are sitting in the first several rows this morning are adorned with medallions on their stalls students may have earned one or more distinctions students please stand and remain standing as your group is recognized International Baccalaureate diploma candidate academic honors [Applause] a through G Career and Technical education pathway Cypress stool enrollment seal of by literacy seal of try literacy Visual and Performing Arts distinction seal of Civic engagement Golden State Seal recipient Capstone project completion Google certificate completion student athlete or Club participant student of the month and perfect attendance please give them all a round of applause for their accomplishments [Applause] [Music] Scholars please be seated [Applause] [Music] I would like to spare my I would like to start my speech with an acknowledgment of the Anaheim Union High School Districts board president Mr O'Neill Board of Trustees Miss Guerrero Mrs Piercy Mrs Randall Trejo superintendent matsuda assistant superintendent of Education Services Dr freed assistant superintendent of Human Resources Mr Jackson Executive Director of Education Services Mr Saldivar for joining us here today your dedication and support to our students and families in auhsd and Kennedy High School is deeply appreciated parents family members community members friends and staff and most importantly the class of 2023 congratulations [Music] you have made it to this momentous day a day marking the culmination of your determination diligence and dedication as you sit here today you have every reason to be proud of yourselves for this incredible achievement as you prepare to embark on the next journey of your lives I would like to share with you some words of wisdom that I hope will guide you along the way former president John F Kennedy once said and yes I love my JFK quotes let us think of Education as the means of developing our greatest abilities because in each of us there is a private hope and dream which fulfilled can be translated into benefit for everyone and the greater strength for our nation today we celebrate our seniors who have spent countless hours developing their greatest abilities and are moving on to fulfill their private hopes and dreams but as we all know hopes and dreams are not fulfilled without hard work the road to success is not determined by how fast you travel but rather how consistently you move towards your goals and how resiliently you navigate the obstacles along the way after spending six hours at school you had to do homework you had a job attended rehearsals for the Shamrock regiment choir or theater volunteered for a special cause spent numerous hours devoted to ASB and showed commitment and sacrifice as an athlete attending practice and games regularly on top of all of that you had to study for your exams some of you studied for your IB or AP exams only to capture a few hours of sleep to begin the process over again and somehow you had to manage what was going on in your personal life all at the same time what you learn to value in high school was not achieved overnight but through hard work and dedication the road to success is not an easy one but it is worth every step of the journey second never stop learning education is not limited to the walls of a classroom you must continue to learn and grow throughout your life be curious about the world around you ask questions seek answers the more you learn I hope the more you will see the beauty in the world that surrounds you third always remember the importance of kindness be kind to yourself and others treat everyone with respect and empathy and never forget the kind word or gesture that can have a significant impact on someone else as John F Kennedy once said one person can make a difference and everyone should try you have the power all of you have the power to make a difference in someone's life kindness is not weakness kindness is a reflection of who you are and it takes an undeniable amount of patience strength and courage to be kind to others especially when you think they are undeserving of it and finally I encourage you to remember my final JFK quote for the day ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country no matter what we do in life we should always be in the service of others whether it is listening to someone who needs to be heard offering a helping hand becoming an educator or serving in the military whatever your heart desires the act of service helps Humanity Find meaning purpose and Community the act of service will provide you with the sense of fulfillment that nothing else will as you leave John F Kennedy High School home of the Fighting Irish I encourage you to take The Road Less Traveled with hard work education kindness and service My Hope Is that you make a positive impact in our nation and in the world remember that you are capable of achieving greatness and always always believe in your abilities the world is waiting for you to make your mark so congratulations once again class of 2023 and good luck on your next adventure I now ask the president of the Board of Trustees Mr Brian O'Neil Clerk and trustee Anne-Marie Randall Trejo board trustee Anna Piercy and trustee Jessica Guerrero to move to their positions for the presentation of diplomas assisting [Applause] assisting in the presentation and reading of names are English and film teacher Mrs Christie Bettendorf health and Sports Medicine teacher Mr Ian sabala lead counselor Mrs vishali Bennett 11th grade counselor Mrs Kendra Taylor 10th grade counselor Mrs Veronica Hernandez ninth grade counselor Mrs Helen Chan will the front row please stand yep all right let's go Lucy honest Stephen Ramos Muhammad Abdel Rahim Alyssa ricarte Angelique he knows Adin kudich owendi Aguilar Joseph magalona Aaron agilori Monica McHale Kyle Alexander Alyssa Nguyen [Music] Muhammad Awan Christian lean May Padua Kate Baul Olivia post Francesca Bautista Carter pottinger Rohan bhakta Billy Ramirez jessalyn Bowie yashvi raval Christopher Carrillo larney fell Reyes Vanessa Castellanos divine robello Alexander Cuesta Ian Rosenthal Brenda daza [Applause] Joshua shin Rowan Michaela Dizon [Applause] Ed Julissa Galvan Andy Tran Gabriela Gonzalez Kaiden Tran Melody Andrade Kiara via dolid [Music] Michael Hubbard Gavin Kyle vu sahaj preet Kaur John Walters barshan simran Carr Ava Young Dane Danielle Abad Christian Choi Gianna Abdullah Joseph Chong Melissa agrerano [Music] Sun you chew Alexander Alvarez Trujillo Chang Juan Alvarez Rachel Hansel Chung Jose Mateo Anglo Joel Chang Isabella Marie arngren Brian Collis Evelyn Ariano Daniela Contreras [Music] Patrick atala [Music] [Applause] Noah Cosby cabron I also Alexis Kota Wendy bahamundi [Music] Malia Dole Luke Blackburn Alex De La Cueva tamanaha Vivian Bowie Aisha Tanya domalanta Juliana Burgos resma Philip Dao Andrew busuego [Applause] on Duong Jacob Castro Darren Dane Espiritu Anna cha [Applause] Jordan Farrell Caleb Chancellor [Music] Charles Ed will gaboot Corey Chang [Music] Vincent Gallardo Lena chin Isabel gallo Ashlyn Garcia Anna pal [Applause] Sarah Garcia sujit karthikan Monica Gabrielle [Applause] [Music] Kim Allison Gill [Music] Sally honkill Kim Kenneth Godoy Luke Kim Aaron Graf Paul Kim Samantha Guillen [Applause] game Rocio Guzman Emma Lee [Music] [Applause] [Music] Gabriel Harvey [Applause] Kenya Herrera Joanna Lee [Applause] [Music] Nathaniel Sue Robin legaspi Jasmine huh Jacob Lim Joshua Hume Sumaya Lisa Diego inostrosa Ray yanos Miley Ito [Music] Michelle Lee Marie hardinano [Applause] Nicholas Molly [Applause] Miguel Jimenez Marty mangasep Isabelle Judd gurpreet mangat [Music] Eric Jung Lorenzo Martin Garrett Kai Madeline Mavis Ashley Mejia [Music] Daniel Pio [Music] Brandon midam ad Luis quesada Taryn Nguyen Sophia Rao William Newen Isabella Rizzo [Music] Madison ochango Rebecca Rubio Michelle ogasawara Justin Ruth [Music] Troy ogaz foreign [Applause] Troy San Diego [Music] Sophie on Alyssa Sanchez Dominic Overton [Applause] a ritalin Sanchez [Applause] Nathaniel Owens bryle sayago shahan Oster Jack Scott Michelle Daphne pagalunan Robert serrati Sophia Pig Raphael simpello Bella Palmer Alyssa sotenko sangjin Park Salvador Soto De la Rosa [Applause] Isabella Pasquale Adrian Perez Casey Spencer [Music] foong on fam Akshay thank you Amanda provencio Jimmy Tran Ryan Truong Alexander Anaya orianna ume I'm sorry Anaya Mackenzie Warner Tyler Andrews Jocelyn Weber Stephan angel Nicole Wells Duncan Angeles Kaylee Yoon [Applause] Tanya Angelus Aguilar Abigail Yoon Jeremiah araz [Applause] [Music] Veronica zamorano [Music] [Applause] Adan Arby's Arby's Nathan zett [Applause] [Music] Nicholas Ariano [Applause] Nathaniel abanto Gabrielle Nicole of Vincent ablon Josephine asme Matthew Ayden Tyler Valenti [Music] Ally Eileen Aguilar [Applause] young ju fun Alicia Aguilar yareth Barboza Giovanni Aguilar Nevaeh Barner Nicholas Aguilar Celine variantos [Music] [Applause] [Music] Haley alcaraz Jonathan Barrios [Music] Dominic Andre alunan Addison bartiselle David Adair Ethan Camacho [Applause] chance Babylon Kevin Camacho Kayla Regine Bautista [Applause] Christopher Cameron [Music] Nia Ray Bautista Malibu canedo Mendes Grace Beasley [Music] Edgar Cano Connor beaudette Diego Cardenas Kaya benevente Carolina Cortez Muhammad Bengali Andrew Carrillo Alyssa Benitez Orozco Julie Castaneda Annabelle Benitez Orozco Alexia Castillo [Music] Ari Bennett [Music] Mia Castillo David Barry Brown [Music] [Applause] Kiara castrojan [Applause] Braden View Eduardo Castro [Music] Kiana bonano Heidi Chavez Camila bontempi Kelly chavoya Valeria Bravo Lydia Chen Marcos Briones [Applause] Nathaniel chin Michaela Brown young Don Cho [Applause] Faith Caballero you're here Cholula Lima [Applause] [Music] Andrew Thor kagiwa [Applause] [Music] El Corona Angelo Estrella yesi Corel soles odalis eStudio Garcia Kaylee coveny [Applause] Kyle Iyer [Applause] Samia patan [Applause] Alyssa Felix Alejandra Cruz Gianna Fenton [Music] Austin Cruz Diego Flores [Music] Valeria Cruz baderos Esteban Flores Haley Dobby Angel and Sally Flores [Applause] Grace Davila Eric De la Rosa [Music] Hazel Flores Madrid [Applause] Athena Marie delida great Esmeralda Flores Peralta John Byron Delgado [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Omari Dewan Sergio Adrian Diaz Cassidy Freeman [Applause] Eli Duncan Carson Fullerton [Applause] [Music] Emma Erickson Aaliyah Gatson Grace Esparza [Applause] adani Valentina Garcia Clarissa Esposito Contreras Camila Garcia Santos Maya Simon Nick Garcia [Applause] Sabrina cozine hello at garvita Arisa Garza Isaac Helton Aaron Garza [Applause] Michael Herbert Ulysses Gill autumn herbig Charles hiron [Applause] Kaden Hernandez [Applause] [Music] Cesar Gonzalez Evelyn Hernandez David Gonzalez [Applause] Jessica Hernandez [Applause] Isabella Gonzalez Katrina Hernandez Guadalupe Gonzalez Ramirez Aaron Herrera [Applause] Destiny Goss [Applause] Hannah Higuera Damien Gregory [Music] Kimberly how long Peyton Griffin [Applause] Juan Guerrero [Applause] Emily hope [Music] [Applause] Stephanie Jimena Gutierrez Rebecca Hopkins Dominic Guzman Ryan huetta Estrella Guzman Delgado Haley Hulse Dina hamori Cameron Hurst Lister Michelle harlani kylia Jackson Hart Joseph Jaime [Applause] Azalea and Al Chavez [Music] Dario jasso [Music] Carol Hannah Moses G [Music] Angeles Ruiz Kim on Lee Samara Jimenez Amaro [Music] Kyla Lee Sam Jean Pauline Lee CE Johnson [Music] Lee Lindsey Jones [Music] Justin lacudini Skye Jones Ernest Lim B perriel Ashley Juan Brandon Loxley Brian Juarez Ariane Lopez Maya Dorado Jason Lopez [Music] Chanel Dray Jeremy Lopez tablada Bernard James Kayla Laredo Joseph King Green [Applause] [Music] Emily loud Lucas cantaborn [Applause] [Music] Javi lovely [Applause] ashleen core Mia Madrid Landeros [Music] Kevin Kong Anthony magallanes [Music] [Applause] Isaiah kiltosh Nolan mangany David Kim Alex Manuel [Applause] Edward Kim Lucas marcroft [Applause] Rebecca Kim Rodrigo Adrian Mares Emma Laird [Music] Emily mariscal [Music] Danielle marmalijo Evelyn montagno Brianna Marquez Garcia [Music] Seth monzon Daniel Marquez I'm Mara Mora Michaela Marsh Ximena Mora [Music] Larry Martinez [Applause] Matthew Morrison Lucas Martinez [Music] Jackson moriwaki ishan master Robert Morrissey [Music] Julie Mateos [Applause] Cody moyner Grant Matan Milani Muller Garrett McGee [Applause] Giselle Carmen Mario Sean mcclory Daniel Murrow Larissa McKee L Allison naw [Music] Jade McNeese Abraham Navarro [Music] Sasha Meisner Monique Navarro Robert Mejia sahil nayar Anderson Mejia mancia Evan Negrete Ashlyn Mendez Castaneda [Applause] Kevin Gwen [Applause] Ricardo Mendoza Sanchez Luis Nunez Marquez Diego Mercado 's nashad Ahmad Mirza [Music] Adriana Portillo Kevin ollers Marissa cuenga Jada Lynn office [Applause] Nina quijano [Music] William OJ Audrey Quintanilla [Applause] Matthew Olmos [Music] Sophia Ramirez Nadine umran Arthur Ramirez Cortez Natalie Otero Herrera Isaiah Reed Angelina Pacheco [Applause] Christiane Reyes Abby pagli nowon Samantha Reyes Mondragon Chloe Patel Jacob Reynolds Drew V Patel Eli rich man of Patel Derek rias [Music] Tina Payne [Music] Julie Robles Ramirez Jonathan Pedrosa Diego Rodriguez Julian Peralta [Music] Alejandra Roldan Daniel Phoenix Mia Roman [Applause] [Music] Jamie pivaral Jimenez Reina Roman [Applause] [Music] Max Plata Jenny Lynn Romano [Music] Elena Carmen pixton Emery Romero Diego Ponce [Music] Destiny Silva [Music] Luisa Emily Ponce Michael Simon Alondra Romo Isaac sithavon [Music] Drake Rorick [Applause] Haley Smith [Music] Israel Ruiz [Applause] Jaden son Emily Ruiz Sanchez [Applause] ambika sridharan Christine Russell Jackson Stanley [Applause] Leonardo sabedra Tiana Steiger Saeed Austin Raymond Stout Audrey Sanchez Garcia Samuel Summers Millie Santana Alec Sutherland Sen Dylan santizo [Applause] Daniel Tavares Mia Siebert Anton [Applause] [Music] Lillian sites [Applause] Caleb Taylor [Applause] [Music] Nicholas centeno [Music] Adrian tillez Muhammad umer shanawaz Juliana Townsend Christopher Cheryl Jaden Tran malosi moello Seattle Vincent Tran [Music] [Applause] uterio Jalen Trejo [Music] [Applause] Lily Sierra Dulce Trejo Lima Farhan sikander [Music] Ethan vizcarando [Applause] Joseph ungos [Applause] Lynn Weatherly Lilia Valero Stephen Weidner [Music] Jacob Vargas Heaven Williams Christian Vargas Rios [Applause] Yousef yamut Natalia Vasquez [Music] Leyland Yarbrough [Music] Jacob Velasquez Madeleine yassa Marcus Hugh foreign [Music] [Applause] Nathan Savala Justin Bay [Applause] Joseph zeoli [Applause] Khan vie Daniel villagomez [Music] [Applause] [Music] Manuel Villalobos [Music] [Applause] [Music] it gives me great pleasure to introduce president of the auhsd Board of Trustees Mr Brian O'Neal Who will certify the class of 2023 Kennedy graduates please stand [Music] it gives me great honor to present this class of 2023 to the Board of Trustees for certification please remain standy [Music] as a trustee for the Anaheim Union High School District it is my honor and privilege to officially certify that the students present here today from the class of 2023 have all duly met the requirements of the State of California and have completed the prescribed course of study established by the Anaheim Union High School District students you may now move your tassel from right to left congratulations class of 2023 congratulations on your achievement you are now alumni of John F Kennedy High School K high for life foreign would you please remain standing for the playing of the alma mater performed by our very own Kennedy symphonic band the lyrics for our alma mater are on the back of the page of the graduation program [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] thank you foreign [Music] thank you [Applause] thank you graduates please be seated thank you for attending the 2023 commencement ceremony for John F Kennedy High School families and friends please remain seated until the class of 2023 has exited the stadium remember to take all of your items with you as you exit the stadium and please meet your graduates at the vehicles graduates when prompted by staff you will exit down the middle of the aisle and then to your left beginning with the first row [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] foreign [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music]

Please remain seated while filming or taking photos. And remember to keep the recording device at chest level to not impede the vision of others seated around you. Please keep the aisle and walkways open throughout the entire ceremony. Today's ceremony is being livereamed and will remain on the district's YouTube channel to view at your convenience. It is so great that we can all be together today to celebrate the class of 2023. Without further ado, let's begin.

thank you red light is on good evening everyone welcome to the May 25th 2023 study session um can we start with the interpretation instructions from thank you Los participants thank you so much um you'll notice this evening we're meeting on a Thursday instead of our regular Tuesday for a study session um we've had a very busy week attending graduations continuations um and it was just really great to celebrate our students and our Educators we had our retirement dinner or breakfast this morning as well um we had a teacher of the year it was a great celebration um first on our agenda is an update for from our district accountability committee um miss Connie welcome and looking forward to hearing from you yes good evening Madam president Lovato was Dean board members superintendent Dr Lauria and viewing audience my name is Connie Bonnell and I am the DAC the district accountability chair tonight you will hear from our subcommittee's work that has led to our 2023-24 school year recommendations each recommendation will start with a timeline of topics discussed data reviewed and finally a subcommittee recommendation at this time I would like what Brandi Valdez to present the district accountability committee purpose and overview foreign members superintendent Dr Lauria and viewing audience my name is Brandi Valdez and I am the district accountability co-chair the purpose of the deck is to have a platform for its members to collectively make recommendations to the Local School Board in regards to unified Improvement family engagement District budget and Charter School applications for the 22-23 school year we had 19 DAC members which included three high school students 10 monthly meetings and one annual Retreat each meeting consisted of a DAC meeting and a subcommittee work we have four subcommittees that are mandated by the state statute to participate in uip parent engagement Budget Finance and Charter School applications if applicable subcommittee is led by a district personnel and compromised a parent and community members our district Personnel is as followed Joe Hermosillo Dak overall support Stephanie Riddick Amy LaBelle uip Melba Esther Velazquez and Karen Chabad family engagement and Doug Moss for finance let's begin our work with unified Improvement plan I would like to ask Stephanie Riddick our District representative to begin thank you madam co-chair good evening Madam president Lovato esteemed board members superintendent Dr Laria and of course our viewing audience my name is Stephanie redditt a little closer my name is Stephanie Redd and I am honored to be working with the unified Improvement plan members of the district accountability committee tonight the unified Improvement plan presenter will be one of our high school students Aaliyah Acevedo she will be presenting our plan tonight she's going to be doing it in English but she is one of our amazing students that's able to do it in both languages actually multiple languages but due to some time restraints we wanted to make sure that we honored her for that as a team Aaliyah joined the uip subcommittee in September and has been an integral part of the team as a team we looked at mathematics with three perspectives student parent and teacher we discussed the old way versus the new way of learning and teaching math you will see in this presentation our timeline data we discussed and finally our top three recommendations so at this time I would like to have Aaliyah take over and present the uip subcommittee work good evening Madam president Lovato esteemed four members superintendent Dr Lauria and viewing audience my name is Alia Acevedo and I am a sophomore at Adams City High School I came to the district accountability committee from student council and I'm very thankful to be here we started our unified Improvement plan subcommittee work looking at Global changes in mathematics this allowed us to understand that the pandemic severely affected mathematics not just in animals 14 but across the United States during our first semester conversations we discussed at length the unknown examples of the unknown factors not only of our students but also the instructions of mathematics for example as a team we discuss what our students may experience at home and how that affects their understanding of what they need to complete independently once we had a foundation for what we wanted to gain from looking at mathematics we started looking at our data as it was available see mass and star we reviewed problems discuss Solutions as well as reviewed student teacher and parent-facing materials in our next slides you will see the data we reviewed and the process we went through as our students completed their star their star data the team reviewed the data and determined trends that we saw across grade bands and assessment windows we started this work looking at students end-of-year scores from the 2021 to 2022 school year compared to the 2022-2023 school year to determine if there was learning summer learning loss as well as where students were starting for the new year as we have gone through reviewing the different star windows we have seen that students were moving to different bands this allowed us to move forward with reviewing CMAs scores and how these scores correlated with star the data gave Insight on what our students were doing and this allowed us to begin discussion for our recommendations after reviewing this data understanding mathematics Concepts and previewing student teacher and family materials we began to come up with three recommendations that we would now like to present to you our first recommendation is family and student nights these family nights will allow us to work with families and students to begin understanding the upcoming units and Concepts being presented to the students these sessions would allow parents to support their students when doing independent work at home we would like to propose that these family nights be quarterly and supported by each School in our district our second recommendation is learning Labs these learning Labs would be similar to our family and student nights but would provide extra support monthly during learning Labs it was discussed that high school student volunteers and sponsored teachers would lead these Labs at the Central Community Center or another location provided by our district there would be tutoring and family informational sessions which would support acceleration of students and overall support we would develop a peer-to-peer connection that would enhance students abilities provide real world and examples and explain mathematical Concepts depending on volunteer volume these learning Labs could be more than once a month our third and final recommendation is additional family and math information in the parent portal this would be similar to Khan Academy where we would provide instructional videos on assignments in order to increase parent understanding this would support our learning labs and family Nights by touching those sessions multiple times as well as providing our families with parent resources to support our students at home this concludes our unified Improvement plan subcommittee recommendations thank you for your time in allowing me to present this work thank you unified Improvement plan committee for all your hard work and dedication at this time I would like to have Elizabeth Rivas join us Elizabeth will be presenting the parent engagement recommendations [Music] in Espanol is familiares is foreign trabajo in Las Vegas families and febrero Universal Del estado de Colorado [Music] recommendations Griffith Center's General plan de Studios Los felicitadores is the services numero dos es Infinite Campus yes good evening budget in finance at 10 community members the chair was Melinda Rios um the topics discussed in the timeline September 21st the school funding update and the school count information October 12th school funding update with school count information November 9th was school funding update Pre-K funding possibilities discussion uh December 14th school funding update together with the family engagement January 25th was school funding update together with family engagement their Jack recommendations are to invest in the Arts during Academy's rollout second one is special consideration for after school late bussing Transportation opportunities if changing start and end time and to provide additional tutoring opportunities thank you this concludes our budget recommendations thank you for your time in allowing me to present this work thank you budget committee and parent engagements for all of your hard work and dedication at this time I would like to have Randy join us again and she will discuss Charter School I had one application and one re-review which was completed by October 22nd sorry October of 2022 and recommendations were presented to the Adams 14 Board of Education on the 27th of January so we don't have any recommendations at this time and this concludes our Charter School of recommendations thank you thank you to the board Dr Lauria and Doc uh sorry my error I'm like you I've been I just came back from a continuation so it was like flying across town to get here on time so I apologize at this time I would like to ask the board and Dr Lauria if you have any questions or comments for the entire District accountability committee thank you all for the great presentation this was awesome board members I welcome questions comments so I have a question regarding um deck working with sax how is that going are you guys um seeing that more of the sack the the sac committees that the individual schools are happening um because I know at one time when um at least when I was part of deck the goal was really to get some of the sac members to be Representatives on deck and have that communication go back and forth between the school and and deck just so that we could get more involvement in more parents but I have to say before you answer thank you again and I am so ecstatic and just excited to see that we have students and we have more representation on Deck than we've had in a little bit so thank you thank you um I'm sad to report that sacks are not up and running the way they should be we're having a hard time even getting DAC representation from each School we've been working on this Sheila's worked on it Joe was working on it right now we're trying to work with the principals it is their responsibilities according to the state statute that they provide us with DAC members and with setting up sacks um I know we have a couple of schools who are doing the ones that are doing it are doing an excellent job and they have provided us with DAC members also so um unfortunately I have to report that it isn't as good as it could be we just have to keep plugging away at it and get more parents involved thank you I just for those viewing audience members that are out there um please don't be intimidated by a DAC it's a it's a great opportunity to have your voice heard and come to the sac meetings because that's where the power is is really if you want to be involved and I know for the past year or so there's been a lot of concerns and parents are very concerned about certain issues it starts at the school building level so if um you're watching and you want to be a part of this group please do so please talk reach out to your principals or any of the DAC members I'm sure would be more than happy to get you more information on how to get involved we need more involvement of parents and students on these committees so thank you and thank you for to all of you who are doing this because I know that it takes a lot of time and dedication let me give just a little clarification the sacks our school accountability committee so so they yeah thank you they work within the school and work with the principal then they bring recommendations to the DAC which is District accountability committee so we are responsible to the board for this next year we will be doing safety and because and security uh Vice or president Lovato had asked us to look at that next year or so we have already got that on our agenda for next year so if that was just a clarification because if you you know to me when you say letters it's like okay what does that mean so yes sorry okay um School accountability committee and District accountability committee and you're right and like I said just it starts at the school level and it works its way up um so it's a wonderful opportunity for people to have their ideas and their voice heard so and both the organizations are parent organizations they're not District they're not they're not run by the district uh District doesn't provide us with with people just they have to talk to the principals Joe is the person that is our liaison basically and he brings things to us and we didn't give things back to him so and then once a year we do do this recommendations to the board according to what you've mandated us to do and this is all state statute stuff that is required by every school district in the state any other questions um okay I I have a couple oh you have it okay yeah you know [Laughter] um I uh do you want to Echo um director zubia's comments I just I'm so thankful for all the work that you do all the time um I know that's where many of us board members got our start was being a parent on deck and on sax so um we uh really appreciate it and I more so appreciate the collaboration with the board and Doc because I think that was something that was missing when I was on Doc um and it helps us better align our supports and resources to you also absolutely um just a couple of comments I absolutely love uh the recommendations for the family and student nights I think those will not only help math academically but it'll also increase Community engagement parent engagement um I'll speak a little more when we go down the study session on the reports but um I think the more the more parents and students know about what they need to be learning where they need to be at where they can improve um it's just going to increase that organically so I think those are great ideas um I I wonder how we can support that so please feel free to Loop Us in and let us know um ideally it would be wonderful um to get in on the school calendar so we know and parents know what what days are happening when when it's um going to be there um I also really love the parent engagement recommendations about the parenting classes I know that's something that parents have been asking for yes um we have the opportunity to meet with I know I'm saying that and it was just fantastic just to learn what do parents want how does how can we support them it was it was very good um Infinite Campus workshops is something that I think we've needed for so long and and I would love if we have some kind of integration between um the professional development that our Educators and our building leaders are doing as well as how parents use it because uh I feel it's it's a great resource if it's used right but it's been underutilized for so long and some of it is because the users or the end users don't know how to use it or what's there or sometimes the information just isn't there in a timely way so I think that's great um I did have a question for budget and finance when you said to invest your recommendation was to invest in arts during the Academy's rollout was that a specific investment for one of the academies around the Arts or um do you have any more information about that and this is not my uh my my subcommittee um the one that was supposed to present wasn't here that was a question that we had also okay um I don't know if Doug would have more clarification around that or Joe sorry oh no that's okay um Madam chair and the senior support members uh yes I believe the the committee was speaking to the infant stages or initial stages of rolling out with the pathways and making sure that we retain the Arts or encourage more of the Arts gotcha within the curriculum as well as the activities for parents and professional development as you were speaking for both the our Educators and and our students and overall learning that's wonderful thank you um continuing on Budget Finance I absolutely love the idea of um the consideration for after school and late blessing um I I think that would be wonderful the more we can support our students um I you know I see them walking like days like today when it would have been raining or just to be able to give them that the Equitable access to be able to participate in after school activities um and I'm always up for additional tutoring opportunities so well and I think that came up because we know that there are other districts that are doing that and so we thought you know if other districts can do it then why can't we yeah and that gives our our students a safe way to get home it gives them an opportunity to stay after school for different activities that are going on and uh I think that would make their parents feel much more comfortable if they knew that there was a bus that could bring them home or at least get them closer to home yeah Garden City High School over there is one of them that is it's a tricky situation over there getting across that Highway over there or that road over there so yeah and it just promotes inclusivity I know um in previous years they had a spirit bus so when the football game was away or basketball game and yeah yeah that was filled every every game that they had and um but then I I really appreciate that you put it in the budget section because look into Mr Moss here it's gonna we're gonna have to work with bus drivers and the bus and Fuel and I mean it's gonna implicate a lot so it'll allow us as a board to ensure those resources are there yeah any other questions thank you okay thank you again I'd like to say thank you to the board Dr Lauria and DAC members of for support with this important committee it is our duty and pleasure to serve Adam's 14 students we look forward to continuing this work next year following the tasks recommendation of Safety and Security made by President Lovato who has been my privilege to serve the Adams 14 district accountability committee for the past five years moving into the 23-24 school year Randy Valdez will be the DAC chair please take a moment to welcome her and the team thank you congratulations Bradley thank you again for your amazing service Connie you've been interval have one request can we take a picture of course yes something bored as well as the DAC committee sorry it's a dad move that's my other hand Joe thank you I know right fingers one yeah [Applause] oh my God friends oh my goodness so you're supposed to eat extra crunchy okay thank you dear hug please thank you too much like when you get to like that northern part I already talked to them have a good summer thank you guys enjoy your summer if it's coming it talks about the yeah I think so like once you get to that part I love the rain though we need it so bad it's like they can know like how big they are thank you Amy yes thank you doc thank you so much all right everyone sorry to pull us back in but I want to make sure we um give our amazing students here next on the agenda is uh 1.2 the youth Advisory Board um we have an update from the youth Advisory Board um from aladante Community Development um director Zubia she's gonna have to kind of switch hats here but I'd like to introduce yes thank you everyone so um I want to welcome our committee so I will be switching back and forth so I want to name our committee members that are here so Alejandra Guardiola Rodriguez is over here David Rodriguez just walked in um estefania Juarez uh he said Dominguez Isabella couldn't make it yeah couldn't make it Manuel over here Mauro and I know whenever you're available you join our group too so she's very involved so Aaliyah so with that I am going to pass it over to Mrs Stefania who actually uh just so you know the students have been working very hard on this um project so they actually are it's called the traffic safety youth Advisory board for the state they we received a grant and they're like there's only two groups in the whole nation that actually received this Grant and so we're proud of our youth and all the work they're going to be doing so they have a letter that they're going to read and this letter is going to be presented to the decision maker so with this I will pass it on to Mrs Stefania okay I'll get closer there you go um Dear Community I mean dear Cameron city council Adams County Commissioners Adams County school district 14 board and the Colorado Department of Transportation we are both division valida Traffic Safety youth Advisory Board of Adelante Community Development a non-profit organization in the Commerce City we are writing to thank you for your consideration and adding speed bumps to the streets by our Commerce City schools and to share some additional ideas we have we had brainstormed ideas to help you think of a accountable steps to help prevent another awful accident like the one that took a life of a youth in our community by Monaco Elementary School in March we want to share with you some of these ideas first we would like to identify the road safety issues that need to be addressed first the public safety of people who talk to get the the people's safety the public safety of people who want to get around needs to be prioritized adding speed bumps can help and are not the only situation more local and culturally relevant awareness needs to be created on traffic driving and walking safety driving driving safety signage needs to be improved for drivers drivers ignore the current signage without regard to where it's placed there is a need to update signage to more visible if your safety should come first and many areas Road and sidewalks infrastructure needs to be addressed education of Interest enforcement are needed as to many distracted drivers and fewer people seem to know how to cross our road safety fellow classmates are at risk when crossing our roads to school due to the lack of safety a road safety priority the following of some of our suggestions are create a lasting Memorial in memory of Caroline Ken Kincaid as a reminder of drivers to slow down and be more aware to residential streets better traffic lights crosswalk lights and other safety features for people walking or biking installation is installing battery street lights and traffic lights with turn signals adding speed bumps so drivers can slow down make you safer for people to cross the street awareness compassion for people to drive safety around schools changes to school zones to help protect students when walking more and better visible crosswalks and stop signs around neighborhoods and schools riding across crossing bridge over busy highways and streets especially by IM City High School offering driver education classes in high school why do we care we and all children in our community deserve to feel safe while walking from place to place and without fear of getting hit by a car feeling is safe is not okay everyone matters the number of people now following the traffic laws is too many prevention is key we have the following specific asks create and addict create an educational program for younger children to learn how to cross the safe the street safely and um ration crosswalks and signage and better traffic lights with turn signals to all instructions in Commerce City and New traffic lights are always sub sign is too busy intersections such as by our lady mother of church and by the entrance and exit of the flea market make sure all streets around all our schools get speed bumps build a bridge over Quebec Parkway to Adam City High School the stretch stretches almost to the front entrance of the building improve visual pedestrians signs such as those from Zone crew safety and drivers education classes to our high school have law enforcements offer officers by our school crossing guards not other teachers principals and School staff we all ask we ask all decisions making officials to work together to make this happen the state county City and School Board must work together to keep us and all the children in our community community safe we all deserve to feel safe actions must be taken as soon and before the start of next school year we appreciate your consideration for further information please contact Miss Maria Health Equity decorate sincerely Adelante Community Development youth Advisory Board thank you [Applause] oh um first of all I want to thank Madam president and members of the board as estefania presented us we are vocivision valida valid voice and vision Traffic Safety use advisors Advisory Board and these are some of our ideas first um well a creation by Craig Cannon um I think he came here before yeah he was one of our guest speakers and these are one of his ideas and we really liked it and yeah and here are some examples of his creation on variations of the things you have on streets and oh not bad and we would like for you guys to decide which would be a better option for drivers which one would be more visible and here more and again which is a better option more visible for a driver and here it is at a school being I forgot what school it is but um and here are the using it for the safety of kids and which can be better can we see yeah and this um the one in use the number two is also there if you can see it it's well it's not really big but it's still visible for drivers and you're also some it's like swapping it out oh so the existing sign is number one and number two and then the new one would be number three and you can barely see one and here another example of it being swapped up with other things so it could be better visually seen by drivers and here it is again when different streets and which one would be better and here it could be seen um being used in workplaces so drivers can see it so they know that people are working there people are there and which is a better option bit or better options bigger and more visible traffic signs do you agree here it is in day and night which it could be seen in both because the colors reflect off light and better options are bigger and more visible traffic signs do you agree and here it's shown in front of the Denver stadium and in day and night and they're different colors too I think and you think it'll be better for it to be bigger and more visually seeable um and it'll also be a good option for maybe events because we do many of those and maybe maybe like um maybe like when people are trying to like figure out where to go they could also be seen by drivers and it'll be easily seeable and another solution that we came up with was better traffic lights with turn signals and here it is do you would you agree with this and as we said more speed bumps um a speed bump is a small raised area in the road typically four to eight inches in high and one to three feet long in length they are designed to compel vehicles to slower speeds so 15 to 20 miles an hour in order to cross without discomfort to the driver or damage the vehicle in residential area speed bumps are often installed which are similar in high to speed bumps but quite a bit longer one of the greatest benefits of installing speed bumps in residential areas is the increased safety it it provides to pedestrians according to American Journal of Public Health children are especially suspectable it says I don't know with auto mobile collisions responsible for the greatest number of deaths of American children's aged 5 to 14.

all right so I have Miss Burke Chief academic officer and she'll walk us through the reporting Madam president Lovato and distinguished members superintendent lorian viewing audience so thank you for your time this evening within the report you're going to see easier if I hold it under the interpretation section around that each of the bullets is aligned to um the numbers that correlate on page one what we did go through is put in evidence of each of those items and we kept it um not all of the every detail is in here we kept all the high level pieces but wanted to be able to show evidence of our work to be able to Showcase that we were making progress towards those goals and or have achieved them so under the first one we aligned everything to the Strategic plan work that we've been doing uh since October you'll see the objectives in their subjective one primarily as it relates to this particular outcome the second bullet down has the evidence that we have around our academic infrastructure document our academic Excellence Playbook and our curricular resources all of those help to support the policy wording under number one on the first page our work can uh was always done alongside our partnership with tntp and in some cases with connect ed the assessment Department developed our assessment strategy this is something that will be recurring every year we just now met with the principals of the last couple of principal meetings to be able to get feedback for the one that will be developed for next year we have our draft language master plan you'll see the evidence of that in the fourth bullet down we've been working alongside our partners at the Colorado Department of Education experts within the field and then our internal staff here along with members from tntp the Cur the previous plan that we had stopped at fifth grade and so we started to evolve that into our fifth graders who will now be moving up to the middle school and making sure that the programming continued alongside this is still in draft form because we're still working with our experts to be able to finalize those pieces and then it'll start to become more finalized as we move into the 23-24 school year on page three you'll see our professional development plan which helps with the training and it aligns with the instructional programs that we have so number three on page one we have the evidence of each of the training sessions in the agendas that we have and this is not just for certified staff but it's classified staff as well and any of our special service providers so we provided training across the district for all all of that work was aligned to our academic infrastructure document which houses all of our scope and sequence and all of the training materials that our teachers need to be able to guide their unit in lesson preparation as you scroll down to the middle of Page Three you'll see again all the hyperlinks for the agendas to show the evidence of our work that continues into a the professional development supports which is one of the the ends that we had is making sure that we have high quality professional development and that ties into objective two of our strategic plan we have our numbers listed at the bottom of page three which was around the satisfaction rates with our staff we have the survey results for all of those followed on the next couple pages on page four you'll see the reading language arts intervention and math interventions and the fellowships that we have both with blueprints and then our reading interventionists for our tiered supports that we have focusing specifically on tier two and tier three our work this year focused on strengthening tier one instruction across the district and so our professional development was aligned to that specifically as you go further down on page four you'll see the work and evidence of our academic plan at Adams City High School this is part of their turnaround work and will be there long after turnaround is over we have the academies in there and so you'll see the hyperlink of the four named academies and then all of the evidence that we had to support our communities around that as it continues into page five be available if you have any questions regarding the reports or any of the evidence that we've included board members questions comments um you know Renee has some thank you for this great information um I I think one General observation is um I I really appreciate the detail in the report on the board side but I also think it would be very helpful to start um incorporating PowerPoints that highlight this so that we're demonstrating to our larger Community the amazing work that you guys are doing because I of course follow these amazing links um that you provide and it just it gives me a better understanding of the work that is happening um but I think just being able to show those and highlight you know the the highlights of the work that you guys are doing to support the report would be very helpful um a couple of questions so um around the math and language arts in their language arts interventionists um I I always try to put my Equity hat on here and I'm wondering if you can speak more to how um those are identifying um we have uh both middle schools and the high school that have the math interventionists but only uh two elementary schools have it um so I think that would be helpful to include um just just something leading to how how it's determined where those supports are and especially as we heard from Doc how how we can ensure on our side that we're allocating those resources to make sure that um those are included in here because their their math recommendations were very helpful um I also wrote a note around um the link to the pacing calendars under the academic infrastructure was really helpful um it reminded me almost like a syllabus um that I think would be helpful in these uh monthly and and um different events that we're bringing the families into but it reminded me like a syllabus that students get in um college but also um I know when my son went to elementary school we we knew as a parent what they were working on in each grade um each week so it just improved that dialogue like hey like you know according to um your plan you're talking about um I don't know Memorial Day I'm sure that's totally um off the wall but and just facilitating that dialogue um asking about it um and just bringing the the parents um more into the conversation with learning um because it also aligns with our rapid improvements strategies as well um and then the other question when we when we get reports they think it's very helpful to have the goals but um it's also very helpful to know the growth so while we're saying 100 of Adam's 14 students will engage in social emotional learning how how are we measuring like okay this is where we're starting this is where we're growing so that we can um make sure that we also know you know this we're we're I remember Miss Burkey used to report like we're not there but we're getting there and and just so we know where we can allocate the resources to better support that work um and lastly then I'll be quiet around the syllabi literacy um I I think given um the importance that the sport has tried to stress with that um I would love to see some measures around that and then the work we do to support that um because I think this year it was less than 10 that graduated with that and I just think um it's something that's been identified since I was a parent um and I would love to see that um called out more more blatantly and monitored more blatantly but love the information love the work and I think it really aligns to our um our policy thank you and just to Echo that a little um seeing the programming district-wide and thinking about how we're going to increase the number of students that are graduating with the sale of a literacy we have been talking a lot about by literacy programming school-wide and so possibly getting updates I know we had talked about that recently as well when just thinking about the numbers of Heritage Spanish speakers that we have um School enrollment parent um you know parents communicating their wants around bilingual education and um so I I guess I'm envisioning something more of a rapport of where we are in terms of moving in that direction since we've been talking about it a lot and I don't think that it's been um an area of focus I would say yeah so um I think to clarify it's something that I've been wondering for a while too is and I think we mentioned it in the past we have um is it one or two dual language schools we that are designated to a language and then we have the ones that are designated bilingual and I believe what we've been asking for eventually is that our district moves to being fully integrated with both languages and so I think that's the part that I don't see um being reported on is the growth as to uh especially when Dupont started it was supposed to be our pilot I still would like to see an update about that what happened with that pilot did it is it you know done is it no longer a pilot um and I I guess that's the part that is missing that I hear as well from other folks is when are we getting it into all the schools and I know at one time we talked about it as you know it is it is an expense it is something that takes time but once again where are we um and getting there I guess is the question foreign this specific El is based on the wording and this is why this discussion is so important so that we're on the same page to see the understanding the wording uh says superintendent will not fail to adapt and develop the educational program of the district that's necessary to make reasonable progress towards um out toward meeting content standard fulfilling boards and policies and meeting the general academic educational needs of students so as I look at this one at this policy as I um look at also the the ends that are very specific to the growth and the data I see those two as different things because in the interpretation with uh in the back in green the responsibility to ensure the consistent implementation of research-based instructional practices using rigorous curriculum that supports High student achievement accomplish and I guess this is the second line um that it's in my head addressing this accomplished through professional development opportunities effective instructional practice for teachers Etc right so the way that I am seeing this um which is I think a little bit of the disconnect on how you're seeing of which why I love this conversation is what are the structures that we have to ensure that there is the professional development for us to organize basically that we have the scope and sequence that the teachers have access to that that there's professional development specific to that because this would not be one Yale the way that I interpret it that will actually have that growth in that data does that make sense so is what is the structure because another and following the calendar the the calendar of reporting another end and another El will have that data because for example in June is not a time where I will have the data to come and report this is the growth of the by literacy this is the growth of the students because that data has not been reported for this year has not been reported to us so the way that I'm interpreting this one is what was the work done to support the teachers to the professional developments to not fail to consider all the needs when we are recommending the textbook I'm jump to the other one when we were addressing uh in the way that we support the program exceptional students [Music] um reasonable steps to involve the parents District accountability Etc reviewing content standards curriculum that is the process not necessarily this including the data right so so when we look at for example the first bullet um addressing the Strategic plan and the objectives is actually reporting the work that we did with the community uh in in you part of it in developing the Strategic plan is calling out for those sub-bullets in there that is actually evidence that we are not or the superintendent is not failing to to lead the work with the team to ensure that educational programs in the district address the needs of the of students that we are involved in Educators that are we will not fail to revise curriculum and programs of instruction so it's more of the infrastructure and how we organize not necessarily one that we'll be reporting um the progress of the students I think that's a great clarification and I think we need to call that out because to me then that means this is more qualitative data and not quantitative so we should be hearing about the programs that were built which is included in here but maybe we need to Omit all of the percentages and things like that unless we're talking about um this percentage of Educators attended this professional development opportunity or things like that so things about the actions that are being taken but not measuring growth um or um what else was on here yeah yes yes because this objective one is not calling out the growth that we're making or not it's actually how we're organizing to ensure that we are not failing to take into consideration these are the goals that we want to if they have been identified they have been they have been highlighted based on the on the on the work of the of the Strategic plan not necessarily to report but as an example that's what we're thinking when we put them in there um but I see um I see what you're saying I am I'm starting to wonder um rather than a running list if having um the data under each one of the number one two three four or the explanation on how we're ensuring that we um are not failing or I am not failing to develop assessments that will adequately measure the student then we would rather than a running bullets here for the data we put it under each one of them foreign I think that I was um I think I got a little confused now where the conversation went with data I think what I in what I was trying to communicate in terms of um just trying to meet the ends around the by literacy sale not necessarily the numbers of this you know the increasing amount of students who are earning the syllable literacy but more so where are we in terms of programming for bilingual education within the district so for me it wasn't not necessarily seeing like oh this year we had 10 students earning the sale by literacy where are we at and you know what is our goal for next year right like 10 more students or 20 more students for me it was more programming um because that's what el6 is right like the educational programming of the district so I think for me it would it would um make sense if when we're talking about um by literacy movement here if we're talking about the programming that's going to get us there so I I for me it's not necessarily important to see like the amount of students here because that's you know like we talk about getting in the in the weeds right that's not really um I guess where I would want to go with it I I'm thinking more so in terms of overall programming for our schools like bilingual programming and our out in our elementary schools um things like that so where are we in in terms of that progress because yeah I mean I know from the time that I got on the board that was communicated right and you went on the board longer than me and you were talking about as a parent even right so I think this has been for many many years the topic of discussion and I feel like now we um as a cohesive board move also really expressed our interest in okay how are we going to ensure that we are um instructing in a culturally responsive way to our heritage Spanish speakers which make up almost half of our district and to me that falls into programming of the district yes you talk about the progress of the program or challenges that we have not getting into the the growth or the data but in those pieces right right or this is you know we've moved in you know X many schools from third grade to fourth grade because we continue growing and the students will be receiving the support in at the middle school when they get to the middle school Etc um correct so I guess a clarifying question for me because I I think we're on the same page as far as thesis programming is not going to include data right um the the data that is included here was an example we are organizing to look at the needs of the students and where we need to go not necessarily to report right but to say this is how or to show evidence this is the work that we're doing to address the needs of the students and put in or creating our goals uh towards towards them so like my question is um I'm wondering how to then have the board um guide what are the what are the big rocks that you want to hear as far as programming because we can have pages and pages of different programs of different grades of different um is it CTE programming is it the academy so so maybe narrowing what would be the the top um priorities that you would like to see in these reports because then it can be a running list and I and I understand that's not what we're looking for right yeah I think in terms of bilingual programming in my head I'm thinking about um especially for Heritage Spanish speakers that come in um early you know K through four we know that transitional native language programming um is not as impactful as just a full-blown by literacy program but if we're not there yet I I get it and I understand but um I guess the what I would want to see is okay how many schools are now shifting to have um instruction in Spanish at one school and then continuing with an English track indeed so so for me it's more so like oh okay in this next monitoring we were able to get one school to have a full bilingual programming um K-5 or K-5 is a little rigorous but maybe let's say k through three um if that makes sense yep and then maybe the next monitoring okay now we have the whole one whole school at least that has bilingual programming that's cohesive and coherent and we're all growing by one right now right yeah um can I ask a clarify in question to actually um Ramona um as her expert in policy governance um because what I'm I'm thinking is wound those specific programs that the board would like to hear as a reporting based on what they hear from the community right because it's all from the owners it's all aligned wouldn't those then need to be specified in this bullet as the superintendent will not fail to continue supporting on the implementation or growth or or um offering of additional opportunities for students to continue with their Heritage language you know Etc well they need to be because what I'm thinking is it's so broad that then it's going to be a hidden Miss and then one year is going to be well now not that it's going to be this way but at any time it can be well we don't we're not interested in the heritage or Spanish or bilingual programs anymore um what about the CTE and then he's superintendently called off guard at that time so you can keep it broader and then ask the board what they want to be reported yes and see my mind goes to the opposite because in policy governance as a board our my goal is to hope that we Implement things that continue and carry on because we've continued to have um you know we start a program and then a new board and a new superintendent comes on and then we do something different so to me I I would prefer to call out the two specific things that I think the sport has heard from our owners many many years is around the bilingual programming and Community Schools to me those are the two overarching big programs that I think we should specifically call out because you can then it's going to take you can read a board movement to adjust that yeah you would need to do or have a revision of the policy to be yeah so would that be a revision of the policy or an adding specifically Community Schools in this one or would that be added to my interpretation based on this discussion then the um then you like a policy okay you could do it either way yeah but but that way it would keep on going as Madam president said yeah yeah we'll have to um so we'll have to when we set agenda setting for our regular board meeting we have to do the first reading second reading and make those adjustments and that's for the Els that's how you determine if you want to make changes to the policies at that time so when the monitoring reports are done or so when you take it back from Dr Laria then you say okay this didn't meet our needs this policy so we need to change it in this way okay yes well it's a muscle right and we are really practicing on how to um how to turn into uh well and it goes back to our conversation it really needs to meet the needs of the board and the fact that they were adopters because we needed to start somewhere um so we really need to do this discussion didn't happen so you will you will send this to me so Ramona what will be the process now so because there's going to be a new a new policy well we're gonna edit this and well based on that I can start editing what you said for the for the uh for the agenda for June did you want to add something yeah so um thank you madam Madam president Lovato I was going to suggest if it would be beneficial or to the board's liking to have all of the programs listed that we have even with our special populations and then whatever the board names is their priorities um whether it's our dual language programs and Community Schools then we can over emphasize those through the report but that way you have an idea of all of the programs that we're adding whether it's an additional SSN program or if we've added more students within our transition program that we get to see them all across just a consideration had to say thank you thank you for coming thank you thank you for coming all right how many more do we have three more thank you all right um and then what um I'm also going to try to put the evidence under each one of the points to see if that is also a little better to follow because it's a lot of information um so el7 instructional material selection and adoption so we're talking here about specifically about the process that we have to to select and adopt um instructional materials policy wording um the superintendent will know um yes superintendent will not fail to recommend to the board for approval the instructional materials and textbooks textbook programs to be used in the district accordingly the superintendent will not and these are six uh points that I superintendent will not fail to do fail to take reasonable steps to obtain appropriate input from the following groups as instructional materials are reviewed teachers who will use the materials administrators and other staff members who are involved in developing the educational program in students parents and community members number two superintendent will not fail to recommend textbooks and instructional materials that Advance the achievement of the board to end policies and contribute toward continuity in the integration in articulation of The Curriculum by course and programs superintendent will not fail to consider the needs of all Learners when recommending textbooks and instructional materials will not fail to include insofar as possible multi-ethnic materials which depict a pluralistic society superintendent will not fail to provide for inspection of materials or textbooks upon request of parent or Guardians and will not fail to develop and Implement appropriate policies governing access to the two and utilization of electronic means of communication so if you go back to the last page my interpretation [Music] um as the superintendent interpretations superintendent's responsibility to ensure there's a clear process used in the selection of all instructional materials and textbooks including providing access to parents in other stakeholders to review proposed curriculum in addition we have policies and procedures or that we have policies and procedures outlining the opportunities for input from staff students parents and community members to ensure that needs of all students are considered and finally um that um it is the responsibility to carefully consider the purchase and implementation of the curriculum analyzing all the feedback pros and cons and the board's education's discussion for that reason um well I actually don't know if I'm gonna add this to the superintendent's interpretation but this is one of the reasons that uh based on the conversation that you had the feedback that we had when we last month maybe two maybe last month the science curriculum was presented uh there were concerns there were questions in quite a struggle to even consider adopting it that way um although adopted because it actually shows um your or the understanding of of your role as board members I passed the purchase of that curriculum and to assure the board we we hear the concerns we hear the questions we're going to go back in consider even further um you know the process based on the feedback right so um not that I will add it in there but there's a specific um then to the process to review and select um any curriculum about the policy and then Miss Burke can share the process that we have thank you madam president alvato distinguished members of the board so the policy that you're the one that you see in front of you is el7 around our instructional materials uh same thing as the previous one we went through to show the case the evidence that we had around this particular monitoring report as we went through adoption processes this year we had um a variety of stakeholder groups to make sure that we met the first uh superintendent number around the superintendent will not fail to right in that part of it we made sure that we had a variety of stakeholder groups primarily made up of families students teachers that were going to be utilizing the materials and administrator groups coaches because they were going to be supporting the teachers with the implementation we also had District administrators in that we looked at the vision of that particular content area first we went through and developed a rubric in most cases we studied other neighboring districts across the metro area so that we weren't starting from scratch so we borrowed things from Denver public schools sometimes devco we would reach out to their curriculum Department to see and then we would take their their rubrics and scoring materials and we would adopt them to make sure that they met the needs of our students in our community we developed non-negotiables which were usually true across all of our curricular resource adoptions to making sure that it was built in the the dominant languages that we have in our district from there we presented the rubric materials to our committee members they went through the revisions of those because we believe that more brains are more powerful than a singular one so they helped in the revisions of those making sure that they were aligned to the vision that we had for our philosophy statement for that content area then we went through and did an evaluation of all the curricular materials that we had so we had a running list of all of the vendors they went through and scored those out if they passed the the first portion of the rubric and our non-negotiables then they moved on to the next round if they scored well within the rubric uh then those were the ones that we ended up piloting we tried to narrow them down to two so staff members had a comparison and then we developed a piloting process with the teachers they went through training around those material and curricular resources to be able to go through the implementation and then we had surveys checkpoints alongside with the teachers making sure that they had what they need the surveys were both for the the students and for the staff who were implementing if it was grade appropriate we had visuals and sometimes oral components that went along with the surveys we had instructions so we had some controlled variables as we were getting the information back then we came back as not only the team of the committee members that originally started but also those are the piloting teachers so that they could share back their take around the materials we went through discussions followed pros and cons around each of the curricular resources and then the team would make a recommendation from there throughout the process we would look at the curricular resources and the ratings across National organizations such as Ed reports and making sure that they were vetted and rated really well if they weren't then they weren't materials that we would consider moving forward uh and then from there the recommendation would go into cabinet the superintendent's office and then it would be moved on to the board for consideration through this school year you'll see in the monitoring report we listed um in the first couple bullets the curriculum adoptions that we've had historically So reading language arts K5 was done in the fall of 2019 6-12 reading language arts was done in the fall of 2020 math was done 2020 and that was K-12 science K5 was done in the fall of 2023 and then science 612 was done in the fall of 2021 our SEL materials were done in the fall of 2021 this was done during a remote process during covid and then this year we looked at the K5 science we did do an adoption process last year the committee at that time had a split vote and we couldn't make a strong recommendation so we opted to do the process again which is why we continued it for the 22-23 school year in addition to the adoption processes we also looked at materials that we needed around board policy and languages and so we made some recommendations around those for suicide prevention materials and oh my gosh I just lost my train of thought so you'll see that listed in the report we also did some work around our assessments so we partnered with anet during the time period where our previous partner had left and before we onboarded our new partner with cncp we went through and did a vetting of all of our assessments so we did a running inventory list we took out any of them that were excessive or duplicates we had a variety of stakeholders that helped with that from a certified classified staff Union representation principals and then we had three parents that were a part of that work as well we did that in the summer of 2022 and then we carried that into our assessment strategy that you saw in el6 monitoring report doc has been a part of this and so we bring our information back to them including any policy revisions that we're considering so they provide input onto that our uip work also helps with our uip subcommittee excuse me helps to support with some of these pieces this year they focused on math and so they helped with some of those are um six 12 science curriculum was also adopted in the previous school year we did the implementation of that this year that was done in 612 so we built out all the scope and sequence the teachers helped alongside those and so you'll see some of that listed both with the piloting and the instructional materials and the survey results as you scroll down on page three the other part we added was the growth and development which is part of the statutory requirements we partnered with kids first around these resources in there and took the state's recommendations and so you'll see the growth and development presentation that is specific for fifth grade students within the statutory requirements the other pieces that we had were we added which will be implemented in the 2324 school year is curricular resources around riding the waves for fifth grade Suicide Prevention that goes along with the board policy revisions that came forward this year and then signs of suicide which will be specific to students in grade 7th and ninth grade we're going to be piloting those pieces out but it'll be taught across all of those grade levels there throughout the school day foreign and then towards the end of page what about four you'll see that the policy revisions that we recommended as well let me know if you have any questions on any of the evidence that we had for this particular report thank you so much Miss Burke board members questions comments um thank you so much for this um I think this is another um opportunity like I'm just so glad that we're walking through each one um to discuss them for me this is another one that I would love to bring forward to the board for revisions because I think um one of my biggest concerns when we adopted the curriculum was the training time and the professional development time for educators because it's new curriculum that has to be aligned to the standards and you have to redo everything that they had just done and to me that that was my biggest concern so I I would love to include that in this process just because I think it will um make it a better process um and then I also think again because we have such a unique opportunity here in Adams 14 um to be a little less um politically correct is the only term I could think of but like when I look at policy under number four where we're saying we're going to include insofar as possible multi-ethnic materials which depict a pluralistic society I feel like we can adjust that to make it our own um and to um just provide deeper learning opportunities for our district that I think is very receptive and and would would want that but those are my only comments thank you I like all the information that was in here I think um it's sounding logical like getting every every stakeholders at the table to talk about curriculum adoption and things like that um I agree with um president Lovato for that number four it's almost um forget the terms but it's almost like oh it'll come back to me but it's it's almost like saying um we will conform to I don't know it just um I think we'll tolerate it opposed to this is what we do right um better terms will come to me later um but yeah I think that um it you know in the spirit of being proactive I'm just thinking about if this is the time or space and it might not be but to you know in the policy wording section um maybe adding a number seven like you know fail to ensure that you know I I'm just thinking about the alignment of if we're doing signs of suicide and writing the waves and we're talking about um being inclusive and um being welcoming of all identities I'm just wondering if if this is a space where we talk about or address any type of book bands because we do know that the um the majority of book bands are on authors of color are and lgbtq themed books um and so if we are talking about inclusivity and um and and we know that you know correlations with not having safe and welcoming environments in school suicide rates are higher like I'm just trying to put all of those pieces together and in the spirit of being proactive thinking is this a space where we would put something where we um say and we you know we will not ban books because the majority of the books that are banned are lgbtq and our bypoc authors and things like that um so yeah again just trying to be proactive and thinking about if this is the space or time to do that and if so if it falls under el7 um I'll I'll add to that I think that's really important um I I was um doing one of my board Partners um Equity sessions and um they highlighted there were a couple of districts in Colorado that passed educational Equity policies um I'll have to look into a little deeper and if that could be integrated better as an executive limitation or a policy but I I think it's it's so directly correlated with social emotional learning that I I feel like we have to um include it in something like this Madam president yes I also want to remind the um the board that a couple of years back the legislature passed a statutory mandate to teach Multicultural studies which included lgbtq Asian American Native American Latino black um histories and how those histories are reflected in the contributions of not only to our our national um in our our national health but also our state um so you know those are requirements in there so I don't know if that is in in the 1192 commission also which uh which finished their work and was passed by the State Board of Education back in November of 2022.

so um let's see all right so let's start um welcome to the May 25th 2023 electronic meeting of the environmental commission this meeting is in accordance with executive orders from the governor to affect social distancing and mitigate the spread of the covid-19 virus we intend to conduct this meeting similarly to an in-person meeting however please be patient if there are technical issues public comment will be via telephone only to speak during any of the public comment opportunities please call foreign [Music] this information is also available on the published agenda in the Public Notices section of the city website and on the broadcast of this meeting on CTN Channel 16 at T channel 99 and online at www.a2gov dot org slash watch CTN all right um Sean would you read the land Heritage statement apparently I think Steve I acknowledge that the land the city of Ann Arbor occupies is the ancestral traditional and contemporary lands of the anishinabe including Odawa Ojibwe and badewad me and YN dot peoples I further acknowledge that our city stands like almost all property in the United States on lands obtained generally in unconscionable ways from indigenous peoples The Taking of this land was formalized by the Treaty of Detroit in 1807.

so uh uh this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes please call [Music] 877-853-5247 that's 877-853-5247 and enter meeting ID 922-9696-1644 again that's meeting ID 922-9696-1644 this information is also displayed on the meeting agenda and video feed City staff will select callers that have raised their hand one by one using the last three digits of your phone number in order to electronically raise your hand to indicate your desire to speak please press star 9 on your phone you will hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sound so that we may hear you clearly please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments and be patient there's a there's a delay of up to 30 seconds before a connection is established um I will note that we do have a caller on the line their hand is not raised yet um so call our uh if if you do want to raise your hand please do so um otherwise we will wait a little bit in case anyone calls it didn't see anyone in addition Sean uh no one else has called in and that caller has not raised their hand all right in that case I will ask for a motion to adjoin adjourn Steve thank you second Shannon um so um everyone who agrees that we adjourn say aye and thank you all um and see you next month June 22nd let's stay in touch thank you Rita you did a great job thanks yes indeed thanks for the guidance all right good night everyone

for the regular meeting for the building board Appeals for uh May 25th 2013. roll call David arnsdorf Robert Hart here you flat here Kevin Cox Paul darling here for staff Mike Redmond here Mike Lemieux here and myself Deborah Williams we do have a quorum thank you so first item is any public commentary for General is there anybody from the public economy that wants to or the person wants to comment seeing none approval of the agenda can we have a motion to prove the agenda move to approve second was a favor aye agenda passes approvable minutes from the January 19th 2013 meeting any comment on those I haven't had a chance to look at them from when they came in so seeing no comments if you might have a motion to approve them a motion to approve the January meeting minutes second those in favor aye aye those are passed the first item on the agenda for the show cause hearing is BBA 23001 appeal for 2111 White Street Ann Arbor Michigan is there someone here to speak on that uh variance come up and sign in and tell us a little bit about your appeal signed in I sent over an abbreviated kind of packet for this meeting but first off I want to thank you because this is not a standard meeting and I appreciate you fitting this in considering the importance of a project it's three units that were designed as walk-up you know neighborhood townhouses um they are designed as townhouses they are clinically defined as dwelling units um the walk-up has a small foyer with parking behind and a podium three-hour Precast 10-inch playing Podium that it sits on a thank you a little bit more so that Podium again it's a 10 inch Plank with a overpour which is three plus hours actually with a 12 inch and it sits on a 12 inch wall concrete wall grouted solid which is shown in plan I'm happy to pull these up or or present them but um pretty simple three three units beside each other to walk up the stair goes in the front and we could have classified this as mixed use separated was actually only a two hour a horizontal assembly and the vertical wall would be obviously permitted it's a lot easier to do a vertical separation than a horizontal um but open parking structures are required to be 1A as accepted by the 2018 code and 2021 code um that allow for vertical offsets we now have a vertical offset which is was amended but the 2015 code doesn't really identify that under the mixed use separated if we went that route we the 1A construction requirement would require 1A plus 5B So the plan was to do a 5B structure and have a 1A clinical parking structure but um the discussion and plan review was that it needed to be one construction type so we decided to go back to Podium as IT addresses the um to be adopted code so have any questions there's a pretty simple I don't know if you it's hard to tell what you guys are looking at but there's a pretty simple but I understand what you're saying too when it would have had in the written appeal was that uh butcher compliant is um part of the 2018 code is that correct and 21 which was is uh we've summarized each comparison exactly pure section on this last sheet just including the 2015.

[Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] foreign this is normal here we have a quorum okay this time I will ask for a motion to go into executive session and a motion to approve items 2.1 through 2.4 whereas an njsa 10-4-12 allows for a public body to go into closed session during a public meeting and whereas the Board of Education of Evesham Township has deemed it necessary to go into some closed session to discuss certain matters that are accepted from the public and whereas the regular meeting of the board will reconvene follow the end of the closed session at approximately 7 30.

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dedicated staff families and Community the district provides a strong Educational Foundation that will Empower our students to achieve their unique potential Embrace self-directed lifelong learning develop the skills necessary for appropriate risk staping and responsible decision making respect themselves and others problem solve individually and collaboratively and become contributing members of the diverse Global Society thank you Dr Smith lower is yours to begin your presentation thank you Mr Roger so um we have a lot of amazing presentations tonight and take advantage of the incredible audience turn out we have an extra special commercial first and Mr Fox is going to come over and if our three District honors Elementary band students can come up on the stage they're going to play just a little teaser trailer of what awaits anyone who goes to the Cherokee pack at seven o'clock on June 5th to Monday and Mr Fox so these students are part of our district elementary honors van they're part of 62 students in total they'll be performing like Dr Smith said on June 5th at the Cherokee Performing Arts Center they're going to perform a song for you tonight titled Legacy of Heroes that combines the song Taps and America the Beautiful so here is Matthew Josie and Haley go back down [Applause] [Music] hahaha [Music] oh [Music] all right [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] that was that was absolutely fantastic and uh they've been playing all over town they played at the Beeler field day earlier this week so just got to keep your eye out yeah right so all right we're going to move on to some other recognitions and before we um there's so many great ones I want to do them all at once but we got to take our time and go slow because each of the kids is amazing we have uh our South Jersey Orchestra up here on the stage these are students from our district that made it to the South Jersey Orchestra and they're going to play a little bit for us I'm going to turn it over to Mr Western thank you we're going to play a song called Tumbleweed Blues this was one of the songs that we played last month at the the all-south Jersey elementary honors orchestra concert uh so um without further delay we're going to play it for you right now [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you foreign [Music] thank you how's that now is that better there we go there we go good good good Isabella Bailey sick okay [Applause] Alice solorsano Maria Ibrahim [Applause] elong Wang Henry Cunningham [Applause] perfect Oliver Lieberman [Applause] [Music] Hannah Baraka [Applause] [Music] Preston Lightfoot [Applause] [Music] Brett Novoa [Applause] great job Brent there you go Victoria Lee [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Sophia Schnabel [Applause] Lisa mercha oh Leo sorry lira mercha great job lira Darwin De Lucas [Applause] great job great job Nathan Cramer [Applause] [Music] Kramer Nathan Madison Smith [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Abigail Escalante [Applause] [Music] [Applause] and ishan nandi [Applause] and just a big round of applause as well for Mr Wester and Mrs Smith back here without them there's no this so [Applause] and um as the students pack up their stuff all right now um and uh one last round of applause for all the great student musicians and our band [Music] [Applause] all right great job everybody so while they're packing up um the next Award winner you have to see it so that's why we're moving things back to get the screen down um um I think it's I think it'll be okay yeah yeah now yeah that'd be great yep yeah you can pull that up yeah thanks Richard yeah it's the first one you when you go to that link it's the very first poster all right so while this screen's coming down is there a Shea Hurley in the house somewhere Shea Hurley Shay come on down come on down so Shea is in second grade all right third grade third grade sorry third grade she um and this is like the this um certificate here I'm just going to read it because it's it's maybe the like the longest certificate we ever uh we ever created but that's because of how much you won okay so Shea Hurley for winning the 2023 New Jersey that's like Statewide conservation one Water poster contest in Burlington County she was the Grand Champion so that's a contest that was grades two all the way all the way through 12 like seniors in high school okay which will be someday but you already won this in third grade okay and she was first place as well of course in order to be grand champion you're also going to be first place in the grades two to three bracket too so it was really two Awards in one and um we're going to get the the poster up here in a second because you have to see it um but in the meantime do you want to you want to tell everybody a little bit about it or um it was a one water themed and it tried to spread awareness through New Jersey about water conservation beautiful right it's awesome there it is right there [Applause] [Music] there's um all different ways on how to say water around the border and there's ground water um precipitation evaporation condensation and there was just like this little um message um that just is sprinkled everyone the poster don't taught her save the water and it shows that we all use the same water it could be wasted or could be needed or anything it's just beautiful um I don't know if you can see but she wrote the word for water in different languages all the way around the border of the poster um and uh it makes me think I almost think you know when we go around town and we see those little turtle signs that are on like uh the gutters in the streets you know just reminding people that like the water in our neighborhoods eventually goes to the ocean and it's going to be in Wildlife I think uh we should put a second one of your poster right next to those because uh the turtle is great and your poster encompasses just the totality of everything as you said precipitation and and more so much more thank you so much are your parents here do they want to take a picture of Mrs Ryan come over Limelight shy but come on now come on over so [Music] [Applause] right I know music right [Applause] all right Mr Case so we're Switching gears it's like a decathlon of student accomplishment tonight um music art academics because that poster was really everything and on to Athletics so we had the demacie baseball team here so if those if the team come on down [Music] oh baseball team managers coaches everybody come down so it's getting a little taller that's first thing I noticed right as they're walking down get a little taller so um all right so the undefeated season getting all the way to the South Jersey Middle School baseball league Simon Cup Championship um I could see them play twice this year MMS and uh this week at the Memorial Field and the way you guys uh play not just you know um athletic skill but uh your team spirit and sportsmanship you've represented our district amazingly throughout the season and uh what what a what a great accomplishment you've had this year and I hope those of you who are 8th graders can take that on with you as memories into high school and those of you who are in sixth and seventh because I know the team has a has a spread of all three grades that you can um build on this even next year and keep that kind of like um Championship uh camaraderie and spirit on next year and Beyond and um add anything to that but that's a h so from day one our uh our little champ before the game was uh the Mason 3 family on six and um we sure lived up to it by the end of the season you know we came up short in the end but um you know this is a season I'll remember forever we uh we really came together and um you know there's that old saying you win as a team who loses a team either way we're a team we're a family and uh it's a great season you should all be very proud [Music] [Applause] all right so here we go alphabetical order James Bravia braviak [Applause] Colin broccoliary [Applause] and we've got Cooper birdie [Applause] Gavin Feeney [Applause] Parker Gill [Applause] Joseph jedlika Ralph jedlika [Applause] Jacob litzky congratulations Matthew mihalik [Applause] Alex o'dude [Applause] Sheamus Ott [Applause] Lucas Searle [Applause] Brock Sutphin [Applause] Casey winkelmann [Applause] and no team would be a true Team without a great group of managers Okay so we've got Mia Donovan somebody's got to keep order on that team right so Isabella patine and Isabella Randall [Applause] also over there coach Casey Jane Shafer all right so one last round of applause for all of our demisi dolphin champions [Applause] all right so we are there's a method there's a little sequence to the sequence so we are moving on to staff recognition but this is every staff recognition because all our you know our goal as a staff is to serve students so it's by extension of student recognition as well we want to call down um demacy and middle Macy and Martin Middle uh no place for hate teams if they can come down I have to see Mr hoppin Ms Greene Miss Miss Mason Miss Robbins is there um so um no place for hate is a recognition that schools have to earn it's very rigorous to do this it's a national recognition through the Anti-Defamation League and this is a historic year because both our middle schools earned it and these are the first schools in etsd to earn this recognition again a national recognition um we we have Middle School Banner here I'm so glad you brought it because I was feeling bad we had the demising one already up there and I was thinking oh we can only be in one place at a time and nobody would know nobody would have seen the Middle School in but always thinking so uh it's fantastic to have that and um I'm going to turn it over to Mr Hoffman just to share a little bit more about the process thank you Dr Smith so what began a journey about a year ago with the support of the Board of Education leadership of Dr Smith leadership and guidance of Miss mcgullick really kind of worked through over the course of this year about 1800 students and staff at both middle schools it was a really great opportunity to engage in activities that were approved by no place for hate to walk in partnership with them appreciated so much the support of our counselors Heather Robbins Laura Mason Matt Robinson at the Macy and and Beth Michael Isaac at the Macy and Miss green as well so we'll talk a little bit about it and I'll turn it over to principal green okay uh you know being here starting in February it was a wonderful opportunity for me to learn more about the program uh and really the commitment as Mr Hoffman talked about the students all pledge to really commit to um making sure that bias and bullying is not taking place and really accepting each other seeing what we can do together as a collective unit to be able to support everyone and to make sure that everyone's voices are heard and also respected as well so it's wonderful to see the students Embrace no place for hate is throughout this building and throughout the middle school also at Marlton middle school and the C students really being proactive to see what they can do to make our school better not only our school but our society and our world together as well and we're also going to have some information that's being shared from the counselors as well so just to give you an idea we do different activities every month or so in the school we thought we'd share one of those activities with you so one of our most recent activities we went through a whole bunch of different video clips short video clips online and we found one that we really felt the students could relate to so this particular clip happens in a Burger King and they had child actors in there and they had these actors purposely bullying each other at the same time they also had the staff bullying their burgers so they were punching the burgers calling them names and the point of this was to see are more people going to stand up and say something about their burger or the students that are actually being bullied in the middle of Burger King so we go through this whole video there's you're laughing you're feeling sad you go through all these emotions and then you find out at the end that 95 of people said something about the burger but only about 12 percent intervened about the students so it kind of just it was a good conversation starter and then we did some activities from there after that the students had a moment to reflect and kind of talk amongst themselves and then they actually did a project with it um they were able to write their Reflections they were able to make a comic strip or they were able to draw you know just their feelings and what they saw about the pro uh the videos and then they kind of just shared it with the class and I know the feedback from the teachers they really liked it and the kids really liked the video they liked that it was a subject that really pertained to them in middle school was something that was real life lessons for them thank you I'll just call each of you over to get your certificate Miss green you want to come over [Applause] is Laura Mason and Miss Heather Robbins [Applause] and Mr Hoffman he you guys should get a second there just say we leave him out so uh thank you again very very much we look forward to uh doing this trying to earn our maintain that recognition each year and um just that story about the birking uh video is is so uh emblematic I think of the work that our counselors do to come up with like to meet kids where they are and come up with ways that are relatable to them and their experience and uh so I really appreciate that example first so the window for everybody yeah thank you [Applause] um it's a lot of stuff all right we're going to move on um this next award um is for our social behavioral support program and I'm looking at Dr Bland over there do you want to talk about you want to come on up while we're doing this and uh I would uh the um and the mes staff who are here if you can call come on down and and [Applause] so so I'm actually going to let you uh read the names when we get to that just leave a heart so um it's always fun to see people that you see like we see we experience each other like at MES but like here we are seeing each other and amazing it's like it's like wait where there should be like a fin whale behind you somehow uh the mes greatest mascot ever right um but I guess the closest relative to that among our mascots would be Dolphins so it's appropriate that we're here so um and I'm going to read the certificate just people understand a little bit um it says congratulations on achieving the 2023 New Jersey School Board Association Innovations in special education award Innovations in special education award for New Jersey from Alton Elementary School's social behavioral support SBS program that's just amazing out of the whole state to win this award and I'm going to turn it over to Dr Ben Miss bulls for some more words sure I think I was the principal at MES for three days when the application for this award came across my desk but even in that short time I knew that the rsbs program was worthy of this award because I was instantly wowed by the program the dedication of the staff the hard work of the students and so I want to give a special shout out to Liz picciniti she ran with it submitted the application and put all of the data in there and really represented all the hard work that everyone does but truly this is the most dedicated group of people that that I've had the privilege of working with they truly give their all every single day for the students in the classroom the love and care they have for the students is evident every day is a new day they have an endless well of positivity that they tap into and come in and show up for our students every day I also want to give a shout out to our students who are an amazing group of people and I am so honored and proud to to be here and be able to recognize them in this way so thank you for all of your hard work and everything you do for our students every day you are so deserving of this award [Music] and um just just to build on that echoing to the beginning of mine but that's okay um and I just wanted to say that I think that the collaboration in this team I think is is second to none it definitely takes a village there's no I in team all of those things and and this group in front of us tonight really exemplifies that and if I could just um quote when I hear Rita Pearson say that every child deserves deserves a champion an adult that will never give up on them and understands the power of connection and insists that they become the best that they can possibly be and that and that's that's all of you so with gratitude from all of us for all that you put into your kids your nuggets your Ever every day um I'm honored we're honored to recognize our team of Champions who persevere through the good days and those that those that present obstacles with the shared vision of supporting each and every child so thank you for all that you do [Applause] Lara batesol Carrie Blackford Jen Bradley is also not here Lisa Burdette [Music] [Applause] [Music] Judy Syria [Music] [Applause] Brittany chard [Applause] INE ciotti [Applause] [Music] Casey Clements [Applause] Janelle dashiko Melissa Melissa Demarco is not here Chris Dunn [Applause] Aaliyah [Laughter] I know my limitations congratulations Danielle friedenthal our behaviorist is not here tonight Aisha Hawkins congratulations thank you Dylan not here tonight he was with us earlier Michelle mcandrew thank you Donna O'Connor so not here Sue panchella Elizabeth piccinini [Applause] I hope I haven't you skinny [Music] Donna Poole Lisa Sadowski [Applause] congratulations Rachel to Dooney case manager is not here tonight and Jamie Turman no Jamie okay Jamie's not here all right let's do a picture Bring it on Bring it in bring it in bring it in come on we gotta we gotta pack it in we gotta pack it in here okay it's difficult congratulations again to our mes SBS staff and if you didn't have a chance Dr Bland alluded to it but um on our website you can find the video that New Jersey school boards Association made where um they profile rsbs program our program is at the very beginning of the video the link was also in my weekly update last week and you can hear Liz piccionini talking really well really eloquently about the impact of the program so encourage everyone to check that out all right so we started with music rounding out with music and this is um I'm going to read the certificate if we could have our music staff who are here come on down because I feel like just come on come on down now because uh this award really puts its arms around every single aspect of music education and I'm looking at Ms McCool like Mr Google you got to come up for this one I know you're usually taking the pictures but this one you got to come on up the uh so it says as everybody's walking down it says Evesham Township School District is recognized as one of The NAMM which uh stands for National Association of Music merchants it's a national award 2023 best communities in music education Nationwide for outstanding support of music education um there were about 800 districts recognized with this which sounds like a decent number but not if you look at as I did how many school districts there are across the entire country and when you look at the entire country it actually places Us in the top four percent of school districts for music education across the entire country so which is just I go back to Old grading it's like an A plus basically so um that's absolutely fantastic um and uh I know I'm standing next to Rob and Sarah here and you guys worked on the application I don't know if you want to talk a little bit about like uh just what it what it was you know I could talk a little bit and what I forget Mr Fox can fill in um so yeah Mr Fox and I got together and we went on a zoom call with some other Educators in New Jersey and heard about the process and thought you know what we have an awesome program in Evesham it's time that we get recognized for it so we sat down and we went through this page after page application 67 pages to be exact um we had to get like exact numbers and percentages and things like that and just think reflecting on everything that we do in Evesham Township and the amazing teachers we have and the opportunities we offer these students in music I was like we have to get this if we don't get this what else could we do so we were really excited when we found out that we we were selected and Mr Fox you want to add anything okay so the process was long but the reward was totally worth it and I mean when you hear the kids and you see these guys up here I mean I don't know we it's awesome so thank you and just uh just just as I'm as we're all standing here I'm looking at everybody I was just thinking about like how um it takes coordination and vision at every level to achieve this from you know starting at the curricular level and creating the structure that we have here to our curriculum Department to be able to have you know such a scaffolded multi-pronged music education programming and then at every aperture of that structure to have people carrying out that same vision you know because among the people we have here we it's it's I mean we're talking General music we're talking instrumental music we have theater programs that have continued to Blossom every year and grow and you know that is all under the umbrella of music education and arts education and um so I just I'm I'm like and then you just took the time to do the six seven page application you know so uh somewhere and you're like you're you know it's not you have like a 26 hour day I think not a 24-hour day like the rest of us but uh a few dinners okay so um so let's let's do the awards can you want to come over and you can Rob Fox Maddie Goldman it's not here Joe Malone [Applause] Mark White is not here all right yep Junior crescenza okay [Applause] Heidi Dillon very special retiring this year Mike Eustis not here Jen Kane not here today Meredith Louden okay [Applause] Tim Moyers not here this evening Lorraine sandoni also very special retiring this year games [Applause] Tamara kimmler not here this evening Sarah Smith yay congratulations Michael westner Jen congrats larnis congrats Mary cordino congrats okay and erky couldn't be here this evening Kate Gormley could be here this evening Caitlyn recipe couldn't be here okay right so I do I do would just say thank you so much it's such an honor to work with such great staff I know you know from Robin and me we just love working with you and seeing your performances it's just always a pleasure so thank you let's bring it in for a picture let's bring it in let's bring it in oh thank you thanks Rob yeah thanks man thanks Sarah thank you [Applause] foreign somebody sat down but I'm going to make them stand right back up again so so we have um I'm coming around the front here so so we it takes a village of many stakeholders to make this undertaking of etsd work and um Ms Ryan if you you're going to check to shake your own hand on this one okay so so this certificate is awarded to our board president Leah Ryan for earning the distinction of becoming a certified board member by the New Jersey school boards Association which is are an arduous process a long process in person and online many hours and probably glad to be done that right right um but it's it's I think it speaks volumes about the level of commitment from our board that um we have a now a certified board president um and uh just um you know it it reinforces I think uh that achievement matters you know continuing education matters um and and from there you can see it ripples out to what we saw tonight so thank you [Applause] we're missing a handshake here he's got to come up in that I just like I just like making Mr Canton stand somewhere he's going to get his picture taken that's what it's so uh thank you guys thank you yes and that's the certificate has the rarest of signatures which is Mr Ashanti's signature so it's worth a lot more than mine um and uh which happens later in the evening is there anything you wish to discuss the meeting will now be open to the public referencing agenda items only however if your questions pertain to student or Personnel items or negotiations we ask that you see the superintendent after the meeting since we do not discuss these matters in public we ask that the limiter comment to three minutes per person it's also crucial please you give us your name and address before you speak up and also to limit your comments to one time her public comment period is there anyone who's just to speak [Music] um okay seeing now you're going to close that portion of the meeting there will be another public comment section at the end at this point we're going to move forward with the approval of the minute sending a motion to approve item 6.1 is going to do I have a motion Mr Hampton Mr Thompson any questions or comments regarding the minutes seeing nine year old colleagues yes Miss Fox yes Mr taffet yes this is all obscene yes Mr Thomas yes thank you we are now going to move on to 807 superintendents report and administrative items so I have a motion to approve item 7.1 through 7.5 Miss Fox second Mr Hampton before we get into questions or comments we'll even give this word once again to Dr Smith thank you Mrs Ryan shorter comments tonight just given the presentations we had but um just for their continuing effort each and every day to support every student especially as we get to the end of the year and you can hear that the bell for the Bell lab it is such a recently both past and upcoming so if you haven't gotten the chance you have to go by the township building and check out our etsd eyes on art art show it's it's going on now through June 5th absolutely incredible two floors worth of stew which was incredible and featured actually um student musicians as well I want to thank our Township for allowing us to use that space in that way it really is such a such a way to such a stage for our artists so thank you to our Township um and then lastly uh in terms of schools I would like to recognize this month is Asian Pacific American heritage month and here in Needham Township School District we absolutely recognize and valued and lift up all students all persons it's respect and appreciation of our different cultures our commonalities and differences our Venn diagrams and take actions directed against any person including on the base basis of race or ethnicity very seriously there was a recently released state report that includes all school and district grades and harassment limitation of bullying that's like at the bottom of our district website homepage I'd like to also highlight that our board member Niche camp and vice president is our first Asian American board member in our District's history um and perhaps uh first Asian American Airlines official in our Township's history that is an amazing amazing uh thing to recognize is illustrates as well just a wonderful where we are right now so that there's a town this weekend to grow he was recognized today by the New Jersey state legislature honoring Mr Hampton for his service on our board and his care for Education which is embodied by the fact in part that he was unable to attend that ceremony today in Trenton despite technology probably never been there except what's more important than that is that there's a board meeting tonight he prioritized being here for this work to be part of these congratulations and the work of our board as a as a team and a whole over attending that recognition in the state capital so thank you for president thank you any questions or comments to the superintendent's report maybe seeing the hospital's horrible qualities Mr Bob yes Miss Fox yes Mr K yes this is all yes Miss Lee yes this is Ryan yes Mr Thompson yes moving to item 8 curriculum instruction I need a motion to approve items 8.1 through 8.4 do I have emotion this is here and Miss Noel thank you any questions or comments regarding curriculum instruction foreign [Music] yes yes yes moving to item nine finance and operations I would like a motion to approve items 9.1 through 9.27 0.5 Edition Mr Thompson second impact and any questions or comments pertaining to finance and operations a facing member of properties Mr Bob yes Mrs Fox yes uh yes to everything interesting ordinary traveler thank you thanks this is all yes to everything but 9.4 board member travel I love staying on that one Miss Lake yes to everything except I went for uh yes Mr Thompson yes okay moving to item 10 Personnel I would like a motion to approve items 10.5 through 10.10 do I have a motion Miss Fox Miss Noel any questions or comments pertaining to personnel broke all things Mr Bach yes Mr smogs yes Mr Kenneth yes this is Noel yes Miss Lake yes this is Ryan yes Mr Thompson yes but she carries I would make a motion to approve approve I know it's 11.1 and 11.2 so I have a motion Mr Johnson circuited by Miss Lee any questions or comments pertaining to policy okay seeing them okay yes Miss Fox yes Mr Taffy yes Mrs Lowell yes Miss Lee yes this is Ryan yes Mr Thompson yes errors and moving on to committee reports does any committee chair or never have a report they wish to share before foreign policy met last week for our quarterly meeting um most of the things that we just voted on were mandated so I'm not a lot to change but if anyone has any questions anyone on the policy committee would be happy to talk thank you any other committee reports okay right now we moved to Old business which we do not have any of in a new business which we do not have any new business either and finally we're going to move to open public comment meeting will now be open to the public referencing any items of Interest however if you have questions or comments pertain to litigation student or Personnel items or negotiations we ask that you see this through current event after the meeting students we do not discuss three minutes per person and also this section is meant for Law College is there anyone close this section are there any questions or comments on the board I guess okay sure miss Noel just wanted to update everybody on the what was discussed at Burlington County School boards meeting that I attended last week they are very informative and it was at that informative of our field we reported to us that requirements for the mandated training board member once you're sworn in in January as a new board member you have nice to take in governance one which is a big change it used to allow till the end of the year so moving forward that that anybody would have to abide by and then the other update date was very interesting it was from one of the attorneys he went over a bunch of bills that were passed through the assembly that I thought were important there were a number of bills to alleviate the teacher shortage issue that he spoke about you can read about it online but some for example expedited certification throughout our professionals and they've talked about um the teacher certification reimbursement fund and so on you're shaving like in your head you know about it and um two of the things I thought were very interesting to alleviate the bus driver shortage and they are told on I have to scroll down to that okay so this bill would allow the drivers like non-cbl drivers to drive the small school buses the ones that only have nine students you do not need a CDL to drive those buses which will help but of course it has not been passed the other thing is the waiver for the under the hood certification the CDL certification for under the hood has been waived for school bus drivers that's going to continue that's been extended which was also very good and the last thing for John Finance they are another bill is to allow school districts to keep buses for 20 years instead of 15. step right so we have to move our eye on the Windows as they move through the state legislature very interesting thank you you're welcome Mr Kenton thanks Mr Ryan yeah I just wanted to commend you again for giving your board member certification um I think it's really easy when you're a leader to kind of put your feet up and worry about everyone else but not only do you worry about kids but you're also continuing your own education I think that says a lot about your growth mindset and I think thank you so much appreciate that guys are there any quizzes remarks on the board okay at this point I'll ask our emotions return it's snowing second is fast all those in favor bye all right give me a journey [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] foreign

into order please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance thank you let the record reflect that all board members are present next we will move to item B1 audience with individuals Ms Densmore thank you this is the time for the public to comment members of the board may not discuss items that are not specifically identified on this agenda pursuant to ARS 38431.01 action taken as a result of public comment will be limited to directing staff to studying the matter responding to any criticism or scheduling the matter for further consideration and decision at a later date in order to facilitate accomplishing the the business of the district in a timely manner a time limit of three minutes will be imposed for each individual or group addressing the board when you approach the podium please state your name for the record and we have Mr Jim Hagedorn Amy Jim Hagedorn okay um what I'm going to address is dress code on May 1st at 1 30 pm at the school at a school bus drop off at Cheryl and citrus a girl got off the bus I live at the third one acre House East of citrus my worker and I were at the edge of the roadway on my property when she walked by us her shorts were shorter than hot pants and left nothing nothing to our imaginations now I grew up in the 60s with long hair shootings Kent State Vietnam girls wearing hot pants you get the picture but to uh but to compare it but to compared to this this this uh situation the girls of the 70s would be considered pedal pushers compared to what this girl wore nothing was left now I I just don't understand how she made it all the way through school all day long with nobody mentioning anything to her it is my understanding that schools require a dress code that should be explained in a handbook they receive along with the policies required for the students and parents to follow perhaps this family missed getting this handbook when they were handing them out obviously she was not disciplined at school and and or her parents were called in to bring a respectful outfit for her what is the point of having a dress code if it is not enforced the standards that we set in high school will be what they follow after graduation having worked for the City Department of Phoenix for a long time doing safety instructions it was imperative that we set the standards for the workplace dress code first and foremost as these prospects would be serving the public um on a daily basis we some took we sometimes took in apprentices when they came for interviews it shocked me to see that some of them came in with shorts flip-flops While others obviously took those interviews seriously and dressed appropriately I get it that some parents leave for their jobs before children leave for school and they come home after after the school after the students have finished with school for the day and are not aware of what their kids are wearing I can almost guarantee if a parent was called to address to address this problem and was told to bring appropriate clothing to the school this sort of problem would not happen again no parents want to be called at work and to leave work to bring their clothing proper clothing because their child can't follow the rules I have to believe in the long run these students will thank you later in life for having cared enough to discipline them in regards to respectful clothing at school which would lead them to dressing appropriately later in life for the world that they will enter remember I'm just looking up there it's power and preparation excellence in the journey and success for your lifetime and obviously thank you madam president is this relates to high school we'll ask Dr crota to follow with Mr Hagedorn thank you Dr Dean do we have any others okay thank you next we will move on to item C1 superintendent update Dr Dean thank you madam president members of the governing board cabinet in our community this evening I'm excited to announce to you that the end of the school year has arrived and we would like to send a formal thanks to all of our staff all of our students and for our community for a great school year it it goes too fast every year and the longer that I've done this the faster it goes and I I have made a joke every year for the last 15 years on the first day of school when cabinet convenes in the afternoon to to discuss the the events of the day and I I always say I can't believe how fast this school year is going at the end of day one and at the end of day 180 it's the reality of we can't believe how fast the school year has gone but we want to thank all of all the folks involved in our school system for a great school year and we want to wish everybody a happy and safe summer and we look forward to them rejoining us again our students rejoining us again in August and as the board is aware next week is summer workshop and we'll welcome about 80 percent of our returning teachers into summer workshop and look forward to that as well I want to just provide a a couple of updates to the board on a couple of pieces that we've been working on after the board had tabled the item on the county vaccination program we contacted the county and requested a couple of simple changes to the agreement one being uh asking for a list of the vaccines that they provide that we could have that included in the agreement and then the other one was in lieu of the fact that the the covid pandemic has been declared over asking them to remove um the language as it relates to coveted protocols the county was not um receptive to changing their agreement and as a result they have moved on from us to look for other partners so the board will not see that item further also want to let the board know that we officially now can say we've known this unofficially for a little while but it is now official that we received all of the SRO grants that we put in for the State of Arizona and I'm very excited to announce that next year we will have 13 sros in our school district and so that's exciting and I want to think yeah absolutely I'd like to think Mr musee and Mr Yeager for their work on on that Grant some of you were on the board a few years back when we wrote for a couple of sros and a couple of other positions and we got none of them and so this time we got all of the grants that we put in for and so thank you to them and and the team nice job Craig good work and then the last part of my update this evening is just a state championship update as it relates to Athletics because that wrapped up in the last couple of weeks Willow Canyon High School came just two runs short of a three-peat for state championship with a softball and they were the state runner-up in 5A Shadow Ridge High School's 4 by 100 boys relay team was the division one Champions and Blaise Nelson who I still think has the best name for a track runner of anybody repeated as the state champion in the uh in the large School Division in the 100 and 200 meters which means for the second year in a row we have the fastest Arizona high school athlete in the state so and Madam president and governing board that wraps up my update for the evening thank you Dr Dean we will move on to item B2 governing board update I'm pretty short but exciting I mean at the end of the school year I'm sure everybody's thrilled attended the Sundown ceremony where we celebrated 134 students that participated and of course went to the graduations of all four high schools so congratulations to the class of 2023 and hard to say we're going to be talking about 2024 and pretty next time but anyway congratulations to all of them I also attended the high school graduations just want to congratulate all of our students for a job well done for all their hard work and dedication and The Best Is Yet To Come for all of them so thank you I also attended the Sundown Mountain completion ceremony as well as the Kingswood kindergarten graduation and all four High School graduations as well and congratulations not only to our students but to our parents for getting through 13 years with their kids I know all those wake-ups and you know get ready and maybe some crazy mornings so congratulations parents um I just want to say thank you to Mr Yeager Mr musee for all their work and and Dr Dean and Dr croto just for listening to the board not just to the board but to our community that's Safety and Security is really a priority here in Dysart I'm very um just thrilled for the 13 sros thank you guess what I did this week I attended all four High School graduations also pleasure to attend the Sundown Mountain completion ceremony and again just echoing my fellow board members just congratulations congratulations to all of our graduates um it's such a pleasure it's a totally a highlight of being a board member is seeing those smiling faces and I especially like to see them as they're waiting in line to come up and just seeing that excitement it's just my favorite so I'm very proud of all of them um thank you to all of our parents families friends teachers who helped get them there and support them along the way um and just wishing all of you a wonderful summer rest up for the actually actually I was going to say for next year but no next week we have our summer seminar so thank you for all that you do and have a wonderful summer I didn't do anything Monday so it's Monday oh there's proof okay um yes I also attended the high school graduations on Monday I attended the Sundown Mountain promotion ceremony celebration that was really cool too I want to say thank you to everyone who's attending our summer workshop thank you to our kindergarten teachers who are piloting Spalding um I know our summers are already short but I just want to say thank you to those kindergarten teachers who are volunteering their time to attend that training also um thank you to our principals Mr kashat miss resch Mr Frazier Dr Schwartz thank you for your organization for our graduation ceremonies everything was well done it was smooth so I want to say thank you to our principals too so congratulations to all our graduates and I hope everyone has a fabulous summer and with that we will move on to item D1 I will make the motion to approve consent agenda items as presented motion made by Crystal Chapman seconded by Joe Grant motion carries next we will move on to G1 Dr D oh wait just kidding back to F sorry it's right in front of me item F1 Dr Dean thank you madam president members of the governing board cabinet in our community this evening we have three more school CIP reports and they will be introduced by Dr assai Dr croto and Dr assai so Dr assai good evening Madam president members of the board it is my pleasure to introduce our first CIP report given by riverview's principal Gail Miller I want to say check check but it's already working good evening Madam president governing board cabinet and community members I am the proud principal of Riverview School and honored to be presenting a few of our successes and challenges with you this evening next slide here we go okay we had a renewed focus on data this year by embracing consistent data meetings weekly Administration rtls and data Specialists support teachers analyzing current data points and adjusting targeted plans needed to get students at high levels our school culture is critical is a critical Focus for us at Riverview School as we know that strong connections between families and school impact Student Success we aligned our 21st century tutoring with the instruction provided throughout the day and decreased discipline referrals from third quarter to fourth quarter by 30 percent this allowed our students to be in classrooms learning more we also increased our community events starting all the way back last July with our back to school mixer where we offered free haircuts and school supplies to our students we also had the famous antique car show slash Trunk or Treat event and that was also just a huge event our reading night our family dance our talent show and even our weekly 21st century Grant Family engagement activities that we do um one of our favorite signature ones is our monthly Farm to Table where we average about 50 volunteers one Saturday a month a few of our Partnerships include the Angels in the Outfield Sun City West softball Club Sun City bells and stitches Arizona beauty school and also one of the churches in Sun City our Barracuda pride and celebrations are truly important to us as well we had our Dysart High School alumni come and visit our campus and go around in their camping cap and gowns all through the hallways while our students cheered for them them something to really motivate and push for we had an amazing Sports banquet our parent teacher and student ball game our monthly leader and me Awards in quarterly academic Awards and our boys soccer team went to the Championships we're also our another General celebration is our professional development we were in year three of leader in me where we really focused on student goal setting and those success conferences and with our leader and me coach we did in and out coaching for our teachers um so that we felt was a huge success we really focused our weekly prep connects as well on many professional development sessions focused on the instructional strategies and practices that we saw through our walk through data the last few years the attendance has hovered just below 90 percent and again we must have our students consistently come to school so that is a challenge that we continue to work towards we know that when we do not have solid tier one instruction our needs for tier two and tier three increase thus our PD Focus included implementation of new programs and highly effective teaching practices and strategies such as the levels of our dok or depths of knowledge and also student discourse Administration TLS and data Specialists partnered up with our content specialist here at District which was a huge support in the learning curve for our teachers some academic successes now that we have some k-3 students that are showings a very strong growth according to acadians our next step is to support our students in transferring those skills to higher levels of comprehension which in turn would reflect in their aasa scores kindergarten was at an all-time high at 66 percent at or above Benchmark and first grade was highest in all of their acadians subtests since 2015-16 school year so they've showed huge growth second grade three years high in their ORF measurement and also their overall comp score and using 95 percent group with Fidelity was a tight at Riverview School this year and I believe it really did contribute to that growth third grade did increase significantly in their aasa math due to the consistent data meetings that we held we are looking forward to seeing these gains continue to grow in increased proficiency historically no grade level has been higher than 40 percent so closing that large instructional Gap is a huge challenge for us academically and one that we are committed to also hiring we had opened positions both in fourth grade and sixth grade that really required us to think outside the box and be creative so we can offer the best instruction possible for our students and how we are working on these challenges we had our teachers identify Target student groups and develop differentiated instructional plans we also had a team utilize a structured accountability system by the use of tracking sheets and data talks we increased parent Communication in both academic and attendance we had Student Success conferences and check-ins not just the teachers but with Administration as well and those conversations really led to us seeing students what I call our Barracuda leaders beginning to advocate for their own learning also new this year was having our sixth grade Implement cross-curricular instruction to ensure that Ela standards were reinforced we decided to also departmentalize fourth grade to drive change and proficiency levels and moving forward it will be critical to create a school-wide plan for increasing attendance to have data talks with our instructional cabinet to identify the needs to change what we are doing and increase collaborative instructional planning sessions through highly effective PLC sessions and in the 2324 IAP that we created and drafted it all provides those Focus areas in there thank you and do you have any questions just really quick and let me just it's been a while so let me just check my understanding first um when we talked about tier instruction tier one is like whole group tier two a small group tier three is like more individualized yeah the the tier one is the core program it's the for everybody a hundred percent of our students the tier two is where those students that are just struggling just a little bit and need that additional support to make sure that they're they're right back on track so yes that usually involves small group but again if you have um it's based on the number of students in the skill need so you could possibly come into a classroom of 25 students that need that same skill so then depending on um the specific needs then we um use the format that would be appropriate for that so it could be like a walk to read or a march to math or providing small group instruction within the classroom and having that rotation piece or even a whole group session and of course tier 3 then is yes the more targeted for those ones that have below grade level deficits right okay thank you for clarifying so absolutely in your in your slide then when you said you don't have solid tier one um that means just in general you don't feel like you have solid instruction correct so when you when we're we're really needing to go back and focus on effective planning like that backwards planning piece of knowing our assessment and the in truly understanding the depths of the standards and then being able to create those lessons that um embed all of those amazing strategies and practices that we know so making sure that we have quality check for understandings frequently discussion techniques with students so there's structures in place so they can really dive deep into their understanding of what they're learning and build on that um so yeah just taking all of the things we know that teachers do but make it even better and stronger for our students but that's throughout your school like I've all grades you would you would say as far as you're lacking the Solitaire one instruction at across each grade level there is definitely areas within so yes there's um certain teachers that definitely have all of that and there are teacher leaders that help provide that professional development they offer their classroom for anyone to come in and out to do those observations yeah so very typical typical okay thank you yes but I guess the better we get at tier one the less need for tier two or tier three right yep yep I just have a question when you said that you increased the parent communication for academic and attendance what exactly did you put in place for that we had our teachers definitely reach out for any student that has fall behind and has any F so they would have to immediately communicate them discuss an action plan an academic plan or an attendance plan whatever that might be on what could be causing or what that function is on why they're falling behind and just really making that opening that partnership up partnership up in that communication to make sure that no child is um you know not being addressed did I understand you correctly about not having a fourth grade and a sixth grade teacher yes so the whole year you were short one fourth grade and one sixth grade teacher actually all year we were down two fourth grade teachers out of three and you will notice um as you dig into ASA aasa data in the next few weeks that that would probably reflect that um also in sixth grade our Ela so that's why we got we had to really think outside the box we identified some teachers on campus that specialize like either in math or with the one teacher that was in fourth grade consistently that he showed through his benchmarks that Ela was the right area that he could focus on so that's why we went ahead and determined that if we departmentalized we'll have two stronger we'll be able to make it a stronger thing than just having a day-to-day you know sub or there's not a sub to cover and you know that kind of thing so to try to build the most consistency that we could um that was what we came up with and same with our sixth grade ELA so we did have our daily guest teacher in there every day but at the same time we knew that our social studies teacher would really be able to provide additional Ela lessons and things to ensure that those standards are being met you're welcome thank you so much you're welcome thank you Dr croto thank you Dr Dean next up is Dysart Middle School principal Monica credits thank you very much Madam president members of the board cabinet and community members I'm Monica krenis the principal at Dysart Middle School try and get this to work maybe oh good job good job yeah so for some general celebrations and successes for us at Dysart Middle School this year we had a regained academic focus on campus we had some intervention class periods academic intervention class periods made for our 7th and 8th grade students they were chosen for those particular classes based on their Ela and math performance in the previous year um and that worked out really really well for us um I'll speak to more of that in a minute we also increased our academic celebrations in a belief that you pull from the top with students so each quarter we had honorary role in principles list but we also partnered with El Mirage PD Kona Ice Microsoft for a girls in engineering day on campus and we targeted our students who had performed either on benchmarks or who had gotten all A's and B's during that that quarter so again pulling from the top for our students we did focus our PD and instructional strategies around student engagement that is going to then turn into student feedback for next school year and really focusing in on the feedback and how timely and effective it is for our students um this academic Focus also helped in a reduction in our referrals across the entire school year we saw reduction in referrals both in minor infractions and in major infractions we also attribute that to a culture shift on the campus it was very intentional we put our students we had we teamed them up because I always believe in good competition so we had fifth grade teams sixth grade teams and then our seventh and eighth grade if you've been on our campus we have pods and we had them compete based on benchmark scores grade distributions how many Eagle books were given out during that time frame and then there were rewards for those that were given out we have a big giant trophy the house cup that traveled from Team to team as well because we wanted to encourage the good behaviors and then and and also Drive the academics with that so that's why we included grade distributions and and those things so it has really made a significant shift on our campus we're really really proud of it some general challenges that we've had number one first and foremost is that we have a completely new leadership team myself as a new principal I had an interim assistant principal who will be my official assistant principal for next year he's fantastic we have a brand new TLS and then we were really fortunate to have our new SRO but I like to remind him quite frequently that I had to train him this year too so he's been wonderful great addition to the campus but we've um we and thankfully we all work very well together but that has definitely been a challenge I've heard several campuses also mention student attendance rates as an issue that is a concern on our campus as well we had face-to-face meetings with parents that that worked out pretty good we also lots of phone calls but again pulling from the top we tried to make we had our teachers make very pointed um positive phone calls home for students especially if they had been absent for a stretch to make a positive phone call home to those parents to make to get the kids coming back because that is important another General challenge is that uh you know we just had the new math curriculum and math is near and dear to my heart um so that's just a period of adjustment for even our veteran teachers and we are absolutely getting used to it I feel that their confidence with the curriculum going into third quarter and fourth quarter was significantly better and they were more comfortable with it however I will tell you that we are still this isn't quite with curriculum but we're still challenging our teachers to not Teach as though we're in covid we want them up and around in the classrooms we're trying to balance the online portions with you know Hands-On activities pencil paper assignments and of course student discourse and just having those students to student conversations are important so we're really stressing that academic successes we are going to attribute a lot of our a lot of academic success this year to our fluency Club that was run by our interventionists and a couple of other teachers on campus it was a whole campus reading and speaking intervention um Based on dibble's data because we dated we dibble's tested the entire campus and the students oh and then we also had the intervention classes for our seventh and 8th grade students what we saw though was was so heartwarming we saw great carryover in our students so the ones who were participating in fluency club or that were in the intervention classes they were not only doing better on their Ela benchmarks but they were doing better on their math benchmarks which translated into their overall grade distributions so the carryover effect was fantastic and we're super proud of our teachers for what they did there our academic challenges we're still seeing deficits and foundational skills and I'm going to reiterate the strengthening of the tier one instruction and really what that is for us is having multiple modalities and multiple ways to show Mastery of standards and I we towards the end of the semester or the end of the school year there was lots of student work on the walls there were lots of presentations um in fact we picked our speaker for um or one of our speakers for our eighth grade promotion based on one of the presentations that we saw we went into the classroom and we're like oh my God we need you so he though to again have that multiple modalities and that's what we were seeing towards the end of the school year super proud of our teachers for doing that we're just going to continue so again how we're working on the challenges we have a new bell schedule for next year um so that we're modeled up with the other middle schools and we're going to continue fluency club we already have a team in place for that our tier one instruction PD and professional development on next year is going to be all is going to be very strength and focused on student feedback and goal setting for of students and then we're going to do continued focus on small group instruction in all classrooms our sixth grade team had some great gains this year lots of Confidence from the students and teachers and they were the ones who embraced small group instruction the most it tends to wane off as you get into the older grades but I'm a huge proponent of it all the way through and then we are also going to be implementing a procedure protocol called instructional rounds for classroom observations and peer-to-peer teacher feedback for next year so super excited to see how that goes because it's always great to learn from each of each other and teachers in the classroom and I'm good thank you thank you so much all right our third and final presentation is Ashton Ranch middle school and our principal Lisa peruccini good evening Madam president members of the board Dr Dean in cabinet and community I'm Lisa parachini Ashton Ranch um and we are proud to be here tonight all right so General celebrations and successes at Ashton Ranch this year first thing that we did was to instill our Mustang proud values which are positivity respect ownership unity and determination at when I started at Ashton Ranch the O stood for open-mindedness we immediately changed that to ownership ownership of behavior ownership of grades ownership of everything that we do and our proud values also are our Focus for our school-based Behavior program and with that we have created a culture of high expectations and with that we have actually had kind of a unique attendance uh turn around with a 14 decrease of students who had 10 plus absences at 10 decrease of students who had 20 plus absences we really put a focus on enforcing our tardies in accordance to the handbook and put our attendance secretary on that to to actually work with our students and their tardies we also put our school aides out on campus during passing periods to do rotations to make sure that our students were not having unauthorized absences along with us being visible on campus we built relationships with our students and partnered with our parents so if we were seeing any Trends then we would immediately contact them whenever we had any contact with a student for any type of situation we looked at the whole student and addressed any kind of concerns regarding attendance all of that obviously had an impact on our referrals we reduced our overall referrals by 107 referrals over the course of the year um we also with our high expectations and increased accountability my leadership team and I were visible on campus and in the classrooms semester the first semester we had 148 classroom visits where we provided teacher feedback and semester two we had 225 that does not include the CES evaluative uh visits that we had wait for it I'm not blinking don't try it the general challenges that we had was consistency across the board with our teachers either instructionally or with discipline in the classroom that is something that we have been working on and having that common language uh also a general challenge that we've had is the high Collective efficacy that we have been trying to instill Hattie will tell you and research research shows that that is the number one indicator for student growth and success so that is a challenge that we are working on also our tier two and tier 3 support in ela and math we have been working on our RTI process and getting our students that individualized um focus some successes that we have had is an increase in Lexile scores this year we have been using re or focusing on reading across our content areas and it has increased our Lexile scores across every grade level and that that's impressive as a result we have also seen increased benchmark scores for ELA that is in alignment with our uh our goals of raising the number of students who are scoring proficient and highly proficient by at least 10 percent in most grade level bands our benchmark scores have reflected that and we have increased 10 percent in our benchmarks from this year or this year from last year some academic challenges solid and consistent tier one instruction and what we are seeing is that there's a disconnect from the level of the standard that the state is asking to teach to the objective to the actual activity that is happening in the classroom and the teacher instruction to that assessment so we're seeing a disconnect and not an alignment there so we are going back to basics and focusing on effective lesson planning and implementing those lesson plans in the classroom for that alignment and also meeting individualized student needs where that tier one instruction does not hit that tier two and tier three can happen where we are having RTI monthly meetings and we're also focusing on our data where the data gets into not only the teacher's hands so that they can see what they need to do to help improve instruction but also what the students need to do so we have the the students actually looking at their data and and setting goals foreign how are we working on the challenges targeted teacher support so we are putting Choice PD into effect next year we are going to let the teachers not only choose some of the the professional development based on their own wants and needs but we are going to be doing some differentiated book studies for our teachers some may be assigned a specific book others will be able to choose and then one for our leadership team as well we are going to utilize Achieve 3000 in ela science and social studies to continue to increase our Lexile of growth and we are working with our Achieve 3000 rep for professional development for our teachers so that we can implement it effectively among the scope and sequence and align to the standards the last thing that we are working on is creative scheduling based on the our students needs this year we had classes that were geared toward students needs based on theirs and and switched up at semester based on their needs and we identified students who were low um in their test scores and placed based on those uh we also focused on students who were not passing classes such as a seventh grade math class they were re they were put back into retake their seventh grade first semester math class so that it would could ensure that they were mastering those seventh grade standards and we took away one of their electives put them back and it was received by our parents very welcomely because they want to ensure that their students are prepared for success any questions for me clarifying question really quick back to the again the issues with tier one instruction do you have a lot of new teachers on your campus we've had some turnover yes we we do have some young teachers do you have any any ideas to what might be causing the confusion with tier one instruction I I don't we've had some new standards that have taken place in the new math implementation I'm not sure that they understand the success criteria of the standards as to what it looks like to to be highly performing on those standards rather than just looking at what the standard generally says so diving into those standards and really focusing what their objective is at the correct level and then teaching it to that level and getting those kids engaged at that level when do they normally learn about that on how to how to provide that instruction is that like during Monday professional development is it um one-on-one or all the above so we we have differentiated our RPD and we've worked our TLS has worked with our teachers as well as my assistant principal Jillian Linker and I so we when we do our walkthroughs that is something we have some targeted Focus areas that we look for with our objective is it aligned if it's not then we have those conversations with the teachers as well as we plan our professional development and we invite those select teachers for it or prep connect so it's dependent on that okay thank you Matt Madam president member Pritchard if I can add that's also going to be a major focus of these summer workshops next week yes I am concerned that there that we're having issues that tier one is just everyone does tier one so I'm glad to hear there's going to be some I can't spend four long hard days at it next week so and you'll be able to see that's going to be a good opportunity thank you thank you that is a concern for us as well I just wanted to congratulate you on getting your absences down so much that's amazing thank you good work I don't know what you did but that's amazing um you mentioned a couple different things you mentioned as far as the scheduling because you mentioned you know creating the scheduling based on the student needs so creating like a customized schedule um but you also mentioned a new bell schedule what did I miss hear that so what we did in our in our master schedule master schedule yeah and our master schedule okay that's just our courses that we've scheduled we did not mess with our our I probably misheard this team would kill me so no but but I looked at I looked at all of our our um classes that we had and I actually found that there was a class that that was quite small that I could uh move those kids into another class collapse that class and uh create a different class and move those students into a class with a teacher who could teach them the remedial 7th grade math so they were doubled up on their math they were taking first and second semester math at the same time since they did were not successful first semester gotcha thank you absolutely I have a question you um talked about increasing your Lexile scores and your benchmark scores how how did you do that um for that one we used Achieve 3000 for the most part and we did achieve Mondays or Monday three thousands so our Ela science and social studies teachers every Monday utilize that and we also had competitions with our our grade levels to to show that growth we actually had a student who was very proud with being the best in Arizona quite a few times yeah right so we were super happy with it okay thank you absolutely all right thank you thank you and with that we will move on to item F2 Dr Dean thank you madam president members of the governing board cabinet in our community this evening Dr kroto will present information on our District athletic program Dr kroto thank you Dr Dean Madam president members of the board Dr Dean cabinet guests tonight we're going to do a quick overview of our athletic programs in the district and kind of take a look at their successes over the last two years and then present to you a plan of how we ensure growth in our athletic programs and what's it mean what's a program we use to ensure that we're on the right path in one of our A's which is Athletics so to start we're going to look at the 2020 2021-22 school year in that school year we want to highlight we had nine state champions you can see there in Unified sports girls basketball cheer softball track and Tennis we came out with 12 region section champions in our district 43 teams qualified for a state playoffs six region coaches of the Year our total District participation in numbers we had 2 385 individuals so about 29 percent of our high schools at High School population is involved in our athletic programs we also had 81 students signed to play at the next level so collegiately looking at this past year we went from 9 to 14 state champions again in Unified sports our co-ed stun co-edge here wrestling both boys and girls had state champions Palm girls basketball as well as tracked at Dr Dean highlighted a piece of tonight we had 12 region and section championships 43 teams again qualified for the state playoffs we went to 11 region coaches of the year which was an increase we also our participation patient numbers went up so 25 34 out of 7572 so we had 33 percent now of our students increasing this year we had a little bit of gain and 87 of our athletes signed to play at the next level so those are some fantastic successes we continue to track these successes you year after year and we'll continue to do that to track longitudinally how we're doing with our programs so as we move on the question was asked of us so how do we continue or assure that our athletic programs are performing and going in the right direction increasing success so looking at that we do a variety of things and I'll go over some of them a major piece of it is we now have a strength and conditioning coaches at all four campuses they are in the weight room and they take care of our athletic classes so if an athlete is on a team they are enrolled in an athletic weight training and Conditioning class they need to be in there they focus on agility strength speed those classes are to build athletes not particular athletes but they are to build athletes that can compete at the highest level and we now have four awesome strength and conditioning coaches to take care of that that will make a huge difference it will take time but that will make a huge difference in our athletes in the future one of the things that our athletic directors do is we have pre and post evaluation of all coaches they sit down with those coaches and talk about what their goals they set goals they look at data longitudinally so what is your successes over the years where you need to go where to goal and then they have that post evaluation so how did the season go some of those are successes and celebrations some of those are tough difficult conversations and there are times that this is in the area where we need to make changes to our coaching staff that they do not meet their goals and they're not performing and sometimes it is necessary to make those changes to get that program back on track so that does happen in there we try to increase our leadership capacity so again with both students and coaches we are always looking at coaching professional development so there are all kinds of clinics for our coaches to attend to learn new techniques to collaborate with other coaches and talk about the best practices in their sport some of our schools do Captain Captain councils so they get all the captains from the teams together and they talk about Athletics on that campus where's our campus headed what do the athletes need you know what is going great what do we need to focus on and then they build those leadership with those athletes as well so program evaluation kind of goes with our pre and post evaluation our our athletic directors are constantly tracking and analyzing our district data our athletic data as you saw their athletic data they have an impressive database of of what they've collected and and follow through the years and and they have those um they have those conversations as I mentioned earlier site visits of other successful schools this is important to us there are other successful schools that have great athletic programs we need to get into those schools and figure out what they're doing take a look at their programs what are they doing differently and have those conversations our athletes our ads and our coaches are doing that we are going to different places to take a look and say okay what are you doing differently particularly in the East Valley I know that Dr Dean when he sat in the seat he did a lot of that with the East Valley to take a look at their programs what are they doing what do we need to build and how do we get those structures in in our system staff and student surveys to determine the needs of a program it's huge you know what's what does it look like out there to everybody else again as I mentioned that with the Data Tracking and all that we need that feedback of to what needs to be done to our programs to make them better here and they seek that from again the staff the students and they they learn a lot we've had some great conversations over the data they learned this year and that builds the the future of what they're going to do as far as what they're doing differently with the program and what they're going to do the following year the last piece is our increased opportunity for students this is a huge piece into improving an athletic program the summer camps and off season activities whether you like it or not athletes in high school nowadays need to be involved and need to constantly be involved in playing their Sports the days of you know playing basketball or playing baseball and then not playing after the season's over those days are pretty much gone and I think you know that with club sports and those things athletes are constantly playing we encourage three sport athletes so we want athletes to be involved on all of our sports but we need to keep them busy too if they're not going to play other sports and do that we need to keep them building their skills and getting better very important we have a comprehensive Elementary and Middle School sports program we believe in developing our our Littles and making them athletes getting them interested in coming to the high school and our coaches do a lot to nurture the relationships with feeder programs so with their feeder schools they go down there they run clinics they put in the off season they have clinics for their athletes to get them interested to get them focusing on that and to look at some of the Middle School sports programs there we offer middle school so Elementary and Middle School athletic programs we have K-8 Sports Four Seasons you can see them up there there are four different seasons for our K-8 new this year is the Northwest Valley Athletic Conference we compete against Peoria and Deer Valley we have eight teams in the Northwest Valley Athletic Conference and that gives us competition across districts so we can start seeing instead of competing against ourselves where we're going to compete in in the future in those Peoria schools in their Deer Valley schools and as you've seen in our celebrations we've had a lot of success in the Northwest Valley Athletic Conference with with our teams so with that I will stand for any questions about the athletic program thank you very much for the presentation um I actually asked for this information item just because I feel like if if Athletics is going to be one of our A's then it's important that we have a means to evaluate the effectiveness just to make sure we have quality programs because quality programs bring student scholarship opportunities like you outlined um but and they also even for those students who maybe don't plan to play at the Collegiate level they students they they feel better when they're winning or when they're at least progressing and it's good for them to feel like okay we're getting closer and get excited about that and have expectation that if we do well and we have a quality program we really have a shot at it as opposed to we never have a shot at it and then and then of course the parents who pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into these programs and never see that win or never see growth or that stagnant or backwards so again if it's a is going to be a Hallmark of our district with Athletics I just feel it's important that we make sure they're growing and that we do what we can do to support the coaches because we need to make sure our coaches are delivering like you said and if they're not then having those conversations so we know how to support them and and then moving forward you know unfortunately if if we provide a lot of support and it's not producing we're not producing results then those conversations as you mentioned happen for the sake of our programs and for our kids um I do like the she closed out the slideshow but um the pre and post evaluations of coaches so does that happen at all of our high schools Madam president member Pritchard it does happen at all of our schools with all of our approaches our ads conduct those with all the coaches so they in in the most part they conduct with the head coaches and then the head coaches are responsible for the coaches in their program okay and then at some point then where again at the district level like is the assistant superintendent in charge of Athletics follow up with those coaches to kind of monitor hey where we at or how does that I mean because otherwise it's like an evaluation gets put in a drawer and then what like do you guys ever have any oversight of any of that Madam president member Pritchard we do not directly obviously we'd have coaches meetings so um this year I held meetings before the season with all the head coaches so we have those discussions get their feedback there um about that stuff our our at the district level our conversations are with the ads the ads are in charge of their programs and therefore we discuss with the ads expectations we do talk about specific programs and we do talk about things that need to be done on the campus differently we had great conversations this year for example about our strength and conditioning classes and our strength and conditioning coaches we had numerous conversations about the expectations of that and what that looks like and how we're going to develop athletes so and that's with our ads as I mentioned in our ads go back and operationalize it on those campuses so that's how that flows usually okay then who that is done at the district level for the most part that comes out of my office okay because it would be exciting for those kids especially too just to be a part of something in a high school if someone is really interested in sports being able to have a chance of making a team when they move on to high school and to do that you're going to have to make sure that you're getting a good quality program at your Elementary and Middle School too that is correct so um but it sounds like we're making a lot of growth we've done a lot of amazing things in our athletic departments I just want to make sure that all of our students have the opportunity even though it's it's not always about winning it's definitely about um making consistent growth and so they can at least feel good about their progress and um again we can just make sure that what we offer is a quality program so it's also about winning of course but if you can't win every year at least if you get closer you may not make state but maybe you're like you know absolutely second rent first runner up absolutely correct yeah so thank you very much it's good information I appreciate your work in that you're welcome thank you Dr Credo next we have item F3 95 group report thank you madam president members of the governing board cabinet in our community this evening Dr assai will provide information on 95 group Dr assai good evening again Madam president members of the board it's my privilege to be able to present to you on the 95 group um and here we go I wanted to start with a very simple view of reading so our goal is always reading comprehension which is in the red circle on the end reading comprehension is really what we truly start getting scores in in third grade in our ASA test it is a combination of decoding and language comprehension language comprehension is really taught in our tier one in our inter-reading series when we learn how to you know what is the text saying what is the central message what is the main idea to be able to do that thoroughly we also have to be able to decode which is sounding words out word recognition and that's what 95 addresses in both our tier one and our tier two to give you a little overview of 95 and what it is it is a scientifically research-based program and it's based on standards and skills it provides very traditional direct instruction and I would Define that as an I do we do you do I do it I do it with the student and then I have the student do it it is a scripted program and at first coming from the high school level I was like oh we have scripted programs it's actually a really great thing for a couple of reasons number one it provides continuity of instruction the same instruction the same skill happens at Mountain View that happens at Riverview because of that scripted instruction in addition the teachers review the plans the plan's already laid out for them though so I don't have to think how am I going to explain this there is a way that scientifically research based to explain it that we know works for kids understanding um we'll talk in a little bit about the diagnostic assessment that 95 also includes but another great feature is it has student manipulatives so if you go in and see 95 being done in class you'll see kids moving a lot of chips um for cat Matt sat and they'll substitute sounds with different chips so the kids are actually seeing the word they're saying the word they're hearing the word and they have feelings so it helps go into their long-term memory better depending on what type of learner they are I'm here I just put a simple slide talking about phonological awareness in the Continuum so it's really how we learn to read we learn by sounds syllables onset Rhymes going forward and about three years ago the state actually put the six syllable types yes there's six syllable types and they put those into their standards 95 percent hits on all of those six syllable types so this is really the the huge bang for our buck in 95 so you've heard us talk a lot about acadians sometimes we say Dibbles and that's when kids your kids are all going in the line into the library and they have a quick reading assessment Dibbles is really like if I go to the doctor for a cough I can tell if something's wrong but I don't know the cause of that cough so we go in and we say oh the kid's having trouble reading but what are they really having trouble with 95 percent allows us to get the PSI which is a screener and it really digs down to these different things do I have trouble with letter sounds maybe I'm good with letter sounds and I'm struggling with CVC words I might have that mastered so it might be Blends and digraphs that I have trouble with so the PSI gives us specific data on kids and enables the teacher to make very very an intelligent decision on making small groups that's Based on data every three weeks they get reassessed to move in and out of those groups I used to talk when I was a principal at Canyon about we shouldn't have terminal tutoring where I'm in tutoring forever and ever nor should I be in the same small group forever I should move in and out based on my skill based on my skills or a deficit they're in to give us some history 95 percent was board approved in 2014 and it was implemented in the 1516 year as a tier 2 instruction in 2122 uh right there at the end of covid we noticed our kids were coming in with big gaps I said word recognition when you do Kinder online or Kinder or first grade online you can only hope for us so much great instruction to be there when normally I'd be pulling kids in small groups and all my kids would be attentive so we did put the tier one instruction with 95 percent we did put phonics based instruction in for 30 minutes a day to make up that skill deficit because we didn't have a really solid foundation um this just talks and I've already talked about this I I put in twice I apologize but it talks about we reassess students every three weeks the instruction is conducted in small flexible groups we know that small groups moves can move kids that is not a one size fits all that's going to move everyone and students can flow in and out based on their data this table is a little hard to instruct I did have about eight or nine columns maybe more it was really clunky so we redid it like this the 2012 to 2015 is prior to 95 percent we implemented a 95 percent I did the data from 15 2015 to 2019.

correct the 14 15 school year they would have been approved and then we Implement things the next year normally yes so when we're looking at the the 2012 through 2015 that's truly the the space without yes 95 okay I want to make sure I have that timeline right yeah thank you thank you for putting this together because this was my request I have to compliment Adriel Adriel pulled all the data for me she's our literacy expert back there so I am presenting but I may turn to her at any point because she knows more about primary literacy than I ever will my only concern is the one through three grades because I'm noticing there wasn't that much of a decrease so what what changed from kindergarten uh the demands of the Dibbles test change so Dibbles is what we measure with um when we get to first grade more complex measure for it kids start to go having to put it together in a reading way versus recognizing Israel's coming up honestly because we did such a great job at the kinder and dropped our percentages of those below and well below you don't see that significant drop as much as in first second and third and Dr aside the test changes in first as well what's up the test changes in first as well yes the measures do change as Dr assai said so it does progress as those skill Continuum for PA phonological awareness and Phonics that Dr assai showed you in the slide presentation it's very different in early foundational reading than it is say in math math that can be very linear in our early foundations of reading it takes a lot to move kids quickly through all those skill continuums because if I don't have short vowels I don't have short vowels which then we get into multi-syllable words when we get into second and third grade and you get a word such as concave that has a short vowel and a long vowel well I didn't learn my short vows so I don't know my long bowels either so it becomes you can see very um very difficult to succeed through that Continuum so we are our we have a very um proactive if you will a model where if we catch them early like in Kinder we know we are putting out a lot of fires for students and really setting them up for success so that's why a lot of the cips that you've heard over the last few weeks at the board meetings we have such a huge focus on acadiance scores because those are just it's Dibbles synonymous Dibbles is dynamic indicator of basic early literacy skills it's just kind of a big picture and I know Miss Pritchard I'm sorry you've heard me say this for years and years and I could talk about this forever but it really just indicates where we're at big picture of where we are with those early literacy skills and are we meeting it so it is that annual doctor's check but we do it three times a year from there though for those students that are having difficulties or a red flag is indicated then we give the Diagnostics that Dr acai um was talking about the phonics screener inventory even lower than that at Kinder and first the phonological awareness screener inventory okay thank you you're welcome I had a quick question about the script tell me a little bit more about the script is it just like a scope and sequence like this is what you should teach or is it literally word for word literally it's literally word for word okay and it's funny because when I first saw it I was like you know how can we make that entertaining and engage kids but when you go into the teacher's a pre pre-planet really it's actually very interactive they have kids stretching stretching vowels they have kids doing interactive it's pencil and paper on worksheets as well okay and is there any flexibility do teachers take a little bit of leeway one way or other or is it very just rigid like you guys our best results or when teachers stick to the script actually correct especially that I do where they're thinking aloud they're modeling the we do there's multiple opportunities for we do so we do together I the instructor see that my kids have it I don't stick around in that we do we go to the you do let's work independently and if I need to quickly pull a small group and clean something up I can do that but everyone else is working independently the the goal is um to make sure everybody has that consistent instruction whether they're at Countryside or Canyon Ridge and we really want to make sure the script is followed because it is very research based in the way of I do we do you do good practices best practices of direct instruction and it really works on that muscle memory if you will I know Dr crota just talked about Athletics and um coaches work with with students or players on that muscle memory that's what we're doing with the brain the brain is a big muscle and we've got to keep that working memory going because there are so many steps on the Continuum and and I would add that similar to Saxon Math in K3 Saxon Math is scripted as well and so we are we we have been working very hard with our schools and our teachers this year to trust the process and stay true to the script and and and not deviate from that and so that's been a big Focus as well and we'll continue to be one into the future thank you I'm still just impressed a drill that you had my third grader saying multi-syllabic in sentences confidently at that young age so it's been a long time foreign do we have any other questions all right thank you Dr Sai thank you Adriel next we will move on to item G1 Dr Dean thank you madam president members of the governing board cabinet in our community the next four items are all items that are related to next school year and as excited as I am about this appointment and I would love to make this announcement I will turn this over to next year superintendent Dr crotto thank you Dr Dean Madam president members of the board Dr Dean cabinet guests we are excited tonight to bring to you a recommendation for the next principal at Shadow Ridge High School and we are bringing to you a recommendation to approve cedrica Hester so a little bit about cedrica cedrica did her undergraduate work at the University of West Georgia she did her master's degree at Piedmont College also in Georgia I think she's a huge Georgia Faneuil figure that out pretty quick she has 14 years assistant principal experience and has been with us this last year as an assistant principal at Dysart high school we are very excited cedrica is joined by her husband and family and some extended family that are here from Georgia to also join her in this appointment so I turn it over to you for any questions and we're we are bringing you that recommendation thank you do we have any questions no okay well I will move to approve the appointment of cedrica Hester as principal for Shadow Ridge High School second motion made by Crystal Chapman seconded by Don Densmore motion carries stand up please Sam congratulations welcome congratulations thank you so much all right next G2 Dr Dean thank you madam president members of the governing board cabinet in our community again I'll turn this to Dr crota Who will turn it over appropriately Dr kroto thank you Dr Dean Madam president members of the board uh we are presenting uh Dr polling we'll be presenting item two to you this evening Dr pulling yes sir Madam president members of the board Cadman Community this is an annual item and we're asking for some adjustments to our extracurricular and supplemental pay schedules these are annual items some of these are already in place such as you see coaching schedules on there but we're asking for some new things such as ROTC extracurricular competition so the ROCT ROTC coach can also get a site been similar to the other ones so there's several edits being recommended and I will stand for any questions thank you um is this an increase did we increase their pay at all from last year for the activities any increases will be indicated in green and so for instance there are some increases related to minimum wage there are other increases just related to what administration felt the need was and so any increases to a stipend would be indicated in green all right thank you um I think it's important you know I really like that we have the tears it's just also not enough you know maybe obviously funding is tight but when you look at the hours that some of these um you know sponsors put in for these activities sometimes it equals out to like six dollars an hour so I just want to say thank you to those sponsors I know this isn't enough but hopefully we can do a little bit better next year absolutely yes ma'am thank you for that and with with that I will make the motion to approve the district extracurricular supplemental assignment contracted then to pay schedules for the 2023-2024 school year as presented motion made by Crystal Chapman seconded by Christine Pritchard motion carries next we will move on to G3 Dr Dean thank you madam president member of the governing board cabinet in our community back to Dr crotto thank you Dr Dean Madam president members of the board uh again Dr polling will present item number three doctor thank you madam president members of the board cabinet and community this is another annual item the memorandum understanding or the mou with the divestar Education Association we are recommending some edits some edits are due to policy change others are to clarify Monday early release and other edits are being recommended so with that I'll stand for any questions thank you very much um I asked a few questions and I appreciate your answers that you've given me I just kind of want to highlight a few things um on page 18 our professional work day our teachers after they've done their duties and their conferences they are free to leave is that correct that's correct so that includes your electives your special areas they don't have to stick around until eight o'clock at night if they don't have any conferences principals are aware of this that is correct so you know they can make arrangements ahead of time if parents want to meet with them or say I'll be available but we're not forcing everybody to stay there until eight o'clock at night regardless that's correct thank you and then on page 19 for staff meetings um I just wanted to clarify they can have a virtual staff meeting or they can do a pre-recorded video if it's nothing that needs to be addressed in person a principal can send out a video or send out an email in lieu of a in-person 30 minute meeting if need be absolutely encourage principals to utilize all those modes especially something like an email or a video that could be quicker and easier to digest rather than getting everyone together is recommended they could even put out a selfie video no way for example they get a selfie stick will Dr Dean be coming back next year to present a PD with Mr McGinley on selfie videos my skills have increased greatly and I would like to thank Mr McGinley for that that'd be a selfie stick is up for auction the silent auction for next year at the Arts Festival um and then I just wanted to kind of clarify it teachers are encouraged to con to attend their Monday PDS but if it's something you know sometimes you can't get into the sea that a doctor for an appointment and the only time they have is Monday we are flexible with that too correct Madam president that is correct um we encourage them obviously we do not like them missing the professional developments very important as you saw in the cips there's some very important stuff going on um but life happens we understand that and if they need to miss or have to be absent they need to work that out with their administrator and and we understand those things thank you and just one more point of clarification our administrators are aware of a 30-minute duty-free lunch Madam president that is correct thank you those are all my questions thank you thank you do we have any other questions okay I will move to approve the memorandum of understanding with the Dysart Education Association as presented for the 2023-2024 school year motion made by Crystal Chapman seconded by Christine Pritchard mrex we will need to ask for your vote um Auto yeah through an audio or auditorily thank you motion carries thank you G4 Dr Dean thank you madam president members of the governing board cabinet in our community for the final time this evening to Dr crotto thank you Dr Dean Madam president members of the board Dr Dean guests uh tonight we will our final action discussion item is the district's pay for performance plan and we will turn it over to Dr polling for item number four Madam president members of the board cabinet and Community there are several options to be discussed tonight I would like to present them explain them to you and I'll take any questions and then um you know see what direction the board would like to go so for plan a I'm going to start with that one there are recommended edits in green and the edits some of them are clarifying what's there so last year for ninth grade Aspire it's 15 percent well we wanted to clarify that seven half percent for Math and seven and a half percent for ELA on act we wanted to add the funding level for 70 so it is similar to the other Assessments in that category under academic Student Success clarifying that percentage of students with grades of 70 percent or higher so that's inclusive for K1 and clarifying that calculated students including Academic Year that's a state guideline that students must be enrolled in the class within the first 10 days in order to be counted and so it would not be counting students who enroll halfway through the semester the plan A is adding a student absence piece that students who Miss 20 percent or more of the school year high school is 10 per semester then would not count towards student academic success rates so that's the major change for plan A okay Plan B Plan B includes those same clarifications I talked about such as ninth grade Aspire being seven and a half percent math seven half percent Ela so keeping those same clarifications the major difference in Plan B it does not include the student 20 attendance threshold but it does change the percentage of payout and so for example on the left in green where it says Student Success then instead of 20 like this year it's 10 percent in Effectiveness classification instead of thirty percent like this year it's 45 percent and employee attendants or participation in fact activities instead of ten percent it's five percent so that's the major change for Porsche or for for Plan B it's changing the percentages So the plan A B combo includes both changes adding the student uh 20 attendance threshold and changing the percentage it's a combo of A and B so I'll stand for any questions so I tend to lean more towards Plan B with maybe taking the employee attendance or fact taking that five percent moving it towards their effectiveness classification um maybe adding that the attendance piece to to where if students Miss more than x amount of days they won't be included in the data and then if we bump that Effectiveness classification up to 50 percent that would be at least half of their performance pay based on their personal their personal performance and not outside factors and if we did that would we also be able to implement a system to where if a teacher felt that they were not evaluated fairly they could apply for an alternate evaluator Madam president Mr Madam president not to jump into their presentation but we currently have that system in place where teachers can appeal an evaluation and request or let me rephrase that they can write a letter to attach to their evaluation but they can also request an alternate evaluator currently and so that's something that Administration could continue to make known to our to our teachers as well especially given the fact that if you go to a a system where a high stakes fifty percent of your performance pay is based upon that it would be incumbent upon Administration to make sure that our folks knew that that was the case thank you you bet a long-winded answer to say yes thank you I'm curious why the change was made from 70 or from a c to change the verbiage to 70 percent it was noted this year that at kn1 they don't give A's B's and C's but they do follow the thresholds of 70 80 90 100 percent and they give ESPN n and so the K1 grading scale fits the percentages but it does not fit the letter grades ABC so they give a p for passing at 70 percent so that would still fit within their model okay okay or not but I know that um I've seen grades before that maybe come in at 69.8 but in the parent portal it will say c so it's it's round it does round so just to clarify if someone does receive AC at 69.8 percent will they be part of this even though they're not truly 70 percent yes absolutely it rounds up at 69 no 69.8 oh yes that round we round up in this it would still apply to this so in the system it will still read a 70.

please stand and join me for the Pledge of Allegiance and remain standing for a moment of silence no okay 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] [Applause] you may be seated thank you good evening and welcome to MCAT High School's graduation we are honored to have the support of our community parents and families who have shown up tonight to support our hard-working graduates before we get started tonight we have a few courtesy reminders to our audience Marana Middle School is a non-smoking facility please do not use any tobacco products including e-cigarettes or vaping devices while on school grounds or inside tonight's graduates are wearing colored sashes and honor cords to designate their academic achievements graduates from MCAT High School are wearing gold sashes and Miranda distance learning graduates are wearing purple additionally students who were on the principals list are wearing a white honor cord this is an academic accomplishment of all A's and B's on any quarterly report card during their time at MCAT I would like to congratulate all of these students on their honors tonight thank you at this time I would like to welcome many of our distinguished guests in attendance beginning with the Marana Unified School District governing board Mr Tom Carlson governing board member and Ms Catherine micronas governing board member also in attendance tonight are members of our district level senior administrative team Dr Daniel Streeter our superintendent Dr Carolyn dumler our assistant superintendent Miss Kristen Reedy assistant superintendent Mr Mark goligowski assistant superintendent and Ms Denise linsalata executive director of state and federal programs there are a lot of people who are a part of our students success at MCAT most importantly though are the teachers and staff who work alongside our students each day I have the privilege of seeing their efforts to help students learn feel confident and set goals collectively they are a committed patient and enthusiastic group of people I often reflect on how truly blessed I am to work with this talented group of Educators would you please join me in thanking the entire team at MCAT including the Miranda distance learning program Ace and the dental assisting program our MCAT team is proud to provide a quality education for this group of students and for the Marana Community we are honored that our students have allowed us to be part of their Journeys I would also like to take a moment to thank the parents and families who supported these graduates we know that you are an important part of their support network you have provided encouragement and motivation to these young people along the way graduates please take a moment to thank your families for all they have done to help you along the way foreign on behalf of the MCAT staff Mr Oliver Bowen will now say a few words of congratulations to the class of 2023.

online learning just really wasn't for me coven made me feel like my high school career was over when I had only three credits left I was still unable to graduate on time at the time really felt like everything was against me and so I had decided to take a break from school but in January of this year I was given the opportunity to finish what I had started I did it with more support from my family my friends and teachers than ever before and I'm so proud of myself and everyone who's graduating today we finally did it whether we're here earlier late we're here and I cannot wait to see how far we all go congratulations class of 2020 and we have Danae pasina next thank you [Music] I tend to get emotional so bear with me my name is Danae and if you would have talked to me six months ago I would have told you that I simply wasn't gonna graduate this was until I made the move to MCAT when I made the move my mindset was just get it over with but in a short time I realize that's not how the world works this school has truly showed me what it means to be a responsible successful adult in society now I can't give all the credit to the school my support system throughout high school was amazing and I would not be standing here without them but that being said one person who truly inspires me to be the best version of myself and has stuck by me my entire life and that person is my theoderic he pushes me to do better for myself no matter what and I cannot thank him enough for that that's right to wrap this up I just want to say thank you to all my teachers for being there and always thank you to miss green for making it possible for me to create these relationships lastly congratulations to all my fellow graduates we did it our last speaker tonight is the one and only Michael Rogers [Applause] big crowd I'm nervous you know someone once told me someone once told me this and I never understood it but Imagining the audience naked was never was never is supposed to make you less nervous but honestly I just feel pretty uncomfortable right now especially with Mr Bowen right here [Applause] fellow graduates staff parents and faculty my name is Michael and I'm here today to stand before you and convince the school board that I actually was a good student no but in all seriousness before I indulge more into my speech first I'd like to give thanks to myself I mean there's no way in a million years that I thought I'd ever be standing here today I always thought I'd end up dropping out of high school or be in high school forever which I don't even think is possible it sounds like the plot of an Adam Sandler movie I would also like to thank the teachers staff and staff who helped me throughout my time here Mr parag for having to deal with me since Mountain View boy that must have had been fun um and I like to thank my mom for all the love she had to give me and my dad for all the tough love he had to give me I would also like to thank the internet Google grammarly copy and paste and the people I sometimes copied work off of y'all came in clutch for real but in all seriousness we made it we survived the years of high school the years of drama the years of homework and the years of cafeteria food that looked like it was made in a prison facility I mean seriously my breakfast sandwiches were as hard as rocks but we made it nonetheless we made it throughout the awkward freshman year the rebellious sophomore year the stressful junior year and the senioritis ridden senior year and now we're here finally to take on are finally ready to take on the world but before we do that let's take a moment and reflect on the past remember when we thought that high school was going to be like High School Musical but it turned out to be more like super bad or Mean Girls remember when we thought that we were trying we were going to be best friends forever with everyone but we ended up having more enemies and less friends remember when we thought that prom was going to be the best night of our lives but it turned out to be just another dance with awkwards with awkward tensions and sweat and a sweat-filled crowd well despite all of that we made it we made it through the late nights studying for exams the early mornings rushing to catch the bus and the endless hours spent in detention for pranks that we probably shouldn't have pulled and other unspoken reasons we made it through the heartbreaks the failures and the disappointments we made it through the worst of times and the best of times so as we move on to our next chapter of Our Lives let's remember to never take ourselves too seriously now let's remember to always find the humor in every situation let's remember to never forget the friends we made and the memories we shared and most importantly let's remember to always be ourselves even if that means being the class clown so as you all walk out of these doors tonight remember that you were leaving you were leaving behind the days of being a caterpillar and entering the days of being a butterfly except instead of growing wings you'll be growing student loans thank you and congratulations to the class of 2023.