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and those numbers were garnered from the from the month of May after the towards the end and that is including these yeah it is including those well actually no it's not including those drops because we dropped them already also so we've dropped them so these are these numbers the 88 and the 12 are real time write down numbers and so possibly tomorrow or the next day or the next day we're still going to have a couple guys that are falling into the 10-day drop so we monitor our activity drop every day because unfortunately with us it could happen every day but we do put safeguards in prior to that by making the phone calls and making the attempts to try to get all components um I guess because I was concerned about the number of students that were being on site because of the um the no online um but I also um thought that you know you you'd it seems like because your campus is small um and you and there's just a few of the teachers there um that maybe that's something that a little time we might wanna uh think about is some kind of uh is looking for Grants for your specifically for your site um for those uh trips that maybe the students could go on just like the other schools you know and and then also um with the tutoring or with the with the number of um kids that meet or students that need additional help that I know with the other sites and we've done the um the summer tutoring but yeah your site wasn't part of that um as far as foreign those teachers also get paid to do what what they're doing without amen you know that's that's for me that's really concerning because like it's not there it's really not fair that they really invest their time in these students and and they're not getting paid and so I want to want to see that they do get some kind of payment just like all the other tutors just like everybody else that's doing that because you know it's it's not right um so that might be something to look at as well as grants and maybe additional help at the school because there's a lot of students now that are on campus compared and these numbers aren't going to go down they're only going to increase like I said we had two to four I don't think we got together two registered this afternoon because they came in so late um but those numbers are gonna are going to go up we're getting kids from all over we're giving them from Sean to teal high school to Catalina High School um again soul can you have that next meeting whether it's a discussion that has to happen before or whatever needs to happen because I feel like I agree and I think we talked about it for the student to teacher ratio at every other campus is pretty much agreed upon here that if you have this many over this is what you're going to get you that's good to pay for that many students over um it's not fair to ask them [Music] instructor at least for but but maybe we're wrong maybe we're not looking at it the way that we need to but to me I love having more students we don't have enough non-student problem which means the school is doing good things if it weren't then I would say just lump them all over there at the other campus but they're doing something that's a little bit a lot different than what the other campuses are doing and it needs to be supported and I hope that we're all interview to support continue to support the effort especially what we've been able to observe in the care not that everyone doesn't care but I think that this this a propriety that they really give to them as people and that's that's the aspect that like draws students to it um but you know that's just me again no absolutely you didn't hear enough in the last uh government board meeting that you wanted to apply coming forward you will be receiving what uh the options we're gonna have um we emphasize our energy and our focus in the last couple of weeks you know the areas that needed a major attention but definitely this is one of my priorities as well thank you all very much okay um all right um number five is our barbecue unified school districts [Music] foreign ASU I just wanted to mention their names and uh they're not fly or two the one that we got in the mail oh yeah oh and um on July 13 um we I was here to um to meet our new teachers and um on the 21st we did a campus um walk at all four of school districts you know there's a lot of work like that was done there and the two breaks especially after sodium that did a lot of cleaning and I'm saying this um did a lot of work and and new things being put in or what the kitchen area at the intermedical school and and Elementary and visit that and the high school in a high school um he um athletic department and also the Light the library there's a lot of books I need to also updated and then talking about um boxing them up and put them away and then so that that was good you know um but um um Mr Robot has been doing it with them with the crew and then the Nana's work schedule and um throughout the uh the school year on Mr be done so that was good you know and then we are back to school celebration at Desert Diamond and um that was a good um I like I like what I like about it was that um Everybody watched the same video um about personnel and the other Personnel stuff you guys so anybody would know that um that's when I presented to them because they know what to do thank you [Music] um staff and and um School of the transportation here uh I want to let you know that I think most of them know that they um get a book of Charles and uh you know when we have our celebration he always used to say the people are still asleep I like bus drivers out there getting on the bus and getting getting to roll and they're the first one that make the kids and say good morning to them and have a good day at the end of the day and come with your school and make it better tomorrow thank you thank you Miss Ella all right with that I will go ahead and move on to number six is our Battlefield again School District Attorney's purpose please presumably are members of the board I have I also submitted my report in writing and um let me know if you have any questions um at this point I would like to show the video and also think our district of our manager for putting a supporting with not on your video but all of the projects that she's been working in a month of June and July I submitted an email to Oppo members containing all of the projects that she has completed in such a short time so Mr Bates if you don't mind uh playing the superintendent's highlights for the month of June [Music] foreign [Music] the way your words [Music] like this City [Music] don't worry [Music] history of Silence [Music] What You Wanna Say [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] and I don't know this is going to be a great year I'm very confident all the team and I'm very proud of my principals and in the cabinet for the work that I'm doing I believe that we have a strong Foundation what we put together to start a year and I do feel that this is going to be the year that we are going to start so I believe in them and and in turn I believe that I believe in the staff and the children I look forward to every single month um I see that they've been brave that we bought and that we brought to be because thank you team I'm very proud of you guys thank you for uh the beginning of the year and to our parents I want to thank them for their support as well for helping us during the beginning of the year especially going through ways and how we can improve Transportation I appreciate the flexibility and and my community support um also another special shout out for Miss Sudan in helping us putting together the videos for the peer review it's helping us to increase those numbers and and I look forward to the parents helping us being a partner and keeping our students on track any questions from the government board if anything um specifically on the transportation what the standing is right now just for the public um after we had the approval from our governing board this dance Friday to partner with um B-Line and also of mind that we had uh we have a manager um they started working on the same Friday to get you some preliminate preliminary information and what it turns to um as of this week we started with two additional buses and by this Friday we'll have additional four buses air conditioned with a support with Finance we were also um in the guidance of B-Line we were able to look into new buses um for sure we'll begin to additional buses um I have not had any other pairing comments or concerns of the price coming my way at this point yes sir in addition to those two buses are we keeping the buses that were the the four buses that we have right now um it is the short-term rental we have four buses um we are waiting for some parts we do have some buses that do have air conditioner um then we're waiting for some parts um we also have the two um the two mechanics as well that they will be helping us with maintaining the buses um we do have two bus drivers coming and also we have two parents I'm supporting um as needed and they are on call to help with the the White Fleet and every single one of those pieces they're making a difference is starting this week and this is only the beginning uh there will be a lot of training going on um internally in transportation and I will be um they'll be presenting every month of the progress also um we learned I took an inventory of all the equipment and the status of the equipment um that way they have a schedule for the mechanism what is to be prioritized and worked on in the next couple of weeks um and you know just over the weekend in Showtime um I'm starting to see not only the plan but it's starting to see uh the whole and other plants we also have a manager that came on board effective immediately um and bringing in that level of support to um to the the transportation team we send out a communication to our parents to letting them know that we're moving forward and when they see a different bias that it's okay for the children to get on um and once again I I look forward to um coming back with more updates um and also asking the parents if there's any additional ways that we can improve um we are ears and we'll be more than happy to meet with them or read their emails or take the phone calls awesome no thank you special shout out to our committee as well Transportation Company anything else questions begin show our curriculum instruction department they happen together with the support our district of our manager our video that they want to highlight what they've been working on for curriculum instruction that support many our essential uh take a look there's gonna be a quiz after this [Music] this is [Music] oh my gosh middle school and my biggest takeaway for today was the concept of the adopting people as peaceful people even in times of the greatest challenges and there's also a beautiful Community centered on sharing and helping one another which I find to be truly essential especially in this day and age my takeaways from today um I think the biggest thing I'm walking away with is um how I can see and feel how passionate the tejona author Community is in ensuring that they're giving their children the best education that they possibly can while integrating and keeping alive their Traditions their culture and their language it's just a very beautiful thing to see and the amount of support and resources that they provide it just makes me even more excited to start the school year meet my students meet their families and connect with them and just learn more about the community so it's all very exciting thank you [Music] of me when you see what the principles are doing what uh the Departments are doing but I also want to curriculum and instruction are doing how everyone is being coming together and I can see the alignment and I can see everyone moving forward to reach our goals and speaking of goals one of the um bigger plans that we have not seen that we still need to see is now I'm gonna give a stage to Mr Aaron base we can presented his three-year plan Mr Bates please take it away [Music] [Applause] all right so just so I wouldn't forget anything I put together a video for everybody I know January 1st 2023.

if you were a contracted employee of like almost 30 percent it's a little less because we don't take out like uh we don't like it but then 1.2 percent what's up so twenty percent basically is what it is twenty percent of four of the overall salary that's being paid out so 20 of the covers benefit portions of supplemental uh funding and then this total is everybody I mean the October 30 or is that per 30. [Music] correct [Music] so the schedule or the topics so we're talking about in August this is what they'll be the expectations you're kind of setting those with this as a mentor what they're going to learn that's in there okay this is what each Monday expected to work and get us what okay I'm sorry I guess Ella go ahead teaching instructions Medina our district coaches correct they're not okay this this is for the teacher specifically is going to participate I think it's a benefit to the teachers I think it's a it'll help them they are another that you can strategies and whatnot or you know probably well above what you know well done in the classroom but on top of that there are the early the I think they they probably need assistance and I know that helps them overall throughout for male as as an exclusive support so with this optional then you just I don't participate just don't get paid but also you're not expecting that of them to know all of that it will be highly encouraged so I can just make them do it okay so um but we have 30 new teachers but so is this just uh cushion in case you get milk mortgage not only that um this is something that will bring you back there used to be a a mentoring program doing Kobe we didn't have it and last year we also didn't have it either this year we're bringing it back and we including not only this your new new year a new teachers but also last year new teachers to be able to bring that level of support and our goal is that [Music] um moving forward everyone needs to go to a two-year new teacher program and goes um in line with also number 10 which is coaching and providing the support to our teachers I guess I will see it in the sense of not only providing that type of support service for students the support service for your staff okay so you take it well I would say when you're highly encouraging you what highly encourage those that probably really need to make sure and I will as well as the principal support if you're having what they've seen any print any teachers probably to also sign him up as part of their plan of improvement I like it first this year okay [Music] provided it well thank you for finding some fun to help support it I think it's important advance and I really truly hope that those who can take advantage so uh we have room number four Mr zabala please I didn't have an opinion um I figured us when we were going to talk about divination card number four is update donation from the sales District okay that [Music] from this um but it is just approving the donation from the sales District for the Nexus trip for the students so let's uh so we just approved this one and the other ones okay all those inferior emotions Sylvie Hendricks Elementary Suite um Kathleen Vance Juan boudini recuse okay thank you number new number five is the um that's a duty uh questions that must Sylvia had for a second yeah I know this is well deserving I just was wondering about um um some of the emails that I saw coming through I wasn't aware because I think we I had met with um Ruben before this got added on and I just didn't know anything about it until I've seen these emails you know that was uh that was shared by Ben regarding um this the second um I think there was one thing that I was wondering about in whether or not it has been turned in was the list of uh the log of I guess what what has been done above and beyond which meaning meaning the things that were for example working with the fire department with the police department but whatever else we've done or was done in order to make this retroactive to cover I think more or less and I think I'm thinking it's called it'll be provided with um [Music] the audits that will cover be if this is the question this is why it was done to it and approved of course and so I was just wondering if that was turned in also [Music] but there isn't someone is the memo to the board okay yeah so open meaning well I know I can't add anything after the 24 hours so I got that memo after that time frame I got an answer from Gary after that time that's when all that stuff was submitted so I had to email it to you so you got it all on the same page yeah today is still work in progress Mr love has to ask for an extension to be able to complete and she feels that he needs a little bit more time to complete all of the areas uh that can go out with all the projects hours and and weekends that has work to be able to sustain these um or support these um the part um the memo I apologize the memo was completed and sent and it would not end within the 24 hours but I did submit it with the board via email um and based on the conversations is that you will like this item to have not only the bar but all supplemental the limitation in order to be discussed I would like it TV but but also I mean if we don't if we don't have it we don't have it he's working on it um has there been a deadline to him to get that in or just how much more extra 10 minutes for the questions the I'll make sure that he's completed before this this would be Black Friday at the end of business day okay ensure that we uh but you can ask for if not I'll go ahead and make the motion to get through uh with that threat chip that has to mentioned yeah second the motion yeah instances above and beyond uh all those interior motion one would give yes Kathleen Banks thank you um number number letter G is our consent agenda without objection a motion to approved okay bye Miss Sylvia Hendricks all those in favor how to make Greasewood Kathleen Vance motion carriers um each agenda item I know this Mr subologist sent us the the most recent um a way to study but anything on there but the pet doll which is speech background please language so that wasn't included was there anything else that we missed on that wave City because I feel like we're gonna adjust wages and be fair and do it for everybody present with it I have requested and I'm working to find the funding to update the study and you know when we see the study about a year ago um a lot of the wages changed in the last year um and the study shows the average salary what's putting us in a disadvantage it is the starting salary so um I believe the request is about 8 000 hours to be able to redo the study Jose please remind me um it's almost nine thousand dollars so I have not confirmed any funding um I would be able to bring the results of that study depending is not due to the support of finding the funding to be able to pay for that I'm sure we have some resource or availability through any of the associations or something repay I'm sure they do they do the superintendo wage studies so I don't know if there's maybe the possibility of there we go let me find out uh advantages now sent it to me well right now we had a summer Retreat and I believe Karen came and presented all the information on July 2020 .

now that we are more than halfway through the first year I'm happy to report progress in most areas there's University technology department is committed to supporting high quality education prescribed to work with students teachers staff administrators board members and the community to support technology integrated learning the busd technology department directly supports the district's strategic plan academic world targets goal number one eighty percent of the students will be proficient by reaching 90 or more Mastery in each essential standard on goal number two ninety percent plus attendance by a teacher by grade level by school by content and ninety percent Parent Portal viewership I will be highlighting completed action steps and Majors outlined on the technology departments for your plan the highlighted action steps will be items with significant progress completed and items that have been completed the technology department will support students reaching 80 proficiency by streamlining technology resource availability to all stakeholders clever a single sign-on gateway to brsd Technologies has been implemented to improve data Integrations by allowing data to be sent to third-party learning platforms are more often providing a window for students staff and stakeholders to see every available technology resource in one area um and facility accurate class rostering on all third party systems clever is a gateway to all adopted by USD learning resources clever uh compatibility is now one of the top controls related to third-party software compatibility most all proven and practical technology-based learning platforms are compatible with clever but USD recommends all systems adopted be compatible wsd technology department will support students reaching 80 proficiency by improving Safety and Security a safe and secure learning environment will be provided allowing everyone to focus on teaching and learning I had the opportunity to start off the year presenting on Cyber awareness at the DVC back to school event this was a great opportunity for everyone to learn about cyber awareness this was essential to ensure any busd system user had the formal overview related to cyber awareness cyber security is a high priority for the Bible keyword technology team and additional trainings related to cyber awareness will be happening additional actions such as evaluating internet filtering auditing and monitoring have been completed and the current vendor has been renewed solutions for cyber security from the trust and the Arizona Department of Homeland Security have been implemented Microsoft and Google accounts used to access most of the district's data have been protected with a formless two-step login commonly known as doctor Authentication the technology department will support students reaching 80 percent proficiency by Future proofing District infrastructure and systems a hardware maintenance and replacement plan is a high priority the equipment life cycle is always considered to ensure students and staff have effective equipment to support teaching and learning The Five-Year Capital expense plan was submitted and will be revised in January again technology improvements have been recommended and will be rolled out staying within the funds planned and requested grants have been used and will continue to be used everywhere possible the district has adequate infrastructure and will continue improvements over the life of a three-year plan in closing your bosd technology department is committed to supporting high quality education [Applause] so with that um so it based on a foodier playing I think we're we're now through about 30 completion of everything that we had listed um there's still a lot of work to be done so does anybody have any questions about any of those areas any questions for airing B2 in advance so I know that um everybody was talking about how or not everybody but there's talk about this energy Yes program um but the stock has now been getting trained on that so that way they'll be able to help everybody so that I think that totally great so thank you for that um and also for doing everything that you do with technology because it's a lot and and we don't realize how important it is to make sure that we're continually we we know about the educational part of the technology part to make sure that all things are rolling smoothly sometimes we forget how important that is so thank you for everything thank you foreign debt if anything's going to leave there's going to be somebody else here now we've all been doing a lot of cross-training on Synergy um synergies directly related to the clever platform we are implementing to get everything potentially synchronized we're just trying to synchronize all of our third-party platforms better and having that deeper insight into Synergy is definitely already extensively so once again that was one of the top things on our three-year plan was to implement that data in a high level and that's there's still some pieces there that are that need work but I do feel pretty confident within the next two years two and a half years however long it is we have remaining we should build a conference all those goals an action steps to get there the president would I just want to congratulate Aaron Bates not only for being brave and being bold and putting together his first video um very entertaining but most importantly um I appreciate technology for taking the time and finding how they are also aligning and supporting everybody else and how they see themselves as part of the bigger picture so I want to thank you for everything that you do for us uh and Mr Bates and I am very proud of what you've done not only getting us ready but also on YouTube thank you appreciate you [Applause] and president of India also followed a principles report section and I want to give a shout out to um Dr uh Pettigrew for stepping up and supporting us in the translation and also the search of an ESS director and also for taking the time to um contact not only the parents but our staff in making Brazil available and also on as communicated in her report um making the arrangements to make home visits as necessary for those parents I also want to give a shout out to the sunrise house for serving um 1761 pounds of food so approximately 304 students for clothing and 68 students for McKinney event to the world in a park so thank you for the work that you do for the the families in the student that is the most and also a shout out to operations custodians and also grounds for the work that they have done getting the schools ready and open they look absolutely beautiful thank you um for for all of the work and extend our appreciations um foreign [Applause] with that we'll go ahead and move on with our reading uh I'm not going to read all of these but number seven is information only for the board so just FYI in case there's something there you saw or didn't see but it is essentially everything you want to add to that maybe just see what's there okay all right um number eight if you have just information right now for the board or the first reading of the Arizona School Board Association policy advisor is um just real quick on these policies and sending major uh once you look at the summary uh there was some conflict they didn't want to be confusing anymore that they're on these three policies they're removing board authorized from those policies but it is still the boards that they approve the Committees it's just a garbage of them I have some more based ones that are coming together more intense okay well with that I have a request for a break before we go into the action items foreign all right thank you so much um we'll go ahead and call the meeting back to order and move along with our agenda does he needs a letter F the action items for tonight number one is discussion and possible approval of speech language Pathologists and technician salary schedule for fiscal year 22-24 Amendment uh president when we have members of the board um we are looking for your support in a network recruitment um a Speech Pathology says speech but our speed language technicians um based on a review on the average salaries we are of the low um average in the district um and we're coming to you to see if you can support us in increasing the the salary as presented and um one way to overcome the the shortage is by Outsourcing in these services but they are extremely expensive so in an effort to also be Financial responsible trying to uh recruit our own and keep our own in coming to you with this recommendation to be able to support us in increasing both starting salaries questions if you can get us some information on when's the last time they did a full week study and whether or not this is just specific to this position or any other position that way um I'm gonna ask my experts and you know I don't need a response to them because it's not hasn't doesn't have anything to do with the item okay but we do have a study that is not last year okay thank you [Music] the motion all those in favor of the motion Sylvie hendrixwood you can't believe motion carries well I'll ask for it at the at the request for a creature agenda items but sorry number two discussion and possible approval of accuracy teetering accelerated learning from Mr Diaz president members of War um and members of the community case is also an exciting time uh we are getting ready to plan our after-school tutoring um and I'm coming back once again in how to maximize our Sr funding outside aside by coming back and asking the support to approve 13 tutors for the KA and also three two uh tutors for the 9th to 12. um with a total expense of 123 000 that will be going straight into providing services for students that need the most questions in advance um is this I I hope that the [Music] um if possible the um Indian Oasis is calling the student indeed um this year we're gonna do it a little bit different every single school is going to have the touring and we're going to be able to Target specific students that have not only the the greatest need but something excited about this year's program also is going to be a two hour um if one I will be able to ring the other one will be for enrichment so it does include okay yes it's a Ka program and uh nine through 12 program s nothing else a motion to approve second by Miss Kathleen Venice Apollos in general the motion Juan model Sylvia Hendrix number three is our discussion impossible approval of the 20 23 2024 teacher Mentor program the students president media members of the world one of the priorities that we have is not only to recruit but also to maintain um teachers and one of the ways to do so is to provide providing the support uh we have a rebound the mental program not only for the first but also seeking new teachers and we asking you support us so you've seen some of our set aside as our free money to be able to provide all of the support of the new teachers have um through the program of curriculum infrastructure this Mentor program is it has a full schedule and by month by month to Target the needs of our teachers and Aaron if you don't mind a policing also or for the public to be able to see the schedule of curriculum and instruction have in mind to be able to address the needs for our new teachers and goal is for teachers to be able to meet throughout the year after school and to be able to extend the support that they receive in the area they actually needed um the time we're looking at 30 teachers to be able to get paid no I'm on the wrong there we go sorry as you can see every single month they're going to be going through a very different screen uh very different uh topics each one of them is directly related to what is needed in each month so the goal is that they will be meeting after school and we want to be able to compensate other teachers uh for the hours that they're going to be spending after school not only to get better in those areas but to get support in the areas that they're gonna need some of the areas include report cards how to do it uh the reporters how to ensure that you should sense only the Fortified in screener IEP protocols uh Gradebook and so on and on so um I'm I'm in great support of this program in revamping it and also tied to curriculum instruction and I'll get having the support ready for our little teachers not only the new but new the first and second year teachers questions um everything that they earned we need to add the benefits and that that's my understanding proportion and for anything additional supplemental is usually 20 18 to 20 so let me just round up to 20.

I need to see him after he wanted to get asked for her Spanish Tommy I know um I just just want to mention real quick um that asba has that art contest um and I would encourage our students to apply for for that I mean it came down to that email and my feedback our students are very creative so um please encourage them to apply for DSP also has a 500 classroom grant for teachers in case your teachers are looking for classroom grants um items information anything for next meeting you want to hear on the agenda go ahead girl okay okay for sure um I would like to possibly meet the new manager if we can set that up you know they're busy let them do what they need to do but much more uh for six months you guys are all set up with the room you guys are awesome registered uh I believe this is Juan and Anna Marie for that waiting for the annual conference to open up do we know who's going to students um we do have two students um Jessica summer and what is um and then you'll send us all the activities so thank you next all those in favor that would make Greasewood Catholic man

if you were a contracted employee of like almost 30 percent it's a little less because we don't take out like uh we don't like it but then 1.2 percent what's up so twenty percent basically is what it is twenty percent of four of the overall salary that's being paid out so 20 of the covers benefit portions of supplemental uh funding and then this total is everybody I mean the October 30 or is that per 30. [Music] correct [Music] so the schedule or the topics so we're talking about in August this is what they'll be the expectations you're kind of setting those with this as a mentor what they're going to learn that's in there okay this is what each Monday expected to work and get us what okay I'm sorry I guess Ella go ahead teaching instructions Medina our district coaches correct they're not okay this this is for the teacher specifically is going to participate I think it's a benefit to the teachers I think it's a it'll help them they are another that you can strategies and whatnot or you know probably well above what you know well done in the classroom but on top of that there are the early the I think they they probably need assistance and I know that helps them overall throughout for male as as an exclusive support so with this optional then you just I don't participate just don't get paid but also you're not expecting that of them to know all of that it will be highly encouraged so I can just make them do it okay so um but we have 30 new teachers but so is this just uh cushion in case you get milk mortgage not only that um this is something that will bring you back there used to be a a mentoring program doing Kobe we didn't have it and last year we also didn't have it either this year we're bringing it back and we including not only this your new new year a new teachers but also last year new teachers to be able to bring that level of support and our goal is that [Music] um moving forward everyone needs to go to a two-year new teacher program and goes um in line with also number 10 which is coaching and providing the support to our teachers I guess I will see it in the sense of not only providing that type of support service for students the support service for your staff okay so you take it well I would say when you're highly encouraging you what highly encourage those that probably really need to make sure and I will as well as the principal support if you're having what they've seen any print any teachers probably to also sign him up as part of their plan of improvement I like it first this year okay [Music] provided it well thank you for finding some fun to help support it I think it's important advance and I really truly hope that those who can take advantage so uh we have room number four Mr zabala please I didn't have an opinion um I figured us when we were going to talk about divination card number four is update donation from the sales District okay that [Music] from this um but it is just approving the donation from the sales District for the Nexus trip for the students so let's uh so we just approved this one and the other ones okay all those inferior emotions Sylvie Hendricks Elementary Suite um Kathleen Vance Juan boudini recuse okay thank you number new number five is the um that's a duty uh questions that must Sylvia had for a second yeah I know this is well deserving I just was wondering about um um some of the emails that I saw coming through I wasn't aware because I think we I had met with um Ruben before this got added on and I just didn't know anything about it until I've seen these emails you know that was uh that was shared by Ben regarding um this the second um I think there was one thing that I was wondering about in whether or not it has been turned in was the list of uh the log of I guess what what has been done above and beyond which meaning meaning the things that were for example working with the fire department with the police department but whatever else we've done or was done in order to make this retroactive to cover I think more or less and I think I'm thinking it's called it'll be provided with um [Music] the audits that will cover be if this is the question this is why it was done to it and approved of course and so I was just wondering if that was turned in also [Music] but there isn't someone is the memo to the board okay yeah so open meaning well I know I can't add anything after the 24 hours so I got that memo after that time frame I got an answer from Gary after that time that's when all that stuff was submitted so I had to email it to you so you got it all on the same page yeah today is still work in progress Mr love has to ask for an extension to be able to complete and she feels that he needs a little bit more time to complete all of the areas uh that can go out with all the projects hours and and weekends that has work to be able to sustain these um or support these um the part um the memo I apologize the memo was completed and sent and it would not end within the 24 hours but I did submit it with the board via email um and based on the conversations is that you will like this item to have not only the bar but all supplemental the limitation in order to be discussed I would like it TV but but also I mean if we don't if we don't have it we don't have it he's working on it um has there been a deadline to him to get that in or just how much more extra 10 minutes for the questions the I'll make sure that he's completed before this this would be Black Friday at the end of business day okay ensure that we uh but you can ask for if not I'll go ahead and make the motion to get through uh with that threat chip that has to mentioned yeah second the motion yeah instances above and beyond uh all those interior motion one would give yes Kathleen Banks thank you um number number letter G is our consent agenda without objection a motion to approved okay bye Miss Sylvia Hendricks all those in favor how to make Greasewood Kathleen Vance motion carriers um each agenda item I know this Mr subologist sent us the the most recent um a way to study but anything on there but the pet doll which is speech background please language so that wasn't included was there anything else that we missed on that wave City because I feel like we're gonna adjust wages and be fair and do it for everybody present with it I have requested and I'm working to find the funding to update the study and you know when we see the study about a year ago um a lot of the wages changed in the last year um and the study shows the average salary what's putting us in a disadvantage it is the starting salary so um I believe the request is about 8 000 hours to be able to redo the study Jose please remind me um it's almost nine thousand dollars so I have not confirmed any funding um I would be able to bring the results of that study depending is not due to the support of finding the funding to be able to pay for that I'm sure we have some resource or availability through any of the associations or something repay I'm sure they do they do the superintendo wage studies so I don't know if there's maybe the possibility of there we go let me find out uh advantages now sent it to me well right now we had a summer Retreat and I believe Karen came and presented all the information on July 2020 .

she has completed for educational classes an increase of pay of 15 cents per hour recommend the approval of a 15 increase okay they have a motion I'll make it we'll see I can do it Mr Kirsten riches I'm Mr Hopkins aye Mr Guthrie aye Ms Rodriguez aye Ms Olson aye approved 50. okay the next item is extra pay and volunteer coaching employment and this one it is broken the Voting is broken down by individual yes sir Mr President members of the board of the following employees have expressed the desire to perform the designated extra pay in volunteer positions school year advocacy programs coordinator at JBC director sahariant football coach coordinator Early Childhood director and high school student council for the recommend the approval of the above individuals the corresponding extra pay and volunteer positions they are there so may I have a motion on Mercy Aaron Khan Miss Olson aye Mr Hopkins aye Mr kurzner because I Mr Guthrie aye the second day Miss Olson hi Mr Hopkins aye Mr Guthrie Miss Rodriguez aye Mr Curzon which is I I have a zero program you know me I have a motion on Mr Chad chiji as the CTE Jade director I'll make the motion oh second Miss Olson aye Mr Curtis and riches I'm Mr Hopkins aye Ms Rodriguez aye Mr Guthrie okay and next uh motion for Mr Zachary zahari is a volunteer football coach I'll make the motion Nicholas there Nicholas yeah what did I say exactly yeah my eyes are not working so I've made the motion is there a second one second okay Mr Hopkins aye Mr Curtis which is I miss Olson aye Mr Guthrie Miss Rodriguez approved by the zero okay next item is we need a motion for Mr Jose via Senor as the senior class sponsor I'll make the motion just checking it okay Mr kurzner just I'm Mr Hopkins Miss Olson aye Miss Rodriguez Mr Guthrie approved five to zero okay and next item you see I need a motion for Queenie De La Roma as the sophomore class sponsor uh make the motion hello Mr Curzon which is I'm Mr Hopkins aye uh Miss Olson aye Ms Rodriguez aye Mr Guthrie aye approved by dessert okay and last in this batch is I need a motion on Miss dunnett Kelly Williams as the Jon coordinator for the 23-24 year I I still move my approved tonight I'll second it and yes can you tell us a little bit about this young lady I don't honestly she's going to do greatness position okay I don't know anything about her she said it is great in this position um we'll have Dr Shalom speak more to this later a year ago from Jamaica to um well I guess her only two children or students here in Ajo um she's Middle School our Middle School teacher and um she's done a great job really really uh I guess come out of her shell from the first year which probably was a shock for coming here from Jamaica towards the end of last year um and throughout the summer probably second half of last week of the summer she's just really blossomed and she came to me she's curious about the position we discussed a little bit gave her some information and she's got no one ready to go she really puts her heart into honestly everything that she does yeah she's going to do great in this position okay and then just to make sure that we're since we've had a past of not following it just make sure we've gotten the approval of the JLM committee for her in that position I spoke with uh Mr Silva twice and um just the other day on the phone talk in person on open house tonight when Jon was actually passing out any items and backpacks and supplies for grm students probably 100 or so um and then we talk again on the phone we were able to on Monday just make sure that everything was good to go we weren't able to be in person but she was uh okay so I think you made the motion and I seconded it yeah I believe so uh Mr kirsner says aye Mr Hopkins aye Mr Guthrie aye Ms Rodriguez aye Ms Olson aye approved okay next item is additional Saturday non-contract hours Mr President members of the board um the administration is requesting the approval for extra contract days on Saturdays for the following teachers you see there for the 12th and 19th of August we do teacher training new teacher induction and also for the 26th of August for Beyond textbooks um I want to just state that this is very critical we had a new teacher induction for most of our staff July 28th and July 31st and it really set the tone and this is something that that was done in planning with the leadership team Dr Schultz Nissan Mr Casey this is real similar to what the only Unified School District does the teachers have two full pages to come in and just apply and prepare lesson plans bear with each other for two full days collaboration planning it sets the tone for the whole year and you can feel it we've walked around campus every class we walk into you're seeing the same structure and formatting expectations it's just whether it was first grade or 12th grade or ninth grade and this is what um I believe a plus school districts do or start doing to really set their tone so uh and be on textbooks we're continuing with a year or two so I recommend the approval of the adult teacher to take part in Saturday non-contract dollars foreign [Music] next item of business is policy approval second reading of the ikc class rankings grade point averages yes uh Mr President members of the board um as we call the first reading was the white 27th so uh AUST is aiming to enhance academic rigor by introducing a weighted grade point average related GPA system starting in the 2023-24 Academic Year this change in live applications from class ranking honor roll and the selection of valedictorian and salutatorian beginning with the 2024 cohort the implementation of weighted GPA will lead to the maximum GPA exceeding 4.0 ausd is urging the governing board to modify board policy ikc to officially adopt the late GPA approach but they propose highest achievable in GPA of 5.0 I recommend the approval of the revised board policy ikc class rankings GPA on the secondary okay may I have a motion on that I'll make a motion approve okay Mr kurzner says aye Ms Olson aye Mr Hopkins aye Mr Guthrie aye Ms Rodriguez aye approved five to zero okay the next item is the possible new agenda items for next meetings if anybody on the board has one I would like a uh if we could have a discussion on the job program and the funding available right now for him and any other updates we may have on that so we can all be on the same page on it I was going to suggest the same thing maybe after um Miss Williams is able to meet with the jom board committee and maybe come back with you know what what their year goals are going to be um or just I just some sort of update things that they're working towards for the school year to support the children um and then also if there's anything I guess that we could do to help support their needs I think we could have a presentation by the Jalen committee maybe yeah to help us understand yeah I know one of the early things we do is approve the tutoring but from what other soltera says that it doesn't happen until following Labor Day so but now that we have a director there that's all set together is there any other future agenda items okay then may I have a motion to your Journal I will make the most to adjourn this meeting a little second the motion to Mr kersnrich's eye Mr Hopkins aye Mr Guthrie aye Ms Rodriguez aye Ms Olson hi thank you

and boys pursued her very quickly and I can't imagine what's going on now with more even more clothing I meant more skin that's being shown so I would hope that we can re-evaluate this dress attire because I don't feel like it's covering up enough especially it's way too broad it is not um helping our kids learn in in or excel in the classroom and so I just don't understand what changing this how it's going to help our kids study and learn and to do to do well in school thank you John Mason I'd like to take this from a personal approach we frequently look at this in terms of an abstraction address code is important and and I was thinking about my father who died some six or seven years ago and he did everything that he possibly could for our family he was a humble blue-collar worker he had a hot dirty sweaty job and seeing him come home was often very difficult because because he had the kind of job where he got injured frequently he had dirt under his fingernails he had calluses his hands would come home bleeding and it was difficult to see and and when he came home he frequently he looked horrible the appearance was horrible he didn't spend money on his self he spent money on the family he spent money so that way when I get went to school I could look presentable he made that sacrifice for the family and a dress code does matter the other day I saw a state employee and she did not look professional and we can call it discrimination we can call it whatever but I had an unfortunate encounter with a state employee she didn't look unprofessional and yeah we could say that I discriminated against you or my attitude was prejudicial on but you know how you dress matters I'd like to talk a little bit more about my father on he didn't make a lot of money he made far less than a teacher and he did everything possible so that way I could get a good education he sacrificed he was on a very liberal Democrat and he always wanted more money for the schools he always wanted better pay for the teachers and finally I was a teacher I said you know what Dad I make more than enough I make far more than what you do and quite frankly dad you deserve to earn more money than I um we have to be careful when teachers take the high road and say I deserve more I work too hard I work whatever we got to think about the blue collar workers who sacrifice who work hard who give everything so that way their kids can have the best we have to think about are we spending our money efficiently because this is the part that kind of got me when I was a teacher is I'd see all this waste in the district and yet we're always asking for more and more and more and more more and more money but let's look at how we're spending the money now let's show some respect for these hard-working blue collar workers who give and sacrifice so that way we can have good schools so let's think about how we're spending our money let's think about our dress code let's think about the future thank you very much for listening to me here today next we have [Music] school board members and administration um I'm here to talk about the dress code also I decided to go out and ask several people I've asked several people throughout the community how they feel about it and they definitely feel like we need to if anything make it more modest I talked to several of the young men in our community that are going to your schools and they definitely feel the very same way they feel like the school code is too loose that the girls are showing way too much skin and it's very hard for them sometimes to concentrate because they like to look at skin and so I decided to go that route instead of um so that you as school board members would understand that it's not just a few of us that are here it's a whole Community out there that really want to have a better dress code and by making it more loose is not an answer if anything we should make it more modest and I hope that you'll consider that and vote for us to not change it and maybe make it better going the other way to where it's more modest thank you yeah next Heather balk good evening board members um I have some additional comments that I'm just going to add here to you I want to say thank you to the board members who have teacher experience and they speak from a perspective of The Possession profession that you guys represent a lot of times I'm in the audience and there's so much I want to say but I can't so I appreciate it when board members do the next thing I want to say is that no matter what a person has on their body is wearing is not wearing skin is showing is not showing does not justify the inappropriate feelings or actions of others period okay off my soapbox and now um I wanted to read to you something that Steve Irvin he is a former ABC news anchor he wrote this back in 2018 it was near the start of school so these are all of his words not mine thank you for teaching I said in this case it was someone I met randomly a full-time educator working one day a week on the weekends just to make ends meet it's a phrase I've used dozens of time particularly in the last few months I think it should become a custom in our community just like many of us habitually extend a hand to a veteran or police officer or a first responder we should show appreciation to teachers whenever we get the chance some might argue that teachers don't put their lives on the line like the people who protect our community fair enough on the other hand there's a growing list of teachers who have given their lives to protect their students and more will do so it's not as if we've really addressed the problem of school shootings teachers serve the greater good we trust them to protect our kids to keep them safe we ask them to guide our most most precious citizens and help them find a path to a prosperous future that service is worth a handshake a cup of coffee it's worth a simple Act of gratitude First Responders don't hear it enough and I suspect teachers don't either now is the perfect time to do it it's the first day of school for many kids some districts have already been open for a couple of weeks say it to a teacher who watches your kids or your grandkids say it even if you don't have children drop a card or a note in the mail to your local school and ask them to share your sentiments with staff and just in case I haven't said it enough to Any teacher reading this thank you for teaching yours is one of the most important jobs in our community you are vital to our future and nothing I can say or do can equal your selfless effort to make our community a better place thank you that concludes our request to speak now we'll move on to I think address something please um I'd like to address Mr Adam brocker for your comment to state that there should be a code of conduct because I post inappropriate things on social media I'd like to let you know that's an absolute lie I barely ever post anything on social media when I do it's my kids or my dog other than that I don't post anything on my personal social media page so I just want to let you know that that's an absolute lie thank you I have to remain um thank you that's a warning and moving on to the consent agenda 5.1 through 5.13 I make a motion that we approve the consent agenda seconded all those in favor aye aye all those opposed motion carries five zero moving on to information items 6.1 policy g b e b b staff conduct with students this is the first read in Miss Richards we have a guest for this so uh president Schultz members of The Board District administration is proposing changes to policy GBE and this is the staff conduct with students to ensure that we provide the best information possible we've asked Jennifer McClellan to join us she's a member of our legal counsel she is here as a resource and I did want to say that a couple of comments and questions came back and I have shared those with Jennifer Madam president members of the governing board and District cabinet thank you for letting me be here tonight um I want to give you a little bit of history about how this policy was developed if that would be all right um so Higley unified has been applied and is not currently transitioning to the trusts model policies the Arizona risk retention trust model policies but this policy comes from that body of work and it was created by two attorneys who have represented your District in the past their names are Chris Walker and Dave Pioli and they work with the Primary Law Firm that defends school districts when school districts are sued as a part of sexual abuse and molestation cases so this policy was very specifically developed to try to outline behaviors that in their experience when litigating those horrific cases are signs or warning lights regarding a potential inappropriate behavior I have listened to the governing board meetings at which you had considered and reviewed this concern and I do share I do share the notion that some of these things taken in isolation might not be a terrible thing so for instance it says that they may not confide in a student on a personal and Private Matter while there may be an occasion where a teacher would say you know I'm sorry your parents are getting divorced my parents also got divorced and that would be sharing personal information however that's not going to subject objectively that is not going to subject a teacher to discipline or reporting or any of those things because it's inappropriate however in my career we've had to discipline and terminate teachers and move them before the state board when they were sharing personal information about themselves such as their own sex lives or the things like things of that nature where they were group chatting with children and were listening to the students share about their inappropriate relations with other peers and were then sharing about what happened to them when they were younger things like that so I do think that the policy itself is a good risk prevention procedure for you all to consider one of the board members had raised two specific points and I did reach out to the right Walker and Pioli firm to ask them about those items the first item was the one I mentioned inviting a student to confide in a staff member on a staff member on a personal or Private Matter unless it was a counselor um I do think that what Mr Paoli had said was that he didn't think it precluded a teacher from making General inquiries about how a student is doing nor does it mean that a teacher has to turn away from a student if the student volunteers personal information so the specific language is meant to prohibit a teacher from trying to elicit that information from the students so that's the first question and the the second uh Point raised prior to the board meeting was the phrase peer-like language and behavior and again I think this is similar to us teacher sharing a student a story with a child that might be personal in nature you're going to have to look at the totality of the circumstances when determining if that teacher should or shouldn't be subject to discipline and I should be saying staff member I'm saying teacher but I do mean any employee um so for instance um you know if in the lunchroom a teacher calls a student bra and says stop flexing you know this is the limit of my knowledge of current speech right thank you um but you know it that's not gonna they're not going to be called out for doing that specifically um however that trying to fit in with the peers um is a concern from the from the defense posture so that's what I would like to say about this matter um I know this is up for a first read so you all are welcome to give input and I'm happy to answer any questions thank you presidentials I just wanted to say thank you because those were my two questions specifically um the reason I guess for me that it was the biggest concern was because I've had students who had changed in Behavior social emotional Behavior I.E I suspected they were depressed um and then having those conversations because we see them more than the counselors do we see those changes they often won't say things to the counselor and because of my taking the time to be like hey things look different I've had kids who have had plans I've had things in place and we as teachers and staff we have policies that we have to follow once these things are established so that was my biggest concern so hearing that obviously makes me feel more comfortable in terms of the ability for teachers to still engage with their students still make their students feel safe and welcome while obviously making sure that we we create parameters to make sure that they are not essentially grooming which is what all of those lead to so thank you president Schultz [Music] Mrs McLennan um did I say that properly yes you did thank you perfect um what about when let's say a student sends an inappropriate selfie to a teacher that's unsolicited what happens in that case how is the teacher protected that's a good question so this policy is meant to control the conduct of staff not students so that would be addressed through your student discipline policies your student code of conduct but certainly if a staff member receives an inappropriate communication from a student they should report that to their building Administration so that that building Administration can take action and that is the way in which the staff member would be protected by telling their administration of the concern and is that verbiage that we could add to the policy to to allow teachers to to know what steps to take when situations like that occur so that they're not in trouble so so they have clear guidelines as to what to do in those situations certainly I do think that might be a better point to raise with the next policy that you're going to talk about which is jbef that's also on your agenda maybe the third policy yeah so item 7.2 might more appropriate be there because that's the area where it talks about social media and cell phone use um this is Reese thank you is there something and maybe Mr Walker can answer part of this too is there training that we have our staff go through regarding grooming um behaviors and things like that sure I'm president Schultz board members the staff does receive boundary expectation training as well as things like Title IX and inappropriate conduct based on the governing board guidelines okay is there is that's a required training yes it is okay I was just wondering if there was anything regarding that type of training that would be best also listed in the policy or if it's required training maybe that's just not necessary um so I just wanted to double check on that Mrs Anderson Jim question yes thank you presidentials um I was I'm glad this came forward I brought this forward I think about a year ago you may have been in the room um there were some additions I I would like to recommend um for the sentence at the top or in the middle it says all Personnel employed by the district are expected to relate to students of the district in a manner that maintains social and moral patterns of behavior consistent with Community standards and acceptable professional conduct and I didn't know if we could or I'd like to request that we add state and federal laws to make it to me it sounds more serious and crystal clear about the behavior and then you could also the next paragraph down again it talks about ethical or Professional Standards you know expectations of the district governance but if we could again ad based off of state and federal laws Madam president miss Anderson certainly those those changes are legally acceptable so um also um is it in the third paragraph We have relationships between staff members and students that include dating courtship or romantic involvement can we not add grooming as I would like to add grooming because you'd like to have I'm sorry I couldn't quite hear you oh I'm sorry what you couldn't hear me yes is it possible to add in the third paragraph in addition to dating courtship and romantic involvement to add the term grooming as another Behavior or pattern that would be unacceptable relationship no we don't have a state law right now regarding grooming I understand that I've looked it up and I'm hoping one day we will but um but we when when people behave in such a way they call it grooming it is and I do understand based on definition I mean you can go through and look up according to the Cambridge Dictionary the criminal activity of becoming friends with a child in order to try to persuade the child to have a sexual relationship another definition an act or an instance of engaging in behaviors or practices intended to gradually condition or emotionally manipulate a victim over time as through friendship gifts flattery Etc in order to entrap the person in a sexually abusive or predatory relationship and then I I'm for sure I would assume this this policy would would want to cover that behavior in those interactions is that the same as courtship does that fall under courtship or right not previously yeah yeah so I'm Madam president miss Anderson I'm looking through quickly just what state law says about this and it says specifically that grooming behavior is not a criminal conduct until you know but could you reference it within here um yes you could I think perhaps the way to do it would be to state that maybe towards the end of the policy that these behave engaging in behaviors such as those listed above constitutes grooming and would be cause for discipline would that language along those lines okay so I think it should go below um the list of the one through twenty thank you I appreciate that and thank you for helping me understand um my question with the list of behaviors that we shot teacher shown out engage in I struggled with number five social socializing with the student outside of school or a school activity um games um or dances when we're chaperoning like we're we're engaging and they're so happy to ask me to talk to at times so I don't know if you can this might be like you explained with the other examples it's obviously based on the situation so um I would read that and be like okay well I guess I'm not going to talk to kids at the game um so I didn't know if there's a better way to State it or or if you can help us understand if that's how it went off with Madam president members of the government board and Miss Anderson what you might consider doing is saying socializing with a student out of school or a school activity when such an activity is directed at the individual student with that so in other words socialize in a group situation is something that you might be comfortable with but if it's directed towards an individual student similar to paragraph six that says giving or receiving a personal gift that singles out individual students we could we could add that if you'd like so you're saying it would be more of a personal intent to go to something for that student it's part of my understanding you okay again I do I do think it's fine how it is um in terms of the totality of the same the circumstances determining I mean if you know if for instance if you have uh teachers who are family friends with other teachers and they get together at their home they're certainly socializing no one's going to be disciplined over that so um but we can make it more specific if you want it to be yeah because I I'm concerned with that as well because um I mean what if they run into each other at a grocery store they might attend the same church um there's you know we all live in in the same town I mean not every teacher but there's a lot of teachers that live within the district too so if they run into a student I don't want them to get in trouble for talking to a student at a church or at a grocery store so I'd like to be able to make that more clear so I had brought this up in our initial meeting with Mrs Richards about that and then also you know the personal gifts um to students and started such as praise you know um giving a kid something for achieving a high score those type of things um and this is a policy and it's not you know you can't do these things anymore so I don't want our teachers to think that they can't give kids gifts and and I mean 99.9 of everybody knows what's appropriate not appropriate but this is a policy that we have in place to protect us and their and the children and everything but we don't want teachers to feel they can't talk to kids and they can't our staff I should say excuse me can't talk to kids correct listen and and that you know they can give teach give kids gifts or if they have a star student who has a musical performance an administrator could go to that certainly and support the student in a group setting correct Madam president I do think that's correct yes thank you so presidential Mrs Reese I think too I think in my opinion I think we're trying to read into the words a little too much because Mrs Anderson everything you brought up there is a school activity so I think people would want you as a teacher to socialize with the student section at a football game things like that because it is a school activity now where I would become concerned is if a group of kids went out to IHOP after that football game and you went with them or met them there then to me that that's where I would read into that like you certainly have business at the football game at the dance and interacting with the kids there kind of the afterwards then any staff member really wouldn't have any business being there obviously unless you're with your own child that's with a group of people and things like that and I think that's what we just have to take into consideration like the context of that of what are the circumstances same with Mrs Van Hook with um Church well I would hope their parents are going to church with them and they all know you that the staff members at the church and they they should know each other as well and it it goes beyond talking you know like oh hey how are you in the grocery store we're not expecting our staff to turn around and run the other way because there's a student and they should be afraid of getting in trouble um this is saying that there's intent like there's intent to go hang out with students at something other than a school activity so I think it's the intent of it not an accidental encounter and your families at the IHOP and their families that you're the students are there hey how's it going and then you just kind of tend to your own things you know instead of pulling up a chair sitting with them having conversation and and kind of involving yourself with them that's when things could get concerning and this is to protect our teachers our staff and and the students it's protection all the way around if we have set guidelines and Mrs Schultz with gifts I would hope that there would be the expectation I I look at it from that whole K-12 that if someone did something really well that the teacher is rewarding them because of a certain expectation instead of again kind of reading into it going well it's their birthday I'm giving them a birthday gift and they're only giving a certain student a birthday gift like that's that's things we should stay away from but educational academic art theater all those types of achievements I wouldn't recommend necessarily a gift but some type of recognition some type of like you said award things like that I think is perfectly acceptable and and you're not doing it in a private setting versus giving something someone very personal so it's hard because like Miss McClellan said any of these individually might not necessarily be concerning but when there's the intent I think is when then we have to take that situational and look at it thank you for clarifying I I just wanted the language to be a little bit more clear because I can be misread and misinterpreted and that was my only but thank you for making helping me understand it better because I read that completely different and if I did it surely I'm not the only one well that's right and I think that's the other thing we want to you know tell our teachers and staff and kids you know that it's okay or that you know please yes yeah go to these things support your kids you know talk to them at football games incentivize if you know you have a kid that is struggling and you want them to pass a certain test then it's okay to to give an incentive or award for those kids it's the intent where we'd have an issue and the policy is overall to protect everyone and not micromanage the board so the language I added there for item five would be socializing with a student outside of school or a school activity that's so as to single out an individual student thank you president Schultz oh gosh I'm sorry I'm messing up your name again um being an attorney is you know like words matter when it comes to laws so if if it's intent then we want to be sure to say that in in the verbiage to make it as clear as possible um and I mean even with the gifts if it's you know maybe adding you know for educational purposes or um some sort of verbiage to just specifies versus having it so vague um another uh concern I had was for number one um about flirtatious communication and commenting on students dress so I know you know a lot of kids come to school with cute outfits on or whatever and um you know teachers can say like hey your your outfit's cute so does that mean that won't be allowed um Madam president Ms Van Hook I do think that's an important point to be raising because again if you take any of these individually um you know that you're going to have to look at the context in which the statement is made so telling a kindergarten boy who comes to school that you look you love this you know ball cap and he looks great today is certainly not going to be inadvisable but telling a male high school student that the outfit that he has on um you know is uh very you know something that the teacher really appreciates it's not that's going to be strange right to the high school boy so I do think it's going to be the context of in which the statement's made that would be actionable or not actionable the word flirtatious before the communication I think is important so telling a student that they look look great today isn't flirtatious any other questions or comments thank you Mrs McClellan of course moving on to action items 7.1 I move that we approve policy jica student attire second read seconded questions comments concerns president Schultz Mrs Van Hook I I do have a lot of concerns about um the updated policy um the fact that we did remove um midriff I I think is is a problem and that would apply to both um males and females having kids come to school in a tube top or um you know boys wearing you know their football jerseys that are cut to where their midriff is showing I think those are things that um that we need to consider um it's it is a distraction um and it's it's not only a distraction to other students but it is a distraction to staff as well I believe that it also puts staff in a situation where um they don't feel comfortable dress coding um we when we have a policy we want the policy in force but a lot of cases staff is hesitant on enforcing those policies because of the fear of being accused of sexual harassment or you know for a teacher to say I'm sorry your shirt isn't appropriate especially a female teacher to a male student or a male teacher to a female student and that puts our staff in a really bad situation um I'd like to read a statement that I wrote um some people believe that a dress code sexualizes children when in fact it is the opposite asking kids to wear proper clothing doesn't make them feel bad about their bodies it teaches them to have self-respect that there's a place for different types of clothing and school is a place where they have to dress appropriately I'm not saying let them wear uniforms or we follow a fingertip rule when evaluating the length of a skirt a top or shorts but there needs to be standard which apply to both girls and boys kids shouldn't be allowed to wear tops that reveal their stomachs all the way to their chest their butt cheeks hanging out and their chest bras or their underwear being exposed this should apply to both sexes yes we all have the same body parts but that doesn't mean we should all walk around naked whatever policy we decide to go with we need to ensure that it is strictly enforced we know that there are students who leave the house one way and change at school when our schools enforce the policy it also helps parents to be able to tell their kids that they can't wear something to school so it makes it easier for parents to be able to enforce it at home too that's all Mrs recent um I think we've made some progress we had a lot of good conversation we talked about the difficulty in buying clothes that everyone would agree on things like that what's the trends and everything I can't support this policy at this time because it is too vague I don't want um it's too hard to say we're significantly interferes with districts ability to maintain orders such as disrupting school work um when we had more specifics it also depended on the teacher and let's be real when we're talking dress codes we're talking middle through High School most of the these issues aren't with our k6 so these are kids who change classes and have multiple teachers and what one teacher may find acceptable another one wouldn't so a student could literally go through five class periods in a day and in their sixth period they could be dress coded and they're going what I've worn this all day the same way I didn't have a coat on I didn't have anything and to me that sends the wrong message to our students that because it it was their last hour teacher that may have decided it was something that was disruptive to that class and maybe that's the only class that was disruptive too that's very possible however I agree I think it's too vague um I want an appropriate dress code that meets the needs of our student the needs of our community where students can express themselves where they can be comfortable where um but where they know the expectations and that the expectations are clear and for me the most important is that we have consistent enforcement and to me like I said it is it is too big and so I have a difficult time supporting the um this particular policy in that fashion as Miss Van Hook referred to then you can have a student who if it's a female student who was addressed by a male student or a male student addressed by a female staff they're picking on me they no one else said anything only this teacher said something and maybe it is a staff member that a student might have a little conflict with we that we're all human it happens and maybe that's the staff member that addresses it um and you talk to the other staff members or teachers that the other that student had and they're like well I didn't see anything wrong with it I didn't see anything wrong with it I think it just sets us up for having too inconsistent enforcement Mrs Reese what would you like to see added to it I mean that's a great question I think we just I think we were way too specific to begin with don't get me wrong and I I don't want teachers to have to two-finger rule is that thick enough is it put your fingertips is it long enough we staff has enough to do other than do regulation in that fashion um and I I don't have an answer for that I I honestly don't have an answer specifically I just read it as it is and how do you enforce that consistently well when I look at exposes where the undergarments or undergarments area that's all very specific um I don't know like you said you don't know what to add so if we don't know what to add then where do we go from here Madam president sure but I was having a conversation yes yeah may I offer a suggestion yes please so your prior language that when again this language comes from uh the work of the four law firms that developed the Arizona risk retention trusts student attire policy um the prior language States interfere forbid interferes with or disrupts the educational environment environment or educational objectives so if Miss Reese is comfortable with that prior language which is a little bit less specific you could sub out that paragraph I'm still trying to think how I mean I I mean here we have previous teachers how do you enforce that based on this language what would you guys and and again can Mrs McClellan give her professional legal opinion on that for us sure you know again there exists that in your existing policy that you forbid students from wearing something that interferes with or disrupts the educational environment or educational objectives that the language that's proposed says it has to significantly interfere with their ability to maintain order I I do think that Ms Reese's point is that address codes in any way that they're written could be applied um with uh without fairness let's say and that's going to be an issue no matter how tight we make the language that's an issue of how you enforce the policy not how it's written so I do think the language in that first bullet is more specific than what you have but if what you have you're happy with you can go back to that I guess I'm referring to in our previous policy there was a little more specific items as to what what was considered okay and what was not and I would just offer all also to the board that the the dress code policy that you are considering here is not the final say as to how the how the administration is going to enforce that so they're going to take the policy that the board creates and they're going to write it up into your student handbook and potentially create a regulation that you all would review so for instance I've been just checking we have 10 districts that have adopted this and a few of them have created very specific regulations that you know get very detailed about what types of things are and are not prohibited so for instance in one District I guess if I saw a regulation that would matter and so for instance in one District um they say that clothing fabric must cover all private body parts and Under Armor can't the same language that you have and that exposes about the Wares underground it's very specific students May wear clothing and jewelry that display religious messages Footwear such as shoes sandals or boots may be worn in the school building Footwear must be safe and non-destructive to school property clothing may not cover a student's face so it gets more specific in the regulation the all of your policies are designed to do that to have this this sort of broad goals that you all adopt as a board to lead your district and then the administration can work on some of these more nuanced calls so to your point Ms Reese you know we don't want to have teachers be measuring two fingers to determine if the strap or we don't want someone walking around with a yardstick to determine if somebody's skirt's too short but um but the regulation could address some of these in interpretation concerns that you're having um president Schultz sorry Mrs Anderson was asking to speak next and then and then we'll get to Miss Universe sorry I just didn't want decision without input um thank you okay I um I decided to write my position on this policy um in an attempt to keep my points focused and to manage my speaking time better um these public meetings are the only time the five of us can speak to each other without breaking the law so we often have to put together sophisticated Clairvoyant thoughts but many times we get wordy choppy or off topic so please bear with me as I read first I want to address some misinformation being shared regarding statements I made about this policy at the May 10th board meeting there may be individuals here tonight or listening online who are concerned about what they were incorrectly told about what I said in an email that was sent the writer said quote I suggested that male teachers struggle to maintain appropriate behaviors with female students due to the attire of said students end quote and that I have been quote the topic of discussion amongst our community of parents and students since it happened end quote so here's the transcript of what I said you can go listen to it it is you can click transcript on YouTube and it'll put it out there right there for you I said professional attire is how do we ex how do we expect teachers to dress so no teachers aren't walking around with midriff showing and they're definitely not walking around with their back and hanging out of their shorts but I will agree that it's terribly difficult to find clothes that cover my body which I have been left to dressing like back in my days when I was a tomboy everything I wear is sport shorts and a t-shirt because the only thing that I can find that fits well this is going to be a difficult conversation because there are going to be disagreement agreements on how we raise our children and how we find what is appropriate for our children and we are trying to make decisions for other people's children what I want to point out are the statements I've heard from teachers where I teach and how the adults feel uncomfortable with the clothes and the body parts they are seeing on these children so we need to make sure we take that into account when we make these decisions whenever males and females are seeing girls with very short short uh shirts and very short shorts and their busts are busting out I'll stop there but that's the point to understand teacher professional attire so when we talk about what is professional Tire let's go look at businesses and let's see outside the schools what's going on in businesses and what is their attire if we're going to dress in professional Tire also how do the teachers feel and what are their thoughts about some of the dress they are seeing around the school especially when we have had instances with behavior between teachers and a teacher and a student as an issue before not once did I state or suggest that male teachers struggle to maintain inappropriate appropriate behaviors in fact my entire approach is to is addressing the distraction of certain student attired towards females and males I use the terms adults teachers females and males and we have a policy on the agenda tonight addressing staff conduct with students students and teachers will seek I'm sorry students and teachers will seek to distract and gain attention not only through behavior and verbal cues but also with their attire in fact there is language in that policy addressing teacher comments on student attire so moving on I am not in support of the revised language of policy jica I do not support the removal of the terms exposes midriffs exposes the chest and exposes the buttocks I'm going to State my reasoning not based on my feelings and beliefs but rather focus on what the purpose of our school district is from our website from our mission statement we Empower students to be responsible citizens with the knowledge skills and work ethic required for success in their future endeavors we are an Innovative District that prepares learners for Limitless opportunities our core values are Integrity connections learning centered and accountability no matter where you look on our strategic plan the vision is teaching and learning Student Success I would assume that most parents Guardian students attending the Higley schools want students State mandated time in school to not be wasted and to be utilized for preparing students to be more knowledgeable critical thinkers confident and prepared for college and or whatever the next steps are After High School but not just those attributes most want students to be competitive capable and comparable for colleges and careers they want scholarship money in which much of that funding is based on Merit to achieve and acquire such things takes commitment dedication quality staff focus and removal of distractions students have to want to succeed and want to be at school there is much prodding and cheering as they progress because for a lot of students school is not fun it's not interesting or it's not even a priority there are strategies parents and Educators use to motivate students and help them learn without knowing they are learning to find Value and content and find Value in themselves one strategy and this is not only utilized in schools it is also in most workplaces is dressed for success there are studies and articles on this even Scientific American quoted in States the quote the old advice to dress for your job you want not the job you have may have roots and more than simply how others perceive you many studies show that the clothes you wear can affect your mental and physical performance thank you when we uh but we don't need to hear other people tell us this because all of us have experienced it when we go to interviews or job events or formal outings we dress in a particular way when we want to relax be disconnected from responsibility and feel free of Demands redress in a different way there is a time and place for Styles and specific attire our original policy does not mandate that students dress in suits and slacks and body length skirts long sleeve shirts or turtlenecks it's 100 100 allows for current Styles comfortable clothes and comfortable shoes to be worn I went to the website for male and female Junior and adult clothing on Walmart Target Tilly's Dillards Macy's h m and Old Navy and the majority of clothing offered is well within our current dress code policy and yes school is a professional setting it is a job life prep training students can earn money for meeting and exceeding bench benchmarks in the form of scholarships and I was given the data for scholarships um of course it's buried in all my paperwork but we tends of millions of dollars this is what students are striving for in our district sorry I'm passionate if I'm yelling I'm not yelling I apologize all right also our current dress code is appropriate for our learning of our current dress code is appropriate for a learning environment with reduced distractions and not just attraction distractions but also the destruction of feeling pressure to dress provocatively of being judged of being pressured to fit in pressure to meet popularity trends that could instill shame and it reduces academic distractions for teachers the current policy is clear on expectations and reduces subjective assessments and strives for consistency across classrooms and sites like Mrs Reese was bringing up our current dress code enables students to exercise self-respect self-control and discipline as a parent and teacher I would be okay if my child left High School not knowing what a chemistry mole is but I but learned in practice attributes of self-respect self-control and discipline in addition to being knowledgeable and a critical thinker these attributes set people apart from others and make them more reliable confident and valuable I'm almost done I think it would be safe to assume that if our district was listed as one of the top 100 schools in the nation we would be Beyond proud of everyone involved and will not only Embrace that Accolade but we would shout it from the rooftops so what I did is I used the U.S news best high school rankings and since this is a source widely used across our nation I use it to identify their top 100 Schools and then I kid you not I looked up every single one of their dress code policies this is taking me taking me weeks and I have 60 pages of information from every single dress code from every single of the top 100 schools in the nation and um of The 100 there were only three that had a very like dress appropriately foot and left it up to whatever that whatever that was very very beyond this vague all of the others and there were uh several others I believe three no more than three there were 14 that actually use um uniforms um and many of them the dress codes far exceed what we have for expectations of how students stress and some of them I was like good Lord what are they going to wear ours I feel is Extremely Loud compared to the others those are schools at the top 100 only three had dress codes that were not straight up do please don't wear this and don't do that and then then their little intro statements were fantastic of explaining why professionalism self-control discipline you're representing our district look professional where a lot of the statements Additionally the language in the amended policy is counterproductive and will not work and let me show you what I mean under Section A the fourth bullet down the last sentence it states towards the end however undergarments may not be worn as clothing thank goodness right well that will not work because there are popular clothing items that are available as both shirts tops they're also in the undergarments all right per the same websites that I mentioned earlier the following items are identified in both shirts and tops and they're also under undergarments I don't even know this word I don't even heard a Brando a tube top undergarment and undershirts a camisole a brownie crop tank halter top seamless tiny tank and a cropped candy and I just stopped there because I was tired of looking at underwear Angie your own little kids honestly and I did this and I looked under again male and female course males aren't going to have a lot of these items but I looked under both how are the teachers going to be able to determine whether that's an undergarment or an article of clothing that you would buy under regular attire so if we allow the exposure midriffs which a lot of these are these undergarments slash maybe tops then we are creating an enormous amount of distraction for teachers from teaching as they have to try to police whether the tops are undergarments or not which should absolutely they should not have to do and then the likelihood of consistency across classrooms and sites is slim to none even without trying to determine what type of clothes are being worn as Mrs restated in May how much midriff will be allowed teachers should absolutely not have to determine that and again the likelihood of consistency across classrooms and sites will be slim to them and same with exposure of Chess and buttocks it's the same per my stated reasonings again I am not in support of the revised language of policy jica I do not support the removal of the terms exposes midriffs exposes chest and exposes buttocks the language and the whole agenda applies to and is inclusive to males and females and should be enforced consistently and equitably for males and females males need a dress under the same expectations and not show their midriff buttocks and expose their exposed chests this is valid for transitioning students as well after speaking to multiple school principals which I went out and talked to them statistically as they stated across principles it is females who violate the dress code with overexposure more often and it's the males that violate the dress code with inappropriate content on their clothes more often and as language States you can't have sexually suggestive content on clothes but we're going to allow girls to dress provocatively and you better believe it I Googled specific terms what is provocative dress what is immodest dress and crop tops and tight clothes every time and you Google professional tire and go to images it's not turtlenecks and long sleeve shirts shirts and skirts to the ground it's as we are sitting in this room I recommend we add the language back in and maintain an academic and professional environment with fidelity inconsistency thank you for ladies thank you I have a question Mr Anderson when you said you researched districts did you look at the other schools around districts around us and what they've adopted because I know for a fact that Gilbert has adopted the same policy that this is this policy and the other districts around us including Queen Creek Mrs McClung you also said that I'm sorry I said they're not looking okay um they said you said other districts have adopted this and legally speaking this is a policy that then would have regulations after that so we're not asking teachers to like with two fingers or say how what an undergarment is there'd be regulations that Mrs Mr Walker and our our cabinet would put in place this is a policy that we're adopting that is a broader policy correct Madam president that's correct you're creating the policy statement for the district and then the District staff would create the implementation which could include a procedure or regulation and speaking with Mr Walker last week he mentioned that we would do this across the board everybody would be on the same page correct and all the policies would all the policy would reflect across the entire District president Schultz members of the board that's always the goal with policy that we created District policy not an individual site policy there would be some site-based nuances for example HTA with uniforms that would be a different function within the policy but the policy would apply to the whole school district so I realize we all have different beliefs and passions and what is this it's a policy that we're creating that then would we would entrust our cabinet to regulate and not our teachers or individuals or anything like that or inappropriate behavior um and I trust our cabinet would do that and regulate that across the district what would it matter if the languages in the policy or in the regulation and if I understand the board members do not have to approve a regulation so we have to be in trust that that regulation is written as as a majority of the board would hope that it would be to to take the burden not the teachers and to be crystal clear and bring back coverage to the student body so Madam president members of the governing board if it's your desire to add back into the policy that midriffs are covered that's an easy fix to this you could either add the language in that you had previously or just put the word exposes the where's midriff comma undergarments that's one fix I do have another District that defined midriff a little more specifically let me try to find it it's kyrene's so they defined the fabric clothing fabric must cover all body part let's see clothing must cover the entire midriff with material that covers the front back and sides so that's in their regulation you could put that language in your policy if that's what you wanted to be in terms of policy making to be more specific can you repeat that again for me sure so this language would say clothing must have covered the entire midriff with material that covers the front back and sides you already have suggested clothing must cover all private body parts which I think covers you know that's what I'm confused about where it's very specific in here so I'm I'm having trouble realizing how we're not specific because it's entirely that entire paragraph is very specific president Schultz I do like the wording that says to cover front sides and back um that provides a little more um coverage there and more specificity but I also want to piggyback on what Michelle said our strategic plan says to make kids career career and college ready and we can't do that by allowing kids to whatever wear whatever their they want they need to be able to um fit within our strategic plan if we are going to keep pushing the Strategic plan and and working on it and ensuring that you know it's district-wide and being enforced then we need to ensure that that that our dress code matches what we are trying to do for our district I have a question what profession are we trying to fit them into with the dress So I hear you say dress professional well but if I own a comic book store I'm going to wear a comic book shirt if I'm a model I'm going to wear the latest fashions if I own my own business or I own a boutique I'm going to wear that as well so I don't understand what profession we're molding them into that they can't wear the style that is right now I mean like I said I'm not asking for them to or for us to say you know go naked wear your undergarments I don't understand why we're regulating so strictly for profession and how that matters uh no matter what career field it is if you show up not dressed appropriately there's a pretty good chance that you're not going to be considered for that position um we have standards for our teachers if our teachers showed up to interview dress like some of our children in the district I can guarantee you they wouldn't be hired so if we are prepping our children to be College and Career ready then they need to learn to be able to have self-respect and that doesn't include showing off their body parts and you know what sometimes adults have to be adults and I know it was mentioned to have a student council so they can put their input but as I've said about other things before if we allow children to make these decisions we end up with what we have and and adults have to be adults and as as parents it makes our job at home easier when we know the school's going to enforce the policies and it makes our job easier to say no you can't wear that to school but when we when when our schools aren't it's not clear and we don't have a proper policy then it makes it harder for us at home to go no you're not leaving the house like that because oh all the other kids are wearing it so we are in the education business and that is the purpose for us and we need to ensure that we are providing and an environment where kids come to learn and concentrate on academics and not a popularity contest or who dresses what or who wears what Madam president I'm sorry I'm sorry I just one one last thing um even even in my my oldest went to Charter even there obviously Charter has a uniform and they have a strict dress code but my daughter left the house one day in a black shirt while black shirts aren't allowed I had to drive all the way to school to take her a red shirt or a gray shirt you know because black shirts weren't allowed um so that what did that teach my daughter mom had to leave work to come and and you know bring me something that I you know that so I can change um and it didn't happen again um so we need to ensure that we're doing what is best for the kids and as a parent as as an adult if kids like us all the time we're not doing our jobs so that's all Madam president so I think um obviously this policy as it stands we're going to have to keep doing those types of things because clearly we have differing opinions um I think what is important for us here on the board considering we are five different individuals who have five different perspectives on things and we are representing a community of individuals who have different perspectives um there are a couple things that I would at least like to dress or pose as questions to those of you who are uncomfortable with the policy that's in front of us a lot of you talk about there's inconsistency currently um and so if we keep the current policy I don't really understand how that gets rid of what clearly is an inconsistent problem right your argument is this isn't consistent and the policy we have in place is inconsistent I think part of that nature or part of the reason it's inconsistent is because we have a differing group of of moral standards and so when we're trying to create a set of quote-unquote moral standards we have to be we have to be reflective and look within ourselves to remove where we're standing from and look at what the intent of the policy is and so ultimately at the end of the day our intent is to ensure the educational environment right and so currently as as Ms Van Hook expressed what we currently have in Place Learning seems to be going on just fine right um I recognize that there are differing opinions or differing moral standards what I would choose to wear I'm not personally comfortable wearing certain things and the individuals around me may also have varying levels of of what is comfortable or what is quote moral we have to be very careful when we represent a community of differing morals to set quote-unquote moral standards because who gets to decide when it comes to some of these moral standards our Focus needs to be the impact it has on education so I recognize the difficulty with that and we are in a difficult position to try to create some of these things I think there are potential problems when we get overly specific because at the end of the day we can't think of certain types of scenarios until they happen um I I also think it's important to recognize that the kids the school our kids attend is very different than the school each of us attended as adults because things are very much have changed and that's part of social norms we constantly change as a society um and if you look around and I recognize that there are still individuals who have problems and ultimately within your home you get to decide what these things are I don't think it's fair for us to say that we as schools need to help you parent because you're having a hard time creating established boundaries within your home in all of these types of things and I say that again as a parent um and that's a hard sanding but I don't think it's fair to put education in that position because again your moral standards May differ than somebody else's moral standards and we're constantly setting people up for failure essentially and I I struggle with that ultimately what I look around at is I look at how are our schools currently doing and I look at the policy that's in place and in my opinion I feel like this policy is reflective of what we have kind of settled on as a community in terms of functioning day in and day out because the policy we have in place is not strictly adhered to because it was written in 2001 and so we have over the course of of 20 years kind of changed and morphed as we as a society have changed and morphed and I think that aspect is important because again we're representing a community of individuals and learning is still done it it still happens on a frequent basis and we are doing remarkably well here in Higley and so I I guess my question to those who are are not necessarily here yet that when it comes to what decisions it is that you're trying to make I guess my hope for you is to keep in mind that you have your own set of things and that may differ but all of us have the same goal of keeping the educational environment as successful as it can be and right now that seems to be going on just fine all of us have received a number of emails we've had several people speak here today with respect to the dress code and a lot of them have talked about these are the things that they're seeing and why that makes them uncomfortable and I understand and I respect everybody's stance and what they deem to be moral or appropriate Etc but yet learning is still happening just fine right um and that's important I also wish to challenge some of the adults as an individual who spent their entire career teaching high school students and we all you know to get to this age had to be a teenager teenagers like people in general are really good at being able to recognize in this scenario this is appropriate in that scenario it's not um you can have kids who would dress what you deem as morally appropriate are straight A students always do their homework and everything else and when they leave here they're still not prepared to do things you have some kids who barely got by with that D average and honestly the conversations we had I was like I don't know how you are even here sometimes with some of the things that they're doing and they go on to be overwhelmingly successful I I think we tend to miss the mark when we try to focus on what is important to us rather than looking at what is the goal and the intent of the policy I struggle to see how in an environment in which and I recognize why for example the focus tends to be on tube tops which again disproportionately impacts women I don't see how you can create appropriate language that a would be consistent because as we've already discussed that's not happening and part of that reason again is varying moral so that's a struggle with respect to the cabinet members and how they create some of these regulations on these types of things I think it's important to be reflective of what our kids are capable of how they are doing these types of things and with respect to distractions and the like um as a parent especially I demand more of my children in that I don't expect that they're going to exist in a world in which they will not be distracted by things and I don't expect that they are going to be able to function if we create as safe as a bubble as I think is appropriate in what we have in our household because the second they leave here and they go to other parts of the Community College job Etc all of these things that's going to happen and so if our goal is to prepare them for things Beyond I don't see how a policy that is reflective of what currently is happening creates anything less than the success that Higley is currently dealing with presidential race Mrs Wade and I I hear you I do um but the one thing that concerns me is and I'm not trying to put words in your mouth so just as I heard it is learning still happening so it doesn't matter that our current policy is not being followed so policy not being followed learning can still happen and that's okay so I mean that's what I heard so I'm not trying to say that was your intent I agree and I'm not trying to say anything I'm not trying to make a moral statement everyone has different morals everyone has different perspectives um I hear what everyone's saying regarding professional attire um and I'm not even asking for that I think that there needs to be set boundaries set expectations and with anything any parts of our lives there there are rules whether it's what we wear um what we say what we do their their rules we have to follow and um part of that educational journey is testing those boundaries as they should be because that's how we learn is testing the boundaries and understanding the boundaries um and I for me I there there is nothing specific in this policy um it is all very much so open to interpretation um I didn't go look on websites to see what's crossed into categories but it is all very open to interpretation and again policies made to protect the district to protect our students and to protect our our families and I also think about the conversation with a principal or a Dean an assistant principal of having a conversation with a parent where someone felt that what they were wearing was inappropriate and the parent says what's wrong with you it's fine how does that conversation go because it's so vague and saying I I just don't understand what my student was wearing how did it cause and I hear Miss McClellan say we can change some of the wording but what we have here how does it cause a significant disruption because I don't see that as a disruption as a parent and that's a difficult conversation for our principals and our Deans to be able to have because there is nothing concrete then we do get into morals and and what I may feel is okay and what you may feel is okay um and so the the policy I think needs to I'm not asking for lockdown specifics I I do think it needs to have more guidelines I do think it has to have more specifics I like the recommendation I am I do trust our um our Administration with a regulation um but and I know the board doesn't approve regulations but I would I would like to know where that stands and quite honestly if it can be a regulation why could it not be in the in the policy if we're going to say this is acceptable and this isn't um oh sorry I was just going to respond to correct what it was my intent was by that statement in that we already have a dress code in place but you see female students and male students with midriff exposed and I I find that to be a hard thing to consistently Express right to consistently enforce and what is in place currently in terms of how we informally enforce said dress code across the board in my opinion seems to be reflective of the policy that's in front of us in that the policy talks about essentially genitalia or areas that would be covered so the buttocks with which you were talking about as an individual who developed early there was very little shirts that I could wear in which I did not have cleavage exposed and the idea that you routinely had staff members who would comment on it made me feel all kinds of ways for things that I can literally cannot control um and so I I think the idea of other people being uh uncomfortable or distracted is not the responsibility of the individuals who are living in an existing in their lives in terms of I am not inviting you to do things I have not given consent to do things I'm not showing specific aspects that would get me arrested you know what I mean in terms of of private areas kind of deal I I struggle to uh see how we can create a policy that that does not have the potential to uh create inconsistency when we do certain types of things so I'm not saying I'm against it I'm not saying that I you know I would never support certain things I just from the things that I'm hearing don't hear what those changes would be that fix the problems that the three of you are expressing exist with respect to inconsistencies and how it's enforced I I just don't hear where the solution is [Music] um did you so when Mrs McClellan said uh the language that we previously had interferes with or disrupts the educational environment or educational objectives correct is that that we already have in place that's where I've not been happy with that one I mean and that's why we've talked about for several years bringing the dress code back what's currently in place is not great either that's what I'm saying so There's issues with both and how do we merge them and make it um make it right me personally I don't have an issue with spaghetti straps or tank tops that's that me personally I don't I don't have an issue with that I don't see that as any overexposure um and so I mean there's parts of both that I like and I don't like um and so I like I said I don't know what the answer was um to be quite honest I mean I'm just going to be honest based on some of our conversation previously I was not expecting a policy this vague to come before us one of the things that concerns me which I mentioned to Mrs Anderson is what other districts have done and the policies they put in place and and Higley being laughed at in a sense that we have such an archaic policy that does [Music] discriminate against women by adding something like a midriff back in this policy was done in 2001 it's 2023 the other surrounding districts around us have adopted this and presumably have not had I mean I haven't heard anything I feel like it would have been on go Gilbert or something like that that they have had issues um and I I think this brings us to where we are at and you know covers the private areas the undergarments waistbands all of those things that and letting our district um determine exactly the requirements for that it doesn't discriminate discriminate against women or females with the midriff because it applies to males as well they do not need to and we do not want to see them when I talk to female and male teachers I had conversations with them they don't want to see Exposed Skin in areas on either male or females and as it was stated there are males that will come out of sports or whatever and they'll have the half shirts on dress coded go ahead and put on a T-shirt and cover your midriff because it's policy and you fall under that exact same policy you are not special in any way where you can't wear a half shirt or you can wear a half shirt so I don't think it discriminates and if we have an issue with um following up with this policy it was stopped and that's a training that needs to happen and then that needs to be made crystal clear but it's not the policy's fault it's the implementation's fault and I think again like Miss restated it needs to be more clear it's easier to follow it's easier to mandate when we have clear expectations for our staff and for our students and for parents I think that's the fairest thing we can do and and I don't think any of us for sure want to hurt or discriminate against any person um in this in this district and and the question regarding um what specific job I don't we're not talking about a specific job we're just talking about a job in general any job whether whatever the dress may be where you have to practice self-control self-respect and discipline um it'll be different across well we're going to teach them because we don't know we don't pull the we don't know where every student's going to go and and not every job is as leaning as other just like every School dress code isn't as like I said we're very less conservative compared to many other school districts but we're preparing them to whatever job they go into whether it be very lenient or not either way they can practice self-control because they may though obviously a lot of kids will change jobs it'll go from one way to the other but they'll be prepared either way to say okay I've got self-discipline I have self-control and I can follow the policy of this job whereas the other job was more lenient and that's that's how I've seen if I see it differently I probably I'm coming from a place that there are many different views and morals and what you consider self-control and you know showing your stomach or others might not and I want to don't want to come up with a policy that is based on my moral beliefs my religious beliefs as much as I don't want to tell anyone to tell me what to wear and I don't I don't understand the point of self-control and what we're saying as far as as the adding a midriff midriff is just cheat study brush your teeth wash your body there's other things in which they need to eat healthy in which they need to practice self-control but I understand that this is to this policy so lots of things they have to but either way not every job's gonna be the same so they have to be able to be um oh I'm so sorry okay I'm sorry I have no idea where do you start president Schultz Miss McLennan if you have a an issue with not being able to hear please ask Mrs Zimmerman to address us and that and not yell out from the audience um did you work with anybody on this updated policy Madam president Ms Van Hook so I was a part of the team of lawyers that created the updated policy this was not a policy that I particularly wrote but I was a part of the team that reviewed them I remember discussion about the changes to the paragraph that Ms Reese is talking about uh so yes and did you work with any any board members or um uh Miss Richards uh so the the proposed language again comes from the model policies that trust created when those were created they were vetted before various board members um and um other administrators Ms Richards was not one of those administrators so I do I do think okay so so the the revised policy was not discussed with any board member prior to the meeting oh got it okay thank you I thought you meant generally no it's okay in general what she's saying is across the the state than Miss mclareness lawyers as I mentioned many districts have adopted this policy presidential um we were talking about disproportionately uh discriminating against women this I'm just throwing this question out because I see it all the time is males wearing they've got a t-shirt that have the sides cut out you can see their chest but a male chest isn't viewed as the same as a female test so would that be dress coded because private parts are showing it should be I mean that's that's that's where I'm going is that how that would be viewed because you could see through their shirt um through the cutouts um would that be viewed as showing private parts yeah and that that's kind of a thing it's in the policy that we have right now currently but is that going to be viewed as private parts of a mail is yes than a female and that I mean again these are that may be interpreted differently from some people I mean that's fair again so it is very I agree it is very hard when we talk about dress about disproportionately um holding females and males to the same standard um and so that is that's difficult and and I could see on a high school campus that that's not something that would be viewed as a male's private parts being shown and I could see that not being addressed and again in in a concern um chest back stump so we we list the body parts um so instead of you know being vague we say Trust Madam president may I again I think I'm looking at your existing student dress standards within the code of conduct that's higley's adopted and it mirrors the language that you have currently clothing must that modestly exposes the chest abdomen midriff genital area or buttocks is not permitted so you could keep that language within your existing policy or I think frankly comparing the apples to the oranges of the new discussion the only piece in the new proposed language that isn't covered is the midriff if you wanted to adopt a recommended change to the policy that is before the board to include clothing must cover the entire midriff with material that covers the front back and sides I do think that would get to Ms Reese's point about the male chest I don't think you have to put the word chest in there or the word buttocks or the word genital I think you know I think if you add that that addresses at least some the governing board members concerns it doesn't address all of the issues that you've raised that might evolve out of a dress code but I do think that would address some of your concerns and then you could see if that's amenable to the to the board or not so my suggestion would be for you to add to amend the motion to add the following language clothing must cover the entire midriff with material that covers the front back and sides and then to see if you want to move the policy forward or not okay so I don't remember all that you just said but can I just say I'd like to make a motion for all that verbiage to go in there because I can't repeat all that what you would do is say that you moved to amend the motion that's on the floor to add the language as proposed by Council yes I can't remember all that I still can't remember dear can you repeat everything she just said I can say it more slowly so clothing must cover the entire midriff with material that covers the front back and sides correct are you making the motion or who's making the motion okay emotion that we amend the policy to include must cover the entire midriff front back and sides I'm sorry excuse me must cover the entire midriff with material that covers the front back and sides a second questions comments concerns my question to the board is how do you expect if we've had this policy in place since 2001 for it to be enforced it never does it never does because we live in Arizona and it is hot and so when our football players do certain things and they come back inside it does not get enforced I understand and I hear where we are coming from I I think it's important for us to be reflective of what is possible to be enforced I have from the top of my shoulders to my hip bone is 22 inches it is a freak torso do you understand how frequently my midriff shows if I don't find shirts that are appropriate and so I'm going to be punished from my genetic makeup I find that to be difficult sides and back at what point backs of my shoulders because your tank tops would do the same thing so again I hear where our place is coming from and I don't think it's a misguided place to be coming from I don't I just don't understand how this language corrects the problems that you even expressed currently exist and like I just don't understand if all we do is go back to what was done before how do we change anything I just don't get it president Schultz how do all these other schools enforce their dress code policy how do Charter Schools enforce their strict dress code policy how do the hundred schools that she looked up enforced their dress code policy there's a policy we enforce it just like the hundreds how many policies we have over 300 policies in this District and staff is put in charge of enforcing those policies if we're making policies I've said it before if we're going to make policies we need to ensure that it's enforced so yeah I mean it's once a policy is made the the you know it will be communicated to the teachers and School staff and then the staff will then communicate it to the students and if those students come in they've been notified and the email will go out to the parents letting the parents know what the new dress code policy is which this should have been done prior to school starting but unfortunately it wasn't but we have a way to communicate policy down to the students to parents to ensure that everybody is aware and that and then the staff will be responsible for enforcing it um I mean this isn't anything new um it applies to every policy that we have so miss McLean can you just remind me how many districts across the state have adopted this policy including our surrounding districts a Madam president there are 10 districts that have adopted this policy thank you president Schultz um not that I want to spend more time on dress code I still think that we're kind of a little bit of ways away and um for me personally I would like to ask Miss McClellan I'd like to we need to do something we need and I'm not saying our current dress code like Miss Wade said it's not enforced now that besides the fact of why are we not enforcing a policy that's a whole separate question um but in the other instance why are we not enforcing it is it too difficult is it not appropriate is it what what are the issues there and I'm not asking for an answer tonight I'm I'm just saying because I know but I I think we're still a little bit of ways of where we should be in my opinion and I think Miss McClellan hearing some of this conversation um I would like the opportunity to still table this ask Miss McClellan to kind of go back based on some of our conversation see what we can combine I don't think we need to go as strict as we were I think we do um I still think we need a little bit of leeway and um and I know again it doesn't mean we're all going to be on the same page um at this point I'm not comfortable for me I'm not comfortable approving the original one as it's presented and I'm not necessarily comfortable approving the amendment so I I know at some point we have to make a decision I I get it but I we have to set a precedence we have to know it's going to be able to be enforced we have to know it's the right way for our district um our current dress code is working and not working and it we've asked that dress code be addressed for some time and so it's finally here but I think we need to get it right and I I think we need to get it right not just part of our board I get a three two vote can pass but I'm not comfortable with either one so I'm just saying I can tell where this vote is going to go and I would end up not voting and would be at a 2-2 and we're going to be where we're at so um that's just where I'm going so instead of going there I would like to see if maybe that's something that we can do and maybe kind of come a little bit closer together Mrs McLennan is that something that you could take based on our conversations as Miss Reese said we table it and we bring it back at the following meeting or possibly the meeting after that depending on your schedule of course um I agree with Mrs Reese I'd like to make a motion to and we seconded it but now we can make another motion to another amendment tables yes so I'd like to make a motion to table the current item 7.1 policy jica for more information from our legal expert and a new policy read seconded all those in favor aye all those opposed not for opposing I am favorite I okay okay five to zero we will table this and look for more direction for Mrs McClellan and hopefully come to a policy agreement that makes sense for our district I'm sorry so do we ignore the first motion that was seconded to make an amendment this the yes okay okay moving on to policy 7.2 I make a motion to approve policy gbef social media and cell phone use second read seconded thank you sweet second it questions comments concerns for social media use Mrs Anderson I'm sorry in the update it was stated that volunteers was not added to this because we have volunteers signing a code of conduct so you're just saying on this piece of paper you're agreeing to it doesn't apply to a policy you're just going to agree to it because you signed a piece of paper so I just don't understand why we can't add it we won't get volunteers if we could say we're going to control their social media it would be very difficult for us to get I hope they don't think that that's what it means that we're controlling social saying it'd be interested responsible well then we have again problem with language but if is that we're going to monitor social media for volunteers Miss McClellan is that is that what it was board Miss Anderson so the district doesn't have the ability to discipline volunteers or any control over them the only thing that you can do is if a volunteer accent appropriately you can not allow them back on your campus right so if you found that a volunteer is communicating inappropriately with students you certainly have the ability to control that by um not permitting them or by tightening your volunteer process but the um this particular policy is based upon the guidelines that were published by the State Board of Education pursuant to a state law that required them to publish those guidelines and all of that is only applicable to School District employees okay and perfect I just understanding of president Schultz Miss McLennan um what happens if a volunteer obviously if they're volunteering in a classroom or anywhere in the school and they uh overhear information about a personal information about a student and they share that information publicly is there anything in the code of ethics that would cover that or is there how is that handled Madam president Ms Van Hook so the only state law that applies to volunteers is ars-15514 which says that you have to fingerprint and background check individuals who are on your campus who are volunteering who are not immediate relative or the parent or legal guardian of a student um so that that's the only Statute in title 15 that really applies to volunteers if a volunteer in your campus or a visitor on your campus they don't necessarily need to be a volunteer they could be just somebody who's there visiting if they act or violate your current policy that's in section K or if they are violate your school rules then the remedy is to remove them from the campus and to not and to create parameters by which they couldn't do that again but a parent or volunteer who's on your campus does not have um the requirement to follow FERPA only School Employees do and is that verbiage anywhere in policy as to such violation it's in your visitor policy which is in section k thank you president Schultz Mrs Reese Ms McClellan um just a quick question how do we protect those students who don't have photo release from I'm sorry that don't have a photo release that we don't have authorizations for their photo to be used how do we protect that we have foster kids and if we have volunteers who can take pictures of students and post it on social media how do we protect them sure Madam president misery so again that's more to the implementation than the policy creation but if there are volunteers who are posting pictures inappropriately what your staff should do who are supervising them is discuss it with them we've sent warning letters home to parents or to staff members and explaining so that the remedy is really in the enforcement of your school rules Mrs Reese I know that when I volunteer it's in the paperwork and then also when we arrive that you can't take any pictures of other kids even if they're your friends kids um you know only your your student if you're a chaperone on a field trip let's say you're a volunteer so I know it's reiterated at least on when I volunteered I know well and Miss Richards is going to send us the what the volunteer agreement looks like so we have an idea of what that verbiage is but I know that booster's post and you know things like that so I just that's why I was asking I just want to make sure that those kids that need protection are protected any other questions comments or concerns all those in favor of I I of policy 7.2 bossy GB of social media and cell phone use yes hi hi okay all this post motion passes five to zero moving on to Futures and agenda items obviously the next agenda item will be or our future agenda item will be our dress code well Heidi can you forward this please um I was just curious how um I read that we have a new visitor management system Raptor just curious how that's going and how it's working out and Mr Walker would love to elaborate on that sure um sorry president Schultz vice president Anderson I don't have any statistics prepared tonight but we did launch the visitor management system at the first of the school year it is up and running across all campuses we are currently working to optimize it there's a process in place to review how it's working we're working with the vendor the customer service representative to learn how we can better support the sites there has been some Growing Pains just initially launching any technology but we're working through that with it we're working with our sites to be able to follow the process through the guidance from raptor Technologies but I'd say overwhelmingly I I've gotten very complimentary support of the process front office counters are glad this is in place and it's something that we're using across all campuses in the district office as well yeah and and if it can be if you want to give us a more detailed update later that was very pre like for other you know next agenda or even our superintendent report that I did sure I'm happy to update it um any specific information that you're seeking regarding I anything just your kinks the great things responses what it looks like I do need to get out and volunteer just anything like that that so our it helps to promote it and and we're in a public meeting and just can update us on that um also I asked a question in our questions um but I didn't have response is it possible to do substitute teacher recognitions are we or is that something I think I've asked this a lot but is that something that we can make so vice president Anderson members of the board we have drafted responses to those questions that will be in status for you um our substitutes are actually employees of ESI and um so it's not like whom we had rescue subs and they were on each campus all the time it changes really frequently I do I do know our administrators thank them and honestly try to bribe them to come back to their campus you know what I mean that that's not what you're asking but they're not technically our employees um the other part of yours yes when we recognize volunteers you know I mean so I was I was just trying to give them a nice shout out because I think it's education I think that our administrators would stand up and say they have certain people that come now you want me to call somebody out until they can somebody want to elaborate how you recognize substitutes no is that what you're asking not today at all okay I just if you feel like it wouldn't work with us looked at me like okay I got it lots of you want to recognize something I mean but but I I was just trying to think of a way to celebrate them yeah they're very very important yes I think this is we can't make it without them so yeah we could have people elaborate how they personally do that but in terms of points of Pride I believe you know we got a question too about are we recognizing Grounds Maintenance Warehouse yes so I think I think every employee of ours is an employee and they're all fantastic so all right Mr Potts you're off the hook I want to there are some great ones out there for sure yeah um all right anything else well otherwise I move that we had during this meeting second all those in favor aye aye good night thank you

and she taught until 1996. today on August 9th 1999 she returned so this is since then her 8760th day back in education she is also known as a huge support from the time that that people joined the team her highest priority is what is best for the students she's kind compassionate listens and stays curious she is also a leader through her action she is always available for questions and always working to help her students and her peers dedicated reliable student Advocate are just some of the words used to describe her I know that I am honored and lucky to be a part of the same team that Brenda's on [Applause] Judy what'd you tell me okay all right thank you do we have any uh volunteer recognition no volunteer recognitions and student of the months will start in September okay so do we have any uh items from governing board members nope nothing from the governing board do we have any public comments nope no public comments okay so next would be item seven the um consent agenda does anyone have any comments or issues they would like to talk about regarding the consent agenda I do not have any who nothing okay then I'll entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda I move to approve the consent because consent agenda as presented easy for you to say hi second it's like 10 seconds okay all in favor say aye aye opposed it passes four to nothing okay next up is I gotta scroll down to find where I am item 8.1 uh let me hang on I gotta get there discussion and consideration of approval of the 23 24 Geo comb strategic plan goals so this was uh this is the final product if you remember we started at the board retreat and we worked through and had a rough draft between the board members and and uh leadership and then we came back to fine-tune it over to leadership meetings and so I believe it is reflective of concerns and questions that were addressed or raised by the board at the at the retreat and some fine-tuned um uh pieces that we talked through based on some of your concerns and Based on data uh relative to how we're doing so if there's specific questions you're more than happy to work you through it but otherwise I would recommend approval as presented so when I looked at it it appears that it's just in the same kind of format with the four goals and then the strategies underneath it right because so what we're changing the the strategy level the objective level and the goal level there were some minor changing of the objective levels in certain ones the goals themselves remain the same tied to our instructional plan and so it's really just at the strategy level with the hope within five years we'll get to 2027 and we'll meet what the big goal was because we're making progress every every year okay questions about that item anything no questions okay then I I'll entertain a motion I moved to approve the jail Combs Unified School District strategic plan 2324 District goals as presented in a second okay all in favor say aye aye opposed it passes four to zero next is discussion and consideration for approval of fiscal year 24 Capital plan members of the board Mr Wyman Dr Wyman colleagues tonight we are here to talk about another Arizona revised Statute this one is statute 15 2041 B which requires the governing board to approve our Capital plan annually for submission to the Arizona school facilities oversight board the capital plan is not a review of our fixed assets it is actually a compilation of our student ADM projections open enrollment students new construction projects and district-owned vacant land summary that must be submitted to the school facilities oversight board this information becomes their basis for eligibility analysis of funding for a new school the 2024 Capital plan was completed using our current ADM or enrollment information the independent study that we previously contracted and then our historical Trends the data shows it breaks it down into K5 6 8 and 912 based on those numbers CMS would be eligible for a school in FY 33.

uh really you will see the increases caused uh just by the increases kind of salary and benefits that we have done over the past a couple of years not only with classified staff but with certified staff started to build up I've also included in their positions that we've been paying for out of Grants I know that the Esser Grant was a fund that we've been paying out of salary positions over the last three years eventually that Grant will run out at the end of the school year and so some of those positions are integrated into this 2024 all those positions are integrated in this 2024 budget uh which obviously will determine what our staffing needs will be at a later point in time but all that is represented into this budget and so the increases are primarily salary benefits we did add a day reporting position in there that's something new that we haven't had we've always shared that in one cyber school districts as well as its own separate uh position housed by us and then the only other thing in there I highlighted in red is that doesn't really show up on our budget estimate but that is kind of what we budgeted last year for as far as transfers from the education fund into the operation fund that will probably go up a little bit but that is nothing that is reflected in a budget as far as Appropriations are concerned and Dr Q mentioned the day reporting it's not just the day reporting as far as I mean that's one of the primary duties of that teacher but that teacher has special education license will be our continuing Services teacher which means that if we need some a short-term alternative education placement besides just the day reporting which is really the suspensions that we have done before he would do that and then also this position this teacher will also be a teacher for a special education for bridge students one of the teachers we have several special education teachers in that program but just another one because of the need for that so when you look at that salary you're probably wondering about the day reporting but there's multiple uh duties of that that teacher so so what's the date report data where whites that way so again there's a building and I worked with Mr Ron Evans the CEO and their staff to make sure that we can house that there actually it was housed there at one time it was housed at an elementary before it was housed in the ounce program as a house that the old eigen tech building so it's been a lot of different places but now it's just our own for norfolks out really for grades six through twelve and the reason sixth grade is because we have moved them up and then that could be typically we're not going to have that younger student if we get every once in a while in this situation that they may be placed in there for a few days for some accountability of their actions instead of like a formal principle foreign moving on to Personnel recommendations resignation Amy Powell bus driver paraprofessional jet Alliance paraprofessional Danielle Whiteman paraprofessional underemployment we have Rod Cole teacher at southford high school Melissa Clark paraprofessional Salford Elementary bus driver Tanya cellis paraprofessional Mary blykin paraprofessional Jessica florig paraprofessional Stephanie Fisher paraprofessional Paige Klingler teacher jummy Willard paraprofessional Heather Heiden teacher at southford High School Sherry Anna teacher temporary Southland High School then we have Kelsey nicom his junior high volleyball coach at Salford High School Jonathan Collins volunteer assistant cross country Southwood High School Casey Dyson fifth and sixth grade volleyball Northfield High School Kenzie Griffin seventh grade volleyball Northfield High School Lori Schultz paraprofessional and transfers and Melissa Metz transferring to Superior professional from Shark Creek to Northville High School the one thing about my nails she'll also be a very professional not along with bus driving oh yeah it gets here I just did that yeah [Music] a second unfavorable approval say hi hi [Music] and we do just really appreciate the new staff and also some of our staff who have retired and help us out to come back and do some work for us so below that anything tonight but superintendent report yeah I just want to mention a couple of things obviously this time of year since you've already mentioned that in the prayer but school starts tomorrow and it's just amazing how much in preparation that everyone does and we just appreciate all of our staff for that just to give you a little idea um administrators we had a basically something a little bit different this year to get all of our logistical things covered we met on a zoom last week and then that was so you know sometimes there's some travel situations that just take a little more time so we thought we'd be more efficient and do it that way I know Mr Drake and I were both principals we'd always talk about Central offices Central since I was at norfield I felt like it was a lot more Central than what Mr Drake thought it was so uh but that was always fun because you had to go across town but anyway but then also last Friday we had the opportunity to be in a Global Leadership Summit that's something that is global so it's all over the country Chicago was the main hub for uh U.S but then there's also satellite areas and so we were just at Honeywell Center in Legacy Hall heard a lot of great speakers and that will motivate us and help us with some different leadership and things that we can all improve on and we'll talk more about that in our admin meetings also our bus drivers had a couple of meetings to get all prepared they're very very important stat members of course because they're typically the first ones that a child will see and so we appreciate all that they do and bring them to school safely and they're the last ones that see our students too so they've had a couple Millions custodial meaning Mr Drake who runs the new teacher meeting for new teachers also just yesterday we had our opening day and we actually had a very interesting situation where we brought in the 2023 teacher of the year the Indiana teacher of the year to be our keynote speaker and she was a teacher at Southwood for two years uh social studies teacher and she actually that was her first experience as a public school teacher she did private school she did some other things prior to that and so it was really neat to have her come in and share and to motivate and talk about our district and and how our mission and vision kind of goes along with what she is trying to do as far as being an advocate for the teacher of the year for 2023.

well I mean you have to add on um contingencies design fees to soft costs which is about 50 Factor so if you're 750 000 with 1.5 all in costs about one one one two that sounds better right because you're about two classrooms and anymore I think your classrooms right around a half million dollars there's a 3.3 million dollar difference between option two and three so I was trying to listen on Facebook but probably so you asked that question about Field House what was the answer not a lot of the difference right I don't know there'd be a whole lot of square footage difference we've done it two or three really three-quart field houses where we squeezed 500 600 seats in they pull across maybe the end court but the middle court then becomes the one that you use for a competition or program or whatever and what size try to remember that I gotta pull off lockerings and the things that Quake wrestling rooms and stuff that got stuck onto the end of them but 100 70.

as presented in a second second and any further discussion you heard the superintendent's info about that already any further discussion I'm not seeing any uh so any abstentions from that any no votes again that passes unanimously okay superintendent evaluation uh that's item 11 and uh for folks who are following along the meeting in the materials for tonight's meeting there is a copy of the evaluation form that we use uh at this point we are in a two-year evaluation cycle for the superintendent and the form that we use now is called the mid-cycle formative assessment evaluation report for administrators it is provided to us by Desi um each of the committee members was just provided with one that is customized for them with their name as well as the actual details of the various goals and objectives provided in there oh it's state this one's stapled funny that's not yours doesn't look like this so if you look as a Committee Member on page two you will see that the superintendents goals I'm just getting mine out um progress towards goals has already been filled in based on the superintendent's um goals and indicators for the two-year cycle which is the final pay It's the final page of the packet that I gave you and then I've just filled in the items that you're evaluating to kind of make it easier to know what you're supposed to do so you can see on page two and also on page three I've taken the information from the superintendent goals and indicators that we have and I've plugged it into the form for you so hopefully it's as error free as possible when you actually fill it out so the last page is the key I just filled them all in for everyone so you don't have to do it yourself that was one of the big hiccups when we lasted the evaluation last year people didn't understand what they were actually evaluating and it's we've voted on these goals now at least twice for the superintendent and so I've just plugged them in and then the other thing that is provided to you as evaluators is I yesterday shared a Google drive folder with everyone of the member school committee members that has a blank copy of this form the goals and indicators sheet and then the deci 28-page rubric of the focus indicators and the Strategic objectives and strategic priorities that you can review to see how the superintendents specific goals are connected to the rubric that is provided to us I did not want to print out 27 pages of rubric for everyone because you can get it on the Google Drive and it's in the binder that we all have from the evaluation training that we did in 2020 whatever 2021 remember John Johnson we saw please uh two questions on page two um my copy shows empty check boxes for the first two rows for this second two rows I think it's applied that I'm supposed to kind of fill in a box like that but the boxes are yeah that's a Desi mess up actually and I just missed it but they should have boxes as well is that where you're asking check boxes yeah that's my question the final two rows on page two should have the same check boxes I just used their form and didn't notice that they didn't that's so that's a good catch and my second question is on page three um there are codes but I don't see that they're spelled out anywhere but I believe that you means it's spelled out on page two the top of each column okay but then you have you have U and I which doesn't line up with nuts I'm sorry oh look at that yeah so I think that here's what I think maybe they stand for maybe correct me if I'm wrong but you would be unstarted unsatisfactory unsatisfactory okay and what's ni then it needs improvements proficient needs Improvement the P would be proficient and the E would be for exceeded or excellent or exceeds yes and they are spelled out on the rubric I believe the 28-page rubric that I didn't print you'll see those on there as the evaluating okay I mean this is why we have trouble with the Forum right yes exactly yeah thank you very much thank you for asking part three of my I'm sorry I was talking to you I'm sorry I have multiple questions that's fine what why do we have this one and this one the one that's in the packet is provided as a part of the publicly materials for the meeting it's just an example so the public can follow along at home gotcha okay and the one that I gave you it's just a printed example but this is the one the one I gave you with your name on the front page is the one that we will use for the actual evaluation okay and then my other question is in this lovely novel are the um goals from the last one in here and the data from the last one so that we can look at that and make comparisons from evaluation to evaluation that we're going to do no and that I don't know if that's because it does say that's a really good question I don't know if it's beyond the scope or not well it says in here it asks us different ratings from prior summative evaluation comments required so are we looking at ratings and comparing them to the Past so one of the prior summative evaluation one piece I would like to clarify this year is not a summative evaluation this year's formative meaning that you are giving feedback to see if we need to change course on any of the goals or if we're you know if I'm on track it's to give feedback the a very easy way to sort of distinguish formative to summative is formative as you're tasting the soup while you're cooking it and summative is how your guests feel when they eat it so at the end when the soup is done you will do a summative and you can compare it to last year's so next June will be a summative as well this year's just feedback and what was last year last year was a summative based on one year's evaluation okay so let's check in because it's got this box and I want to make sure that I understand all the aspects of this terrible report that we all hate okay remember Johnson go ahead so uh where it says on page three of three under formative evaluation only there's two different marks same ratings as prior or different ratings from prior does that mean we need to go back to what how we rated the superintendent last time and determine whether our marks this time are different from the word last time and then make comments if they have changed I think that's kind of what that was just what I asked oh sorry then what was the answer the answer was it's not no the answer was next year we do it but it says it's four formative that we have to check I can give you last year's although the goals aren't the same so I'm not you know I guess it would be the general area of performance you could look at am I doing about the same in instructional leadership Better or Worse am I doing about the same in management and operations better or worse it's that sort of comparison I believe if I guess I just want to I guess what I'm curious maybe the chair can answer if I were to submit this without check marks under either those items and without going back to my past evaluation would that be acceptable or do I need to try to okay what I was what I was about to say after hearing both of you is perhaps I sort of just checked different ratings from prior summative evaluation comments required I could have done that and you could just yeah that's my question how would we know if it's not in the package I guess I'm misunderstanding the the um I think the superintendent might be able to provide more context two things one I'm happy to give you last year's summative ratings that that's completely fine however I would also like to make the point that this document is not the process okay the feedback is the process um there's there's some requirement for you to give me a grade so to speak but I you folks could write feedback to me on paper towels that is the piece that is important is feedback on how I'm doing moving the district so I would encourage you to not worry as much about the form as the process that's what we talk to I talked to my principals about and I hope they talk to the teachers about it's the conversation and the feedback that's really the important thing so I am quite happy to share last year's grades so to speak and you can give feedback if you think I'm doing better on communication and you know family engagement than I did last year that would be great for you to comment on if you think I'm doing worse it'd be great for you to comment on but I also feel like you could do that subjectively because you all have feelings about how how I'm doing in all of these areas so um but I'm quite happy to provide you last year's rating so if you would like to do objective comparisons you can do that but it's I don't want to I just want to be clear I don't want to do that fine don't and to that point like the the forms are stay internal to us so I'm not you know as long as your comments are appropriate to the scope of the evaluation and you've given some indication of providing feedback we'll leave it at that we can't get hung up on the details we learned that last time around that it's just it doesn't serve anyone well but they're not internal to us in the sense that our responses will be public of course but I I mean we're just you know sometimes on a form when you fill it out anywhere the person helping you fill it out will say you can just leave that part blank we don't use that anymore or we're not using that right now or something and we just we move on and we feel don't fill out that part of the form that's all please mayor uh on the page three I believe I just heard you say correct me if I'm wrong this is the question that what you really under formative evaluation only the one page with you the ni Etc you want us to follow the second box different ratings from prior summative evaluation comments required we kind of just don't want to even worry about what the right answer is in that box just provide your feedback yeah just okay other questions is there a time if it was in an email I missed so there was not an email about it um I I would like to say if I could have it um I was going to say not this Friday uh give me a second to look at my calendar the 25th of August it gives you a little bit over two weeks to get it done the 25th of August it's a Friday I would be happy to provide a reminder earlier that week by email that you need to get it done Into Me by that day is it something that's on our calendar we can put it on the calendar um can you add that to your notes yeah how are we getting it to the Amish way is fine you can walk it to my house um you can send it if if you want to scan if you have the ability and you want to scan it and email it to me if you want to provide it to Lauren in the central office however you want to get it to me I am fine with that the Amish way is my favorite any other questions about this so the 25th um and I'll chase you down and I will do a reminder email at the beginning of that week okay and I should have also mentioned the the Bible please so we are going to get a tour of the of the documentation for the evaluation that the superintendent is providing the highlights I'll hit the highlights I'm not going to read to you you all are capable of reading this I would like to explain the format so that you know what you're looking at it begins with somewhat of a narrative by me you will see in boldface the goal identified so the goal for school is instructional leadership as an example I then go through identifying the evidence that is included in that section and I have included next to each piece of evidence what indicator I believe it supports you will see some notes for example in this packet our priority plan work that we did working with our Statewide system of support ssos folks is in here it is included as a copy in the instructional leadership section it is referenced in two sections but I didn't copy it a second time and put it in the second section so you will but you will have seen it by the time it's referenced for the second section there are e-team minutes you'll see in each section there is a document that says examples of e-team minutes right at the top and then it says goal a instructional leadership these are excerpts from our administrative team meetings that are relevant as points of evidence that I've included um so you will see that I put the date and in the narrative I reflect which indicator they represent I'm just um at the end so each section goes through that there are four goals as you can see I include evidence in each section and then the last several pages of the narrative document that's on the top includes additional accomplishments those are things that are not connected specifically to the goals but I felt were important for even if they do not relate to my goals that the committee should recall were accomplished during this past year such as the Strategic plan being completed all of the contracts being completed so some important benchmarks are also there so you will see each section there are two data tables I'm happy to explain those briefly if you would like okay in the packet you will see two tables that look like this the first one speaks to the percentage of chronically absent students there are two categories one the percent of students who are absent ten percent of the school year or more so if they miss more than 18 days in the school year that's the category that they're included in or the students that Miss more than 20 percent of the school day these statistics are on the state site they can be accessed by anyone and the comparison is from the last day of school for 2022 to March of 2023 because the state has not yet published our end of school data but I felt that it was important for everyone to see the substantial improvement in our chronic absentee rate make no mistake we are not yet pleased with what the numbers are but we are very happy to see the Improvement because our academic Improvement is not going to reflect what it could be if our students are not in front of us so that is one piece of data the other is illustrative of some of our data I expect in September or as soon as our MCAS scores are out you will get a more in-depth presentation of performance data what you will see is on the left all of our tested grades using Dibbles or the middle school version called Maze and then our usns which is the universal screener for number sense they are just two indicators they're not the be all end-all and you will see the percentage of students at or above the target from the fall of 2022 to Spring of 2023 the first section being the reading piece the second section being math what I noted is this is my interpretation without further analysis but it will be it will be done as we get more into our ilt work at the start of school you will notice the more significant Improvement in performance at the younger grades my hypothesis only at this stage is that the exposure to high quality instructional materials consistent across the district is having a positive impact that is my hypothesis we will continue to test that as we go but there is a rather significant change in performance as you get to the upper grades but we are confident that the steps outlined in the Strategic plan will help us to address those can I throw something in another hypothesis is that you can the interventions you do with younger students will have an impact over the years on the old as they grow older and that it may be more difficult to move numbers with older students than younger I very well could be and as you know across the past two years the intervention process has been refined and is much more consistent so we're doing a better job reviewing data and identifying students for intervention as well and you're right cumulative impact if we address learning gaps early on it is less likely to impact in the future so I think that's plus plus for our youngest students again hypothesis at this point but so barring any specific questions I again don't feel the need to read all of this to you um but certainly if something is not clear I'm happy to respond to that I only wish you provided us more information so sorry yeah give a couple more Bible entries I have many many more so don't tempt me it will be coming so I just because I'm sure that I would walk away and not be able to figure this out if I hadn't been or I'd be able to figure it out but I would be confused so goal a is the same as standard one goal B is the same as standard two c three D four correct I'm saying it out loud so we're on the same page because it's just okay I just know myself other questions for the superintendent or comments about the process questions about the process all right thank you Christine thank you committee we will move on item 12 is the request for new agenda items please remember Denise I was hoping to add to an agenda in the future discussing um break times for these meetings because they do go quite long and it would be nice to know that maybe we have a 10 minute break in the future sure other stuff secretary extra yeah um I just I've been thinking about um oh continuity and not being here anymore and and things like that and with a with an election year coming up and sort of I don't know there are things that happen in election years that I've watched I'm just which is not an implication of anything but I was just curious if if the policy committee could review file BCA which is the school Committee Member Ethics Committee or policy just to ensure that it's up to date so that when new people start at the beginning of next year that it's everyone's clear on it I guess I'm not I just it's no there there are pieces in here that that speak about politics and as we know I get a little angsty about politics that may or may not be going on and and that's my thing um but I just I think it would be wise for us to do a review of that I don't that's so that's my thought so you are asking about one specific policy or about the ones related to school committee roles in that section it could be so if we went back to the policy manual which is what I'm looking at everyone here it would be section B but there's an awful lot of things in there um so I you know well I mean I think one I think it's an excellent thing to bring up I think it's relevant for us to review occasionally our roles as school committee members which is what you're getting at um and I think we're competent enough as individuals and collectively that we could say let's talk about anything relevant to section B and folks can review ahead of time and bring the things that they would want to talk about whether they think it's important they point it out to everyone else or they have questions or something else is that what you're would that work for you is that what you're getting at something else entirely well I I so my goal is that yes I mean we can all use reminders but also so that when the next next terms begin that it's all accurate and when someone goes to it there isn't any question of it and and everyone who is still here is confident that what a new person would be reading um is accurate so let me interrupt you for a second we did review within the past year section B at the policies subcommittee level and we voted on the entire section here that said we approved it and then came back to the fact that a portion of it was blank that identified which committees were a part of the school committee right right which subcommittees so there's always you know and as we were as we review contracts we talk about that we often Overlook things even when 100 people look at them right so it's likely worth it to as a committee discuss but knowing that it's in pretty good shape already because the policy subcommittee has already reviewed it within the past year yeah you agree yeah remember Johnson um I guess I guess I'm not maybe I should know this but I don't actually know if all the policies on our current website are up to date superintendent that's funny I was actually sort of trying to get you to think the same thing one of the challenges is that this committee has paid for paid for previously hosting of our policy manual on the masc site but they will not host until the entire manual is finished so I think it would serve if we confirm tomorrow that the voted section is had actually manually been added to our website I think that's a good thing to double check so we were thinking similarly and then the other thing is I think you know the chairs right to point out that we did just consider the whole section and vote on it but that's different from as a committee taking a a policy out and just discussing it re-familiarizing ourselves with it and and having a discussion about it so if you think that there's one or two policies that you think are especially timely I think that would be a very appropriate thing to put on a full school committee agenda just for a review and discussion and so I don't know if you might want to think between now and the next meeting about which policies in particular you'd like to have us review together uh sorry um I can make suggestions or if people would prefer that I wait until the next for that we make wait until the next one so I can fully formalize my thoughts that's okay too I'm okay with yeah why don't we why don't you you know take that as a as a project to look at section B and which ones you'd like us to discuss and if it works for the chair and the superintendent we can have a discussion about it at the next meeting okay and and I can also confirm that the ones you're looking at online are in fact the most recently voted okay I'll do that tomorrow and send an email to them thank you so much and perhaps um member Johnson we said as uh chair of the subcommittee for policy you could entertain that policy subcommittee members could bring to our next meeting any that we would want to highlight as a part of that type of discussion um because we've probably looked at the policy manual more than other folks um that's just we can do it as an agenda item sure thank you and do we have other requests for new agenda items okay and we've got reports from the administration starting with askp thank you a couple of Grant updates they're slowly getting approvals as the governor's budget starts to get ironed out in the state we did receive notification that our Civics grant for fy24 was approved in the amount of thirty one thousand dollars I'm very excited about that the focus with this grant opportunity this year is to really engage students in more Civic experiences so we're going to be meeting as a history Department in grades 8 through 12 and just talk about some experience we could provide kids through field trips either locally or at the state level some of the ideas that were tossed around were trips to the State House the Freedom Trail in Boston the JFK Museum so taking our students and getting them out into the world and exploring areas outside of Greenfield so we're looking forward to that the Middle School will be reaping the benefits of the investigating history Grant we will be partnering with edu curious which is our professional development provider and Jen richelli the associate principal at the middle school will be helping lead this charge the grant covers not only the professional development partnership but allows the teachers that are participating along with the administrator to be part of Statewide professional learning communities with others who are also piloting these materials so they'll get to collaborate with teachers across the state who are also teaching in these grade levels with these materials and then use edu curious as the the backup partner to help them iron out any of the Kinks as it unfolds this year summer school Title 1 sponsors summer school and our program was very successful it ended on Tuesday August 1st we serviced over 150 students in grades K through seven but I forgot to add to those we also provide a credit recovery for high school students and approximately 25 students earned between 2.5 and 7.5 credits towards graduation so those students who found themselves credit behind due to whatever circumstance had the opportunity to come in over those four weeks and earn credits back towards graduation so that was really successful that program as well and then we are involved in our strategic plan and the curriculum department has been very busy we have met with uh Desi ilt in our ssos team and we will be starting um the big reveal of uh three high impact evidence-based instructional strategies that are going to unfold throughout the course of the year at all six of our schools so we'll be doing professional development with all of our faculty we're waiting to hear on a grant and might have a professional development partner that will be assisting us as well but we've started that work part of the Strategic plan was for me to meet with all department heads and really look at their professional development we tend to focus a lot on teachers and instructional assistants and we really want and everyone that works for Greenfield Public Schools to have time to experience professional growth and learning opportunities so I met with transportation and food services and I.T and the nurse leader and really just talking about the needs of their staff and planning out what they need to have time for this year so that all members of their communities can have learning opportunities we are also uh partnering with the teaching lab and uh working with them in ssos but also really trying to map out the year and how that's going to unfold so that Christine myself so ssos members can have time to do walk-throughs observe the instructional strategies that are happening in classrooms really see where that impact is uh directly affecting student growth and achievement so we're looking forward to that these links that are in blue and underline are all live that you can get to if you don't have copies in your packet I apologize and then lastly we have posted for curriculum committees we are doing a five-year curriculum review cycle we're going to start with Ela and foreign language this year so committee members can apply and we are going to meet two times per month from now until June and hopefully tackle curriculum mapping for ELA Pre-K to 12 and foreign language at the high school Grand goals but we have a good ambition and hopefully we'll get some of that work done with the help of our curriculum committee members and that's it thank you Karen questions or comments for askp really all right happy vacation that is about the most I ever get of a vacation so thank you I appreciate that um how about a report from the superintendent Christine go ahead well I've I've given the committee quite a packet there so I'm not going to add to it um but I did want to share something with all of you at this point communication has gone out to the staff about this but as I begin the third year of my three-year contract um I have made the decision to retire from public education effective June 30th so this will be my last year with not just with Greenfield but as a public school administrator and I would like to thank everyone for the opportunity certainly I'm not leaving tomorrow to the good or to the bad I'm not leaving tomorrow but this has been an extraordinary place to work it continues to be I'm very much looking forward to this year there is so much to do and I'm very excited about what's going to happen I know Karen whizzed through her strategic Plan update but she represented about a thousand hours of work that has been done and that will be done another thousand so um we have a lot to do and I'm very excited to do it so I'd like to thank all of you um but I've I've made the decision with my family to take a step back and be able to spend more time with them so I am not leaving Greenfield I've just decided to give myself back to my family of course after a few months they may be sending me back to Greenfield but so that's that's the last um I have no further update I think that's quite enough for tonight how ironic that that update is not on paper for member Martini to ask questions about um all jokes aside we appreciate everything that you've done for Greenfield I I'm speaking um as as chair in in seeing um where we've come from it was basically this week two years ago that we knew you had been hired and you joined us for uh training on again ironically the superintendent evaluation process with our interim Superintendent at the time Dr Houle um and How Far We've Come is is evident in any number of ways whether you're talking to a student or a staff member or a member of the leadership team or a member of the school committee we've made huge strides under your leadership and I thank you for that and I thank you I think the most for giving us another year with your expertise and guidance and I'm grateful for having had you here and I am very jealous because my only goal in life is to retire so I wish you so so much luck in that and um when Steve's ready to send you back you just you know how to find us um and thank you any other comments or uh discussion from the school committee regarding the superintendent's announcement really no one okay we don't need to be all mushy without this that's fine just so the public knows we all set our wonderful thank yous and we're so happy for you in our during our executive session not that we're all sitting here going yeah she's out so anyway oh and I would add how nice to go out on a good note it's always nice to be a leader that can leave um on a positive note um you know kind of at the top of their game so I think that's that's it speaks to your commitment to professionalism um in in the um in your profession yeah so much profession right there professional profession yes thank you no other comments okay so oh Gene that would oh please remember well I would just like to say thank you for coming to Greenfield and teaching us how school system should be run it it you have done an excellent job and thank you there are amazing people here amazing people every every Department in this district has fabulous staff members in it who are so committed to this District so that that is a gift to the community and you know everyone should know that so I I very much enjoy being here thank you member wall anything else we'll do a chairs report I have a few things tonight um so regarding the move to hybrid meetings we talked about that for a September timeline my indication is that the it folks for the city are quite at capacity with the new library we may or may not be able to come online for September the goal at this point would be for October I've heard from only one school committee member that they're interested in being trained on being someone who would run the system for hybrid so if anyone has forgotten that they wanted to volunteer for that you can certainly remind me at any point I will volunteer I'm sorry that I forgot to tell you that oh that's great thank you member Denise so thank you we will I'm sorry I meant to all the time no worries um and yeah okay so great that's wonderful um and I will work with Fernando to get a timeline for when it's possible for us to get trained and we'll go from there and I will also acknowledge that city clerk Kathy Scott has provided me with some excellent written documentation of how that will work and hopefully that will kind of support us as we move to the hybrid format and again I think the timeline is more realistic for October than it is for September um we want uh we don't need to put Fernando over capacity is how I would put it um and then I had a note to discuss um attendance at the masc annual conference in November um I think it's November and uh I I'm not sure exactly how to approach that like it's not something that um I am interested in going to but I guess we could start with are there folks who are interested in going I'm going I just got very busy and haven't booked it but it's on my list to do it tomorrow okay book it okay um and remember Denise remember Martini anyone else so we will work on the logistics and cost of that I wonder if that is appropriate for like budget subcommittee to talk about or I think we already have we have funding for it we already have we discussed it we've had Warren said it's set and all we have to do is send in our hotel accommodations I love it when it happens and I don't have to get involved okay um all right anyone no one else is interested in going so the two of you will move forward with that okay great um I wanted to make a note so the governor signed the fy24 budget today and something that is very important to me in our schools is the continuation of the universal School meals program and that was in that budget so we are now one of just a handful of states in the U.S that has decided to continue free breakfast and lunch for all students that was signed into law today and that's just that's awesome for our students so I wanted to put that out there and then the only other thing that I had in terms of my report is uh I had a note about rural schools bill and I really am terrible at taking notes so I can't entirely remember a context except there's something in it that we might want to talk about and I think it was member geneve that you brought this up can you enlighten me yes representative blay would love to come and talk to us about the rural schools bill they would like an invitation and Senator comerford's office would also like to do same if we are interested so we could reach out to them see if they're available for September or October they are 100 expecting us to do so wonderful thank you for that and I did look at the bill and there's a couple of pieces relating to some interesting funding for all districts um in there so yeah we'll have them come and chat with us for sure thank you for that reminder that I believe is all I have for a chairs report um we will move into subcommittee reports and I do believe we have one from redistricting this month is that correct are you going to fight over it we I'm gonna let Gene start we met last month and reported that uh we would have a vote in October right and is there something I'm forgetting that I was supposed to that's okay it's been a little bit what we did what I shared with the subcommittee members is that the administrators and Karen and I met and we were able to look at how we would assign rooms in each of the buildings working under the preferred structure of three schools that held grades K through five and we are able to do that so we're able to with the redrawing of lines for school areas so Jake wild Smith our transportation coordinator was instrumental in doing that so it does look like that model so far is working has the least impact on Transportation costs there is some potential that we would need to work on there's some potential we might have to talk to our bus contractor about maybe another bus but that's not definite we're still configuring that but um I did do a survey of the staff not just the teachers all the staff were invited to take it 85 percent of them preferred our option 2B which it's lovingly referred to now which is the redistricting of the school areas and then having three k to five schools so the next step that we will do after school starts because there's a lot of people involved in the next steps and they're involved in getting school open so we can't do it at the same time there are two pieces and they're related to Staffing one um our elementary specials art music and physical education special will be affected if we go to a k to five because it adds classes so Karen and Mike Browning from Four Corners have taken the lead on drafting what that could look like and then I will work with the high school and the middle school to see what scheduling would look like if we remove eighth grade from the high school I say that because some of our high school teachers especially our elective courses do teach some sections of eighth grade so we need to look at what that does to the high school schedule and the Middle School impact if any in that regard so those will be done after the year flips and the schedules for students are out and things are moving we will then engage in a mock schedule for the 24-25 school year I have met with the president of Gea to talk about the fact that we will need to meet to talk about any impact to staff even if it's just moving buildings so um she's aware that that conversation will need to happen in the very near future but at this point right it's looking very promising and I will have some discussion for the full committee at the next meeting around how we how you would like to handle the previously available intra-district Choice scenario we'll need to talk about options for how that is addressed going forward but right now we are on track for I believe you folks to be able to make a decision about the model by the October meeting and then it's all up to Logistics packing and unpacking and etc etc but but thank you did I cover it Gene perfect and the redistricting committee was a member wall member geneve and member Johnson we saw is that right yeah and thank you all for your work on that and of course the superintendent and your team on that and to reiterate for folks at home because I did actually get a question last week from a panicked parent who thought maybe their eighth grader was staying at the middle school this year this is a future plan this is not for fall of 2023 just so that's absolutely clear and then as the superintendent outlined we would have some steps that we would take as a school committee to reinforce how this logistically would move forward based on our policies as our school committee policies uh sure secretary extra [Music] um so what kind of would there be changes to special education because I know that my daughter because her teacher was at a school that wasn't our neighborhood school had to leave our neighborhood school school and go to a different one which was fine but it's something to think about or that would still need to be the case um I believe based on our current work that the specialized programming would be able to remain in the buildings where they are um but there is some impact on the choice decision because as you can imagine some buildings have higher enrollments based on the fact that some students have done intra-district Choice into those schools but in a general sense I believe all of our special education programs would be able to stay in the buildings where they're currently located the other benefit of the plan is that low-income students would be more evenly distributed throughout the different schools so it does address not just the concern about the grade levels but also some of the the equity issues that that were vital to this committee thank you other comments great thank you for that redistricting update policy update we did not meet and your minutes from the last meeting you can see you gave us some homework so we'll be doing that in early September plus the items that came to us tonight thank you budget subcommittee tomorrow thank you and the I think actually I had asked remember deneve she'd contacted me about a new agenda item and I'd asked for that to be brought up as part of the discussion for the budget subcommittee please go ahead um thank you last month I visited uh representative Blaze open Office hours here she's here every second Monday of the month and they asked me a very interesting question and I thought I had better bring it to all of you um the question that was asked was what list do we have to submit to them for earmark funding for the next year and I really didn't understand what they meant so they spent some really quality time with me walking me through line items on the state budget and they said specifically that they've started a project within the last year while this is still an available option and they would like to know if we've identified a list of things that we would like to have funded not annual or recurring things but big Capital expenses and if we could go through the state budget and identify the line items that correspond to these needs that we have and get a rough estimate of what we would like to have funded and then submit it to them and then they would basically go to bat for us and I asked them if they had examples of what they had done recently in regards to that and they said well Mohawk came to them and got a new HVAC system so these are things that they're actually able to work for us but they need us to come to them and wanted to know if we were prepared to do that and I said I had no idea I had to bring it to you all so I'm bringing you this information that they would like a list of capital expenses that and corresponding line items and they could address it for us and perhaps fund them that's it I would kick that to the budget subcommittee unless anyone else feels like it should go somewhere else to start obviously anything that goes to the budget subcommittee would eventually come to the full committee for further discussion and action if the budget subcommittee's meeting tomorrow there won't be time to put it on the agenda so I just wonder if it might be something that I don't know if the budget subcommittee will meet again before the the September meeting but if they aren't able to meet before September maybe we could discuss it as a full committee at the September meeting and I'm on this budget subcommittee and I should be saying we thank you did they give you a deadline enough they did not they explained that obviously this year it's already set and it's done and she said I mean clearly they just signed it it's done but we'd have to think about it long term so next year would be when we would get the funding if it went through so we need to prepare and you know shortly in the next few months and have the items identified and ready to present wouldn't it be items that have come before Capital Improvements like elevators and things like that uh that that we might have go back and look through Lee I mean you probably already know the items but I would think if we could get two elevators that would be what are you looking at Gordy knows is it me or Christine Christine um I think they well certainly elevators come quickly to mind as I was listening to the conversation I think the task will be to comb through the state budget so can't wait to get on that yeah really fun they they went through the control F function with me and told me to look specifically for Greenfield and I was like yes okay but I believe Mr Puckett they didn't leave me hanging they gave some instructions I get Andy on that for us so we'll leave it as um it can't be discussed at the budget soap committee tomorrow because it's not already on the agenda and it needs to be posted 48 hours in advance if budget subcommittee has a meeting before the next the regular school committee meeting in September so be it we can have them discuss it there otherwise we will put it on the September agenda for the full committee to discuss um and I'm not going to dual out homework to anyone but uh it sounds like I'm well I'm guessing the mayor has some experience with some of this and um Diana on the city Side as well as Andy on our side may be helpful in context saving that it's really hard for me and I'm just going to save my thoughts on earmarks well when we talk as a full committee when we talk as a full committee we'll talk about it yeah yeah anything else about that thank you for remember for bringing that forward you're welcome and did you have a report from the collaborative nope so we would look for a motion to adjourn the mayor has made that in a second and we do need a roll call vote for that yes we're adjourned at 8 20.

so from the final audit until the year that you close the building they look at that time frame and prorate what you have to pay back I don't think we had a year from the time the final audit was done until we didn't have students in the building anymore so we don't get prorated does not appear we get prorated so I need to go through the paperwork but I basically have to recreate the entire history of Green River from then until today in the paperwork so it's a project with the school no longer needs or wants to keep Green River I mean so this is a mayoral Council kind of decision versus a school kind of decision I think the I think we've really boiled down to the fact that we don't meet it based on our enrollment Trends we don't need it to do this redistricting format there are things like people talk about could we make it a you know like a therapeutic school well theoretically we could but we'd have to spend a million plus dollars to do the heating system we'd have to do all the other repairs and then there's the entire process of getting it approved by the state to be a special ed program I can't just open it and declare it such and we'd have to staff it and that is a high level of Staffing so I I love to be able to do something like that I don't know if if Greenfield schools has the ability to have the money to do that sort of program in the near future probably work on some of the earmark fund the heart and soul is in keeping Green River like if we really want to divest ourselves of it would it be worthwhile to bring forward emotion at the big meeting and see if we want to agree that we're done with it and then it done with it then become the auspice of the city council and the mayor to figure things and would that would that relieve some sort of eye responsibility I would like to do a little bit more research on how to do that um I'm I don't know I mean we may think so but I don't know if um the city Side would think that that is sufficient to process and procedure um well after going um from planning and construction going on tours of the city buildings there is more office space needed so it's worth a conversation um what the state would do in letting us keep using it for Greenfield versus right turning it into housing or something that's a good idea yeah so I'd have to see I don't know what conditions would satisfy the math School building authority around pay back not pay back whatever so that those are pieces that I want to find out but I would like to hear something from the city so I can at least report that when I do all the paperwork like these are the ideas being talked about if they're even that far you know I don't know how far into thinking about another use the city is well I think planning instruction is trying to find someone who can do a study like the NASDAQ study about the setting about the city buildings and what's needed and so at that point they could go and look at of course and at our next meeting Carol was supposed to have done the research oh great job okay if there is such a person that can do that group or whatever yeah and then we need to go to the city council and get approval and all that stuff and get the mayor to buy you know well certainly Carol has seen Green River since I've been here she's been in yeah the challenge we have from the school department side is we have a lot of storage at Green River yeah we can't keep it as a storage no no no that's quite the quite the investment for storage buy a shed or something I don't know but um it's just a thing we have to sort of think about we have to make some decisions about what to do with our stuff over there but but that so that's where that kind of is it sounds like you've cracked the egg on that and at least we now know what to look forward to yes the I need a stretch of unscheduled time to get into the process of doing the closing of the school I don't know if we can divest ourselves of it until it is officially closed but at least we know that I know we didn't even know that there you go so we're moving we're moving moving along but that is my goal my hope is to get that done before the end of the summer get that paperwork submitted because goal and but that's the plan so so at the August and September meetings we'll keep talking about we're working on it and in the end what do you want like what kind of report would be helpful for the August meeting in regards to Green River no in regards to the district yeah what if anything do you want to imagine isn't it sorry yes I call it redistricting it here but we've got so much good information you could you've got a lot I feel like we went from here it's like here now we know so I mean we definitely have the stats about the staff survey I have that for sure that you know that can be shared if you focused that shared um I can share that we've looked at the but I think I mean depending Gene you're right if you want to talk about the choice the intra District choice piece it comes simultaneously and we're so grateful to have our policy subcommittee chair in attendance Glenn you're with me yeah um you know one of the things as we get into the section where it talks about um enrollment my suggestion um was going to be to remove the language about intra-district choice anyway so maybe this is the time to sort of talk about that and then wrap it into a policy update I don't know what you think about that Glenn yeah we need to try to reschedule something before the about this meeting weekend or if you can't wait until September I so we could do it two ways I think um we could either have the conversation at school committee with all of you about this is the impact on this and then what do we want to do which I would think then could get referred to policy or we could try to do a policy meeting make the recommendation we take it out and then that goes to the full school committee I think either you know either way but well maybe then I think is they're going to have to vote for it in the end anyway so why don't we bring it there first and then bring it to policy all right so just wrap it into the reimagining conversation sure yeah no direct us to revise the policy as part of whatever one of the Motions that happens at the end okay we can we can do that in August that's okay and um I I realize um it's a and I'll find that policy Glenn and send it to you just so you have it great okay um I think it's going to be a challenging conversation either way about it but I mean it's it's going to be a bombshell that we have to drop at some point and then deal with the results we always knew that we were not going to be able to make decisions that would make everyone happy like we knew that this would be hard and that there would be parts that would be awful and parts that would be great but it seems like you've done so much work on 2B and I mean maybe it's time to say in the committee like let's make a decision so that you can go forward in your most planful way as take as much like turtleing time as you want to make it perfect I just I don't want to rush you and then be like oh we just changed our mind and we wanted a different thing and it's a whole nother thing if you folks as a committee could talk about the choice piece that would be really helpful because then correct introdistrict choice because then we can very clearly say this is what the room distribution would look like this is what movement the biggest um of anyone who wanted option to be of the comments that were listed there weren't that many there were about 140 responses and only about 35 comments most of them in support well most of them against option one some four option one but of the ones that had concerns the moving of special education programs was the biggest concern probably listed five times as a as a comment so I think if we can say to people special ed programs are not moving this is the room distribution then I would also be able to have more specific information for our unions to talk about the impact there um I think that piece would let us go forward pretty and then my hope no the deal we will have the schedules done definitely by the September meeting we're hoping for August but me doing a high school a mock high school schedule is contingent on a number of other people who are trying to get the school year started so I don't want to promise August but um September we'll have so I think I hope that by September you folks probably would have all the information we need for you to make a decision so so to to summarize it then in August we'll talk about the staff survey yeah I don't present all of your stuff from that yes and then we'll talk about that in all cases we need a policy on uh inter-district choice so it would be in removing a line that allows it moving the language and that we need to send that to the policy committee to come back in September with the policy then the explosion can happen Maybe I think the you know cases with either you can reassure everyone that the special education programs are not moving so that was correct I call them that explosion down will the you know we don't need inter-district choice if we do the banding of the schools so we're only doing this for those that don't want the banding of the schools we have to have a policy of that choice is how I would present it in in going forward what I understood I could be totally wrong is that the option of intra-district choice was introduced when Four Corners was made a discovery school which would allow people from the other buildings to go there from an instructional standpoint the programs at Four Corners are identical to the programs at the other buildings so don't know what the benefit is to choicing into a different school I think I mean maybe not in Greenfield but like lots of parents have to use introduce your choice because maybe they work closer to the school that you know they don't want to drive across town they have to pick up their kids so they introduce their choice for that reason or like in my case I entered District choice because the school that I was set we were set to go to was an ESL school and that's not what we needed at the time yeah we needed this this other school across the road that had different things so it like worked out but everything is so close here I don't see it being a problem I think in huge places yeah I was dealing with like a 10 mile difference that made that made sense but here when it's only two miles to between each or less well to me here perception that four corners was the right fancy stamp any of these other children there which is which is what we're trying to solve right we want all schools to be exactly like every other school do you want to have any consideration and it's it's fine if you don't you just brought up a question earlier that made me ask made me think about this do you want to allow any exception for the children of teachers or staff well the teacher that I was talking to that brought up this conversation said the teachers are in one place and their children or somewhere else that that's how eagerly teachers wanted their children into four corners that it was the Four Corners thing I and and I see nobody if if I'm the teacher it's how many miles to the I think you just said too it's like 1.5 between one and the other I see no reason that they can't send their children to the exact same kind of school oh I'm I just wanted to ask the question and we still have free before school programming at all three elementary schools so we don't have after school Parks and Rec runs the after school yes but Greenfield Public Schools pays for before school programming so for the families for our staff who has children who might be in a different place they certainly can have them signed up for before school program so so that takes care of that age that seems like a nice benefit to offer why don't I get the numbers because I'm curious and I understand your point Glenn and I understand yours like it's sort of it's such a small spot that they're not really that far away but if it's that much more convenient I'm actually curious how many were even talking about yeah the numbers are interesting yeah yeah so I'll I'll get those numbers and see if we're talking you know six kids if given the fact that I've stopped doing all requests for inter-district I will tell you the first year I had some people who were displeased and then this year there were there were a few requests incoming kindergartners and we just responded if they had a sibling yes if they didn't know and we offered a tour of the new building for one parent who's who wouldn't even have had a sibling in the building but experience was in another building and I said we'll get you in touch with the principal they can give you a tour you can talk to them about your child's needs and experiences and they seemed to be pleased with that option to at least show them the building ahead of time so there's been very little um comment about the changing of how I do inter-district choice so all right what if um Glenn I'll get the numbers of inter-district choice people children who belong to our staff and whether they're with the teacher now or at another school yes I think they're at another school then that takes it off the table yeah I'll find out um the best I can do I'll find out what what we're looking at in that regard and then August school committee staff survey Choice policy and then we're striving for a the ability for you folks to make a decision in September sounds good to me are you so sometime between August and September I will meet with the unions after there's a choice decision okay good you're welcome nothing else Glenn you're good we're good okay so we need a motion to adjourn so moved so moved yep second all right all in favor okay 422 I'll uh type these up oh shoot we're supposed to vote on minutes bye Glenn [Music]

Teresa I think I saw your hand go up yeah um this is this is a good idea but what I don't see the course descriptions between the Middle School and the high school uh you talking about the AI AIS differences and what course descriptions uh and comparing them you know what is the difference if there's any and and that is it becoming aligned now with what's in the high school uh in the Middle School yes it's a great question um so so we have to say something oh yes well I'm just going to just to point out very quickly Theresa and we could certainly share these with you that the Corsa study guide um at the high school has the descriptions for the for the various courses and they will be one in the same um which is why you didn't bring that before us you know like just there's a courtesy for us to see you know you're telling us uh just I'm not used to that I'll be honest with you I'm not you show you show us the discrete of the course study guide include the descriptions here that's all I asked uh I think it's a great idea don't get me wrong but you got to show the the comparison now it's going to be aligned with and this is what you want to do um saying it's over here and not showing me that doesn't help okay we can certainly we could certainly follow up and do that for you thank you I mean this is a great idea to just um I would like to see you know side by side comparison thank you yeah okay any other questions real quick yes hi Michelle hi how are you did you say I'm sorry I don't know if you mentioned it I know you mentioned credit but I didn't know if there it's one two or what are how many sure so the students would receive one credit so they would and that would satisfy so these students have to take two um two World Language so this would satisfy one of those already um it also helps um on the credit on the number of sections in Spanish also at the high school that we would have to offer kind of helps with the the Staffing levels there as well because now you're have to you don't have to offer as many sections because kids are coming in with um that doesn't have to say that kids wouldn't want to go all the way through and do AP Spanish or AP French um but it just opens up more opportunity um and possibilities for students which is which is really the goal how many sections then are there or does it alleviate in other words how much room does it actually well you know it depends how many students take advantage of this right because it's because it's a special area and it's an option kids don't have to take it they don't have to do it we're hoping you know we're trying to incentivize it so that everybody takes the full year so I think we'll get a sense um Michelle it's a great question um very curious myself I think we'll get a sense of of the pattern right like generally how many kids are interested and and then you know what do we have to do to to make sure that make them more aware or to or to get them you know to to take it on um so I think after a year or two um we'll get a sense of how many kids are are interested and how often they continue on at the high school yeah this could help with that 24 credit kind of issue we have it was four credits it would alleviate one and that would open up that schedule which is like a Rubik's cube right everywhere you move right so absolutely correct Michelle I think we have like 50 what was it six or seven yes so that should help with alleviating that travel absolutely yes and we and we are struggling to secure World language teachers as well so that has been a last couple of years very difficult we're still looking to fill several positions right now as we in the waning weeks of of school okay I see your hand up but if I could also just interject just another thing to keep in mind is that while we require two credits um for high school graduation many uh colleges and universities are requiring three um and so we have seen that that increase in the three uh three years of a language has increased in recent years so this will not only allow students to get a head start prior to high school but also open up the ability to take more years at at the high school level or to potentially take an elective in another area that they're interested in right that's that's a great point and we do encourage to take what the minimum College requirements are because it sets them up for success thank you Kelly Augusta I'm sorry I know you wanted to add some no I was going to I was going to bring another important component which is the Seal of biliteracy so by doing this we also kind of open the door to their appetite and made them make them more interested in actually becoming um uh eligible for the the Seal of buy literacy once they get to the high school so that would be like a climax for their World Language experience at uh at indianberry and we have started that uh three or four years ago and it has been very successful so that's another component that will definitely um get some improvement and and some help from doing this thank you anything else in the world language I love him as a hand raised I'm sorry I can't it's hard to see yes so my question is um are there any requirements in Middle School in order to take this credit like do they have to have certain grades or anything like that or is it just across the board everybody can take it and yeah it's good it's great thank you it's across the board opportunity for everyone now you have to pass the class to get the credit the same way it is at the high school so it has to be fair in the sense that like if you didn't really do well in it um and you know you didn't pass it or um you know you would probably want to take it again at that when you get to the high school and make sure yeah so but you're welcome and uh the other thing too is that we just require the part that is required as part of the Middle School experience is the exploration so we are going to introduce you to speak a little bit of Spanish a little bit of French if you're at West Side a little bit of Spanish a little bit of a little bit of Chinese so that you can make an informed decision before you engage in the year-long course that's the only requirement and we offer that's part of the Middle School experience is the exploration component but whether or not you want to take the language is is part for the student and it's open Teresa uh the credits again is a one credit for the full year and if they only do half a year they get half a credit well once you're in a course in middle school so these are full year courses so it'd be a full year it's kind of an all or nothing either you you know you take it and do well and you pass the course you get the full credit thank you you're welcome one last question I'm sure sorry um So currently when you take it and it's 1A and then 1B are you taking those uh in the same year or won your first year in two years so this is much better because you forget everything by then so you're going in exploratory it's in seventh grade now and you have full instruction for a year instead sixth grade forget everything start in an eighth and then wait again until the next year so this is actually I think a really good idea yeah thank you Michelle we think so too thank you thank you if I may just to add some clarification the in terms of curriculum the 1A plus 1B equals level one exactly the same thing exactly the same thing okay so you'll get us course descriptions yeah Augusto can uh with the course of study guide and the Middle School of Augusta can send over the description of those courses okay thank you you're welcome I think I lost you you think I lost you we could see you and we can hear you okay oh there I am okay but sometimes it yeah the screen only allows so many views at once so it's hard to see who's in the room thank you okay so I think you know I'm certainly happy to entertain any follow-up questions in this if you you know later but um if we're good I can move to the next slide and you could talk a little bit about dual enrollment okay thanks Kevin so kind of in part of the larger umbrella of creating opportunities um you may have heard me talk about through the academy you know developing when we talked about the vision of the academy was to um expand dual enrollment opportunities across all academies and not just have it in this kind of one Deco program and so that was sort of our vision and our goal from the onset is really building that up over time and you know creating articulations with area University partners and finding any opportunity to Advantage the students in some way um and so you know I think the state is I'm going to put some ego behind here they're thinking like we are now right uh and that they're starting to flood um a lot of our information and our notes and our updates with this push for for dual credit expansion and as part of some of their um I believe it's some of their leftover Sr money um they have allotted some districts um they have created it's a competitive Grant can't but pretty much all the folks who have been targeted uh have been given an allotment to to apply up to a certain amount Danbury received the notice that they are eligible to apply for this grant it's only 90 000 but um it just allows us and some some small grants are have so many strings attached to them that it's not worth it this one isn't too too sticky um so we definitely applied for and is in 100 in line with our uh with our work so um this is really about scaling dual credit opportunities and so when we applied for the grant um it was really to extend some of the work that we're already doing so um the application included stipend it's for teachers and someone to help coordinate the pathway development leaders which is really a continuation from what we're doing with Barr so um you know in the bar Grant we have 19 pathway development leaders these are the folks that are really helping with the the content area curriculum for CTE they're serving as Liaisons between the school central office they're in my office that work in a curriculum um and now as part of this we would like for them to we find Opportunities to get our nvcc or wcsu in our Post University folks who were having some conversation with who um are also approved providers with the state um to build these relationships they've also been urged by the state of Connecticut to reach back out to us and to work on alignment and articulations so that our curriculum and their curriculum have some crossover so that we can open the doors for students to get credit so for example today I had a meeting with nvcc which is a second follow-up uh where they're going to take our program of study guide so they're going to look at the let's say the engineering and Engineering pathway and they're going to say well if you're going to offer an engineering one program in your pathway um why don't we why we have an engineering program uh course description that looks very similar to what what you want to do and so let's work together to satisfy the requirements for both what we would want to see and what they would want to see and then offer a section of that class to be to earn college credit and so students so if we offer two sections of engineering we would say to students and if you want to get college credit for this one you can enroll in this section and this is the one we'll offer three credits at nvcc and today was very exciting because NBC C would like to try to match um our our pathway curriculum to at least have six credits in each pathway on potentially nine um so but these are evolving conversations but in order to kind of really do that work you really need to have content area teachers at the table working with nbcc and wescon and post um uh teachers who are engineer experts and and those who are delivering content to work together to make that to make that happen um and it's it's it's not an overnight process it's an overtime process and the the application would support the work needed to to to do that um again we have built a little bit of this in terms of curriculum into the bar grant for the pathway specific items but the bar Grant right now currently only runs through the end of this year unless we get an extension and so what we did was we took some of the things that we were doing in bar and we're hoping to sustain that work and so in the application we identified that the target year for using the funds would be 24.25 um so we're just finding try to find creative ways to leverage funds to continue to do the work especially heading into um you know the next year or two with with aspiring us for funds Etc um and then another part of the grant is uh at the bottom is is you know there are situations where in order to teach a certain course um wescon or nvcc UConn used to be a great example of this they would not engage in a do we could not have one of our teachers teach their college course unless they had a graduate two at least two graduate um courses in the content area under their belt a lot of our teachers have master's degrees in education but they may not have a master's degree in mathematics they have an undergrad uh degree in mathematics but not a master's and so UConn would say listen we'll partner with you but your folks have to take two two graduate classes before we can certify them to teach our course um and so a lot of our teachers are like ah sorry I don't have the extra you know fifteen hundred dollars to take a course you know things but no thanks and so we've embedded a little bit of funding in here so that to remove that barrier so if you have a teacher who's been teaching with us for a while and they're the perfect person to help broker some of these dual enrollment that we can reimburse them for some for um some minimal coursework to make that happen so yes Theresa so what was the total that you applied for it was night we've the the our allotment the the max we could apply for was ninety thousand might have been ninety thousand fifty dollars or something like that but it's ninety thousand and we applied for ninety thousand okay so yep um but one more and uh Teresa we would never not apply for 90.

all right Miss Rodriguez aye Miss Olson aye approved by the zero okay please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance yes one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay the next item on the agenda is public comments and I see if we have a public comment um I need to read the discipline which is visitors are welcome to speak on agenda and non-agenda items comments are limited to three minutes please state your name and address prior to making your comments please note that members of the board may not discuss items that are not specifically identified on the agenda therefore action taken is limited to directing the administration to look into the matter responding to criticism or scheduling the matter for future consideration and I see we have uh Sherry cerventek good afternoon everyone my name is seen our Jon program brushed aside in regards to our funding I'm the person who turns into requisitions I'm the vendor I get reimbursed with an approved po we have not had access to our funding since the beginning of this year when the business management I realize a new business manager was hired and totally disregarded our program I also understand that we still don't have access to our funding I'm not opposed to um our new jail and coordinator they will be voting on tonight however I'm wondering if we do not have our funding how is our JLM coordinator going to be paid um you know I just think for a moment if any one of you had a backing account with forty thousand dollars in your bank account you had no access to it because a bank employee just didn't come to work or didn't want to do their job and you had a big family you had to provide for with no funds well we've had to hustle we've had numerous sales um Sonic hybrid big sales donations parents you name it to fund all our activities since the beginning of the year and that was our after school program where we had to provide snaps include for all the children our field thing our graduation gifts and banquet for our graduates and our eighth graders who promoted and there are many other things that our kids missed out on because of the lack of funding um I understand that Cindy and grisawa have spoken to some of the board members into the superintendent and principal I also know that Mr Casey is in charge of people being in charge of the grants this coming year uh you know for me that's not enough until I see our actual funding come back to us where we're not out there hustling begging everyone to donate to us this is unacceptable [Music] um I have actually done the grant process with Dr carriero when she was here and not ones that we have to jump through all the Hoops that they were asking Mr sane to do what was our program coordinator at Good Times um only to find out later on that that the things they wanted Mr sane to do were the job of the business manager because not even Venus knew what that process was so she couldn't tell us or Mr saying what to do so your friends and uh I know that when I did it with we actually got audited that year of all years she and I we got an audience and we had to deal with the federal government in regards to our general and funding which was nothing compared to what we've gone through this past year um the future of our tailoring program here at Alpha unified it's going to eat if you want to have any notes you want to leave with us that you have written you can too okay no problem and like I said [Music] look into getting in their funds as soon as we can thank you and thank you thank you man thank you okay next item of business is governing board report of current events does anybody on the board have anything to report okay and if not we go to the superintendent's report of crown events yes Mr President members of the board here we have on board Docs having to put a hard copy a few things you know at the start of the year so we have a lot of stuff going on I'll just kind of just hit the the buying points in each of the dates that I have there we have the welcome back staff for breakfast August 1st great turnout um you began with step two of our transformation uh we recognize staff members who are taking new responsibilities but um we also talked about our year two Focus uh of U plus motivation equals success year one Focus was it's possible the second this second year the whole staff got to hear us all staff all the Red Raiders certified classified uh that the next step now is you plus motivation equals success to give us a guide to follow to just kind of uh getting ready for I'll get started at the open house very successful uh Dr Wilson I welcomed a lot of families there was a long line outside hundreds of families were there uh very proud of our partnership with the Pima County Sheriff's Office 100 backpacks they passed them all out um we also promoted the August 7th classroom apparently having breakfast for the first day of school and we also were passing our Flyers August 12th for the fall football the bleachers August 7th they really have to say no Dr Chabot and I were talking about this the classroom parent group did a great job there's a parent to my left who was in charge of the station by the fourth fifth and sixth grade classrooms and they had they had snacks fruits coffee water juices and we also had another station set up in the primary building with their intent set up it was just a really a great feel I got to see quite a few of the parents um some of the parents I got to see were Mr Bissell uh Grandma Sandoval a lot of everyone was so happy you just saw the look on their faces walking the head up shoulders back but we talked about this it just it felt good it was very good vibe all throughout campuses parents were going there walking away with their coffee and just real great start to the year and integration the classroom para group was really doing a great job great job um August 8th yesterday we had a roof renovation project meeting a long story short we had our EMC two architect here at Sun Valley Builders project manager Progressive Roofing project manager Dr Chabot mriona and I and the next the next phase is the primary building and cafeteria will receive the final roof coating the Don's medical representative will conduct a pre-coding inspection uh Mr Perry from Progressive roofings assured us that they were assistant superintendent for Progressive Roofing Yorkshire will be on campus just for the oversight of the remaining part of the roof work to make sure it is all done the most efficient way possible I wanted to share some really good news I'll just pass this down Miss Olson uh this is the ASB back to school edition goes to all over 250 K-12 public school districts we made their front page on the left you see uh maybe you see some pictures of uh of some of our students in the Aerospace program the robotics program also in the um Electronics program and on the bottom left is a picture of two of our board members Mr President Statewide got this at home well uh that's that highlights all across Arizona what's going on in Ajo and I can look into how you guys can all get that information well that's uh but this is great news uh um so I wanted to share that with you also I really want to highlight just uh this is something to be very proud of and just on the copper news the last Edition all the front page where all the awful Unified School District the parking lot project the first day of school and then you can see again the classroom parents here this is really great just to highlight what we're doing um wanna also share with you you have in front of you the false cleanup this is going to be our third cleanup so first first March 4th this is going to be this Saturday we want to try and just be even March 15th you can just focus on the Bluetooth at Jack Peterson stadium and just paint it red and white uh I've already met with Daniel about the focus and we have our surprise ready paint brushes rollers buckets so it's going to be this Saturday 6 a.m we've been working with some of our parents also throughout the community uh spreading the word and uh another uh met with another parent just this morning Mr Robertson and just share this with himself some more so a lot of great things going on a lot of ways to just try it and bring the community together as best as possible um another positive to share with you is this is Italian Athletic Association of softball 2023 Cactus region Champions all passed all around very nice uh just to share with you um just a lot a lot of uh sure a lot of um you know a lot of different things going on of course we're always you know looking for ways to get better always do that but why did it also celebrate just uh that's a great accomplishment of the district being recognized Statewide by asba on the Asda paper uh to clean up this this Saturday and I believe that is all that we that we have for the superintendent's report but um it's a lot of the stuff going on so thank you very much and next item is approval of the consent agenda I mean I have a motion to approve you to accept the consent agenda I'll make a motion I'll second it uh Miss Olson aye Mr Hopkins aye Mr Guthrie Miss Rodriguez aye Mr Curtis which is aye approved by the zero okay next item is Personnel additional classes and increase schedule for Chad chiji yes sir Mr President members of the board um due to a change in the high school schedule I think if necessary for chat chiji to teach an additional class additional class during this preparation period the Administration has recommended that DB paid his already right for the extra instructional our key is teaching I recommend the approval of a per hour payment of one hour per day for Chat City yes we have a motion on that all motion I'll second it now we can have a discussion finally there's some clarification for me so do the teachers not get paid for their Preparatory hour included in our um salary Yeah in our scope of work together yeah because essentially it means he's going to be doing more work off the clock to cover the prep period work there any other questions for discussion then we'll call for the vote okay you made the Motions okay uh Mrs I miss Hopkins aye Ms Olson aye Mr Guthrie aye Ms Rodriguez okay next item of business is the certified employment or substitute teachers Mr President members of the board of the individuals we will have expressed an interest in being substitute for a school year I recommend the approval of the above individuals as teachers substitutes for the 2324 school year okay may I have a motion on that um Mr kirsner says I'm Miss Olson aye Mr Hopkins aye Ms Rodriguez aye Mr Guthrie uh approved register okay next item is the classified resignation in the finance department of aracely Munoz Mr President members of the board uh our position is finance clerk the last day of employment was 7 27 2023 I recommend the approval of the resignation of our studying Windows as a Finance Corporation schools okay may I have a motion on there I'll make a motion either way okay Miss Olson aye Mr Hopkins aye Mr Guthrie aye Ms Rodriguez and Mr kergerich is sadly and I that is approved by the zero and the next item is the classified employment the finance of Gingers and brauna Mr President members of the board position Finance Clerk she will be part-time to start enjoying uploading with kids in the finance office I recommend the approval of the appointment of Ginger Salgado as a finance clerk for Apple schools okay may I have a motion on that I'll second it Mr kirsner just aye Mr Hopkins aye Ms Olson aye aye Ms Rodriguez aye Mr Guthrie approved five to zero the next item is the classified employment of teachers Aid Oscar Reyes Mr President has been interviewed for the position of paraprofessional teachers Aid recommend the approval of the employment of Mr Reyes as a teacher's aide paraple for office schools okay we have a motion in there I'll make a motion I'll second Miss Olson aye aye Mr kerzneriches aye Mr Hopkins aye Ms Rodriguez aye Mr Guthrie um next item is the classified reassignment and addition of teachers Aid Candace Amor Mr President members of the board of Kansas Moore current substitute has requested additional hours as a teacher's aide this more will be careful every day and a substitute as needed recommend the approval of the additional hours as a teacher's age for Candace Moore as a parental and substitute for Apple schools okay may I have a motion on that I'll second Miss Olson aye Mr kurzen reaches aye Mr Hopkins aye Ms Rodriguez aye Mr Guthrie approved five to zero the next item is the increase in the hourly rate for Jennifer Grove Mr President members of the board for the classified working positions Jennifer go submitted a a planned salaries that already increased request to uh to the last year requesting an hourly increasing pay for upcoming Health courses to be completed by August 2023.

all right good evening I'd like to call this meeting to order Miss Richards roll call president Schultz let the record show that all five board members are present this evening thank you please join us in a moment of silence and Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States no I'd like to make a motion to approve the agenda seconded all those in favor I those opposed motion carries five to one [Music] I mean five to zero sorry uh superintendent's report Mrs Richards president Schultz members of the board is we start this new school year we celebrate all the great things that are happening in Higley some of these happen this summer and we wanted to share these with you and clickers again there it is all right this summer at Arizona's thespian leadership camp we had teachers work with students their April French who's a high school teacher along with John Percival who's one of our uh uh theater teachers and also Devin Adams went to Camp it was a great leadership experience in Heber Arizona while there we had Raya McCormick Higley High School 12th grader and teslan Curtis A Williams Field High School 12th grader named officers so we are celebrating we are celebrating that this evening and the leaders we have within the school district Dr Lindsay good evening president Schultz members of the board we also have had some wonderful back to school assemblies as Richards if you could Advance the slide I can't oh there we go um so we're staff at Centennial Elementary every year they do this annually they do a performance for the kids and this year with the Mario Brothers movie that was their theme so they had a whole Mario theme and the kids loved it they ended up with um the flash mob at the end where all the staff joined on stage and did a dance routine and the whole place was rocking so it was super fun and then the next slide we have a picture from Cortina Elementary if you could Advance one more time not sure where that went oh there it is um stripes the mascot was there and the teachers also performed skits for the students and they reviewed the character Matrix so just two quick examples of the many assemblies that our schools hosted to welcome kids back and get everybody excited for the new year whoops wrong direction all right many of you attended the Higley High School celebration of the opening of the new academic building the social studies teachers are thrilled moved in and bragging every day about what's going on over there this is I want to shout out to Mr Moore and his leadership and his team for leading the charge with this it was a beautiful facility and if you haven't been able to tour it we will take you on a tour Mr Lawson hazard president Schultz members of the board curriculum nights are important start of the school year and and for those of you who are still parents I'm sure that you had the opportunity to attend the curriculum nights where our families can go through the class schedule and walk around campus with their uh with their students and meet the teachers as well and so we just have some highlights and some pictures of our curriculum nights at Higley High all four of the secondary schools help their curriculum nights as well as well of our elementaries and that's just a great picture of Mr Fields they're holding a door open well done Mr fields again we assessment held their curriculum night as well lots of smiling faces as the parents and families went through the hallways to meet the teachers more of the same Elementary also held curriculum night this past Thursday and this is a picture from Centennial president Schultz members of the board who want to highlight our upcoming events can you guys open that up please excuse us we've got new controllers everywhere including us so the next board meeting is August 23rd here in this room we also have a visit a school visit which they've called superintendent visits in the past to Bridges Elementary School we hope that you can join us for that they're all geared up and ready to brag because they've already told us of course September 4th is Labor Day and no school and our business partners breakfast is on September 14th okay thank you very much Mrs Richards that flash mob looked really cute all right request to speak we value input from our constituents this time on our agenda has been set aside for anyone from the audience who wishes to address the board those that wish to speak have filled out speaker cards which were due to the prior to the start of the meeting members of the board may not discuss comment or take action on matters raised that are not specifically identified on the agenda therefore pursuant to ARS 38-431.0 H action taken as a result of public comment will be limited to directing staff to study the matter responding to any criticism or scheduling the matter for further consideration and decision at a later date also we ask the audience members practice proper public medium decorum refraining from either negative or positive responses including clapping or verbal outbursts to ensure fairness to all points of view those that refuse to follow those rules will be asked to leave speakers limit your remarks to three minutes thank you for your cooperation first I have Aubry Thompson and it's being read by Melanie Shea hey thank you um Aubry is a mom in the district she's a former teacher and she recently had open heart surgery to replace a valve so she's not here tonight but asked she cares a lot about what's happening in our district um this is from Aubry I watched the previous board meeting where dress code changes were discussed and am concerned about the direction this may be headed after some of the comments that were made a few board members expressed concern that certain aspects of the dress code such as the requirement to cover the midriff was sexualizing our children I do not agree quite the opposite in fact having basic standards including covering the midriff teaches kids who have lots of hormones and whose brains are still developing that there's a time and a place for certain types of clothing school isn't a fashion show a party or a dance club so there's no need for anyone to be showing their midriff boy or girl if we don't draw the line at covering your midriff and undergarment area what's to stop a boy from wearing some sort of crop top and sagging his pants to an uncomfortable level or what's to stop a girl from wearing a strapless bra and a tube top Technically she's covering her undergarment area by removing that Baseline expectation we are opening up the possibility that some pretty inappropriate clothing could be worn by the kids who want to push the envelope and no one could stop them not really the best thing for a learning environment we as the adults need to set the standard that kids should be able to follow for a school setting thank you thank you and now I have Melanie Shea speaking sorry I wasn't sure the order thank you for allowing me to share a few brief remarks today I'm a taxpayer supporting the district I'm a parent of students who graduated from husd schools in addition I have worked in education including working in this district office Shirley board members and District staff have done research on benefits dress codes have on student achievement and safety I will quote from just one study which is available on the U.S Department of Education res website quote reports from principals teachers and students indicate that the imposition of a dress code is related to higher morale reduced disciplinary referrals improved school safety and a learning focused School climate close quote we all dress appropriately for the occasion all employees of this District have a dress code and as you look around you're all dressed very nicely thank you most adults have addressed code for their work UPS drivers U.S postal workers medical professionals and all support staff Pilots attorneys elected officials fire and police officers athletes musicians chefs servers Hotel staff just to name a few almost every workplace requires employees to comply with a dress code when we're on the job we aren't free to do what we want these policies are are in place that we must comply or face losing our job why would we pattern for students an unrealistic environment where anything goes K-12 schooling is the work our children are doing to help them grow and develop and learn important Knowledge and Skills to set them on a trajectory for successful adult living when doing the work of learning dress for work take the work of school seriously if you allow students to dress like they're going to the beach don't expect them to act the part of a serious student when you play dress for play when you're at home or on your own Time dress as you please but when at school or at work dress for the occasion again that address code on the U.S Department of Education is related to higher morale reduce disciplinary referrals improved school safety and learning focused School climate I trust that the board would not consider changes to the dress code without strong research of academic Improvement to support the change you are in the business of Education all policies you approve should promote learning focused School climate serve students well by setting policies that help them prepare to live as successful adults thank you excuse me next speaker Mrs Barbara Summers hey good evening um I didn't prepare anything fancy but I wanted to say that I really appreciate the work that the district did on revising the dress code policy I know that I sent a very lengthy email and I feel that we have taken the time to make a fair unbiased and inclusive dress code nobody's asking that you take away a dress code we're asking that you just make it fair um to further go on our beginning of the year has been great our staff at williamsfield as always is amazing our teachers are Administration our coaches really appreciative of all the work that they do year round and especially at the beginning of the year to make parents feel like we are involved and included um and I wanted to make a comment that I think that the board should consider a student advisory Council many other districts have a student advisory Council whether it be with the superintendent or um just at this the district level and that allows the students to speak on these matters and to give their voice and their opinions because as you know our high school students are becoming adults and they need to make decisions for themselves and this is a great place to get them involved in government Beyond student council so I really think that the district should consider that because we are moving in such a great Direction and we are doing such good things within our community and I appreciate you all thank you so much I think this is just miss p I come to you today with two points that I'd like you to consider in a future meeting the first one has to do with why we meet at 5 pm as you can see not many parents teachers students or members of the community can make a five o'clock meeting as a teacher I'm cutting out trying to get here my students well my own children who are one of which is in high school is at activities until 6 30 at night how were their voices able to be heard how are Community Voices able to be heard if the meetings maintain being at 5 pm who therefore is our own School Board truly representing when the community cannot make it to the time how does the community get their voices heard this leads into my second thing I'd like the board to consider the last meeting which was the first one I was able to make it to by sheer chance of my husband being able to take our kids to all their events there was a lot of verbal bullying going on amongst board members you speak a point of view and acceptance that you want your students and faculty to have but there was no respect amongst a bunch of you and one particular member her point of view you kept changing her words and making it seem like she was against faculty just because she was asking very serious questions about a particular event sadly at one of the curriculum nights that I attended not Williams Field but it was at one of the middle schools I saw that same level of bullying going on amongst faculty against a new faculty member what you all do on this board and the way you treat each other that is viewed by the your fellow teachers as what's acceptable I was appalled when walking through that one particular middle school and the jokes and laughter I heard from other teachers and all I could think of is well how did they find that their behavior was acceptable and I kept coming back to the last board meeting where the same type of behavior was on display so I would like you to consider the fact that the way you speak to each other in front of the public even when there's very few here is how your fellow teachers treat their teachers also thank you next uh Jennifer Arnold good evening my name is Jennifer Arnold I am a teacher at Higley Traditional Academy proud member of the Higley Education Association tonight though I'm here to talk as a mom my daughter Kate graduated from Williams Field High School in May she began her academic career here in Higley the first year that Centennial opened she began at the kinder prep program that at that point was just one class which obviously has grown a lot she stayed at Centennial moved to HTA when I was hired there went to Cooley Middle School and onto Williams Field High School at the age of 12 Kate was diagnosed with autism so as you can imagine the path that we were on took a right turn and we had to navigate new Waters sorry public speaking not my favorite thing um so I just wanted to call to give a shout out to some of the teachers at williamsfield high school that made her academic career um enjoyable I first wanted to recognize her case manager Nikki Fife Nikki forged a bond with Kate and a relationship with her and Kate came to trust her and knew that if she needed anything that Nikki would help her and two of the teachers I'm sorry three of the teachers that Kate just adored were Muriel Inman who she took for French one and two her English teacher Brittany O'Neal and her ceramics teacher Elizabeth Habib all of these teachers took the time to make my daughter feel seen and make her feel special which when you are a child especially a girl on the autism spectrum sometimes making friends is hard to do so knowing that you had a teacher there to support you meant a lot to our family and to Kate so I just wanted to really highlight a great success for our um for our district and specifically for Williams Field high school I'm grateful to be a part of this district and I'm grateful that my daughter attended our schools thank you next we have Mindy brocker thank you very much for the opportunity to speak I hate public speaking so please be patient with me but you know meeting after meeting there does seem to be a concerted effort from a small very small segment of our community but they're loud and it seems like they wish to tear down public education push parents towards Esa vouchers and in fact shut down the Board of Education they often question not only the professionalism and conduct of our husd Educators but they're very morality so I wanted to just take a minute today to tell you why I love my public school and the people that hold it up because I think they should hear it so I just want to say thank you to every teacher who smiled through the chaos and craziness that is the first day parent and kid Jitters alike thank you so much for standing in this horrible heat endlessly waiting car lines forward um and trying to repair car line issues that are endless I want to say thank you to the bus drivers who always hit me with a smile and a wave and they take my kids to and from school safely every day thank you to the virtual teachers who make it so that my children can take classes that they want to take even with a teacher shortage and the chaos of staffing issues thank you to the health staff who are always kind and patient and help my kids when they don't feel well we've already had that thank you to the teachers who spend hours in IEP meetings who keep us up to date on their classes and how they're educating my children so that parents have a right to know what's going on they also deal with endless emails from my children and from their mother thank you to the administrators who always help every time we ask with a smile and finally thank you to those teachers the ones who make my children think who teach them that they're valued who partner with the parents to help us to create that next generation of leaders thank you next we have Adam brocker good evening I'm a parent of three wonderful kids in our district our family has been here about 10 years now and it's been a wonderful experience for us overall um unfortunately the reason I'm here this evening is that the conversation has gotten utterly toxic I would like the board to discuss a code of conduct for social media for specifically board members the reason I'm asking for this this evening is one of the mem one of the board members is specifically using their social media presence to identify specific teachers in our state and leading others to harass them they are putting up all kinds of poisonous language and specifically linking to those teachers uh District staff page this is not a not appropriate um it is not okay to direct this kind of harassment towards our teachers there should be some sort of punishment for those kinds of actions uh I don't care about what your politics are and how you choose to express them but harassing teachers online is not and will never be okay this person is a bully and should be ashamed of themselves thank you thank you I believe it's Ira Latham was that right yeah okay thank you uh president Schultz members of the board and I don't know how to address you all but all y'all thank you for this opportunity to speak um I'm coming today as a father uh of four kids in the district um and as also a business owner I'm going to speak specifically on the um the new dress attire uh recommendations um first I want to thank everyone that's been involved in updating policy it's a challenging thing to do especially when you want to represent a whole community so I understand that that's very difficult um specifically I wanted to address the vagueness of the new policy as opposed to the the old policy and my recommendation would be to re-look at that and how we can integrate some of the older policies into the new policy vagueness I'm speaking of is uh the actual the the recommended recommended new policy does not give enough specifications on what should be covered it specifically talks about just the uh underwear areas and private areas whereas the old policy specifically called out mid-drifts modest chest covering and the reason why I think this is a specifically important for a for a father of kids is I was once a teenage boy I I remember how school was and uh and I understand how dress codes are important with regards to the classroom setting I've had nothing but respect for higher education and education in general and I think that creating a good safe classroom environment is important I understand the need to express yourself but that's not the right place to do it in the classroom uh with with regards to dress and attire we need to kind of set a Level Playing Field um as as a business owner I think that we're disserviceing the children by not properly getting them the right expectations on what they're expected to once they leave the schooling system I've never seen a business that I've ever been either been in or been a part of or even organization that doesn't have stricter dress requirements than the one that's outlined in the current policy so so as a business owner I'm a little confused of the purpose of the dress code if it's not setting children up or students up for Success after school um it would be my recommendation to uh or my request for recommendation to be able to review the policy as as regards to Old policy and see where we can kind of combine and make make it a little bit better policy for the students for the teachers and as well for the community as large thank you next we have Monica Latham members of the board um I want to say thank you like I know that this takes a lot of time and effort you guys you could say don't get paid for this this is something that you know takes a lot of time for out of your family so I do want to say thank you for doing that um especially since we're all so busy and so it just puts an extra thing on you so um but I did want to address what happened last board meeting I was very concerning to me to see a board member demean and talk down to another board member it went on for about a minute or or over a minute we were supposed to be above that we were supposed to to help make roles that prevent prevent that from happening in our classes and in our schools and it was happening right here in this Council how can we help kids teens be kind to one another when we can't do it ourselves we are all humans and should be treated as such I hope that we can stop this from reoccurring um just because it was done with educated words does not mean it was the right thing to do or should be allowed to continue everyone on this board earned their right to be here and represents different thoughts and ideas from all different people and all different families a lot of families that I that I am part of also and so um I'm the spouse to Ira and so we do have four kids here and I have three kids at Chaparral Elementary go sharks um a good Mantra that they have they have the ACB 7 learning habits now it's eight learning eight habits um to be a leader and one of them is first seek to understand than to be understood and we should definitely be taking that into account and should not be doing what happened last last meeting um anyways I I also really wanted to quickly touch base with also the the dress code um it's very vague if my husband and I have talked about it a lot and when I was in high school yes it was over 10 years ago but are under 10 years what but I had my best friend who developed early she got pregnant at 16.

I want to let you know about uh Kelly Bond and Jenna trank were selected to represent the district on the national teacher Council for modern learning and Kelly was also named chair of that Council um so some representation in modern teacher uh give you a little bit flavor of the district process 262 individuals both new hires and transfers even though they may be our employees but if they transfer there's still a process that they have to go through so you can see with certified staff 65 new hires and 44 transfers classified staff 29 new hires and 16 transfers we're still working on that so there have been some people that have been hired since this data has come through um Dr duplicitous was at a job fair just this week more of a support staff job fair than a certified staff so we're constantly looking and trying to fill out different positions and so we'll continue to work with that classified staff for substitutes for new hires and one transfer substitute for certified 11 new hires so that places Us in in a better position twofold number one we have more substitute teachers but we're also closer to fully staffed this year we're we we're fully staffed but in terms of long-term Subs the number of long-term Subs we have in most cases is is minimal and some of the people that are long-term Subs are actually working towards their teaching degrees so unlike the last couple years where we had multiple unfilled positions which were taken away our subs and we were short Subs this year we seemed to be in a much better spot relative to that there is a whole bunch of links so this is in this that you can open these links if you want Michaela just wanted to provide some stuff on marketing some of the information the enrollment lead update and some of the stuff on the community had preschoolers is a part of or in in line with the board in the student enrollment report that you'd asked for I shared it with you digitally this afternoon but I also left a hard copy in front of you for your uh wanting to look at it and so you can take a look at some of some of all this I'm not going to go through each one I will tell you as on the Sun Times the Queen Creek Sun Times I know Mr Delane I think you reached out to them we will be doing I will be doing a monthly superintendent column along with I think Mr Barry or Dr Barry already does that but we've submitted the second one that'll come out here pretty quick so we'll go ahead and use that to to help us out uh Ranch welcome their students with red carpet appeal and parents both a drop off parent drop-off and Bus drop off kids loved it and were excited by the start of the new year cta's got game on fundraiser funds being used to provide students with updated playground equipment and designated soccer and football areas and they're also providing staff with items to to they choose to help fill their needs to promote student-centered classrooms both teachers and student supplies at the high school Jason Nielsen was recently named Region Three teacher of the year for the CTE program in the medical area I also want to bring forward AP results so with ap again this is a pretty speaks highly of our kids as well as our teachers we had 171 kids take the AP exam last year in 11 different courses last spring and in the AP exam a three or higher on a five-point scale generally gets you college credit not always but generally gets you college credit and we had 42 percent of the students score three or better the national percentage was 21.6 in the state percentage was 14.7 so overall the percentage of kids that got a three or better was significantly higher we also had a number of different programs or courses that scored at least 50 percent you can see AP Spanish had a hundred percent I believe it was seven kids that took that one AP Lit in composition was 79 percent but both AP Lit and AP language comp which was 58 both of those classes had about 25 give or take 25 kids in a class so 79 of 25 would be significantly more than the seven in in AP Spanish so it just depends on which kids decide to take the test and then world history and U.S history had 50 so I show you that uh probably some stuff coming out from the district on that piece the success of the kids in that and uh just in looking at schedules uh we I'm seeing a little bit of an increase in some of the classes that kids are taking uh that are AP based and then I just have a whole list of upcoming events I'm not going to go through those all but those are mainly for the pretty much cover the first nine weeks they go into October um just so you have an idea what's coming up so we do not have um a recognition of an individual groups like we do in future meetings but we do have recognition for the blue apples and so I am going to call up Karma first to make a presentation for the apples and then we'll call up Jen thank you not that tall so this is absolute um pleasure and honor to be asked to recognize darcene kishbaugh I have had the pleasure of working with her for 19 years um she started as a fruit girl that was the less popular vegetable girl but she I remember we have this professional development class that we took and it was on Exemplar exemplary customer service and they went over that they're like who are our customers and all of us Noble first of all is the students absolutely but then it extends out to the parents and it sends out to your co-workers it stands out to other departments basically if they're human they're your customer and that's where your customer service is and I know that over the years she's always wanted to do it just the way it needs to be done that it's correctly done and that um people know they were heard and I know we're kind of struggling the food service because we're waiting on new hires to get here and so we're both out at schools and we're doing our best to get back and even if we see that they found their way to where they needed to be we're still she's still getting back to him because we want him to know that their messages are not just falling on a dead ear but she has been invaluable like I couldn't put a value on her what she has done for this department over the years I know that she has helped so many people and I can just see like when she walks in the kitchen the whole stuff's like okay Darcy's here she'll fix it it's like it's just she's very good at what she does and so I just like to recognize her and thank her for being here and being absolutely wonderful at her job [Applause] thank you [Laughter] [Applause] and then we'll ask gen Corey to come on up good evening so I started with the district July 1st two weeks ago Dr Wyman says you get to pick someone from your department to acknowledge at a board meeting so you can imagine what's going through my mind at that moment and really with the team in student services I can't even begin to tell you how excellent each and every one of them is and truly I am so fortunate to have and be a part of this team they are nothing but outstanding professionals so to recognize one is is hard but I know every year we highlight one that should come before you so for this year we are going to highlight Brenda's ends and she is our program specialist and I told her I was going to make her come up here and stand next to me so she can hear all these words from her colleagues which is she is really an educator lifelong professional compliance driven with essential and is essential in the world of special education she can be counted on she can lead projects and work collaboratively with a team she brings Insight gained from her experiences and merges with the new information and new opportunity as a person Brenda is kind and generous as the longest serving representative of the District student services team she is welcomed and supported the growing team welcoming everyone who comes on board we are grateful for her leadership and her support and on that note I'd like to tell you that Brenda started her career in 1993.

by one student are there any questions in regards to this data if not I will follow this with the school facilities board tomorrow anybody have any questions no no okay then admission please I moved to approve the fiscal year 2024 Capital plan as presented and a second Jen okay all in favor say aye aye aye opposed it passes four to zero next is item 8.3 discussion and consideration of approval of the JL Combs Unified School District hearing officer list for 23-24 school year this is just something we do every single year this just brings names forward to you in case we need to have hearings uh independent outside individuals on a hearing could be for student discipline could potentially be for an employee issue too for the most part these are uh former Educators there's one exception on there which has been Hufford he's an attorney I always put his name down just because in case the situation is complicated it may involve a legal representation on the other side at least the hearing officer that we have in place understands the law and Dr tabletsis and myself are on there just as a safety net and depending on what would go on so I would recommend approval as presented any questions about this item no okay then I'll entertain a motion I moved to approved list of hearing offers for officers for student disciplinary hearings for the 23-24 school year as presented second okay all in favor aye aye all opposed passes four to zero item 8.4 discussion and consideration of the inter intergovernmental agreement between Pinal County Sheriff's Office and the J.L Combs Unified School District for a school resource officer last year we uh Sherry Dukes Dr Dukes applied to the school safety program for its three parts it's actually got social workers counselors and school resource officers we actually applied for three different well we applied for two school resource officers one of the high school and one to split between the Middle School and the alternative school in actuality for some reason the state gave us three but just because they gave us three doesn't mean we get three and so in talking with uh Pinal County pcso they do have or will have an officer available that could become a SRO at our high school they're waiting on some hiring issues so it may not occur right away but this is the agreement with them to go ahead and have that individual come on board as soon as possible in the grant it showed a price tag of 110 it's actually a price tag of 158 uh a thousand dollars that's picked up by the state we're still talking with the state um the the grants or the belief of superintendent horn as we ought to have officers in every one of our schools and so they're not going to be able to fill all the requests even that were approved because again many of the Departments do not have enough officers to put in schools so I'm not worried about the the difference in pricing that'll get taken care of but and we're working with ad but we do want to bring you that piece I would argue that even if we didn't get funded which I highly doubt that would happen we would fund the difference just because of the importance of a SRO at our high school so this will get us started and then it's a matter of when pcso they have an identified officer that's on the other side of the county but lives over here that would come here but it's a matter of them going through the hiring process to get someone else to replace and I'm not totally sure how long that will take but but hopefully it'll be fairly quickly so I would recommend approval as presented questions anybody no okay then a motion please I moved to approve the IGA between Pinal County Sheriff's Office and Joe Combs Unified School District for a school resource office officer at CHS as presented second okay all in favor say aye aye opposed it passes four to zero okay next 8.5 discussion and consideration of approval uh Pinal County school safety Cooperative agreement what they're finding there's new uh process out there in this case the software is called Mutual link what it allows for is the police department to come in and take over your cameras in the events of an emergency especially like a shooter on campus or something like that it's very restrictive when they can take over our cameras so it's it's not a case where they can just look in it anytime that they feel like it several districts use this and they're seeing success in situations uh Scottsdale unified did a drill that was scheduled for four hours had the whole thing had all the hospitals mock up all that kind of stuff they caught the two perpetrators because I actually had a plant inside within 20 minutes and so because the dispatcher can see what's going on and can tell officers exactly where to go so this is the software that we're looking to do Pinal County received a grant from the governor's office for this and so they're in the process of utilizing the money for that to do a Consortium across the entire County so that all school districts that want to and sign up for it can be on it uh and so that's a recommendation to move with Pinal County at some point we'll probably also have a conversation with uh qcpd although there's no campuses in their jurisdiction obviously there are jurisdiction butts right up to some of our campuses so in the events of emergency they would they would be uh dispatched also but this is the Consortium in Pinal County and therefore it's just a Pinal County pcso issue so that's my recommendation to move forward with as this as presented questions I do have one um it says pcso will only have access to the cameras in the event of emergency do they need to contact us to get access in that no there's a the the back end works with with um uh what their what their computer system works to access our computer system and so there's just an agreement that says you can't access it in the events emergency as somebody's called out for a situation then they would be able to dial in or I shouldn't say dial in that sounds old like I'm real old but they'd be able to go ahead and use a user password to get in uh into the system and go ahead and access the the cameras and we use vercatas which we put in across all of our schools and many of the districts are using brocato so there's not a problem between the Ricotta and mutual link communicating uh if there was an emergency and if they were to do that in the case of emergency would we be aware of that yes okay so we would know when that's happening okay other questions all right then a motion Jason you want to do some I don't want to no I'm in a long time I motion to approve the Pinal County Safety school safety Cooperative agreement as presented second all in favor say aye aye opposed passes four to zero next 8.6 discussion and consideration of approval for the purchase of Windows laptop computers for secondary teachers members of the board Dr Wyman colleagues how you doing the purpose of this agenda item is to refresh our Windows devices for our high school middle school and all School staff the high school devices are the oldest who have we they we purchased them in 2017 and more devices at the high school have started failing over the last year or two so you know we'd like to refresh the devices there for sure the other issue that we're running is Windows 10 support ends at the end of the year and the devices at the high school we can't upgrade them to Windows 11.

early on yes good evening if you join me with the pledge I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all right oh Lord Jesus just kind of quiet us down here for a moment and uh just want to acknowledge that school starts tomorrow are you aware of that we want it to be a special year and year that's great for our students and our staff help us to be sensitive to their needs to hear with our ears and to see with their eyes what we can do we just ask that we also be able to be a conduit for your love and uh your grades into their lives these things I ask for the precious name future board meetings moving right along through August 22nd September the 12th and then September the 26th uh revisions I think tonight are limited to the HR public recognition we have a recommendation to approve the fifteen thousand dollar donation from Ford meter box company for schools academic programs and clubs and also recommendations are approved for 250 donation from Kingsview LLC David wrong for Salford Elementary preschool learning and early literacy we have a motion to prove those we always appreciate donations and especially one of the Ford Foundation does civil schools motion is second all in favor of the approval I I all right we have school recognition tonight um not tonight I'll share some other things that's Superman from hotel public comment I think we could move past that and move on to approval of minutes from the meeting on July the 25th second all in favor say aye a little opposition claims if you've had an opportunity to review claims usually this time of year they Spike way up and it didn't seem to be as many I think we got that done [Laughter] so yeah I'm Motion in seconds on the floor for approval of the claims all in favor say aye all right payroll nothing really shared about payroll this is our second payroll of the fiscal year the next payroll will conclude the 22-23 school year pay and then the last one in August will be the first pay of the 23-20 course which we will see some increases in that do the classify races that we use included this spring and the staff changes payroll second motion the second all in favor of approval say aye aye we think Financial summary there is just the end of the month cash balances so you can see where we sit at the end of July and each of our fund balances importance of cash balances if you want to address the education yeah so the education fund budget this is the preliminary budget for 2024.

her home is Bluffton and that's where she's teaching now and go up to high school so that's why she left us I think she really really really liked us Tim was the principal at the time I believe I guess um and she did not really want to to do that resignation but it just worked out well for her and she's doing great there loved it too so wish her well and thank her for the Keynotes and then of course which was already mentioned tomorrow big day was school starting so all the things that happened and all the preparation we get to see uh the results of that starting tomorrow so that will be fun and we're all going to go to different schools to see how all the transportation and the kids get off to school there could be a lot of energy everywhere and hoping for good weather too I think it's supposed to be until maybe later in the day but I know I know it's always good to get fresh air during the day so I'm looking forward to a great start to 23-24 school year so that's all I really have for now I shared with you some information about college credits um we got our AP results in which led me to convert those credits at Purdue and so by my account we were at 2000 and 2008.5 college credits earned by NSD Wabash County kids most of those of course are Juniors and seniors for us and that is through a wide range through Heartland through our advanced placement throughout your credits through kids going to college campuses and so I really appreciate our small school field where we meet kids kind of where they are and so I share that with you we did have a student earn the Indiana College Court even though we really weren't rolling that out until this fall but we're rolling it out now and I think a lot of parents have have heard about that and are encouraging their students can get that of course we should always keep in mind that colleges are not required to take those college credits for specific classes within your major you're entitled to those credits but they don't always transfer specifically to that and so I always encourage parents to look at specific colleges where they're going so they can see where those things match up so in other words if you get the ICC you're going to get 30 college credits however they may not apply to the math or English or whatever social studies requirements your major has so you just want to be a good consumer and take classes uh or at least be aware of the classes you begin uh on the back of that on the second page the AP releases some distinctions and so uh since we are on Facebook and we're broadcasting out I'd like to read these names out um AP Scholars from last year this would be the May 2023 these students earned a three or higher on three different AP exams which is pretty impressive in some right Elise Adams it's the class of 23 she was a senior last year and graduated Carrie Collins class of 24 Derek Dieter and Cheyenne Stout all AP Scholars who scored three which is kind of considered passing on three or more AP exams and then AP Scholars was distinction these students earned a 3.5 on all exams and they've taken at least five exams and scored three or higher of them this is Brynn Neely and Dakota Wilson and of course to get to that many AP exams they are seniors and Credit Unions so just very proud of their efforts and yeah yeah so I just want to make a little question yeah foreign new business this evening we have four items the first one is a requirement from Indiana code for me to open a public hearing before we begin formal bargaining with the teachers union so at this time I will open the hearing no comment I'll close again second item is a recommendation to prove the McKinney evento District plan so let me just share a little bit uh the bikini Vito District plan really is very similar to the state plan we have a specifics of some of the things in our own School District Mr Mike McDevitt who is our principal of Weiss Junior Senior High School is our liaison for that I used to go through the training he has gone through that training now also and so this is our plan it's not a policy but it's just a plan that will be or it is or will be on on our website and just to let you know we do have uh some students that are considered homeless a lot of times when we think about being homeless we think about just not being able to you know just be sleeping in a in a tent or someplace like that that's not necessarily what it means they can be displaced for different reasons they can be with other family members and so we have had situations where you know we have a fire for example of a home and they had to go move to a family in a different County even and if that's the case then we will be able to help them to continue with their schooling until they can get back to our school district unless they actually withdraw and go to a different School District so there are some costs that are involved with that too and we take care of that whether it's transporting them with our own school buses or actually paying parents to be over for mileage so we've done that before and there's some other situations where it may be staying in a motel or something like that so it is something that people just want to make sure that we help those students in those situations and those families and this is just basically is the plan so I'm not going to read the whole plan to you because it's fairly long but it's something that we have been doing that we just need to approve it if there are any changes and so or just approve a period so I'll just ask that you approve the plan that has been submitted so here against our policy so it does have two briefings to certain point any questions now we'll take a motion to approve d segment all in favor of praying that mechanic into our district plans AI all right third item will be recommendation to approve the adjunct teacher positions and permits for the 2023-2024 school year so the state of Indiana Department of Education now allows us to be able to hire adjunct teachers and positions and really a lot of it is based on them being in front of classrooms and teaching and so what this does for us it doesn't really change what the actual person that will have the permit to do but what it does is it allow it allows us to be able to count their actual salaries towards the 62 percent that were required to provide and they are for example the ones that we have or what we call classroom instructors so they will allow me called adjunct teachers there's a variety of things that we will have to do with this but one is that we have to have the school board approved positions and permits which we'd actually do tonight and then there are other things that we will do internally with them but the spirit of the 62 percent with the teachers is to be able to educate our students and so our classroom instructors that we have right now are our three-year-old Preschool teachers and also those classified staff that are at whites who are in front of a classroom at White super Senior High School so again if you have questions entertain those but I just ask if you would approve this recommendation to approve the adjunct teacher permitting I'll second all in favor of approval say all right all right thank you item Four's recommendation to approve the requirement to inform governing body that would be us regarding certain legal expenses a threshold of fifty thousand dollars so in Indiana code which is new starting January 1 I as the superintendent if required to inform you just like it says here of these legal expenses and the recommendation is that we would recommend the threshold of fifty thousand dollars I will tell you though that typically I'm going to tell you of any situations that might occur um and also you would know about them too so when we do bonding bonding costs can be pretty expensive but you will know about that you'll be voting on that I think some of this probably in legislation was enacted because there were some situations somewhere that cost a lot of money and the board did not know about it I don't know if that's a situation but are turning their shaking his head too so I would think that that happened um and really it comes down to just the superintendent too so um as far as any kind of repercussions from that that would be on the superintendent so I will continue to make sure that you are aware of situations whether it's one dollar or fifty thousand dollars but we're putting that threshold because it says that we need to put a threshold so my recommendation is a threshold of fifty thousand dollars but I will continue to let you know if I have to talk to our school attorney about situations that's going to cost so so I don't believe me anything's final unless it's just being political and the public record absolutely promotion a second to approve the recommendation for fifty thousand dollar legal threshold say aye all right all right there is no unfinished business listed or board policy public comment items from the board if not I think we'll return [Music] about 6 28.

thank you well welcome everybody to the work session yes this is actually going to be our third work session so um of the same topic but just having more discussion and I will turn it over and just let you know that we do have the drawings that we've had before here and we will be projecting all the information that we'll discussed so appreciate that why again and barking Co both of my being here and we'll let Dana begin thank you again thank you gentlemen um not a lot new obviously for you tonight what we have done is our best to make the tunisians and the support space and support the gymnasiums as identical as possible in all three options so just a refresher the decision's already been made sixth grade's moving to the High School Junior Senior High School where does that leave Sharp Creek and how do you deal with that we developed three options none of these options are probably what you'll end up doing in the end but hopefully it's a variation of one of them taught me and this is just a way to help you make a big high level decision and then begin to drill down as we work through that so beyond that as I said we've tried to make the Junes and the support spaces all as similar as possible if you look at option one that's renovating Sharp Creek obviously with that comes the issues that go along with trying to renovate a building that you're occupying thought being you might build a gym create temporary classroom Shuffle kids around because renovate spaces at the end of the day we'd gain a larger cafeteria than what you currently have a larger kitchen than what you currently have a new gym the new office two new classrooms and 17 renovated classrooms and I don't know if you want to jump back into the revised costs on each option or you want to go through three options first and then come back to the costs I would we just run through the auction okay we'll do that that way so option two is tearing down Shark Creek and renovating and expanding Metro North here the notion is generally to add two classrooms to each of the three pods a preschool Wing out to the north tear down the existing kitchen fill the gym out that way with its locker rooms build a new gym on the west side of the existing cafeteria use that existing wear wash dressing area that was originally built for the gym expand that and move the office into that so it comes front and center whether you bring people in it clear at the south end or you take them part way up through before you bring them into the space gives you some variation in how you address the whole secure entrance thing that way nice thing about this one in my mind is it gains you now but what else I have to here in this option we end up with 12 new classrooms new gym new kitchen so as you're kind of thinking about what goes into this and what you're saying along with a lot of sight and development yeah but you would still have left over in this option is your existing shop Wing at the high school that is in need of some physical attention so then option three is tear down Shark Creek and add on to Northfield Junior Senior High the approach here was to tear down the existing shop classes shop areas grab the classroom on the northwest corner turn that into the office in a new entrance right there at that Corridor exit bring people in into the North we're looking at 14 new classrooms there big gym and locker rooms and then because your CTE programs have a slightly different flavor now than they did when the current building was constructed we would come down to the southwest corner and add on Space there designed toward the way AG or whatever program you guys want to introduce would be taught currently I think we're showing about 11 1200 square foot spaces there okay if I forget exactly that was just a placeholder to put a number on it but we could put whatever you want there I think Chris and Tim both made the comment as long as we have access to the parking lot for overhead doors we can make it work wherever you put it so that was the approach to this one um I think initially we had sort of left with the locker rooms those pink ones on the right side we had left those tucked back a little bit or pulled them around so we didn't create a isolated Courtyard in the middle but if this has worked through now a couple of iterations we've stretched that out and connected the new gym to the existing Varsity gym entrance so that in theory you can connect all of your PE spaces together and use them more in units in this option obviously Metro North within turning into a pk2 probably wouldn't have quite so many PK rooms as you did in the last option but kindergarten first grade and second grade commutes moving the deposit with the spare room or special needs could get split apart or however that works best for that curriculum so it's pretty high level pretty quickly through but I think you guys have looked at these and I've probably had a pretty notion of what I'm talking about so um questions yeah it's questions you always have questions I guess uh before we get to the numbers Skip by chance David this northbuilt location become the K-12 campus should we look at more of a master type planned even add more spaces on here that are rather than can I use the term the other day tacking on tacky phone Circle I'm not saying that's going to happen I'm not saying that's the direction we're heading but if the money is going to be spent at Northfield then Sunday metro North might be moved there as that is a frequent statement I make towards in corporations that are declining in population not knowing when that's going to level out hopefully in Plateau but I always tell them what's the last building you would abandon and it's always the high school so we begin to talk about how does a build out occur if at the end of the day you become a K-12 building now saying that some of the things you need to keep in mind right now you're at three Section Elementary at the point you would actually become a K-12 you might be down to a two-section Elementary at that point so the build out to extend and bring a few more classes over might not be as big as you'd think but in this situation I think you'd have to give some consideration to the smaller the kids does that same big gym space still work for them probably does the cafeteria work for them that's probably more question of both and you want to think about how you feel like that yeah so definitely I think there's real value in saying if this is the option we're considering pursuing we should take a much deeper dive into what might it look like I guess that's where I'm going to take a step back and build flexibility into it or at least try and have that flexibility there some kind I don't know how that would be whether it be in consideration of roof lines and extending utilities and things like that or not nope all those things are perfect you mentioned the other day I think you did that you were involved with that at Central field house no we didn't do Adam Central School Bus you guys did you made it is there a value of the field house style over adding the third gen it was at the Northfield site what would that involve it would involve more square footage and a higher higher Peak interior like uh Raptor angle it's just all a matter of what you want to do with any space more to heat that I didn't know if it offered something for it let's say the counter seasonal sports like football or baseball being be able to do inclement weather and practice indoors okay all those are again they're pertinent questions they're going to reason I wouldn't fit in that space there probably more to the West though you move the jump to the site plan please otherwise there we go so yes okay um the last two the more we move north and west obviously we crunch up against the softball field at some point from the cost perspective they'll move in the softball field might be more responsible than limiting how you address your emissions well certainly a field house would be more expense station you wanted to maintain a gym high temperature which they usually don't but it offers also that it offers something for the community too I think going through sports with four kids and living in the gyms so if you're thinking about more of a communal aspect to that facility we definitely want to complicate that from about to go so it's easier to access segregate now rather than the integral Loop just thinking you know if if you once you begin to focus on one option or the other certainly begin to drill in those things more yeah but it does come into play though if you think you could do more here than it attracts you to make the decision well that's that's where the numbers come into play what are you getting for what you're paying for part of the discussion last time was the size of the Gene and making sure that there was an adequate representation of that and those are the Gin that you have what was about 13 8 13 which is just a tad bigger than what a current main genes will be which would at least give you a couple extra quotes you know obviously you could go bigger if you want to act like the lab I'm not sure you need a whole lot more square footage to literally get three quarters it becomes more matter of how we start succeeding that's the seating tool maybe across one of those chords so that you can watch two of them well I I don't want to get away from the academics just they would build a chance but but you also want to get the most bang for yourself if you do this you still need the gym you better get material that you're going at least one of those please right not necessarily one of each is the cafeteria sufficient so it's just okay I mean I'm in the kitchen the kitchen would be sufficient I would believe we'll just saying we're not changing Factory but not adding any grade levels it's a space because they have to take down the chairs and tables after and before every lunch because there's activities and then it doesn't really give them a space when they there's bad weather outside for indoor recess and so especially at lunchtime right so an additional space of sumps or would be beneficial for and I think some of the costs that will be discussed explaining to that too as far as which round will go which route we go I'm not going anywhere you can call me back up and I'll turn it over today well with regards to the numbers um basically what we did on all three of them is mentioned before here we made sure that the gymnasium sides and the locker room size was consistent among all three of them um the last testing we did prior to this one uh there were there were different gym sizes and then after our discussion at the last meeting and making sure we don't under build and the desire to have 600 seats and so forth we just made sure even though the drawings may not necessarily show a 13 800 square foot gym we where they had budgeted that knowing that um whatever option you may choose to move forward with the drawings of the problems eventually incorporate that size of the gym so that was the main difference between um this estimate and the one we had the four um where there was a change because of a scaling issue on the drawings was the Northfield Elementary budget that number actually dropped uh because the scale on the drawings that I was originally using was smaller and I was taking off too much square footage and when I got the correct scale from Bartaco I did a complete takeoff on that school again and the square footage that was shown in the drawings actual uh numbers actually went down in terms of square footage and that's why you saw a pretty decent drop in the projected cost for the Northfield site so that's you know not to read everything I said at the last meeting those are the primary changes took place between the last meeting we had and what we are today it's more about 3.3 difference between option two and three so that discussion about Metro North spot but just to add space to Metro North to take care of that gym cafeteria situation you throw a figure or a square foot you could use them just to give it a little rough estimate what what are you doing there another gym uh honestly I guess I would suggest we put on another cafeteria you will use the existence space for Jim you don't need the volume it's a little cafeteria so can you just how would you you would yeah I'm just trying to think how would you add that on or you can even go to the I'm going to go to the South or there's room and you go to the not to the West the go to the South that's just to the South Carolina well look at this yeah 2000 feet 2000 square feet so we need yeah all right we take inside the cafeteria we take the total number of lunches served divide it by 3 can count three periods that over an hour and a half two hours to serve all the kids so that's about a hundred kids at a time to file out 15 square feet per student that's 1500 square feet Plus 500 square feet of hallway circulations you know aisle space we're around 2000 2500 square feet I was just wondering if there's a because obviously looking at where what we were going to do there if we went that option I had been thinking about this but I you know we're an existing locker rooms are a storage space if there would be a way because you got your or you ought to get here or when they clean all the you know the trades and all that it's right there right there's a way that you could come off to the east of there and be able to put a cafeteria in the in maybe enlarge that space is what I was getting there we could probably extend that space South to about flush with the South Wall of the existing cafeteria and get pretty close to the square footage you've learned that way we don't mess up your roof line today well that's right yeah I just didn't want something you don't want to get in the weeds too much but just to give that's one thing that we wanted to try to help to set up that situation so whatever right 350 square foot two thousand square feet so that's 700 000.

it's just one of those things I always thinking about thank you do this and then oh I wish well that's obviously probably cheaper now to put another 40 feet on than the kind of six years down the road and put 40 feet on it so it's which was my point you at this point you're trying to get to where are we are we going to renovate Sharp Creek are we going to expand Metro North or are we going to expand Northfield it's not going to look like what I showed you I can promise you that because you'll think of a lot of other things as you're working through this that might tend to tweak the way things get put together or it actually gets included I think last time we talked about 14 classrooms in the Northfield option it's really possible that somehow apart music for the elementary become an adjunct to existing art music and Junior High in high school well now I don't necessarily need rooms in the elementary for that but you might have some other use in the elementary you might want to develop it their own Media Center rather than use the existing one we'll have a lot of conversations like that and those will all be different depending on which option so there's a number of growth as far as this I know some of this last paper has a cost forward which that was just an option that was added mostly because about the town where you would put the program well that's what I was just been an option so a new playground as we get into that yeah 200 000 allowance do they use the playground studies yeah probably is more of a black top area [Music] is yeah monkey bars [Music] foreign [Music] probably from the beginning I've always thought about what we look like in 20 years so that's why I my head just keeps pushing towards the north of allows you because I like you said usually the last thing we eliminate is the high school it's not like we're increasing the population even if we don't if we stay stagnant then we're still safe I feel like the other way to push all those classrooms there and then you did go down and you're like you still have to keep up those those activities it's not a choice at that point the apartment with facilities I wish I'd be part of the academic explained in the dirty gauges and the community feeling towards these are student ages of buildings that's why I have thought about with the north there was if we did go that option we have to figure out almost a way to make sure that's its own building you know treated as its own building you know we enter in a different you know its own way obviously a cafeteria issue that thing is going to have to be through you know obviously they're going to walk through the hallways of Garfield but we're gonna have teachers with them at that point how they're scheduling would fit for that cafeteria period because that's the only time I ever see it being anything crossed out there not very many times but obviously the auditoring when they that's the advantage of that too having um that's event it's already Advantage there if this would be a model that would be South also that obviously would help them a lot too but have the auditorium even though like we discussed so much when I'm still the size of it still doesn't take care of everything but it's still a lot better than what we have on a smaller Elementary gyms does it help Staffing anyway Mr great compelling Elementary teachers you know approximity to a junior high classroom you'll share it you'll be able to share more specials or your electives those teachers go into the studio and you guys have talked behind before having the older kids with the little kids in our in our community is always it's fun center people typically get nervous and think about all of the bad things but so many of our kids volunteered in the read they become interns they spend time with the little kids instead of and then with the sharing of custodial staff and sharing with other administrative staff it's hard to predict what that looks like and so there's more details carved out but it certainly wouldn't hurt it certainly would put us there we've heard on the parent side too that the convenience of that too our students at a location that's not why we do it but yeah that's just another positive I mean for us how many students are like the Juniors and seniors how many of them are like student teachers or you know Casey neiston has a pretty good selection I want to say she has five out of the ten maybe they go down there and I'm sure that fluctuates but right now it's a bit of a interesting it's a bit of a car driven much more often use that so if it was something they could do for one period rather than the student you want to pick up some more and you might have other teachers English teachers social studies teachers that might incorporate more of that if it's so can a student teacher or a student classified basically what we usually hire as players professionals well I just I don't know I it would be the same option well I'm just but I know we have to hire them all the time we're usually it seems like we're always looking for it certainly provides support services where they where they go now so I just didn't know that can substitute if we ever were in lag if there's students can kill that Gap it's on the timing of their classes of the classes they have and the gay issues that you be covered and evident a would give you all that coverage insurance my personal I know it costs more I like the idea of the separate book with the kids I don't know you know you have parents say well it's nice to have them all in the same building you still got k-32 down here anyway [Music] that's going to change as the kick grows no matter where you're at if you have two or three chisels they'll teachers apart that's they're going to be different buildings so I don't base a lot on that I just like the idea of the younger kids being a group more so it also leaves you an option to Northville to to put on a field house or simply growing through population all of a sudden you've done that you've looked at yourself you're still going to have two buildings how are you gonna that's just those are things I think have there's needs of both places you know cafeteria gym area when you ever see that's been kind of discussed a little bit would they ever see the bill having just one campus though nothing nothing that's cool I don't know I don't know well old school it's old school for us but knowledgeable for other schools like the raw spills and the castings and the prayer and all those schools that have a they basically just have one campus but to do that you're going to have to add on a lot more there you're gonna have to add on another Metro North there right yeah no I'm just saying down all right and again I don't want the spirit of math on that for that scenario like my brain just keeps going 20 years that's where I always have to be collaborate them but that is a big decision because if you go one way or the other that will possibly limit that future 20 year third year um so have you guys heard anything I mean ever has anybody said anything anybody personally you're doing it in front of my family no yeah yeah actually anybody that's part of our School District Individual that was concerned about keeping the kids separate at those ages as long as they were separate they're good and that's the same thing we talked about last year when we talked about how we were going to do the configuration of our pre-k through eighth grade that discussion actually changed a lot when we said there are positives out there too positives of having those students closer but they would definitely be on their own schedule they would be in their own rooms like California earlier like it's not like they're in the past hallways if they're doing very often at all and they're probably the teachers the world of war once in the teachers just because a 45-minute period for a high school kid that just doesn't Translate very different so they would be segregated or isolated or whatever you want to say a lot you chose that option sure precautions so they beat 0.5 8.4 it's more than the North Bill oh more than that it's just one door choices well that's 5.1 difference from the metrics probably recommendations from Architects or construction maintenance probably will be just like we said option one would not be considered considered at all right it's a lot of money on this one if you're if the Northfield option is one you want to seriously consider I might suggest you reach out to East Allen officials they've only they brought a six to their junior Highs at Woodland and their Heritage about five or six years ago so they've got a pretty fresh understanding of what that means and how their communities accepted it um I do know that at Heritage the elementary students eat in a in the gym they have their separate Little Gym and they eat there at Woodland the kids literally marched the length of the building to go to the cafeteria you said East Allen right so those are K to 12 campuses are K-12 we just moved up the k6 to make it then they moved the k6 to the junior senior senior cases he said about five or six years ago I think we would want to build to do that to accommodate both of them did yeah not unlike what you're looking at here several they might have some relevant what it meant for curriculum how they function throughout the day if they had it to do again how would they do it different versus the folks who have like a castle you've been kicked 12 since day one in Rossville Japan is the one that I talked to when we had this concerns last year and you know he was willing for us to put people on the bus and go take a little field trip if anybody wanted to so I'm sure we would offer that again today since that to take with their kids from Lafayette to Rossville so that was an indication that there's there's some strength that goes along with me he starts being Pre-K and you just walked in the building and you go out the other room yeah yeah I mean the main thing is they liked the school Episcopal District but it felt so positive they also you know thought it was positive that so um well I think we're in it I think either way we're in a win-win situation but choose enough to Overlander well I've I've been if we went the Northfield idea you know even what I thought was you know if we would would go with the new high school last year is Heartland careers Center always struggles or they they don't have space for short space and so I you know thinking about how we could help subsidize that space you know in our area there at Northfield you know either adding on because those two rooms that we were talking about um or we just use that space as you know for space for Heartland because they think they have at least the nursing program they don't know you were saying that they were planning on putting on two to three classrooms if we could but there again that runs into other school districts what they're what they want to spend that kind of money do that you know we got a eight million dollar upgrade to get the facilities just up up to snow and then that's without adding in classrooms you know a couple years ago that's all we were worried about was adding classrooms now we're looking at well let's get to heat the ventilation HVAC and all that stuff correct before we do this so I don't know how you're going to get other schools to add more money for that kind of work it's going to be pulling teeth to get the rest of them although I was I was getting that we paid for it right I guess like they were doing with the problems you can get enough credit money there's Flawless with the whole equipment because the building costs too much or that they have that whole building because I'd like to get the Ag Department from Portland out there I follow what you're saying that I would you know if we're not gonna we're taken away a little bit I'd like to get it so we can maybe strengthen some of that area is there any kind of support the support from that AG area can we run into any kind of restrictions on doing something like that building spaces releasing back or whatever I don't think so I mean I understand we would have to definitely we have to definitely investigate that right yeah how the money for the board have you guys heard of anything like that before as far as they do that right now a lot of schools they don't have necessarily they have you know their their programming is different high schools go for different things so I'm sure that there are there are setups like that I don't know how the monies are transferred and how that all works but um you know Huntington for example they have their own they come to us they pay you know those they pay it per diem and then also they go to other school districts for other programs and so there has to be some agreement that's worked out I just don't know what that is but we haven't been involved because it did not hurt on the rent the space from Wabash so there hadn't been something there was some sort of agreement there I don't know but that was kind of connected with like yeah so we were kind of used to Ivy Tech's canvas which was that but that's no longer there so correct me but if we if we fund car on building space it's around 38 because MSD based off the current Formula now yes so it's all based off the cessified widgets or it could be more could be less it's around 38 right now to a lower Rift yeah because it's God's point you know if you're building space and you want to build aggressively that's the wrong term if you want to build huh yeah it's been a little bit above appropriately okay you're already paying for 40 of it if it's built someplace else why not build it on your farm it makes sense the difficulty you would have who's in charge of those kids is it a separate is it going to come through our principles who's going to talk those kids off what what are they going to come in so okay how does kids get ancestors so they get dropped off at Heartland and Heartland takes about that so it would be this because they don't so does Heartland pay Manchester or do you know no that's just part of Heartland Portland but one thing I do know is though for the Honeywell uh that equals that is a program we have and Heartland does pay for that so there is and I'm not going to say that I think I know what it is but I don't know I don't know I just know that's why they're they're going over there there's an agreement that's made between there's a him I think they only go up there once a week once a week yeah but you'll see it or though they go there you go a day like this and there is they do there's a rent for that yes that's that's my only ideas I think number one we're we're kind of trash in the Ag Department out there if we do that correct but I so I like the facility part of it but well but I'm just saying I'd like to see if we can strengthen it somehow yeah in a different area because certainly I think does a great job with that stuff but I like to support it somehow maybe giving them an additional space it's an idea that that's if that's what we if that's what's Chosen and read upon to investigative one because really after we start talking about that yeah there has to be something because it happens everywhere so um and just like we said Eagles Theater there is a payment there's a payment probably right off that same formula right see what that is but they get a lot of bang for their Buck because they get all the state of the yard of everything yeah at least the technology now but yeah questions Dave do you see prices escalating as much as they think do we see any plateauing do we see any kind of levels the first part of the year um on a monthly basis it's been about 0.15 but the last two months it's been 0.5 of 1 so we've actually seen a little bit of a spike the last two months we're waiting to get August's indexes um but there is still uh you know that probably that three to six percent escalation every year that we're that we're anticipating now so yeah we don't necessarily see things leveling level or declining we still see a little bit of a tick going on are we still at the very highest level or are we down a little bit from where it spiked earlier well we we've tracked cost indexes all the way back to 1990.

foreign and welcome to the Greenfield Public Schools school committee meeting it's Wednesday August 9th 6 p.m we're at the Johns on Community Center 35 Pleasant Street per the open meeting law any member of the public may make an audio or video recording of this meeting and let's move right into the agenda secretary ekstrom can you do a roll call please remember to leave here I remember Johnson Assad here Vice chair Martini here chair poyetti here remember wall here mayor Woody Gardner here we are to order at 601 pm and let's do the approval of our minutes from both the July 12 and the July 31 meetings can I have a motion to approve both sets of meetings of minutes please so move in a second I'll second it any discussion of the minutes hearing no discussion are there any abstentions we're voting on them together so the mayor of sustaining any no votes that passes with one abstention mayor wiedergartner and we are going to do our executive session uh first thing this evening so uh I like a motion to um go into executive session for exemption reason two to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with non-union Personnel or to conduct collective bargaining sessions or contract negotiations with non-union personnel as well as exemption three to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining or litigation if an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining or litigation position of the public body and the chair so declares and of course I do declare and exemption reason 7 which is just to approve previous minutes as we act under the authority of any general or special law or Federal grant and aid requirements have emotion so moved and a second second and we do have to do a roll call of this is there any discussion about going into a roll call vote please remember Denise yes myself yes remember Johnson yes Vice chair Martini yes chair Pro Eddie yes Amber wall yes mayor Woody Gardner yes we're an executive session and we will return to open session as our agenda suggests foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign really thank you to everyone for your patience we are back at it at 705 and we will move into item four on our agenda I would like a motion to approve the collective bargaining agreement for bus drivers and monitors uh effective July 1 2023 to June 30 2026 as amended in the executive session can I get a Motion cell moved in a second second and uh are there any discussion just thank you to our negotiators Gene wall the superintendent askp for their work on this we appreciate it any other discussion I'll just say the amendment was substantive it was just a typo thank you thank you for that yes and we'll move to a vote any abstentions one abstention that's member denive any no votes so that passes with six yes votes thank you and we will move into public comment Susan Farber do we have public comment this evening you can have a seat to turn turn on the microphone you just need to hold the button and you'll see the collar will turn from red flashing red to Green just hold the button yep am I timing this or hello my name is Emily green a 76 year old lesbian resident of Greenfield and also a retired nurse who has given most of my life to helping others and making the world a better place for all I am addressing your decision on the Providence Christian School which I know is a done deal but I would still want to make a comment and do understand the state law mgl dot part one slash title 12 slash chapter 76 section one the fact that my tax dollars will go to support a religious school that considers my group The lgbtq plus group centers does not feel fair to me and I am asking each of you to write a letter to the State Department of Education here in Massachusetts for elementary and secondary education our state Senator Joe comfort and representatives to ask them to re-examine this in light of separation of church and state and to be a supporter of inclusion as a foundation for approving the curriculum of a school into a district I am also addressing this as a member of racial Justice Rising and the most important aspect of the history of our black brown and Indigenous communities in our history books which we don't know for sure if that is really going to be an included thing in their curriculum you're writing a letter to me is extremely important because I'm not a sinner and I want to be included and talk to you know accepted in this community especially in the state of Massachusetts where we have a lesbian Governor we have many lesbian senators and representatives so I'm that's my letter to you and I ask that you considered each of you writing a letter to make a change in this law that would allow a non-inclusive situation to be part of our school system thank you thank you do we have other public comment okay hearing none Mr Pickett how about a budget update please and thank you good evening everyone uh you have sent you the fy24 budget update as of August um It's All Quiet on the Western Front for fy24 but uh I can say as far as how FY 23 ended just as far as what it impact it has on 24 with all the dust settling with the closing out of purchase orders and the final uh unencumbering of potential Personnel things we're ending up fairly I'd say slightly better than we anticipated and it's I'll say it's unfortunate it's primarily under vacancy savings you know there's that's really no way to carry funds over based on the fact that we had positions but it's a reality so we're starting the year off in some of the accounts if you were to look back at our budget what we projected on using to what it is that we actually ended up using in FY 23 it was less solely based on primarily the vacancy savings or personnel I can answer any questions that you might have remember Denise go ahead I was just I'm sorry I was just curious um both of them what is the difference between these two documents nothing okay I I thought it was nothing but I mean I don't mean to be a glip his predecessors predecessors on the school previously it was requested that we provide you with a munis report and then a report exported into Excel in that format that you you get but it is it's the same okay thank you because I just wanted to make sure I wasn't losing my mind none at all can I help I'm sorry Glenn go ahead remember Johnson we said go ahead can I make a motion to direct our financial director not to have to produce two of the same report in two different formats also promotion for the business manager to provide us with one report I guess it would make sense from Eunice right because we're they're both they're both from munis but what it is that you can export the the information from munis into the other format of the report which is what Kristen does in the business office and you know so I mean it's it's not a heavy lift for us to do but you know and if it means you know to go through and you know walk you through reading a munis report but I think everybody because of the questions that you've asked me since I've been here you are very capable of reading a munis report and a bunch of things so you know I I would say if you do that then we would just do the munis report and not export it into the other format so a motion to provide the school committee with only the munis report moving forward from the business manager yeah yeah second and a second and is there discussion remember Genevie looked like you wanted to discuss no I was second you're ready to vote okay um no actually I do want to what so when this was happening um Andy heard me have some concerns multiple times um because they're just I there was just there's just risk introduced into something not matching and it's just ridiculous to introduce that and so thank you Glenn any further discussion seeing none any abstentions from this vote any no votes so that passes unanimously and Andy has can check something off his list permanently any further discussion for any questions about the budget update or further discussion we thank you sir for waiting for us and for being here I wasn't it I don't know we'll move into item seven and item eight I'd like a motion to combine the uh vote to declare the um phonak Roger touchscreen mic Surplus and a vote at the same time to accept the donation of phones from the hubson public school district can I get a motion to that effect so move in a second second okay and any discussion of either of those member ekstrom why is this happening which one both why are we why why would we need a phonak Roger touch screen and why would we accept donations of phones I mean combine the items now right was your motion to combine the items yeah it was so we can talk about them both at the same time maybe we should vote on whether we're confining them and then oh you want another motion to approve well we would need one if if you want to make a motion to combine it I did say a motion to approve the combine I did not okay Oh I thought your motion was just to combine them so if yeah that's fine so okay we've combined them right no because we haven't voted we didn't vote yet that's why I didn't know why you were doing it because I was about to combine and then another one let's just do them separate let's just do them separate okay how about a motion to declare the phonak Roger touch screen mic Surplus so much second and any discussion of this one I could actually give context uh we don't need it anymore and there's a student at GCC that really needs it and we're going to declare it Surplus in the district and it's going to go to the student at GCC that uh and and the nice trade-off is we're getting phones from the Hudson public schools that they declared as Surplus and we need right we're going to use the phones as replacement and for parts but yes they have they have value to us so the first one is the Roger touch screen further discussion on that one I'm seeing none so anyone abstaining from voting on that anyone voting no that passes unanimously and then a motion pleased to accept the donation of phones from the Hudson public schools with our gratitude so moved in a second second any further discussion of that there is a there's something in the materials uh memo to Christine about that um and any abstentions any no votes so that also passes unanimously and now we are on to a couple of policy items can't ever shake the policy on this committee and as per normal I'm going to pass it over to member Johnson who's the chair of the policy subcommittee to walk us through the emotions on these okay I'm looking for a motion to approve the first reading of amendments to policies KF and kf-r Community use of school facilities as presented oh second all right um and a superintendent sure so we have a lot of use of our facilities which is wonderful but across the course of the past two years Lauren my admin assistant and I have noted that there are some changes that need to be made to update the policy and regulation that's accompanying to reflect what our process and procedure has moved into and we also have a few changes in terms of the fee structure which I'll get to some of this is just clean up in terms of spelling addresses having the website be the location um you can see it's obviously it's a red line you have a markup version I did delete the reference it appears the committee in previous Renditions had kept notes that masc generally uses as educational information to committees so we've deleted that um the facilities usage fee schedule only the yellow highlighted section is modified when we made changes it highlighted the whole table but only the yellow is modified what we were finding is that the amount that we were charging was not covering the expense to the district this is for groups not connected to the Greenfield schools or the city so um to avoid needing to update this every contract year we included language as a suggestion that the custodian the neit staff or kitchen staff needed would be paid at the contractual rate of the person to whom the shift is assigned so if work is done during a time when a custodian is actually already working such as 2 to 10 30 during the school year often there is no additional custodial fee but if a group would like to use a building on a Saturday we need to have a custodian so what that charge would be would be specific to the custodian who takes the overtime there's a process we have for that Lauren and I have modified the forms so that each department had Eric John or Greta can assign staff who are interested in taking the shift and then Lauren always communicates with an outside agency with the estimated cost prior to finalizing the building use so they would have an idea prior to confirming of what their interest you know exactly what the cost would be but the policy does state that outside use of our facilities will not incur an additional expense to the district and right now it is because we're not covering the salaries of these folks so that's what that I will say kitchen staff I don't know if kitchen staff has been required more than maybe once since I've been here the regulation is a lot of language cleanup um I recommend changing and number two the school committee has final authority to determine whether something is for non-profit or profit non-profit they would have to provide a certificate so that would failure to provide that in my estimation would then make it a for-profit event but a lot of this is really just clean up um so we're hoping to be able to move forward with the new protocol and new rates before things get really wild with people requesting building use one thing I appreciated in the revisions was the superintendent assuming many duties that were assigned to the school committee which doesn't really meet often enough to administer these kinds of things so appreciate you taking that on I'm not sure it's actually feasible for you folks to be overseeing building use so I'm happy to take that over items yeah the superintendent did discuss the facility rental fees we will vote on those separately um it it right now we're just talking about KF and kf-r yeah but you have her uh info for the second one already and I I guess I have a question just uh member Johnson if you would refresh my memory the first reading we then go to the subcommittee and then it comes back here after the subcommittee's looked at it and any changes we would vote again is that that's right yes and we will meet in early September as a budget sub I mean as a policy subcommittee and then have this back at our first regular meeting in September which the superintendent is optimistic will be enough time thank you so Ola are we ready for it to vote I have a question um I don't see anything and maybe it doesn't matter but I don't see anything sort of weather permitting related to community use of school facilities as in if we get 20 feet of snow and they're supposed to use the building that night I think there was something in there I could be wrong contingencies I believe there's language that if I have closed schools due to inclement whether it cancels activities okay what I said off microphone is it might not be in this policy it is likely covered by another policy regarded to emergency closures is it in here okay thank you this is what the thank you my apologies any other discussion all right any abstentions any no votes that policy passes on first reading unanimously and we'll bring it back to you in September for the second reading thank you and now uh emotion please uh the Greenfield school committee accept the revised facility rental fees this is item 10.

thank you everyone

[Music] foreign [Music] okay we're recording all right Gene you want to call us to order on the little recorder okay yes this meeting called to order at five uh 331 331 we have a clock here that doesn't work uh so I'll call Roe Glenn Glenn are you there Glenn oh okay good Elizabeth here and I'm here all right so yes that this meeting is mostly your stuff to tell us okay so I will give you an update of what's happened since the last meeting we talked about option lovingly known as option 2B so we forgive me if you know this part but I'll I'll back up what we did is worked with Jake from transportation to realign the district so that each of our elementary schools would have one of the housing areas routed to it because we know there have been a lot of comments made about the fact that four corners is the the special school so each Elementary School will have one yes so Newton Greenfield Gardens will be districted to Newton and then Leiden Woods will be in the four corners District and then I'm just gonna sign and then oak courts will be routed to Federal some of this is the same but so Jake took basically our current enrollment and use those numbers as a draft of for the sake of programming you know doing bus routes the other thing that we talked about is we have to make the school committee will have to make some decision about this intra-district Choice thing that's out there amongst elementary schools for the past two years I have only allowed incoming kindergarteners who would still have a sibling at their School of Choice to go to a different school that's not their neighborhood School so if a student from federal wants to go to Four Corners they're only getting approval if their sibling will still be at Four Corners other than that everybody's being enrolled in their neighborhood School that has helped dramatically with enrollment numbers at Four Corners some of their classes were high primarily because they had so many students from intra-district Choice going so at some point the district will need to make a decision in my opinion about whether we stop intra-district cold just say as of I'll use next September because that's kind of what we're thinking September of 24 hard stop everybody in the district goes to their neighborhood School or do you let students who are already in a school of choice age out the benefit quite frankly of a hard stop is it allows us to accommodate K to five in each school and not have to rearrange schools for our special education programs if we do the students already there age out then for could be anywhere between one and four years we could have one child in a family be at one school and the other children be at their neighborhood School is there a way to sort of phase that I mean sorry not phase but is there a way to do a little bit of both like if you're a student saying you're in third grade like that you will let you age out because you're closer to the graduation do you know what I mean like if you're older like it seems like you could finish it or do you see what I'm trying to say oh yeah I understand age out and then if you're in second or third grade it's not as hard to have a hard stuff well so this is what we looked at is Four Corners particularly if we take this of course makes everything's complicated when you're trying to plan two years ahead if we take this year's kindergarten and move it up two years well last year's kindergarten and move it to Second grade for next year and so on and so on if we phase out Choice somewhat like you were talking about we would have to have three fourth grades at Four Corners and three fifth grades which would then mean we likely would have to move our special ed program to Newton and bring the Newton program to Four Corners which would disrupt our neediest kids so that's a lot having three fourth grades and like well yeah well it we have three of some classes now yeah that's what I'm asking because it's a lot in terms of what we're don't forget we're bringing fifth grade in so we're adding a whole other grade level and if we look at the classes we could accommodate three fourth grade so if we if we let choice just phase out let all the kids just sort of age out um not necessarily picking a particular grade level to cut it off but if we just leave it don't let any new kids in September of 24 we would need three third grades three fourth grades three fifth grades at Four Corners which means our Aces program would have to swap with the seeds program at Newton and it means likely that we would have to have um one of our special subjects on a cart like art or music might need to be on a cart for a year and then we could you know as the years go that would shift if we oh I'm sorry Gene how many of those children at Four Corners that have choiced in belong to teachers I don't know because my understanding is a lot of the children they are teachers children it's what I was told by a teacher I don't know I'd have to look at how many kids are are there and see which which then are students of choice in those in those buildings because I think it's not a right thing for teachers to be so opposed to us banding the schools when they want their children to go to Four Corners um who knows that that's really a thing I don't know I'm just throwing questions yeah yeah it's a good question um I haven't heard that but it's a good question so I um let me write the question I can look to find out my bet is the principles no who's connected to who um so the um so the question is if we so of interest if we just stop choice and then shift everybody around discovery would there are 12 11 using this year's numbers so this is all estimates but I just want to illustrate like the impact of choice on some of the buildings we would have 11 less students in third grade at Four Corners we would have seven less fourth graders and 11 less fifth graders so that's instead of three of each of those grade levels we'd have two of each of those grade levels um so it you know it has a big impact on the space allocation at Four Corners so that aside we can in each of the elementary schools accommodate a k to five we have enough space with the caveat of get the kids out that don't well it does have an impact at Discovery I think the challenge the biggest challenge to me is the impact that it could have on our special education program the aces program uses a lot of physical space because of all their needs and they are the most challenged students at the elementary so a transition to a new building might be difficult it might not you don't know until you try but that is a concern that has been raised the other thing I did survey the staff it was a you know brief survey asked them as well everybody had the opportunity to put a few comments in and then everybody had the opportunity to put their email in if they wanted to meet with me to talk more about any questions or concerns three people put their email addresses in one was by mistake one of them had a couple questions about the fifth grade format for the staff if they would still be banded like two classes for each teacher and then um one person said I'm happy to talk to you if you have anything you want to talk about but other than that I'm good so the only question that came from all the staff was about the fifth grade configuration so but 80 just under 85 percent of our staff wanted the option to be not option one I think a lot of the parents want an option to be awesome I buy based on what our forums remember about I think the biggest challenge for me with option one is the impact on Transportation you know that would have we'd have shifts in drop off and arrival time we potentially would need another bus so not just there is cost associated with on the front end um so the other the other things that we talked about are yes so we also believe that based on the shifts and the reduction in section in sections there could be a shift of up to six teachers so when we're cutting sections we might be we would be reducing staff however simultaneously to this change the Middle School needs to go to a full year of instruction for math I mean Forum oh geez we've been doing math yeah for social studies and science especially social studies the standards are there's a lot of work from the Department of Ed about the standards I think Karen talked about it the other night at school committee and we do not teach that for a full year at the middle school we don't do science or social studies so to accommodate them having a full year right now Michelle anticipates the need to increase for staff so that is one way that the teachers who potentially are displaced at the elementary could still be employed with some moving around of teachers so nobody would lose their I'm not gonna promise that but but it's important that we're kind of increasing the staff needs in one place while potentially reducing in another um we'd have to look at certifications but a lot of if not all elementary teachers are k-6 licensed so that leads me to feel somewhat confident that a job likely would be available if they want it some people don't you know they don't want to change their grade levels but the other thing that we need to look at is where was the other two oh we also are doing two things with the shift from fifth grade going back to the elementary school we need to look at how the elementary Special schedule will be configured Karen and Mike Browning are working on a draft of that the other thing we need to do is look at the impact of taking eighth grade out of the high school and the reason we need to look at that is because some of our high school staff teach some sections of eighth grade so we need to look at that impact so I will be doing that with Tammy silk at the high school DJ at the high school and then the middle school and high school principals and guidance folks will all be part of that conversation because we'll need to see you know like our just as an example our Spanish and French teachers each teach a section of eighth grade language okay so if we take that out what do we do do they split buildings do we just have the opportunity to offer foreign language electives like how do we do that we'd also need to talk about algebra for the eighth grade there are students who teach who take algebra in their eighth grade as opposed to like a math eight so we need to look at how we schedule the Middle School to accommodate our students who can take algebra in eighth grade so we're gonna run those um we've just rolled over the year from last year to this upcoming year in PowerSchool so we have the high school schedule for school year 23 24 that lives so our plan is to sort of make a copy of that take out eighth grade and then look at what what we have how many sections are free and what we can do with them so we also would need to look at our counseling staff do we need to redistribute them we already have two counselors that are paid out of the grant so we need to look at those both pieces the Grant's going to be gone do we need the staff do we not need the staff you know we need to look at the if you lose eighth grade at the high school how many fewer kids on counseling need to be supported there but how many did we just add to the elementaries but we are at a point that Transportation looks good for option 2B we put the caveat on things can change but right now based on what Jake has run and he has the software that kazmaskis has that looks good we also literally took the maps of every school and put grade grades and all everything else intervention our English language Learners special education programs counselors nurses everybody got a spot on the maps so right now with the one little piece about um Four Corners with the special ed depending on choice everybody has a space and the bonus is we even get to move the nurse out of the weird space she's in at Four Corners into a room she's on a in a space on a landing so she would actually even get to move into a room which is great it was very good very important so you know we're we're looking at the Staffing but I think the biggest piece the first big hurdle is people can fit which is good it it is yeah but we don't want to miss like there's still I still don't want to rush I I want for you folks to be able to sort of have a final like October would be great to have a final final decision about what we want to do um but I also have had a few conversations with people who were around when things shifted who kind of said it went so fast that this was this was missed this was missed this was missed so I know it probably feels slow but I'd rather take the time to sit and do all of this and go through the schedules and plot and plan and then review it again with some of the teachers at both levels all right what are we missing think about any logistical issues like do we need to move lab tables from the high school to middle school I don't know maybe we do maybe we don't but I'd like to have those conversations um I just want to see if there's any other notes the timeline not this coming year but the following year if we were to decide does that give you enough time I think so I think yeah I think it will because the bus runs are are started the schedules will actually be started some of the big things that would give me a lot of stress around this process would be greatly underway so I think that would be really good I would like to depending what you folks think today one of the steps I need to take is to sit with the Union presidents again I did that as the first first step when we first started these conversations but to do it again and talk about okay this is what this would mean for Staffing how would you want to go about this that's a question that comes up a lot like okay with the eighth grade teachers have to go to the middle school with the it's like well we'd have to come to some agreement with the Union but you know there would be a process worked out I think the biggest thing Elizabeth would be packing because you sound really optimistic I still yeah you know why I feel good because we're being given the time to really be planful about this if you said to me you know now you have to do it for September but I every step that we take every check box that we go through the more and more I'm feeling good about how this would look um well should we talk at school committee next next month about the fact that uh children will not be allowed to choice and see what the reaction is so that we've got time to hear all of that is there a survey we could send out to the people who are choiced we can but I guess Mike we're not ready yet I don't think my bet is they won't want to and is that I think we're weighing sort of the conversation about the students who are still going to be in a school of choice intra District versus the impact on two classes of our special education so I guess I know I don't expect anybody to want to but is it I don't want to so much that I will leave GPS or I don't want to and I will Grumble and be upset but I will go I mean I don't know it's I think that if your complaint is changing schools and you're going to leave the school system to change schools that doesn't make sense it doesn't mean that people don't do that well I know but that is true but um I I will be curious what impact the reconfiguration of the city has on people's thoughts you know we're going to be making each Elementary School pretty reflective of the community as a whole and I also think at some point we will have there were um there was at least one comment in the staff survey I don't know who um made reference to the fact that maybe we should just rename all the elementary schools when we do this because of concern that in the public Four Corners will still be considered something that it is not which is an innovation school it's not an innovation it's not a bad idea it's just I I whether you folks rename them or not I appreciate the concerns that the community perspective is still going to be that four corners is the Discovery School and it's it is doing exactly the same in terms of curriculum instruction and programming as every other Elementary School in the district it just sounds fancier too it's just well but again I I'm happy to look into when it became a discovery school if that's in connection with the Innovation Grant that we don't have anymore you know what what do we do there and I don't I don't know it's a it was a question that was a good question but if we rename all three schools then taking away the discovery name for Four Corners doesn't matter oh no it's an interesting question though somebody brought up it's worth a thought any other problems within the other school s so the problem is they're just going to call I I just um yeah I mean you folks can do whatever I think we have a I'm fairly sure there's a policy on naming facilities but um I think the concern raised is nothing different than what's been talked about before that there is a perception um about one of the schools and there I mean there's perceptions about all of them um so the positive to the negative and you know will will this reconfiguration of things impact that perception at all it's an interesting point um I know Glenn do you have any I can't see your face do you have any thoughts or questions about any of this I I don't know I really appreciate what you're bringing to us I know important in a good direction so I have another question 8th grade yes out of the high school what will you do with the extra swing that is created because they're gone well uh I want to give people something to look forward to that's what I'm asking you yes um so some things that were talked about with the NASDAQ studies that it gives us opportunity to do some electives the the challenge we have is and maybe that comes to be with um staff who now have sections available because eighth grade isn't there I need to see that before we start identifying if we have I'm again I'm just giving examples if we have four teachers who only then have one block free that doesn't really do anything in terms of Staffing we need to find something for those people to do um it could give us opportunity to do you know um split up some classes like if our science classes are doing experiments in one room maybe they have the opportunity to have a classroom space in another we might be able to reconfigure some of our special education programs so we'd have to really you know take a spin and see what that does to the layout of the building I'm not positive but that's a good question and maybe at some point whether it's next year or after that maybe the district will be in a position to add some people back at the high school we've talked me Karen Derek the aps at the high school have met with Michelle shot from GCC and some of her people to talk about expanding the opportunities for our kids to do some like um it's not called the progression I can't think of the name but basically take some courses that would put them in a good spot to get into one of the technical programs at GCC we can't duplicate a vocational program because that's in our agreement with Franklin County Tech we can't reproduce what they offer but if we were to be able to potentially at some point maybe add a staff person or reconfigure or reschedule people we might be able to add some courses that help them be better prepped to move in to some of those programs um sounds like having more space is not a bad thing it I don't think ultimately it will be a bad thing I think maybe for the first year things may look a little naked but um but maybe you know I think I think it presents opportunity in the future once we start looking really at what do we want to do with these GCC programs and you know programs of study that would help kids prep into you know getting into that so there's a lot of opportunity there right now part of the challenge is the eighth grade has sort of squeezed out of its wing and they're interspersed with the building at times I don't think that was I don't understand that that's how it was designed I thought it was they were supposed to be sort of a self-contained Wing they've kind of squeezed out of the wings so um and that's not working out the eighth grade is clearly at a different developmental level than the rest of the high school which makes for some lumpy days yes um so I don't have statistics in front of me but the general um subjective report is that the eighth grade is where we have the most struggles with student Behavior I'm sure no one's surprised so it could be could give us some opportunity yeah and the student behavior of the eighth grade if we move them back into the middle school will that is it being with the older kids that creates it or the show-off factors not sure if they're just well I mean I mean I'm in this right now so yeah yeah it's um I think I think there's a lot more freedom in a high school environment than there is in a middle school environment and I think that that's challenging for students who may be on maturity at the level to have all that freedom you know Michelle has a great structure upstairs where each grade level has a wing so obviously if fifth grade's at the elementary eighth grade would go in their wings so they'd be sort of contained and it just allows for different levels of supervision it's less travel in the building it's a little more help than what they would naturally get in high school you know it's just hard it's a big building and there's a lot of space for them to be in so do you think conversely the behavior of the fifth grade if that moves into the elementary school is that sort of is that the opposite of the same coin with the eighth grade I think in terms of maturity it is but I think you would be extremely pleasantly surprised to see the variation in the behavior upstairs this year to well the year that just ended compared to the prior but from a maturity standpoint I still think it's it's yeah same same type of theory feeling negative is we do not see we did have the request for the fifth grade team so that we have teams of fifth grade teachers so it's two teachers one does English in history the other one does science and math and we we don't believe that we can maintain that structure given the instructional time in the course of the elementary day it doesn't look like that is something we'll be able to replicate but we're looking I'm just not sure that that's gonna be the case don't love it does so much work so much so I don't know if there's any other questions or issues or things you want me to look at as we go have you gotten any if you have any reason to or have you gone any deeper into the what do we do at the Green River School has anything else come to light with that um I have yeah I have to do all the paperwork to officially close it I think I mentioned that had never been done and then um I had reached out to the mayor to see if we could have a preliminary just an informal conversation about like what are we thinking might happen here because when I do the paperwork to close Green River part of what I need to do is give them some idea on what it could get used for because one of the biggest pieces is that some money is going to have to get paid back from the roof and dorm loan it was just over a million dollars I don't I mean the info's on my desk but rounding it's about a million dollars and there's language in there that's a little um fuzzy that gives me the thought that they might be willing to do some sort of exceptions around what gets paid back but basically what they said to me when I asked that hey I see this sentence does this mean we can skip this whole paying back thing they did not jump on that as a yes what they said is do all the paperwork let us know what the plan is and then we'll talk to you the the challenge is when they talk about paying back what they said is they prorate it from the time that the final audit is done which was I think our loan was signed for in 2015 the audit was done in 2019.

this evening the first is to speak about the World Language High School Credit Opportunity and related changes the second item is to speak about dual enrollment in a state update the third is to speak about adult education and a programming update and then the fourth item is a general discussion and questions um so I'd like to start with the World Language High School Credit Opportunity and turn it over to Augusto we had spoken about this in our policy committee meeting um and we are now going to be offering the opportunity for students to earn hi Cara earning the opportunity for students to earn credit during their eighth grade year which will count towards High School graduation um and so I'd like Augusto to talk about the impacts on the World Language and if there's anything additional care you wanted to add into that please feel free to Jim hi good morning I'm good afternoon I'm so sorry I'm late we've been having some login issues kind of all week so um getting in has been a little bit challenging so I can actually pull up the PowerPoint Kelly thank you for bridging until like until I got on I really appreciate it and I did connect with Augusto and I and I will go over some of the slides first and if there's any follow-up questions that are a little bit more deeper and content specific um I asked him to join to tonight to help support that conversation and thank you Rick for for also being here so I'm going to pull up sorry just real quick do we have any board members that would be able to take notes tonight hmm I I could take it all right thank you Teresa I appreciate it so is the meeting call to order yes so 606 will call the meeting to order thank you today I apologize if you need me to I can share Cara let me know yeah this is um there are definitely some issues I'm going to quickly share um this uh Kevin with you okay very quickly um and I'll just give it to Lauren so she has it as well and if you could pull this up that would be great I'm not sure why there's some updates that are not happening here on my end foreign okay um so just go to the first slide I could just quickly review um the agenda and I just want to preface this by saying you know when uh last year at the end of the year things closed very quickly there were so many discussions on the table and um I connected with Lauren a couple times and you know we sent out some of the program updates and I said to Lauren I said look did you hear anything back does anybody have any questions and and um you know there she didn't quite hear anything back and the reason why I wanted to have the meeting is to really just call attention particularly to the World Language credit update because it's the kind of thing that um as a board member you you would likely get questions on if people were kind of signing on laid or or had some questions that I thought it would be important for you to be prepared to at least understand uh the changes a little bit um and so you know normally we don't meet in August but um just before school started I wanted to make sure that at least um you were able to articulate what the changes meant um and so we'll talk about the World Language credit opportunities and related changes there are other other High School Credit opportunities as well but the one that is causing a little bit of a change is the world language there's a dual enrollment stay update I'd like to give you some great news on that and some of the work that we're going to be engaging in uh that's in line with some of our strategic goals and then we have Rick tonight Who's going to talk about some adult education program updates that have been evolving and then um just some general discussion I know folks have questions and it's the beginning of the year so some of this will help me our discussion tonight sort of formulate some of the uh curricular ideas and focus maybe some of the workshops for the board as well so with that we'll go into the first slide okay so the the policy committee um this past year we uh did some updates and made some changes to our graduation uh language that said that middle schoolers can now receive can now get credit for um equivalent level High School courses so if there's a high school course that's very similar in nature to what is being delivered at the middle school um that there is an opportunity to earn high school credit for that so some of just so the Genesis of that has has really been a push at the state department level as part of their graduation requirement changes for Connecticut to broaden the scope of opportunities for students and so um all kinds of things on on the docket with dual credit um Early College opportunities concur enrollment dual enrollment all of these opportunities for kids to have access to post-secondary um and really Paving the way in terms of advantages for that by opening the doors a little bit in Middle School for students to start to earn high school credit and so an easy one a no-brainer that's kind of been on the books for a while um two of them have been sort of World Language and algebra now algebra there's really no changes involved in that students who are taking algebra in grade A as a familiar course will receive high school credit heading into Danbury High School um and they will be able to continue on so they'll enter high school with with a full credit under their belt that'll open up more math elective opportunities it can open up advanced placement opportunities it can open up uh dual enrollment with college opportunities so that's great the other area and we talked a tiny bit about this in policy that we would kind of come back and talk about the changes related to World Language so many schools offer Spanish Juan Spanish two even you know starting at the middle school level Danbury used to have that maybe about 10 or 12 years ago and Augusta can probably check me on my dates um over time that had since split into for example a full year course broken up over two years and so that was where you when you see references here to a Spanish one um or a French one um that we have had a a plan here in Danbury in the last couple of years where we've had Spanish one a and then Spanish 1B so when you entered uh the school system in Middle School you had a 22-day rotation exploratory in grade six in grade seven students would choose either Spanish they would choose either French if you were west west side you could choose Chinese um and then you would do that over the course a full year course broken up over the course of two years there's been some issues with that some students who because it's considered a special area some students who take Spanish 1A for example don't necessarily take the second half they want to take another special area um and and so we've kind of have this Sagar start of classes across the three schools um and there's a variety of language um languages with those so um so a couple of things which we look to see how can we create these opportunities for World Language credit at the middle school and also fix some of the sequencing issues that we've had in the past but still continue to offer the courses that we have but yet not increasing the amount of Staffing that we would need we decided to offer a full year equivalent of world language in grade eight and then have our students do their exploratory experience in grade seven instead of grade six another benefit of this uh you know in the eyes of at least I know are administrators is that grade six especially in the last couple of years post pandemic has been really a a grade level that they have targeted for intervention for students right to close some of the achievement Gap and to bridge some of the gaps that that you know with 13 elementary schools students coming across that need different things and so when students need intervention they're pulled out of grade six um in their special areas for for different time periods and then they go back and so the World Language having some of that world language exploratory in grade six was a little bit problematic um with so much intervention so now we've had conversations over the course of the year and the proposed sequence uh and in full discussion with the administrators and Augusta spent time with the Department um at the end of the school year talking about the changes we decided to move to the full year and so the changes that result in that would be um that for 2024 23 24 which is this school year heading in we maintain we allow the students who took 1A to finish uh one the the B so we will maintain Spanish 1B maintain Spanish Heritage 1B maintain French 1B and Chinese 1B students will complete that sequence and um the grade 6 introductory experience moves from grade six to grade seven and then next year students who enroll in World Language you choose to take it and spend a year engaging in that course will receive high school credit because that will be an equivalent course to the high school and so this year students can get the algebra credit because that's ready to go but we're in a transition phase with World Language so that we have to kind of clean up the system that we had in place over the next year or so and then 2024-25 will start to receive a World Language credit uh for the high school as they enter in and again between those two courses alone that really helps to open up the students schedules which have been very tight and prescribed for for a while so this allows a little bit more of an elective opportunity and choice it allows them to take more advanced placement uh courses should they decide to do so and as we build our dual enrollment and current enrollment opportunities the students will want to take advantage of that as well so we are excited about those changes but they are different and so I just wanted to make sure that you understood what those were um and that you're able to answer questions should should anyone have those and so I'm happy to to feel some some questions on those and the reason why the AIS magnet in World Language is on there is because you know we are going to we've had a situation for a few years years now we've had since um Spanish um over at AIS and we've had some students who would come Who come out of AIS um who go into our our middle schools have some background in Spanish over the last couple of years the consistency with which that that's delivered has has varied um because of the intervention needs of the students and so some students are getting a little more Spanish than others um Augusto and I have had some great conversations as well as with our humanities folks that a much better plausible option potentially could be for AIS that that becomes very much a multicultural International world class that fits in with the theme of the school and that's uh you know we we look at a little bit different alignments so that we don't have that awkward Gap coming from just AIS students where we have no one else in the district has uh you know some Spanish background formal Spanish training and that we would look to kind of even out the curricular experience across so that we don't end up with scheduling gaps as we've had in the past so um I know that that's a lot but I definitely it's because it's a lot I wanted to bring that to you to see if you had any questions um regarding the World Language changes so to summarize kids will receive World Language Credit in grade 8 starting at 24 25.

that's the rule the other thing is when we work hard to do these arrangements with the colleges um I found that they the credits coming out of high school were only accepted uh towards uh electives and not towards majors would this be something that would be different that they could use it towards their Majors yes you know so I I see this as the seed I see this as the beginning not the end so you know if we can pull this off you know who's to say so we already have some articulations uh for example with with our AP courses so if you pass AP the AP English course AP Literature course um Westcon we have an articulation with Westcon that they would get credit for that that would satisfy sort of their English one course that when they come in their first gen Ed and so we want to be able to do more of that so along those lines so right now the focus you know all the focus is on the academy and the CTE Pathways um but I would love to see our students start to get get credit for is anything that we can we can get our hands on to get credit for what we're trying to what we're trying to wrestle with if I could be completely transparent is that all of a sudden we have you know because because the state has knocked on the door of each and every every one of these universities that said we're going to give you some money to work with them and then they said we're going to give to the districts we're going to give you guys some money to work with them so get your get together and start forming articulations work on this stuff and it's wonderful that it's happening but um you know so you know post came out of the gate and like oh that we would love to partner in these areas nvcc is coming is working on that we just got an email Brent um sent me an email today he goes you know he was having conversations with Goodwin University who had all kinds of opportunities and so you know I was like whoa you know we have to slow the train down a little bit because you know do we create really intentional Pathways with one you know like nvcc for example is it Canada is now as of this summer Connecticut State University system so if you take a course if you register as NDC as your home school you are good to go with uh in terms of a transcript registration and have access to any Community College in Connecticut before they were separate they did not speak to one another they offer different things they still will have different programs in different areas of the state but now our kids if we partner with them can access something happening at Middlesex Community College that has a unique program that no one else has if it is online courses or whatever um so so the idea is to make sure Kevin we lost the presentation I don't know if people if it matters or not but um the idea is to you know do we have a solid relationship with multiple Pathways in one area um or are we going to give kids oh we can get three credits at Goodwin University and you can get three credits at posts and you can have three credits so kids will have three University transcripts started with three credits each on them or do we wanna you know dig deep and go deeper with one school and make sure that they have you know so we're working through those pieces now and and but we're meeting with different universities to to see what the best way to position this for our students is right now but we we're definitely gonna I think we're definitely gonna be working with nbcc for sure we have some we've had some great conversations today with them I have a question Cara um so how much did you say the bar Grant was for I don't know if you mentioned it I didn't hear that but you were going to utilize some of it and then it was going to be expiring but what is that amount for yeah it's so it's about the same amount in terms of the stipends that we have for the teachers to to be pathway leaders and then and then a pot of money to to work on curriculum development uh in projects over the summer so it's it's close to it it's like um it's not quite 90 000 I think it was like 30 000 for total for stipends and then maybe another 30-ish for the curricular some of the curricular pieces so the amount of money for the same type of work is in the same ballpark which is kind of why we thought of this grant as like oh this would be a great way to extend to extend that work so right now in order to this development that you're looking at these 19 um I'm going to say teachers the 90k would cover the expense for the development of these Pathways there would be no additional cost or no not sorry um go ahead please but you could finish your set well not right now that we know of so you know what we know we're going to have to revise you know the first time that you develop a curriculum with all these new um components at play right we're trying to integrate portrait of The Graduate skills we're trying to embed industry um industry content you know that we're meeting with and so usually you know so we'll in the first iteration of curriculum um you know teachers will then Implement Implement and they'll come they'll get to the end of the year and we'll say let's have a feedback conversation about what worked what didn't work what felt really aligned and what didn't feel aligned in your teaching and how can we make this curriculum better and so then we make those edits and sometimes you know that you go back to the you go back and you do revisions and so usually courses get revised a couple of times before they kind of settle in to what it's going to be and and we do pay our our teachers curriculum development um um it's an hourly curriculum development stipends like 31 dollars an hour um and it's never enough for what they actually really do but it's a gesture towards the work um but that but we do need those funds to sustain continuous work so um you know when it comes to Grants we always look for opportunities to continue to to continue to fund that work uh off outside of the back of the of the district general fund so I just want to make sure I understood that so we pay approximately like thirty dollars an hour for these 19 people to help develop the curriculum and the pathway correct and that could be within we're looking at the 90k and not expecting it to be more um not more at this time so that's more like yeah the first round of work correct yeah okay thank you um I just have a question it's Lauren when you said we pay the 31 an hour we already have teachers not including these 19 right that we're paying that 31 an hour that whatever it is for curriculum development ongoing so this isn't something like we're just implementing because of the academy correct yes so thank you so whenever we do curriculum work right so thank you yes we we that's it's not new it's not different right this is just a continuation um and and and two you know to that end it's you know whenever we can use a grant to offset or or to supplement or to continue and sustain work we we always look to do that so this is this is just normal normal practice this is not new right and we have that set hourly rate so we're not chaining anything we're not going out of the box anywhere this is just developing for the new high school correct and that's and those those rates are set with the Union they're already those are already pre-negotiated those terms perfect thank you for that yep um does this also include non-profits as part of the community um that would be involved in this when we're talking about establishing business relationships the schools is the community also like non-profits the development of you know through the school programs that we're looking at currently so you mean in terms of offering college credit in that in that direction or right I mean I know that we had talked about it with nursing and other programs is that and we're engaging the community I'm just wondering is that part of this conversation and you're just having obviously across the board with all Industries and partners or yeah so the Dual credit so there's two pieces two there's so many moving parts to this but the the idea is that so if we're developing CTE pathway and I'll use um I'll use we'll use engineering as an example back to the engineering example again so there's a couple things that need to happen so you know teachers don't we at Danbury High School we may have one or two people who have some engineering background right but their teachers are not actually in the field and they're you know so so in order to help develop the course and to help stay current with the course and what's emerging right in the industry especially right now with artificial intelligence and all the crazy things that are happening we want to make sure that we have a relationship and a partnership with some engineering firms that people who are willing to like you know yes so that's the that's the and they could be non-profit they could be for-profit non-profits are always great but they could be anybody who we think are the best people to talk to so we want to we have to work with them to get content for curriculum right and then in order to to say in order for the students to get University Credit we have to make sure that what we're putting together is going to also satisfy and work for and work with University Partners so it's kind of a triangle of work and collaboration that has to occur um to make it happen and it could come from a variety of folks but the universities are the ones who would issue the credit so we have to we kind of have to play to their their talk thank you thank you can I can I just ask a follow-up question to Michelle's um so with the partnership this is kind of a partnership question just real quick um we're we're out there making Brent is making these Partnerships and these connections and building you know building our community for us for the Academy High School but like at the end say we have like I know we have Danbury Hospital for nursing that's awesome but like say we have say we have a well drilling pathway and we have bills Well Drilling and Harold's Well Drilling how where do we narrow it down to picking do we pick one over the other where does it come into like these are great both these are both great businesses but this one is really going to be better for Danbury and who makes that decision does the board come into play where they listen and not that the board would make that decision but just like where do we come into play and is that a decision do we have two companies how do we decide who's better than another yep so that's a great question that's a great question yeah um so so I think I used the term I think at least I did with this group I used the term dating um because we are you know it's okay for us to initially start off working with an engineering firm let's just say right to get information from them to say you know how you know what are the most critical aspects that are accessible to high school students for them to get a sense of this industry and then the basic skills that they would need to enter it right and let's just say we worked with with uh Larry's engineering firm to to partner with that work for a year but Larry's engineering firm might not be able to offer us you know six or seven internships for students right they're a small firm but they're super friendly towards education and they want to work and come in and do all these things but they they don't really have a lot of spots for entry so so it's okay for us to work with Larry um Larry's engineering firm to get the content information that we need because they're super friendly partners and they have a knack for like they they're invested they like the curriculum aspect of things sometimes you get really interesting people on in these corporations that have a knack or skill or they were a teacher whatever over um to work with us um and it's okay to say we're going to use three other engineering firms to offer internships and we can partner our partnership with them could be the internship but our partnership with those other three three firms could be that you guys are going to send your engineers on career day to come in to talk to our kids you're gonna we're gonna schedule you across the school year for a variety of engagements um and we're going to go out to three different uh engineering firms for field trips to do for kids to to see what this looks like in action so you know there's no one partner that's going to do all of the things that we're going to do and and and as we get to kind of know who's who's going to be the best fit for what part of this um you know that's the part that's gonna you know that will continue to evolve and um so I had we've had we've had conversations with some folks who were like jumped out of the gate can't wait to do this and then you know are following up and they're not you know they don't respond right away and we're like okay might not be the best partner down the road right and and Lauren to to your question you know initially I I re I recall Kara presenting out um and talking about how they um sat with they you know they went through a process to determine um what direction the industry was headed uh what positions what What fields would be the higher paying jobs um uh for students um but if I heard your question correctly um you know industry or industry might change uh demand for positions might change and you know what what is the process to help shift along with how industry is moving and as I understood the structures that Cara Brandt and Dan presented out on a couple of months ago um what one of the and Cara I don't remember which one in terms of the organization structures but one of those structures actually continues to evaluate if what we're offering is actually appropriate for kids meaning appropriate continuing to meet the regional and state demands across the state and as I heard it from Lauren he's like hey there might be a different demand and it might be different from what we're offering right now and how are those decisions made and we the structures that we have in place from Nashville and now the ones we're putting in place will help to keep an eye on what's going on so can can you speak to that a little bit because that's how I heard Lauren's question I don't know if that's what she was getting yeah yeah it's all a lot of information and I appreciate it so thank you thank you you're welcome thanks thanks hi one more question about the um the thirty one dollars uh an hour for coursework development is that credit hour no so it's um so for example if we say a brand new course is going to be developed then we assign we say that should take about 80 hours without developing out the assessments and everything that goes with it or it could be 40 hours so for example we would sort of making a determination about what how many hours a project would cost so then I say don't get don't when I say 80 hours that's like kitten caboodle assessment development room work development over the course of a period of time a lot of projects take uh five hours they think 20 hours and we try to make an assessment um so for example Teresa give you a differentiator so we've used Project Lead the Way curriculum I'm not sure if you've heard of that but they have a pretty they have a curriculum that's that has a lot of the components that we're looking for when we look for curriculum and so most of the work is done when you adopt that curriculum and you're using it so like for engineering specifically that's one that we're that we'll be using for like you know engineering one so there's not a lot of work to do so there's only a few hours assigned to add the other pieces to it something that starts from scratch could have could have more hours over and that's being developed over the course of a couple of years I I just uh faculty when it was by the credit hour and you know in credit hour was you know a thousand or five hundred dollars depending on you know what level they were or whatever so this is a little bit more open-ended in that in arbitrary so it's a little different uh well it's not open-ended to the sense that like so the so the hours get assigned you know but we we're making a determination and so we we've had situations we're like well it took me longer than 20 hours it's really about assigned project hour so well you know may have taken you a little bit longer to do it but we assigned 20 hours so you kind of got to get it done within within a scope of window um and sometimes your Visions are needed you know there's different levels of expertise with developing curriculum so sometimes we send it back and folks have to kind of do some extra work on it with the same assigned project hour so that happens as well so it's not it's not as open-ended as you think Teresa we I keep a pretty tight handle on that thank you you're welcome bye Kara yeah oh great okay so two things um we've discussed on several occasions at our regular meetings and um curriculum meetings about going to Nashville I think at this point especially people on this committee need to get a real understanding of what we're looking at I had requested as well several times I didn't see it come over perhaps I missed it uh the flow chart basically the operations um remember when they came from Nashville on the uh visit and they said that they actually have a model of what this looks like how many people to support a student in the business entity a scope of it you know Nashville said the national folks said they had a chart oh yes and Kevin you were there do you recall the conversation so was it their organization chart yes it was basically um and I forgot the uh the very lovely lady who came here the older one who had said that they do have an organizational chart because it looked like they had several ways of breaking down the system and they had several people that were supporting at every level it looked like you know there were 20 people touching one student and I went out of I mean specifically asked the question at our breakout meeting and then again at the overall main meeting that and I was told that I would be provided that chart that it exists and um I wanted to compare it as far as what we do is student enrollment that's how we base our support in all lessons and we are struggling with Paras the program that was provided to us and the kind lady again that was running it said yeah it's kind of difficult we have to fill in the gaps or the actual words that she had used so again we're looking at curriculum we don't have the course curriculum breakdown which would make it easier as for us to reference like Teresa had mentioned this flow this operational chart to see how we have what we currently have as staff and a different model for what we're looking at and they have different ways of funding it through property tax though they don't collect and they have that flexibility we discussed as well of being able to just Place children in different locations patients this is when we came up that we are a lottery system and that it is more difficult to provide and that is why they're successful so all this I'm sure you recall came up and I feel that if Teresa myself Lauren have the opportunity to actually see the program in live and in person as well as you know what really constructs it we would have a much better idea of what we're talking about and much more in-depth questions and Analysis of really what we're considering here which is our curriculum thank you yep okay um so thank you for that um I'm texting and emailing as we speak to see if Brent to see if he has uh that and you know with from that conversation and that uh see what we can get from our Nashville folks they were super friendly with sharing so I'm sure that would be yeah I think they were happy to do that and I also believe we've asked on multiple occasions but I don't seem to have received it the list of the current business partners that you are having because I believe that there was a number of 60 Partners currently that are so again can we please have the businesses the community leaders Pro you know yeah what are we talking to thank you yeah I'm just adding that to the Lister appreciate that right okay all right I think we could go to the next one before we go to sort of the general discussion I just could give you some updates uh but we have Rick um where you see with us and I think that uh you know hopefully you're introduced at some point that is our new adult director and we're very lucky to to get him and to find him and he's already working on uh establishing some some Partnerships and some great great um some great branches in the community so I don't know uh Kevin or Rick if you wanted to talk a little bit about this but I um I will turn it over to you both yeah thank you Cara and I I'd like to take the opportunity to introduce Rick I know some of our board members attending some functions um that um adulthood and family community resource center uh collaboratively had uh together to close out our school year Rick was able to pull together some meetings through some um really fast and creative programming and he's I think Rick's been with us for about four four and a half months and and already has his foot well entrenched into the community and continuing to try to further develop our adult education program I've asked Cara and Lauren if we can add Adult Ed to the agenda this evening to really talk about what we feel like is an amazing opportunity for the community um and also an opportunity to bring some resources into the district some of them Financial but also some resources via coursework opportunities and I've asked Rick if he can come explain and talk through some of these unique opportunities we have someone who was an adult that in charge of adulthood in Milford previously um I I'm happy to say that we stole him from Milford and but with his experience well recognized and appreciated and respected across the state we're happy to have him here I think we've already benefited from his leadership and he's going to talk to you tonight about some unique opportunities that's ahead of us that I think quite frankly is going to be mutually beneficial so Rick if you can talk to us about it thanks Kevin um so like Kara had mentioned my name is Rick rayusi um I am the director the new director for Western Connecticut Regional adult and continuing education or we race we race is located at 10 Crosby Street as some of you might know or might not know the state requires every municipality to offer certain State mandated programming for any adults aged 17 years or older those programs include high school diploma programs so anything anybody that had not completed their high school diploma program in a traditional High School sense has the opportunity to take those classes English as a second language classes for anyone who is not a native English speaker and then citizenship preparation classes which ultimately prepare someone to take the citizenship examination um as they're putting in their application for citizenship um so those are the state mandated programming that we currently offer the state of Connecticut offers three different types of Pathways if you will to high school diploma completion to result in an actual high school diploma that come from Danbury and the third is obviously the GED certificate which is a high school diploma alternative but it is not a diploma itself it is a certificate um currently Danbury offers two of those three options the partnership that we're going to talk about in just a moment will allow us to offer that third option to Danbury residence which is very very unique it will open up a lot of doors for a lot of the residents in our community something that we've been working on at we race over the last four months um has been discussions on how we can expand our programming so over the last few years we race has done a very nice job in providing those State mandated programs but we have not and we haven't provided enrichment programming for the Danbury Community uh throughout the last four months I have worked not only with Brent but with local businesses um and and different stakeholders within the community to identify folks that might be interested in teaching enrichment classes for us come spring I'm really excited to announce that um we will be having enrichment programming for the first time in a very long time that will be open to the entire Danbury Community um so we'll be piloting that in Spring 2024 and that's really exciting for us I hope that I see some of you at those classes if you're interested in teaching one of those classes I'd love to talk to you um but we know across the state a lot of people uh appreciate enrichment classes um in in talking with other directors in my experience coming from Milford um we had you know upwards of 3 500 residents that would take part in those enrichment classes so we're hoping to build something substantial in Danbury that will allow residents to to take part in that which is great um one of the Partnerships that I wanted to talk with you all about this evening as you know we are a regional program we currently Service uh in addition to danbury's seven additional municipalities um so that creates our regional program um and we currently offer Connecticut diploma program which is one of the three programs that I referenced earlier which results in a successful candidate earning a diploma and then additionally we offer GED um the one program that we don't currently offer is called National external diploma um and in talking with Milford my former District um we are very interested in entering into a partnership with them that would be mutually beneficial for us it will allow us for the first time in quite a while to offer GED in the fall as well as offer this third program for diploma that will allow students an alternate Pathway to earn a high school diploma for nedp and additionally it will expand our ability to offer additional ESL programming during the daytime for Danbury residents and folks within our district um and it will bring in upwards of forty thousand dollars to our program and allow us the ability to service more folks within the community so I wanted to report out on that and um provide that update we're very excited I'm very optimistic about the direction that the department is taking and the changes that we're seeing and the growth that we're experiencing uh Teresa please uh as a person who works at the Danbury Library you desperately need what you're talking about and I would highly recommend uh uh you know reaching out to the library if you want to put a table there and showcase when you have your programs all set up and you want to drum up business it's a great idea we definitely need that service thank you um it's I'm I'm excited that you you pointed that out and I'm happy to share that I actually was speaking with the library for the last two weeks uh someone by the name of Chelsea uh department and possibly do that so okay so we're we're definitely pursuing that actively excellent excellent any other questions okay thank you so much so I I just wanted to add I did ask Rick um um and let him know I would love to be able to get him back in front of the full board um later on in the fall um to just kind of talk about the things that are going on in developments that are going on an adult ed we want to find every rate possible number one to promote what's going on in Adult Ed and if we're going to have this enrichment programming um of course we want to start with the board and see if we can kind of get the word out in our community uh Rick Rick in uh Milford very successfully actually offered uh courses to staff to try to just get their feet wet and hope that they remain interested some free courses so I'm not exactly sure what his strategy is going to be here in Danbury uh but you know we want to get as much foot traffic as possible and then from there try to create an additional source of revenue for the adult dead program so again continue to remain really excited about Rick's leadership here in the district and we'll have some more updates regarding this partnership and hopefully this is something that we can solidify really soon and uh Ray can come back and tell us more about what this means for Danbury Rick thank you um I will be reaching out to you this week or next week about some ways I can help get information out to the community awesome I would love that thank you so much thank you Rick yep thanks thank you I think we could go to the last slide um you know and Lauren wanted to make sure that we had time to talk about anything you really wanted to talk about or just ask questions and you know as we head into head into the school year um you know we there's there are so many things happening there are so many different types of things that we could talk about but I did want to just update you and some of this is relevant for you and some of it's just more you know good to know um and you know the kind of training that the we're going to be engaging folks in Across The District K-12 um you know as you know are implementing our course is a pretty big training series dedicated to that it's going to take a lot of time across the year and a lot of our efforts are going to be surrounding that um I think the academy itself is is well known that we're going to be doing a lot of work on that but um in addition to the things that you may not hear a lot about it's really art core literacy training will be kind of front and center for for Elementary this year um that our district is engaging in something an opportunity uh an invitation from the state to protect participate in something called the science of reading master class and it's very much tied to why we switch to Art core and why we headed down that road and it's tied to the legislation so um the very first year that the legislation came out they took a pilot a few pilot districts and engaged them give an opportunity to engage in a master class of the of the of the science of teaching reading and it was really District leaders that they were that was the target of of that training um so that everybody was on the same page about the look fors and what what should be happening in at our earliest levels um to make sure that folks skills were up to par and that really had a deep sense of shared language and vocabulary around these things um so we were again we were mad that we did not get in that first cohort and that we we weren't picked for that first round um it was very randomized they just kind of tried it with a few with a few folks and um we had pestered the state uh on a regular basis to say if you offer this training again please make sure Danbury is involved in it so long and short of it is they opened up another round and a cohort Danbury was invited um and they selected 13 districts they invited I think 15 or 18 schools to apply it was an application process so we applied um and we were invited to attend and so a lot of our central office leaders Kevin Kelly myself our literacy experts a couple of our coaches a few teachers and student support Specialists and two principals um we'll be engaging in a very deep training opportunity over the course of the Year training costs are completely on the state of Connecticut Teresa so there is no cost to us thankfully that's why we that's why we really wanted to make sure we got involved in this um the state itself is already 12 million dollars in on this training that they're providing with the with the level of the experts coming from across the country to to do this um but it's of no cost to us so they have not passed that cross on to us so we we're very excited to do that um but it'll keep our our folks very busy this year um we I'll skip down I'll leave PBS training for the end because Kelly's deeply involved in setting that up um so I'll Circle back to her in just a second um our Delta aspirin program so those are our our teacher leaders um and folks who want to become administrators and so we have um a couple of sessions we meet with them I meet with them after school on Wednesdays we have different central office admitters come in and talk to them about their role their work what they do um so they engage in some some wonderful professional development there and then we also get to see who kind of Rises out of that group as as a real leader and we have hired some of our aspirants in the past and so we'll I will continue we'll continue that as well um we have this year a smaller small but a developing administrator Reduction Program so rather than you know good luck welcome to Danbury um get right into that building we're intentionally going to be pulling them out to work with them and to make sure that they're off to a really solid start um so we'll engage them in some of professional development as well so we have a few sessions dedicated to that right away in the fall so that they feel comfortable and that they can can transition and they also kind of understand the Danbury way um our teachers really are going to be very excited we're going to be taking them out on some of those on industry externship so um in November the goal is to take the the teachers who have been assigned to the different academies and allow them an opportunity to go out to um a manufacturing facility or on site to see what the work that the the engineering an engineer would do or to see the work um that we had a successful event last year where some of our teachers visited um lesser evil the company the snack company in Danbury they were blown away they felt they were abuzz with ideas that they wanted to you know can we get this into the curriculum can we try this with the kids oh my gosh now I get what what it is we have to do and um can we bring the kids here for a field trip and so um we were like wow the teachers went crazy for that opportunity that professional learning it was very different than what they're used to getting now okay we're gonna talk to you for a couple hours here in PD and so they they really loved it and so we're going to try to scale that in November and take some of our teachers out and get them passionate about this but then also bring that information back to and foreign curriculum and then very quickly I'll talk about an ASAP training last before I turn it over to Kelly illustrative mathematics we've been rolling that out over the last several years it'll finally reach grade 4 and grade 5 which is wonderful because we've done K3 and we've had six eight and so this kind of closes the gap on math and we're really trying to improve our math score so um there'll be our fourth and fifth grade teachers will be doing that that work quite a bit this year and we'll be engaging our our principles and understanding how to support that as well nasap training so and this kind of goes to Michelle some of the things you know we've heard how Nashville does some things the NASA standards the cat our Academy standards for what a model Academy should look like and so their aspirational standards so if you have these things in place and you're doing all of these things um to this degree right it's kind of a rubric and a Continuum of of level of where are you at with getting to this really high standard um and we'll use that Acro as we as we go forward to measure our progress on how we're doing and to hold us hold ourselves accountable for for having a high standard and and not dropping any of the important pieces that go into this so um so that's something that we want to hold ourselves accountable for and I'd like to uh socialize the board and Orient the board on what those standards are so that you're also familiar with them as well and and that we have some shared language and understanding so at some point during the course of the year and we can certainly start it in the curriculum committee um I'd like to introduce those to you and then and then the larger the board at large um and we can talk more about that but it's definitely one of those that's why I have a little star there because I think it's something that that the board should be well aware of um and then I'm going to turn it over to I'm happy to field questions at the end uh turn it over to Kelly talk a little bit about the pbas training and the importance of that work this year or another training thank you cara another training that we're going to be doing this year is PBIS which is positive behavioral interventions and supports um and essentially what that is is explicitly teaching kids the the soft skills the behavioral expectations um so that they can be successful uh in school both in life and in school um so we are going to elicit um teams from K-8 uh there'll be a team inclusive of building Administration pupil services so support Personnel classroom teachers and other key leadership positions in the building and every one of those um every one of those teams will be trained um by Circ on this this model and so it'll be a six day comprehensive training we have two cohorts of uh teacher teams going through these trainings um and then their responsibility will be to bring the information back and develop expectations for their school we have noticed since post pandemic that the behavioral needs of our students some of the disciplinary needs and so forth have been on a rise as well as some of our engagement attendance and things like that so this is a way to explicitly teach expectations district-wide so that we're very clear on what we expect students to be doing so that we can have both safe and positive learning environments for kids we all know kids that need to be connected to school they need to feel safe at school um they need to be there at school in order to learn so the work of this team is really talking about the curriculum this is setting the stage for the curricular work to happen and so this training will happen over the next three years it is being funded through kind of a variety of different grants but every year there'll be six days of training this year followed by five days of training the following year and then four days of training the year after um and so what each team will be responsible for doing is setting expectations doing uh presentations to the whole school including staff students and families that everyone is aware of what we expect so rather other than just providing the discipline policy which we will also do this also communicates those positive things that we want to see students doing with in school also helps them to feel part of the school Community have shared expectations across the school community and have input into that so we're really excited it's been something we've been wanting to do um over the last handful of years and we've had this opportunity and so we're excited to launch this also along with this it's not on the list but we will be doing training on aperture which is a social emotional screener we'll be using for our kids so after we set the expectations if there are students that still have needs and need a little bit of extra follow-up or support or work that screener will help us to identify those needs and further support those students as well so our teachers will receive training in both of these areas to help support the social emotional needs of our of our kiddos turn it over for any questions on either PBIS or anything else on the list does anybody on the curriculum committee have any questions about anything we went over tonight or just kind of questions that you're looking for answers on yes Theresa I'm sorry I was waiting for Lauren to but I wasn't sure what the the rule was I keep forgetting uh going back to uh credit high school credit for uh World languages uh as we all know we have a very diverse population do we ever test students out of world languages um with their background I mean do we ever do that so one of the things that we I don't like if I don't have the slide up but um you saw a Heritage Spanish uh on the list and so we have a lot of students that come in and speak Spanish and have us have a stronger oral background but they're not literate in terms of their reading ability or their writing ability so it's a whole different ball game right because grammar comes into play language structure context comprehension um in in print and and in writing so we developed we offered a Heritage course so those are for students who um probably who probably on the surface could test out orally right like the student clearly can speak English and Spanish but really they they are not literate and and proficient in it if that makes sense and so the Heritage class is for Spanish speakers who um who on the surface can orally you know engage but need more work and more attention more time on things like Granite grammar sentence structure language structure and so it's a little bit different it's a different curriculum than your typical World Language Spanish one curriculum per se so they just focus on the areas of of Need for Spanish speakers so there's not really testing out there's really um how you know how much better can you get at this right so that these skills can really um serve you well in the future right to be by literate is such a gift so um Augusto mentioned the Seal of by literacy we want our students at the end when they graduate towards a graduation to take the Seal of my literacy test so that's Teresa where you are proficient orally you are proficient in writing you are proficient in Reading uh and literate all the way all the way through and that becomes a Distinction on your graduation uh diploma and on your transcripts and when you apply to colleges um but it's it's kind of an honor to be able to do that but um we don't have a test out per se you know particularly you know in middle school I would say that there are very few students who come to us fully articulate in English as well as Spanish or indoor French or Chinese or Mandarin so um so but we did we but because of our population particularly being heavy Spanish speaking we did develop um and offer a course called uh Spanish Heritage to address to address some of that so that was called the seal by literacy feel of by literacy oh so so you are you know we're certifying you that you are literate in in a language in both in a dual language thank you yeah I have a question about um not really about what we've gone over tonight but um can we just about class sizes in elementary schools um we've heard rumor that we're starting class sizes at a minimum of 25 in K through five schools is that correct can you expand on that a little bit yeah so our class sizes Kevin do you want to you want to touch base a little bit about that or yeah sure sure um and so it it varies across the district Lauren our class size has always been uh 25 and we try to keep the guide between 22 and 25.