and then um again looking at that sustainability test for some of those changes so click next slide please so the electrode changes in that K-12 budget bill that I said that was uh passed earlier this this year uh the inflation increase for mnl at two percent um so the state legislature has an obligation to to apply an inflation um increase um that that obligation is two percent they do have authority to go above that if they so choose um as we've seen real life inflation is seven eight percent and probably a little north of that but the legislature chose to just fund uh their minimum obligation which is that two percent so unfortunately while that value of 16 Johnson that's ongoing increase um you know while that's gonna benefit if it should it's still going to be under um what real life inflation is so you're still putting a shortfall on the district's budget um because all your supplies and services are seeing that realized inflation increase or is the state still funding us at the two percent so um well we'll take it right we're not going to be uh Beggars but um the state's setting districts up for failure by not um increasing to the actual real life inflation so this has been the trend um for the last 10 years so it's unfortunate um but you start to create a trickle effect when you continue to under um um for inflation and it creates a bigger Surplus Gap when you try to go to the purchase services that are no longer at the cost at which they use the cost and you have less money to work with so um so why do you think that is I think that is um in the state of Arizona public education is not funded it's not uh budget priority for the students just a fact you see a lot of emphasis right now on on privatizing education you see vouchers being incentivized and prioritized Arizona ranks 48th in the country in terms of K-12 public school funding so um unfortunately when you have a legislation that's majority um against opponents of public education this is what you're going to get the bare minimum of funding so that's the harsh reality of what it is so um I can go over a little bit later I'll talk about what other districts are doing to take the kind of into their own hands and um make sure that their schools are being funded appropriately for the initiatives that they have in place so uh but moving down the list uh the shift of results-based funding was also legislative legislators changed results-based funding was uh additional funding like into the different bucket based on uh testing scores so it used to be easy Merit I think that's an easy PSI um and so that those testing scores districts were provided basically additional funding for high achieving test results they basically it was a government reduce the initiative Governor Hobbs came in said no all schools should be equally not based on achievement so that funding is now moved to the base of there's no additional funding based on your testing testing so while you're still going to test all that funding is just going to move to the base and so high achieving districts um got negatively affected a loan shaping District got kind of brought up to the medium so for Ajo that value was 31 000.
boy it's getting tongue-tied there yes this is the fun one that everybody enjoys um it is the legal jargon so please bear with me as per ASR 15 905g and governing board policy dbj this expenditure budget adoption is subject to the authorization of expenditures of money budgeted within the mno section of the budget for any subsection within the section in excess of amounts specified in the budget however the total expenditures of the mno budget may not exceed the total budget for the physical year 2024.
I felt that I couldn't tell from The Limited information that was provided whether or not the instruction that would be provided to students in this School equals in thoroughness and efficiency and what would be provided by Greenfield Public Schools there wasn't very much and from the limited amount that was provided just for example in regards to reading instruction it seems that it was mainly focused on one out of only five of what are known to be the essential components of reading instruction I would be concerned about that phonics is absolutely essential to students learning to read but as we well know especially through this District's efforts to align our reading instruction with cognitive science there is it's also crucial to provide phonemic awareness instruction fluency vocabulary background knowledge and comprehension instructions so I I felt that what was provided was lacking in those areas and had concerns about that uh and other than that it seemed like a very um big blank to me I didn't see any comparison or analysis as to how um the program of instruction would would equal what is provided by the district schools um and throwing us inefficiency I didn't see any um references to how the the curriculum is aligned to the Massachusetts curriculum standards the Frameworks which would help me understand whether or not it was adequate so uh I just felt that it was very um very limited and not not adequate as to the information provided and in terms of whether or not we can be satisfied with the progress made therein of those students there wasn't any information provided until it was not provided in the initial set of information as to how how students would even be evaluated in this school so I they're not going to be taking MCAS which is our you know big broad brush when it comes to student progress I saw in the second set of information that was provided a reference to one um one uh tool student assessment tool that I am not familiar with and there was no information provided about how it compares to um what is used by greenfield for a district-wide assessment so I have so many questions and and I wish that a great deal more information would have been provided so I can speak to Iowa testing is a it's a long used um has been used nationally sort of summative assessment regarding reading and math it's not an uncommon assessment that's been used so it's a okay don't have a ton of detail in my head about it but it is it is definitely a known um Common Assessment okay and how would the district um compare that to our own district-wide assessment like map there is a little bit of a different standard for a private school in that they are not held to the same requirements that a public school is in a variety of areas so um they have to monitor assess progress and monitor progress but it doesn't have to equate to our assessment so they don't have to have an assessment that equals MCAS they just have to show that they are monitoring the progress of their students really so that's that's not made clear to me by just reading chapter 76 section one and the law is there more information available about exactly how those standards are different um there there is actually and I'll find it um so what I I just want to clarify one piece thank you from you that you are looking to see a more detailed alignment between the curriculum resource that's outlined and Massachusetts standards that is something you are hoping to see did I did I hear you correctly it would be helpful to me in making a judgment about whether we can be satisfied that the instruction and all the studies required by law equals and thoroughness and efficiency that in the public schools in the same town I don't know how else I'm supposed to evaluate that so you know it's a it's a very interesting um process to ask a school committee to go through um but they're quite clear in guidance that um we don't get to send it up to Desi and Desi doesn't get to exempt us which would be lovely to ask them to do the process so here are some basic guidelines from Dusty keeping in mind the last guidance that was written from the Department was in 2007 I did confirm that is the most recent guidance around this process so from curriculum requirements there are no specific requirements for private school curriculum though the approval committee does look to see that students are making academic progress comparable to the public school I again I think that's an interesting requirement teacher certification and hiring no State policy exists regarding teacher certification in non-public schools Food Services and lunch school lunch requirements including funding for schools offering the national school lunch program are managed by the department of Ed so that would be a deci issue length of school year there is no state law regarding length of school year record keeping and reports schools must keep enrollment attendance academic and conduct records for all students and must file a report with the local school district each year health and safety all secondary schools this is not a secondary school at this point Transportation students who attend private schools are entitled to the same rights and privileges of transportation to and from school so we would be required to offer Transportation within the city of Greenfield to the students attending this school and testing testing isn't explicitly required in state law but approval committees have used standardized testing as a criteria to determine whether the schools are comparable to Public Schools I can't speak to whether or not it would answer your question but Iowa is a standardized test come copy of that please you absolutely when was the last time Greenfield approved a private school this school committee approved a private school in Greenfield I I don't know you don't have a policy about it um the guidance that we have is really related to what the department of Ed recommends a committee put in their policy which is what I shared with Mike which is why he provided the the information it's really around what Desi says we should ask but we do not have a policy around approving or or I would say I could not locate a policy regarding approval of private schools in our policy manual this this curriculum use school students how were those students being assessed as to whether they're making effective progress or not families are required or asked to provide an end-of-year portfolio to demonstrate progress the requirement basically self-reporting correct yep right um when was this given to us I mean when was this it doesn't there's no date on this form so when was this submitted this notification of private school was so it was originally submitted as a draft few months ago but the person who sent it to me sent it made an inquiry I shared that we needed their curriculum and then that person left and then Mike reached out to me I don't know a few weeks ago anyway to follow up on the process and to to get it moving so um this was the first meeting since he and I have communicated about the school and the documents required okay well I have to say I find it really difficult for this to be presented about six weeks before school is supposed to start and uh the school committee certainly should take a interest in making sure that the private school that we approve and certainly our homeschoolers and and um students in similar situations are are receiving an Effective Education I don't I don't feel that it's fair because we're not being given an opportunity to say we needed more information this is what we need and have time to have that brought back to us without putting whatever families are interested in this school in a really difficult position and I'm sure the the people who want to run their school at the same time um if we don't approve them right now you so that's I don't appreciate the timing well you don't have to approve it tonight um I'm quite happy to get whatever information Mike and I have communicated multiple times I think we've been working together easily we're required searching for up to provide information 30 days before the opening of the school and what we decided is to do ahead of time to provide you um at least a few more a few weeks before that to give you the proper information we followed every guideline to give you the full information and everything that's required by a lot more state um if there's information that you want me to get provide more basis for your thought I am quite happy to do that you just need to tell me the issue in terms of if the school is approved for the start of school or not from everything I have read basically is related to the issue of compulsory education so worst case as far as I know based on what I have read if the school is not approved by the first day of school it would appear that the consequence if that's the correct word would be that the students who are enrolled there could be considered tardy or truant by the Greenfield schools they're but we have a list of the students so you know we certainly are aware of who they are and that they would not just be not doing anything but we have we have another meeting before school starts how many students believe they're 31 I believe the students could be wrong 31 or 32.
I felt that I couldn't tell from The Limited information that was provided whether or not the instruction that would be provided to students in this School equals in thoroughness and efficiency and what would be provided by Greenfield Public Schools there wasn't very much and from the limited amount that was provided just for example in regards to reading instruction it seems that it was mainly focused on one out of only five of what are known to be the essential components of reading instruction I would be concerned about that phonics is absolutely essential to students learning to read but as we well know especially through this District's efforts to align our reading instruction with cognitive science there is it's also crucial to provide phonemic awareness instruction fluency vocabulary background knowledge and comprehension uh instructions so I I felt that what was provided was lacking in those areas and had concerns about that uh and other than that it seemed like a very um big blank to me I didn't see any comparison or analysis as to how um the program of instruction would would equal what is provided by the district schools um and throwing us inefficiency I didn't see any um references to how the the curriculum is aligned to the Massachusetts curriculum standards the Frameworks which would help me understand whether or not it was adequate so uh I just felt that it was very um very limited and not not adequate as to the information provided and in terms of whether or not we can be satisfied with their progress made therein of those students there wasn't any information provided until it was not provided in the initial set of information as to how how students would even be evaluated in this school so I they're not going to be taking MCAS which is our you know big broad brush when it comes to student progress I saw in the second set of information that was provided a reference to one um one uh tool student assessment tool that I am not familiar with and there was no information provided about how it compares to um what is used by greenfield for a district-wide assessment so I have so many questions and and I wish that a great deal more information would have been provided so I can speak to Iowa testing is a it's a long used um has been used nationally sort of summative assessment regarding reading and math it's not an uncommon assessment that's been used so it's a okay I don't have a ton of detail in my head about it but it is it is definitely a known um Common Assessment okay and how would the district um compare that to our own district-wide assessment like map there is a little bit of a different standard for a private school in that they are not held to the same requirements that a public school is in a variety of areas so um they have to monitor assess progress and monitor progress but it doesn't have to equate to our assessment so you don't have to have an assessment that equals MCAS they just have to show that they are monitoring the progress of their students really so that's that's not made clear to me by just reading chapter 76 section one and the law is there more information available about exactly how those standards are different um there there is actually and I'll find it um so what I I just want to clarify one piece thank you from you that you are looking to see a more detailed alignment between the curriculum resource that's outlined and Massachusetts standards that is something you are hoping to see did I did I hear you correctly it would be helpful to me in making a judgment about whether we can be satisfied that the instruction and all the studies required by law equals and thoroughness and efficiency that in the public schools in the same town I I don't know how else I'm supposed to evaluate that so you know it's a it's a very interesting um process to ask a school committee to go through um but they're quite clear in guidance that um we don't get to send it up to Desi and Desi doesn't get to exempt us which would be lovely to ask them to do the process so here are some basic guidelines from Dusty keeping in mind the last guidance that was written from the Department was in 2007 I did confirm that is the most recent guidance around this process so from curriculum requirements there are no specific requirements for private school curriculum though the approval committee does look to see that students are making academic progress comparable to the public school I again I think that's an interesting requirement teacher certification and hiring no State policy exists regarding teacher certification in non-public schools Food Services and lunch school lunch requirements including funding for schools offering the national school lunch program are managed by the department of Ed so that would be a deci issue length of school year there is no state law regarding length of school year record keeping and reports schools must keep enrollment attendance academic and conduct records for all students and must file a report with the local school district each year health and safety all secondary schools this is not a secondary school at this point Transportation students who attend private schools are entitled to the same rights and privileges of transportation to and from school so we would be required to offer Transportation within the city of Greenfield to the students attending this school and testing testing isn't explicitly required in state law but approval committees have used standardized testing as a criteria to determine whether the schools are comparable to Public Schools I can't speak to whether or not it would answer your question but Iowa is a standardized test come a copy of that absolutely can thank you thank you when was the last time Greenfield approved a private school this school committee approved a private school in Greenfield I I don't know you don't have a policy about it um the guidance that we have is really related to what the department of Ed recommends a committee put in their policy which is what I shared with Mike which is why he provided the the information it's really around what Desi says we should ask but we do not have a policy around approving or or I would say I could not locate a policy regarding approval of private schools in our policy manual this this curriculum you said was said with school students how were those students being assessed as to whether they're making effective progress or not families are required or asked to provide an end-of-year portfolio to demonstrate progress it's the requirement basically self-reporting correct yep right when was this given to us I mean when was this it doesn't there's no date on this form so when was this submitted this notification of private school was so it was originally submitted as a draft a few months ago but the person who sent it to me sent it made an inquiry I shared that we needed their curriculum and then that person left and then Mike reached out to me I don't know a few weeks ago anyway to follow up on the process and to to get it moving so um this was the first meeting since he and I have communicated about the the school and the documents required okay well I have to say I find it really difficult for this to be presented about six weeks before school is supposed to start and uh the school committee certainly should take a interest in making sure that a private school that we approve and certainly our homeschoolers and and um students in similar situations are are receiving an Effective Education I don't I don't feel that it's fair because we're not being given an opportunity to say we needed more information this is what we need and have time to have that brought back to us without putting whatever families are interested in this school in a really difficult position and I'm sure the the people who want to run their school at the same time um if we don't approve them right now you so that's I don't appreciate the timing well you don't have to approve it tonight um I'm quite happy to get whatever information Mike and I have communicated multiple times I think we've been working together easily we're required searching for up to provide information 30 days before the opening of the school and what we decided is to do ahead of time to provide you um at least a few more a few weeks before that to give you the proper information we followed every guideline to give you the full information and everything that's required by law or state if there's information that you want me to get to provide more basis for your thought I am quite happy to do that you just need to tell me the issue in terms of if the school is approved for the start of school or not from everything I have read basically is related to the issue of compulsory education so worst case as far as I know based on what I have read if the school is not approved by the first day of school it would appear that the consequence if that's the correct word would be that the students who are enrolled there could be considered tardy or truant by the Greenfield schools they're but we have a list of the students so you know we certainly are aware of who they are and that they would not just be not doing anything but we have we have another meeting before school starts how many students if they're 31 I believe the students could be wrong 31 or 32.
so before I begin and I just don't want to be borrowed but there are a few people in your audience that are not expecting a request to not be rude so I hope that they stop it so I'll just read what I wrote but I'm gonna maybe ad-lib a little bit so in my opinion and it's documented everywhere parents absolutely have the right to restrict what their own children read and that is where the privilege ends community members on the other hand do not share that right in any interpretation of our Constitution and have one the Brookfield Board of Ed has put into place an opt-out provision for these the objective parents to this book um hold on I got rattled by that initiative maker back there so the Brookfield board event is put in place opt-out Provisions for those objecting parents so that our highly qualified school and Community Librarians can continue to work in tandem with our highly qualified classroom teachers to support all students there is a hundred reasons on this school librarian's webpage of why so you can probably ala thing because the library has more influence on people than anyone realizes and it's all when you start out bringing him to the preschool um book reading story time you say which book would you like to read first grade second grade third grade fourth grade fifth grade you start demanding read a book but all along would you like to read but now it's like you can't read that so what do you think they're going to do you all know and that's what happens so I hope you check out the 100 reasons kids will miss if a school librarian the Brookfield Board of Ed serving our students during a similar demand of a group of parents who objected to our health curriculum components surrounding HIV AIDS prevention education in the mid 90s were Pioneers in developing the opt-out policy thank you for adding library books to a policy model that has worked seamlessly all these years maybe one and it's you're right if you don't want your child to learn something and if you're not their parent you have no say in what anybody reads in a public Arena zero so it's perfect that I say I support the Librarians who do their job very well and have excellent job judgment and I mean that in selecting reading materials that align with a variety of student needs and I hope I don't get a heckled on the way back to my seat thank next up is Linda Davies hello and I hope everybody can hear me clearly can you yeah yeah thank you this isn't about one book this is what the name of the grocery store oh sorry Linda Davies 30 loan on the Drive Brookfield thank you this isn't about one book this is about the many books that can be made available in our libraries at any time one can be removed and tomorrow there will be another one just like it question is why do you want this material available to our children young children especially let's connect the dots books social media corporations clothing stores cell phones music Hollywood and our schools all exposing our children to unnecessary unwanted sexual material including parades of naked beds satanic pledges drag queen story hours why is the question to normalize sex at any age to make it acceptable all this in an effort to change our system of law merely to an act of will they are refusing to admit the existence of any objective moral order or natural law why that's why so what does this lead to millions of children LED astray in the worst cases kidnapped in trafficked bought sold raped murdered millions of children being molested by people that are supposed to be able they're supposed to be able to trust such as doctors coaches clergy family members the list is endless children who will question their own sexuality May experiment long before they are mature enough to make up their own minds this can lead to a lifetime of mental issues including the possible abuse of drugs alcohol and the consideration of life-changing physical surgical procedures and of course unwanted pregnancies shouldn't the school system along with parents be warning the children about the dangers of sex where are the books that teach our children to avoid unwatched unwanted touching improper conversations respecting their bodies and make them aware of the pedophiles that are out there everywhere this is being done intentionally you are the people who are supposed to be setting an example for our children inspiring their intellect not their sexuality the schools are putting our children in danger this is not just about a book the whole system is broken starting with our schools if you are against it then you are for it any logical decent person can see the evil that is happening our children are not yours to manipulate God's children are not for sale next up is Kathleen Carter foreign Carter 20 Mountain Road there's an agenda to normalize the sexualization of children parents Nationwide are fighting to protect our kids innocence while adults can read whatever they please the books that we're talking about depict children and adults performing sexual acts proponents of the books want them to be available in our schools and they want to expand on the gender ideolog UE you know what the word is through ideology okay through classroom curriculum uh but we by parents allowing these books in our libraries they're literally open opening the doors for adults to start speaking to your children about sex uh next we'll be teaching them about sex and classrooms and not in a biological or scientific way and then next will be videos and movies and finally these books can allow for possible sexual assault between children and teachers and school counselors and school administrators these books are clearly written for the gay and transgender children's community vulnerable children are targeted children currently government is trying to pass bills allowing kids as young as seven without parental consent to be able to make their own decisions about hormone blockers and surgery which cause sterilization in some cases pain for the remainder of their lives schools are pushing these books under the guise of gay and trans kids need I've heard that word they need these books that they can relate to the administration isn't on the kids side currently there's a federal lawsuit with crimes against two former female VHS students naming the leaders sitting right here in this room Brookfield is under serious scrutiny we as parents and as a community need to be on the same side every single parent here is fighting to protect their kid but parents of the gay and trans kids need to ask themselves is this the way you want your child to be portrayed as just a sexual object this is what they need they need to know how to have anal sex they need to know how to give blow jobs they need to know how to you know do you think do things that I don't even want to say although the books don't teach about love relationships empathy acceptance they're literally instructional handbooks with the crudest of words and acts children confused on sexuality and under gender need help from a qualified therapist the issues affect the entire family mothers and fathers are learning to accept their children their mourning their Lost Child there's emotional physical and spiritual aspects of transitioning and our community as a whole is worried about these kids uh changing their mind as they grow older because data shows that 80 of these kids grow out of it after puberty and some kids are subliminally coerced to believe they were born in the wrong body sex education gender issues love and personal relationships are taught in many different ways all parents must come together to protect your child from coercion and Conformity culture protect your child from sexualization protect your child's privacy and self-esteem most importantly especially the transitioning kids and the gay kids who are specifically targeted in these books that are in these libraries if we allow them in the high school they're going to go to the middle school then they're going to go to kindergartners [Applause] I think next is Austin Montana all right good evening awesome Ontario 17 Dairy Farm Drive I just want to start by saying no one who grew up we were always told don't judge a book by its cover right and we should not do that it should be weighed and measured by the contents Within and I hope that after you have all read and digested this instructional how-to manual because that is what is it that is what it is as the author States on page two and on the back cover I hope that you will base your decision on the content that is being communicated and crafted towards children in this manual with children in the school as young as 13 years old now as you know we make decisions with either the emotional or rational part of our brain right so the emotional brain is where fear shame guilt outrage and flight or flight live and Thrive it's also where we see identity identity politics rare it's ugly head we've seen this at play through name-calling and labeling of others and threats amongst other actions regarding this issue that that we're dealing with today now the rational part of the brain is where we can use logic reason critical thinking and common sense to make informed decisions as adults and this is how we should decide this issue is how we need to decide this issue it was a rational thought with thought not tied to emotion or political affiliation or what you have seen or read on corporate media a lot of that stuff is blown way out of proportion and you know after having time to have read and digest this content over the past few weeks I'm sure emotion has subsided and it's my hope that with honest reflection you will determine that the content of this manual is not appropriate for minors here in our school setting and as Linda said it's about more than one book it's about the future of the curriculum here in Brookfield throughout this point if you are not if you are if your vote is to not reconsider this instruction manual for removal then you are publicly stating that you are in support of the following one you are in support of minors going out to sex apps like Grindr to meet Anonymous adults for sex and to upload and send pictures to Anonymous adults obviously illegal two the hole for keeping this says you're in support of providing a detailed sex instruction manual to minors that as we know can be very graphic with talking about orgies and golden showers and so on and so on and at one point to the other graphic detail and really lastly um now that everybody's read the book a vote in support of this says that you're supporting the overall hate that this manual shares to different religious denominations to different people who disagree with this author and to other sects of our modern day Society why would we teach children about hate and fear and paranoia makes no sense to me so with all that being said the real questions and then at the end of the day is what adult would want to publicly support any of what I just said and more that is contained in this book especially with children involved again we have 13 13 year olds here in this school so I thank you for your time I thank you for this meeting tonight and I hope you guys make the uh direct decision thank you [Applause] good evening I'm Howard Lasser 116 Tower Road I'm here to address the current and ongoing challenges to books that deal with sexuality specifically this book is gay though my comments can address any book that seeks to address to respond to the questions the teens ask themselves and their classmates about sex and gender I'd like to provide some historical context as this is not the first time this issue has been before the brookfields Board of Education though I realize that none of you were part of the board when this was raised in fact except for Mr Belden and Miss Brooks I don't believe I believe many of you are not even in Brookfield at the time but I believe it's important for the board to know about its prior decisions and the impact it has had on a generation of kids secondly I lived in town for 42 years and I've spoken in many Town meetings in public hearings but I've never referenced my children I've always believed that it's their story their lives to share if they so desire however in this instance I have my daughter's permission to relate her experiences and I noticed that there aren't any students here and that's not surprising in given the subject matter and the stigma that might be attached to their appearance so my daughter will speak for them but more than 30 years ago the high school peer counselors initiated a program called safe zones this was a program where teachers who were comfortable talking to students and asking and answering their questions about sexuality without judgment we're available to the students these safe zones were identified by Pink triangles after several years of success the program came to the attention of the board and without any public discussion the board rejected this initiative and put an end to it much to the outrage of students my daughter Elise entered High School in a year or two after this program was eliminated as I mentioned I asked her if I could talk about her experiences she acknowledges her experience came from a place with very supported Network not everyone will have had that through positive experiences that she has had and she feels strongly about supporting this cause as she is married to a biracial woman and raising a biracial child and at this point I have to Veer off of my statement to say hi Leo my grandson who of my daughters had texted me says they're watching Leo go to sleep I'll add she is also happily employed on the faculty of the book The School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins where she received her doctor when I heard of the current challenges to these books I reached out to Elise to ask her about her experiences in high school in the absence of this support of this program called safe songs I know that our kids don't always feel comfortable talking about these issues with their parents so they seek answers elsewhere I asked her did she feel threatened did she have a place to seek answers about the questions she undoubtedly had and what about her friends well she says she did not feel threatened she tells me that she and her classmates had no resources other than each other there was nowhere to go no one to speak to when they had questions or didn't understand what they were feeling or thinking books like this didn't exist but if they had it could have helped answer questions all teenagers ask themselves the intent of this book is gay is clearly about helping kids who had questions it spelled out in the very beginning where it says take in what it has to say see what it helps you figure out is that not the intent of our education system to engage students to teach them to questions and how to find answers clearly teens are asking these questions of themselves of their friends in the absence of other opportunities why would we deny a resource to our children this board is an institution failed a generation of kids please don't make the same mistake again thank you thank you [Applause] anybody who hadn't signed up that would like to speak hearing non-public comment is closed all right so next up on our agenda we're going to receive actually the reports that the committee did and I'll invite Mr belanda up to the podium to represent his committee and share with us the findings and then we have an opportunity to ask any questions we might have [Music] and you've already I believe received this probably an email that I sent around this was a official response what I'm going to do is spend a few minutes today kind of going through the process of that our book reconsideration committee went through when reconsidering the book for inclusion in our collection this book is gay so this doctor you have in front of you was created on was officially sent out on June 12th in response to there was a at that point in time there had been two official challenges towards the reconsideration of the book being a part of the collection um and so I just want to review uh you can see the purpose at the top you know we two recommendation for reconsideration forms um according to the board of ed regulations 6563 which I'm sure you're all very familiar with at this point in time uh The Next Step talks about the reconsideration process itself so the process involves us reviewing the forms uh and by us I mean myself and the two library media Specialists review the forums and then there is conversations uh with the individuals that submit the forms to review them to ask see if there's any additional questions or any highlights that they want to make sure that we are aware of then I had to order copies of the book because it is an e-book that's offered through the Connecticut State Library Association they offer a free service to public schools that we have been a part of since December 2022.
that's gonna be ongoing funding it's approximately 0.9 of of an increase to your budget so one-time funding increase um the state had a surplus of one ten dollars and so they they chose uh one benefit they were behind us that K-12 got was to push down some money of one-time money uh to the shirts throughout 300 million dollars Statewide and so for Auto time funding um 139 000. um again that's one time um and so we have to be really careful how we uh allocate those funds uh it's not ongoing so you want to avoid any Personnel increases with that particular bucket so so I'm assuming that the Ohio unified school districts piece of that pie was determined based on number of students in the district yeah uh based on number of students and then yeah when you get down to it uh at 300 million you're doing those pretty quick when you start talking about the bigger districts in the state you can choose how do you find Mesa so yeah 139 000 a nice chunk of change uh one-time funding but um again one time the last one down there um 20 million dollars was incorporated Statewide to increase distributional assistance which is your which is your Capital funding um that 20 million dollars equated to about five thousand five hundred dollars uh ongoing funding increase there but again you know not a substantial increase in terms of when we look at the grand scheme it's like go to the next slide so looking at the m o budget again this this budget is responsible for paying your personnel your benefits and most of your supplies in your District um your budget Mount so your formula generated budget amount this is taking your number of students that you have I'm seen by the pupil amount that the state has and then I didn't break out all the group b ways if you have a special need Student yell out there's various ways applied to different that's all in that calculation that comes down to your kind of Base amount of 3.3 million dollars and then we add in some of those legislative changes that I just talked about so the two percent increase to the base uh the results release funding switch to the base um and then we add in also carry board so ending this fiscal year we're estimating about 724 000 um and carry forward so that's a budget that was not utilized so how did that compare that's a percentage-wise with other school districts [Music] um smaller districts when you have a I guess less of a budget to kind of cover emergencies um anywhere from uh 10 to 15 as a good rule of thumb um I mean you you look at any sort of emergency uh you had a major Sewer back I mean asset people come in on some of these things but um you do have to be a little more on the conservative side as a smaller District to cover those unforeseen circumstances when it gets to it when there is an opportunity so you're within that ballpark and I know I've worked with Dr solozero on keeping that within that range because you do want to there's a fine line between polling as a savings fund and utilizing your funding for your students that you have a strict math so um so that that's what that number is um and then we added that one-time State funding which were appropriating to mnl and this 24 budget so prop123 also is in there that's expiring next year that's a an add-on there's a state Trust land where it's like six tenths of the sales tax is going towards uh this but that was from part of that proposition that was passed um but that is actually expiring next year and I've not seen any notion about this state to maintain or keep that funding up so um again another uh hit to uh K-12 plumbing and that so that would be the 234 000 one we'll talk about that next year though we'll get there I'm looking at Capital this is your other bucket again budget amount um you take your periphubal amount there's a couple there's two different ways two main weights on this give your K-8 weight and then you have a 912 weight so the state Waits your high school class um when your time comes to uh Capital funding at a little higher weight they have a little more higher Capital needs right when you talk about textbooks um Athletics and various things like that um that is why that there's two different weights there um we take the so that that amount is 200 just under 300 000.
in essence what it's saying is the over 150 cells on page one of eight of the budget we can exceed any of those as long as we don't over expend the bottom line okay all right any questions all right I'll take a motion I moved to authorize the expenditure of monies budgeted within the mno section of the budget for any subsection within the section in excess of amounts specified in the budget for fiscal year 2023 2024 as presented I second that all in favor aye aye aye motion carries four to zero thank you I'll get your signatures after the meeting perfect it will cost you one of those subsections okay 8.3 discussion consideration for approval of qualified Educators for the Jo cones Unified School District 2324 state of Statute requires that evaluators are approved by the board prior to the valuation so this is just an annual event that we do you'll see 19 names listed we also have a couple more that will be brought at a future State because they're new and they they need to go through the training part of the approval is uh proof that individuals have gone through training that training could be through Arizona School administrators Association or Arizona Department of Education and so everybody that's on this list has done that so I'd recommend approval as presented okay any questions on the evaluator I'm just curious on the training is it in person or online uh it's varied I believe this year they're doing virtual but over the years it's just varied depending on on what's going on uh within it so I would say some of these people probably said in person I know when I did it I did a two-day in person other cases it's going more virtual in the last couple years okay any other questions all right I will take a motion uh I moved to approve the 2023-24 JL Combs Unified School District qualified evaluators as presented second all in favor aye motion care aye motion carries four to zero okay um so 8.4 I don't want to get in trouble by Bob discussion and consideration for approval of 23 24 employee evaluation instruments so as part of the last year's strategic plan we decided to move forward with uh updating the certified administrative and classified evaluation instruments uh in doing our our research and looking around the teachers were already using strong and Associates we found that strong and Associates actually has a templated system that goes for all employees within a district and so we move forward with evaluation instruments that were related to all the employees the difference is strong and Associates breaks theirs down into six employer groups instead of three so for teachers the or the certified staff they break it out by teachers in one group and educational specialist in another group which would be your counselors social workers OT Sykes all those people then for your support staff they do paraprofessionals and then they do all the support staff and then for administration they do school administrators and then District administrators and with the review of the instruments they have been looked at by a variety of different employees as part of a community or committee work in the case of teachers and the leadership team in the case administrators and what we've tried to do where applicable is make sure there's alignment to hashtag forward what we're trying to do is if if we're going to do trainings for teachers as an example and talk about shared visions and codes and and learning walls and and those kind of things then it's nice to have them in the evaluation instrument so that when people are coming in to see what's happening in the classroom there's a direct connection between the valuation instrument and the and what we're trying to present as part of professional development we did that with the other some of the other groups too a little bit tougher to make some of those connections but where we have we could or where we could we did the other issue that will happen is this is the first go-around and there will be we will review it again this year to to update it and and see if there's more that we can do the big difference between what strong and Associates does and what we're doing is they use a two-tiered system and we modified to a three-tier system and the main reason for that is the two-story system was a standard so all six of these evaluation instruments are based on seven uh sets of Standards at the net at the national level and then they used to just under each of those standards put 10 15 performance indicators well that comes really hard when you have a standard that actually is broken down into maybe three or four discrete skills but you have to give one overall rating and so you end up tending to have to marginalize the rating to some degree because you're trying to cover such a broad standard so what we did is kind of like what we do in hashtag Ford we unpacked the standard and we said if there's four discrete skills let's take those four discrete skills out and let's rate each one of those we use the same rubric that is being used at the standard level and so nothing changes all the individual four let's just pretend there's for performance indicators are going to go ahead and get a rating and they will average out to give you your rating for the performance standard we then took all of those what we'll call Performance indicators before and made it as a competencies and all the competencies are designed for is people to go ahead if an evaluator is coming in it's things to look for but now when you have four discrete skill areas you might have a teacher or an administrator or a classified person that's doing well in two or maybe even three of the of those performance and cares but they're struggling in one area and now we can go rate them higher in the three areas that doing well and then rate them lower in another area and then have a conversation with them about what we expect them to do to get better and it makes it a little bit easier and you can get more specific into how can I make this employee improve in the job that they're doing and so we've done that throughout all of them we have handbooks for every one of the uh the employee group groups we're finishing those up what I shared with you to in the backup was just the standards the performance indicators and the competencies uh some of the handbooks because of the way they're written run as many as 90 pages so to try and load up all of those uh would have been I would be very very long so I just want to give you an idea of what the the standards were for each of the different groups the slide presentation or slide deck that's up there what will happen is the administration will get the slide deck for each of the groups and they will go ahead and present an overview maybe one slide deck because they're very very tightly aligned there's a few nuances but they'll present it to all of the staff and then they will have access to the handbook and it'll be up to them if you know whether they go through the whole handbook Page by Page by Page it's a little bit different in some cases because teachers have a much tighter set of rules under state statute for evaluations than a classified individual does Again part of that's related to whether I'm an Atwell employer not an Atwell employee but at least gives everybody in the district being evaluated in the same manner so I would recommend approval of these valuation instruments but I'm open to take any questions any questions okay standard to tell them what they're going to evaluate and give them a book right so just thought and maybe you've already thought of this just thinking about the professional development you're giving them is that professional development helping them to be successful at this instead of so because I've been in places where the only education you get on the valuation piece is after you've been evaluated it's too late right so if we're really investing our teachers the the beforehand stuff that I'm going to set you just like with our students right I got to set this teacher up for success I want to know beforehand maybe what they're deficient in so that I can support them in growing in that right and so a couple things um uh beforehand efficiency there is a self-reflection piece within it but in some cases since since especially for the majority of employees these are brand new instruments you're you're delayed in that but yes when we when as an example the new teachers uh training the I think was yesterday they went through specifically how to set up the classroom relative to a student-centered learning environment so shared Visions class codes Sops and all those terminal all that terminology is actually in the evaluation instrument so there is a dialogue that says as we're teaching you this for both these two days as well as the next two days we're going to come back and when we evaluate you it's going to be linked to the two and that's what we're trying to do because last year the evaluation system will end this way and we're doing hashtag forward this way and it kind of that that split look confusing us right that confuses its people and so we're we're trying to align it we would hope over the next couple years We'll add more pieces to the puzzle to align them even tighter but we had to just get the first one going and kind of go from there I think it just supports teachers when they they see the right leaders are supporting their growth I mean I think it would help with teacher burn I think it would it would help teachers say no I'm not going anywhere else because I know this district is committed to my growth right and if that being thoughtful with that and and is it specific with the with the the PD is it saying hey we're looking at these two or three different parts of the evaluation yes we're going to make our teachers good yep and that's that's the way it's set up and then and the beauty is and and then even the way administrators are going to be evaluated and the way support staff can be evaluated are all the same so the conversation goes across the entire district with the same structure in the same system disparate systems are despaired instruments for different employer groups which is what we had before uh yeah I have a couple of comments and questions one I really like the idea of breaking it into six different instruments for the different uh job titles and jobs in the district it makes a lot more sense than lumping things together so it's it's more specific and I really like that I also like that you have the seven although I'm looking at the teacher on the seven performance standards and under each one is a performance indicator so I really like the way that flows I do have a problem though with the number of performance indicators in the teacher assessment form um Jason you're a teacher so you're going to get a praise and you have 42 things that's what it adds up to that you you have to have a beating with your evaluator and present evidence of your performance in those 42 items it seems to me that that's way way too many but before you comment let me just tell you um when we were doing the asba experiment on the supervisor uh on this on the superintendent evaluation we realized it was too much when I worked for at T we went through a similar process we realized that's too much um my wife who is an HR professional and an executive her whole life when I showed her this she said it's way too much so I have a deep concern about what we're asking evaluators and teachers to do when all of the other instruments the most you have is 22 performance indicators with an education specialist and the least you have is 16 with not certain non-certified staff yet we're hitting teachers with 4 42 performance indicators that just doesn't sit well with me right and so what I would say is that that may be part of the adjustment but those 42 indicators were developed by teachers so the teacher committee came back and that's what the teacher committee requested there was probably I don't know Dr duplicitous and Dr Fountain there was probably a neighborhood of eight to twelve meetings that were held last year and so that development was based on on their conversations they're looking at their this whole structure them coming back now there may be a case and so I would say those teachers that were on they were representative across the district across disciplines across grade levels um uh that they may come back this year and have the very same conversation we're having which would be some of the adjustments that may take place but we needed to move forward with an instrument the one instrument that you must approve is the teacher evaluation instrument you don't necessarily have to prove the others but understate statutes you do have to prove this one and again because you know we talk about student choice and voice it's also teacher or adult choice and voice and so this was what they wanted based on again multiple meetings that's why it's in there but we may you may see the one next year coming back growing bigger growing smaller modifying language but that's why it's there it's because that was their their final product within what the instrument looked like and and doctors or doctor might be able to ask specific questions but they're the ones that led that so that's still in the meetings with with the teachers in the district what if any negative comments came up with regard to this because I got to tell you I just thought sitting well with me and is there a way to tell teachers hey we have to cut this in half yeah let's I'll run that again cut it in half I'll run up and try to help because I think it's I think it's being perceived as we're looking for 42 things and you must check all 42 of those boxes and that's not the case the conversation that was had with the teacher committee that I think was a very positive conversation was hey we have no problem being evaluated based on the expectations the goal and this is all part of that monitor framework too because we use the same terminology the goal is to be transparent in that and to say there are not surprises when we talk about one of those standards those competencies underneath are all just examples of what we're talking about in that so if you're not looking at some of those things it's just a helpful inclusive list to say to be very specific to a teacher what what the feedback was overwhelming with our committee was was just that piece of saying where they get frustrated is when an administrator comes in and evaluates them and says you don't do the thing well and Mr Beach says what's the thing you've never told me about it I don't know what the thing is and so the reason it's so comprehensive is the goal was to be able to say these are all the things that we say our teachers should do could we Pare that down a little bit and summarize it a little better we could certainly bring the committee back and do that but that was their goal and intention it wasn't to make it feel like an overwhelming list but it was to be able to say there's no surprises in coming in with some vague description of a thing you're supposed to do and to be very specific and have it very aligned to the work that we do as a district so it really was a very positive process it was a long process but it was a very positive process I'm sure we could bring some of those folks back to speak to that if that's are some of those points like subsections of that so let's say the thing right has like two or three things that show you're doing the thing and now we're counting those as four points exactly which should only be counted as one right right because as evaluator must say wow they did it they did two or three of I think this is a good example if I said I'm coming in to observe engagement in your classroom engagement might look like this this this or this okay so now I'm being specific about engagement and I'm not coming in and just saying I don't see engagement in your classroom and then the teacher says what does engagement mean you've never told me this is what engagement means these are specific examples so it is a desire to gain Clarity but we can certainly work on that and what you try to do when you unpack the standards is look at the key verbs within the standard and then differentiate out by the verbs so the verb so if I'm going to gather analyze and present if those are three key verbs in a standard then you're trying to break it out into the gather analyze and present but then there's a second part of the sentence that then says but when you do that we want you to do it for two different ways or three different ways and so it became We Want to Break It Out by gather analyze and present for part one now we want to gather analyze and present for part two and that's what happened you break break it out and that's what they went through to get to that for that transparency so I'm not again if I'm doing the Gathering but I'm not doing the analysis I might get two different ratings if I'm doing the Gathering and Analysis but I can't communicate and present it but that's why you have it but yeah I'll agree that there's a lot but that was based on their commitment let me just give you an example so performance standard one is Professional Knowledge performance indicator one out of that group is the teacher demonstrates an understanding of the adapted curriculum and related curriculum standards by providing relevant student-centered and modern learning experiences and then there's examples so if I'm having an evaluator come in and evaluate me as a teacher on that we're going to have a discussion or on that so now I'm going to have 42 of those similar discussions on all 42 of those performance indicators and to me it seems like a challenge totally understand that yeah I mean again the goal was to be able to say where are again our teachers on the committee Express frustration is that in some evaluation instruments I might say you do not have Professional Knowledge because there's one piece of that that you were lacking in and so rather than taking that one piece and dinging you overall the goal was to break those into those subsets to say you know this this this and this where I need you to work is this little one over here and the goal and I think Mr B really said it quite well the goal is teacher growth and we can't accomplish teacher growth if we speak in vague generalities and so that's kind of the back and forth again I'm not saying we couldn't summarize better or we couldn't cut it down more but the goal was to be able to be specific enough to really get to the heart of what the issue might be and not just say well all of that is part of being of Professional Knowledge and therefore if you're missing any of it we say you don't have it well that's true so so this instrument if and when approved will be used for this entire Academic Year correct correct okay so from an evaluator standpoint do all of these indicators make it difficult more difficult to reward the good teachers or reward teachers that are busting their humps we know that they're making progress I mean there are teachers that don't care we know that but there are teachers that are lacking a little bit but you can tell in their heart they're in the right place those are people we want to build those are the people want to does the evaluation piece allow evaluators to do that they're nodding I don't want to speak on their behalf but I'm going to say no I was hoping yeah but I really think that you're going to get the same response there in fact I will say we got the same response there from some of the administrators who served on the committee that you spoke of of teachers and I think it speaks to your philosophy as an administrator on what your goal is am I looking just to do this quick and dirty or am I really genuinely invested in teacher growth and development because if I am I need those pieces to be able to help teachers learn and grow does it create a level of cumbersome nature it does you know it's one of the biggest tasks I think that our administrators take on but I think it's also one of the absolute most important pieces that we do it's a long it's a lot we have to have a long Vision with it because as you build teachers and they stick around it builds a community to school then there's pride in the school then that impacts test scores that that says people are staying that that's I mean I think that's all the things we've had concern about a big piece of what we've tried to accomplish in the classroom setting and part of what modern teacher does with that transparent learning I was described but this way it's that shift of a teacher a student walking up to a teacher and handing out a piece of paper and saying is this what you want all of these elements that we've worked on with the learning walls and all of those pieces learning targets success criterias to say I'm going to tell you what I want here it is right here it's not a secret the answer is no longer a surprise in the classroom I'm telling you what it is I'm just helping you learn how to get there it's a very similar mentality with the evaluation piece that our goal is to be open and transparent about these pieces albeit maybe 42 of them these are things that make a teacher a really good teacher and I want to be able to have a level of specificity when I'm giving you feedback about which of those things I want you to work on now that's the job of myself under the supervision of Dr Wyman to work with our our building level leaders and help coach them on how do we give that to teachers because we all know that there's going to be that teacher that we look at and go holy cow they need to grow in 40 of those 42. and nobody knows we can't but we don't help anybody you got to pick one or two and then we figure out what those things are but we we at least have that knowledge so you want to run somebody off give them 14 things to work on yeah 40 things to work on they'll be out of here but if they got two things they see the growth and you can celebrate with them they're going to be here next year so when you're evaluating them and they say oh so in the first one there's an example of five so they get two of them so what do you say then like what does the evaluator say like right so you're saying they might have two they've done two of them very well okay I mean for myself and this is what I would coach I would say you always lead with a positive right you lead with the these are two things that you did really well um years and years and years ago I did a professional development with a lady and I've stolen the sermon I've used it ever since and she would always say you you the next step is so I always lead with the you did this really well you're doing this really well you're doing this really well the next step is we're going to work on this okay but hopefully the next time we have that conversation that's one of the use right and then and then there's nothing to do this yeah right but the other piece just the other piece is those five things are not this is not a checklist it's not like if you do four of the five you're going to be here you do two of the five you're gonna be here those are just examples of what could occur there could be other examples in there what's what's done is you have a rubric a four-point rubric and so you're really looking when you look at that are you saying and I don't have the rubric right in front of me are you are you ineffective are you developing are you effective are you highly effective the system is set up to be effective is the goal that you're shooting for you have to be a a plus teacher of the year teacher of the universe to be in the in the highly effective but so you're looking at that's that performance indicator against that rubric there are things that will jump out within that rubric and we give four or five it varies depending on which one they are to say yes I'm seeing those things in my class but or I'm seeing those things when I look at a teacher teaching but on top of that what I'm seeing in there is just good teaching as I stand there and look at it this is what I'm seeing in there so for that particular one I'm going to rate them as effective let's just say when I get to another one let's say five point or excuse me 1.3 I'm actually not seeing much of any of it so in that particular case we might rate you as develop developing or ineffective the cut the combination together will go ahead and give you the final score and so it varies the and even in the current system that we use uh strong and Associates Associates very much says remember those indicators or those competencies that we we're calling this year this is not a check the box and they must do every single one you're saying in totality am I seeing what I'm supposed to see and when I see these indicators along with other things that would give me um an understanding of it I will tell you as we make this adjustment this year for all of us in the valuation this will be a little bit of learning curve for us and we'll have to do some training on it because they're slightly different than they were before it's for the teachers pretty close for everybody else it's different and so we're going to have to work our through as our way through as we as we take a look at it it might be helpful just to see a final example of what it would look like so here we have this big thing in front of us but what does it look like in the end that might be helpful to see right and where I don't have them as right now we're in the process of developing uh the no well I mean yeah end of the year will be one that's filled out but we're we're gonna we're working on a a uh a sheet that is automated that the principals could go in and go ahead and make the checks on where these guys are based on the evaluation and excuse me based on the rubric and then you will see a summary of what's taking place and there'll be a point a place for them to also make comments those are being developed as we as we speak they don't develop those in strong and Associates so it's something we have to make uh we have a rough draft of it right now and we should have it done hopefully in the next couple weeks it might actually be a month a month but we'll share that with you uh when we get it done so you can see what the summary looks like so who else who else so probably in the neighborhood of 20 and not all showed yeah right right who was like you were were you the one that was like in like leading the conversation right son Santa was there and and again what the original intention was to make sure that all Sites were represented all grade levels were represented all pistols were represented so it was a cross-reference it wasn't all these from this site not from that site we split on the high school and middle school so that you had if you had the English and the math guys at the high school on there you had a representation for science and social studies at the middle school so there was representation across the board uh uh for that that's why I was purposely done that way I just I the representation but I sometimes when we get into those things the plan is already there and it's like hey this is our plan what do you guys think of it good okay cut right yeah so the starting point just for reference because we went from a two to three tiered system in the two-tiered system the rating would have been only on one standard so what whatever was developed and we say we're going to unpack the standards and you now have those performance indicators three four five six whatever it is that's what was developed the initial one it's for the the the template that they were given to your point Miss Argus was just that they just had this seven standards that was it okay now they were they went ahead and put meat on the bone so to speak to say when we unpack this standard how do we unpack it those become the performance indicators so that's where the unpacking went I didn't know it was that exciting but thank you okay so how do you guys want to proceed with this Bob what are you thinking um I think from what Dr Wyman said we need to approve a teacher instrument tonight is that correct well we have to have an instrument approved for a school year by law if we don't do it tonight then it kind of throws things a little bit of a tilt world because you can't present and by law you also have to present to teachers in particular the components of a evaluation instrument so now you could do it in August or you could do it in September but it pushes everything back and kind of throws in a little bit of a tilt world but if that's what the board said then we'll make adjustments and we'll bring something back at the August meeting and then we'd have to do adjustments from there we would I don't know how many of the committee are still with us in the districts and how many left so we'd have to recreate it and see what we got but uh in that case to be honest with you miss Hargis you have probably seen something that was paired down ahead of time and given to them as a possible solution because to try to go through the whole process to Pare down and say you're going to do it at the start of school and everybody's worried about starting school and we're going to take 10 meetings to do that it ain't going to happen so what will happen is we'll end up as Administration pairing it down and taking it for comment um so so if the decision is to do something different I can get it back here I hope by August but I can't promise you that but by September but it's going to have to be in a different different process than than otherwise because there's just not enough time not with everything that's going on and trying to get a school year started I have a question this is we talked about this at The Retreat is that correct and that the presentation I gave you showed you that maybe not all the detail but but I showed you that yes so this is just a little bit different format of what we saw correct okay so so I I mean I guess I don't have a problem with it because I'm I'm familiar with it so I'm not worried about it if that makes sense that's all so I think we still want to see the end result that we're like we want to see what it looks like what I'm saying is I think we saw we're seeing something a little different than what we saw at the retreat and I think that's what is causing like the so we should put more points on the rest of them like the leadership in the district I think what we're seeing is a lot more detail than we had seen before and I guess I'm not comfortable with so much detail and so many things to be evaluated that's where I'm coming from so how many more is this than has been before it's significant because before you just have the seven standards so all you were doing was judging the seven standards but remember if if you had all those components you had to make a wholesale conversation to say geez I got to give somebody a rating on a standard that actually may have five or six components to it and I just gotta lump them into one how do I peel out the one that they're really struggling with which is what we're trying to do as Dr font said get to that specific specificity to say this is where you need to improve as an employee and so in terms of that question automatically even if it's 16 or 24 it would have been double triple what was there before because and actually in the support staff one they used a totally different instrument so it didn't even have standards okay well I'll be interested how they all feel about it then I guess at the end of the year it definitely needs to be reviewed again then like come back and can the evaluation keep the motion with part of we want the leadership here to say what do you guys do your first um when is the first leadership when does the first like evaluation have to be done I know you have to do like so many so for clarity it's actually observations you have the observations and the the two observations under statute must be done uh 65 days apart you could do the first observation August 15th you could do the first observation uh November 15th you know you then you have to do your 65 days in between your next observation and then that's uh calendar days and then um you do your summative of all the times you've been in the classroom across the two formal observations and that summative is usually given out uh approximately in April uh and if you have someone that's on a uh a plan of improvement then you want to get your observation in early because a plan of improvement is a 45 work day not calendar day work day piece and so that's going to take you several several months to go through and so you there's a there's a little bit of adjustment in there but the key components are 65 days between observations and 45 days if they're placed on the plan of improvement those are what's in statute I was just wondering if we could put on like a future agenda item like hey in April we want to see we would like some feedback on this this instrument on how how these teachers and how the and how the evaluators felt that this instrument was working yeah we can do that I mean I'm still uncomfortable but that's okay don't let me hold things up okay so are you guys okay with that okay let's do that so then our next I would like it to be um I don't know what what month April like I think there should be a good chunk done by then so I just want to see like I would like some feedback on on how the evaluators felt it was and how the the teachers felt it was if it was too much if it I don't know they thought it was great because it was more detailed whatever okay all right then I will take a motion I'm not doing it I'll do it go ahead because he's gonna say no I moved to approve the 2023-2024 employee evaluation instrument as presented second okay all in favor aye I I'll opposed I'll abstain okay ooh abstain it's a paper pose Bob yeah it's okay it's all right we'll let you oppose that's fine I'm okay I've registered my mind okay all right so three three two three zero one yeah three three zero zero one okay oh one all right motion carries three zero one so what okay right all right so discussion and consideration for approval of covid-19 mitigation plan for 23 24.
about that grades um K through four okay to four secretary Eckstrom um it will come as no surprise that I sort of look at this from a business standpoint because I've been sitting with a budget for so long and been here and looking at policies and all of those things um what I have big and and I get frustrated with but it is the way it is schools that are not Public Schools do not have to adhere to the same things I'm just backing up with superintendent do not have to adhere to the same laws rules almost anything that public schools do which is which is part of the reason that schools like is it four rivers um can sort of I don't want to say do their own curriculum but the way that they teach and their methodology is sort of up to themselves I say that very Loosely um you know I attended a private Catholic College I had to take Bible classes and bible study classes throughout my time there I I'm not Catholic I didn't really adhere to it um not didn't hear adhere to it but it wasn't something that I had a background in um and what I do know is yes there are lots of things that can be couched as this is a religious freedom thing and I don't I don't even want to touch that um but from a com Market competitiveness way if there is no one who will attend the school if for whatever reason people aren't happy with what's happening there the school won't exist and and and I know that's sort of a a you know sort of a loose thing but if they aren't able to do their jobs and the students aren't able to succeed by any standard they won't exist very long thank you explain Devil's Advocate that's all remember Johnson we sat and then Vice chair martini [Music] it just you know I think there's this aspirational sentence in here in chapter 76 section one and then there's the reality of what's actually happening and um I've been in um I used to work in HIV AIDS and we had these HIV AIDS Community planning things and it was all very aspirational but then sometimes the government would just say you have to vote Yes on this and so I really don't like it I don't like it at all to be honest I really believe that we should be following this aspirational part of the law and not the way it's actually being operationalized but I'll look forward to hearing from our attorney about whether we're mandated to do that or not sorry I I had said remember Johnson was out and then Vice chair matini and then oh okay remember well go ahead piece of the discussion from secretary Eckstrom in terms of whether or not people will stay with the school that is not doing well I don't think that's really accurate I mean New York has certainly contended with the problem of Orthodox Jewish Schools they're turning out students who lack very basic skills and I agree with member Johnson Assad about trying to comply with the spirit of the law and not something else so I I would worry about that I'm really not interested in the religious discussion about it I am interested in ensuring student outcomes and I don't really see I feel that I don't have enough information and to support it at this point remember well go ahead I would just like to know what happens if we voted no Holt there's there's information there is okay um [Music] so the school would not um be able to operate in terms of compulsory attendance meaning the students would not be considered to be enrolled in school if we don't approve and then um that that the students would be considered truant from our record keeping and then the private school um I'm just just looking there is no appeal to the Department of Education to the point a question that was asked about you know if we vote it we own it you you own it to a very limited just for the sake of responding to that you own it to a very limited extent that as long as the school committee acts reasonably and in good faith in carrying out its statutory approval function its potential liability is minimal um I do not see any other um element to this guidance that speaks to um what would happen if you do not approve other than students who go there would not be considered to be attending school for the and what what does that mean for the family and the student I mean so at the end of the day I mean the school district if we have students who are truant by the definition of the law then we have a process where we meet with families to talk about school attendance at the end of the day they could um we could file a chance for um you know students in need of services with the court we could file with DCF where the families could um share that they are homeschooling so there are options at that stage for the family so at this point I would like to move that we table this until next month so that we can hear what the attorney says second do we do a discussion on the tabling I think we do let's do it if everyone's all right we'll do a discussion on the tabling and we'll go from there remember Denise I just wanted to say really quickly that there are two test cases of this um that have happened recently one in Oklahoma and one in Somerville Massachusetts and that happened last year at this time so while it's potentially being tabled perhaps we could take some time to privately personally research those two test cases that have happened because it does detail what it ended up occurring when the school committee did vote no in Somerville other discussion about tabling I I would just say um give me a second to phrase it right uh we we run into situations all the time where it's obvious Dusty paints us into a corner the state paints us into a corner um I I struggle I I hear everyone's point of view on this including the folks who want their children to attend the school and I I want to remind our committee that these are our neighbors and their children and like all of us are trying to do the best for their families and uh for me that piece is front and center and I don't think tabling this for another month is going to put us in any different position on how to move forward but I would of course go with the will of the committee secretary extra um I know that we do spend some time talking about curriculum and and what it is that should be chosen or not chosen but the reality is we are not curriculum experts and and I guess when I'm hearing and I hear Kate I hear you talking about a lot and I don't doubt whatever's coming out of your mouth to be honest with you however I'm not an expert and so I don't know make sure you're relating your comments to tabling to tabling right now oh that's what we're talking about sorry that's okay that's the motion on the table pun intended um any further questions about tabling should we just vote on whether or not to table it yeah any abstentions from voting uh who would vote no on tabling that's two so the motion to table carries so it will be taken up at our August meeting I appreciate you being here tonight and I'm sure we'll have some follow-up sure thank you if there's any questions you may have please please do ask just to just to um let you know that Providence Christian Academy really started um with our congregation seeing a lot of children being homeschooled and we wanted to provide an opportunity for these children [Music] um future opportunities and we believe that in person having a facility or in-person schooling is a better alternative that than homeschooling and we don't want them to miss out on opportunities for the future and this is how this has started then we saw an interest from other communities and we said why don't we open this to others who may have interest interest in in a such School such Academy it did exist in Greenfield before there are a few of them that have closed in the past um there was even a Catholic school here too was Cornerstone is that the one that was here previously thank you and our teachers the great teachers a lot of them have been teaching in public schools they're knowledgeable and I I can't comment much on the curriculum since I'm not an expert here either but a Becca is probably one of the top used Nationwide in Christian private schools it is a very rigorous it is a very great curriculum for children especially if you have great teachers to teach and write and and so that's all I want to add and let you know we're not a religious cult here okay we're here to provide opportunities especially for those who are home school um at the same time we're opening these without for others to be part of it if they desire so thank you I appreciate your perspective thank you for being here tonight okay we'll move into item seven on the agenda which is a vote to declare library books at Greenfield Middle School Surplus we would start with uh emotion a move to declare the library books at Greenfield Middle School Surplus as inventoried and presented to the school committee do I have a motion so moved and the second second and any discussion okay seeing none anyone abstaining from voting on this anyone voting no so that passes unanimously and we'll move into we have uh two policy items that as we've done in previous meetings uh member Johnson the chair of the subcommittee for policy will move us through those motions okay I'll make the motion ask for a second and then I can give a little spiel about each of these a move that we approve the first reading of amendments to policy bde subcommittees of the school committee as presented still moved and it's second oh second okay so um there was uh basically a typo in this uh policy that made us want to consider it which was it said the school committee will have the following standing committees and that it did not list the Committees and so then it got the attention of our of our subcommittee and of our attorney who also found problems with the idea of having um the chair and or the superintendent being ad hoc members of each of the subcommittees So based on those changes that needed to happen we looked at the mask model policy which is word for word basically what we have presented to you and it was voted unanimously from the um policy subcommittee thank you so my question is are you asking for us to just approve this and then you'll go look at it and with make changes as you not as you see fit but make changes as necessary and then bring it back to us and then we talk about it or yeah so the the process is we bring it to you for a first reading then we'll bring it back to the subcommittee so between now and then of members of the public or school committee members like you right now want to give us feedback we can incorporate that at our committee and then bring you back something so um so that's the process it would come back to us for a second reading likely at the um August meeting can I ask something yes please for the first line it says it's a school committee shallow Point members to subcommittees at their annual organizational meeting for a period of one year I don't know that that is possible given that it further says the committee number two the committee chair subject to approval by the committee will appoint the subcommittee chair and its members the organizational meeting is where the committee chair is designated elected whatever it is and if that person hasn't been doing the thing they aren't going to know who's the who or what or yep that was the only thing that stood out to me yeah so maybe the change would be something like um the next consecutive meeting or something yeah this this the committee chair will present um uh school committee assignments for I mean subcommittee assignments at something like that yeah I see that revision it in if I may in practice the subcommittee assignments are done at the second school committee meeting of the year yeah um and we've carried forward you know in in January with the subcommittees from previous but generally there's not a lot of subcommittee work happening at that point well actually I mean so I think that this is why in the past I don't know I mean I think what we've seen is a lot of variety in the way that the um organizational meeting is done but one argument for having an organizational meeting separate from and um in advance of the first meeting of the year is that you could appoint your chair and then at the first meeting of the year they could bring their subcommittee assignments which would be useful because usually you have to immediately begin working on the budget so at least having the budget subcommittee in place would be helpful so you can kind of see how this kind of relates as well to other policies that we have um so I guess I would um not sure exactly what to do we could take the feedback as a subcommittee and work on it bring it back yep um I would say for for efficiency it might be useful to um to um approve it on first reading with the feedback to be directed to the policy subcut and we have precedent for that that's totally [Music] okay any other discussion yes just one small thing um in regards to bde the subcommittee's policy um it says that members to subcommittees would be appointed at the annual organizational meeting for a period of one year but it doesn't say anything about uh what if we want to form a subcommittee mid-year which we just did last month so I was wondering if that should be accounted for do we have another policy we're just going to have another policy about ad hoc committees we do covered by that I can try to pull that up if you want yeah I do believe it's addressed in I'm not going to know which policy it is but we do have one on on um creation of ad hoc committees and the ones that we have done mid-year at least in my time on the school committee have all been ad hoc I mean in a way it's kind of the way this policy is written it's it's it would be the chairs discretion whether to continue committees from the prior year but I guess it would be wanting the uh chair to be clear about whether they're creating an ad hoc or a standing committee would be a different process to just kind of disband a something that's established as a permanent committee so I'll see what it says here um oh yes season forever I think those are considered different so I'm looking at that yeah I think probably can I make a suggestion yeah please um that we take back to the policy subcommittee the question of um the creation of the subcommittee assignments and the wording of that piece and also that we ensure as a policy subcommittee that any advisory or ad hoc committees are addressed elsewhere in policy because I think if we try to put that into this it will be a little bit more convoluted than we normally have in a policy yeah we can seek some guidance too about how to handle it remember well I'd just like to suggest that we also have an organizational meeting before the first school committee meeting I think that that would save a huge nightmare at our first school committee meeting and that could be feedback for the next policy that we're going to be considering which is about that school committee organizational meeting so so I'm really welcome your feedback on that as well any other comments so I think the idea is to vote to um to move it through its first reading to the to the subcommittee to incorporate people's feedback so any other comments or questions all right let's vote any no votes any abstentions that motion passes unanimously okidoki um the next policy I will um ask for a motion that we approve the first reading of amendments to policy BDA school committee organizational meeting on a first reading I guess I already said that first Reading part so moved okay in a second second okay um this came out of a discussion that we had at the um at this organizational meeting in 2023 um there was a lot of the way that the agenda was organized at that time um uh the public comment period came after the votes of the uh for for the officers um some of us felt that if you're going to be making um large choices uh that are very influential on the functioning of the school committee that the public should have the opportunity to comment first and so that is what the changes here it's basically that highlighted item that says a public comment will precede the election of officers that's the only change that we were recommending and I'll just say first that the recommendation was not unanimous um two of us voted for chair poor Eddie voted against in chair parade they wanted to give you a chance to um to speak to that if you want thank you yeah um just a couple of things um the first thing I would point out to the committee as a whole is that the policy has presented is not a An masc approved policy um if there are any in our policy manual that are not masc approved or that we're not moving to that are masc approved as a part of our realignment of our policies I'd be hard-pressed to find them um I also did some research there is no precedent for this with either our city council they do not take public comment uh for uh before their their reorganization nor do any of the other school districts in our region take public comment I think a big part of that is as I've said in other discussions at the school committee public comment is school committee business and it's hard to run the business of the committee without the leadership elected and the the final thing I would say is that you know there's there's this um been this feedback that the public should have a say in who our leadership is and I would remind folks that the public is voting us to be their elected representatives in this body and that is their feedback and members should be looking to see uh who they feel would best lead the body and vote accordingly that's my comment well I am I serve on several other committees besides the school committee and we don't take public comment before we elect a chair of those committees and I also don't think that it's right when we are the people that are elected by the community to serve on the school committee to then have people come and comment to us they can come in come into US throughout the year on anything that they think is wrong with the leadership of the committee they have they can come in December and tell us who they they think should be the chair going forward because we will know who the newly elected people are but I think that that is one of the jobs of a member of the school committee to elect the officers for the next year and should not be the the public should not become part of it if the council doesn't have public comment nor do does any other committee I've ever heard of have public comment thanks chair ekstrom or secretary um I do because when I was looking at this I um was thinking to myself you know what is it because we've worked together for so long I've learned how you think and and I've been listening to Elizabeth and and all the research that she does so I sort of thought okay there's a rationale behind this and I want to sit down and find out what it is and like you know aside from just having it on paper wanting a public comment um there was a time and Glenn you got so exasperated with me saying where is the policy that you finally said Susan we're trying to clean these up and I went oh okay now I get it so when I look at this this isn't a cleaning up this is adding an additional layer of complexity was my thought um and see and I do want to Echo chair poyetti as as there isn't anything with Massey and I so I didn't see a precedent there and then I went online and just put in the put in the question what happens at organizations and and I intentionally went and looked at different policies at different School committees not necessarily close to us just to see what's it like somewhere else and so at Wrentham Cohasset Agawam Mahar and Springfield they don't have anything like that it's just the regular standard school committee designation so those are my two thoughts and following up on what Gene had said that we should that she thought felt like we should have an organizational meeting I we used to have it the only reason that we didn't have it the in 21 when superintendent DeBarge took over is because we were and it was all my decision because I was the ranking person it was because I was I personally was so concerned because we were coming back from covid and it hadn't gone all that well and I thought you know what we just need to worry about this right now and when they get back to school it'll keep for a couple weeks now I it's continued on since then but that was really the whole rationale behind him kind of like she has got way too much on her plate so um those were my thoughts as I had it I I you know I didn't see anywhere else that it was being done and and we're making a policy more complicated I guess which sort of flies in the face of the things that you that you guys have tried to instill I don't know that's right one more thing uh sure briefly remember while and then remember Denise I I just want to say that there are three openings on the school committee this time there will be three openings next time if people don't agree with how the leadership goes they should run for school committee remember Denise um I think having a separate organizational meeting is incredibly important we do not do working sessions we have not done professional development as a group we are dysfunctional as a group and I don't think that adding another layer is complicated I think that we're smart people who can walk and chew gum at the same time I don't think it's a big deal to have public comment before the election of officers we cannot in one breath say that we care about what the public thinks but then in another breath say that they are not allowed to influence the election of officers we either care what they think or we don't care what they think public comment is an essential part of our meetings it's in our policy they provide invaluable input which we have to take into consideration when making our decisions so maintaining a connection between the public and the committee is incredibly important and excluding their input on the election of officers is not just undemocratic but it's potentially a tactic used to gatekeep power so yeah maybe the city council doesn't do it and maybe all the other school communities don't do it but that doesn't mean that that's right and mask has told us in subcommittee meetings that we should explore tailoring our policies to our beliefs and our feelings and the culture of our district they've told us to deviate if we choose if it works better for us so I don't see a problem with changing anything and I think that it would help the public trust us and care about this process more if we are more transparent in the very beginning by having a separate meeting and allowing their input it really cannot hurt anything but could in fact really help us in the long term secretary extra so then why in the past has it has have things been brought to us that were being voted on and there was some discussion here the part of the rationale was I'll paraphrase all the other school committees are doing it and that was part of the argument to do something so I don't know that you can use the just because someone else isn't doing it doesn't mean that wood should I get I understand the cultural piece and understanding culture of our community and and our school committee and all those things but I sort of discount that because of previous well I think different School committees function differently some of them function very healthy ways and some of them do not so I think that it might impact them differently this might not be an issue for some school committees at all I'll speak um and then um member Martini um I just wanted to to say that um a lot of the work that we have been doing as a policy subcommittee has been bringing our our policies in line with the mask uh revisions because mask has in many cases it's bringing them up to to date with the law um and and they all have been kind of vetted so but that does not stop us from being able to put our own imprint on our own policies we're not just rubber stamping every single thing that mask sends our way in general we would want to make changes to it if we had a good reason to and if we thought that it was important for our community so Vice chair martini uh I've been sitting here trying to think back to more details from a previous discussion we had as to whether or not to move public comment up in our agenda before a voting item because I remember at the time presenting some information about various other entities and what I had discovered through looking at their minutes and what have you um and that many of them always hold a public comment before a voting item so I'm having a little bit of a hard times like swallowing that nobody offers public comment before their selection of officers but I also remember hearing some feedback at the time that from other members that it shouldn't matter what other people do on their committees so really it's about I guess what we think is important personally I don't think that there is anything we vote on except for that which is an executive session that the public should not be involved in so I don't see any good reasoning why there shouldn't be a public comment before the selection of officers I agree that it should take place at an organizational meeting before the first regular meeting of the year and and in terms of our policy and um cleaning it up or making it more aligned to masc policy um I appreciate trying to make things more streamlined or comparable across school districts but I also don't think that masc should Define what the whole policy book is for every District in the Commonwealth we should be making our own decisions according to our our own values so um so I you know I don't see any reason not to have a policy that is of our own crafting on that remember well obviously this will not pertain to me since I will be going off the school committee but less time uh I I did not vote to allow the public to speak because I think it's not good to have to sit as a member of the school committee it would not be helpful to me to sit through a people from the public telling me what an awful person I am and how much they hope I'm not re-elected to a a position of authority on the school committee I don't see why we want to invite the public to tell the members of the school committee that they are not good enough to be uh an officer on the school committee I just don't see how that's helpful at all and I don't I if you don't like the person who is running for school committee don't vote for them but if you did vote for them they have just as much of a right to be an officer and to lead the school committee as anybody else and if you as a member of the school committee want to be an officer it's up to you to go to the other school committee members and convince them that you should be an officer you will have months after the election you'll have November and December to do your campaigning to become an officer thank you any other comments I guess I would just say that based on what I'm hearing um this policy doesn't really address at all what we want our organizational meeting to be starting with it's it says in bold at its first meeting in January of each year will elect from its membership the officers um and we're hearing pretty consistently that that's not what we want to do we want to have a separate meeting so um aside from the highlighted piece about a public comment it seems like we have some revision to do so I would ask that we do something similar to what we did with the first reading for bde in terms of taking this back to the subcommittee for some more work thank you a couple comments first I want to say school committee members should absolutely not be having conversations in advance of the organizational meeting with more than a with a quorum or more of the school committee to line up votes that would be a violation of open meeting law second I'm very glad to hear there's a growing consensus on the school committee that we want to have a separate organizational meeting in advance because when I was asking for that in Prior years I was treated like I was crazy and like it had never happened before so I'm really glad to hear that so we can certainly as a school committee as a policy subcommittee bring that feedback back but I think we do need a vote yes or no on that changes as presented to find out whether it's the well of the school committee to have a public comment period preceding the election of officers so that this the policy subcommittee knows what to do with this policy going forward so is there any other discussion before we vote on that I'm just wondering can we have the motion read back to us again [Music] thank you any other questions or comments before vote all right uh all those in favor of oh I'm sorry yes Vice chair martini I just wanted to um follow up on the piece of discussion from Member wall about um not wanting to be um subjected to somebody showing up to public comment and lambasting one of us about how terrible we are um I don't I don't want to experience that either and nobody would want to um I'm it just called to mind a public comment that I heard once from a venerable lady in our community um who got up to inform us that the public doesn't have to be nice to us and they can they can stand up and call us whatever they would like and that's that and I recall thinking at the time well that is true and I certainly you know support everyone uh having having their opinion that has not been my experience so far in the past year and a half on this committee almost every single person who has turned up to make public comment has been thoughtful and respectful and those are the people that personally that I listen to when they are here to talk to us and the only time I recall people turning up and being disruptive or disrespectful is when we were discussing ending our The Mask mandate and and that oddly enough was people being disruptive over something that we were going to vote to approve anyway so I I guess I'm saying I have faith in most of the public when they turn up here to show up and be respectful and explain from an intellectual point of view why they why they support one vote or another about something and also that people have the right to free speech and there is a person designated to run that meeting um who's whose role it would be to uh to enforce the rules that people do need to show a basic level of decorum when they turn up here that's all thank you any other comments or questions before we vote all those in favor three eyes Elizabeth Glenn and Kate and all those against three no's Gene Susan and Amy so we are a hung jury um I think Robert's Rules were asks us to bang our heads up against a wall continuing to vote until we have a decision but I don't think we'll do that tonight um let's see I guess so I guess what I'll I'll say is I'll withdraw the motion for right now um but I think it would be good to have a um a motion from someone um directing the policy subcommittee to um to revise the school committee organizational meeting policy to include an organizational meeting that precedes the first meeting the first regular meeting of the school committee I'll move that and a second second any discussion on that okay all those in favor unanimous thank you member Johnson said for moving us through that um item 10 on the agenda is a school committee calendar update I'm going to pass it over to secretary X room sorry so we have we had discussed some time ago that we would have a committee or a committee calendar that included dates for that all the committee meetings were taking place full committee meetings subcommittee meetings and also anything that pertained directly to what goes on in the school committee for example Massey conferences things like that um due to my own health that hasn't happened for some time and but I have been able to recently see again so I have put something out there you were all invited to it today if you haven't seen it just check your email it is set because when we talked about this previously we had said the secretary would be the person who would um add or detract things on there so um thinking about that and I probably shouldn't made this an executive decision on my own but thinking about that um when I did invitations or extended invitations to everyone I made it so that the chair or the vice chair and the secretary can edit or ADD and everyone else is viewing and the only reason I did that is because if the secretary is unable to fulfill their duties then there are people who are already able to to make those changes but if not we don't want that that's fine too I don't really matter so periodically things will be added and if anyone has any questions please feel free your thoughts what I have questions I'm so excited I love the calendar thank you um would it be possible to add because what I was looking for mostly from the calendar in addition to all of the events and the wonderful things that you added were benchmarks is that something that we can add so that we know I know it sounds it sounds like we should all just know this but I would love to have something highlighted budget season so is now yes evaluations are due by this time do you know what I'm where I'm going I know exactly what you're saying and I did actually do that for Budget season if for if you look on December of last year okay it is a there's just at the first like December 1st I put it put superintendent begins budget work here what ever was or officially begins I'm sure the superintendent is thinking about it much further than that but yes that is absolutely something that is a wonderful tool for everyone okay so we can so if we want to add a benchmark or if we see one that is missing we would just send you a message and you would add it okay anything else about the calendar thank you secretary Eckstrom for putting that together it as far as I'm concerned it's a constant work in progress we add things um and uh yeah keep it going and keep improving it as we go along but thank you it's a great start and that isn't something that is going to live with when I before I leave my tenure I will pass it along to whoever it is that that is going to be here the next time probably I'm going to guess most definitely Vice chair Martina will be here as of January 1st so she'll probably have the responsibility to give it to the secretary be my guest and just so we know how it's getting past on great thank you uh how about requests for new agenda items um I have been recently talking to Senator comfort and rep blay and they would like to come and talk to us at some point in time about the rural schools bill and they are open to doing that in the fall and so I said that I would bring that up at the uh committee meeting and see if we could make that happen um I understand that we are not technically a rural school but in that bill there are Provisions to help schools regardless so it would be worthwhile for us to hear that and then I have two other things go ahead okay I would like to attend the mass Hyannis conference in November 8th through 10th I believe there's some sort of early bird discount business happening this week um so I would like to discuss that that's obviously not a next month agenda item it's kind of like a now thing but should I email you about that and we can okay if you actually email me and Lauren both about it and if you have a link that speaks to the early bird that would be very helpful if you forward all that okay I will do so I'll put that on my notes and then I wanted to ask you Dr barge about um last August we had a school tour for um city council members and committee members and I was wondering if there are plans in the works do you have a second annual tour of the schools we are in the midst of our administrative Retreat and so planning next year is in process so quite happy to share that out as soon as we button up all the details okay so that's something that we could expect this year is that what that means or you're thinking yes okay too hi folks sir we are quite happy to show off our schools I wonder if it was so helpful last time and I really learned a lot thank you for making the time any other agenda items okay thank you and we've got our reports ASAP take it away thank you curriculum updates when I was rereading this I thought maybe I should have done Grant updates first but you'll see a pattern after you hear about curriculum updates and how it aligns with a lot of the grant funding that we are seeking at ghs we did come to a consensus and they will be fully implementing illustrative math in math 8 Algebra 1 Algebra 2 and geometry in the fall the implementation for the year also includes professional development so that staff are supported throughout the year in this implementation first year process our history Department we continue to really try to actively engage our students in the Civic process they do have to complete a project in eighth grade as well as sometime during their 9th through 12th grade years we will be reapplying for a Civics Grant as well to continue that support at the middle school because we haven't adopted enough and we're looking always for more we are going to roll out investigating history modules grades five through seven deci has sent out they are all free curriculum accessible to districts in the state but you partner with a company that actually provides high quality professional development on all of those modules there are units that really focus on Guiding students in Civic choices identifying their roles in citizenship and what they can do to make this a more equal just in a labor Liberty in the world so we're looking forward to that the fifth sixth and seventh grade will be rolling that out one of the associate principals at Greenfield Middle School is going to be the instructional leader on that with edu curious so we're excited about that uh the elementary schools had adopted Eureka Math a few years ago and Eureka Math has come out with a new and improved version called Eureka math squared so we will be adopting that it's just kind of buying a new car for a car that you've driven so they're excited because a lot of the glitches that really weren't student or teacher friendly in the original model they've kind of ironed The Kinks out so they'll be getting a little professional development on the new model and district-wide a lot of our work with the Desi ssos team has really been around data Dives and seeing where our students need additional support we looked into adopting imagine math and we'll be doing so in K-12 for next year it's not only an intervention math program it's also an acceleration one so I think that's exciting for teachers when students need a little extra because they're advanced in their classes it's something that will challenge them as well and the the best part I think for us is that it also aligns with Eureka and illustrative which are two math programs in District so we won't have to kind of piecemeal the intervention piece for one curriculum versus another you will see the grant update kind of aligns with all of the curriculum updates we applied for the following four grants there is a Civics grant that we have successfully gotten for the last four years I believe and this will be our fifth year applying for it so hopefully we'll hear soon I know the high school is really looking to expand Civic experiences for our students so they're really hoping if the grant comes through this year to take our kids either to the State House the Freedom Trail in Boston or other potential field trips to really get them engaged in other opportunities outside of Greenfield we did work on the investigating history Grant which will support the work at the middle school with edu curious it not only provides professional development but it links our teachers and our administrative team with learning communities in the state who are also adopting investigating history so teachers will be able to you know talk shop with other teachers about implementing the curriculum as well as our associate principal who's leading that um We are continuing uh getting support from Desi which is nice when we adopt high quality instructional materials they have um been rolling out additional funds the following year to make sure that our professional development and the support for teachers implementing is there so we also applied for additional support for illustrative math for our high school and then we also applied for fc185 which will continue with professional development on high impact instructional strategies that directly align with ckla and amplify it are k-7 so all of those are submitted we're just holding our fingers and saying please pick us and give us your money Desi so and then lastly we do have summer school that is happening right now we have a title one in special education integrated inclusionary model happening I started on July 5th and I am happy to report after looking at numbers and really checking attendance we're servicing over 150 students so far and we're only in day four so it's really exciting that we have kids that are engaged in summer learning opportunities and really taking advantage of filling those skill gaps and supporting them in becoming grade level for September so and that's it thank you [Applause] thank you do we have questions for askb secretary I don't have a question so much as a comment Cameron is having so much fun at summer school that she chose to attend summer school this year as opposed to go away to overnight camp for three weeks yeah that smile is you see what I'm saying though did she also tell you I let her in when it was raining because she didn't want to get wet and I had my umbrella for her I'm not discrediting how fabulous you are I'm just saying she was very happy to go to summer yes other questions or comments for this is since your internet Vice chair martini you know I swear it's just one quick thing um [Laughter] um you've already previously shared such a great deal about ckla and illustrative map when the district was in the process of selecting those and parents had the opportunity to um get more information in terms of um that was presented and available to them at school council meetings and I just wondered is that also going to take place for um investigating history Eureka math squared and the imagine I mean I know that things like imagine math is its Sun it is not the instructional resources just one piece because it's an acceleration and Intervention Program but still I think it would be great if we could have more direct information just available to parents if they would like to get it bye offering it in a context like that sure um absolutely the elementary schools in the middle school could do something at their first school council meetings we also could put links on our website imagine math as you indicated is not something that you you know you really would weigh in on it's just an intervention online program but in Eureka squared is like I said kind of buying a new car from a model you already Drive there's not really a lot of differences except for what they fine-tuned on the accessibility but certainly can share links so people can explore it or look at it investigating history is supplemental units which is really adding to the curriculum that folks are already teaching to really bring in the Civic component at a lower grade level so it's pretty exciting that they'll have that opportunity but they're all online on Jessie's website and I can certainly post the links on our website that is exciting and it would be great if and I also just wanted to ask I have noticed that there are still various places on the school website where school council meetings are not being posted accurately it'll say in one place that it's to be determined in another place there's a date and a time and things like that and I was really really hoping that for this school year we could get a grip on that so speaking of getting a grip on the website we are in the middle of updating it and so there's behind the scenes stuff that's happening now we have gone through literally every item I don't know you know I'm not a website person so I don't know all the how to frame it but basically every single item every single page on the website has been reviewed to see if it is even current so I will be frank about 90 of what was available or living on that site was exceptionally outdated like multiple years outdated so those have been disabled already and now we are finalizing two different pieces simultaneously in the background we're looking at a format for the new website and ensuring that the pages that will go back live are accurate one of like the we have the right names on the right pages one of the things that we are very much looking to do is not have um discrete entries of the same information in multiple places like if you enter it in one place and it's linked to others that's fine but I'm not sure that's been the process which is why you have things like you just described so we're hoping for a launch to some degree at in August at some point um we're trying to move it along to get that done but I'll make a you know Royal Proclamation when we do the new website and but it's um it is a ton of work to review all of that content given the bulk that was there to be reviewed so thank you for that feedback but no this is a priority to get it well in Hand by the start of school is the goal yeah it's not completely and totally tedious so thank you for yes tedious very exciting word for that work but it's important for Access but it's um it's quite the thing but we are you know we realize it's it's critical to do so thank you for making sure we'll I'll make note of that element for sure thank you other questions for the assistant superintendent I have one quick thing on the website just just before I forget okay but in our policy meeting we discussed the page for the policy and program subcommittee and we would love if the format could match what we have for this for this full school committee where you have agenda materials linked to the YouTube so we can easily see where we are in terms of minutes and things like that anything else okay we'll do the superintendents update please finish the note from Glenn before I forget to check that it's just organized differently the subcommittee's area to the yeah but I want to make sure that I write a sentence otherwise tomorrow when I sit and look at this I will have no clue what it was well and I'll say another I mean maybe we want to know if we want to discuss this as a full committee but we could conceivably just have one page for school committee meetings with subcommittees and full committees and then you just list what the meeting is agenda minutes YouTube link without having people having to go at all these different things to find absolutely one of the positives from our um the we work with CES for the website updates and the I guess webmaster for any lack of any other word that I have for that um is he and John RIT director have looked at other models of of websites and so we can look at you know I can look at some different models I I personally would find it much more helpful to see all the meetings just running order regardless but that okay I'll do my very brief update um as Andy has said we're ending one year and simultaneously planning the next so it's very busy summer is not rest for administrators full-year admin assistants and certainly not for custodians they are rocking and rolling starting the summer cleaning and having to work around summer school into buildings so it's it's a logistical exercise for Eric in the custodial staff in our maintenance staff but they're well underway doing that work I won't speak again about our summer school program Staffing we do have some district-wide positions that we're still looking for we have hired a school psych we've hired a speech pathologist we're still looking for some additional but to the positive at this point almost all of the open positions that we have we have applicants and are in the process of scheduling interviews so we're you know we're pleased that we have response for most of the positions um I want to again just welcome Dave messing as our director of pupil Services who officially started July 3rd and then Meryl Miceli is now our full-time director at AEL and they're both um moving along with the work in the new year we are starting we have started today was the first day of our administrative Retreat who's not as glamorous as that sounds um I as I said today the massage will be so light and you would not even think you'd had one which they are not having them it's it is an oxymoron for sure um so we are doing all the planning of our professional development our convocation doing the logistics of operations that need to be updated things that are seemingly um mindless but have an impact on the function day-to-day in the district we will be working with our ssos folks tomorrow and looking at more detail of the Strategic plan and ensuring we have cohesive plans and how that is wrapped into our staff meetings professional development for all of the plans that we have to submit for all of the work that we are doing because we're a prior district with two schools in status we have to submit a priority plan and then because of one of the grants that we applied for we had to participate in what's called a landscape analysis which is basically a program evaluation but the outcomes of that the priority plan the landscape analysis and resulting plan and the Strategic plan are all the same work and that was not accidental that's very um that is a very expected outcome given the intense Focus we have had on the particular areas that we have identified that we need to improve so we are not working in a million different directions what we are but they're intentional and they're all the same so that's that's a really um it's a difficult task to accomplish when you are trying to respond to requirements from a variety of different places but we are absolutely committed to ensuring our efforts Main are maintained on the priority areas and that we don't get splintered and do a little bit of work in in so many areas that we're not seeing any impact so that takes a lot of intentional planning and then um the re-envisioning our schools I will let member wall I guess give the update under the the subcommittee reports but there has been movement in that regard um so that's there's no it doesn't seem like a lot but we're very busy so I kept my update brief the surveys did go out to the teachers and and we will be reporting on the results of them at our meeting next week is that Wednesday is the 17th it's next 17th at 3 30.
about that grades K through four secretary Eckstrom um it will come as no surprise that I sort of look at this from a business standpoint because I've been sitting with a budget for so long and been here and looking at policies and all of those things um what I have and and I get frustrated with but it is the way it is schools that are not Public Schools do not have to adhere to the same things I'm just backing up with superintendent do not have to adhere to the same laws rules almost anything that public schools do which is which is part of the reason that schools like is it four rivers um can sort of I don't want to say do their own curriculum but the way that they teach and their methodology is sort of up to themselves I say that very Loosely um you know I attended a private Catholic College I had to take Bible classes and bible study classes throughout my time there I I'm not Catholic I didn't really adhere to it um not didn't you adhere to it but it wasn't something that I had a background in and what I do know is yes there are lots of things that can be couched as this is a religious freedom thing and I don't I don't even want to touch that but from a com Market competitiveness way if there is no one who will attend the school if for whatever reason people aren't happy with what's happening there the school won't exist and and and I know that's sort of a a you know sort of a loose thing but if they aren't able to do their jobs and the students aren't able to succeed by any standard they won't exist very long thank you it's Playing devil's advocate that's all remember Johnson was sad and then Vice chair martini [Music] it just you know I think there's this aspirational sentence in here in chapter 76 section one and then there's the reality of what's actually happening and um I've been in um I used to work in HIV AIDS and we had these HIV AIDS Community planning things and it was all very aspirational but then sometimes the government would just say you have to vote Yes on this and so I really don't like it I don't like it at all to be honest I really believe that we should be following this aspirational part of the law and not the way it's actually being operationalized but I'll look forward to hearing from our attorney about whether we're mandated to do that or not I just wanted sorry Jesus waiting I I had said remember Johnson musad and then Vice chairmani and then oh okay remember well go ahead um piece of the discussion from secretary Eckstrom uh in terms of uh whether or not people will stay with the school that is not doing well uh I don't think that's really accurate I mean New York has certainly contended with the problem of uh Orthodox Jewish Schools they're turning out students who lack very basic skills and I agree with member Johnson Assad about trying to comply with the spirit of the law and not something else so I I would worry about that I'm really not interested in um the religious discussion about it I am interested in ensuring student outcomes and I don't really see I feel that I don't have enough information and to support it at this point remember well go ahead I would just like to know what happens if we voted no halt there's there's information there is okay um so the school would not um be able to operate in terms of compulsory attendance meaning the students would not be considered to be enrolled in school if we don't approve and then um that that the students would be considered truant from our record keeping and then the private school um I'm just just looking there is no appeal to the Department of Education to the point a question that was asked about you know if we vote it we own it you you own it to a very limited just for the sake of responding to that you own it to a very limited extent that as long as the school committee acts reasonably and in good faith in carrying out its statutory approval function its potential liability is minimal um I do not see any other um element to this guidance that speaks to what would happen if you do not approve other than students who go there would not be considered to be attending school for the and what what does that mean for the family and the student I mean so at the end of the day I mean the school district if we have students who are truant by the definition of the law then we have a process where we meet with families to talk about school attendance at the end of the day they could um we could file a chins for you know students in need of services with the court we could file with DCF or the families could um share that they are homeschooling so there are options at that stage for the family so at this point I would like to move that we table this until next month so that we can hear what the attorneys say is second do we do a discussion on the tabling I think we do let's do it if everyone's all right we'll do a discussion on the tabling and we'll go from there remember Denise wanted to say really quickly that there are two test cases of this that have happened recently one in Oklahoma and one in Somerville Massachusetts and that happened last year at this time so while it's potentially being tabled perhaps we could take some time to privately personally researched those two test cases that have happened because it does detail what ended up occurring when the school committee did vote no in Somerville other discussion about tabling I I would just say um give me a second to phrase it right uh we we run into situations all the time where it's obvious Dusty paints us into a corner the state paints us into a corner um I I struggle I I hear everyone's point of view on this including the folks who want their children to attend the school and I I want to remind our committee that these are our neighbors and their children and like all of us are trying to do the best for their families and for me that piece is front and center and I don't think tabling this for another month is going to put us in any different position on how to move forward but I would of course go with the will of the committee secretary extra I know that we do spend some time talking about curriculum and and what it is that should be chosen or not chosen but the reality is we are not curriculum experts and and I guess when I'm hearing and I hear Kate I hear you talking about it a lot and I don't doubt whatever's coming out of your mouth to be honest with you however I'm not an expert and so I don't know make sure you're relating your comments to tabling to tabling right now oh that's what we're talking about that's okay that's the motion on the table pun intended um any further questions about tabling should we just vote on whether or not to table it yeah any abstentions from voting uh who would vote no on tabling that's two so the motion to table carries so it will be taken up at our August meeting I appreciate you being here tonight and I'm sure we'll have some follow-up sure thank you if there's any questions you may have please please do ask just to just to um let you know that Providence Christian Academy really started um with our congregation seeing a lot of children being homeschooled and we wanted to provide an opportunity for these children um future opportunities and we believe that in person having a facility or in-person schooling is a better alternative that than homeschooling and we don't want them to miss out on opportunities for the future and this is how this has started then we saw an interest from other communities and we said why don't we open this to others who may have interest interest in in a such School such Academy it did exist in Greenfield before there are a few of them that have closed in the past um there was even a Catholic school here too was Cornerstone is that the one that was here previously thank you and our teachers the great teachers a lot of them have been teaching in public schools they're knowledgeable and I I can't comment much on the curriculum since I'm not an expert here either but a Becca is probably one of the top used Nationwide in Christian private schools it is a very rigorous it is a very great curriculum for children especially if you have great teachers to teach and write and and so that's all I want to add and let you know we're not a religious cult here okay we're here to provide opportunities especially for those who are homeschool um at the same time we're opening these for that for others to be part of it if they desire so thank you I appreciate your perspective thank you for being here tonight okay we'll move into item seven on the agenda which is a vote to declare library books at Greenfield Middle School Surplus we would start with uh emotion a move to declare the library books at Greenfield Middle School Surplus as inventoried and presented to the school committee do I have a motion so moved and the second second and any discussion okay seeing none anyone abstaining from voting on this anyone voting no so that passes unanimously and we'll move into we have uh two policy items that as we've done in previous meetings uh member Johnson the chair of the subcommittee for policy will move us through those motions okay I'll make the motion ask for a second and then I can give a little spiel about each of these a move that we approve the first reading of amendments to policy bde subcommittees of the school committee as presented so moved and it's second oh second okay so um there was uh basically a typo in this uh policy that made us want to consider it which was it said the school committee will have the following standing committees and then it did not list the Committees and so then it got the attention of our of our subcommittee end of our attorney who also found problems with the idea of having the chair and or the superintendent being ad hoc members of each of the subcommittees So based on those changes that needed to happen we looked at the mask model policy which is word for word basically what we have presented to you and it was voted unanimously from the um policy subcommittee thank you so my question is are you asking for us to just approve this and then you'll go look at it and with make changes as you not as you see fit but make changes as necessary and then bring it back to us and then we talk about it or yes so the the process is we bring it to you for first reading then we'll bring it back to the subcommittee so between now and then of members of the public or if school committee members like you right now want to give us feedback we can incorporate that at our our committee and then bring you back something so um so that's the process that would come back to us for a second reading likely at the um August meeting so then can I ask something yes please all right so in the first line it says this is cool committee shallow Point members to subcommittees at their annual organizational meeting for a period of one year I don't know that that is possible given that it further says the committee number two the committee chair subject to approval by the committee will appoint the subcommittee chair and its members the organizational meeting is where the committee chair is designated elected whatever it is and if that person hasn't been doing the thing they aren't going to know who's the who or what or yep that was the only thing that stood out to me yeah so maybe the change would be something like um the next consecutive meeting or something yeah this this committee chair will present um uh school committee assignments for I mean subcommittee assignments at something like that yeah I see that revision if I may in practice the subcommittee assignments are done at the second school committee meeting of the year yeah um and we've carried forward you know in in January with the subcommittees from previous but generally there's not a lot of subcommittee work happening at that point well actually I mean so I think that this is why in the past I don't know I mean I think what we've seen is a lot of variety in the way that the um organizational meeting is done but one argument for having an organizational meeting separate from and um in advance of the first meeting of the year is that you could appoint your chair and then at the first meeting of the year they could bring their subcommittee assignments which would be useful because usually you have to immediately begin working on the budget so at least having the budget subcommittee in place would be helpful so you can kind of see how this kind of relates as well to other policies that we have um so I guess I would um I'm not sure exactly what to do we could take the feedback as a subcommittee and work on it bring it back yep um I would say for for efficiency it might be useful to um to um approve it on first reading with the feedback to be directed to the policy SubCom and we have precedent for that that's totally okay any other discussion yes just one small thing um in regards to bde the subcommittee's policy um it says that members to subcommittees would be appointed at the annual organizational meeting for a period of one year but it doesn't say anything about what if we want to form a subcommittee mid-year which we just did last month so I was wondering if that should be accounted for do we have another policy we're just going to have another policy about ad hoc committees covered by that I can try to pull that up if you want yeah I do believe it's addressed in I'm not going to know which policy it is but we do have one on on um creation of ad hoc committees and the ones that we have done mid-year at least in my time on the school committee have all been ad hoc I mean in a way it's kind of the way this policy is written it's it's it would be the chair's discretion whether to continue committees from the prior year but I guess it would be wanting the uh chair to be clear about whether they're creating an ad hoc or a standing committee would be a different process to just kind of disband a something that's established as a permanent committee so I'll see what it says here um oh yes season Farber I think those are considered different so I'm looking at that yeah I think probably can I make a suggestion yeah please um that we take back to the policy subcommittee the question of um the creation of the subcommittee assignments and the wording of that piece and also that we ensure as a policy subcommittee that any advisory or ad hoc committees are addressed elsewhere in policy because I think if we try to put that into this it will be a little bit more convoluted than we normally have in a policy yeah we can seek some guidance too about how to handle it I'd just like to suggest that we also have an organizational meeting before the first school committee meeting I think that that would save a huge nightmare at our first school committee meeting and that could be feedback for the next policy that we're going to be considering which is about that school committee organizational meeting so so I'm really welcome your feedback on that as well any other comments so I think the idea is to vote to um to move it through its first reading to the to the subcommittee to incorporate people's feedback so any other comments or questions all right let's vote any no votes any abstentions that motion passes unanimously kidoki um the next policy I will um ask for a motion that we approve the first reading of amendments to policy BDA school committee organizational meeting on a first reading I guess I already said that first Reading part so moved okay in a second okay um this came out of a discussion that we had at the um at this organizational meeting in 2023 um there is a lot of the way that the agenda was organized at that time um uh the public comment period came after the votes of the uh for for the officers um some of us felt that if you're going to be making um large choices that are very influential on the functioning of the school committee that the public should have the opportunity to comment first and so that is what um the changes here it's basically that highlighted item it says a public comment will proceed the election of officers that's the only change that we were recommending and I'll just say first that the recommendation was not unanimous um two of us voted for chair poor Eddie voted against in chair parade they wanted to give you a chance to um to speak to that if you want thank you yeah just a couple of things the first thing I would point out to the committee as a whole is that the policy has presented is not a An mafc approved policy um if there are any in our policy manual that are not masc approved or that we're not moving to that are masc approved as a part of our realignment or our policies I'd be hard-pressed to find them I also did some uh research there is no precedent for this with either our city council they do not take public comment uh for uh before their their reorganization um nor do any of the other school districts in our region uh take public comment I think a big part of that is as I've said in other discussions at the school committee public comment is school committee business and it's hard to run the business of the committee without the leadership elected um and the the final thing I would say is that you know there's there's this um been this feedback that the public should have a say in who our leadership is and I would remind folks that the public is voting us to be their elected representatives in this body and that is their feedback and members should be looking to see uh who they feel would best lead the body and vote accordingly that's my comment well I am I serve on several other committees besides the school committee and we don't take public comment before we elect a chair of those committees and I also don't think that it's right when we are the people that are elected by the community to serve on the school committee to then have people come and comment to us they can come in commit to us throughout the year on anything that they think is wrong with the leadership of the committee they have they can come in December and tell us who they think should be the chair going forward because we will know who the newly elected people are but I think that that is one of the jobs of a member of the school committee to elect the officers for the next year and should not be the the public should not become part of it if the council doesn't have public comment nor do does any other committee I've ever heard of have public comment thanks Sarah estrom or secretary thank you you um I do because when I was looking at this I was thinking to myself you know what is it because we've worked together for so long I've learned how you think and and I've been listening to Elizabeth and and all the research that she does so I sort of thought okay there's a rationale behind this and I want to sit down and find out what it is and like you know aside from just having it on paper wanting me a public comment um there was a time and Glenn you got so exasperated with me saying where is the policy that you finally said Susan we're trying to clean these up and I went oh okay now I get it so when I look at this this isn't a cleaning up this is adding an additional layer of complexity was my thought um and see and I do want to Echo chair proyare as as there isn't anything with Massey and so I didn't see a precedent there and then I went online and just put in the put in the question what happens at organizations and and I intentionally went and looked at different policies at different School committees not necessarily close to us just to see what's it like somewhere else and so at Wrentham Cohasset aguam Mahar and Springfield they don't have anything like that it's just the regular standard school committee designation um so those are my two thoughts and following up on what Gene had said that we should that she thought felt like we should have an organizational meeting I we used to have it the only reason that we didn't have it the in 21 when superintendent DeBarge took over is because we were and it was all my decision because I was the ranking person it was because I was I personally was so concerned because we were coming back from covid and it hadn't gone all that well and I thought you know what we just need to be worried about this right now when they get back to school it'll keep for a couple weeks now I it's continued on since then but that was really the whole rationale behind him kind of like she has got way too much on her plate so um those were my thoughts as I was looking at it I I you know I didn't see anywhere else that it was being done and and we're making them policy more complicated I guess which sort of flies in the face of the things that you that you guys have tried to and still I don't know that's where I say one more thing sure briefly remember while and then remember danivas I just want to say that there are three openings on the school committee this time there will be three openings next time if people don't agree with how the leadership goes they should run for school committee remembered and Eve um I think having a separate organizational meeting is incredibly important we do not do working sessions we have not done professional development as a group we are dysfunctional as a group and I don't think that adding another layer is complicated I think that we're smart people who can walk and chew gum at the same time I don't think it's a big deal to have public comment before the election of officers we cannot in one breath say that we care about what the public thinks but then in another breath say that they are not allowed to influence the election of officers we either care what they think or we don't care what they think public comment is an essential part of our meetings it's in our policy they provide invaluable input which we have to take into consideration when making our decisions so maintaining a connection between the public and the committee is incredibly important and excluding their input on the election of officers is not just undemocratic but it's potentially a tactic used to gatekeep power so yeah maybe the city council doesn't do it and maybe all the other school committees don't do it but that doesn't mean that that's right and mask has told us in subcommittee meetings that we should explore tailoring our policies to our beliefs and our feelings and the culture of our district they've told us to deviate if we choose if it works better for us so I don't see a problem with changing anything and I think that it would help the public trust us and care about this process more if we are more transparent in the very beginning by having a separate meeting and allowing their input it really cannot hurt anything but could in fact really help us in the long term secretary extra so then why in the past has it has things been brought to us that were being voted on and there was some discussion here the part of the rationale was I'll paraphrase all the other school committees are doing it and that was part of the argument to do something so I don't know that you can use the just because someone else isn't doing it doesn't mean that would should I get I understand the cultural piece and understanding the culture of our community and and our school committee and all those things but I sort of discount that because of previous discussion well I think different School committees function differently some of them function very healthy ways and some of them do not so I think that it might impact them differently this might not be an issue for some school committees at all I'll speak um and then remember Martini um I just wanted to to say that a lot of the work that we have been doing as a policy subcommittee has been bringing our our policies in line with the mask revisions because mask has in many cases it's bringing them up to to date with the law and and they all have been kind of vetted so but that does not stop us from being able to put our own imprint on our own policies we're not just rubber stamping every single thing that mask sends our way in general we would want to make changes to it if we had a good reason to and if we thought that it was important for our community so um Vice chair martini uh I've been sitting here trying to think back um to more details from a previous discussion we had um as to whether or not to move public comment up in our agenda before a voting item because I remember at the time presenting some information about various other entities and what I had discovered through looking at their minutes and what have you and that many of them always hold a public comment before a voting item so I'm having a little bit of a hard times like swallowing that nobody offers public comment before their selection of officers but I also remember hearing some feedback at the time that from other members that it shouldn't matter what other people do on their committees so really it's about I guess what we think is important personally I don't think that there is anything we vote on except for that which is an executive session that the public should not be involved in so I don't see any good reasoning why there shouldn't be a public comment before the selection of officers I agree that it should take place at an organizational meeting before the first regular meeting of the year and and in terms of our policy and cleaning it up or making it more aligned to masc policy I appreciate trying to make things more streamlined or comparable across school districts but I also don't think that masc should Define what the whole policy book is for every District in the Commonwealth we should be making our own decisions according to our our own values so so I you know I don't see any reason not to have a policy that is of our own crafting on that number one obviously this will not pertain to me since I will be going off the school Community but last time uh I I did not vote to allow the public to speak because I think it's not good to have to sit as a member of the school committee it would not be helpful to me to sit through a people from the public telling me what an awful person I am and how much they hope I'm not re-elected to a a position of authority on the school committee I don't see why we want to invite the public to tell the members of the school committee that they are not good enough to be uh an officer on the school committee I just don't see how that's helpful at all and I don't I if you don't like the person who is running for school committee don't vote for them but if you did vote for them they have just as much of a right to be an officer and to lead the school committee as anybody else and if you as a member of the school committee want to be an officer it's up to you to go to the other school committee members and convince them that you should be an officer you will have months after the election you'll have November and December to do your campaigning to become an officer thank you any other comments I guess I would just say that based on what I'm hearing um this policy doesn't really address at all what we want our organizational meeting to be starting with it's it says in bold at its first meeting in January of each year will elect from its membership the officers um and we're hearing pretty consistently that that's not what we want to do we want to have a separate meeting so um aside from the highlighted piece about a public comment it seems like we have some revision to do so I would ask that we do something similar to what we did with the first reading for bde in terms of taking this back to the subcommittee for some more work thank you a couple comments first I want to say school committee members should absolutely not be having conversations in advance of the organizational meeting with more than a with the Quorum or more of the school committee to line up votes that would be a violation of open meeting law um second I'm very glad to hear there's a growing consensus on the school committee that we want to have a separate organizational meeting in advance because when I was asking for that in Prior years I was treated like I was crazy and like it had never happened before so I'm really glad to hear that so we can certainly as a school committee as a policy subcommittee bring that feedback back but I think we do need a vote yes or no on that changes as presented to find out whether it's the well of the school committee to have a public comment period preceding the election of officers so that this the policy subcommittee knows what to do with this policy calling forward so um is there any other discussion before we vote on that I'm just wondering can we have the motion read back to us again [Music] thank you any other questions or comments before a vote all right all those in favor of oh I'm sorry yes Vice chair martini I wanted to follow up on the Bond on the all about um not wanting to be um subjected to somebody showing up to public comment and lambasting one of us about how terrible we are um I don't I don't want to experience that either and nobody would want to um I'm it just called to mind a public comment that I heard once from a venerable lady in our community um who got up to inform us that the public doesn't have to be nice to us and they can they can stand up and call us whatever they would like and that's that and I recall thinking at the time well that is true and I certainly you know support everyone uh having having their opinion um that has not been my experience so far in the past year and a half on this committee almost every single person who has turned up to make public comment has been thoughtful and respectful and those are the people that personally that I listen to uh when they are here to talk to us and uh the only time I recall people turning up and being disruptive or disrespectful is when we were discussing uh ending our The Mask mandate uh and and that oddly enough was uh people being disruptive over something that we were going to vote to approve anyway so I I guess I'm saying I have faith in most of the public when they turn up here to show up and be respectful and explain from an intellectual point of view why they why they support one vote or another about something and also that people have the right to free speech and there is a person designated to run that meeting um who's whose role it would be to uh to enforce the rules that people do need to show a basic level of decorum when they turn up here that's all thank you any other comments or questions before we vote all those in favor three eyes Elizabeth Glenn and Kate and all those against three no's seen Susan and Amy so we are a hung jury I think Robert's Rules were asks us to bang our heads up against a wall continuing to vote until we have a decision but I don't think we'll do that tonight um let's see I guess so I guess what I'll I'll say is I'll withdraw the motion for right now but I think it would be good to have a emotion from someone directing the policy subcommittee to um to revise the school committee organizational meeting policy to include an organizational meeting that precedes the first meeting the first regular meeting of the school committee I'll move that and a second second any discussion on that okay all those in favor synonymous thank you member Johnson for moving us through that um item 10 on the agenda is a school committee calendar update I'm going to pass it over to secretary X room um yeah sorry um so we have we had discussed some time ago that we would have a committee or a yeah committee calendar that included dates for that all the committee meetings were taking place full committee meeting subcommittee meetings um and also anything that pertained directly to what goes on in the school committee for example Massey conferences things like that um due to my own health that hasn't happened for some time and but I have been able to recently see again so I have put something out there you were all invited to it today if you haven't seen it just check your email it is set because when we talked about this previously we had said the secretary would be the person who would add or detract things on there so um thinking about that and I probably shouldn't made this an executive decision on my own but thinking about that um when I did invitations or extended invitations to everyone I made it so that the chair or the vice chair and the secretary can edit or ADD and everyone else is viewing and the only reason I did that is because if the secretary is unable to fulfill their duties then there are people who are already able to to make those changes but if not we don't want that that's fine too I don't really matter so periodically things will be added and if anyone has any questions please feel free your thoughts [Music] I have questions I'm so excited I love the calendar thank you um would it be possible to add because what I was looking for mostly from the calendar in addition to all of the events and the wonderful things that you added were benchmarks is that something that we can add so that we know I know it sounds it sounds like we should all just know this but I would love to have something highlighted budget season so it is now yes evaluations are due by this time do you know what I'm where I'm going I know exactly what you're saying and I did actually do that for Budget season if for if you look on December of last year it is a there's just at the first um like December 1st I'd put it put superintendent begins budget work here or whatever or officially begins I'm sure the superintendent is thinking about it much further than that but yes that is absolutely something that is a wonderful tool for everyone okay so we can so if we want to add a benchmark or if we see one that is missing we would just send you a message and you would add it okay okay anything else about the calendar thank you secretary Eckstrom for putting that together it as far as I'm concerned it's a constant work in progress we add things um and uh yeah keep it going and keep improving it as we go along but thank you it's a great start and that isn't something that that is going to be here the next time probably I'm gonna guess most definitely Vice chair Martini will be here as of January 1st so she'll probably have the responsibility to give it to the secretary be my guest and just so we know how it's getting past on great thank you uh how about requests for new agenda items I have been recently talking to Senator comfort and rep blay and they would like to come and talk to us at some point in time about the rural schools bill and they are open to doing that in the fall and so I said that I would bring that up at the uh committee meeting and see if we could make that happen um I understand that we are not technically a rural school but in that bill there are Provisions to help schools regardless so it would be worthwhile for us to hear that and then I have two other things go ahead okay I would like to attend the mass Hyannis conference in November 8th through 10th I believe there's some sort of early bird discount business happening this week um so I would like to discuss that that's obviously not a next month agenda item it's kind of like a now thing but should I email you about that and we can okay if you actually email me and Lauren both about it and if you have a link that speaks to the early bird that would be very helpful if you forward all that okay I will do so I'll put that on my notes and then I wanted to ask you Dr DeBarge about um last August we had a school tour for um city council members and committee members and I was wondering if there are plans in the works do you have a second annual tour of the schools we are in the midst of our administrative Retreat and so planning next year is in process so quite happy to share that out as soon as we button up all the details okay so that's something that we could expect this year is that what that means are you thinking yes okay too bye folks sir we are quite happy to show off our schools wonderful it was so helpful last time and I really learned a lot thank you for making the time any other agenda items okay thank you and we've got our reports askp take it away thank you curriculum updates and when I was rereading this I thought maybe I should have done Grant updates first but you'll see a pattern after you hear about curriculum updates and how it aligns with a lot of the grant funding that we are seeking at ghs we did come to a consensus and they will be fully implementing illustrative math in math 8 Algebra 1 Algebra 2 and geometry in the fall the implementation for the year also includes professional development so that staff are supported throughout the year in this implementation first year process our history Department we continue to really try to actively engage our students in the Civic process they do have to complete a project in eighth grade as well as sometime during their 9th through 12th grade years um we will be reapplying for a Civics Grant as well to continue that support at the middle school because we haven't adopted enough and we're looking always for more we are going to roll out investigating history modules grades five through seven deci has sent out they are all free curriculum accessible to districts in the state but you partner with a company that actually provides high quality professional development on all of those modules there are units that really focus on Guiding students in Civic choices identifying their roles in citizenship and what they can do to make this a more equal just in uh Liberty in the world so we're looking forward to that the fifth sixth and seventh grade will be rolling that out one of the associate principals at Greenfield Middle School is going to be the instructional leader on that with edu curious so we're excited about that uh the elementary schools had adopted Eureka Math a few years ago and Eureka Math has come out with a new and improved version called Eureka math squared so we will be adopting that it's just kind of buying a new car for a car that you've driven so they're excited because a lot of the glitches that really weren't student or teacher friendly in the original model they've kind of ironed The Kinks out so they'll be getting a little professional development on the new model and district-wide a lot of our work with the Desi ssos team has really been around data Dives and seeing where our students need additional support we looked into adopting imagine math and we'll be doing so in K-12 for next year it's not only an intervention math program it's also an acceleration one so I think that's exciting for teachers when students need a little extra because they're advanced in their classes it's something that will challenge them as well and the the best part I think for us is that it also aligns with Eureka and illustrative which are two math programs in District so we won't have to kind of piecemeal the intervention piece for one curriculum versus another you will see the grant update kind of aligns with all of the curriculum updates we applied for the following four grants there is a Civics grant that we have successfully gotten for the last four years I believe and this will be our fifth year applying for it so hopefully we'll hear soon I know the high school is really looking to expand Civic experiences for our students so they're really hoping if the grant comes through this year to take our kids either to the State House the Freedom Trail in Boston or other potential field trips to really get them engaged in other opportunities outside of Greenfield we did work on the investigating history Grant which will support the work at the middle school with edu curious it not only provides professional development but it links our teachers and our administrative team with learning communities in the state who are also adopting investigating history so teachers will be able to you know talk shop with other teachers about implementing the curriculum as well as our associate principal who's leading that um We are continuing uh getting support from Desi which is nice when we adopt high quality instructional materials they have um been rolling out additional funds the following year to make sure that our professional development and the support for teachers implementing is there so we also applied for additional support for illustrative math for our high school and then we also applied for fc185 which will continue with professional development on high impact instructional strategies that directly align with ckla and amplify it are k-7 so all of those are submitted we're just holding our fingers and saying please pick us and give us your money Desi so and then lastly we do have summer school that is happening right now we have a title one in special education integrated inclusionary model happening I started on July 5th and I am happy to report after looking at numbers and really checking attendance we're servicing over 150 students so far and we're only in day four so it's really exciting that we have kids that are engaged in summer learning opportunities and really taking advantage of filling those skill gaps and supporting them in becoming grade level for September so and that's it thank you [Applause] thank you do we have questions for askb secretary I don't have a question so much as a comment Cameron is having so much fun at summer school that she chose to attend summer school this year as opposed to go away to overnight camp for three weeks yeah that smile is you see what I'm saying though did she also tell you I let her in when it was raining because she didn't want to get wet and I had my umbrella for her I'm not discrediting how fabulous you are I'm just saying I'm just saying she was very happy to go to summer yes other questions or comments for this is since you're in a vice chair Martini you're not [Laughter] um you've already previously shared such a great deal about ckla and illustrative map when the district was in the process of selecting those and parents had the opportunity to get more information in terms of that was presented and available to them at school council meetings and I just wondered is that also going to take place for investigating history Eureka math squared and the imagine I mean I know that things like imagine math is its Sun it is not the instructional resources um just one piece because it's an acceleration and Intervention Program but still I think it would be great if we could have more direct information just available to parents if they would like to get it bye offering it in a context like that sure um absolutely the elementary schools in the middle school could do something at their first school council meetings we also could put links on our website imagine math as you indicated is not something that you you know you really would weigh in on it's just an intervention online program but in Eureka squared is like I said kind of buying a new car from a model you already Drive there's not really a lot of differences except for what they fine-tuned on the accessibility but certainly can share links so people can explore it or look at it investigating history is supplemental units which is really adding to the curriculum that folks are already teaching to really bring in the Civic component at a lower grade level so it's pretty exciting that they'll have that opportunity but they're all online on Jessie's website and I can certainly post the links on our website that is exciting and it would be great if if we could post the links there and I also just wanted to ask I have noticed that there are still various places on the school website where school council meetings are not being posted accurately it'll say in one place that it's to be determined in another place there's a date and a time and things like that and I was really really hoping that for this school year we could get a grip on that so speaking of getting a grip on the website we are in the middle of updating it and so there's behind the scenes stuff that's happening now we have gone through literally every item I don't know you know I'm not a website person so I don't know all the how to frame it but basically every single item every single page on the website has been reviewed to see if it is even current so I will be frank about 90 of what was available or living on that site was exceptionally outdated like multiple years outdated so those have been disabled already and now we are finalizing two different pieces simultaneously in the background we're looking at a format for the new website and ensuring that the pages that will go back live are active it one of like the we have the right names on the right pages one of the things that we are very much looking to do is not have um discrete entries of the same information in multiple places like if you enter it in one place and it's linked to others that's fine but I'm not sure that's been the process which is why you have things like you just described so we're hoping for a launch to some degree at in August at some point um we're trying to move it along to get that done but I'll make a you know Royal Proclamation when we do the new website and but it's um it is a ton of work to review all of that content given the bulk that was there to be reviewed so thank you for that feedback but no this is a priority to get it well in Hand by the start of school is the goal yeah it's not completely and totally tedious so thank you for yes tedious is a very exciting word for that work but it's important for Access but it's um it's quite the thing but we are you know we realize it's it's critical to do so thank you for making sure we'll I'll make note of that element for sure other questions for um the assistant superintendent I have one quick thing on the website just just before I forget okay but in our policy meeting we discussed the page for the policy and program subcommittee and we would love if the format could match what we have for this for this full school committee where you have agenda materials linked to the YouTube so we can easily see where we are in terms of minutes and things like that anything else okay we'll do the superintendents update please push the note from Glenn before I forget to check that it's just organized differently the subcommittee's area to the yeah but I want to make sure that I write a sentence otherwise tomorrow when I sit and look at this I will have no clue what it was well and I'll say another I mean maybe we want to know if we want to discuss this as a full committee but we could conceivably just have one page for school committee meetings with subcommittees and full committees and then you just list what the meeting is agenda minutes YouTube link without having people having to go at all these different things to find absolutely one of the positives from our um the we work with CES for the website updates and the I guess webmaster for any lack of any other word that I have for that um is he and John RIT director have looked at other models of of websites and so we can look at you know I can look at some different models I I personally would find it much more um helpful to see all the meetings just running order regardless but that okay I'll do my very brief update um as Andy has said we're ending one year and simultaneously planning the next so it's very busy summer is not rest for administrators full-year admin assistance and certainly not for custodians they are rocking and rolling starting the summer cleaning and having to work around summer school into buildings so it's it's a logistical exercise for Eric in the custodial staff in our maintenance staff but they're well underway doing that work I won't speak again about our summer school program Staffing we do have some district-wide positions that we're still looking for we have hired a school psych we've hired a speech pathologist we're still looking for some additional but to the positive at this point almost all of the open positions that we have we have applicants and are in the process of scheduling interviews so we're you know we're pleased that we have response for most of the positions um I want to again just welcome Dave messing as our director of people Services who officially started July 3rd and then Meryl Miceli is now our full-time director at AEL and they're both um moving along with the work in the new year we are starting we have started today was the first day of our administrative Retreat it is not as glamorous as that sounds um I as I said today the massage will be so light you would not even think you'd had one which they are not having them it's it is an oxymoron for sure um so we are doing all the planning of our professional development our convocation doing the logistics of operations that need to be updated things that are seemingly um mindless but have an impact on the function day-to-day in the district we will be working with our ssos folks tomorrow and looking at more detail of the Strategic plan and ensuring we have cohesive plans and how that is wrapped into our staff meetings professional development for all of the plans that we have to submit for all of the work that we are doing because we're a prior district with two schools in status we have to submit a priority plan and then because of one of the grants that we applied for we had to participate in what's called a landscape analysis which is basically a program evaluation but the outcomes of that the priority plan the landscape analysis and resulting plan and the Strategic plan are all the same work and that was not accidental that's very that is a very expected outcome given the intense Focus we have had on the particular areas that we have identified that we need to improve so we are not working in a million different directions what we are but they're intentional and they're all the same so that's that's a really um it's a difficult task to accomplish when you are trying to respond to requirements from a variety of different places but we are absolutely committed to ensuring our efforts Main are maintained on the priority areas and that we don't get splintered and do a little bit of work in in so many areas that we're not seeing any impact so that takes a lot of intentional planning and then um the re-envisioning our schools I will let member wall I guess give the update under the the subcommittee reports but there has been movement in that regard um so that's there's no it doesn't seem like a lot but we're very busy so I kept my update brief the surveys did go out to the teachers and and we will be reporting on the results of them at our meeting next week is that when it is 17th it's next 17th at 3 30.
um so without a physical copy of it we have to order several copies uh then I convened the library book reconsideration committee on that committee there were six total numbers me being the one who kind of facilitated that work uh the library media Specialists were on it we had an administrator we had a student Support Services number and also a teacher at the high school part of that committee the first meeting was on May 5th we kind of oriented ourselves to the process as to what we're going to do you know we talked about the Board of Ed policy and regulations specifically about selection criteria were highlighted but we reviewed all those documents we also I provided them with a list of book reviews that were provided by the library media Specialists as part of their work I distributed the book and set the next meeting date based on the time it would take these volunteers to read the book thoroughly and then we'd come back and have a discussion part of that conversation as well and setting the stage that was really important for us is to really look at this to be devoid of personal opinions their own personal feelings were and really approach it as a whole book not just an individual passage which sometimes can be referred to out of context so we're looking at the worthiness of the entire book that was the two of the pieces that were really important when it came to our discussion which is about a month later not a month exactly a month later on June 5th the process um really that a librarian would use to determine if they would add any book to a collection and where does that process start and so what they do is they actually start by reading reviews of different books from different sources and so we took a look and we talked about the reviews that were read and typically what would happen is one of two things when you read a summer reviews about any particular book that you know they the Librarians actually take feedback from teachers from students about how to add or you know enhance the collection and rather than just buying it wholesale they're going to start with reviews that's the process of library media Specialist or teacher librarian and so we started there and said after reading those reviews is this something that you would as a committee if you were charged with that does this look like something you'd want to at least purchase and read and then talk about the next steps the committee unanimously agreed that based on the reviews the professional reviews this would be something that we'd be interested in looking at so that was that conversation you know and we went through the entire selection criteria that's outlined in the regulation in terms of whether a book meets a selection criteria and then we talked about a decision we talked about subtleties of the book we talked about different chapters we've talked about things from start to finish but really talked about the book entirely in context and had to come with a decision whether it was going to be we'd recommend removal or keep in the committee and the um ebook system and then the next step last step was obviously to provide that summary document to the superintendent that outlined the process which is what you see here so the committee did make the determination at that point in time that the book should that no action should be taken the books remain to be accessible through the e-book system in the Connecticut State library and there's a couple pieces of rationale that I'll certainly highlight um and we really try to take a look at it from this perspective because you know the superintendent and the assistant superintendent I will say consistently remind me right when I have a question about anything and they they'll nod they say go to policy go to regulation start there and then we move on so this is what we did that same thing so I looked at the regulation we looked at the policies and it clearly states in regulation 6563 the Board of Ed endorses the American Library Association Bill of Rights and so specifically it provides this book provides a background of information and provides quality materials an opposing viewpoint the second page representing many different voices in our world community and provides a broad range of materials and then we talked about a second component of that was about the acquisition criteria so it meets and aligns to the American Library Association standards but then that's great it doesn't meet the selection criteria that are also outlined and it does across the board from authoritativeness and accuracy reputation of the author relevance and significance Clarity you can see the list it goes all the way down you know price format physical durability doesn't really play into it but it is something that's in the regulations it's an e-book so it's really easy to check that box from that perspective um and so we went through that and then we also looked at the addendum uh for the board in 6563 and I think there's important things to highlight there and it says the Brookfield Board of Education recognizes the right of an individual parent or Guardian to request that his or her child's Library selection be limited it's always the right of the parent always going to be that doesn't change and then the second part is residents do not have the right to determine Library materials for students other than their own so that was the official report that I sent to the superintendent who then after receiving an appeal I went directly to the board and we're here before you say so I'm happy to answer any questions you might have or anything that might help for you hold on to your official discussion here all right so I'll open it up to the board members for questions but when we start with the first one so amongst your committee what's their unanimity on the recommendations across the board I have 20 questions so I'll just kind of pace myself yep I'm just referencing the rationale yep sure could you provide um how you came to the collusion that it enables students to make intelligent judgments in their daily lives or how it provides opposing points of views and the second bullet or how it develops critical analytical skills I'm just curious if you have any specific examples that the committee came up with well I mean sure So reading through the book right in terms of that first bullet talks about providing a background of information you know um there's been a lot of comments and speakers and people have talked about the nature of the book and what it talks about um it does provide accurate resources in terms of background of information and students that make intelligent judgments on their decisions on their daily lives I think that's a natural connection if somebody's going to read this book They're going to provide it with a any number of different bullet points of information if they have questions and it's the structure of the book is such I don't like the term instruction manual because it really isn't an instruction manual I know some people have said that before but I don't perceive that in order to committee and perceived as an instruction manual um something as simple as understanding um the use of the term gay right and how that can be used multiple different ways or somebody who is considered like who would use the term queer right which is something that is accepted by certain members of the community depending on where you consider yourself versus others so even just common etiquette of how to do that that is in there in the first probably first second the first two chapters I think that's in there in terms of background of information um and then you know the fact that it is in a opposing point of view certainly I think that's been Illustrated here by many people talking about um they disagree with it it doesn't go along with one of the sections um there's several sections in that book uh one that talks about how to work with or how to talk to people who may disagree with you from other religious backgrounds I think that's often been misrepresented in Communications here it's not that a particular religion is bad it's how do you deal with somebody who is of that particular Faith how do you communicate how do you have those conversations that helps kids make Intelligent Decisions and we have a lot of kids here in this building that as a previous speaker said would never come out in public it's not your time for questions mark that says how to argue so Mr Montero sorry this is not a give and take I know it misfolding the book so there are many students who would never forward who are looking for any type of resource of how to deal with things that they're feeling or thinking right and so this provides a lot of different opportunities for kids to do that provides a differing Viewpoint from something that they may not have seen um and then what was some of the other things you were looking for joy so on the last bullet provides a broad range of materials on diverse and are controversial issues to help students develop critical analytical skills and assure a comprehensive collection appropriate for users of the library right so you know in terms of developing critical analytical skills um you know our expectation is this is this is this could there's a lot of conversation about kids looking at this and saying um okay uh maybe I'm in particular questioning or I'm not sure or I'm having a feeling I'm looking for a resource right there's a lot of conversation about those the kids that might be toxic access in this book there's other students that might also access that book that are wondering the same things that could be considered themselves to be straight and not of any not gay according to this book but would look for other understanding and so they might look and say okay I never really thought about it from that perspective I never thought about how I might communicate with somebody how my language particularly that I choose to use might be something that may not be helpful to people that I know or in circles that I work through or friend people I'm friends with so that would be one of the examples I would say no and the third one what did the committee feel that represented the different voices in the world Community especially with regard to gender race class ethnicity cultural and religious groups well because it's the inclusion of this book in and of itself is representative of a different group of kids or somebody that might they might connect with differently if you have we're looking to develop a collection that represents a myriad the inclusion of this book in our collection represents a different student than than other students might be exposed to so that's how it represents a world view and just one more question going back to the first bullet was there any discussion with committee that the book encourages not the judgments based on certain statements made what force it would lead a child to not make it the judgment decision no there was no discussion about that did the teacher Librarians mention any circulation statistics for the book How often how many times kids said yes so it's it's available through the Connecticut State library system so I reached out to Brad Bullis directly who was the one who oversees the Digital Collection uh just as recently as last week to kind of get the most updated statistics it has been taken out twice since December 2022 by students thank you then we know that it was students who took it that was what he shared with me in an email so I said I had a lot of questions right um although Joy asked some of the ones I was going to ask um age-appropriateness um did you have any discussion on the recommended age range from the publisher and the American Library Association and your view of that range yeah so we did talk about that in terms of appropriateness it is classified as a why a book and so looking at that that comes directly from Fallout and several other resources why a looking at the age of grades 8 through 12.
we add in the D.A increase of 5500 and then when you're estimating here for buying Capital that's being a little higher on the capital side um but again your district has been very fortunate in utilizing SFP it's not called sfe but the school facilities division for a lot of your projects and so that's a good carry forwarding Capital it's a little different percentages from mno your Capital again is one-time Capital purchases so the rule of thumb there is there's generally a higher percentage you're looking 25 30 inches and carry forward um you guys are north of that um next year so the changes again I think doctors worked with this uh with with Jeremy um so again I can go line by line um but you got a lot of changes coming in 24 that have some budgetary impact um I think some of the highlights in here again you know increasing salaries moving uh some of your benefit employees over um an increasing retention on the compensation so a lot of these changes are not coming from those two buckets that I just talked about there's a lot of different funds being used in this for example that retention compensation uh you have a classroom site fund plan for that and that's a different bucket of money but these are all your changes kind of budgetary high level changes that were planning on taking place in 24 any questions on that list the next slide sustainability test obviously when you make changes you want to make sure you can sustain them um when I talk about one-time funding and making initiatives for that um you don't want to put positions in place knowing that there's a Sunset date of next year right um You Want to make changes that are both impactful but also sustainable so I'm writing those 24 changes um uh through a little calculation again taking into consideration that we're not talking about understanding on Capital with some of those changes we're talking about a lot of your funds um you do have some and issues that are going to be able to be sustained for the next seven years According to some of our calculations so that's a conservative number um as some of your budget funds are especially classroom type 1.
in order to get federal funds there's a requirement that you bring the mitigation plan forward every six months uh through September of 23 uh June July of this year is the final time there are no absolutely no changes to it I will be honest with you so that you know up front we're doing this because the feds require it but I do not know when we send it to Ade what Ade will do with it I'm guessing the opinions of the covet mitigation plan might vary between the current Administration and Ade and the current administration at the federal level but we will comply with the federal level because they have more power and then we'll pass to Ade and they can do what they want with it but that way we have at least done what we're supposed to do so we continue to we can continue to spend the funds as appropriate okay has everybody had a chance with any questions any questions okay I'll take a motion I moved to approve the update to the district's 22 2023 24 covid-19 mitigation plan as presented second all in favor aye aye aye motion carries four to zero discussion consideration approval of updated 2324 certified salary schedule yeah the changes uh reflective and here are the number of days uh we had had a discussion with the board relative to the number of days 200 appears uh the way we are calculating it the way we're presenting it uh for a person from the outside they may think that that our salary is uh their salary is going to be divided by 200 versus what the standard is 184 187 and so we just made the adjustments in the number of days that are on the uh in the salary schedule and then we explained uh made some minor changes within the language of um contracted days and so that should give them a better understanding of of what we do relative to the contract it would be consistent with not all districts because some districts don't put any numbers on their salary schedules and others do so I looked at about um seven East Valley School Districts and some had numbers in and some didn't have numbers and to be quite Frank but based on your conversations this would be my recommended changes as presented questions no this is we're seeing this again because of the questions we have right before yes Greg I have a question maybe I'm not doing the math correctly but when you have the 181 plus the 3 plus the four you get 188 so I'm not sure how we get 187.
in the superintendent's office correct in person and so uh you know Gene do you just you want to do your uh redistricting subcommittee report right now yeah go ahead I'm sorry uh so anyway uh we will get everybody on the committee up to date and and discuss when to bring the report forward to the uh Community that's it thank you okay uh other questions or comments for the superintendent about her report okay you sure it might be a first I'll take it all right um my report is is fairly quick uh update on the school committee self-evaluation uh masc uh Liz lafon specifically has said that they can support the self-evaluation again this year um and I I kind of got a commitment from her that she would push out the link for the self-evaluation to us in the month of July although I have not had the same easy back and forth with Liz she's got a lot of personal stuff going on right now that I know of but she said they will do it for us like last year so I imagine I'll get an update soon and we can expect that we will get the self-evaluation this month um my other two things typically the superintendent and I go in person to city council meeting which is the Wednesday after our monthly regular meeting and give a report and answer their questions and we have informed them that in July and in August we will give them written and written reports which is not unprecedented and I got zero response from them when I told them that we were doing this so I don't think they care and then I just want to acknowledge uh the hard work of our food service department and they had this great summer eats this is the free breakfast and lunch and sometimes dinner uh program for uh children 18 and under um that happens over the summer the kickoff event we had great weather at the pool and it was very very well attended and there were a lot of Community Resources there and they are just doing a great job my son and I have visited a number of different sites including the food truck at Fosters the food truck at the skate park which is kind of cool and so I just want to acknowledge that they're doing a great job and then my only other thing which didn't make it on the agenda I can't remember if we acknowledged the uh softball team being state champs it's two years in a row Class C I don't think it was over before our last meeting right it did get put on the website yeah I saw it there you're right yeah so congratulations to them two years in a row Class C Champs so that's that's pretty awesome and they beat Turner's this year not that we care we did acknowledge it at city council city council because it had just happened yeah okay and that is my report um and let's do subcommittees Gene had her Limelight um Glenn anything else from policy oh I'm sorry I just had a question um will we be getting the old self-evaluation back will we be doing a postmortem where we compare old versus new after we do the new one or how will we be collating that data and comparing them so I I don't know but I can ask Liz and last year um they did the collating for us it was our first year in a long time at least my time on school committee so I can ask that question and see where we get it's it's a good thing to bring up I honestly don't know that the eventual data and improve using it thank you um Glenn did you have anything else for policy no okay great and budget nothing you're not gonna have a meeting perhaps we should have a meeting you should have a meeting yes um yeah and what that means is superintendent and I will chit chat about times and what will be the topics my guess is reviewing the funds that have been dedicated for the school district and how they are ultimately going to be applied yeah there you go so that's that thank you and um member genev do you have a report from the collaborative they had a budget meeting it was voted on that that's it they're done with their budgets okay nothing else to report okay um and then we do have some correspondence that is in the online materials but I don't think in the packet um and then executive session is only for minutes from previous uh executive sessions and um I would entertain a motion to adjourn rather than actually do just minutes for an executive session so moved and uh any anyone abstaining from adjourning anyone opposed we are unanimously adjourned at 7 45 pm thank you all hooray
in the superintendent's office correct in person and so uh you know Gene do you just you want to do your uh redistricting subcommittee report right now if that's something yeah go ahead I'm sorry uh so anyway uh we will get everybody on the committee up to date and and discuss when to bring the report forward to the uh Community that's it thank you okay uh other questions or comments for the superintendent about her report okay you sure it might be a first I'll take it all right um my report is is fairly quick uh the update on the school committee self-evaluation uh masc uh Liz Lafont specifically has said that they can support the self-evaluation again this year um and I kind of got a commitment from her that she would push out the link for the self-evaluation to us in the month of July although I have not had the same easy back and forth with Liz she's got a lot of personal stuff going on right now that I know of but she said they will do it for us like last year so I imagine I'll get an update soon and we can expect that we will get the self-evaluation this month um my other two things typically the superintendent and I go in person to city council meeting which is the Wednesday after our monthly regular meeting and give a report and answer their questions and we have informed them that in July and in August we will give them written and written reports which is not unprecedented and I got zero response from them when I told them that we were doing this so I don't think they care and then I just want to acknowledge uh the hard work of our food service department and they had this great summer eats this is the free breakfast and lunch and sometimes dinner uh program for uh children 18 and under um that happens over the summer the kickoff event we had great weather at the pool and it was very very well attended and there were a lot of Community Resources there and they are just doing a great job my son and I have visited a number of different sites including the food truck at Fosters the food truck at the skate park which is kind of cool and so I just want to acknowledge that they're doing a great job and then my only other thing which didn't make it on the agenda I can't remember if we acknowledged the softball team being state champs it's two years in a row Class C I don't think it was over before our last meeting right it did get put on the website yeah I saw it there you're right yeah so congratulations to them two years in a row Class C Champs so that's that's pretty awesome and they beat Turner's this year not that we care we did acknowledge it at city council city council because it had just happened yeah okay and that is my report um and let's do subcommittees Gene had her Limelight um Glenn anything else from policy oh I'm sorry I just had a question um will we be getting the old self-evaluation back will we be doing a postmortem where we compare old versus new after we do the new one or how will we be collating that data and comparing them so I I don't know but I can ask Liz and last year um they did the collating for us it was our first year in a long time at least my time on school committee um so I can ask that question and see where we get it's it's a good thing to bring up I honestly don't know I'd love to know what the eventual plan is with the data and how we improve using it thank you um I Glenn did you have anything else for policy no okay great and budget nothing you're not gonna have a meeting perhaps we should have a meeting you should have a meeting yes um yeah and what that means is superintendent and I will chit chat about times and what will be the topics my guess is reviewing the funds that have been dedicated for the school district and how they are ultimately going to be applied yeah there you go so that's that thank you and um member genev do you have a report from the collaborative a budget meeting it was voted on that that's it they're done with their budget season okay nothing else to report okay um and then we do have some correspondence that is in the online materials but I don't think in the packet um and then executive session is only for minutes from previous uh executive sessions and um I would entertain a motion to adjourn rather than actually do just minutes for an executive session so moved and uh any anyone abstaining from adjourning anyone opposed we are unanimously adjourned at 7 45 pm thank you all foreign [Music]
um you know in terms of our collection at the library we do have a myriad of grade rate of age levels right we have students that could be coming into high school at 13 years old and also students graduating high school that are 19 right so we have a wide range of kids even given that pretty extreme age range 13 for those younger birthdays in the fall to the 19 year old some of those the entire committee fell across the board in terms of appropriateness for a young adult book that this would fit exactly in that category to be as in the Brookfield High School library and it's only accessible to Brookfield High School students it's not accessible to any other school it's only at this point only Brookfield High School students is my understanding that's what I there was some comments earlier about younger age as I was one of the one I think that's not available yeah so students have to log in to take the book out they would have to log in using their username and password through Brookfield High School right so everybody has a unique username and password that's connected to the follow-up library system that then connects them to Connecticut State library system that allows them to use the book it has to be a registered school and if a student was not registered as a student at Brookfield High School then they wouldn't be able to take that book out so your final comment and your report was that residents the right on an individual parent Guardian to request his or her child's Library selection to be limited that's directly from our policy that is yes so um the uh how is that actually enabled that's a good question so you know ebooks I think pose a different because it's a it's an outside service right so I did reach out to Mr Bullis who is again the one I spoke to previously in terms of limiting um if if the determinations award was to remove the book or to keep the book if it was to remove the book what does that look like can we select a single title right from the list of books that are in the e-library system said absolutely um he had to give me more information about what would happen uh how he could limit kids I believe that if we're gonna do for this book in particular um because it is an e-book and it's connected to a login at Brookfield High School I believe on Follett and this is some of the work that we're continuing that we'll continue to do um we'll be able to limit those students being able to take that book out I can't speak for certain on that in terms of the e-book perspective but if it was an actual physical uh book that's in the library there is a way and a method to restrict a student who took that book and went to check it out would not be able to do so we can absolutely if an individual parent came forward and said I do not want my child to take out this book it is easy enough to put you know a delimiter in to the Fallout system which is our library resource material system and can limit that student from actually taking that book out of the library do we explain that to parents um we have we have not in the past certainly not but given where we are now it's something that we will certainly explore and working with the superintendent and talk about what other things we can do to start the school year it's I think at the perfect time as we get ready to come back to school in less than a month and a half or about a month and a half could be part of that back to school communication piece so we're we're interested in working with the board and the superintendent to come up with something that could be transparent to make sure that families and students know that there is an option that their parents do have the ability to restrict what they'd like to read or not and is that of course the ability to restrict how does that play when a child is turns 18.
are contingent on sales tax and so there's a bunch of different like trigger points and when you're talking about different buckets of money um but with my experience and then Jeremy has been working with another consultant two professionals who's been working with Ade uh 10 more years of experience in the budget more than me both feel confident in making that recommendation in seven years of sustainability for some of those changes so and really that's that's it I hope a healthy place in terms of the balances um we're looking to draw on some of those balances uh for some of the changes Dr soltero has in the broadcast 24 uh to better your district and and again what do you think the student resources are saying um that's really it for me so I'll be happy to answer any questions you guys are looking fine um yeah it really I think some of the changes will help you know hopefully attract any chance of meeting people um achieve some of the initiatives that you have as a board um going into next year so I know you need a motion to return the meeting I'll make a motion I'll check in it Miss Olson aye aye Ms Roberts aye Mr Curtis which is aye Mr Guthrie aye Ms Rodriguez hi hi 12 minutes before the next video
shouldn't be switched to 180 not 181 I'm not sure where I thought I made the changes on that I'm not sure which so it should be 100 so if you go down to contracted days if you go down to contract to days you'll see 180 work days four additional paid work days plus three additional paid professional days and 10 paid holidays because in the paragraph that we're reading it says I I miss that I apologize okay so that's been 187 plus the 10 others get to 197.
that's interesting I don't know that's something I would have to look into because certainly there are certain levels of things that students can and can do while they're still 18 there still are our students here right and so typically the rights that students have at 18 really transition to IEP and special education services that's where a lot of that stuff transitions over there is as the age of majority There's an opportunity for students to who are 18 with parent permission limit and restrict certain things but communication with parents always continues so that's something I would have to certainly look into a little bit more I don't I don't know that off the top of my head in love if I may just to add to what I'm about to answer your sister at the elementary school parents have paired with the librarian handicap that has been so that has it is something we do currently to be very candid uh to what Mark's talking about I think we can advertise it better and I think this is the perfect time to have some communities with principles get the word up to parents on that they're comfortable coming forward and it's an absolute option that's their very right and we have it in our policy Endeavor do parents have the ability to see what their children are checking out uh with requests that we can print that stuff up they'd have to request that specifically but we could absolutely provide for parents um that request typically what happens is when we see that and that's why I know it's we're available to do that is when we do obligations into the school year if a student has a book that they've taken out that I haven't paid for or there's a textbook that's outstanding those sorts of things we can run reports and we can actually distribute those emails directly to um parents on an individual basis basis a parent request that we can run a report of the books that they had taken out okay um if anybody wants to jump in I'll ask another one unless you guys want to jump um all right so um process wise now the oh God I forgot I lost my train of thought that the forms that you received and the discussions that went on with the library and there were specific if I remember the format of the reconsideration partner specific concerns to the parents were all of those encompassed in your review because this looked like it went directly to the American Library Association and our policy did you all talk through the concerns raised by the parents in the region we talked through all those specifically there's a lot of questions about chapter nine right which is typically in terms of page ranges that people identified chapter nine was one of the largest ones and that was a big focus of our conversation um it was chapter nine because that was highlighted in both forms that were completed in addition to I believe I'm not going to get the chapter right um the budgets of the ones that was specifically about religion those are the two areas generally that were identified and so we looked at that we looked at the we looked at uh the content that was in there and we also looked at how it relates to the entirety of the book um and so it was absolutely discussions on both those topics um and significant debate or concern as you all went through the considerations on each of those questions and topics no in terms of there was absolutely there was a lot of discussion right in terms of uh questions about well what what do we teach in health right there's a lot of those questions we know what level of um diagrams and pictures and those sorts of things so that was a significant discussion in terms of what we do and that's mostly relative to chapter nine and then there was there was discussion it came to age-appropriateness right and at what level that was a lot of that conversation the content that was in chapter nine that that appeared to be objectionable in these two forms that were submitted um looking at that and thinking about the age range of what was in there and is that objectionable is that something that would be appropriate for young adults versus and so most of the conversation was you know really it really stuck to that 8 12 8-12 grade range that it really is appropriate for those groups that's my last question is there anybody also asked questions hearing none Dr Burrell would you like to make a statement of any before we board sure I'll be briefing mark thank you very much I appreciate Mark's work on this and the committee's work the board's work of all the citizens that have had their voice heard very proud of everyone also just a reminder for everyone that we updated the policy last February along with the regulation and the addendum so this is quite new it was a book challenge around that time maybe probably two years ago and about a year and a half ago now full adoption of the updated versions that we've been talking to today it's really important to remind everybody that we purposely a year and a half ago made sure that as a board Administration we put our values out there and one of them is the right of the individual parent regarding to a request that his or her child child's Library selection be limited is very important to remind the community our faculty and staff on the board that that is something we have in there um we do not want to be the parents of the the head there the children of their parents and the parents have every right to limit their Library selections very important statement to make the same time you've heard all the reasons that people think that kids should have opportunity to look at many many various elections another piece we are going to work as we just ended the conversation making sure parents know that that they have an option to opt their child out and to be very candid we're already talking with Anna and Mark and our Librarians about how we could better communicate and develop more effective processes processes for ensuring that parents are aware of what their children are taking out in maybe a more real-time manner so to that end we're doing some work already this summer on that and we would really like to have something updated for sharing with the board and sharing with the community this fall so I'll leave it at that and I thank you all for your time thank you all right board we got that we get to go work on a decision process so what I thought the best way for us to work through it is to go around the table and give everybody a chance to say their piece share our thoughts then we can talk about it if we'd like um I do have a prepared motion um that I can put on but I don't want to put that on until we have a chance to cancer so um so once we start sharing with you um I read it the first time I felt as if I was reading a textbook until I got to later on in the book where it was fairly granted and my first reaction was we can't let the children read this and then I thought about it read it again um I don't think we as Americans have the right to ban a book so this is a very big decision for me if a child wants to find something out he or she is going to find out either from a friend from the internet from all the various um things that are out there for them we might as well let them read a book that's been approved and you know a lot of parents are uncomfortable with that but there's an opt-out option the first time I read the book I thought of my grandchildren and said gee I wonder if I should let him read it or and then I said you know we're under percentage of the 15 year old and if he wants to read it I'm going to give him my cup because I think that children need to know facts not just what they hear from their best buddy in the new locker room um so I think we have to let it stay as is this particular book there are others that um came up through the year which I don't know if I would feel the same way but have a hard time with branding any book thank you um I'll start by saying that there were parts of the book that were uncomfortable for me to read um I don't know if my kids have read the book but I would hope that if they did read it that we could have a discussion about it and if they had questions about the content of the book I would be more than happy to sit with them and discuss it um because that's how we do things but as uncomfortable as parts of the book made me feel I feel strongly that it's our duty and obligation to provide a variety of content for all types of kids and all types of interests and their needs and their questions even if it makes us uncomfortable um I also think it's important to to remember that we entrust our school librarians to curate The Collection based on their knowledge their expertise and their professional reviews of the material they are the experts they're the specialists in this field and if we start censoring what our school librarians choose that I feel like we paved the way for censoring of any types of Library material what about books about Christianity that people oppose what about Harry Potter books that contain witchcraft what about people who don't want their kids reading about the Nazis or slavery we need to protect students access to books that they may see themselves reflected in or that may answer important questions for them I think that's our responsibility and I don't support removing this book from our library um I I have read this book a few times as well as and uh I have a hard time wrapping my my head around what principal land just said about age-appropriateness uh I think anyone who's who could read at least half this book and can say that it's the age-appropriateness is uh uh it's not so it's not even appropriate it's like it's totally unnecessary for a school setting and I hear a lot of like Banning books Banning books I sat here at a cape knitting when I was first here about and we talked about kicking out a book Clifford The Big Red doc because look at the Big Red Dog uh wore a Native American outfit for Halloween so the book had to be removed no one said that was Banning a book I was just making something right for the school uh I didn't think much of it until you know the previous book challenge in this book challenge but there are books that are removed by our Librarians it's not like every book comes in and stays in I also have to push back a little bit on the on the religions chapters that they are religious are ranked by how homophobic they are I don't think that's fair for a book to label a religious homophobic so there is a little there's a fair amount of hate in this book on certain groups I don't think that should be ignored I'm not saying that should be a reason to remove it but I do think it should have been discussed as far as accuracy there's a few things in here that aren't very there's a few statements in this book and I'm going to pick on specific statements but there's a lot of little one-liners that aren't backed by any science whatsoever I mean he there was a you're born in the wrong body statement there's a statement about a gay gene that's been that's not a thing um the the one I I still can't really get over is that porn stars are expert sex doers I don't think that this is about what I think I think there's an objectivity to the appropriateness of this material and I I kind of am taken back by the comments that found no problems like not even like maybe um you know with that said I I do hear the argument that we shouldn't ban books and I agree but you know we have a book discussing Christianity but we don't have library that has a Bible not really fair on that point so uh maybe we could practice a little bit more inclusive inclusivity when it comes to that I have a lot to say on this but I'm going to keep it short that's okay so I just like to start off by saying that I don't believe that this is an effort or a movement to ban books anyone who wants access to this particular book this book is gay can gain access to it from public libraries Amazon and bookstores Etc um everyone has a right to be offended but this isn't about someone being offended it's about whether or not this book provides educational value to our school this is not an attack on a specific group of people I didn't read it with that in mind I kept an open mind and I didn't read it as it was intended for a certain group I am a subject matter expert in this field I've been a teacher for 21 years of a master's in literacy I'm my District's curriculum coordinator in English language arts and I review literature all the time I write curriculum I attend book conferences every year I use quality literature that's a foundation on my job so one of the biggest red flags of my number one concern regarding this book is safety as board members our most important job is keeping the children of our schools safe this book promotes the grinder app Grindr Act is a hookup app it's not accessible until 18 years of age the author encourages and putting readers in a situation where they can be sexually assaulted or trafficked the author is promoting dangerous Behavior by encouraging and glorifying sexual con contact with complete strangers minors and adults as well as glorifying sex under the influence of illegal drugs alcohol and prescription medication also glorifying sex with people with known STDs to include AIDS and just to repeat what Matt what Mike said it really troubles me that none of this was a discussion amongst the committee Bob provide us with a very detailed information about the Miller test thank you for that for those who are unfamiliar with the Miller test it is a three-prong obscenity test that the U.S Supreme Court uses to determine whether speech or expression can be labeled as obscene if it's labeled as obscene then it is not protected by the First Amendment to the con United States Constitution I will go over over each of the three parts and explain how this book fits into each of the parts part one says the book is period or encourages an excessive interest in sexual matters so in other words this book promotes sexual behavior and glorifies it part two this book depicts or describes sexual conduct conduct or excretory functions in other words they are specifically talking about sexual acts that the average person would find offensive or not appropriate for school age children part three this book lacks serious letters literary artistic political or scientific value so in other words the Paulie the writing is poor this is certainly not quality literature it is not backed up by any scientific evidence and it makes religious assertions but portrays them as facts so in conclusion this book is gay fits the standard for the Miller test therefore there is no legal right or protection by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution this book is deemed obscene according to the United States Supreme Court this book should be removed from our school library [Applause] motivated um in one instance in very quick search I found four other books that maybe you would describe as greater literature because they're not written as a reference type material but four of those bugs are physically available in the Brookfield High School library now none of those are being talked about because they're not being regurgitated on your Facebook Echo Chambers I'm sure I'm not going to share the titles with you of those no need to motivate them but I also don't see the outrage in parents over phones being available all day to their children in school this book in lgbtq book this particular book has got parents outraged and when we have been publicly discussing the fact that parents do have a choice to off their kids out of not a single parent did it not a single one when they had the option and I would think that if you really cared about that option you really wanted your kid not to read this book the very first step would be to make sure that they can't check it out personally themselves but that was never done not a single one so this book does not instruct readers to argue with others it does however Advocate Advocate readers to make valid arguments if you don't know the difference between ballot arguments and arguing I really can't help you it does instruct readers to make these valid arguments in defense of themselves from those who choose to belittle and dehumanize them and their journey through self-discovery sexuality and gender identity personally as a parent just because I choose not to keep my child in the dark about issues that may face them or their peers and just because I choose not to shelter her from uncomfortable conversations does not mean that I am grooming her for sexual trafficking and it certainly does not mean that I do not have high standards for Behavior save the two unusually exclusive can only come from the most closed minds now what this book does do and I've read it multiple times it does have explicit messages throughout about safe sex always it was a constant and recurring scene throughout the book safe dating and online activity that is specific and relevant to lgbtq young adults it has definitions for common terminology discuss the difference between sexuality and gender issues it advises responsible medical and psychological treatment it emphasizes the importance of finding trusted adults and safe partners and yes it does it does it in a way that takes a very young voice that speaks to teens in a relevant non-sterile voice and welcomes openness and comfortability so we've heard a ton of the excerpts of these explicit things that are just a part of the book and I'll remind all of my board members that we should not be reviewing books on excerpts but the book as an entirety so I would like to read and take some of my time to read some of the other quotes that were probably never going to be shared so one so now that we've used this book to deal with your identity we need to turn our attention to bigger issues your future your career your family your kids your aspirations and Ambitions your hopes and dreams two your identity is not a definition you are so much more than just a lesbian gay bisexual queer or trans person three when you first come out or go public with a new identity be it lgbtq or a massive Project Runway fan there is a novelty and perhaps once the initial nerves are over a desire to shout it from the rooftops and you should because eventually you'll be proud of who you are I'm already proud of you three two loving parents equals two great parents regardless of sexual preference of gender identity four parenting should should you want to Embark down that road is the most amazing gift a human can give five every day all over the world you'll find gay men and women deeply totally in love and they have something better than sex intimacy warmth passion and love in all caps the need to be with their partner also sex does not equal love if you go looking for sex because you're hungry full of for love you'll start six and this was in all caps and noted several times throughout the book the best way to protect yourself against an STI is to wear a condom every time you have sex seven your health is your responsibility eight the more sexual partners you have the more likely you are to pick up an STI a sexually transmitted into nine in challenging times it is more important than ever that we come together as a community and support one another it all starts with kindness compassion and you I think by now it is very clear where I stand on this issue [Applause] thank you Rosa those were actually a few excerpts that I had planned to highlight as well and then thank you for pointing out I think someone said that there was nothing positive in this book or nothing about acceptance and I think that couldn't be further from the truth I think this book is important to have for a kid who is looking for it I have two kids at the high school I would have zero problem they would have no interest in looking at this book but I would have zero problem with them looking at it and I think really this just boils down to we don't have the right to censor what other kids look at we can censor for our own kids we can't censor for anyone else and I also agree that this whether people realize it or want to admit it or don't believe it's true this is targeted to a specific community and this is politically motivated [Applause] so um when I read this book three times you know um I I kept sitting in my chair reading it saying this is a great book right I mean for the person who's looking for information on the decisions they need to make until you get to page 200 and something right it is it's actually a little dry but it's informative and it is some of the quotes that you've read Rosa are it was it was about relationships it was about dealing with family dealing with yourself being strong making decisions it was about relationships it was about uh definitions it was about fears right and so for for a child who is facing those questions and I've known children who are facing those questions they often don't have a resource to go to and so until the famous chapter nine um it was it was a warm informative balanced book that was fact reasonably factual and and what I kept saying that if that someone's going to find this book wonderful for something that they were trying to understand this book isn't for everybody right let's let's be let's be very Frank with each other there's uh there there's a for a child who's looking for or how do I deal with my feelings this book is great for there's other children who wouldn't look at the titles yeah get to the chapter on ins and outs of gay sex and I'll read the opening sentence this chapter is about sex therefore it has sex in it well duh if you were a younger reader and feel you aren't ready for the finer details of same-sex parents and simply skip this whole chapter I think the author knew that that was a controversial chapter but he goes on to say she goes on to say that um that the um you never you never can talk some of these things right and so I tested it a little bit with my own children and I said so if you were having a book about this and they said there's nothing new in there I mean if I was in high school I would have known about all that stuff and so there's no surprises they didn't think it prurient or exciting when they looked at the chapter they said it's kind of boring the way that was portrayed so all things considered I had more positive feelings about this book than I had and what worries about this book so taken us a whole I would want this book in our libraries I'd like to donate my copy mark to the library so we have a hard copy in the library because I think it's an important book for the child who needs it right [Applause] so I wouldn't support keeping this book and I by the way I will also say I'll add we have great Librarians and they work hard on thinking through the issues here and Mark your committee spent a lot of time on this I know that thank you for that we need to trust our professionals as well so there's a second reason that says as a board we should be supporting our our team right in the decisions I think so and that's a heartfelt opinion about why we hire these people to do the right jobs so we all heard each other as a position anybody want to have further discussion on that before we go over promotions okay we all know where we stand so if you guys are okay I will read a motion and it's not short it's not overwhelmingly long but I'm going to read it pursuant to board policy 6563 and dentum the Brookfield Board of Education recognizes the right of an individual parent Guardian to request his or her child's Library selection to be limited in addition residents shall not have the rights to determine Library materials for students other than their own therefore the board moves to maintain access to the e-book this book is gay of a parenthetically available through the Connecticut State Library closed brand in the field high school library catalog as recommended by the BHS special Review Committee furthermore the board directs the superintendent to develop processes to support parental rights regarding their individual children's Library selections and report back to the board with his findings to be implemented in the coming school year I thought we needed to have that to strengthen up the position so that's the motion second okay it's been more consecutive would anybody like to have further discussion okay all in favor of approving the motion please raise your hand and say aye all against passes five two so we've made the decision on this I do will add a second challenge has come on another book it arrived in week or two before school was out so it was kind of a it was hard to get a committee organized as all the year-end activities were done Mark the land is working on getting that organized as we speak we as that committee is finished with their work if in fact is brought forward to the board so without objection we are adjourned [Applause]
so you're looking at this paragraph for your motion right I was okay redone right uh well I don't know what what the actual no the motion doesn't need to be done because it says I was going to see what it says it says 187 right on the salary schedule so if you if you want to be if you want to make it perfect when you say the updates we're going to go to 180 and 1 and 187 instead of what's in there or you can just say as presented since we discussed it we noted the the change and the actual document reflects the the changes that we talked about that I just miss going back into the paragraph my apologies okay good okay everybody okay with that yeah because if you look at the salary schedule it says exactly what it's supposed to do okay all right I'll take a motion on this I moved to adopt the updated 2023-24 certified salary schedule as presented second all in favor I motion carries four to zero eight six eight point seven discussion consideration approval CTE 7th and 8th grade career exploration curriculum I don't know it's Dr fountain or Mr scragum either one of the two or both you get both of us we're going to finish it in I don't know about about six minutes we're gonna wrap up in adjourn I don't know 7 17 sounds lovely that's not happening now with the report well then I'll take my time all right so um we met our president to members of the board Dr Wyman uh we are bringing to you tonight a recommendation for a curriculum adoption for our career Explorations at the middle school level um this comes from an identified need at the high school level and then kind of a backwards design to address some needs at the middle school level so kind of have a two-prong approach here one a desire to increase electives opportunities at the middle school and support some of the initiatives that Miss Ridge is trying to accomplish there and also trying to set our students up better for Success at the high school level by giving them a chance to uh you know get that taste of a possible career pathway a little bit earlier on so that we can minimize the the number of students who potentially get to the high school try a CTE type course don't care for it try something else don't care for it and then don't ever get that completer piece so that's part of it and Mr scragam really kind of took the shot charge on this one and and went through the process with a very small team because it's a pretty pretty select group for this piece but again our curriculum goals are to make sure we have curriculum that's rigorous aligned to standards supports clear learning outcomes relevant learning experiences focused assessments and transparent learning um you've looked at this before the adoption schedule this really would have fallen primarily in our 2024 elective so we're a year ahead on it um but Mr scroggin was able to secure some Grant dollars to pay for this and so we worked on it this year Mr John that's president's rug I'm sorry my apologies oh president-elect oh I see that's right okay so um we had about a a four member five member team we included Miss Ridge and two of the teachers that will be teaching the course as part of this along with Dr Fountain and myself and um the purpose of this was to create an engaging curriculum for our seventh graders so that they can investigate some careers possibilities that are out there and then with the goal of using that understanding that knowledge that experience to start selecting High School classes with purpose with intent right so we went out and uh forbid for some curriculum that would meet some of the criteria that we had and we know them being middle school students that we wanted to make sure that it was engaging and in for it to be engaging it needed to be Hands-On that was a challenge for us we received I think seven bids most of those were textbook driven and that was the last thing we wanted for a seventh grader we found two that had Hands-On components one however didn't provide any materials supplies equipment so we would have had to go out and and kind of I guess piecemeal that together and then the one that we selected had the kits ready for us to go understanding the load of our teachers and some of these teachers that will be teaching also teach other content we wanted to make sure that it was um it was also convenient for them to understand the material and to be able to present it in a way that they themselves were engaged so we looked at those factors as we looked over the submissions this is the criteria that we kept in mind we wanted to make sure that the curriculum addressed the Arizona Department of Education career literacy standards so it is standards focused we wanted to make sure that there was a research based behind the the materials which we found it was um we wanted to make sure that it supported what we already do with our College and Career Readiness platform major Clarity or any platform if we decided to adopt something differently later it would still work with with those types of programs also we want to make sure that we have opportunities to partner with with Community industry and Business Leaders and this particular curriculum may or may not directly but the experiences that they have will allow the teacher to connect with industry in the area and tie those into the the student experience and then of course as I mentioned we wanted to make sure it was engaging it was relevant and that there were a lot of Hands-On activities for the students so we selected a a system it's called Mecca I don't know what Mecca stands for to be honest with you and I don't think they told us but it's produced by Oakwood Solutions also known as Conover and the the program is very user friendly both for the student and for the teacher it works well with major Clarity there's a built-in accountability so it's delivered electronically so the teacher doesn't have to go around and grade papers and so forth and so on um it's able the the activity not only do the students do it Hands-On but they enter the the um answers to the questions that go along with that activity into their computer and that information is relayed to the teacher so it's very uh time saving for the teacher and then again it's it's very engaging these are three samples of what it might look like so these kits are provided there are three levels so each student will do three different activities the nice thing about this is that it does address student needs so if we have a student that maybe isn't quite ready for the advanced level there are still still activities at the entry level and mid-level that they can participate in um you can see it comes in a kit the the budget friendly part of this is that to replace the consumables we can get at any hardware store so they're not we don't have to make a special order we can go down to True Value Home Depot and and replace those materials that doll head with the long hair is that true value well no but I don't think that's a consumable so so sure all right um and what we did is is we uh selected these work samples we tried to match up the best we could with some of the programs that we have at the high school of CTE programs that are offered at evit but we wanted to also uh we we want people to understand that we're not just looking at the Career and Technical education professions we want to make sure that students get to look at what's out there whether it's white collar Blue Collar new collar doesn't matter so we have to integrate this with our major Clarity and other components that we have in order to expose the students to plenty so this isn't all they're going to do the students will do um at least one activity every week or excuse me every other week it does take three days to complete one of the work samples so you're looking at every other week a student completing a work sample the other weeks I'll be working in major Clarity they'll be we have a program called take me which is free to us in which they get to listen to a live somebody from the industry it's kind of like a guest speaker only it's done digitally things like that it's awesome I'm sorry I like that I like that yeah and I will tell you that um there there are a few other programs out there but they just didn't fit in our budget and there's some really nice ones that you that we could set up at lab um but there the cost is just cost prohibited so uh we found this was budget friendly for for what we were looking for um so we are looking at this being a five-year adoption so we plan on using this for at least the next five years the initial cost is there it's 29.8 um fortunately we did have a grant that expires and so we that's why we rushed to I say Rush that we moved the timeline on this so that we can take uh advantage of those dollars moved with urgency moved with urgency thank you very much and um obviously the the issue is can we sustain it right and um Perkins Grant allows us to use a portion of our funds for career exploration at the middle school so um we can continue to to support the the system um so at about twelve thousand dollars that's estimated on consumable supplies uh the digital content and so forth um that's I think that's pretty much it you have any questions yeah I like it looks good great job good and I want to I want to thank Laura Laura is really excited about this it's always good to have buy-in and Laura was able to work out to where we have a special lab that will set these work samples up in Laura moved the furniture herself I love that he was sweating when we went to see her but she did she literally moved the furniture internet to another yeah did you get your steps in and so we're hoping to Market that on the middle school campus as well we've got kind of a special place for the students that they know that that experience it's great okay any um any other questions on this okay I'll take a motion I moved to adopt or move to approve the seven eight grade CTE career exploration curriculum Mecca by Conover as presented no second all in favor aye aye motion carry Sports zero uh our discussion item discussion and information on 23 24 District student enrollment numbers this is okay never mind yep student enrollment numbers okay so uh we're asked to go ahead and uh have a monthly discussion about student enrollment we've had conversations coming out of a couple different meetings including the um uh The Retreat about student retention uh and so uh in having the initial conversation I want to kind of lay the groundwork today's meeting uh principals myself have met regarding this will continue to meet regarding these issues uh but we will see a lot of volatility in our numbers uh over the next few weeks uh what you have right now is obviously people coming in and out we built our budget on four thousand and fifty two kids technically speaking right now we're at about 41 uh 20 or 41.25 but it's changing daily uh and the other piece that's out there that we have to wait and see is uh you have to do your first 10 days before you do 10 day drops and so that 10-day drop is August 5th and so um that will give us a better picture of whether we sit in higher or lower we could be up to 42 or 4 300 at the start and then all of a sudden we do drops and so felt like this was a better use of the time with the board today was to just give an overview in two different areas and then we would come back and and depending on any number of factors uh decide what what the conversation is on a monthly basis in terms of uh what we're what we're doing so when we talk about student enrollment tonight we're going to talk about two different areas we have data from Ade that is a new report that's coming out it's lags a year so you'll see it's 2122 data I would say when I give you that data that is probably reflective of what our data is give or take for the past decade probably to be totally honest um and so uh we'll talk about those numbers and what they mean and then we have 2223 details on student withdrawals enrollment our schools and that's what we pulled out of synergy so that's the data that our own people took a look at and and pulled out and so that gives you a slightly different picture it's not the same as the 21 22 data from Ade but you'll get a flavor of what does it look like in terms of a capture issue and what does it look like in terms of retention issue and please feel free to ask any questions as I'm as I'm talking so this report again is an Ade report and it provides to you that based in 2122 based on the data that Ade has we should have 9 100 9119 students in our district that would attend our schools absent any other schools that they could go to and so that's the starting point um and the numbers uh Bob you may look at them say they don't add up I agree but since I didn't do this report I Can't Tell You Why the numbers don't add up I can give you guesstimates but we don't really know but the it starts to talk about those kids that are intending and those kids are not attending uh to just get down to the the brass tax is they're sitting there saying uh 5 299 kids are not attending our schools that could be attending our schools so that 58.2 percent is right in line with what we've said in the past which is we believe that we're somewhere in this at 57 is it 58 is it 59 is it 56 it's right in that area we don't quite understand where 58 46 gives you a 46 capture rate so we're not sure what they were including in the capture rate uh the difficulty with this report is it stays at this high of a level it does not take you down to the individual kid level this is an Ade report and because of FERPA issues you're not going to get down into that level and so we've said obviously if you're at 58 of an open enrollment out of the district then that would mean the kids that would stay would be 42 so your capture rate is 42 this says 46 so I'm not sure if they're including some other kids that are coming to the system and we just haven't been able to find out what they had but I would say that those numbers again give or take are pretty consistent with what's been happening for quite some time I don't think there's new and they're Shockers I I give you this because this speaks to more the capture of the kids that live in our boundaries which is a little bit different than what we'll talk about in a second when you take a look at where the kids are going I again even here this can be a little bit misleading because of the way Charters example are done American Leadership Academy the way they've been chartered all of their sites are under one name therefore when you say 1257 that could be spread out over I think there's actually a fourth or a fifth campus that I missed that could be spread out of all five or four campuses I would say Ironwood has the most but I don't know what that number is based on on this because they they're the way they break it down unlike Legacy Traditional which that is the campus that is in Ironwood Crossing and then you'll see some other legacies so and quite frankly I don't know all the particulars because I wasn't here but that piece of property that we had hoped to put a school on in Ironwood Crossing you could see had we done that we would have had a school that was probably just about capacity within that neighborhood but but Legacy was able to purchase it from Fulton and so we didn't get it then you'll see regular school districts like Queen Creek and what their number is in some cases Ben Franklin is together I'm not going to go through each of these but you can start to see that you will see though there are 148 kids that are what Ade is designating as other and that just means there's less than 10 kids from our district in that school they did not list out the schools but they tell you where they're at the other piece you will see like America American Virtual Academy they do go ahead and go into aois along with Charters and there's also a private school I believe it's a private school in here based on title I will tell you that the difficulty in determining uh the different choices that are available for kids and families is significant I think I know the state pretty well and there's a whole lot of names when I did this report both sets you couldn't tell I couldn't tell you where they're at if you paid me all the money in the world they're just schools popping up everywhere and you'll see like kaffa which is DBA Learning Foundation so you got different names all over the place with some of these Arizona Preparatory Academy for the digital as an aoi but then you'll see down here you have a ASU Prep Academy which they have multiple sites that's why you have individuals that Montessori school I believe is a private school but I'm not even totally sure on that so I'm not going to go through each of these but at the end of the day there's your number 52 9999 so from a capture standpoint only you're losing roughly again is it 58 57 59 and that would be pretty consistent I would say for for quite a while in this district and so that's a different problem than one and before I go on this is the number of kids that we have coming from other districts into our district so if you were to look at the Florence unified report they would show that 339 of their kids left to come to jail Combs so they would just be the reverse of that so in this case we're losing out 52.99 and we're only pulling in 375. based on 21 22 numbers questions if you look at our summary of 2223 which is the data that we pull from Synergy the withdrawal summary uh the W's represent withdrawals that occurred during the school year yeses represent withdrawals that occur during the summer so last year from July 1 of 22 through the June 30 of 23 the withdrawal would have been 1263.
okay when you look at some of those numbers just to show you this tells you where they're going and so when you look at those numbers you're taking a look at really you have a transfer situation of in-state out of state or out of country so that would be W ones w21s and w22s then you have a situation where you have non-graduates you may have a non-graduate waiting uh for documentation you have a non-graduate that you got a documentation and and we don't know where they're going there's also a definition of non-graduate that's truly dropped out and then you have a non-graduate because they're replaced in the corrections facilities those definitions for those things are in-state statute and state requirements or State uh regulations and so that's where we get and then you have homeschool kids and those kids that may have passed away great question when um a student leaves Combs I assume their parent initiates whatever the contact and paperwork is do they give a reason and then that's how we get this data yes now in some cases the the difficulty we will talk to them and the principals can talk to this if you need to ask them but but we will quiz them as to where they're going uh uh situation in some cases they're not are we sure and so when you get a a w44 non-graduate awaiting documentation because we don't know where they're at once we get the receiving school if they go to a receiving school so if a kid says yeah we're going we're moving to New York don't know where in New York but we're moving to New York well we can't put them as a WR 21 because we're not sure what they're doing we know they're supposedly going out of state so you would put them as uh maybe a 20 a w-41 waiting when the receiving school when they land in New York wherever they're going to land and the receiving School asks for records then we would go back in to change that to a W uh 22 because excuse me 21 because they left State the same thing happens for kids internally well I'm moving to the west side okay so the West side's pretty big where sometimes you don't know until you get there and then we go from there so we also get kids in uh still working on it didn't get a chance before this number so even though we lost to 1263 we also got 647 kids in so the 616 and the 112 tell you the differential between the total loss and the loss during the school year so a good number of your loss is going to be July 1 to the start of school and that's because parents are deciding where they're going to go to school now the interesting piece with this is okay this gives you the numbers so 73 percent move somewhere else in state these other ones with uh waiting documentation is our next big one we want to take a look at and then again the the deceased or the corrections facilities are like one or two students homeschool is not a big issue right now at 1.74 percent that may change due to vouchers so that's something we're going to have to pay attention to but here's the interesting piece I only gave you the reason I only gave you as many as I gave you for where they go is they actually attend 306 different schools when they leave us that's not counting the the records that we're still waiting so that number could go up so one of the issues that we're facing is a societal issue that says we are a transient population and oh by the way if I don't like what I'm not getting I go somewhere else I go to a restaurant don't like the food there's six thousand other restaurants for me to go attend the numbers that you have up here and you see up here is roughly I think about 250 and these are all schools relatively speaking very close to our school when you look at ala Ironwood and Queen Creek High and Legacy Santan Legacy Queen Creek Chrisman Ben Franklin schneff Elementary all of these schools are very close by and so you get people that move all the time that for whatever reason in some cases their child wants something different it's the third quarter and they go try something different for the fourth quarter probably not the best expectation for your child but that's a parental decision and so when we look at the data and the tendons this becomes where our kids are leaving us we're still working on pulling the data that was where they're coming from so those I can't remember the number I'd have to go back a couple um the 647 we're still looking to see what schools they actually come from my guess is quite frankly it's very similar to these schools I think the movement in between schools in the in a geographic area is significantly different this number deals with student retention so before we were talking about capture now we're talking about retention it's a little bit harder to work on capture I'm going to use myself there's a family two doors down from us that attend one of the charter schools I don't know what their email address is so how do I reach out to talk to them about coming to our schools whereas in this case we have data and information on these families and so when we're trying to retain them strategies that we may look at or try to develop would be different than those kids that we don't have any idea because maybe they haven't been on our system for five six seven eight ten years because they started in a particular School charter other public and never came here so we don't have that data available to us you can't get into that data relative to the Ade report because again they won't give it to you so therefore whatever strategies you choose to use and whatever strategies we choose to use we have to look at retention and capture as two different issues and not conflate the two and so areas that we will continue to meet on with that with uh principles and Leadership that talks about both retention and recruitment will be retention of current students that's what we just talked about I think we need to be more aggressive in trying to get out of District students that may be a factor as an example with I'm going to give a specific example between here and AJ D.A shorten's put in a ton of homes it will be closer to come to Ranch than it will be go to an AJ School because the closest AJ school is Four Peaks which is on the North End of AJ or Desert Vista which is over towards Gold Canyon so what's the recruitment issue with those kids and how do we attack that now those homes aren't coming for a couple three years or actually they start building them now so maybe a year but but what's our strategies our processes make sure that we know where our kids are going and how we have the conversation with them we have to look at Future growth if you haven't been down to Wales Ranch they already have 15 homes that that have rooftops on them they're not ready to be occupied but they will be by probably mid fall semester uh and combs Ranch across the street is pretty much moving through their first phase if you look over here on Germaine and Meridian they are probably into another set of homes the apartment complex next to Safeway not the one that's age restricted that's up but the new one that they're going to put up it'll be up pretty soon so we're going to see an influx of kids and so we have to make sure we're ready to try to grab those kids depending on where they're at vouchers continue to play a big role if I can pull seven or eight grand and homeschool my kid I might choose to pull them out of a school and homeschool if I want to operate a micro School I could pull 10 kids into my front living room and I can make 70 to 100 000 teaching those 10 kids and oh by the way my brother spending money however I want because there's no restrictions on what I do with that voucher money so that is an issue that we're going to have to take a look at because that the number for homeschool is 1.74 percent but that number could potentially change because I think as the latest numbers 75 percent of all the kids that receive vouchers never attended public education in the state of Arizona so 75 percent of those are homeschool kids that are now getting money or they're attending private schools and we're attending private schools and now getting money to attend those private schools and then we have to look at how do we try to get back to 5 300 kids so we don't have those specific strategies there right now but that's what we're having the conversations for that's why we've already had a meeting we'll continue to have a meeting this will be part of the conversation piece on a monthly basis when we bring this to you to say what our numbers look like again are we talking about capture rate are we talking about retention uh and what are we seeing as the rationale so I'd open it up for any questions or any comments questions comments anything I think just makes it very clear what we're up against yeah so this is good information but we we need to focus on you know where were we last year right and where we where are we now you know so and focus on how can we make that number go up and that's what the August meeting will be like I say the main reason I didn't put that is the numbers fluctuates so much during the month of July it's a it's a moving Target to try to figure out where we're at when we do our drops on the fifth of I think it's the fifth of August I don't know what that Friday is I would hope by the by the ninth which is our next board meeting we'd be able to come to you to talk specifically what's our comparison year over year um and be able to look that was what's our right now our initial numbers uh would show that the number of kids that are coming coming in at the beginning of this for the first two weeks of this month versus going out is only a 20 kid difference right now so we had 20 we had X and I can't remember the numbers off to my head but I know it's about a 20 kid difference so the number of kids that have left us that are reverses that have come in and signed up for us and so we hope that over the next two weeks in the first two weeks of school that number will flatten out a little bit and we'll then we'll have a much better understanding of are we up overall are we down overall what's happening at school a what's happening at school B uh we're talking to uh our people that are leaving us uh trying to figure out where they're going and seeing if we can get them back in some cases you should have like Jason's Story this this there this evening uh there's people that think we walk on water with what we do and then there's some people that quite frankly there couldn't be a thing that we could do um and that would make a difference because they have a different belief system in what's going on and that's what we're going to try to find out in answer to your question Mr Ray about what's happening with our with our kids and where are they going and more importantly why so that if we know the why can we make a change and go ahead and come up with a different strategy and we're looking to see if we can develop specific action steps that we could do that we could come back and report to you to say this is what happened this is what we tried to do uh it was successful it wasn't successful or whatever it'll be good to see you next month so we want like like capture rate or or retaining I think we want both because I mean I think that we were capturing quite a bit it's that we weren't retaining them so I see the codes of where they're going but yes I would like to know why and if we have to address the elephant in the room then we address the elephant in the room and we figure out why and try to make those changes or and I also feel like that Mr Ray when he asked that principals know they take a personal I don't know uh step in it whatever they I mean when it's in front of your face every month you start to okay I think that I've talked to principals in Gilbert and in Chandler and they all are decide they all say that they have to do those that they have to they have to do monthly reports of why so I don't think this is something that is um I don't know uh unusual well unusual but I don't think it's something that like that we shouldn't be asking for um they I know that when our math was down we had our principles come every month and ask and say what we were do what they were doing um to make sure that that what they were doing to get their numbers up in math um so I don't think that it's any this is any different um I feel that this is that's this is our business our business is kids and if we don't have the kids we don't get paid and you're gonna you're gonna put yourself right out of a job so that's that's where I'm coming from I guess thank you you're much more articulate than I am good job oh God I mean we have people coming in I mean we definitely have people coming in so I think that's great we just need to figure out why they're going so okay thank you do we have what else do we have a request for future agenda items okay get my split screen up here because I was looking at my thing okay do we have any um requests for future agenda items will come back also with our uh with our achievement report we didn't do achievement report because we just got done with the retreat and we would have told you the same thing we did in the retreat okay anything else you got okay perfect all right I'll make a motion to adjourn at 7 44.