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okay giving out the awards because yeah we'll how about we'll probably be giving out over 100 Awards wow okay so I would like to try to start that at 12 30 just to get people moving okay um and so there's no pre-registration however we got a nice setup that I I'll have four or five lines to let people in now I say nine o'clock somebody are going to be there at seven seven I'll appreciate that 6 30. okay um and funny story one of the people always would show up really and you probably know Chris beaten oh yeah Chris who also yeah I was here at Ashland teacher Ashland teacher Hospital years ago yeah um and we will recognize him as well with the gun show he 6 30. I go Chris come on Pete I want to make sure I had a good spot really um but I'll tell you what people show up 6 30 seven o'clock yeah we're pretty much ready like it's 7 30.
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okay now fortunately you typically have the Lions there with their favorite trailer yep serving breakfast breakfast lunch stay there for lunch you know have some good lunch yeah and they've been there heavy except for one I think because we have a conflict with Ashley and Dave yep um they've been there every year they had such a great organization and they give us a great amount of the proceeds that they will give back to Americans Society so uh big thanks to them good yeah okay I have to let people know I am a lion so okay okay I'm glad I said good things but no I know it's always a fun day I've done it once or twice as a lion and then a couple times before that so well is there anything else you want people to know about the car show before we wrap up this discussion I think yeah so you know bring anything you want to the car show uh it's not it's the car's not going to be judged you know we're not going to look for dirt or anything like that and lose points it's not it's a fun event it's a family event it's nice um we'll have an ice cream truck there yeah the alliances and alliances there we have a DJ who donates his time he's been with me for 10 years wow poor kid worked for me now he's the game is first job and now he's doing it well he's that's what it's all about so yeah come and enjoy have fun good so Peter this is the first time I've had an opportunity to interview here on around the clock and when I interview someone for the first time I always have a question I ask them and it's been a while I realize with some of our interviews since I've had this opportunity is there something about you Peter comedian that not many people may know so start thinking that you'd be willing to share with our viewers they'll be willing to share um I don't have been an Ashland residence for a long long time I take a lot of pride in the town been involved in little league and basketball and all the youth programs and stuff I just what a great town I I just just it's a great time and I'll tell you the people in town offices as far as helping me run the show he couldn't ask for anything more really what a great town so yes I have to agree with you and uh yeah we we do live in a pretty good town here in Ashland we have a lot um a lot of great things and a lot of great people yeah well Peter thank you so much for coming on around the clock I'm glad you finally have an interview I know we've talked about it after the show many times but thank you for coming on good luck with the show this year and I'll try to stop by and maybe get a ride on that golf cart absolutely I've got a reserve part okay sounds good thank you well that wraps up this segment with Peter comedian from the Kitty fenwall car show that's happening on Saturday September 9th we hope to see you there and thanks for watching this segment of Around the Clock the next stop on our around the town tour is over at the farmers market the Metro West famous Ashland Farmers Market we were there at the beginning of the month for National Farmers Market week and there are quite a few uh well-known people or at least local well-known people who joined us at the market that day including Congressman McGovern our own Senator Karen spilka and a few other people let's go take a look and listen at what they talked about at the Farmers Market improve nutrition by providing greater access to Fresh local products educate residents about nutrition and sustainable agriculture in the build community while contributing to a vibrant downtown Center in Ashland over our 12 Seasons Ashland Farmers Market has become a community Hub that brings residents together weekly promoting local farms and small businesses supporting snap and hip programs and providing a welcoming space for all over most of our history the Farmers Market has been exclusively a volunteer organization community service has provided provided by team volunteers as integral to Our Success and Ashland Farmers Market maintains a scholarship program for a graduating volunteer as we celebrate 2023 National Farmers Market week our Focus continues to be issues of food insecurity food Justice supplemental matching funds for SNAP recipients and climate impacts on Massachusetts farmers again we appreciate you joining the Metro West famous Ashley and Farmers Market as we celebrate 2023 National Farmers Market week and now I would like to introduce our Senate President Massachusetts State Senate President Karen spilka Steve offered to hold the sunflowers but I wanted everybody to see these gorgeous sunflowers one of the best things to wake up in the morning and see them on a daily basis it brings a smile to your face so there are many sunflowers and flowers around here in the vendors so don't go home without them thank you but I'm not done yet so good morning everyone good morning it's great to be here with you one of my favorite spots in all of Massachusetts uh it's wonderful to be and see our community here but at the fabulous Ashland Farmers Market It's a beautiful morning it's not too hot not too cold the sun it certainly is not raining which is wonderful and I want to just thank everybody for coming out here and supporting Ashland supporting our community and supporting all of the vendors that are here I want to give a very warm welcome to our terrific Congressman uh James McGovern who's here [Applause] is probably the champion fighting hunger in Congress he has consistently brought attention to the fact that contrary to what a lot of people think Massachusetts still has a lot of people who go hungry every single day and he has been the best Champion for that uh in in Congress and so we really thank him uh in fact when we uh recently in the state budget uh he spoke to me about supporting Universal School meals and we did include that in the budget so every child will get a breakfast and a lunch they can't learn if their stomachs are grumbling and they're hungry and and the state will pay for it I also want to acknowledge uh as select board chair Rob Shearer here Town manager Michael Katie and the Steve Mitchell and many many others for all that they do the work here is a tremendous amount of work on a daily weekly basis to make sure that this is a success in contacting vendors and helping to set it up in the morning even just to take it down in the afternoon and all of the work in between so give them all a round of applause I believe that this farmer's market I might be a little partial but is the best farmers market in the state the minute the music every week we read different themes every week the activities for kids it really is a family occurrence and it's a place that brings Community out and helps grow the fabric of Ashland and all Metro West people come here so it really grows Community which is something that Ashland really stands for so I do want to mention that this is National Farmers Market week and so for me this is something worth celebrating there are over 200 farmers markets in Massachusetts and they also bring their communities together support our local businesses bring fresh and healthy produce to your tables and so we want to thank them they make fresh food accessible and affordable so I want to take a moment to support and celebrate our Farmers you know you may not think about what it takes to get the food to these tables here and then to your table at home but our Farmers work hard every single day to produce the crops the fruits they work on the the livestock whatever it is for fresh delicious food bringing it to from their door to our door and our tables so farmers I just want to stress need our support this year Farmers suffer deep freezes in February and March catastrophic flooding I think you couldn't turn on the television without seeing the flooding some of it totaling all of their Acres of cross so I do just want to mention and thank mdar we have some Representatives here commissioner Randall Deputy Commissioner who's here and others that will speak we have Representatives from uh the farmers uh market across the state and and people who really work hard for this but I want to acknowledge mdar and their partnership uh in dealing with the devastation of our Farmers just so recently I'm really proud to say uh when we did a bill uh we talked about after working with mdar and Senator Joe Comerford from the western part of the state congressman McGovern recognizing the state needed to step up to the plate to help these farmers and so I went out there met with them and our uh and and all others and got a better handle and saw it firsthand and we put 20 million dollars for flexible fund fun funding for Farmer resiliency uh to help them get through this hard time and I just want to you sometimes hear how slow the legislature works and we sometimes do but I was in uh the western part of the state on a Monday introduced the 20 million dollars a week and a day it was later it was signed into law by Governor Healey and her Administration who supports the farmers and is working hard for our food sustainability and food insecurity as well so I want to thank the administration mdar Congressman McGovern and all of you here for supporting our local produce our farmers and keeping it going and building a sense of community uh thank you enjoy please support the vendors make sure you go home with your bags filled and have a beautiful day thank you so much and I would like to know McGovern please give him a warm Round of Applause good morning everybody I can't think of a better place to be than here to celebrate National Farmers Market week this is an incredible farmers market and uh I'm just finishing up my acoustic java coffee I got a whole bunch of meats from uh lilac hedge Farm I've been going around great vegetables this is unbelievable it's wonderful and I'm thrilled to see so many people here supporting our local farmers you know agriculture is an incredibly important part of our economy here in Massachusetts and by you coming here uh and shopping at this farmer's market you are supporting our local farmers these are families these are people who have been farming not just for a generation but for Generations Massachusetts has some of the oldest farms in the country and I want to thank Karen spilka I mean you are lucky that she represents this area but we are lucky that she is our Senate President and she mentioned what the legislature did under her leadership which is historic Universal free School meals for every child in Massachusetts that will do a great deal to combat food insecurity is hungry in this in this state but also understand this if you're hungry you can't learn um and uh so this is going to have such an incredible impact and it makes Massachusetts a leader you know as she also mentioned um you know some of our Farmers have been hit really hard by these floods and by this terrible weather my congressional district now once again includes Ashland but it also goes all the way out west uh you know beyond Northampton Beyond Amherst Beyond Greenfield and a lot of my farms uh were flooded they were devastated and we need to find ways to support them and the legislature has taken an important step we are working on the federal level uh to make sure that they get some sort of disaster relief trying every which way to be helpful but the fact of the matter is the firms that are represented here you know our our national agriculture policy doesn't account for their reality and so we have to step up there is nothing better than locally grown or locally raised food and there's nothing more important that we can do now than to support our Farmers we have to do what we can so you know whatever you can whatever which way you can help them out please do and spread the word the final thing I'm going to say is that I believe that food should be viewed as a fundamental human right for every single person in this country and on this planet and the incredible food that we all have access to today ought to be accessible to every single person in this country I appreciate the fact that so many of the farmers here do the double up bucks uh program for people on snap that is incredibly important but the reality is in this state and all across the country we have areas where families cannot get access to the kind of food that we're enjoying here today we need to do better uh and so you have my word that we're going to do every weekend in Washington I will work with our State Legislative delegation and our incredible Senate president who was unbelievable uh and so uh with that and I also want to thank our state uh agricultural agencies as well as our federal agencies and now I get to introduce somebody who I've worked with for a long long time nobody that I know in government cares more about our local farmers than our next speaker he is the Deputy Commissioner of mdara please welcome Winton pickup whoo been doing this long enough to know you never want to follow Congressman McGovern and following Congressman McGovern and Senate President philco is even more difficult the administration could not have two better Partners um in Congress and in the legislature uh than these two folks and I'm really proud to be able to be um and I've been sitting over there crossing off things that I was going to say because they've all said everything to say um there's about 200 farmers markets in the state more than direct marketing is so important to farms in Massachusetts we're a national leader in the number of farms that sell directly to Consumers and that matters because every dollar that you spend is going directly to the farmers they're able to command a much more fair price and so every dollar that you spend is also going to support the local economy because those farmers are using buying local goods and services and creating jobs it also goes to support the environment because those farmers are carefully stewarding Farmland they're taking care of soil and water and other natural resources and ways that help keep our our state resilient against climate change so everything that you spend here at this farmers market has a ripple effect across all aspects of the Commonwealth and that's really important and we really appreciate you being here for that Middlesex County has over 600 farms and has uh about 30 000 acres of land produces about 65 million dollars in sales each year and the other important thing in the congressman mentioned this is is that the department is really committed to making sure that farmers markets and the food that's sold here are is accessible to everybody and we have programs and Partnerships like Snap and hip and WIC and the senior Farmers Market nutrition programs and there's Farmers here at this Market that participate in all of these and I particularly want to mention that this year here at the department of AG resources received 1.4 million dollars from USDA through the American Rescue plan act and particularly through the the work of Congressman McGovern to increase the value of senior coupon booklets from 25 to 50 for this year and next and also increasing the programs reached by an additional 2300 people in Middlesex County Springwell Elder Services is Distributing coupon booklets to about 375 income qualified older adults to make sure that these farmers markets are accessible to you no matter what your income level is um and so with that I want to read the proclamation this is the first event in the Farmers Market week in Massachusetts and someone uh I think Rob was asking me if mdar ranks farmers markets and if we can say that Ashland is the is the state's best farmers market and I think I can safely say for memdar that this is the absolute best farmers market in Ashland and we really appreciate all the hard work that goes into this market and you know I was given a list of all the people and and some of them have been thanked already but I want to make sure that people acknowledge Samantha Farmers Market managers are the unsung heroes of these things and I'm sure she's off somewhere with her clipboard and and not even standing here listening to me but if you see her that's what keeps the farmers markets running so this is a proclamation from Governor Healy and I'm not going to read the whole thing because there's a lot of whereas is and therefore's um but whereas Massachusetts is home to over 260 farmers markets that operate in every region of the Commonwealth including 50 that are open during the winter months and whereas Farmers Market managers work determinedly year round to serve their local communities and whereas farmers markets create Dynamic and Festival Community spaces which provide a hub for Education around healthy eating and good nutrition therefore I morrity Healy I am not moritzi Healey but these are her words governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to hereby Proclaim August 6th through 12 2023 to be Massachusetts farmers market week and urge all of the residents of the Commonwealth to take cognizance of this event and participate fittingly in its observance and I would suggest the best way to participate fitting lean is observance is to buy things from your local farmers thank you so much oh and as we keep talking about how many farmers markets there are around the state I want to acknowledge Edith murnane runs Massachusetts farmers market Federation and she's going to come up and say a few words my job today is really to thank the people who make all of this happen and that's yes the consumers but it's also your city and town officials it is especially your farmers market manager and the and the market organization that supports all of this work that brings the partners here that creates the environment to get you enjoy and so on this day Farmers Market Farmers Market the first day of farmers market week I want to celebrate those who make today and every Farmers Market Day happen thank you Samantha for all that you do and thanks to the board who makes all of this happen and the City true here of Ashland who is so um who is so supportive in making this day and these days happen so so thank you all and thank you Market managers and thank you Market boards and thank you cities and towns and with that I'm going to introduce uh the lead um as a local official I just want to say how grateful we are for both the uh the efforts of the volunteers that make this farmer's market possible and the great success at it and I really think I'm really happy to be represented by looking Congressman Jim McGovern they do a great job for us and we're really grateful for that so thank you all and enjoy the market and happy Farmers Market week thank you how's everybody doing today awesome my name is Michael Herbert I'm the town manager I want to thank you all for coming out here today to the Ashland Farmers Market I'd like to thank our elected and appointed officials for being here specifically uh Senate President spilka Congressman McGovern representatives from the Massachusetts Department of agricultural resources head of the mass Farmers Market Alliance here as well as some of our local officials such as Rob sheriff and I believe I see a couple of Select board members they were hovering around here they probably saw us going to speak and then left um but anyway thank you again this is so such a great week to celebrate farmers markets around the state Ashland's Farmers Market again I'm pretty biased I think is the best in the region for sure if not the best in the state and there are several reasons why it is the best in the state first of all we support local businesses here local farms local businesses and a lot of those businesses have actually taken their their vendorship here in at the farmers market and actually have turned it into local brick and mortar stores so we have actually had vendors here open up rent space build space and open up a shop here to sell the stuff that they sell here at the farmers market every Saturday so that's number one number two I think for farmers markets to be truly successful you have to be a Community Connection point and I think the Ashland Farmers Market does that better than anybody else this is a place really where you can go every Saturday and know that you're going to see a friend you're going to see you know people that you've probably saw during the week but also people you might not have seen in years and so that's what the farmers market is for this community and it should be that way for everybody for every community that a farmers market is in so um I think everybody else said everything that needed to be said so I will turn it over to Steve thank you Michael and thank you to all of the the folks who joined us here today uh and spoke on behalf of farmers markets everywhere in the state that spoke on behalf of food security for everyone so thank you very much for joining us today at the Metro West famous Ashland farmers market and uh I think we have our fish vendor coming soon to uh to do a drawing uh but I think at this point we want to introduce our musical performers this week which is the Cardinal gets jacked uh Joe stillitano is a national an resident he's been to the farmers market a number of times great musician so I'm sure you're going to enjoy them the thing that happened on Wednesday August 16th we started our one meeting for the month at 7 pm and we started with a legal update from Lisa Mead our lead Town Council she talked to us about a number of the projects that she and her team are working on including some land issues the efsb issue and Legacy Place and some water issues we then went into a public hearing or for a poll hearing uh it was a little odd and eversource was not there we opened the hearing we approved the poll hearing without someone being there as we've done this uh a number of times before from there we went into an update from deputy chief morahan regarding our comprehensive emergency management plan this is a plan that is created for the town to talk about issues that may arise and how they are handled then members of the team that are on it are the town manager the police chief the fire chief our Public Works and our health director as well as other people who may need to help out and there's two type of plans one is for an emergency so either winter weather or a summer weather or a hurricane kind of issue and another is for a planned event so such as the Boston Marathon if you'd like to see the whole presentation that was given you can go ahead and watch the full select board meeting from there we went into old and new business we voted to accept and sign a cell tower lease this is an extension of the lease on the tower on Cedar Street on the water tower the the actual cell towers are being dropped down along the side of the Tower so they're not going to be quite as visible but again this is the lease to increase to continue that cell tower usage and that was with T-Mobile from there we discussed the results of July 26 2023 special election I know a lot of people didn't realize there was election if you weren't aware of it let the select board or town manager know what would be a better way to reach you because one of the things we've talked about is how can we let people know about these things there was signage there was uh the town manager's email address and email that goes out so if you didn't hear about it let us know how we can tell how we can touch base with you or sign on to the town manager's email address so you'll email newsletter so you'll get it we then discussed uh the possibility of sponsoring the kitty Sun wall car show this is a car show that is a they're a Relay for Life team and about 10 years ago they started doing the car show as an extra way to raise money and so people can come and bring their cars when they first started they had 50 cars last year they had about 300 cars and they're hoping to maybe get to either 400 cars this year it's ten dollars if you want to bring your car it doesn't have to be an old car it can just be a nice car and then they have sponsors so the select board approved being a sponsor and then being able to offer a trophy to one of the cars we then discussed and opened the warrant for the special town meeting our fall special town meeting will be happening on Wednesday November 29th there'll be a number of items on there potentially some land issues potentially some zoning issues and as those warrants come forward we'll be talking more about them we then discussed uh reaching out to our state legislature for a home rule petition to increase the number of full alcohol licenses that we have here in town so for restaurants and bars we have a number of new space that are going to be coming available in regards to mixed use and we want to be able to make sure that if a light if a business or restaurant wants to come in they can do a full liquor license so we have approved and asked Michael to go forward with writing and drafting a letter as well as our Town Council and we're going to be requesting an additional 16 all alcohol licenses and this is for serve not retail not um where you can go and buy it this is for restaurants and or bars and we'll see what happens and we'll keep you updated we then discussed a transfer of funds back when we purchased Warren Woods there was some funds available and we had some money that we had put aside to work on the barn we've now received other funds to work on the barn so we're transferring Thirty one thousand dollars from the Warren Barn account to the Warren District Perpetual care account and that has enough money now that the money sits and then it generates interest and it's the interest that gets used for the expenses and those expenses cover work work and bills at 22 Elliott Street any gas needed to mow the Lawns at the Warren con at the Warren Woods work on the shed things like that we then discussed the process for getting a number for the Boston Marathon it's about time if you are interested in running for team Ashland for the Boston Marathon you are required to raise three thousand dollars you can submit your name to S Roby ashlandmass.com get on the list saying that you'd like to be considered for one of our bib numbers and then she will reach out to everyone letting them know when they're going to draw names she then draw names up to the 12 numbers that we have available the first 12 people that get chosen will receive those bibs but other people are continued to be listed in a waitlist order so if someone drops out because of an injury and they don't feel they can raise the funds anymore then they would go down to uh to the next person on the wait list so if you're interested you've always wanted to run a marathon it's a great way to help raise funds for some of the great programs that our baa scholarship program provides funding for here in Ashland we then we approved spending up to five thousand dollars to it to do a refresh of the nyanza memorial the nian's memorial was created probably about five or six years ago by Dan Borelli it is up off Memorial Drive up in back of the Middle School fields and after it was created it was damaged they were glass panels and they're redoing it with much more sturdy materials so that they're not going to be as breakable and potential to Vandal vandalism so we've offered and we're going to be taking five thousand dollars from our gift account to support that and uh maybe when we hear that it's done we'll take you on a walk for on around the clock and go take a look uh then we authorized um uh we reauthorized people who are on various committees and that we appoint and so we did all of those we then approved our consent agenda which had a lot of different things on it we then moved into our priority projects downtown things are moving forward the final goal for having everything done downtown will be in Spring of 2024 and the last thing that will be happening is the utility wires coming down and the poll is coming down we're currently in the process the utilities are underground now it's a matter of connecting all the individual buildings to those utilities so that's getting done there's also Milling work getting done and then new pavement will be coming in next week most of the sidewalks have been completed most of the brick work is laid being laid and then on the islands around the train State the train tracks that is going to be stamped stamped a stamped material so it's going to look like cobblestones there in the middle it'll be very pretty right now it's just black asphalt and people are upset and not quite sure but give us a little time and it'll get done uh middle Mendez School uh getting ready to open for the first day of school which is Tuesday September 5th the Tuesday after Labor Day and then on September um yeah September 5th and then September 9th which is a Saturday the public has the opportunity to come and view the school from 12 30 to 4.
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it'll be an open house you'll be able to come in get a tour see all the see the new building teachers will have their things in place so if you'd like to finally take a look at this wonderful building September 9th from 12 30 to 4 it's open to the public for tours Valentine project things are moving forward on the barn they're laying some flooring on the inside they're putting collaborates on the outside so that'll be buttoned up soon and then in September or October we are going to have a discussion about how we're going to use it Michael Michael Herbert Our Town manager has a plan we'll discuss it at a select board meeting and then we'll have an open forum for the public to come and give their feedback on the use of that space because once that Barn is done we need to start using it it's a beautiful space from there we talked about the Warren District so the barn is being put on hold for another year until we can have a little more time and energy to spend on that the hall house which has been completely renovated was on the market apparently it already has it's under agreement if you hopefully saw pictures online it's a beautiful home from there we went into town manager reports MBTA project had quite a bit of discussion so the MBTA station in Ashland is going to be closed as of August 26th right now that date has been shifting back and forth right now as of August 26th there will be shuttle buses for people who get dropped off or walk to the station otherwise you'll have to drive to either Framingham or Southborough we are still trying to work to see if we could possibly get the station parking lot open for at least some cars but as we find out that you'll get updated but right now know that the Ashland train station will be closed trains will not be stopping there as of August 26th uh civil service so we had the vote back in July to move out of civil service and so now the paperwork in the process to actually get us out of civil service and let them know is in the works Human Services we lost Jennifer wolfing probably about a month ago who was the record of our Human Services over at the community center so different changes are being made but congratulations to Kristen French who has been promoted and also Caitlin two people who have been in the department who have now stepped up to have higher higher more in inclusive roles so congratulations to both of them uh trash billing if we had a discussion in the in the spring our trash costs our trash costs are going up and our trash fees are going up so to make it a little bit easier for people we're splitting it into two billing Cycles so instead of just one bill you'll have one in the fall and one in the spring and we talked about how we can make sure that people realize that so when they get the second bill they don't think that they don't need to pay it and the new bicycle laws so again back in April a new law was passed here in Massachusetts that as a driver you need to give four feet between you and a cyclist or Walker on the side of the road so we are getting some signs they are provided by Mass Department of Transportation and they will be getting put up uh within the next month or two once we get them we don't have them yet and you'll see them on most of the entrance ways into Ashland to let people know about this new law and to keep our bikers and Walkers safe from automobiles um we had a we discussed the police department promotional ceremony there were two promotions that were made and then DCR is having a an event here on October 21st regarding the Town Forest if you're interested you can reach out to our town Forest committee about it or I believe there's probably information on the website and we've wrapped up just after 10 o'clock we had to take that vote to go past 10 o'clock as we were giving board reports um
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[Music] thank you so I've been surrounded by women my whole life a lot of cousins who are girls but the main main influence was my mother she instilled in me a lot of Love Like Love is the base for a lot of things that you do in life that's where you find your motivation your purpose and what you want to do that's where you find the reassurance she instilled in me love and how to persevere how to be very strong and she always gave me this unconditional support and it made me feel like I could do anything and I've I've gone on to do a lot of different things still doing a lot my aunt and my mom my aunt came here when she was in her early 20s she came with my with my uncle and her two small children she came from Bolivia she wanted a better life for herself and her family she wanted to be a dentist but couldn't afford to keep going to school so she moved to the United States she ended up you know working and learning English and she was able to start her own business she actually received an award from the Rhode Island Chamber of Commerce and you know she's inspired me just to work hard and she showed me what you can do if you work hard and have determination um I feel most proud of that I already like accomplished what I want to do um I came to stay alone to finish my master's degree in Business Administration and have a job at the CPC raising my kids because my kids are really good kids I mean not just being a single mom but coming from a very poor family going back to my grandmother everybody is it just seems like there's like a pattern throughout my generations and I just wanted to make sure that I was the one to break that I just want to make sure that I can motivate somebody if I end up motivate somebody with the work that I do then I've done a good job I am very proud to have um finish my education as an adult learner and you know being able now in my role to help families to help the community to help those moms like myself my mother and my grandmother to be able to see the potential that could be for their own children by sharing my story which had many many times as their their story so I've always had role models in my life my grandma my mom and I feel like a lot of people don't have that so I've always wanted to be that person for someone um because it helped me so much like my mom didn't really understand college or like what to do like how do we get there but like what happens next so to have that person really helped me and I always wanted to be like helping other people grow forward um the growth mindset it was been huge in my family um to always grow always get a new position you know do something better for yourself for you know the people around you um so to be able to be that one person for another woman for another man it's always been great to just be that person the support system I have for sure coming into college I was by myself but I am blessed and grateful that I was put in the place where even starting with my roommate was very supportive and my neighbors as well who still to this day have been supportive so I want to bring this community and unity that I have been brought from FSU forward to the community because together we can do so much we can learn so much and through this also a great supervisor who I've had with Zeal who has helped me in developing day by day so through this I can just bring it forward and bring it out to my community my any young woman that I work with as much as I can when I'm working through the the college process with the students like the immigrants mainly girls I could give to them like another point of view of everything that I did because like it's totally different when you tell them that they can do it then when you show them a person in front of them that did it you know like they can see another perspective whether they can do you know like they can do the same thing that I did they can fight for the future you know that they can get in college get a better future get a better life get a better job and that's it I love to do it and I know that I am here to do something I I was born to make some different and if I have to do it for the rest of my life to inspire all the people I would do it with my hope pleasure
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everything that's been kind of delayed and slow going too so if they come out with a it's got the whole battery in it that might hold off yeah but my youngest son is right now all right yeah that's a sport yeah I have 5 30.
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can you tell me when you're ready it's going live you are alive I just want to do an audio all right you are golden okay we're going to call to order from public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right of the public but advance notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which time any business affecting their interest is discussed and acted upon according to the provisions of this act and Board of Education policy 0162 the Board of Education of the borough of Bound Brook has caused notice of this meeting to be posted the board office and at Bound Brook High School and mail or fax to The Courier News Bound Brook Borough clerk southbound report of Education any person who has requested individual notice and paid the required fee stand for the pledge [Music] allegiance to the United States of America the problem foreign [Music] ER Mr Januzzi Mr Vice President you have a Quantum president this evening thank you I'm going to skip president's comments go right to superintendent Court okay well good evening everyone Welcome to our August board meeting we are in a great place we're looking forward to students coming back in a couple of weeks putting a lot of hard work over the last couple of months to get ready for this upcoming school year we're very excited um hopefully I'll get to see some of you at the teacher or at the student orientation uh that happened this week and um we look forward to having you back in a couple weeks that's it for my comments however is not here tonight so we'll go right to committee reports starting uh with education with Mr Dawson thank you the uh education committee met on August 7th our Focus was largely around reviewing the results of our summer programs we as a district offer a variety of summer programs for kids who may need academic attention Credit Recovery or additional programming to meet their developmental needs this year the program was redesigned and reimagined and it included stem art other fun activities as a result the district noted dramatic increases and improvements and student attendance as well as a decrease in problematic student behaviors we did some surveying of students and staff and parents about the conclusion of the survey and the results overwhelmingly indicated that people were not only satisfied with the programming but they found meaning and value in it uh during our summer programs students need to determined through assessments and teacher data elementary students were able to be assessed through the eyewriting program which is an Adaptive test that we will be utilizing in the upcoming school year initial feedback was very positive from the use of that program teachers are able to use the data along with data from the spring Benchmark tests to design really targeted small group instruction in both language arts and math the results are very positive post-test results indicated high amounts of growth and there's a lot of excitement and enthusiasm that perhaps sharing this data with teachers as you begin will really bring about the enthusiastic racing and instructional approach that's targeted and responses data in the upcoming school year initially the extended school year program also enjoyed great success there are a variety of fun things kids did both in the buildings as well as in the community and all of these improvements of the administration really thought was possible because of really dedicated teacher leaders in our programs we want to recognize those folks I apologize if I am not pronouncing your names correctly those folks included Brittany Nelson Jen daravanic Bethany Wagner Diaz the board thank you thanks you for your work and your leadership in our summer programs and that was our education meeting this month for education okay uh governance is next I can do this in under a minute only because we talked about setting our goals for the upcoming year and we kind of spit both some ideas so that we can bring ideas to you guys later tonight so pretty much everything we did at governance you will learn at the second portion of our meeting with Gwen this evening so I really have no other report and that brings us right to human resources for Miss muscle I was not an attendance okay okay same thing for a while we're moving is anybody here from the community engagement and well I guess actually now that's the um excuse me extracurricular committee have a report no okay and miss high what about you anything from Somerset County this we met on August uh August 2nd and it really was um it was a quick meeting and the superintendent uh is how done Savage who's been there for 43 um [Music] um just discussed what the division was with operations putting money into reserved um passing knowledge taking over and extending the education program very well it's since ended there were 50 students in attendance the building was hit by one of the storms by lightning and one of the storms and it affected the fire system so they had to have a 24-7 fire watch and that was contracted until 8 15.
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just join us congratulations 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 how many oh okay Terry could you please call them absolutely trust sure no here Ben Joseph here ciao here Corson absent wounds here entire here well we're six tonight do we have any correspondence yes we do Dearborn thank you for the beautiful flower arrangement in memory of my dad I am I am so grateful for the support and understanding that you've provided wishing all of you the very best thank you again our own Sean thank you thank you we're sorry for your loss thank you that's all of our correspondence super happy to have you I'm super excited as well okay thank you so much everyone for the warm welcome so I'll go ahead and get started by introducing myself and who I am so I'm Kosh I'm a ride I'm a senior here at TV so now it's just crazy um so I wanted to kind of talk a little bit more about like who I am things I enjoy doing so over here's a picture of my family my grandparents visited from India this summer so I had a really good time with them and so all of the highlights um over here some of my friends some of the clubs I do at Stevenson are kivon Catalyst and I also lead over here is a logo for an organization that I lead called enco Justice which is an international non-profit working on like Tech policy stuff I'm regulating AI like ethics accountability all that sort of stuff um and then over here is a picture of me from June when I was in DC wearing a shirt democracy is a verb um I'm a huge like Community organizer activist advocacy person um I serve on like the Vernon Township 708 Mental Health Board that was recently passed through referendum initiative last November um and so that's kind of like pretty similar setup to this where you know there's like a secretary and all this so um anyways a lot of exciting stuff and uh I love DC's like my favorite place to visit every time I go it's like it feels like the same energy um and I'm especially excited for like um all the exciting like politics that's coming and the election cycle that's coming up right now so um that's just a little bit more about me um but I'm super excited to be here today and thank you all so much for this opportunity so one thing that I'm so I've heard a lot of positive reception that Alex did an incredible job last year and so I don't want to change too much so I'm going to keep the same structure that Alex presented her student body reports in in that it's gonna be four pillars Community academics Athletics and arts because after all that is what Stevenson builds off of so there's not much to change in that sense um but um there are like some things that I'm hoping to slowly ease my way into these like new changes and so one thing um this year that I'm adding is something that I actually like Dr gergen asked me about I was interviewing for this position he was like okay like there are a lot of clubs at Stevenson that there's like 200 clubs and there's a lot of clubs that oftentimes don't get the same like recognition or a lot of people don't know about what those clubs are doing and so each month I'm hoping to kind of present and I've reached out to a couple of clubs before this meeting smaller clubs that Stevenson um to kind of hear what they're doing kind of Spotlight some of their work as well because oftentimes that goes unnoticed and then also this is my first time at the job and so like if you guys have any feedback for me in and out after every single meeting that would be awesome um but yeah I can go ahead and get started with just like some of the stuff from the summer and what's been happening so over here are two pictures um Stevenson HOSA team actually traveled to that Internationals in Dallas Texas this summer and we actually had like I think like 13 teams place in the top 10 of their events so nothing unusual Stevenson Jose continues to kill it um and then over here we have uh pictures of Stevenson's team's team um in Louisville Kentucky um which recently participated in like this like national competition where there was like 143 teams and so they did competitions in like science mathematics engineering Arts and Technology um and so over here we have a team that actually won second place um and so obviously there's some trouble travel and some victories um that are co-curricular activities I've had over the summer um we continue to have just a few more victories so over here our future community I always forget the name okay family career and Community leaders of America um Club at Stevenson traveled down to Denver um for an International Conference where we had teams compete and actually play to the top level um and then it was just like a nice opportunity for them to kind of attend workshops and kind of spread the spirit of like community service and um giving back to their community Through education and then over here we have Colin fan who recently graduated Stevenson um who actually attended the like he was like it was like an international physics Olympiad in Japan um and actually placed all of that as well so once again just you know more Academic Teams that are placing well go visits go visit I love physics okay um this is also some very very cool stuff that is I think we're trying to use a little bit more of so we have two groups that kind of traveled um this summer one was this international service trip um in that was sponsored by like actually my former physics teacher misone um in Cuba Dominican Republic and so they participated in like local activities they um obviously they tore it around and I think that I've spoken to some of my friends that actually went on this trip and they said they had a really good time it was really enriching experience to learn from these communities um and then also we obviously had our Stevenson's group uh go to this leadership conference in Berlin over the summer so there was like 19 students um and they visited like different countries throughout Europe and it was part of a larger um Global Leadership Summit that were centered in Berlin and so um once again some of my friends told me this was an awesome experience for them and really eye-opening opportunity to focus on specifically the issue of climate change um where they kind of developed proposals and solutions and worked with activists and other um youth leaders that are kind of stationed across the globe really um at this conference so really really good opportunity that Stevenson's providing for all these students to really you know explore their interests whether it be in the Caribbean or in Europe so here are some other pictures from over the summer the PWC orientation so since last year interest in the PWC has expanded exponentially and so um for the incoming class of 2027 um the PWC leaders actually organized an orientation and kind of walked through different equipment that's available for them the different activities and also taught them kind of how exactly they can maximize their experience at the PWC um and so over here we have pictured um two of the trainers and then a bunch a good this is actually pretty surprising I didn't expect that there was gonna be this many freshmen um that had showed interest but there was a good amount of freshmen that came out over the summer and worked with the wellness coaches to kind of learn more about the PWC equipment and all their offers and then as always a very very successful FMB training day so I myself and as I am an FMP a first year FMP um and I honestly find it super super fun so I'm gonna kind of walk you guys through one of my favorite activities that we did that day so over here we kind of had like three rectangles and so there's obviously a ton of mentors um and one of the games that we played were essentially we had our eyes blindfolded and there were people on the outside um and there were balloons in the middle that we had to essentially keep up and so there are people in the out Tech and telling us where we needed to go to like lift up the balloons to make sure they didn't fall touch the ground um and whichever there were three of these rectangles whichever rectangle could keep the balloons up for the longest um one essentially but I think the more important or more significant part of this activity which we like to do in fmps like debriefing activity what is the larger meaning or purpose of the activity and I think that um for that that was definitely the fact that obviously in advisories you know freshmen are there's gonna be different challenges different obstacles and different hardships that each freshman are going to be enduring and the job or the role of an FMP is really to kind of guide and support them and kind of lift them up wherever needed and so that was a pretty cool activity that I think had um pretty like large meaning and so I really enjoyed that and we've been having a really really good time in FMP this year so far and so this was freshman orientation day a very very successful day and I think that something is special to touch on is that a lot of schools have this like orientation day for freshness but what makes Stevenson I think really really unique is not only the very large and bolstered FMP program that we offer but more importantly that we have this kind of balance between okay let's get into a smaller advisory setting let's meet your faculty advisor let's meet your co-fmps and kind of develop these personal with them but then you kind of go into this like larger assembly pep assembly where we had Mr gobble and other guest speakers come in and speak um I think that's that's that was really valuable and I think that's something that we also that I also love is um the different like themes the identifiers that each co-fp so this is actually my co-auth mp Ro and um our theme was obviously like FMP pool party and so um we had like these lays um Hawaiian shirts and it was just a truly awesome experience and I've genuinely like loved so much meeting with meeting my freshman I was honestly excited for that like all summer so probably one of the highlights of my summer too is technically it wasn't necessarily summer but orientation it was really really fun gosh rode the bus in with my daughter yeah yeah he was freshman she gets around with us so he brought her yeah and then the fractional mixer so this was last Friday so I had to like kind of scramble in to find some pictures to put in here but um also an awesome experience this is me over here with my friends um it was super great and I think that um I loved seeing my freshman there too and a lot of like and it was it was also interesting experience because there was like a quiet area inside like the pool patio area where they were playing Bingo but then there was also this like larger area for like like the more extroverted students to kind of enjoy so I like seeing that kind of balance between like inside and Outdoors and the different types of personalities that freshmen have coming in and something that we always do is obviously the spirit tunnel so we like there were like a bunch of fmps lined up and freshmen ran through there um but then we also had a different entrance for the freshmen who maybe weren't as comfortable going through the spirit tunnel um so I just love how you know as always FMP is kind of accommodating to those different needs and interests and so really great experience 860 freshmen came I think I think this was like probably the record it was 860.
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your order Julie can you uh call the roll please Kara Caston here Mr Espinoza here Jenny here here Don Renner here Jan hunchi here and Nala mocha here thank you uh we have a quorum let's stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right uh first item of business tonight is the approval of minutes of the July 17 2023 business meeting the July 17 2023 closed meeting and the August 7 2023 Workshop meeting with action items can I get a motion to approve those minutes please so moved second okay move Chris seconds thank you very much Terry pavisich aye Christopher Spinoza hi Jenny hagstrom aye Kara Caston aye Ken Dawson hi I'm Don Renner aye motion carries item number four reception of visitors Julie do we have any visitors second reception okay uh Hank will turn it over to item number five student perspectives and I will turn over the students who wants to go first hopefully flip a coin go ahead hello board members the first day of school the upperclassmen came in from 8 20 to 11 10 today allowing for 15-minute periods for a quick introduction to the course and to quickly meet your classmates and receive seating assignments the day went off without a hitch for me personally and I had ample time to get a general feel of the class while the shortened periods allowed for a nice segue from the summer schedule I was also able to participate in the senior Sunrise tradition which allowed for seniors to see everyone before class and carry on this tradition as we after we left at 11 10 the freshmen then came into the school the positively North leaders allowed for the freshmen to be able to have upperclassmen to Aid them and finding where they need to go around the building further fall activities are now in full swing I've been in tennis season and our first football game is on Friday at Saint Francis our first home game is against reviso West on September 15th and it's also our senior night our fall activities fair is coming up on the 8th allowing for students both new and old to see what our school has to offer I will personally be running the model un and Debate Club tables and last year we were able to get so many new members just from this Fair it's a great way for students to find their people with similar interests to them with clubs ranging from the speech team to the board game club all in all our school year had an excellent start and we are very excited for everything to come this year thank you thank you all right hi board members so today was also our first day of school and seniors also participated in the senior sunrise this morning so we woke up at like 4 30 to get there and it went well we took lots of pictures I also participated in that and then we went all the way till 11 23 too and everyone seemed excited and ready for the new school year and get to know their teachers and new classmates and then right after 11 20 was also a freshman came in and our Mad Dash leaders and directors got to introduce the freshman and had them for around like 30 minutes and just to answer any questions they had and those I was a director so I would go into the classrooms just to see what's going on they were awkward at some points but at other points they were they were answering and asking valuable questions that will help them and then we also had a lot of leaders around the school helping these freshmen and directing them to classes so they're not lost along the way and then our first football game is also this Friday so we're we're gonna wear our shirts and support the team too yeah thank you both all right a couple of things for you before we get into the actual reports uh although first day of students was today Staff first days back were last week Wednesday Thursday Friday I feel like I've gotten a lot of positive feedback from our staff that they were productive and that they were well received over the couple of days so you can see some of our board members hanging out with our masses you gotta guess who is inside of there [Music] and then uh after the welcoming message first we had the first day back we had uh Awards receptions to recognize years of service then welcome message from the administration and then a keynote speaker from Devin Hughes a lot of our Focus this year coming back was just strategies for like adult SEL for you know how can we focus on what is key and important helping people know the value use within the Strategic plan and the work that we have for the course of this year and how they can best help contribute to that work so that's really what we focused on the opening days and then a couple of few fun pictures of first day of school from uh Jill and Lauren here as our students arrived back today so up and running all right along with today a long awaited day was t99 and the work done there so Travis and Jim also grabbed some pictures for you and they're going to walk you through an update over at t99 and I believe some of the other summer stuff right yeah yep so I'll go ahead and start us off good evening it's great to to be with you first off um we're gonna we are going to provide some updated t99 pictures I know that we showed you some pictures last month or two weeks ago actually and so we'll have some updated information for you an update on our budget uh update on some of our summer capital projects and then future involvement of future building improvements that that are going to be needed so if you can go to the next one so first off um a big thank you so a big thank you to a lot of internal um and external Partners so white and company did a great job of keeping us updated it was a great day today to see uh we were ready right and so that was that was our goal we talked about that two weeks ago and everything that we talked about came to fruition so that was really neat but um so white and Company and then Angus Evans was actually the superintendent of the of the project and he did a great job of of being on site of answering questions of jumping in when things were needed and he just he did an excellent job other things you know the DuPage Roe came they've been great to work with uh gave us occupancy which is always uh you know that's needed in order for our school to happen um and then just there's a there's a ton of subcontractors that were uh involved with this as well and I got to tell you uh you know we were there uh more I was there more near the end as we were going through and so as as the painter is touching up things and we're moving things around and I said excuse me he goes no no this is your house right and so it was just just the respect that they showed and and really the the willingness to engage with the staff and uh that were there it was just it was just really neat to see so if you can hit it one more time so and thanks internally to our t99 staff uh they they did a great job they were anxious and wanted to get in and we had to tell them not yet right so they were able to fully get in on Friday um so it was all hands on deck and it was just really neat to see everyone come together and and work and and say hey what what's needed there were you could hear that all the way up and down the hallways what do we need to do what does that look like we had some uh some support staff that came in and worked extra uh in order to make it happen so that we were we were ready to go this morning and we were still this morning buttoning things up and getting ready and so when the buses pulled up and kids were dropped off uh it was neat to see just everyone working together next so here are some pictures so we have some uh for the interior the existing you can see on the left there that's uh it shows the flooring that was done so two classrooms we had to have some Plumbing reworked so the floors had to be pulled up and they re- finished those and we put down new flooring and then the kitchen you can see that countertop there that's brand new so the the existing kitchen got new countertops in it and it looks great our CMG staff did a phenomenal job of getting that space clean as you can imagine it was a construction site right and so there were multiple times that they needed to go through and clean and and they did a great job next we have some uh interior pictures um so we have the the picture of the the two kitchens uh the two sides of the kitchen right so we have the the blue and the purple I I know we showed that last time but this is it put together right so things are actually in the drawers and then the cabinets and and they're ready to to go if you quit one more time so that gives you the the kind of the view of that with the island there um and it is absolutely gorgeous right and so they they've done a great job of uh of working through that go ahead and click the next one so this gives uh the so the kitchen is over here to the to the right um then this this Grand room here uh has a lot to offer it's really cool that's that's painted uh on that wall and it and it gives a great visual there uh for the the students um and then this is a great space for Community to occur right they can come in they can do uh crafts there's also opportunity for you know kids to engage um in and get out of the the classrooms and work in that area click it one more time so then the hallway going down so again we were over in this area you're walking down uh close near to the end on the right this is a it's going to be a workout room but you can see the the design and it's it's a multi-sensory uh room that they'll they'll be able to to utilize so we were still moving things in this morning uh into that room and we'll get it fully uh operational we have a treadmill to put together and I think a uh I think a stationary bike or something along those lines that we still need to get put together and get in that space click one more time um so this is showing again with a classroom setup uh what's really neat so this is this is that uh it's an interactive clear touch is what it's called board and so we have these in in other buildings as well our staff went through training our tech department did a great job of getting everything set up uh got the the training set up and and going for our staff and it's it's just a really neat space there's all of the furniture is you can move it uh it's very accessible just a great space you can see the lighting the windows are awesome they let in a ton of light and that's I mean there's a ton on research on best spaces and and these these spaces certainly do Elevate the the learning of our of our kids um and then one couple more of uh exterior I have three more slides of exterior pictures so we were talking it uh two weeks ago about wanting to get the Circle Drive done Circle Drive got done uh it's amazing how they installed these uh they're they're quick uh they did a great job um so the whole Circle Drive was done um and then you can if you click one more to the next slide you can see our signage so this is on the old uh existing building right and so we put the new siding so it all ties in together and then that's a new uh sign again for easily to identify the building as you're driving by and then one more so you can see that the space in the front uh is is just a great for students to to come for the beginning of the day and the end of the day and we actually got uh as a as a bus was pulling up this morning and students were arriving it was just neat to see our t99 staff were lined up down that hallway as kids came in uh the to see the relationships and then uh happily greeting each other and and talking and it was just a it was a really neat data to see all of that all of that occur so I'm going to hand it over to now that I got to have fun talking about all the the the the pretty pictures and everything that that we've done up to that point uh Jim's going to take it from here and talk about the budget and some future items okay great thank you welcome well worth this far into it and we're still on your budget and that is great news uh we were concerned right from the start that we had a number and we couldn't go over it so I'm proud to say that we are concluding there's no really unforeseen thing that would come up that would be astronomical charge we do have some contingency funds left we'll be using that towards some mature fixtures and equipment as needed as we put everything into the spaces things will pop up and we'll order those so all in all uh it was a great project and you know even with some overtime this past weekend we're still in pretty good shape with some funds left coming future events for uh the building improvements that we just had ribbon cutting open house slated for October 23rd 2023 more to come on that for details also the renovation of t99 programs we featured in the November issue of Downers Grove magazine coming up so I thought I'd give you just a quick recap of the summer capital projects that we had a couple of these are still going on at North the softball field upgrades currently going on got a couple weeks left so that's uh continuing it started late it won't impact PE and or Sports so that's good news the roof two Replacements are done the pool scoreboard started today and I know that I said at a previous board meeting done by today but we're a couple weeks out so North will get theirs installed this week South we'll get theirs installed next week head south the music Suite flooring and chairs they're in Dawn completed uh student parking lot completed and obviously the scoreboard for next week Life Safety this is phase one uh at north of Life Safety uh galvanized pipe replacement about six hundred thousand dollars worth of work next year next summer is about 2.2 million so uh the big ones next year uh so it went well it's completed at North all of these projects came in under budget so another good news to report to you tonight if you have a study on all the good pictures what is that I call it the Titanic at the bottom of the Atlantic yeah actually it's the roof at 299 the existing building so this was uh unscheduled to be done for next summer in capital but with the rains and the weather that we've had these past few months we got some leaks we had to do some repairs and we were seriously thinking about being aggressive and getting this done prior to next summer so we have to be creative in how we fund it so we're looking into that we're going to get back to you but as you can see we need some repairs and it's a complete tear off it's about 10 000 square feet so not looking the greatest but we're holding that not a cheap uh not a cheap business either no it's not so thanks thanks for your ongoing support a lot of great things have happened this summer for our building and grounds and and getting everything up to up to speed and projects as you heard Jim say that's a lot of hard work that goes into when things come in under budget uh and a lot of dialogue with our our contractors so great job with everyone that's been involved with that and just thanks for your ongoing support questions on anything that we covered how have uh teachers and staff responded to the updates of t99 in it was it was neat to see I got to be there when they first walked in right and just the the awe the the the joy uh of seeing that that space and even in in the existing when again upon coming in and seeing some of the things that have been done there uh just really happy with the the progress um they would have liked to have been in a day earlier right and but they I'm telling you they we said we just need to stay out of their way and we'll get you in and it'll be great and they did and and it was because they were in the existing building on Thursday and we just said you just can't go over to the new side and I they adhered to that so it was great yeah really good response I want to congratulate both of you and your teams for your fantastic work um for the t99 project and the summer Capital Improvement projects all to be completed under budget is fantastic and you really need to be complimented for that and I think the whole Downers Grove Community can be proud of that that is a fantastic accomplishment so thank you a lot of people's efforts with that right and it's and it is it's really neat to see when when the projects come together right all of our CMG custodial maintenance group right our Tech they they all as you know when when a project happens those two are more integrated now than they have ever been and um everyone's working really well together and having conversations and and planning and and doing that and uh Jim and Kristen have done a great job of of making sure hey we're staying on track uh me and Kristen has spreadsheets all over the place of all the the things you think about we fully had a kitchen right all of the appliances all of the silverware all of the utensils everything that was all ordered documented everything right and so she has a spreadsheet she knows where it came from who ordered it when it came in who said that it came in all of that stuff so um a lot of that that detail work is really important have done a great job with that I would just say t99 is a special place um the work that goes on there is fantastic um the fact that we're committing these kind of resources to this program and the facilities I think um demonstrates the community what kind of priority that we place on this program and I think it's really important to reflect on that mm-hmm all right thank you Jim and Travis thank you thank you all right a couple of just procedural items that happen every year at this time of year uh by board policy and state law we have a couple of teams that come in front of the board just for your review and your approval the first is the concussion oversight team this is provided to the board in advance but uh we identify a team of the athletic directors associate principals nurses athletic trainers and outside doctor Consultants Scott Works closely with his team to make sure that we're following all of our procedures and this team is up for approval this evening any questions on this one similarly we have a d crisis de-escalation and physical management oversight team this team is also headed up by Scott he gets the best teams and is primarily uh associated with special education with this but you can see the team that's there that has oversight over this any questions on this item this is also up for Action later on this evening now both are important teams and we need them yep probably the same team that each year or is the changes to the team for the most part it's the same team yeah yeah all right I got a quick question the concussion oversight team yes are they on site at all of the football games soccer games where where are they some of the members are on site uh especially the athletic trainers we can't possibly be on site at everything especially some of our under level events that are off-site in those cases if a Coach ever has a concern we just call 9-1-1 at that point and are the doctors at events you know like football games or they just strictly Consultants they're at some of the events but mostly I believe are remotely consultant yeah and this is concussion but what about oversight just for General emergency we have so many competitive top athletes at most of our high schools competing in a variety of sports take cross-country for example if they cross the finish line and given all they can and fall out who's there to help you know as that type of thing that may be on the soccer field two people are going up the head of ball and have a concussion so on all the sports not just football yeah if that's on site then we have our athletic training team on site like I said if it's a practice or something and somebody isn't here because there's you know uh isn't somebody then we would call 9-1-1 in those cases but most of the time uh our trainers are here and they have radios and administrators are here as well so we respond to wherever that was on site at that point and the EMTs are on uh like football games they're they're usual games yeah you know some of the big events where there's a lot of people too in case someone in the crowd needs if we have large crowds like graduation or football games you know we'll have uh emergency Personnel on site yeah there are okay great all right any other questions on these two items all right uh Gina has Grant allocations these come up every year at this time as well so I'll just highlight a couple of things Title One you can see a substantial increase from our initial allocation last year it turned out our initial allocation was almost half of what it usually is but we did get a second allocation so actually last year we ended up with 312 000.
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August 21st 2023 can I have a roll call please Mr Cerrone here Mr Gatewood president Miss Johnson present Dr Mario present Mr cloger present Miss simulton present Miss venmuth president for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice on behalf of the Board of Education I would like to thank the public for attending tonight's meeting we value the feedback we receive from our our members of the public and encourage everyone to take an active interest in their public school system members of the public interested in speaking to the Board of Education this evening are asked to have completed a common card and presented it to the secretary to the board when the secretary calls your name I ask that you come to the microphone state your name for the public record and provide your feedback please note that comments are limited to five minutes per person and that no discussion of personnel matters staff Staffing stating Staffing names or responses to your questions are permitted are not permitted the board does not participate in discussion during public comment follow up to your questions or concerns will be addressed by Administration through the contact information provided on the comment card thank you Michelle Traeger good evening everybody my name is Michelle Trager and I'm a parent of four kids in District 308 I wanted to address the board tonight just with a reminder that September is fetal alcohol Spectrum Awareness Month across the country and around the world with September 9th being fasd Awareness Day our district added these to our calendar last year the quick refresher is that fetal alcohol Spectrum disorders are a lifelong invisible disability and the leading cause of Developmental disorders in the western world the prevalence conservatively is one in 20.
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nothing's changed except for um in the education career pathway Grant on the original tentative budget under 4 000 section there was two 300 lines I said purchase services and purchase Services when really one of them could have been supplies so it was just a heading change and then I did add this standard Grant down here that it didn't have the account number so will be sold out but otherwise known total changes everything still ties Terry here if you have any questions and this is more for the public if there's any public comments that anybody's here for and then we'll adopt the resolution in the credit report a second to adjourn what's up well I'm sorry um Nolan yes Pappas yes vote Yes a thief yes Gorman yes foreign here vote here second yes vote Yes Foreman yes all right please join us thank you it's Michael's here and he was viewing at home streaming yeah yeah thank you for everybody streaming with us uh thank you for CE coming out for the board meeting she's sitting over there though looking as nice so thank you very much many administrators out here uh visiting with us tonight we have a couple of parents and community members so thank you for coming out today recognition so we have several new administrators in the district last month we introduced the principles but tonight I wanted to kind of introduce our assistant principals that are leading some of our buildings I'm going to start with the elementary I have Andrew spyden who is at Country Trails coming to us here so thank you very much Andrew Jesse Hawley Prairie View assistant principal working alongside Chris Barr and at Central Middle School we have Kelsey Keith coming to us from Virginia so a whole new experience for her so welcome Kelsey Tammy proberts who's actually shifting from a high school role into a middle school so coming to us so thank you for praying Knowles Curtis price you might see him he's pretty tall Curtis price although Chad is taller than him so Curtis is our assistant athletic directors and activities director so thank you Curtis Laura tawberry who's coming to us from uh Johnsburg is that correct I keep thinking you went somewhere else but assistant principal so Dan Carpenter who actually was a department chair of force at the high school for science for several years there's no chicken on the assistant principal and then you all know Edgar Parana but he shift from preview to Central High School as well for one of the AP positions so thank you guys all right Mike Mike songs green light okay um it's one of the things I wanted to find out is with some of the newborn and stuff like that is you know when we get calls that I'm a on a Township uh board I'll say a Plato Township so a lot of your districts in Plato Township and a lot of times we get calls for you know tax questions why is the tax so high so I'd like to find out why we don't have a better dialogue with 301 and then things that you plan on doing and what you're doing and so forth because we get the questions and we have to answer you know well take a look at your tax bill a little closer so I'd like to have that dialogue I know they've offered to come to a school to one of our meetings no one's ever showed up so I'm here at your meeting so my question is why is no one showing up at our meetings or at least having a discussion with me okay um let's see here so I do have a question as to the construction equipment over on royerson road what's going on over there have you broke around on that or is that something because the referendum didn't pass I'd like to know about infrastructure uh water supply so on and so forth I haven't heard anything about crickets from the board crickets from the school district and the superintendent so I'd like to hear about this stuff I'm still waiting on uh money not spent under covet I haven't heard from that and again my questions are Financial at this point because we get those we get those problems and uh I don't particularly like Fielding on those calls all the time so I'd like to have an answer for them if you guys don't mind okay so if you could make an appointment with with me I'd really appreciate that the superintendent okay thank you all right sorry so you had a public comment in the back would you like to speak yeah I need your slip if you would the green one yeah we'll call you next week I'll need that first and then perfect well Moses contribs very good oh the comment is just to say thank you District deal 301 for opting out on the normal estate sexual education I think this is a very very good news even though so we need to still working on on some probably topics some books we know the the Restriction to to run some books so but we are going to be fighting for our kids keeping the innocence and preserving the memorial values that we have so this beautiful country was found in Christian value so this is a great nation and we are going to be fighting for those values to preserve so all day all the creatures all the creationists read by Lots the university is following some laws so they they sound the moon on Earth are following by rules so the song cannot say oh today are going to be delayed one hour or something like that because it's really by by laws animals and humans and plants are rigid by natural laws also so if we don't if any animal or any human being or any other person is not following those natural laws so they they answer to those not following those natural laws is going to be The Disappearance so this distinction because if a fish is going out of water or is gonna die so natural natural laws are needed to keep existing so we need to preserve that's that very basic loss so we can all be confused in our kids especially because they are believing whatever they always are telling us and sometimes we are also confused so that's why this is is very mandatory to to keep a to take a look on the natural things on the natural laws and keep that in mind everything is free is following those laws so we need to somebody put those laws for us so and like I said this information was beautiful moral values which are Christian bodies so just to have an idea how God loves the kids you can read them Matthew 17 from one and ahead and that's all the action reports motion second to discussions so when you work packets you have your revenue and extension reports your revenues are at 3.84 compared to 2.36 a year ago its managers are at 7.57 compared to 6.26 a year ago impact fees we received two months worth since last board meeting so we received Junes for 176 832.85 for 23 home starts July came in at 180 868 um for 20 home starts and then we did receive ten thousand eight hundred fifteen dollars in transition fees the bills payable report for both Northern Kane and Central are typical for the month of August we're kind of cleaning up stuff that was that came in over the summer um and in the report is a I kind of try to point out some of the bigger things I know that there's a lot of information in there but included there's a 743 000 for Network switches and a majority of that is going to be covered out of the new digital Equity grant that we've received so 558 of that 558 000 of that is covered under that Grant our audits were both Central and Northern Canadians start last week they flew through it they had four people here for four days and then three people I think the last day and we were able to keep up with their stuff there are some still things homework that we have to do and analyze why certain things go up and down just some typical stuff um and then we always have to wait for our asset report to come in so there are some stragglers that we're still working on but they they did a phenomenal job training through the stuff and then um the districts were also preparing to get some generators for the buildings that don't have them which would Lily Lake Harvey Thomas and parade for an estimated cost about 900 000 for all three of them some of those two of them have offset 50 000 grant for that school maintenance project grant that we get every year we apply for it we get 50 000 of symmetric thing so we've already written one for literally late and one for hbt that Grant has reopened again for fr24 so we will apply for that one and figure out what projects we can apply for that and then also included in your packet is um basically the applications for building permits for the 20 classroom Edition that we're doing at the high school that is for roughly 9 to 11 million dollars and that will include the FFA for the teachers rooms and the actual project so included in here is your building permits to authorize and so we can continue on this projects and then also in this consent area we have temporary facilities reports and connection to the mobile units that we have so annually we approve the the usage of these for classrooms or storage and then once you approve these you will fill out the rest of the paperwork again back to the Roe and then it's for four mobile units at the elementary schools we have a mobile unit out back for storage here at the district office and then we have a mobile unit for transportation was housed in Florida yes vote Yes a thief yes Mormon yes Reflection In Motion second to discuss and approve the before an affiliation agreement renewals I have seven books here and maybe you have any questions regarding the approval of these affiliation agreements [Laughter] [Music] thank you and film yes Nolan yes FS yes vote Yes a thief yes bulk yes Foreman yes improve the international trip to Costa Rica in June 24th you bet you have some questions this will be the first time we've done an international trip since uh or prior to since covet occurred uh we used to do them every other year for Spanish and then German they kind of flip-flopped alternating pre-covered so this is the first attempt will be joined so she's here if you have specific questions um regarding the trip that she's proposing do you need chaparrals that is the first question I always get um raise your hand two and a half okay raise my hand okay yeah if you want to shoot up rope let me know well oh come on it depends on how many kids sign up so it's that depends on how many chaperones we'll need you want to walk them quickly through the trip just so they can see it yeah so this is the same trip that we took in 2019 so four years ago now um it's the same itinerary as I have been on as a chaperone I was not the tour leader at the time so we fly into San Jose and then we go to the volcano region we go to the cloud forest um we go to the beach then it's jam-packed though and we go back to San Jose to fly out of San Jose but there's zip lining and white water rafting and um kayaking on the volcano Lake of course there's cultural experiences too there's a dinner they make their own Costa Rican dinner one night and they learn how to make their own tortillas and things like that so very adventurous the kids loved it last time we went so I'm excited to see what kind of Interest we get this time I did the extension for the one extra day so we could go white water rafting yes and then we also did the start day five days after the last possible school day so I think roughly roughly estimated right now it's um you get to request which day you want to leave and they don't tell you until about three months out when they book the actual flights so right now we've requested to leave June 4th the earliest we could leave is May 31st but likely we'll be able to leave on the 4th so yes second to discuss and improve the changes in Middle School athletics and activities code of conduct second I've asked uh to come and speak a little bit about this I think we want to make sure that we're updating so then you want to kind of walk us through why we made the change this late in the year yeah we recognize as we opened up fall registration for our middle school but the handbook was outdated in 2122 so we just wanted to go through their revise clean up the language kind of match it up with some of the language with what we have at the high school being a unit district we did add a couple things in the regarding spectator expectations and some social media policies too that will reflect what we have at the high school to help our Middle School administrators to be a little more restorative in their practices so it was no real major changes just a lot of language cleanup so that it can align more with what we do at the high school being a unit district even though we know that there's a stark difference between you know a junior senior in high school and a sixth or seventh grader but at least giving us some flexibility for those restorative practices and then nearing that up to match any questions thank you thank you got this yes vote Yes a thief yes both yes and Phil yes Nolan yes Orman yes a second the discussion approved the designation of Prairie View that's a hazardous route for busing second this is an annual process we got here but we do have Pam Porto here in the event that you have questions for her uh to discuss this I think it's primarily because they have to cross across in essler road so it does hit the number in terms of being you know a dangerous Crossing and so Pam won't be anything to add yeah it hasn't changed there's no nothing new on the road so it just likes to be reviewed every year I could set a question recently our kids allowed let's say for Tall Oaks and you know West Point Gardens to ride crossovers that can kids do that if they want to cross over nestler or have a bus driver for instance saw a kid Crossing wrestler with Wheeling report that no so parents have the right to allow their kids to get to school okay right because it's less than my own half we got to record this so we can plan those days boat yes yes folk yes and Phil yes Nolan yes Pappas yes Gorman yes intergovernmental agreement the King County Sheriff's Office for their reciprocal reporting of student offenses so this is um something we generally do with Kane County Sheriffs it really allows us to have a partnership with them to also have some continuous conversation with them relevant to situations that make our off grounds or on grounds to make sure that we are working in Partnership this is for a four-year designation August 1st 2023 to July 31st 2027 so it just extends out there to ensure one of the things that we really you know our pleasure pleased about is Officer Durham does a great job of working with both us works with the middle school elementary school and partners with us between us and Kane County so we definitely would love to have the reciprocal reporting agreement signed off on motherboard a thief yes both yes Temple yes Nolan yes peppas yes vote Yes Gorman yes the second to discuss and approve the northern Canadian final budget the 23 to 24 Square here second you have the final budget it was on display for 30 days we held our public meeting just before this meeting at 5 50.
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[Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] okay we're ready to go Nikki I think so yes I gave us thumbs up [Applause] okay we're noisy tonight aren't we welcome everybody uh we're gonna go ahead and get started we will start our meeting as always with the Pledge of Allegiance so for those who are able for one mind standing please [Laughter] Justice thank you we do have six of our seven members Mr nelon was not able to join us tonight so we'll go ahead and call a quorum official meeting in session Dr Roberts if you wouldn't mind taking us through Mission Vision exactly yeah thank you so each board meeting we do want to review our mission vision and core values as a school corporation the vision for our school corporation is to be the choice to learn work and play the mission that we've set forth is to develop expert Learners by partnering with our community to invest in people we do have a list of six core beliefs that starts with we all can rise to the challenge of high expectations learning is most effective and we have Choice flexibility and see relevance we Thrive when our physical social and psychological needs are met our community and School District are stronger when we partner with one another we flourish because the diversity and variability in our community in our democracy and Democratic institutions are strengthened by civic-minded citizens it drives the Strategic plan for our organization and we'll go into recognitions Mrs Wilden plague thank you good evening glad to see all of you here this evening what of an exciting night before we get started for our actual recognition for the person that is here I would like to give an update last year at this time I was standing before you announcing that bcsc teacher of the year was Veronica Buckler and if you've been paying attention to the newspaper as well as our social media post and parent Square messages and Veronica last Friday was just announces Indiana Department of Education top 10 teacher of the year so she is moving on to the process this is our fourth year with this type of recognition but with the previous three all did make it to the top 25 and Veronica making it to the top ten makes us very excited the process next for her is to go in for an interview with a committee of Educators past teacher of the year recipients as well as community members so we're excited for that and proud of Veronica buckler who is a teacher at CSA new tech for the special recognition and for dedicating her time to bcsc now it is my honor to be here tonight to recognize our bcsc teacher of the year for 22-23 Mrs Molly Fountain from Northside Middle School Molly if you come up and join me please recognizing our bcsc teacher of the year is a momentous occasion to celebrate the remarkable dedication and unwavering passion that all Educators bring to their classrooms in which our students directly benefit each day bcsc teachers invest their time energy and passion into creating meaningful learning experiences fostering critical thinking and nurturing the love for knowledge this year's honoree Molly Fountain exemplifies the extraordinary work that teachers across our district undertake going above and beyond to inspire and Empower their students Molly joined bcsc in 2009 as a teacher at Northside Middle School she has taught seventh grade world history in 8th grade U.S history over the years she is currently teaching eighth grade she received her Bachelor of Arts in social studies with minors in political science and economics in 2009 for Purdue University over the years she has served as a Cadet teacher Mentor social studies budget coordinator new teacher Mentor professional development facilitator transitioned to teaching cooperating teacher bcsc udl summer Institute presenter spell Bowl coach PBIS Committee Member cic member and participate in the James Madison Legacy project and Cass summer Institute she has been an Indiana academic Coach of the Year finalist and has received the Ross Wallace Innovation award for her nomination as teacher of the year she received letters of support from a colleague an administrator and a former student here are a few of the statements from their letters from an administrator she works tirelessly for her students to create the most interactive and creative classroom she brings history to life for her students as she does so in a humorous way that allows her to connect with students she has created a community in her classroom where students knows she cares about them and they learn to care more about each other she works hard to create a relationship with parents every single year she begins with a million word essay where parents are asked to write about their child in a million words or less it helps her learn their Hobbies their struggles and the deep love that parents have for their children there are not enough words to describe my deep respect for her as a teacher as a colleague and as a human being from a colleague she has been a constant source of guidance and inspiration to me as well as other teachers on her team and in our building she has the unique ability to connect with students to develop positive relationships as well present Concepts at students level and make inherent sense to them this has been described as her ability to engage in kids speak through her love for her students her consistent leadership and a tireless work ethic she exemplifies everything a bcsc employee should strive to be a former student which was also a student teacher with her last year I can delightfully state that she is a wonderful human being my middle school experience with her was a defining moment in my decision to pursue a degree in education is where I fell in love with U.S history and a certain style of teaching that's once in a blue moon he has always been so helpful when it comes to watching and giving feedback on lessons taught as she says half the teaching is making adjustments when things don't go as expected it's the sign of a good teacher the north side nomination committee also noted that she is driven to be creative Never Satisfied and a constant learner and that she has a unique ability to create a classroom culture that all students thrive in over the course of this school year Molly will work to create her portfolio to apply for the Indiana Department of education's teacher of the year that will be submitted in June of 2024.
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okay let's do it let's stand the clutch 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 great and we'll call the meeting to order at 6 32.
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foreign [Music] thank you I'd like to call to order this meeting of August 21st welcome May meeting for August 21st please rise if you can for the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you roll call Kathleen Amaral here Chris Oliver Elizabeth Coughlin here Shannon Jenkins here John Nunes so first on our agenda we have allotted 10 minutes for public comment and we ask that you make your comments brief if you would like to state your name first please and keep to the topics on this evening's agenda oh thank you it's working okay great okay so I am talking to you about public comment which is on the agenda what I want to address is the summer reading program is that acceptable it is summer so you are going to stifle my freedom of speech My First Amendment right is being stifled I just want that to be very clear committee is not required to allow public comment and we are allowed to restrict comment to items on the agenda under Mass General law I what I will say two items on the agenda but I will allow for you just if you would just for be under I would say the stipulation of other matters that may not have been anticipated thank you please keep it brief and just um thank you stay here you already stayed here thank you so much I appreciate you this evening but as a matter of I just want to we do do this it is summer so it's slower but if we were to have people come up and state about you know reach out to us if you'd like something added to agenda but I did everyone were to come up and stay around you know we wouldn't really get the business of the meeting done so that's really the purpose and to my colleague's point um it's not it's good practice I think but at any rate thank you so much Kathleen I appreciate it so I just would like to bring up um some concerns about the reading program um one is the discretion of the books on the um reading program and the other is the way the program is laid out itself um there are a couple of books um two in particular that I'm aware of that have extremely mature content in them they one of them is called Verity and the other one is called Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas those are the two I know of um that what they have in them Verity has um graphic sexual contact content as well as um uh coat hanger abortion I'm sorry to say and murder of course and um and the other one uh fear and loathing Las Vegas is filled with drug use um you know where it's extensive and pretty much no role models in that book I'm not sure why those were allowed to be on the the uh the program the problems with our program is they only allow certain number of kids to be in each book and so um some kids have to pick these books even if they don't want to read them because of the limits put on each book on of the 46 choices that they have so I would like to ask that you consider not limiting kids to those books that are in the summer reading program I would also like to ask that if a kid is reading a book and it's too much for them that you have an easy way for them to switch to another book um if during the summer they're reading a book and it's too hard a content for them and I would also like better discretion maybe from our librarian to help us with maybe ratings of if it's 18 plus for mature reading either that it's parental consent or that um it would be not even offered on our agenda thank you so much for listening to me thank you okay um okay so we're going to close public comment and we're going to move on to the next item on the agenda is the approval of minutes and we had the uh just the regular session minutes from July 17th so move through second the motion we have a second any discussion um all in favor aye motion passes unanimously now to Old business you know we have you know sorry I do need glasses I don't know if you want to introduce I know we have um we have Mr tattlebaum here from the the town side of the in to talk about the town's commitment to indigenous people history in the culture committee I know that you have been meeting together with folks from the school department some of whom are here this evening and that you are going to come up and give us an update and is it is it Lily Lily Lily Chamberlain Chamberlain from from Dartmouth High School is also going to oh okay come on up come on up thank you for coming yeah I wrote a few things down so I didn't want to go right ahead um I'm on the indigenous people history and culture um it's called the working group right now because we're not a committee yet that's what we're trying to get we're trying to get to be a committee but um I'm Lily Chamberlain I teach Spanish here at Dartmouth High School I'm also a resident of Dartmouth and both my children graduated from Dartmouth High the Multicultural club which I advise began its efforts towards self-education regarding the local Wampanoag tribe several years ago particularly when the Indian mascot issue came up we realized we needed to educate ourselves in order to properly understand the issues involved we attended an online field trip during the pandemic during which core appears of the pocass at Walmart Wampanoag spoke we watched videos that Rob perotti and Judy Cronin made several years ago in which they interviewed Jonathan Perry and Elizabeth James Perry of the Aquino Wampanoag we learned about King Philip's War Indian boarding schools and current issues that affect native people in our country we educated ourselves about these topics we did not assume that it was the responsibility of native people to educate us when I joined the indigenous people history and culture working group last January I continue to educate Myself by talking with members of the local Wampanoag tribes I had long conversations with Cora Pierce Ellie page and Donna green dance page of the pocass at Wampanoag they all have been extremely generous with their time and their expertise David has had conversations with members of the Aquino Wampanoag and before I joined the committee there were conversations with members of the mash P Wampanoag through these conversations we all learned a lot for example Star of the Sea that spit of land that sticks out into the North End of Payton arum Harbor which is today a nice residential neighborhood used to be the site of a Wampanoag summer Village they would build fires there to cook up Lobster fish and clams after fishing in the harbor king farm which is just a stone throw away from here is also a site where numerous artifacts have been uncovered it's likely that this whole area from the king farm wrapping around to Star of the Sea was an area of settlement during the summer months when the weather was nice also where the North Dartmouth Mall currently stands used to be a large coin field which the pocass at wampano Wampanoag cultivated corn was one of their staple foods along with squash and beans where Walmart now stands was the site of another Wampanoag Village we all we also learned about concerns regarding the informational kiosks our group would like to erect around town when people dig up artifacts they do not realize they are oftentimes desecrating a grave the ancestors are many Native people were buried with everyday items such as Crockery arrows and axes when people dig up these things they often do not realize this is a burial site core appears wanted to make sure that any kiosks we erect will not yet sites where people might want to dig so we have adjusted our ideas about the locations of our kiosks so as not to encourage treasure hunting we've had helpful and productive discussions with a number of Wampanoag tribal members and we have asked those people that we spoke above a native Heritage of the area aggress on her own shoulders not on the shoulder shoulders native community if they do not want to serve on our committee community the part of keeping it all students are concerned that if we got rid of the logo native history would be forgotten altogether just having logo is n't we need more and more that is what this working group which is not yet a committee is trying to do to suggest that just because we do not have a native member in the group makes the group illegitimate is insulting at best we are obviously trying to use primary native sources as much as possible we also have Mary Waite and Sally Aldrich in our group and Sally Aldrich has written a book about Dartmouth history including the pre-colonial era we are lucky to have such a well-educated and dedicated group of people who are willing to do this work would we like to have some native members in our group of course we would but even if we don't this work should continue and my final point in the draft charge that we submitted to you we mentioned voting and non-voting members this proposed committee is an advisory committee we will not have any actual power we will simply be advising the select board and the school committee you all are the ones who will be taking votes and making decisions this is a group that operates by consensus all we're trying to do is put together some educational experiences for the community we will not be voting so if we could change the wording about voting and non-voting members that would be fine with us as far as changing the charter that is a lengthy process that would probably take about two years and do you think people in town would be excited about allowing people who did not live in Dartmouth onto all Town committees I don't see how that would pass and again trying to make a change on the charter was cost us a lot of time with no certain outcome I believe that the work of educating our community about its native past should continue and should continue now this important work has been overlooked for too many years thank you for your time and I'd be happy to answer any questions David also has a couple of comments that he would like to make stuff on it Mr toddellon thank you for that thank you Lily one fine example of one of the fine teachers in school I'm particularly proud to follow in her footsteps um I'd like to be able to I am a member of the select board Mrs Brooks Heidi Brooks is also a member of the board and she was going to be with us tonight but she was unable to attend and we have been charged by the select board to try to make this committee happen I am also one member of the select board I represent me if we agree on anything I'd be happy to go back and fight for it with our rest of our board but I think it needs to be set um I want to make a one for instance so there was an issue in language about that made some members of this committee on couple regarding the curriculum so we we sat back and looked at it and we agreed and we changed because the curriculum is in complete and out of control of the school committee in the school department should say understood that it was uh I would call it a oversight we changed it we agree this is that is not part of our purview if asked get people in to talk about it we'd be happy to do that but the the curriculum so um that was an issue that now has moved on what I'd really like to try to accomplish here tonight and completely said it's very emotional for her because she's had a long history with it as well I'd like to walk away here with an understanding what we're trying to do as recently as uh today I've been in contact with uh with a board member from the uh wampanoaga Quinta tribe which they are located in in the vineyard um we have from day one desperately try to bring in members who are of the tribe be it Pocasset or whomever we can find that would be also a conveniently a resident in town which would take care of everything and we will continue to try and turn over every Rock and talk to many people as we can to find those members I've had other recent contacts as well and we're trying hard to do it and we firmly believe as a committee as early said that to have that logo without this kind of a program where we're educating our kids at intervals that you agree on as a school committee school department but also recognizing the history in town is what our goal is because the logo means nothing without some respect for the history and also making it clear to our residents that there's a lot of stuff out there that people could know um I'd like to be able to have any questions regarding what we can do as a committee on what we can do as a select board I can bring back I'd be happy to talk to discuss about it but I can't say it much better than Lily did because she's been doing it even longer than I have so the questions be happy to talk about Dr Jenkins so I have a question I've heard on several occasions that this is part of the Town Charter but I've read the town Charter and I do not see anything in the town Charter requiring committee members to be Town residents I see that in the town bylaws and I think that's a distinction that's an important difference because the town Charter amendment is very different than a town bylaw Amendment town meeting is empowered to change Town bylaws town meeting is not empowered to change the charter and so I don't see it I'd like to see it in the charter maybe I'm misreading I don't know where it is but where I read The Residency requirement is in the town bylaws as far as I know that is correct okay so we were directed that that's what the rule is for us okay so I just want to be clear about this though right because the charter process requires a vote of the community a charter Amendment correct me if I'm wrong Mr ninja my my historian but a bylaw amendment requires a vote of town meeting and that's different bylaw does require a town meeting a chatter also goes through town goes through the town meeting through town meeting to the voters correct it's a less lengthy process as a bylaw correct so I think that's an important distinction because my primary concern I appreciate all this work I am a supporter of all this work but when we create members of the committee that are not equal right I think that's highly problematic given the history I could be persuaded to go around this if there were some stronger requirement for official consultation with tribal members because right now the language that we've seen so far is that the committee May invite representatives of tribes local National organizations May and I think again it needs to it needs to be partnership right because I think Ms Chamberlain made an important point that we were doing this work and we had some ideas and then when we consulted with our indigenous neighbors they were like well there are some problems with that and so I think there needs to be a shall a stronger requirement um not just you know I've had some conversations with some tribal members as well who's rape who have raised concerns to me that when we go to this person or that person in the community they may not represent right you came here and you said I don't speak for the select board I speak for myself when we talk to individual people they speak for themselves not for the tribe and so my concern is is that right now I feel that consultation is optional right and that the only required consultation require has Town members being voting members and non-town members being non-voting members either we amend the bylaws to allow a certain number of non-town members on Town committees there are times when that is useful um maybe we set it up so that no more than 25 percent of a town committee can be non-town members there are ways to do that when it resides in the bylaw the other option for me is to put stronger Provisions requiring consultation Through official channels right because again that's different than ad hoc consultation with individual people right I can't represent the board like if we have a conversation I don't represent the board I represent me it's only when you come before this board that any decisions that are made represent the interests of the board and I think we need to interact with our tribal Partners in the same way so um either process will take will be an extended a period of time Charter is two years for sure it's not a charter it's not in the bylaws yes it changes two years the other will take at least a town meeting right okay um which uh well I would understand it I mean if you have zoning bylaws and everything else in Personnel bylaws type of deals I would like to if that's what we we should do and amend it if there's a hunger for that to change it for this particular I've never run into this issue until now and there has been never a question or a thirst to say we need to have non-residents on a committee okay now we have it and I um I would love in the perfect world I love the aquina tribe and the Picasso tribe to come to us and say we're going to designate this person to represent us they'll come to the meetings they'll listen they'll come back to us we'll tell you how we feel and we'll come back I wish that was a case and if that's that's what it takes to try to do fine uh I have to say the communication amongst the tribes in between the tribes is not a it's not finite it's difficult and you everyone here knows that as well so what I'm saying to you we have people thirsting to try to do something that's the right thing to do and we also have obstacles and how do we get to the obstacle so we don't have to wait for either a June town meeting or a child or two of us for now make this happen and make sure we're protected so that we do something that's reasonable and not have to have you know vulnerable to all kinds of outside residents being part of committees which I don't think that would happen anyway but I'm here to say what do we need to do and the language you have to have to get this done so we can move forward and if you want to write the language I'd love to listen to it Dr Jenkins and whatever the job that's taken up a lot of my time right now and I don't have the time for that right now okay but uh but you have a strong opinion about how we should proceed so um I'm listening because I'm allowed to no I want to lose it that's why I'm here absolutely so um I think as presented if it's not a voting committee but a consensus committee um and clearly you have reached out um and if we do change the language so it's a little more strong in that we will seek out um that's great I do see the issue with if you got a town resident who was indigenous that they only represent themselves and I do see the problem that uh heads of tribes represent the majority of their tribe that is working with them so I I don't feel personally that you need to change not the charter but the bylaws I I don't if you change those two things the voting and make it stronger language I don't have a problem with it I'm I'm wondering if I unless my colleagues have something um you know I think you said a little bit of it but if we cannot do could we do both perhaps continue it in the iteration of a working group add some stronger language I'm just thinking I was trying to look it up and my computer wasn't working but um in in Mass General Law chapter 171 was the beginning of family engagement and uh you know having a seat at the table and the wording was something to the effect of you know substantial consultation but if we were to add language that said substantial and documented because I I appreciate Lily's it's what you're doing you know it's you're we've had conversation a conversation about this you're you're trying to engage folks in that way and you got nothing like nobody's nobody's answering the call and you're not giving up and we appreciate that uh but I just wonder if if that language could be so strong as to paint that picture of what you're doing so that it's keeping you on task but then in the same I do believe working to change the bylaw because uh you know thinking collaboratively thinking Community right we our Board of Health often thinks about the things about the community and the folks that come through our community right and so in changing I don't think we're going to have a million people stepping up to join our boards but if we were to work on that bylaw language so that it can formally you know present a situation where yes you're still doing the consultation the whole opinion of that is that I think you'd have an awful lot of pushback on that but I'd be I think we need to find other democracy and find out what the majority says but I cannot from my point of the years I've been around I've never heard this discussion or requests so as I said before but I think working finding out what that pushback is and and seeing how we can clarify you know the purpose and and and move through that you know um is my thoughts but I appreciate the work I just think it's so important to not give up and I appreciate Dr Jenkins new knowledge of all the nuances of that but I would love to see us do both move forward formally um you know I don't have any any issue with Dr Jenkins what you have to say and the protection you'd like to have for the town for the schools and the tribes I just think can we put together some simple language to satisfy that we can move on yeah you've spoke so eloquently about that and what you've learned and how you've you've shifted and to accommodate you know what you've learned um so I think Kathleen if I may you suggested language right instead of the committee May invite right it should be shell to include substantial consultation part of that language was not about tribal members so I think it may be it's confusing because we felt that we want to have the option to bring people no it does say by non-resident in new england-based indigenous people or local or national organizations of indigenous people you know I appreciate all of this work that's so ambiguous yeah I think for me I'm an institutionalist at heart as a political scientist right and we can't build committees structures that are based on people because people change people move on different people are elected we have to build structures that withstand turnover in people so that we have right if and someday five years down the road this committee still exists different people come we have the structures in place to ensure that that sort of collaborative work that Lily was talking about continues and so I just want to make sure that when we build the structure we build it properly that reflects the work that you're doing so that this work continues on in this way in perpetuity right I just want to make one thing perfectly clear here and frankly you're hitting frustration and Lily and from me as well I am tired of people talking about this Committee in this town uh and and how can you bring someone in here and not give me a vote because you don't really want to have a try and that is it's crap and I'm sick of it because this comes from a genuine concern to do the right thing and it has nothing to do with anything but that and we have a lot of things pulling from different directions and let's button up the language and we can move forward and frankly if you don't like it we'll do it again we'll revise it again but that's if I could if I could just interject here for what it's worth my two cents first of all I want to thank you both for being here this evening and representing the group um you know clearly a lot of hard work's been done you know in with this no doubt about it I'm not going to get in your way personally I'm speaking for myself here I think we should move forward with how it is I I certainly understand where Dr Jenkins is coming from um I also expressed some concerns at the last meeting but you being here this evening I did miss the I apologize I did miss the beginning of the presentation so you can read it again I'll watch it on replay um with that though you know I'm very comfortable after hearing what you have both said um I agree there's there's some passion we need to move this group forward we adopted we we formally adopted uh the Dartmouth Indian um it's been recognized and I think you know there's certainly an appetite to move forward uh to do some more and part of that is this committee so I certainly uh would not stand in your way but I do I do think that we should at least explore looking at the bylaws I think that's we're at least worth looking at Shannon is saying and we we talked about this ourselves I mean it didn't feel right for us to say voting and non-voting members um so I guess what I would sorry I'd like to try to do is maybe talk to the time administrator about whether we can just take that language out do we need to have voting and do we need to even say that I don't know I don't write my read of the bylaws I would agree with Mr tattlebaum on this that if it is an official Town committee the bylaws currently require committee members to be Town residents we don't disagree on that it's just the where the placement of that is so I think that is the they can't be committee members if they're not Town residents correct voting is that what the language says okay and a a town employee baton employee who was not a resident town is an ex-officio but has the ability to vote because they are a paid town and staff that's my understanding if if the stipulation the language is important there I agree right if it says they're not allowed to be voting members then take it out and we're fine I think um so I think we need to go back to the Town Administrator and check on that and also I just I just think changing the bylaw if we're going to change the bylaw to say that people from outside of town can be on a committee then I don't think that's going to fly so I don't really know if that's the way to go either but again I can talk we can talk to the Town Administrator about that again somebody had their hand up so that's then John okay go ahead go ahead so I think it would be a tough sell for the town and does every Committee in Dartmouth make decisions by Vote or right are some of the Committees more quakerly and some committees uh like this one is an advisory committee you can I I feel like if no one's a voting member if we put that in the language then we don't need to change the I would agree the other thing I'm thinking um what's really going backwards here but and I may be completely wrong and I don't want to devalue the work of this and by not calling it a committee but could we change it to something different I mean you know like a working group like that was suggested Dr Jenkins so this is totally above my pay grade you'd have to probably talk to Mr savasano about this but right this is essentially essentially an intergovernmental relations Council it is it's the mashed potato are in fact Sovereign Nations right they are official governments so you could create I don't know how that works I don't right but you could create an intergovernmental Relations Committee where the tribes they don't they tell they select their the members of that committee right so we select our members they select their members it could be anyone they want right like it could be someone from the town of Dartmouth it could be someone on the tribal board that is at their discretion and then there's a full partnership um in this intergovernmental relations right so that's another option along Airlines however are they new and more stringent open meeting laws and it's almost as if for the protection of town staff employees residents that these ad hoc committees have to really be eliminated or whatever they are because the following open meeting laws are becoming more and more astringent more difficult I've I've attended two two uh seminars on them both because it's going to get worse not better so we have to deal with the open meeting as well yes but right an entity like Serta or smack right which is subject to open meeting laws official representatives are sent from official boards and they become an official body so it would be a different type of official body it wouldn't be a town committee it would be a town tribal neighbors intergovernmental Relations Committee Mr noon no no fine I don't know I mean the one and I'm listening to what everybody and however this flows out you know it you know it's what August 21st now when you go to town meeting October 20th or somewhere in that vicinity type of deal so I'm not quite sure if you're going to get you know I mean it would be you know Mr McGinnis and his his assistant with Mr savastano to try and get a bylaw put together and worked on to to change everything around so I'm not sure unfortunately I'm not sure that's going to work till then but that being that being said the one question that I had you know Dave is this and maybe I'm missing something here but it doesn't have anything uh uh the charge that we had and I made mention of this is it doesn't have any how long the term is you know is is it an open you know I mean you know was it in perpetuity that type of deal so that may be something you want to take a look and again I'm not trying to nitpick but uh if there's a way that we can button up the language as you suggested Samuel and try to do it in that from that direction that would be um simpler and if it's being satisfying um I I think it's out you know Dr Jenkins the other uh your possible solution seems complex and time consuming um it is I'm very concerned about changing uh putting that together and getting consensus that it's even worth considering in town meeting in 60 days seems like a dream no I dream as well I understand and I I not judging and I'd be happy to bring it to our board and talk to them about it as one member I can do that but um all that's going to do as far as we're concerned is postpone what we've been trying to do now to get moving we would like to plan events we would like to get um location there's a lot there's a lot on the table that's just frankly just sitting there now going nowhere so so and you had something else to say too but um do you want to go first what do you need what are you looking for Mr tattlebaum from us because I agree I don't want to you know I want to move this along I I there's a lot of people trying to do a lot of good things here so what are you looking for us um we we told you what we're looking for as far as taking that voting language out of there one on the other right I I when I in the perfect world if you could just rewrite Edition or rewrite the charge from what you think is perspective have a meeting and agree on it and bring it back I'm sure we can work with that um and um if if at some point maybe looking towards um June town meeting if the thirst and hunger was there to recommend to us that we should reconsider the the bylaw uh then that's something I could I could also present but in the meantime if you could button up the language that's just what you could agree on I think you know how we feel about it and the term as far as term limits Etc uh Mr Nunes I I think we've done that but we haven't had to move forward but that's not it's not that difficult no I understand so um it sounds like perhaps we may have some sort of agreement that uh and and if it I'll I will if if it's okay with the committee I would happily take my notes Kate's notes and uh give some final language and then perhaps present it again and but I think it's the non-voting voting piece the substantial consultation piece perhaps some clarification on terms or whatever but you've got the group you've got the people that you need that have been doing the good work right now anyway but um and then getting that back to you and you have by the way the two staffers from the that have been on this committee have done a really tremendous work they're fantastic and uh and Mrs Brooks his passion is all we are about doing it so uh did I leave anybody else out I should mention I don't think so but I'm sorry um uh I I just I understand we are coming from Doc Jenkins and I agree with you if there's some way we can do it in a light compromise to move us forward and then in the longer term it's something we should be doing there's a hunger for that you know I I've said this many times there were a big big town with a little tiny government and it ties us up in knots and this is a perfect example of you know we can spin our wheels and talk about this in uh two years and today we won't even have a committee because it'll just dissolve and these are the things there's no hunger to change our government structure people think it's very efficient it works well in the selectable itself all the problems just bring them to us and we take care of them so there's no hunger to change it so we need to work around it and get it done and satisfy what I think a very legitimate concerns and perspectives because we're going to get it done as a team that's all that's going to happen and so um tell me if I'm right or wrong does this require us then with me sort of prescribing something new or really I can taking in everything we've discussed and modification modifying it is this going to have to go to next meeting or is there a way that we can separately I could pass it through the does this have to wait two more weeks or it's got away because other than that you're violating violating a meeting law by okay I I and this is the luck of the drawer I'm here tonight because this meeting is in between hours I think doesn't happen often I'm not a gambler but I know this happened so if there's another time in the very near future that will help that we come back or I come back and I'm available that's fine but I mean I don't think I don't think you need to come back and I say that in this I know your time is precious and I think we all appreciate the work you're doing I want to reiterate what Mr Oliver said we appreciate the work that's being done right but it's about sort of building those relationships I I also think related to this and I will say one of the things that we did take out of your charge was conversations about curriculum and I do think that's something that we need to put on our agenda right because otherwise it gets lost that that's a recurring item on our agenda or we have a conversation or a check-in we have two curriculum directors now who can give us an update about again the commitment was when we kept the logo not just on the town side but in the school side and so we should be having those conversations as well I think you'll like what you hear from them yeah I I agreed and but again it's about being open and transparent and making sure that people understand that this work is being done we appreciate it very much I appreciate it I know it's just you know I really again want to make sure we have the institutions and structures right and maybe just maybe in the next few weeks I'm optimistic that we may have ourselves a resident Tribal member as well but they also need to represent and report to somebody else or to be part of that language you're going to put in one without the other I think I agree is insufficient I think we're on the real same page yeah I really do yeah and that's why I thought we'd come here tonight get this thing done and thanks you for listening and making this a team effort thank you David so it sounds like there's a light at the end of this tunnel what's that sounds like there's a light at the end of this tunnel amen thank you so much thank you thank you Dave thanks Dave thank you okay next item we're going to turn it right over to Mr Kylie he's going to give us an update as to what's going on with facilities and capital Improvement across the district and I can tell you there's lots so um it's it's been a very busy summer for all our folks who are maintaining the buildings uh I provided you in your packets with a list of projects some of those projects given that we're here on August 21st have already been completed some are currently in process a few have not begun yet and and will be upcoming so in addition to our routine preventative maintenance work that has to happen every summer there's a few highlights on this list we have done quite a bit of work really over the last year on HVAC maintenance repairs and controls to ensure we're getting proper airflow in our classrooms and buildings we're continuing that we've continued that work this summer we will be continuing that work moving forward but we made good progress flooring replacement at the Quinn and middle schools so this was the the only Capital Improvement plan request and we'll talk a little bit about Capital Improvement plan requests in a few minutes but um this was the only request that was funded at the June town meeting and we've managed to replace a great deal of asbestos containing material flooring in the schools this summer we have a new walk-in freezer at the Demello School it's not not currently cold yet but tomorrow they're going to be installing the uh the refrigeration equipment the atlas program space downstairs is looking pretty good um we were just actually Mr Bernat our facilities manager was meeting regarding pink colors uh I think he met at five today here so um so we should be pretty much at the point where we'll be ready to go we're going to paint that this week and get that ready we've also been painting at the Potter School the Demello School the middle school the high school we had a we have a group of three teachers who paint for us all summer and they're awesome they make such a big difference in the schools and have have been doing that for years so we're very thankful to them kitchen renovations at the potter and Demello schools grease trap replacement at several schools sewer line replacement if anybody drove by the Demello school last week it was a big hole in the ground we had an issue with sewer line we had to dig up the parking lot and replace that tree trimming work had quite a quite a few schools I guess there's been a lot really the bottom line is a lot that's gone on this summer in a short amount of time I'd like to thank John Bernard our facilities manager our maintenance team for coordinating and undertaking all these projects it's a huge task they've done a great job also thank our custodians for for their efforts to keep our buildings clean last week was the first week without a a major scheduled program at Dartmouth High School all summer and it was still full of kids last week and it's still full of kids today so um it's been challenging working around all those programs but they've been they've been working hard to make sure that we're ready to go and just really appreciative of everyone's efforts thank you madam chair thank you Mr Kali for the update just a couple of things that I have um first being the auditorium Lighting and Sound updates has that project been started or is that we still waiting because I know that's been in the in the alleys for a little while here we ordered everything okay well not everything we ordered everything on the sound side um and really need to complete that side before we get to the lighting because we're going to be kind of limited I think as to how much money we actually have available to do lighting because that was originally approved in CIP CIP several a few years ago yeah a few years ago the as you would imagine the prices of everything like every everything else in the world have changed dramatically um we are gonna tackle the the sound piece we ordered everything it's been very slow um we don't have anything yet so okay but we can do that during school it's not that you know we're sure obviously it may not be ready for certain things that we would love it to be ready for but I know the Dartmouth High theater company is itching yeah itching right yeah second is the stadium maintenance or the stadium storage facility is that completed it is completed yep okay that that's completed inspected occupant where where we haven't spent a ton of time actually outfitting the inside at this point basically it's keeping equipment dry and out of the weather just because we've had so many other projects going on but um we'll we'll be getting to the point where we can move everything in and utilize it control so that's excellent and then second to last is just the stadium as it itself I'd love to at another meeting maybe have some deeper conversations and get together with the turf field committee at some point to come up with maybe a plan b or plan C because the money there is still some money that's sitting there an allocation for that project so I would love to revisit that at some point for sure and then finally it's just the um you talk about your maintenance staff how are we at with what do we have for maintenance staff right now so so what we have right now is one person who does grounds so we have our facilities manager John Bernat we have one person who does grounds focusing mostly on athletic fields year-round um yes yeah yeah um and in the winter he has other projects that he'll work on to assist us um when it's inclement although like last winter you could do a lot of work on the fields during the winter to get them ready for the spring because we had an ex you know quite a warm winter um we have uh out outside of that we have three maintenance staff full-time maintenance staff and a part-time maintenance staff member to maintain the buildings and we're thin I mean it's it's a lot of work you know maintaining seven buildings for those folks um ideally we would be we would have more staff but have you been adding it to the uh positions not filled positions not filled but wish we had it's it's definitely on the wish we had list and you know unfortunately as we move forward and talk more about the budget I don't think you know actually that's something that while it would make a difference and we're going to talk a little bit about the capital Improvement projects and some longer term stuff in a few minutes um it would make a difference extending the life of the buildings for sure thank you Miss Kylie thank you thank you just thank you to you and your staff for a busy summer but you know walking around here the school school is looking good you know they've done you know considering you know all the heat we had and everything else in July it you know it's not fun I can you know only assume and you know thank them for uh her job well done I will thank you they'll appreciate that it's it's exhausting just reading on this list like nope skip tomorrow maybe um okay and so next thank you very much um next though we have about the well this has come up I guess more than once during school committee around um the idea that it may be beneficial for at least one of the members to attend the what they call the committee members to the National School Board Association or nsba annual conference I know that from what I've heard you've had the discussion several times this year the conference is being held in New Orleans it's April 6th to 8th what I can say about those types of conferences is I think they can be truly beneficial to folks to connect with people at the national level to be able to share some of of what are in fact common experiences that we're going through not only here in Massachusetts but across the country and so since that's been an area of interest for this committee we thought it would be a good time for you to talk about whether or not you'd be able to do that this this school year committee members Mr Newton Mr Oliver sorry thank you uh this is Amaral so I think it was actually myself that brought this brought this up initially uh several months back and I know that um you know speaking with other school other school districts um that they do send representatives to the National Conference I personally think it's certainly worthwhile as someone who has attended conferences in my profession and whether or not we're able to bring something to the conference and or take something away or both um that I certainly think that it it's past time that we um we the Dartmouth school committee starts sending at least one if not two members um at least offering it making it available to to go to the conferences what I would like to see though is um some type of policy created so obviously we're all not going to be here forever that moving forward that there's at least some kind of policy on the books um and whoever I'd like to see this committee at least send it to policy at this time and maybe create a policy around you know the the requirements and what you're expected what the school committee members expected to bring back to the committee to share um with their fellow colleagues that's that's my two cents for what it's worth so I completely agree I'm not going to be going because I'm not running for re-election so it makes no sense for me to go but you all should go down um my stepfather was a school Committee Member in Illinois and a school board they call it there and they regularly went I think the entire committee was given the option to go um I would like to see two because I think sometimes having someone to talk about something like in the moment can be super helpful right like you know that person like hey how would that Supply here this is what I just heard that works really well um so I think it's a good idea um and I think maybe I don't think we have the money to send everyone on the committee every year but maybe two people every year would be a good thing so I would I would agree Mr news yeah thank you yeah uh I just went and looked and it's it's a Saturday to Monday in April next year so I I'm going to make an assumption it's a fly out Friday come back you know Tuesday morning to type it in I think it's good um you know it's it's something you know we'll have to try and find the money in the budget this year for it type of deal but you know going forward I agree with uh with Chris to uh to put a policy in place so that you know five ten years down the line people are you know there's something for people to uh to follow on that number one and number two more importantly next year is the budget is built you know where is it in 25 type of type of deal and that's what that's what you have to look at and I think the key thing to remember too is you know and I'm not being physically but this is not a vacation this is this is this is a working this is going to be what you call a working vacation type of deal because you're I'm gonna make this wonderful assumption that you're going to be going from eight in the morning to late at night you know with with everything that goes on between the you know between the uh the different uh breakout sessions that you can attend and and that type of deal so but I I hold I wholeheartedly supported Chris I totally agree with you I'd say I worry about the money yeah um and say if it's in California or Hawaii I think we should think twice about going like not go um but if there's good airfare and we can keep the prices down there certainly value there yeah I agree I mean it's certainly value I think uh you know a tight budget right I mean it is it does you know look like a great opportunity um I can't even get a way to I won't be going but but I'd be I would love to hear what others learn and things for me yeah is there any appetite for anyone on the committee to go this year in terms of like if not a solid yes or no seriously I would go okay I'll be honest with you I mean it's a tough time for me but you know if the opportunity and and and again I'm one of those you know I'd like to see what the agenda is yeah agreed okay I agree you know I'm not gonna I'm not I'm not gonna go to go and there's nothing there that tickles my fancy or something that I can bring back I could bring back to the committee or even like when I was working type of deal no that that type of deal yeah yeah and love if they offered a hybrid option I just I just participate yeah um you know I would I would certainly consider it as well um and I would say at least for this year and whether or not you you put it into the policy is maybe there's some kind of threshold you look at as well as tying it to school choice funds for this year anyway yeah yeah I'm sorry and I would just say I would not be going because I have enough to learn right here I don't need to go away [Laughter] Mr news I mean but an also I think if as you start to draft a policy on this type of deal you know you know all things being considered as as much as you can on a rotating basis so that the same per you know yeah the same person's not going every year I mean would be my luck you know be Honolulu Hawaii and it's not my turn yeah we're not going there but you know what you know what I'm saying yeah but it'll be great and then like you said having a policy where come back to the committee and report on the learning and that sort of thing so there's appetite so it's something early registration opens August 30th just saying great thank you for bringing it to us appreciate that so now you're gonna have the policy committee meeting no we're gonna have to set up see a subcommittee meeting for that anything else on that before we move on okay so we have new business we have smec here Dr Saban Maguire if you want to Sure introduce absolutely so we have from smec we have Kim wilcott she is the director of student services who can come right up Kim and she has some good news to share with us and wants to explain to you how this move from New Bedford to Dartmouth is going to impact the services that we're able to provide our students and students in the region so welcome thank you good evening everyone I'm very excited to be here tonight as some of you know we have been looking for additional space for our therapeutic Learning Center Program currently located in New Bedford for probably four or five years now and the reason we're looking for additional space is to meet the growing need of the students in Dartmouth and other local communities so we're really excited to learn that the former North Star Learning Center located at 267 Samuel Barnett Boulevard in Dartmouth was available the location is really perfect for us because it's already set up for learning with the appropriate classroom office and outdoor space so we are looking to transfer our current Day School license to the new space and of course there are lots of steps to that process some of them involve Town inspections all of which have occurred another is a department of Elementary and secondary education site review which occurred this morning and went very well and another is to come here and ask for the support of the school committee of the town that we are moving into so I am here tonight to respectfully request that the school committee approves smex intention to transfer our public Day School license from the current location in New Bedford to 267 Samuel Barnett Boulevard and I'm happy to answer any questions that you have right right okay do you have questions Mr Oliver I'll just uh thank you Kim good to see you being the Dartmouth School committee's rep to spec we this is something like Kim has said that it's been going on for years we thought at some points we had a building um we went back several times now only to find out that's a the uh it fell through at the end of the day but this is a program that is desperately needed in this region um I know that uh we have smack has quite the waiting list um at our current building that we have on Acushnet Avenue in the North End in New Bedford and this is exciting this is um a big deal for smack as well as for all of our member districts which Dartmouth as well as New Bedford Fair Haven mattapois at Rochester Marion uh Fall River if I said New Bedford am I missing any greater New Medford Regional Vocational yeah uh that are all member districts so obviously we get a discounted rate for tuition to smack member districts as well as just being having the opportunity for school committee mem or school committee rep as well as the special education directors who are the steering committee I believe of smec to bring back uh requests and thoughts and you know wishes that for these programs to even exist so I'm thrilled and this is a good opportunity uh for Dartmouth 100 percent Factory so I will make a motion that the committee approves Max transfer of their public Day School license from their current location in New Bedford to 267 Samuel Barnett Boulevard in Dartmouth pending deci approval all second all right so we have a motion we have a second I want to thank Kim I've known Kim for many many many many many years 2007 February 1st actually in another in another lifetime and with another hat on with my little guy with my old guy now but um and uh just really just so thrilled to see you in your leadership role with the work through smack because you're just amazing um and before we take a vote I just wanted to ask you have to come to the the district where it's moving do you have to also report to the districts that so much leg work but so our district as as Chris was saying part of the collaborative bylaws ensures that all of our member districts really take an active role in our decision making so our steering committee which is comprised of all of our member district special education directors has been well aware of this process throughout the process and they're the ones who are really kind of leading the charge in terms of the need and then our board of directors which is comprised of a school committee member from each of Our member districts has been part of this every step of the way in terms of you know all of the votes that need to take place in order to move us forward oh great so yes everyone is is very aware and on board and to Chris's point is just such a critical need in this community and it's going to be of great service to to the children um what grades though I'm sorry though so that is one of the great parts of this building when we opened the program capacity was only grades one through four we are currently K through five and the new building will allow us to be a to eight facility all in one building oh that's fantastic great so we have we have a motion we have a second any other discussion besides our okay so um all in favor aye passes unanimously thank you for coming thank you everyone good luck next we are moving on to Capital Improvements and um Mr Kylie again has been part of a larger group discussion about how we can work together as a town to address some of the capital Improvement projects not only at the Town level but how we can connect them to What's Happening Here in the school department save Maguire so I included in your packet a summary of what was previously voted for the fiscal year 2024 Capital Improvement plan so the loan project as we just discussed in the summer work that was received partial funding at the June town meeting was a flooring replacement request that we have a great deal to continue with that work throughout the district the other requests are critical um you know we've talked before about the Aging facilities that we have when you take the the high school out of the mix the average age is 70 72 or 73 years of our facilities so with an eye on that we really want to approach that in two ways these immediate Capital Improvement plan requests will help us maintain the buildings moving forward there's a list here that we discussed when you approved I'd be happy to talk about any of them individually I'll just sort of run down the list and not get into details unless you want to talk about details on the specific items since since we've already voted on this and approved this previously so that flooring replacement project Roofing repairs technology infrastructure and improvements of vehicle for the 18 to 22 year old program more technology this time to to fund our Hardware replacement cycle which was removed in the budget process last year which we've received every year I've been here previously bathroom Renovations fire system upgrades Dr saber Maguire and I met with the fire chiefs today and they stressed the importance of this and and my understanding is that they are going to Advocate um for this to be taken care of high school track reconstruction energy efficient lighting projects Stadium Renovations Mr Oliver mentioned and music equipment so we'd originally requested you know seven seven million 303 thousand dollars and understand that you know there wasn't money available certainly at the June town meeting to fund all those but we're hopeful that in this process leading up to the October town meeting that some of our requests will be considered and hopefully funded I haven't heard yet as to when we would be meeting with the capital Improvement planning committee on this but certainly would keep you posted if I if and when I hear about that um I guess first do we have questions comments about these immediate Capital Improvement plan requests so I just have a question about the msba repair are there is there any indication when they're going to reopen this like how long do we have to keep the roof afloat I think I think that it is unlikely that they're going to reopen the program this this season this year because the inflationary construction costs for their core program projects are so much higher than what they thought um in order to keep those core projects running they just can't they they have a limited Supply they get one one cent of the sales tax funds School building projects in Massachusetts um the there's just no money there right now maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised um I would imagine that if we do hear anything from them it'll be around no normally it's around November when they announced that they will be considering accepting because there's this whole process as you folks know who've been around for a while it's it's a kind of a convoluted process you need lots of you need votes of lots of committees and and ultimately town meeting approval to even just ask to be a part of the program um it's certainly on my list and and the second that we hear I would come back to you and ask that we be a part of it I guess I just to follow up like I'm maybe more pessimistic than you I don't think it will open this year and I'm actually more worried about them not opening it for a much longer window and I guess the question is right that we're going to put this money into the roof but what if they don't open the program for five years right like so what sort of planning are we engaging in we're like we're kind of putting a lot of eggs in The Accelerated repair basket and at what point in time do we start to say that might not be an option and we have to plan for doing it ourselves right I'm just a little worried about that plus when they open it up there's going to be a backlog of and we're going to put 225 thousand dollars into our roof to make it last which may put us right down to the bottom of that backlog because not that I want our roof to get bad but I'm just I'm worried about the how this all plays out yeah yeah I I think you should be worried I certainly am and and um I think that right now we have no option but to think short term um and we are still like funneling water around this building into buckets uh uh and that has to be rectified we can do some things to help but they're not they're not insignificant things they're like opening up walls and redoing flashing and thinking about like that it's major work that needs to be done it's not just you know oh you put a new piece of rubber on top of an old piece of rubber and it's going to last it's not that type of stuff so um I'm very skeptical as to whether they'll have money as well um I I think given so the Middle School roof was was a five million dollar project in 2017 of which msba paid you know two more than two million dollars of the project um this project is is a major roofing project than is probably going to be eight million dollars in today's in today's I mean that's 2017.
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for 6 30 more time Megan do you show 6 30 okay uh we will call this meeting to order for USD 348 Board of Education uh at this time and I've got a flag outside my hotel room I'd like to invite everyone to rise for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance we're just saying in our nation under God okay everyone I know we've not done a meeting like this but we can check this off our bingo card of all the things we've done strangely together if at any point I need to be louder or not as loud please don't be shy and also if at any point doing it this way becomes cumbersome by all means I can continue as a voting member and our vice president can take over I don't want to make this harder but hopefully this will work out great thank you to Kay and tech crew for facilitating all of this um with at this time if we could have a motion for approval of the agenda the Moon it has been moved and seconded to approve the agenda as presented all those in favor please say aye and raise your right hand I I motion carries 7-0 organizational items any announcements uh parent family community engagement opportunities at this time if anyone would like to share some information please feel free to step forward and do so your bland is on his way I just want to share that next week on Wednesday from 6 to 7 PM we're going to have a back to school night Part Two for the junior high specifically for those sixth graders who have just transitioned to the junior high and finally figured out what the questions are that they need to ask now we're going to have an opportunity for you to do that I hope to be emailing those families in the next 24 hours or so with some more information on that never miss King is on her way up sorry I have to have my computer so I can get the dates right um I wanted to let everybody know that the Poland Rec is going to start doing a fitness class in the morning before school for staff or Community anybody that wants to come um Monday and Wednesdays will be at 5 15 to 6. and then Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6 to 6 45 so we invite anybody to come to the PC in the gym and we'll be having some Fitness classes taking place from Karen on forward thank you Mr grittingham would you mind talking about tomorrow's experiment information that real quick since you've made your adjustments yes because we have um so many coaches in our building we're starting our parent orientation meet the teacher uh back to school night that's going to start at five o'clock in the high school there's up in the library at five o'clock will be what we're calling a canvas boot camp for parents so if they want to come in um uh Kelly Andrew eising will walk parents through having to get paired paired up so that they can then basically see what it looks like through the lens of their student at 5 45 I will speak in the gymnasium just about changes of the things of that nature and then obviously we've changed this up a little bit try to make it more organic I guess where they have the ability to check out the new spaces so we won't be running the schedule like we have in the past um we're hoping it creates just more conversations you know than it has like shuttling people through and only leaving 30 minutes at the end so that's what we have going on tomorrow thank you oops anyone else have anything to share a couple of reminders I guess I will add um speaking of our Baldwin City Rec they're actually doing a 50 50 raffle in anticipation of their Smoke on the bricks event it's for a barrel pit smoker but the benefit of the 50 50 raffle is all geared towards uh McCain Kellerman and Lila Smith and so I wanted to make sure and help them spread the word on that Lila strong and team McCain and um The Bash is coming up September 8th I have some committee members who would find me remiss if I did not mention that so September 8th it's a community celebration it's for everyone please come on out and support the football guys as well as all of our fall Sports and activities and then lastly I would just add again prayers for those battles that are being fought that are seen and unseen uh want to continue to offer our prayers to the family of Megan Abruzzo who was a teacher at the primary Center last year that information went out she was not at our district anymore but we continued to think about her her family all those who love her um that's it from my end unless anyone has anything else all right we'll move on to the approval of the consent agenda please agenda it's been moved and seconded to approve the consent agenda as presented all those in favor please say aye and raise your right hand I motion carries 7-0 recognition time all right uh the first item for recognition is the kmea elementary choir do we have any of those kiddos there here tonight is here okay yay well um thank you Miss Jacobson for being here tonight we definitely wanted to recognize uh your efforts and your students efforts um we've recognized kids for this before for folks who will remember this is the Kansas music educators Association and yes we have had Elementary kiddos uh qualify for this individually but having the entire Elementary choir qualify is a whole new level of Awesomeness Miss Jacobson would you like to elaborate on that in any way we are one of only three Elementary groups selected for State this year and one of only two Elementary choirs um so it's pretty good a big deal especially since the other choir that was selected is the Flint Hills Children's Choir that travels and is like professional level choir so the fact that our extracurricular Elementary kiddos were able to successfully be selected for State as a choir was a really big deal and um and keeping with that big deal I've also opted to commission a few pieces for them to Premiere this year so that's it I I also I want to to add a little bit more to this to kind of put this in a little bit of perspective so we have 11 116 hours worth of school that we report to the state okay um and so that this the work that students do this is above and beyond that this is outside of that um these are students that competed with other schools if you will with their submissions across the state and last year we heard when Mr O'Neill's group won there was like 106 107 auditions and they were chosen with three one six one and seven so this is kind of the similar picture here the work that was done on this and and sorry candy but I went through and did some homework on your timesheet for this 20 25 and a half hours fan training kids and they did such a remarkable job under her leadership and now they're representing amongst Educators across the state so we'll vacating Katie this is amazing and so um on behalf of the Board of Education USD 348 supports and promotes excellence in all school activities and so on this day August 21st the board would like to recognize and congratulate uh you and all of your students on this amazing accomplishment let's give them a round of applause [Applause] I'm sorry I couldn't be there to shake your hand Katie next time I see you I'll give you a hug um moving on to the Douglas County Fair recognition portion do we have any kids there tonight uh that participated in the fair if you did please go ahead and don't be shy come on up while we talk about you and that's okay too that's okay too um I certainly we have a lot of our students who work very hard year round and then um the the Douglas County Fair was also not cool in temperature this summer so they put all the work into that on days like today I know there are kids right now who are trying to make sure their animals are okay um so it's it's year-round effort and I really wanted to make sure to include that in our recognition time uh for this meeting uh particularly a couple I am going to mention just because they are recent Baldwin graduates so this was their last uh go around with that um Kaylee Griffith for example was um overall Grand Champion for Market show in her crossbreed Market hog um Emma Kate Lang I believe she made it to the Grand drive but she was a class winner with her steer Maris Flory uh won a really neat Citizenship Award it's the Austin Newell Memorial 4-H Citizenship Award really huge deal um I we're going to recognize all of our kids uh here in a moment but um I think that my hopes by bringing this as part of our agenda recognition this year is that you know this board has worked long and hard to create an AG Sciences position at the high school and Junior High and to also create FFA and the history of 4-H and FFA is so intertwined it creates so many leadership opportunities uh for our students um I hope that in time we have a brand new teacher and miss hoskinson and I'd love to see her make this her own to develop it into some sort of outgoing senior AG leadership award that's bestowed by the district so this will be our way to plant that seed so that she could perhaps work with Mr Dodge and and turn that into something really special but in the meantime um USD 348 Board of Education supports and promotes excellence in all school activities and all of this stuff is learning and it all ties together so on this day August 21st we'd like to recognize and congratulate all of our Baldwin students who have been participating in 4-H who had a great Douglas County Fair and for those who will continue in those AG leadership areas please join me in giving all those kids a round of applause [Applause] foreign next up we have our co-sponsored USD 348 along with Baldwin Education Foundation Baldwin built Employee of the Month Mr Dodge is going to present that I try to keep the you know read the denominations there's no way I can do that with this one so I'm going to uh to do that now and just read it as they came through so this individual is going to do whatever it takes to learn the complicated world of school Finance he has done this through personal and personal he's always willing to lend in here and give advice even when it's not positive is a man of great integrity that cares about the district in keeping your financially strong he's always willing to lend a hand such as projects that the projects that take place such as helping the food service with handing out news this summer and helping facilities install instrument and storage cabinets over the summer over in the band room at the junior high he has a great sense of humor and makes working in the office a pretty awesome place to do so Mr Roller Nathan Miller please uh come up Education Foundation so I didn't do it at convocation but I did it here um Education Foundation everyone now I have to tell you a little bit of a story behind this so whenever we announce the winner we usually try to come up with some way to surprise it and Nathan's on our opportunity that helps choose the winner and so he's he's always on Me on the day that's kind of choose to learn so these zombies like hey Mark we need to choose a winner for this I'm like yeah you know what I've got a lot on my schedule we'll get to it on Monday yeah I know but we'll get it done I promise and so I had him I have Friday taken care of him and also excuse me I have Thursday taken care of Friday evening said you know what this afternoon we could we can get to it it comes back a little bit later hey what do you got on your calendar this afternoon I'm in the buildings this afternoon so I walked out to the front office and I told Megan I gotta go to lunch and it's not even 11 o'clock so I come back after visiting the schools and somebody in and animates this time we had he goes we had a couple in there I said Yeah we actually have five and he goes really and I said yeah there were three submissions that were sent but they didn't do it on our form because they knew you'd see so anyways being such a humble person has been a great addition to our team and uh we're honored to have him and one last story he tells us this morning that there's an individual in his family that's got a birthday so I miss I want to tell you happy birthday so I asked him I said oh it's your birthday it's excited what are you going to do tonight Eagles quickly [Applause] thank you congratulations Nate moving on to celebrating 348 student voices um I didn't receive any letters uh between the last meeting and now um however I thought I would include this is a form of having a voice we actually had a Baldwin student Jaden Landreth who was in The New York Times along with his dad so that was a pretty neat thing if you haven't had a chance to check out that article but one of our uh one of our own students was in the New York Times so I thought that was a pretty neat thing to mention all right I think that wraps up recognition so we will move on at this time with public comment um I know it's not quite seven o'clock uh Megan is anyone signed up yet no no okay so here's what we'll do uh we'll go ahead and proceed with the meeting at 7 pm Megan if someone arrives for public comment please make sure and interrupt so that we can honor that because the sign up is until 7 pm okay got it okay thank you so much all right moving on to financial report uh it's the 2324 Morgan Hunter Services bids all right so uh Nathan and I were uh we've been working with Morgan Hunter trying to uh to look at uh the service loop that they provide for uh covering Subs when teachers and classified staff have to be gone um what they have done is they provide us quarterly reports in terms of what our fill rates are um and in doing so they also let us know how many Subs specifically indicate that they'll work for Baldwin schools and what they've found is we've had a reduction in individuals willing to sub in our school and in their work to determine you know what could be the cause we're looking at the they indicated the rate of pay that uh Subs get paid here in Baldwin versus the other entities within their agreement um and as you can see at a hundred dollars per day we are significantly lower than uh the other individual under other school districts that are kind of in the area um and so to that end what they suggested is it might be time to increase our rate of pay become more competitive in the area with that and so what we had him do is run us some numbers and they came back with a couple of different options one was 115 dollars per day for a daily sub 145 dollars for long-term sub and then thirteen dollars which is the which matches what the interlocal pays for their subs 120 dollars per day for a daily sub 145 still with long-term sub and thirteen dollars per hour for a parasab so the cost for if we went up to 115 would be 211 745 based on what we paid last year the inner locals contribution to that is forty two thousand uh at 120 per day uh this the rate would be 217 383 with the interlocal contribution amount uh forty three thousand two ninety two again those are estimates because they're based on what was there last year numbers those numbers this year could fluctuate or change um what that would be for us on the 120 daily rate we would be seeing an increase of about twenty two thousand um so that's that's it's my recommendation uh so that we can make sure that we have Subs in our buildings uh this is this could be an option we can look at we can always rule that out um I put in there the fourth quarter uh report from Morgan Hunter and the building itself that tends to find if you look to the fourth page um the primary Center has the lowest sub fill rate of our buildings um and then over you've got the percentage of the junior high and then the high school as well so it's my recommendation that I would ask for you that we would we would raise the sub rate pay to 120 per day and then daily long-term sub rate 145 per day and then the para sub rate to 13 per hour discussion a lot of this is also keeping up with our neighboring schools um you know again Mark mentioned that you know uh obviously with last year's taxing or tax consequences there that uh to be kind of doubled off on that so yes but you know it's definitely something that we feel is needed um let's pull that 120 rate puts us right like average barely right with the other school district it puts us it puts us equal what Eudora is paying de Soto's at 150 per day Bonner Springs is 140 per day Kauffman schools in Missouri is 135 um see Lawrence has 105 so they're just slightly ahead of us Piper is 120 per day tongue is 110 per day and then Turner is 140 minutes yes they speculate that that is in terms of speculation it's not the right word they believe that's theirs okay given that our our intended Subs went from 48 to 41.
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um they have 120 students scheduled to start in the fall as you know in the last report the busing they have done away with the busy part of their program and Hunterdon County purchased there's no removal equipment it costs 14 Grand to set up set that up and take it down each season they didn't just have the committee reports which were not eventful and um that was it the only other thing is that they lease the central Bridgewater where they were storing all the buses equipment they leased it for one extra month for 13 000 as opposed to one actually a year for 180 that 180 000 so they could just get rid of all the equipment stuff that was that was happening um new business there is that we're going to be discussing goals influence it okay thank you any questions for any of our committees all right then at this time we are open to the public for agenda items only so there is no one coming up here at the top give us a look online real quick can I say I'm excited for the kitties to come back can you say that yes you have to put your name on the thing and sign in you can say that yes uh agenda items are open to the public uh nothing for the agenda online oh to approve d professional record tenant approve the minutes for the following meetings regular and executive meeting minutes of July 19 2023.
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freshman class is 11. 860. it's amazing all of us out of 1100 or something yeah and just I'm gonna go through this I feel like I'm taking too long so um some things that are coming up we have streets Fest and wellness week coming up um these are just some things that they're doing overwhelm this week so we have like a field day that culminates but then we also have like button giveaways sleep quotes pretty similar things to last year um Key Club service fear is also coming up so I'm the president of Kiva this year and so we are organizing a booth at Key Club service Square which essentially offers freshmen and underclassmen an opportunity to kind of engage with the different service opportunities involved to your opportunities that the students and Community has to offer so they're also inviting like Community organizations that are not necessarily based in Stevenson to also attend um and then homecoming planning I think I just thought today that the theme was space space party that's what I believe they chose yeah space party so um I think planning is already starting because it's actually like I think about like a month right month like five weeks or something so um they're playing for the assembly um for fall Sports to kind of walk out outside and then kind of mapping at the different decor and different holidays are going to be decorated so that kind of wraps the community section um academics pretty like it's like pretty usual things and um awesome stuff but we have like nearly 770 750 freshmen come to summer school this year um and clubs like HOSA FBLA Kiva Key Club all the big large organizations and clubs that are starting up um this this week um and then the CCC over the last two weeks has also been hosting sessions to kind of help and guide um seniors like me in this process of college applications and so definitely a very nerve-wracking experience but I'm personally very thankful for the CCC and the counselors and all the SST that's available at Stevenson for kind of guiding us through this process um and so in terms of Athletics one of the best things that has happened over the last few weeks is um the creation of a new sport at Stevenson's a girls flag football so my friends and I have been doing boys flag football for the last um one or two years um but this year very new um somebody that hasn't necessarily happened has never happened before is the girls flag football team it's Michael FMP Eva is also on the girls football team and she was very very excited for this and that was honestly like her like she was like so excited for this so um I think it's great that they not had the opportunity to play and um there was a lot of excitement for this and um a lot of people are actually going out to watch these games as well so it's really really great stuff I think they went two and two this weekend yeah one two and lost two incredible um and then just some other athletic wins we had um our 3D Archery Club sebasti three archery club that placed really well um and then different fundraising events that were kind of organized by um different clubs I think I believe it was oh yeah we had like our foundation golf that was that actually raised nearly like a hundred thousand dollars um that was like kind of had Stevenson foundation's presence there so that was some good stuff as well um and then in general schools in full swing so we've had like all of our fall sports that have conducted tryouts um teams are beginning to practice um I know like some of my friends are waking up at like 5 a.m for like Monday morning soccer practices so it is there it's happening and then our first football game um is this is next Friday August 25th wait 25th and they're actually celebrating Night of Champions which recognize the state champs from last year so they'll be kind of having that celebratory um kind of feel for those former state champs um and then new sport alert girl slack football and then new club alert pickleball Club I am a huge fan of pickleball I play like throughout the summer so if anyone else plays pickleball that's awesome because wonderful wonderful sport so they actually had that club this year um which is also some pretty exciting stuff um and then Stevenson so um in terms of the Arts we actually had a summer theater class take a trip down to the city to actually watch the play called um it was like haystown I've never heard of it but um we had a couple students go down um there to watch that and then our band band team had a fundraiser and then over the summer we had two sessions of the um like art and digital design photography and art classes that actually had like showcases in semester one and semester two over this summer so these are just some pictures of summer school students kind of visiting and exploring the um an art boot scene that are that were available um and then also some very cool stuff um Stevenson and Taylor Swift so the Stevenson Ben Color Guard I think I actually heard them like practicing outside just now um are practicing their routines for the 2023-2024 season including parts of their Taylor Swift inspired halftime shows so something that I don't think has been done by a Stevenson Colorado um band before so at the end of the season they're gonna re-record it and re-release it as a second album company is um having auditions in August for their fall Productions illegally blonde the bully plays and Spark um and then an increase elections for happiness so this is what I was kind of talking about like this new kind of Edition that I think would have been helpful so these are obviously pretty lengthy descriptions and explanations but essentially um one of the coolest things in Stevenson's other fashion Club is um one of their goals is to pair up with more clubs to broaden perspectives and so their discussion with the black student you need to learn more about the impact of black designs models and photographers and fashion as well as scheduling some guest speakers um from like the black community to kind of Spotlight and feature some of the different designs and um kind of fashion that that Community has to offer um and then secondly our Sports analytics Club um they're playing mainly focus on the end of the Major League Baseball season the beginning of the NBA season and almost the entirety of the NFL and college football season um and then something unique that they like to do is usually contain a statistic of the week so they're relating to a sport of their choice along with activities and bi-weekly supports updates and so these are just examples of how two you know clubs that maybe we don't always talk about the most are doing some pretty impactful and great work um and then one more thing that I want to mention is our our modern United Nations team is actually organizing for smunk the annual Stevenson conference which kind of convenes nearly like dirty schools and delegation to come compete in monitor schools so pretty exciting stuff from our clubs and then lastly as Alex like to do the different student spotlights and so I kind of went around the ilc um in different areas in the wood Commons to kind of hear and write down what different grades liked and so this one is actually someone a freshman who said they love the Jasmine's everything bagel okay also the detachments everything Bagels um that's awesome and then that's pretty good um so yeah this was just and then this this person this girl from sophomore year mentioned how um she got to be a big shot because she was no longer the youngest fisherman that was something interesting as well as for your sophomores and then our junior said that she she said she was taking five AP classes so she was talking she still got to play Get to Know You games in every class um which we I also we played a pretty good amount in our classes um and then lastly um the person I asked from senior year said that they were super super super excited for this year and the exciting events that they got to experience and then they said that the most exciting thing wasn't about them but about the wonderful freshmen that they got to interact with um and hear about their first first first day instead of their last first thing um and so that's just some experiences from Seniors so that pretty much wraps up my first report which is crazy um but any questions or anything feedback wise if you guys think that I can include next time I love the edition of the club house you're not speaking too long okay no it's fantastic [Music] that's what I was gonna say always thank you thank you did you drop your keys thank you thank you all right I get more cars that way do we have any visitors all right on Tuesday okay um so tonight uh well first of all welcome back to everybody to the 23-24 school year uh thank you all for being here it's exciting to get things underway um and we appreciate all the time and commitment that you give to Stevenson um tonight uh we have three first readings uh and so we'll give you an opportunity to review these before September when you'll ask for your approval the first is a first reading of our gpis that we discussed at The Retreat um in between now and September Mark will be working with the administrative team to develop action steps so we will present those to you next month with all of the action detailed action steps for each of the goals projects and initiatives so um thank you Mark for leading that work out we appreciate that the other first reading is for curriculum course proposals um just by way of quick review uh the curriculum course proposals are proposals that you have seen previously in April and May through in the letters of intent so when we approve the letters of intent what we're saying to our teams is you have the green light over the summer to develop curriculum proposals um and if you as a board approve those in September those will go into the course book that kids will choose from for classes for the 24-25 school year so it's a process and we give you multiple touch points to be able to review and ask questions and kind of discuss the different recommendations that we're making and in this particular series of proposals Mark there's really no change from the letters of intent um spring so almost um a direct carryover so more to come on that feel free to give myself and Mark a call between now and September and then also you'll see a series of first readings on board policy updates um and thank you thank you thank you to Pia for getting us all organized uh you can pull up the worksheet you'll see that this month virtually all of the policies from press are five-year updates so there's really not a whole lot that we're going to ask you to debate and discuss and then I know we've also been considering an update to policy 2 con 230 which is related to visitor statement so you'll see a Redline version of that which we will bring back to you for your approval in September and thank you Steve for Steve spent a lot of time speaking to our attorneys and really going through that in detail and then Don also looked at it so thank you both for your work on that anything just we don't need to go down this rabbit hole but part of the rationale was to really try to ensure that the visitor statements that are being made here um to the school border germane to the issues of the school right like let's try to keep stay on on topic on Focus yeah one other thing that we're updating is the non-discrimination coordinator compliant manager and Title Nine coordinator too yeah okay Eric can I ask you to take a moment in on the gpis um in the in the past um sometimes the board was more at The Retreat we spent a little bit more time on the GPS I think this this year we had a lot of other stuff to talk about and you were going to meet with the admin team and you prepared this and you shared it with us it occurred to me one of the I don't remember exactly how we come up with the goals the difference between the goals projects and initiatives and there's some newer board members and it might be helpful if you don't mind yeah yeah for sure so um well we don't that's a good question so what's the difference between goals projects initiatives so the goals are what we would describe as smart goals you know specific entertainment results or time bound et cetera and these goals really have not changed in done 17 years because our feeling is that we still haven't hit these goals you know like there's still a long way to go um and you know one is tied to our state test one is tied to our commitment to college level experiences and the other is tied to social emotional learning and we feel like those are really the three kind of big buckets that we need to be paying attention to as far as goals are concerned and also there's a measurability aspect to those right there's other initiatives that we have that may not be as measurable as these particular goals keep in mind we've word Smith these over the years right like they've they've gone through a word smithing process but the buckets are the same state tests college level experience sem the initiatives are essentially the ways that we commit to working in order to achieve our goals so we have a focus on collaboration and we ask ourselves to follow the most current research in our profession on how to engage in really good collaboration and what protocols are for getting ourselves are as adults still working together on behalf of kids the second initiative is around evidence-based practices so ensuring that you know we're actually using the evidence of student learning to make decisions about curriculum instruction assessment grading practices and the third is around student engagement like we're going to do everything we can to create you know highly engaged classrooms for our kids so our feeling is those are the three areas that we spend a lot of time on in our divisions in supporting teachers and staff in meeting the needs of kids and then the projects are what we would consider to be our one year to-do list items so the initiatives you know are kind of are ongoing ways that we work we we tweak those every once in a while but those are really related to our culture of of being a learning community the projects change every single year and when you see next month the action steps the way that Mark kind of works with the administrative team is that the projects are intended to be completed within the school year so by the end of the year our commitment is to have implemented The Rise program and to develop practices related to the new digital sat so the projects are always time-bound in one year and they're they're always only one or two three at the most and the intention is that if it's a project then it's going to touch nearly everybody within the organization are there other things we're going to do this year well of course there's other things we're going to do but you know these are the two things that we're going to ensure that everybody is paying attention to if that if that makes sense right we try to limit our organizational Focus so that we're not playing whack-a-mole and have a whole ton of stuff going on you know a lot more fun but it may be more fun but you know our teachers work really hard like our teachers have a lot of a lot of things that they're already trying to do in the classroom for us to pile more on doesn't seem right right on the other hand these are two things that we feel like these are things are really important we need to pay attention so this is also for us to limit our um the number of things that we're doing so that we're not overwhelming our faculty because it's hard enough you know so that may have been more of what you wanted but it does that was really helpful that was exactly yep and and again when you see this next month Mark and the admin team they'll have you know 12 13 20 Pages worth of action steps to get all that done so it's these are not aspirational kind of slogans like we will literally have action steps and then by the way just as a reminder that that 120 page end of year report is our Reflections on those action steps so that's our accountability report to you all right I couldn't sleep how could you not read it yeah yeah um so okay so thank you so curriculum proposals are coming policy updates you'll see again um and that brings us to the summer school report we had another exciting summer of summer school here at Stevenson and I know you had a chance to look at the report but Mark do you want to just maybe two three four highlights from your perspective sure actually gosh already gave you the Summers you crushed it yeah you did it was really great um but we ran 40 courses over the two sessions and the total enrollment over the course of 2995 enrollments so well that's up from last year which was 2780 there were 1748 seats registered during the first session and then uh 1247 registered for the second session uh just an update after covid we had instituted series of transitional courses and this summer a lot of students didn't enroll like we did not have high enrollment in those so we feel really kind of good about that because through that enrollment process I don't need to come I feel prepared to go into Stevenson so we're hopeful that we'll be able to let those go next year and then invent some new classes for our students to take um as in the past world history continues to be the most popular Kosh gave you a little report on that thing freshman with about 780 freshmen and then other courses they continue to be popular choices during the summer schedule are introduction to business computer programming classes College writing workshop for our seniors who want to you know get a leg up on their college application essays health education driver education and SAT prep and then as Kosh reported out we had a number of trips this gets on and by the way um if you're interested in an application for your job I hope we had a Leadership Summit in Berlin and we also had language of immersion in Berlin as well so two separate Germany trips via Alps a trip service trip to Peru and then we had a fashion experience tpr so we're pretty excited to be getting back with Rod and the students really enjoy those trips and really opens up their imaginations and I think there's been such a great I don't know Innovative approach to it now that it's much more educational based more focused our teachers have just really got interested in doing that learning experience it's not just traveling it's true it's not just touring I should say it's true tragedy true travel experiences with destination for instance with curricular expectations so I mean it's not as if you know um they're not also studying you know while they're there and Janessa actually has led some of those trips for AP Euro right and so kids were you know doing work while they're there so it's nice that post covert were able to get back to those yeah so just uh one comment Mark if I can piggyback um you know one question that we often get is you know there's a lot of kids who enroll in summer before their freshman year is that do we want that is that a good thing and and I think just as a reminder our approach to summer school has always been it shouldn't be focused on remediation it should be focused on enrichment and or acceleration so our feeling is let's provide kids with opportunities and if they jump on them that's great um and with our freshmen you know in particular you know 75 percent of our freshmen are taking a class they get acclimated to Stevenson they know the building and more importantly for those students if they take world history which we know a number of them do that opens up an opportunity for those kids to then take an elective their freshman year so for those kids who are making that choice you know it makes some sense for them maybe not for every kid but for those kids so um but world history isn't the only option you know we we promote you know as Mark said introductive business and I think Troy said that one year your kids took an art class and you know so there's lots of opportunities we just encourage kids to come if they're interested I'm just adding one fun fact about a why a more and more students join a summer school believe it or not because they're a cafeteria good because in the cafeteria yeah I I've been on a tone a lot of times because it's low over Stevenson food so they can't wait to try to travel food I don't blame them so yeah I see a lot of posting you know it is it is interesting because one of the first site visits I went to there was a discussion about the summer school program and one of the common questions or one of the things that people were most of the visitors how do you get kids to even come to school in the summer and and it's an expectation here where everyone and and it's so unusual to have that uh it's we really take it for granted yeah it's it's really great and and like I said in most schools it's remediation because why why would they want to go um for here kids see the benefit it's both for acceleration but also for enrichment you know and and our teachers have some great courses in Center school so I think for the freshmen also as the parent of one I know a lot of the kids appreciate the opportunity to have that sort of soft transition find their bearings learn how to get lunch here learn just how to navigate the facility before it's full and feel like this is their school so I think that's a really lovely opportunity um question about the wait lists Mark is there ever any consideration because students are pretty packed and I'm saying that some of these electives did end up waitlisted is there does that factor in a decision making for future years in terms of sections and hiring always there are some some of the things that end up waitlisted are very specific courses so we need a digital art and design teacher and we don't have a there's not a ton of those just hanging around and so sometimes we end up limited by the number of people who will teach that course so in you know we'd love to offer them we just can't always find enough adults to teach the very specific courses but for classes like world history we don't usually struggle we can find a lot of folks because a lot of people that love to work here and so it's a great great foot the door okay [Music] also note um all of the um Personnel items that are included in the Human Resources report um just as a side note one of the things that you'll hear across in the news is that across the country there is a massive teacher shortage um and although we are not experiencing that here at Stevenson knock on wood that is something that is affecting many of the schools here in Illinois in the midwest certainly around the country so we're very grateful that Stevenson continues to be a place that people want to work so we don't have we all of our classes are filled we don't have any shortages we're all good um and we hire a Hebrew teacher we're very pleased that we've been able to fill all our positions so it's amazing and that brings us to the adoption of the 2324 budget this is something that um we had shared with you in June but Sean I'll let you kind of share out before we open the public hearing yep uh as Eric mentioned uh it's kind of a two-step process we put the budget on display I attended a budget on display for at least 30 days and then we would hold another hearing where in fact we would open the open basically a hearing or open the part of the meeting to the public for public comment um overall there were not many changes from the tentative budget to the final budget that we discussed early today but you can see that overall our revenues are are expected to go up about three percent compared to last year our expenditures we are keeping right around that 2.2 percent Mark I actually think that's supposed to be oh 2.9 excluding the construction my apologies um and you know we have those summer projects that we started this summer and we'll be carrying on next summer and that's namely the Performing Arts Center construction is going uh okay with that so we'll talk about that at another time but I am happy to recommend that we will be asking for approval on a balanced budget a balanced budget um tonight from our app for our operational funds so um with that tonight there are a bunch of emotions here um one to open the home hearing one to close the hearing and then one for acceptance of the budget as present okay so can I have a motion to open the public Hearing in the budget cell moved so I did all in favor aye opposed okay the hearing is open do we have any visitors or comments so can I have a motion to close the public hearing someone second all in favor um okay hearing is closed and now can I have a motion to adopt the 2023-2024 budget so move what was that second no second second good thank you all right any more questions for Sean no no just a comment I mean I appreciate the level of detail that you guys went into at the finance committee hearing or our meeting rather thank you and it was the same last year I mean it's it's a it's a great education in how the finances run so I really appreciate it personally thank you we appreciate it and you know Britney and everybody puts a ton of work in doing she does an amazing job and you know you know I I would like to say that she's helped me grow as much as I've helped her grow as well and so I think at the end the benefit is that the school gets a nice solid concrete budget that is financially or fiscally responsible okay would you please pull the board certainly ciao I fools I tired hi Frost hi no hi Ben Joseph hi Kerry is six to nothing all right Sean we have approval of Sodexo contract yep so uh as you know uh we have had a long uh standing relationship with Sodexo going back to the days when it used to be called Marriott um Sodexo handles our food our facilities and Facilities includes ground um the outside grounds the inside mechanical maintenance electrical setups takedowns and we average well over a thousand setups and takedowns every month it gets pretty absurd um and uh as part of that contract that we have with them um in the most recent contract was a performance agreement for the food service that we would entertain a profit of at least forty thousand dollars as you know our food service sales have been through the roof thank you for the anecdotal evidence uh Grace but our food service sales have been through the roof with very little increase in price EXO has come back to us with a uh a flat contract another five-year deal at the same percentages um just to remind everybody kind of the basis of the contract it is a Cost Plus contract which you know can add a little bit of worry to the contract itself but I will I will tell you that there are limitations on sodexo's kind of cost if you will um they can't just go out and hire a new employee without seeking my approval first so much of the spending that goes on is in fact controlled by Brittany myself in our regular meetings with Habib and Travis and others on the Sodexo team as well um so we scrutinize much of their spending um but it is again not something that they can engage in without approval from us um in addition um while there is a flat you know renewal where there's no increase in the percentages um you might ask yourself but what is the market bearing right so the market I've gone out and done some comparisons um so for Sodexo even their own um they are quoting 12 increases or 12 markups on any new clients um so they're not even you know cutting it down to get new business it just goes to show you how much they value our relationship I did ask some of my peers as well to put together like what are you seeing on the Food Service side many of them do have facilities in-house um so it's hard to kind of gauge what those prices are but if you figure an average raise is four to five percent compounded annually forever and ever and ever you know that kind of adds up quickly but on the Food Service side they're usually they're they're seeing across the board um six percent uh to eight percent increases on their contracts from previous year so sadaxo's right there with us they're not taking us for granted um in fact the president of school operations is set to make a visit to Stevenson this year to review the facilities that I'm trying to understand why this relationship seems to work so well on an annual basis very exciting but tonight we are asking the board to approve a new five-year renewal of the Suboxone Sodexo contract as presented and I have a motion is that Don yeah it was yeah I can't see you from here okay he's there he's there any questions so one question I want to see the contract I see one of the terms asking like well not asking I'm stating they can hire a student employee which is from Stevenson students correct that's correct good great eye we do actually have um I think this year it's four um Stevenson students that are going through the transition program that are working on campus and one of the students that or one of the employees is in fact a graduate from home man it had to be five or six years ago yeah I mean he was five or six years ago and so he says hi to me I'd always says hi Eric every day I'm in there um and uh so that is something part of that is also because you know we want to do with them to encourage them to reach out but they have a natural willingness to be a community partner so that's in their DNA anyway but they put it in this good question a little more of a comment you know you talk about why why it works so well I think just like everything here it's people yeah right read is great is just so great I think when you pull in on campus and you get to know the guys and everybody waves and it's it's it's really nice there's a lot of pride in and ownership of what they do on a day-end basis even though their paycheck comes from someone else and they feel part of the campus this is one of the struggle for them is how to deal with like good food was a long line waiting because you know students love their food they don't mind waiting such a long line to guess it's a good point I'll have to go back to my mind Habib that when we built it I said listen the only thing I have is you have to get them through that nobody Waits longer than 10 minutes because they only have 20 minutes to eat so you got to figure that out other than that go to town yeah foreign did we think that was going to happen we didn't know we didn't know I'm thinking maybe one day students can order their food online on their phone and they just pick it up we have already worked through some of those things um there's some logistical concerns on where to store the food prior to pick up but it is something that we have considered and discussed excited about having Troy deliver it [Laughter] what else yeah I thought it was on therapy dogs or therapy white gloves silver tray and well Hoover board yes questions for Sean about tonight so no no go for it all right could you please both certainly Moon's eye Tire all right for us hi no hi Ben Joseph hi so hi well what carries six to nothing wonderful um last uh action item I have for the board tonight is uh the approval of or I guess authorization for white and Company our Architects um to create some construction drawings for projects related in the summer of 2024 as I mentioned earlier today um the the biggest project is a is a two-year project and that was the Performing Arts Center that has already been taken care of in Terms of bids Signed Sealed Delivered and work is is progressing well um in the Performing Arts Center there were a couple of other um items that needed to be potentially addressed in the summer of 24 and that is the replacement of some boilers in the East Building and upgrades to the pump house in the west building and then a portion of the western a portion of the west building roof replacement the uh initial uh or excuse me not the initial but the design development estimate from gilbane is about 2.9 Million Dollars we are not asking the board for approval tonight for that we are simply asking for a white company to develop those construction drawings allow along with that and on our next facility meeting we'll discuss the need for those projects and which projects should if any or all move forward for the summer work in 2024 uh is the roof replacement part of the overall scheme of replacing the roof can we can we I interrupt and we have motion and then we'll discuss oh I'm sorry no that's okay can I get a motion for that so move it's okay okay sorry okay um so is the roof replacement we had a we had a plan in place to replace pieces of the roof over a number of years is this part of that overall plan it is and one of the things that we're um in the process or when I'm in the process of having gilbane do is evaluate re-evaluate that section or group we get a five-year Capital plan every year from White that gets updated we want to make sure normally they'll give me a Range that the roof you know should be replaced from 2024 to 2026 right and a lot of that timeline is really based on the last time it was evaluated how has it changed since then and so that's what they're going through now and that's what we'll be bringing the site facilities committee recommendations for that okay if we go ahead with drawings and we decide say to you know push something for a year then we've still done that right then we know we have drawings that's correct 100 any other questions um no hi I'm Joseph hi so I carries six to nothing and then Sean you have three first readings um just briefly yep um one we've kind of alluded to before which is um we have received uh um proposals from uh four different banks in regards to our banking services our next up will be set up interviews with two of them um we will be asking one of the board members to sit in on that um uh but we will be there's there's a couple of finalists we just obviously aren't going to announce those yet until we get a chance to call them and set up a meeting um we did uh briefly mention I think in the mid meeting Memoir at some point in time that we do have some cellular dead spots um the quote to take care of all those dead spots in the entire campus was 441 thousand dollars which is too much um for what were our appetite is so we're going to piecemeal this and really focus in on non-cra classroom areas um specifically the commons areas or areas where there might be an activity after school or at night and somebody might need to make a 9-1-1 call so that there's no worries about making a 9-1-1 call so it really kind of comes down to Safety and Security a little bit even though we have security around our campus so we'll be talking more about that both midweeting memo and our next board meeting and you and Brittany were able to include in the budget correct we include a portion not the 441 but we did include a much smaller portion okay what's the plan for the portions are you how much are we going to do now is the goal ultimately to do the whole thing part of the part of what Rashad's working on right now is working with the vendor to determine exactly yeah so how do we bring it break it up correct because if it's a safety issue I think we need to take that the good news is that installation is relatively quick it's more wire pulling we're not waiting for a bunch of Technology components to come in these are components that are still that are now readily available not delays like the um experiences that we've had previously with access points and switches and the other stuff so this is a um in hand product that should be able to be installed fairly quickly once we hear back from them can you just when you come back to us can you give us a sense of what areas wouldn't be a cover of course either of course going through the facility or a visual or something we'll have a map that shows what is it is and they'll stage out for us you know what each year yeah thank you thank you and then lastly um we do have a couple of multi-function devices also simply known as copiers that are coming off of um our our existing lease and we're looking to re-up those in fact we are going to also be able to consolidate some of those units as well to more cost effective so you'll be seeing more of that in the mid-midding memo and again in September and those are you want to talk about the other agreement Eric uh yeah I just noted yes so uh coming in September will be uh a renewal of our intergovernmental agreement with the foundation um and I just noticed Pia this is not the red line version of the agreement oh I'm sorry yeah that would be awesome um the foundation has gone through a lot of changes over the course of the past couple years so we just wanted to update the intergovernmental agreement to reflect those changes um although this is not the redline version I will tell you that there's nothing significant that's going to be changed more related to some terminology and things like that so just wanted to make you aware that and that will come in September as well you'll see the usual list of foyer requests and that yeah no I just thought that the wrestling one went is that we we don't we get them all the time we don't know we get random Fire requests and we have to respond no I know we have to respond yeah and hopefully in September I'll be able to find put the final touches on how much it actually cost us a Manpower and explicit costs for foreign they do take time and that brings us to the consent um can I just ask on the on the reading so that was a forward of an email that's four years old [Music] issue on the reading it was unless I'm reading it wrong it was a it was where Doug forwarded a four-year-old three and a half year old email so I wasn't sure Quest I think the request was for all Communications relative to book issues who is that yeah so he thought he looked to see what was out there before that to you and this is what you gave I'm gonna interact it was a summary yeah okay can I have a motion to approve the consent agenda please second that was Ronnie and Grace Terry could you please pull the floor sure Tire all right for us no hi can you also hi so hi wounds aye cured okay and then finally tonight just a couple items the first is uh kudos to Debbie Marquardt who's our uh one of our human resource coordinators she is going to be honored with an HR specialist award from the American Association of school Personnel administrators so um that is a really prestigious award it's a great recognition um and that means now that 50 of our HR staff is nationally recognized so that's pretty good yeah it's pretty cool it is amazing it is amazing so Kudos she deserves everybody oh she's amazing she's a rock star she's telling her that we appreciate that and congratulations very well thank you I've also included um a uh as I usually do at this meeting or September an enrollment report in a class size report our enrollment report I didn't get a chance to link so we will do that next month but as of today we're right around 4 628-ish uh students so quite a quite a few students though um expected still 50 yeah we'll get about five or ten more um but still about 50 kids less than our all-time high which was around 46.75-ish getting close and if you believe the uh enrollment projections we could have 4 900 kids by the end of the decade so we'll see I've included a class size report there for you um just for you to be able to review um and we'll give you more information around class size because that's obviously something that's important to us this is a historical uh count of class size at sectioning because when and I wanted to share this with you coming off of the heels of the budget conversation because the budget is built off of our sectioning intents um you can see kind of the historical counts at sectioning time but what I did include this year was a column that had our sectioning on the first day of school so you can see that there's not a lot of movement sometimes class sizes go down 0.2 sometimes they go up 0.2 but not a lot of movement between sectioning and the start of school so overall our class sizes on average if you were to average up our core content areas are about 23 students per class which is really good you know as a national average and as it stands now um all but two of our divisions have had larger class sizes historically so we're we feel you know we would all love to have class sizes of 20 kids but you know I think ultimately you know 23 is a pretty good number so and keep in mind that I just want to make sure that we're representing accurately what happens kind of day to day within a Division I taught social studies I taught some core classes like world history there were times where I had 28 kids in a class or 29 kids in a class but then I also taught world religions and there may have been only seven teens and kids in a class so that 23 is the average within each division so you know keep that in mind you know that that you get to that because it's that measure of central tendency so I just want to make sure we all remember that so we have science says 23.6 which is 24.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
but still 446 000 for an initial allocation is incredible just a reminder to the board that only South High School is a title one school so funds for Title One need to be spent for South High School um also wanted to point out that last year not when I brought this to the board because we don't find out usually until November December we were able to get the Immigrant education grant and that's that 11 600 we don't always get that Grant and that's really exciting when we do so I was very happy about that I'm hoping that we will get it again but again won't know until later in the school year also notice that ctei those funds are for Career and Technical education we have been held harmless at the 96 236 we are expecting an additional education this year um so we're we're hopeful in our CT funds we also saw an increase last year of 10 000 to our title IV funds title four funds are used for to provide enrichment to students we use it for a variety of things including our seal of by literacy testing our AVID program at North High School plays the membership fees and some professional development and we use it for some other supplies particularly for our biomedical classes and we were very excited to get additional funds this coming year as well so just a quick summary if you have any questions why the significant jump in title one that is a great question I'm sorry last year when we had the initial 191 000 on our initial allocation I was contacting people and double checking lists to make sure that I didn't misread because we usually get about 300 and 300 to 400 000 um on our initial one year we did end with about four hundred thousand dollars but this year there's a formula that they use and most of my colleagues are also seeing an increase so it's a combination of census data and our free reduced lunch numbers okay and can you remind us once again why only down in South is eligible for title one so North are substantially lower than they are at South High School and that's the reason it's South High okay it's Title One funds any other questions for Gina no all right um this is an action item to accept these this evening all right uh recognizing uh certificate in excellence in financial reporting we have received this oh boy every year since I think 1999 so it's a long-standing testament to the work that our finance department does this is uh Jury has been involved in this for several years this was the last year of Mark's work on it but we received this and I meant to put up the picture of jury pinning it on there if you go outside there's a plaque out there that has our little pin on it so but thank you to jury for her long-standing work in this and uh just a testament to the work that our team does here yeah congratulations thank you thank you thank you and now I'll turn it over to Drury for the fun in the year-end financial report okay well first I'd like to introduce Tammy who a new member of our team she joined in July foreign okay well I have just a few financial highlights for last fiscal year we ended the year with a solid operating fund balance there of a little over seven million dollars this equals as you can see a little over seven percent of our revenues the reason why that percentage is important is because we have a board policy that states we need to keep our operating fund balances at three percent or higher any questions on just this overall fund balance page jury for the benefit of the board members can you explain when you show a negative number in the educational funner o m fund what that truly means and the difference between cash accounting versus fund accounting hey sure we use the based upon modified accrual accounting basis which means that we defer our property taxes that we receive in June until the next year so we have much more cash on hand June 30th but we operate with just the revenues that we count for that year that makes sense and then as far as having a negative like the operations and maintenance fund balance is slightly negative that just means that our revenues um were well we started the year with a negative balance on that and um as we saw last year like in November when we were starting on the work to work on the levy we saw that that fund balance looked like it would continue being negative and so we put more Levy into that fund for this coming year and so you'll see what the budget that now we anticipate that that fund balance will be higher than what it is now so there's still plenty of cash in that fund it's just that we're deferring all the tax revenues until like July yeah yeah and then the negative in the working cash Plus 14.99 right it's not a negative balance but we did transfer the funds to pay for t99 yes [Music] all right any other questions on that one sorry it's working cash potential source of funds for what Jim was referring to as far as how we're potentially going to fund the roof replacement oh well yes but we also have some other ideas okay yes waiting in anticipation for that everyone who finance was so much fun yeah Finance is really fun I know okay so for our revenues um you'll see that the third line down interest it came in quite a bit higher than what we had anticipated due to the higher rates and so that was a a nice benefit for us because we had some expenses that came in a little bit higher than what we had anticipated so it helped offset those those expenses um we also continued to receive federal Esser funds this past year those totaled about five hundred thousand dollars next year we expect just to receive about 200 000 in user funds uh that will be the last of our allocation then the other area of revenues to take a look at would be the state aid so the revenue in in that line item came in a little bit higher than what we had projected and it was basically due to the reimbursement that we received from the state for our transportation costs those costs are from the prior year do you have any questions on the revenues not bad inflation what is the our students are buying more so um well actually we switched over to a different program a couple of years ago and so our food service management company um pays us kind of like a fee kind of a commission at the end of the year as and it's related to the sales and so the more sales the more Revenue that we receive from them and we're actually planning to use the revenue over the next two years from Food Services to fund the upgrades at South for their servery well it also says that we're um supplying things that our students and faculty want to eat so that's a really good thing all right any other questions on revenues okay a few highlights on our expenses so overall our salaries and benefits came in very close to our projections that's about 80 percent of our budget and a good portion of those salaries and benefits are tied to collective bargaining agreements so we have a pretty good idea of what those will be for the remaining expenses all came in pretty much as we had projected except for the cost of Transportation Services those were about five hundred thousand higher than what we had originally projected so overall the the revenues and expenditures came in very close to what we had originally projected last year and as Travis mentioned a team it takes a team to be able to come in this close to budget it's it's a lot of people working to make this happen all right questions on expenditures all right so that's where we ended up last year and now it's real forecast where we're going hmm Okay so I'll just mention a few of the highlights like I did for the year-end report so where we are projecting as you can see that our operating revenues and expenditures are pretty closely matched and then you'll see the the transfer line item that we have there with that then it it's our expenses are a little bit higher than our revenues debt transfer is is a transaction that we make every year the amount varies from year to year and it's just to make our lease payments and the lease payments are for our tech devices so as you can see we project that we're going to end the year with the operating fund balance of just under seven percent so we're still right where we'd like to be as you can see though the education fund we're projecting a slight you know deficit ending fund balance but again that's not cash that's just overall ending fund balance and it's so early in the year I mean that could change just like it did last year too any questions on the fund balance page revenues oh okay well you'll see on the replacement text line item that we're projecting a much lower amount for this coming year the state has informed us that the replacement taxes should come in probably about 25 percent lower than what they were last year this is an area that it fluctuates from year to year who knows maybe part way into the year will be surprised and it will go back up but we're just going with the production of the state for right now we do expect to see an increase in state aid that's for the most part tied to Transportation costs as I'd mentioned in the previous report our transportation costs last year were higher than what we expected those costs have been turned over to the state and so therefore we anticipate that our our reimbursement will go up this year and on the federal aid we as you see there's a significant decrease there that's partly due to Esser funding it's also due to some other federal aid that we've received as genus mentioned sometimes though we find out two or three months into the year and there's additional Federal funding but right now we're just projecting the low amount does that include the grant the grants that we talked about earlier yes so even with the increases in the grants you're still projecting that kind of reduction right last year we had additional Ida funding that we don't anticipate to receive next year so it's there's a number of federal sources that we receive funding from and they do fluctuate from year to year the transportation costs is that the vehicles and repairs and parts what's the it's for our busing the actual the no we paid for a student so we contract out for services okay okay yeah any other questions on the revenues all right so the overall big takeaway is trees expansions oh we didn't do expenditures let's not spend anymore just take it home but I missed half okay well once again our salaries and benefits are the you know it's 80 percent of our budget and we you know anticipate that these will stay right within our Revenue stream um as you will see there's a projected increase in purchase services and tuition by a significant amount um and both of those are related to for the most part special services costs that's tuition when we pay for one of our students to go attend a different school yes [Music] we project a increase in the number of students that we'll be attending outpaced facilities this next year remember that's very individual and specific you know a single student with higher needs could swing that number drastically from year to year whether it's their somebody's coming with greater needs or greater outplacement needs could cause that to to go higher or if a student leaves us and that comes back it could change drastically or sometimes mid-year we have a student's needs change or get adapted and we could have a swing mid-year one way or another so that's one of our most volatile lines year to year so the only other line item I would like to point out is the capital outlay it looks kind of odd to see a decrease there one reason for the decreases we had a one-time real estate purchase last year for the expansion at t99 and then the other reason there's a decrease is because we started some of our projects started it all has to do with timing some of the projects started in the spring and we paid for some of those projects before June 30th so we had the expenses in last year's budget thus reducing this year's budget so that's that's um the tentative budget for next year we don't anticipate any large changes between now and September but we might find out some more information from the state and we would make those small changes at that time so now I'll bring it home sure so juries presented a realistic conservative budget that's balanced and expenses and expenditures and revenues as she said they'll continue to look at this for the next week it's already on public display on our website uh board members can provide any feedback over the next month as well and then we will bring the final budget for approval next month at our board meeting there will be an opportunity for public comment before we ask the board for a final approval I miss anything I would just say that um you know it's it's extremely important that last year last year's board when they adopted the 2022 Levy living up to the statutory maximum under p-tel is allowing us to meet our accelerating expenditures so I would caution the Board of Education that as we get to next year's Levy and we're con continuing to be in this inflationary environment we have to take that into consideration when we look at our levies so it's really important yeah our maximum Levy amount although five percent is higher than we typically are at it's still lower than what CPI and inflation was all right see we can have fun with Finance oh I'll have fun all the time all right Freedom of Information requests uh we received them as we typically do we responded to them as we always do and they are listed on our website item number seven the consent agenda there is before you open up one corrected document uh in your board packet under the finance report it's just a labeling uh item on on on one of the summary pages so the numbers haven't changed just a description changed um so bottom line we're the same we just want to make sure that we labeled one of the line items correctly thank you Dr thaley before the board votes on the consent agenda is there any agenda item a board member would like to pull out of the consent agenda for further discussion okay hearing none I need a motion for the Board of Education to approve the consent agenda as presented which includes a Personnel report appointment certified appointments classified transfer position classified B June Treasures report in June July Financial Pages C 20 23 24 concussion oversight team and D 2023 24 crisis de-escalation and physical management oversight team so moved second Terry first Chris second thank you Carrie pavesich aye Christian Espinoza aye Jenny hagstrom aye Cara Kasten aye Ken Dawson aye and Don Renner hi motion carries anime is this for you Dr Kelly or oh these are actually action items okay so item number eight um I'm gonna need a motion for the Board of Education to approve the 2023-24 grant allocations as presented so moved second Terry Terry first Jenny second thank you Terry pavesich aye Jenny hagstrom aye Cara Caston aye Ken Dawson aye Mr Espinosa hi I'm Don Renner hi motion carries and the second item of action uh B I need a motion for the Board of Education to accept the tentative budget for the 2023-24 fiscal year and establish 6 30 PM September 18 2023 for the public hearing to be held at the administrative service center 6301 Springside Avenue in Downers Grove Illinois so moved second Chris first Ken second thank you benosa aye Ken Dawson aye Jenny hagstrom aye Terry pavasich aye Eric Aston hi I'm Don Renner aye motion carries item number nine old business on the whole business okay and item number ten any new business no new business item number 11 reception of visitors all right inviting Yvette Kirby would you like me read the instructions first oh yes sorry you can come on up but you've got to read the instructions sorry about this this is the second reception of visitors which is intended for audience members to address the board on any topic pertaining to Community High School District 99 comments will be limited to three minutes to provide all visitors an equal opportunity to address the board individuals needing more time should submit their thoughts and writing to the board's secretary visitors addressing the board need to submit a comment slip to the board secretary and will be invited to the microphone prior to addressing the board audience members should State their full name the proceedings may be tape recorded for the purpose of producing accurate meeting minutes the board's presiding officer reserves the right to modify these protocols if circumstances warrant audience observation of these protocols is appreciated thank you sorry about that okay I'm trying to be as quick as possible hi my name is Yvette Kirby and I've been an educator for 28 years in the same school district I have also had three female student athletes attend dgn since 2015 when we moved here from the Northwest side of the city it's our third daughter Kirsten Kirby is 16 a current Junior a straight A student with no discipline issues ever she has played Club volleyball since she was 10 for the same Volleyball Club New Wave here in Darien this summer Kirsten was asked by coach Bostic to play in his Summer League and she was first invited to play in the JV league for her first game then for the next game she was invited to play for his varsity League she also attended all three summer volleyball camps following covid which was really really hard on her as she is a very social student she has done everything that he has asked of his players she played Club volleyball she attended various volleyball camps and played exceptionally well at Nationals in Florida having 20 Aces in one set she played his summer league but then was cut with several other girls rather than placing them on the JB team that he clearly has in place on the school website and in the current yearbook which I brought um I spoke with an ihsa administrator about the Title IX violation that I have observed occurring the past two years he in fact agreed that dgn is in clear violation I called Miss Kavanaugh on August 9th to discuss this with her and to invite Mr mint as well in a meeting she returned my call we chatted for nearly an hour she repeatedly told me I needed to follow the proper chain of command which I believed I was in fact doing by calling the athletic director's office to meet in person she then told me to put my Title IX concerns in writing which I did in an email and she told me that they would be forwarded to the building level and then onto the district level if necessary I've never heard back from either of the two offices and it's now August 21st Miss Kavanaugh then attempted to help me understand by sending me incorrect links to sexual harassment rather than Title IX links that she had stated in her email I believe she was purposely leading me astray with Title IX by stating sports are equal but not affording the opportunities so the 730 females compared to the 770 males in the district that she sent me in her email my daughter Kirsten has played on the sophomore team last year but also played with her entire sophomore team for JV games they were in fact playing on a team specifically meant for juniors that cannot make varsity team and are not allowed to play Down on the sophomore level again this would be lying to the community it appears on the website and in the yearbook that we have a JV team when we in fact do not we use our sophomore level team to play at the JV level these are taxpayer dollars are they being correctly allocated are the coaches being paid for love exist your time is expired feel free to reach out with me and we can follow thank you I'll add the last paragraph in an email I appreciate it we have no other reception visitor soaps okay item number 12.
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that's more than twice the prevalence for autism one in 20 means at least one student in every classroom in this District over ninety seven thousand students in Illinois and more than 850 in Etsy 308 most of these students have not been diagnosed and many have not been identified for special ed services General Ed teachers and the Deans and principals are encountering these students due to increased alcohol consumption during the pandemic we expect prevalence to increase and soon our early childhood staff will encounter an increase of students who had prenatal alcohol exposure and as a public school district we must adhere to child find most individuals with an fasd have IQs in the typical range they have executive functioning and adaptive skill impairments that often manifest behaviorally but because of high verbal skills and because over 90 percent of those affected do not have facial features of full fetal alcohol syndrome these students are at risk of being perceived as willfully defiant or unworkable in our current systems of learning theory when in reality these students have deficits in memory processing abstract thinking language and executive functioning their developmental age often is much less than their chronological age and is uneven across different domains this means their brains may not be able to do the tasks that we expect them to do and when this happens frustration and anger can escalate both for students and for staff which results in power struggles that serve to further increase behaviors if we learn to recognize when a brain functions differently and build upon students strengths then we can create appropriate accommodations and supports for a good fit between the environment expectations and what the student can do this is the neural behavioral approach and should be considered when typical rewards consequences Point level systems sticker charts and PBIS have been ineffective this approach is useful for any student with a brain base difference including exposure to other drugs or teratogens acquired brain injuries illnesses that affect the brain genetic conditions other neurodiversities and Trauma trauma informed is more than asking about feelings and observing behaviors it's understanding how trauma actually changes the structure of the brain in regard to learning and effectively responding to that we need training to begin to know what it is that we don't know what it looks like why these students haven't been diagnosed the truth is we don't need a confirmed diagnosis to recognize when someone's brain functions differently so how do we recognize this as a brain-based disability and then how do we intervene effectively and support families the board and administration discusses teaching and reinforcing common behavioral expectations supportive discipline and integrating SEL with academics but you can't do that completely if you don't know about fasd you will talk about training regarding suicide prevention and implementing programming for mental health but you can't do that if you don't learn about fasd remember that over 90 percent of individuals with afsd have a co-occurring mental health diagnosis and the rate of adolescent males with fasd who reported a serious suicide attempt was 19.5 times higher than National norms for males in the last Congress representative Lauren Underwood was one of over 70 representatives and 10 Senators who signed on to co-sponsor a federal bipartisan Bill to reauthorize funding that has expired for fasd programs and strengthen existing programs the intent was to establish a national fasd agenda and structure at the state tribal and local levels the goal was not to create a whole new system but to infuse fasd formed care into already existing systems unfortunately that bill did not make its way out of the Senate Before Time ran out but the fasd respect act has been reintroduced in this 118th Congress as of June and that's H.R 3946 and Senate bill 1800.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
there's no public comments just to kind of recap the revenues and expenditures are balanced and basically there's all the expositions we covered by the foregrants that are there and then we did have that new standpoint that we talked about if we last meeting so there were no changes in it it's just that one type of and then you have the resolutions defined in your cabinet and then there'll be a signature page that all of you have assigned yes all right we need a motion a second to discuss and approve the tenant to budget for Central Korea 23 to 24 school year okay so tonight's uh presenting you the trend of budget for central for FY 24. the same process as Northern Cameo through the tentative tonight we'll do the final budget um this was put on display on Friday the 18th we've posted in the newspaper and it was out for everyone and then it was also on the board book um so every year I like to kind of just start with a recap of last year's budget review so here's a quick summary of some of the highlights they don't really change very often but um pleased with the outcomes of it our Revenue exceeded our expenditures and all the funds except for the education short fund those were intentional to reduce down some fund balances that we had and then the fund balances which you'll see all these later throughout the presentation but all of our fun balances are positive when we start the school year none of them are negative the reserves that we do have and have been accumulating over the years being fiscally responsible will help cover some of these chemical products that we're talking about so we don't have to go back out for a different referendum or increase taxes to cover these projects so we have plans and we're going to use our money for that purpose some of the major Capital products that we completed last year we the biggest one was our maintenance and transportation building we have a brand new building for our staff for transportation and maintenance nice really nice offices and a driver's room and then the bathrooms and women's bathroom with multiple stalls so no one affordable is gone we're still there but they're excited about it we did complete the CT and PK cafeteria expansions that was primary leader before and then with that construction we also added on the CG parking lot to kind of redo the whole drive and try to eliminate the um the backflow in there and then um wherever we could at the end of the year when we saw that we had some of this extra Surplus as we tried to pay for things in advance so all of the schools before Elementary left for the summer their secretary they tried to buy their supplies to have it in their buildings before they came back to the first week of school and they had all that stuff so this is my budgeting philosophy slide at philosophy slide it hasn't changed over the years just basically top priority is always providing for the needs of our kiddos and our staff um by doing that we have to make sure we have instructional supplies ready for them all the tools that the students need the technology we always try to balance our revenues with expenditure interest once we're trying to reduce our fund balances and then maintaining the fund balance reserves the reason those are important is for multiple reasons one it gives us steady cash flow so in the fall we get 50 of our Revenue that comes in from our taxes and then usually in Spring we get the next 50 but depending on when that payment comes in May March and April sometimes can get tight and some of those funds that we may not have the funds for it so by by keeping the fund balances Reserves at a steady level it requires doesn't require us to go out for like tax anticipation warrants which would cause basically you're getting a loan and paying interest on borrowing money that you're just going to pay right back so that it's good for that it's good for credit ratings when we do go out for bonds when we have to go back out for any new bonds that doesn't you don't have to transfer money between the funds and then it gives us a higher state recognition on our audit our reserves are a part of the formula that gives us on a four points uh one of the four point scale a 4.0 is a recognition we've always been around 3.8 3.9 so we have the most perfect recognition there and then it just helps for future like hope you never planned on it and we had all these expenses that we didn't budget for so those small balances and then it's also going to help carry into some of these projects that we can that we need to do now while we're waiting for a passport to go to school um and then we always try to be physically responsible trying to keep our tax rates low sort of flat if I can and for the last many years we've been reducing it so that's kind of the budget classes some considerations these are the key points that drive most of the budget if you look at the budget detail of all the expenditure lines these are the main buckets that feed into it the top two are the revenues or the local property taxes and our state revenues are important for us which is called the evidence-based funding this year I think we're getting I think it's called one which will come up later in another slide um and then salary or on the expensive side salary benefits are the largest then you have all your instructional onion curriculums needs and supplies your textbooks in our community then maintenance has all of their Capital Improvements projects that we have to make sure that we don't like fall off our radar and hit them and then just the operating class which is like the bus feel and the food costs and um insurance this slide shows the all the sources of revenues broken down by local state federal soy underneath it I won't read them all to you but you can kind of see what awesome what buckets and then for the local Revenue that's 77 of our budget State makes up 18 in federal means that's happening those percents don't change much every year it depends on like the movie that desk upon and necessary against the federals and it did shift a little bit but with those ones going away we're back to our normal percentages throughout the budget when we're trying to budget I try to give you some of my assumptions of where our where are the calculations kind of come from so on the First Column you have your local taxes um this one we get to usually 50 of the Fall 50 in the spring sometimes 48 51 52 but this year we did 50 50 again and then local property taxes as anticipated to be about a 61.7 million dollars including our bonded interest in there and then our administrates funding we're projecting to get 12 million dollars and and that was 2.92 million dollars of new funds um we're still in tier one um which is the lowest tier that gets the most money so this is a nice job for us to be able to get these funds prior years last year we got about a million and then the years before that we don't get like 200 or 164 000 so that was like nothing where this is actually helping us um State categoricals those are in the transportation fund mainly those come from the Transportation plan we fill out our claim every year and then they prorate the dollar amount so you don't get 100 but you just get like 80 of your money um this year they ended up being late on payment like they always are and then we usually get three so this year after checking I'm gonna get my board payment from fy23 3 for fy24 um which is kind of trend they did make all of them so I'm not a concerned we're not going to get them so in this these State categorical payments for the transportation fund are vital that if we don't get one of these and the timing is off then that could really aggressively drop their fund balance so these are critical for for specifically the that fund impact fees I projected at a million dollars last year we received 1.1 million um it's kind of on the decline so depending on new housing I that was where I thought was a safe number to try to budget for and same with transition fees last year I think I could jump to 50 we only got 14 000.
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Molly is a representative of all teachers with her endless commitment to educating our youth the impact Molly makes daily the impact that bcsc teachers make daily extends far beyond textbooks and lesson plans as they guide students towards excellent and for that I express my sincere heartfelt gratitude and we're going to give Molly a few moments to share a few words with you before we go further more overwhelmed is the word I typically have been using humbled and grateful to be chosen bcsc's teacher of the year there are a lot of people that I could thank for getting me to this point and I am not going to do it justice because you guys would be here forever but I'm going to do my very best to name a few first my husband Mark who handles being married to a teacher with patience and support he jokes every single June that his teacher wife has returned and while he's joking there is definite truth because there are now elaborate dinners right the house is not crazy clean let's not be nuts but it's cleaner right than it is anytime between August and may um and there's no bag with papers waiting to be graded at any given place in the house uh next to my three kids Henry Jack and Caroline who handle being teachers kids with Grace and only a little bit of eye rolling uh and bribed by Donuts in a movie to sit in my classroom while I prepare for students every summer dad and my sister who are some of my greatest cheerleaders like I can say enough How Lucky I Am to be surrounded by The Best of the Best for feedback Oz are less than spirals when we just can't get out of our head about what we have planned I have a team that can troubleshoot literally anything in a five minute passing period I have a department chair Lori who has believed in me even when I don't believe in myself and an Administration that are supportive and in my room almost every single day to see what's going on supporting my crazy ideas and how they can help my Journeys to the world of Education wasn't necessarily direct my aunt and uncle were Educators and I found history interesting and I had considered on and on off the potential for teaching but I had not committed when I set to off to Purdue in 2005.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above