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get started this evening I'm going to call to order the 24th 2023 regular board meeting of the Center Grove Community School Corporation first order of business is the Pledge of Allegiance well the crew here for Maple Grove joining us so awesome and I will introduce them and tell you all about them in just a few minutes when we get the spotlight of the United States of America all right the next up is adoption of the agenda Mr President I propose that uh we move uh four and five we flip-flop them so reports will come after recognition and presentations I also propose that we remove under action items 8.1 we have a motion in a second all those in favor of accepting the agenda as amended signifiable saying aye aye next up is Temptations the we'll do the CG Spotlight with Maple Grove yeah okay all right absolutely all right so my Maple Grove there you go you want to face out of here thank you for the Direction all right do I stand over here yeah okay all right look at this beautiful group well I'm Greg Phillips I'm the principal at Maple Grove and I'm so excited that tonight is Maple Grove Spotlight at our school board meeting and so we're going to start with our teacher Spotlight first and our teacher that we're honoring tonight is Allison Smiley she is one of our kindergarten teachers at Maple Grove and actually has been with me at Center Grove for 18 years now I had to do a little bit of digging to figure that out but 18 years is pretty impressive so what makes Allison so special well she kind of embodies being all in at Maple Grove she's one of those people that no matter what you can count on her so she jumps in as a leader and she will help whenever it is needed she will serve on any committee that's needed she volunteers her time for kindergarten she teaches Ready Set K she does kindergarten screenings she will be the first to volunteer to Pilot she's done esgi and you fly her just a couple of them most recently she writes grants for her classroom really just anything to kind of go above and beyond and serve the students in her classroom and in kindergarten at Maple Grove last year we had a kind of an unexpected medical leave in kindergarten and Allison really stepped up as a leader and helped that classroom to make sure that that class was able to stay right up to speed with the rest of kindergarten and not fall behind and we really appreciated her leadership with that as well so I just want you to know that she has a servant's heart and we are so thankful to have her at Maple Grove all right and for our support staff member Spotlight we could not pick one so we chose two but they served similar roles at Maple Grove so we have Luciana alts and Yukio Primus and they are both our English as a new language assistance at Maple Grove and Luciana has been with us for four years yui has been with Maple Grove for three years now in this position for about a year she also works in our cafeteria so we were able to win win and have her in both positions at Maple Grove so what makes them special really honestly we couldn't be more fortunate to have them on our team at Maple Grove many of their strengths are very similar they are both a very calm women they are incredibly encouraging not just to students but to their colleagues and they make it a priority to ensure that students feel seen and they're heard and they're getting what they need they're always willing to help wherever it's needed they translate sometimes for us with parents they're easy and apprehensions for new anxious students you may or may not know we often get students to Maple Grove in the program who are not just new to our school but that is their very first experience in our country they may have just moved to the United States they enroll in school and and we're the first you know a big group of people that they have met and so they do such a beautiful job with the rest of our Eno staff of making families just feel seen and welcomed and so and they also help with our end of the year walk around the world and they help ensure that that's a success so very fortunate to have them at Maple Grove [Applause] and now our fantastic crew of students that are standing here boys and girls when I say your name if you can kind of give a little wave that would be awesome so our third graders we have Annika we have Emory we have Sloan in fourth grade we have Gage in fifth grade we have anyeza and Zoe and so we asked our teachers to nominate students who we've they felt like would be great representatives and our school-wide theme this year is keep shining and our teachers really felt like these students definitely shine in the way that they demonstrate kindness to one another both are essential skills teachers in our general classroom teachers nominated them because they embody compassion and genuine positivity through the friendships that they have formed the connections they have made we know they will carry with them throughout their lives no doubt having lasting impact on how we all have more similarities than differences I'm so proud of these Maple Grove rock stars foreign [Music] a little closer here thank you thank you [Applause] good all right next up for recognition is the cg100 there's a cg100 award Dr arkanov thank you this evening we're going to recognize some staff and I'd like to ask Amanda Moore could please come up to the podium for us and she's going to share some great things going on with some of our teachers important good evening I'm Amanda Moore I'm our district Innovation coach and I have been very fortunate that I get to work with our district elementary Tech Lab Perez over the last two years we have been working to integrate more computer science into our tech labs so that means we're doing more things like coding and Robotics digital citizenship and basically a lot of fun and so over the last two years we've been working to integrate more of that with all of our students from kindergarten through fifth grade and recently we've been awarded with the cs100 award which is a national award and we are the only recipients in Indiana so this award is presented to schools and luckily we were awarded for our entire district for committing to teach 100 of our elementary students computer science so I would just like to recognize our Tech Lab paraprofessionals for their hard work in teaching some difficult Concepts that a lot of times might see seem somewhat daunting or maybe even a little bit intimidating they do it with ease and with excitement and they do it in a way that really provides great opportunities for our students here in Center Grove so congratulations and thank you so much for your dedication in making wonderful opportunities for our students [Applause] yes all right a couple of housekeeping items for this evening we need to reconvene our executive session we had to adjourn it we have an item or two we need to finish up once the meeting wraps up so we'll sign things and then reconvene the exact session next up is reports Dr arkanov for you're gonna turn over doctor turn right over to Dr hooker all right uh it's that time of year for our annual review of student s I'm not feeling great so my voice isn't okay maybe that's it okay okay um so I will spend some time going through um this is kind of just the different topics I want to always run through testing in Indiana and what that means because every year is not always comparable to every other year um and that then we look at comparative CG data so how we're doing in the district compared to before and then we also look at our peer School data because it's not just about how we're doing but are we keeping up um stepping ahead or staying static with other groups that we use to compare ourselves with so just a quick um testing changes in Indiana ISTEP went to iLearn back in 2019 so that's really the first year of data we have that we can continue to compare to um ISTEP was was different and it's also caused a shift in how many of our students are proficient and that's always important to note our SAT for all Juniors for all 11th graders just started in 2022 so this is only our second year of data last year it was just that lonely little single piece of data we had um and then finally I read this is the test that has stayed similar across all of these years so it's the probably the best piece of longitudinal data we have to note this year I will show you we tested our second graders the doe opened that opportunity last year we decided to do that this year and I have some great information to share with you about how we did not only with third but also with our second graders okay so I'll just go through those that the order of our comparative data so for uh these are our I read three scores for this year um and overall across the district we did go down 0.6 percentage and we're of course not satisfied with that at all um but in that percentage let me say we do have some great news one of our schools reached our 99 95 goal passing this year we're really really proud of that school want them to keep that up but overall we do have a drop and we are not satisfied with that we continue to hone in on effective instruction and Remediation practices some of the work we're going to do to support student achievement the first of those is implementing it's called you fly the University of Florida literacy initiative and we are using it's an explicit systematic phonics instruction that was something when we adopted reading last year there was no reading program to have everything you had to kind of piece things together so while we adopted Scholastic last year in this our first year of implementation was last year um we knew we needed phonics and so we went with this this year in July we invested training invested in training with you fly experts from Florida um and K through two teachers attended a two-day workshop to prepare for being able to implement that this year our instructional coaches also attended and so they'll be able to continue to support that throughout throughout the buildings and help to be in continual learning alongside of our teachers we're really excited about that and we already have lots of Buzz about things the teachers are seeing in their classrooms another great thing we did was by testing our second graders so you'll see we had 66 percent of our second graders pass which means those students will not take that in third grade and next year when you see 2024 data that percentage is already included as passers it will just be the additional students who take it this year added to that percentage to see where we're at what that allows us to do is really hone in on the students who did not pass in second grade um and honestly that just means we have so many kids ahead of grade level which is phenomenal um but the the students many of those are students are on track so we'll just do what we would have normally done to get them ready and through third grade and prepared but those kids who were not on track will get to provide very targeted remediation and instruction to support more growth because that's what they need um and then the other is that just that targeting for instruction um for that percentage that still needs to to pass this year and we really believe that those things um on top and being in the second year of our new resources will make the difference to have us trending back upwards towards the 99 95 goal for iLearn data um again uh when you look at individual grades across all the buildings the great news is we're starting to see certain grades in buildings popping up over where we're at in 2019 and that loss that we experienced through covid we're starting to in more and more Pockets each year see kids increase and go meet where we're at and even go above that um but we still have to have steps in place just support increasing our numbers of students who are achieving proficiency again that you fly for those early grade levels we expect that explicit phonics instructions to have an impact on our students especially as they matriculate up the more and more exposure and earlier they had to that will be in the next few years we expect to see some big differences the third fourth and fifth graders who've had that early also targeting students for remediation we're creating some very consistent systems across the district to not only support but also measure the intervention efficacy which we believe will also make a difference and then finally utilizing our PLC model when our teachers collaborate they use their students data to provide instruction to meet those needs in additionally colleagues across classrooms and buildings share the strategies that work best just like I said we're seeing those pockets of grade levels in different places in the district the value of PLC is they're sharing with each other what they did to make those kind of gains and that's one of the most important parts you're talking about the pockets of grade levels sure for example um at Maple Grove they have two different grade levels who actually were above where they're at in 2019.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
thank you oh God call the meeting to order will start with the pledge I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God and indivisible with liberty and justice for all right I want to thank everybody for joining us tonight just a reminder that we are live streaming the board meeting this evening so the green light is on we are live streaming we'll just welcome those who are joining us so we'll start with consent agenda items if I'll entertain a motion to approve D of emotion by girl do I have a second second by Pat any discussion all those in favor because I will move down to um Community non-agenda items if there's anyone president who would like to speak to an item that is on or not on the board of Jennifer this evening hearing none will go on to Old business the first item under whole business is Neola asking for approval of the group of Neola policies this is the sex so um second reading this is for approval so do we have a motion to accept the Neola policies that were presented an emotion by Maryland do I have a second second by Cheryl any discussion the one item that we I emailed about that got okay perfect any additional discussion all those in favor seven of next we'll go down to their programs teacher evaluation tool approval hi Cody Roger evaluation committee we work together and we had to make some changes to new legislation he's just going to share those changes and he's excited okay Cody I'm just going to share a couple of changes for you the first one is I'm going to look at is on page 19 of your evaluations rubric these changes came from the state legislation and so when we updated uh this section this is what we had to look at it has to do with the probationary teacher and a professional teacher probationary teacher is someone that is one to two years into their tenure here with us and also someone who has not received two professional summaries of sorry effective and highly effective uh on their evaluation the professional teacher is someone that has received two effective or highly effective on their evaluation uh the final one I am going to make you jump back just to take I apologize on page 14 or it's 15 sorry it's at the very top and it states that when an employee is assigned an evaluator at their school he or she may request a different evaluator other than the one they currently assigned to them uh if they so choose to complete their evaluation those were the two changes we had made this year the committee probationary the definition change used to be three years and it changed to two and that committee they really want to look at the tool this year and make some changes and some improvements in that tool so I think Cody for coming and representing and I would just mention the changes they made were to bring us it is part of the process that they could after the evaluation asked for a secondary evaluator but the new legislation says that they may request it is very vague on how that approval process what that looks like so this item is being presented for approval yes please okay so I'll entertain a motion to approve the school Improvement plan with those discuss changes I have a motion by Travis II by Pat any discussion all those in favor next we'll move down to finance School Improvement plans School Improvement plan I'm sorry I then I said that wrong did I say that wrong I believe I did that's okay okay hold on a minute let's let's go back I I want to do that Brian so I need to let's start with an um we'll entertain a motion to approve the teacher evaluation tool so we're going to go back to B1 sorry I got those wrong so I need a motion to approve the teacher evaluation tool motion by Travis do I have a second second by path any discussion all those in favor set it up that's on the evaluation tool now we'll move to the school Improvement plan yes and we're asking for approval I have shared these digitally with you if you would like a printed copy I'll be more than happy to be um this year we worked really hard starting in the spring through our strategic plan and sharing data with everyone we could and the teams and over the summer the teams met adata and really focusing on what their individual School needs to do improve and so I think you'll see that in the plans and we're just asking for approval okay so for the school Improvement plans I need a motion to accept those I have issues on the right thing I'm so sorry I have a motion by Mary Lynn do I have a second by Cheryl any decision discussion all those in favor [Music] now we're going to go yes the one that says budget if you uh I'm not going to go through all 21 Pages was highlight the changes on slide number three you'll see a change that uh the first line where it says the 31 575 that went up 360 000 from version one because we adjusted our EDM uh to the more realistic numbers of what we've seen the first couple three two three weeks of school so that's increased 360 000 to 31.575 the next change is going to be on the next slide The Debt Service went down slightly that was that number was 31 17 and some change but I've got the actual numbers in from the common school loan so I know what those payments are going to be I had to estimate before so I estimated a little high so we were actually going to be a little lower than what we have to pay in debt service but keep in mind this does not include the Geo bond that we're getting ready to sell so this number will come up before we get to the hearing and the approval adoption of the budget but it came down slightly because of the finalization of the two common school loans no changes on the rest of them slide 11 reflects the same change in The Debt Service it's just on there and report it another way no changes on the rest of those and only next last change is on slide 19 where I made the adjustment to The Debt Service to reflect it properly any questions on the budget next thing is permission to advertise I won't be advertising until September Bernie Moore this all done through the website that I have to post it to and that's a Statewide thing permission to advertise the the budget entertain a motion to allow Philip to advertise motion by Travis do I have a second by Chelsea any discussion all those in favor seven oh now we'll move down under new business programs yes this is an inform when I [Music] still embargo they are now available um so this first slide shows spring and summer I read results and it shows a comparison between us and the state at wide average our total passing was 77.7 percent in comparison to the state at 81.9 percent this also has some breakdowns if you take a look at our free and reduced price lunch versus paid meals we are behind the state average and we're going to reduce price um Mills by about two and a half percent but we are above the state average and the paid Mills then if you take a look at general education we're right at the state average special education we do see a little bit of a gap a little bit of lagging behind um our biggest Gap though if you take a look in comparison the state average is our English language Learners we've talked about that and as you know we're already addressing that we did hire a part-time English language learner teacher to help with that she's been busy year she's also where she's training some teachers classrooms to comparison between our non-language Learners and so just third grade spring and summer I read the next slide just your comparison of our schools and the highlighted is this year's results for each of our elementary and this is still just third grade and to the left is last year's results um fresh grape Grand Creek and North Vernon all saw positive they they did see increases worse and kudos to Grand Creek 100 percent I read results and then this is just this is our first year that our second graders have taken it and this and this these kiddos who pass will not have to take it again as third graders so it allows us you know to those kiddos kiddos and the actual um the actual report that the schools will get will show if the kids on track or if they're behind so it'd help us it helps we have lots of things going on we already talked about our ell teacher Cindy is helping at the law is helping at Sand Creek however she is giving PD to all of our teachers in the science of reading in each school's breaking down their own results and focusing on where the there we are weaknesses are to help them questions I read or any of our statement we ever break that out kids who are attending regularly and Talent scores are we have in the past I believe in the new GPS portal when they f it others I believe the state's going to do that we'll be able for the first time to go into the state portal and pull up based on each child their profile with their attendances their one printable paper the principle principles so we're looking forward to when this is all unembargoed and they load it in the portal and what will have access to that we've had to do there is a correlation I can tell you what we've done in the past to check it there is a clear correlation between student attendance and student achievement and so we've put a lot of efforts in place this year to increase attendance I hope you're seeing it I hope everyone's in town is seeing it from the high school level to Elementary level we're talking about how being at school makes a difference in your in your achievement at school and in your future so kids here get a pause never seen fair that they bases on control that factor any other questions for Carrie or Nikki so now we'll move down into professional staff have a couple of recommendations um yes asking that both Mike Green and Chris Thurston as Genesee High School Safety coordinators be allowed to have up to five additional days added to their contract do I have a motion motion by plural do I have a second second by path any discussion all those in favor seven oh next under support staff we have a whole list of recommendations um asking that Dorothy daughtery be approved as a jcec testing proctor Alexander gabbard be approved as a middle school custodian second shift Paula George is a Brush Creek Elementary parapro cheyanna Hammond is a Sand Creek Elementary parapro Addie Lam also as a Sand Creek Elementary parapro Keisha little to serve as a Jennings High School's floating bus aide and this will be on a full-time basis jrb ludeman as a middle school custodian second shift Julie Norton MBE custodian second shift Catherine Schrader at um forgive me I don't know if it's Trader or Schroeder on that one I need to ask is being asked to be hired as a Sand Creek Elementary parapro Rhonda Smith at Brush Creek Elementary will be serving as an Esther parapro key on stroke will be serving as a junior high school's floating subcook I'm sorry I read that incorrectly she is going to be moving from a Jenny's County School's floating subcook to staying at Brush Creek Elementary as a cook and then finally we're asking that Ben Thomas we approved this is Jennings County High School auditorium lighting director I have a motion to accept those recommendations I have a motion by Marilyn do I have a second by Travis any discussion the favor next we'll go down under Finance we're going to have several donations if Robin's Don Coors a hundred dollars to Brush Creek giant family mcgowans 150 to the Brush Creek student snacks earned Vision 100 to the Brush Creek students tax and Gloriana Robbins and Pratt Robins ours to the fresh Creek student snacks also we have Billy Family Dentistry 150 dollars to school supplies for Jay County Schools Jennings County drug and alcohol task force 1670.75 the jcec jail program anonymous gift of three hundred dollars to the Sand Creek Mississippi tree students in need Hayden Baptist Church thousand dollars to the Hayden's for for Hayden stool lunches Monty and Kimberly Polly 200 to the James County High School Panther pantry and the following to the Hope food program there's to go to entertainment LLC 150 75 Joy of giving forty five hundred dollars grayford Road Church of God 225 dollars Decatur mold 2 250 James County Community Foundation 894.96 Zion Baptist Church five hundred dollars those were those last ones were all to the whole food asking permission to continue motion by path or have a second second by Cheryl any discussion all those in favor next we'll move down under capital projects presentation here we are all right so next page please the timeline for the capital project first presentation I will see tonight was permission to advertise on the seventh along with the second presentation he changes and then we'll advertise on the 8th we want the public hearing on the 21st and then we'll adopt on October 5th this is no different than the regular budget this only has to be advertised on Gateway we'll also put a link on our website but nothing in the local paper next slide this shows basically what the estimated projects and costs are derived from our Master project list which has everything that we can that we've had an issue with or had and getting age and we think it's going to need repaired over the next for the next eight years this is the current three years for the bottom three the top one is assets that we may or may not need to purchase we advertise it this way every year this is basically a culmination of a bus maintenance vehicle or regular vehicle mower prices that could if something happens in 2024 now the capital projects in general have increased a little bit last year we had about 11 million dollars listed on there this year we're about 12-2 that's a combination of reduced amount of projects being done this year because of budget constraints from the upside and the the movement of things the fourth year out into the third year route so we've had an increase of about a million dollars over the three-year period at this point this is an end form any questions for Philip and I will send you all the Excel file that has the moving on under property a couple items of surplus yes we've got I'm asking for a approval to for the resolution to dispose of surplus items like we do every fall we have a motion motion by Chelsea do I have a second second by Travis any discussion all those in favor seven oh that being said now I'm asking permission or approval for permission to advertise the sale to ilet must items have a motion to advertise the sale of the Surplus items absolute I have a motion my pad do I have a second look at my Marilyn any discussion where where's the sale used and do we have an auction here or do you sell it it's a bit you just fill out a style bid form and and put them all up and all right so we'll be looking for advertisements you can come and get your goods so I have a motion and I have a second so hearing no other questions although all the seven oh next under operations bus replacement plan meditation here we are all right next slide this has the exact same calendar as the capital Improvement two timings everything else next slide all right next slide this indicates what our cost is going to be or what we're estimated our cost to be oh over the next five years of the bus program currently we are in 2024 will be the fourth payment of five on the buses we bought in 2022 and the first payment of five for the 2024 buses that you guys forced buses so that's what that see it increases in 2026 because we'll make our last payment on the 2022s in 2025 and then they'll be potentially another one because we'll have buses that are crossing that a 10-year Mark where we lose the warranty and the maintenance starts increasing on them and the price of the buses are just going through the roof so I've I've increased it by also I think an extra two buses because we we're trying to gear up for the potential of taking back some routes that may have to happen if some people just don't bid we've already had people contract drivers indicate that they're not now that doesn't mean somebody else may not pick it up but but anticipation that I've gone ahead and throwed it on there none of this is set in stone it's just our best guess of what we and it also builds in the increased cost of buses any questions go to the next meeting so next item is transfer TJ's four leaders bus route yes I'm asking permission to transfer one of TJ's poor leaders 403 route to Vicki Rusk Victoria Rusk sorry risk my gosh Victoria risk so especially by Travis do I have a second by Cheryl any discussion all those in favor set it up next is extra pay for short term yes this next section is about four routes that decided to push out around the bypass to try to keep the congestion down at the uh Hayden Pike and Highway or the old or Walnut Street there so it's going to be short-term it looks like they're on Pace to finish where they're hoping to uh if possible so that's what this one has to do with asking approval to do that question by Earl do I have a second if I Pat any discussion because the transportation situation been working out pretty well it's been working I mean I don't want to say I want to say too much because I don't want to go south but it's been it's been working it's definitely a challenge and appreciate everybody's work and even the community trying to stay away from that area it's very congested area finding alternate routes and I got to give kudos to the both sheriff and City they've been doing an excellent job of trying to be there in the morning city's been there every morning I believe Chief Messer was there for the first three days trying to make sure everything's as smooth as possible good very good good so I have a motion and I have a second so hearing hearing discussion all those in favor seven oh um extra pay for long term um 20 23 2027 contracts yes this has to do with when we did the 2023-2027 contract bus drivers we threw an incentive out there for best drivers that would get a newer bus concept of that was you know if if they can get a newer best the kids are safer so it's worth and if they get a newer bus the odds of them wanting a route 2027 to 2031 would increase and these are we have about I think there was a total of 9 did find a 2016 or newer business so those are nice and safe for the kids have to but they but okay so asking for approval do I have a motion motion by Travis do I have a second second my Maryland any discussion all those in favor seven oh next down under relations talk looks like we have an mou that needs address yes so asking for approval to cancel our mous with Scott County 2 South Harrison and South Central areas special education to provide services for hearing impaired students asking to approval to cancel those moons do I have a motion motion by Pat do I have a second by Cheryl any discussion all those in favor and then another episode so now asking for permission to get into an agreement with Peggy summer to provide services for do I have a motion motion by Marilyn do I have a second by Travis any discussion all those in favor which brings us down under other nothing hearing nothing I will entertain a motion to adjourn Ed by Pat do I have a second by Chelsea all those in favor
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
I will now open the meeting for the Ashland planning board on August 24th 2023 at 7 20 pm and we are all here other than Trisha so today I will chair tonight and we will begin with the clerk's report uh Madam chair and board members we have received one communication since the last planning board meeting that was actually from an applicant so I assume that our town planner will take care of a response to that and that is it thank you okay and now we're going to move to our public comment a brief introduction the planning board for several months several meetings now has had a public comment it's at the start of our meetings the purpose of this public comment is to allow members of our community to come and speak about General items relating to planning if your comment relates to a project that's on the agenda or an item on the agenda we do ask that you wait unless there's something preventing you from doing that and do we have any public comment uh I could see that there's one person with their hand Rings Mr Mark the Sony if I could can I please ask Mr Mark desoni to uh to unmute himself and introduce his name and address okay thank you good evening all it's not really much of a thought on my side but it's just thanking the time to have the baby of the talk and get on get on with the public proper comments I'm fulfilling this board is here more transparent for what they have been doing and I'm not going to ask the last three who want to talk about what the goals are I'm not going to ask that tonight brother saying thank you for the citizens participation and anything that I can co-watering with and talk to with anybody they want to ask my experience or what I've been doing I would like to um join in on any subject that can be talked on thank you thank you Mark and is there any other public comment and it does not appear to be any other public comment Peter am I correct correct okay and with that we will move to the next item in our agenda which is our discussion with the sustainability committee regarding the development of a new tree bylaw and as I understand Margie is going to present on behalf of the sustainability committee is that right Peter uh that's correct and tonight we have uh we have Margie but we also have a few other members so I think it'd be appropriate just to let Margie introduce uh the her committee members uh and to go from there sounds good thank you go ahead Margie sure um so Chuck let's just join in here's the vice chair our chair Ash is away at this time and then we have Mark Matt Marsh Quest and Cara um who you can't see but they're here and myself wonderful and Margie do you want to tell us a little bit about the background of this particular bylaw and how we got here and what um you hope to accomplish tonight with us so that we have the planning board knows what how we can help okay so um I have given you two documents one was last week and it was sort of a summary of what's in the bylaw and um I can't pull that up in my screen so I'm gonna have to go for a memory on that and then one I gave you this week that's more of an outline that I thought could guide our discussion tonight so um do you want me to try to remember off the top of my head what was in that other document or do you have questions about it so what I would suggest I know Peter you sent to the planning board a one-page document um I believe today with the amended agenda um that sounds like the kind of shorter pinpoint version is that something Peter we can put up on the screen and maybe Marjorie you could walk us through it and as a starting point yeah sounds good just hold on a sec I just gotta grab it please bear with me Margie that's what you sent over today right yesterday no the that I have that one right in front of me and Peter the document that was very more towards where we're gonna go going forward it's going outline on the email Peter if you it wasn't attached it begins with the sustainability committee strongly supports a tree by law yeah I have it I'm open it up right now that's not the one from last week but that's one from this happy to address that one Margie do you want to start with this one that we got today the one pager and then we can move to the prior document which I believe is a little bit longer it might be a little bit more layered okay for how do you want to proceed whatever is easier for you guys if you and Matt have a particular approach you wanna take us through I think what would help the board is to hear about what you're trying to accomplish with the tree bylaw and what some of your challenges are if you will that we can offer input on I'm good with that okay so this kind of summarizes that starting with what we hope to accomplish um and so I think it's maybe doesn't need to be said but this tree by law is important to us as part of the Net Zero plan um which is why we keep pursuing it and um so I outlined four things that I think are where we're trying to get to so I'll read them to you uh we want to preserve and protect this valuable resource um that let's sequesters and stores Comp Carbon but also provides the whole ecosystem comprised of treason and other parts of the community provide essential services to humans we want to prevent the loss of this especially due to clear cutting of property we would like to use trees to help us lessen the destructive effects that are caused by climate change such as flooding and heat Islands and we would like to Encompass the community in in this process of protecting our natural resources okay and then as far as applicability it sounds like you're kind of narrowing in on larger um commercial type of development rather than residential property yes that is correct so from the beginning the bylaw has excluded homeowners private property and has focused on larger developments and it specifically names the types of permits that would trigger the bylaw so site alteration special permit um help me out here Peter I forget um special permits right yeah yeah essentially is it is it only applicable to the kinds of hearings if you will be before the planning board that are not private residential property owners yes exactly so um there's something in there referring to subdivisions and um yeah but it's exactly right that everything that would go before the planning board but not um not a private homeowner okay a question about that that um wondering why the private property was left out like how kind of what was your consensus or study about that I I did look up um like Concord how's that another yeah well it seems reasonable right it's not that you decide to cut down a tree for whatever reason it's it's also related to if you're expanding your property your footprint of your house or you want a garage and again it's defined at what size tree and how that works so I'm wondering how you guys came about to exclude private a homeowner versus a developer okay so we discussed that from the very beginning which was I don't know maybe four years ago and we decided that at least at this point in time we would exclude exclude private property because mainly because we felt that it would be very hard to pass a bylaw because and we've gotten this feedback when we've been talking to people it's going to apply to my property and if so I can't support it okay so it's all I guess it's like I think that has to be kind of fleshed out more because it's always private property I mean it can apply for the town as well but you're not I guess to make it clear you are applying this to private property and town property just not a individual homeowner is that correct are you only applying intending to to be public property um no it's not limited to public so um when a developer is going to put up apartments on the lot that it would apply apply for one of those permits so essentially it is applicable to multi-family housing commercial space yes or public property would it apply to like a public school I don't think so because they would not apply for a permit would they they do they do apply for a permit and so you have to give me a break here because I don't understand those terms that's okay not a big deal so I this is one of the benefits of this kind of meeting right we can kind of flush some of those things out and so what I what I'm thinking is maybe I mean I can take some notes of some of these topics that are coming up um so that we can come back to these right so like what I'm hearing is the scope of this bylaw like the applicability of it we we're going to have to flush out who it applies to and whether it applies to public development only private development and what kind of private development so it sounds like right now what I'm hearing is that it's being presented to us as private development multi-family housing type of document and we just need to flush out as a planning board and as a community what that means and whether that's appropriate I I am curious Peter if in general from your experience in planning whether communities are allowed to create bylaws that only address private versus public space like can the bylaw be very clear that this is not apply to public projects are we allowed to kind of narrow ourselves in a bylaw just to private space I think you can agree I think we'd have to double check on this I think you can bring it yourself or you can uh give the given out toward Municipal projects right to give an exemptions um you know I think just to add into what Margie was kind of saying I think uh you know going back to when the bylaw was first discussed four years ago pre-covered um the idea was to have this apply to subdivisions but also projects for you know commercial development makes use development um and then on and then down the line right that projects that were already would be triggered under the same thing review and or uh special tournament dialogue but this would not pertain to be residential development uh Kate is corrective as you see other towns if you're starting to compare other towns and research in other communities tree bylaws do reach into residential a typical which is your typical residential development housing structures especially way number one it's a tear down and then somebody comes in and knocks Down and Out proposes to build a bigger house and or someone proposes you know addition greater than I would say 50 of the existing house um and so there are elements that I've seen across New England across the eastern Mass for tree bylaws are growing in popularity um and uh where they would do require you know a plan to plan or replays indoor payments in the world um but I know that was a broad brush answer to that small question I'm sorry no I think that's really really helpful it sounds like this bylaw right now may be a little bit less aggressive than other communities um by kind of exempting or not applying to individual private landowners and it also sounds like we might be able to exempt public development if we so choose um so now that we kind of go ahead sorry I would I'll consider that as a waiver that we would have to go through kind of a waiver process um but that's that's what I would that be the the best I think that's the best element I think that's the best tool to think about right now for municipal partners um and Margie do you or anyone on the sustainability committee want to comment on on these points before we start to kind of discuss the the rest of these topics I will so what what Kate mentioned is correct so places like um Wellesley apply to public shade trees and also to private residential property and um the same Cambridge applies to residential construction and demolition um Newton a special permit and a building of 25 000 square feet or more Somerville is public shade trees and private property and then there are other bylaws that a lot of them are just public shade treat which is a little surprising to me since we have a state law that does that but they can add to it to tailor it to their own situation um so yeah there are a variety of types and and ours is a bit different that way it's what I think the consensus of the original group that formed thought was appropriate here and I guess I should emphasize that one of our main goals is to stop hair cutting of lots thank you Margie so it sounds like the purpose of this at least for Ashland is not so much to limit um development on a small private landowner scale but more of the clear cutting that has been a concern yes that's true if if we want to revisit that we can revisit it so my suggestion for the planning board and the sustainability committees we could now in front of us we have these topics like the definition of a protected tree replacement requirements and we could spend I would say a long time discussing all of these things in depth um and I don't know how much time we have tonight to do all of that and so what I thought we would do is have Margie kind of walk through some of these things for us all together and then we can see which topics really jump out to the planning board as controversial or requiring a deep dive tonight how does that sound to the planning board I like if I can make a comment um I I think they'll be fine with me I I think before we get into those more detailed Explorations that this group um [Music] did uh can we address this bigger picture items first and and maybe Steve we are on the same page yeah like the uh I just want to clarify that this list of topics is there for us to discuss over the course of the next few months thank you so much laying them out there for now but um I should say that I have made peace with the the postponement of this bylaw to Spring Town meeting because I think that the planning board and sustainability have a lot of things to discuss and work out and especially because we need to have a really thorough public process and and there isn't time I'm I'm accepting that now so yeah this is a list of things that we can spend the next up really until probably until March wonderful and in that case my suggestion would be that maybe we can through marcelo's input we can identify some of the big picture ticket items just identify them throw them kind of on the board if you will and then come up with a work plan um together to address these multiple points how does that sound as a realistic goal for the meeting does that sound good Deepa Kate um I agree with that I would like to leave here with like probably specific I know sometimes our schedule shifts a little but like specific topics and dates because I do not I don't want to take or put off the gas I think Ash expressed that sustainability committee and I think this the planning board can offer that kind of support that we regularly have it on our meetings to get through these topics and I I think Marcelo suggested and I agree when these are live talked with the public that's part of the public exposure I don't think it's good enough but I think it's um getting this regularly in front of the public so yes with please dates topics through March 24.
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we will be doing a pollinators walking tour um that is going to be uh we're going to have a central location at uh Blom me Works uh where we'll have tables for folks to come in and learn about pollinators and how they can help to protect pollinators by planting native plant species um leaving the leaves in the fall otherwise uh following our suggestions under the pollinator or a y Care Program um and then from there uh we will have a virtual map that they'll be able to go uh visit as many spots on this walking tour as they want uh they're all downtown areas um city parks uh University of Michigan sites um a few private residences of folks who have agreed to have their their yards open during that time period um to go around and take a look at uh the um infrastructure that we have in place to support bators whether that's you know native plant Gardens or beehives um or what have you uh and I believe there will also be honey and apple tastings at Blum um and yeah so it should be a really fun event uh if you are available then we encourage you to stop by yeah and I want to thank Sean for doing a lot of the background work on this and getting it started it's G to be fun you should all come um okay water quality do we have a report on water quality yeah yeah um we haven't met since may actually but um we have some ongoing things um one is that's uh commissioner nedrich is um inquiring with the city about the use of brine in the city she's following up on chloride pollution and um which comes mostly from road salt applications and um I myself I'm looking into U um into looking about into inquiring with City staff about storm water where floods have uh which neighborhoods have experienced flooding recently and um we're also participating in the uh as observers in the Heron River wack council's mid Heron um working group which has quarterly meetings uh there was one um within the last month uh where various items were discussed um of interest to this group would be the uh the response to the uh um you know to the uh eag the the eaga consent judgment regarding nutrient pollution to the herant river you know which which is mostly phosphorus rather than nitrogen and so um there's a working group within um the Heron River watered Council it's coordinating governmental actions on that uh but I don't have any details about that yet and then um we're also looking into uh reviewing the green streets um initiative and um and so uh and also I'm pursuing um uh part 20 known part 2011 sites in the Allen Creek upper Allen Creek drainage because of some residents have noticed a lot of uh often there's a a strong petroleum smell coming out of the ground in West Park so we're going to see if we can track down where that's coming from and maybe get some um action on a part 2011 site U but we haven't located which one is the problem or maybe maybe there's a new part 2011 site who knows that's it all right thank you very much um natural features so this will be the last report from natural features we're going to be biodiversity next time um Chris Graham is there anything that that you have to report that on the natural speeches work diversity and natural features are all going to be one committee yeah wow yeah wellow we haven't gone very far with natural features except some of us met with Derek Dort and he expressed great affinity for natural features in the city and warned us that uh there were lots of competing priorities and I suggested to him that protecting natural features was established policy by unanimous vote of the council 20 years ago and it's not something that ought to be set aside for new priorities and he said well we'll do the best we can uh meanwhile uh the master planning process apparently is not even begun yet and we again asked to be party at the table not as commenters from the public but as other City officials involved with um that process at least in so far as the natural features master plan part of it is concerned and he said well there are a lot of other people want to be part of that process and I said okay we said okay and so we'll see how that works out in any case it's wonderful to have um things happening with pollinators it kind of refreshes the wheels and U I'm not sure Sean was talking about the Monarch festival at Lessie Park if that's what he was talking about then it's coming up in early September and Lane and I went last year and it was wonderful apparently there's a fundraising dinner the night before or Friday night and I guess the festival goes all weekend but um that turned out to be a very fun event and um well worth your time um there's a pollinator hunt team as part of the wolf pack that has made a major donation in support of that Festival um and they met today and have a long list of things they're trying to do too um pollinators are flying and certainly they been butterflies in our garden um black swallow taals yellow swallow Tales monarchs um it's late summer the flowers are out there and things are great for pollinators thank you yep thank you um the next group I have is uh planning board M dis I see your Hann now um I wanted to offer just a little bit of perspective on the meeting that we had with Mr delort in terms of planning uh are I don't think that there's anything I don't think there's anything directly of interest to this group um but I did miss the last meeting and um so in any case we'll have to I will have to remember that I need to be reporing to you guys since we don't have a a member yet but I did just want to say that I I my understanding of what this notion of computing priorities is it's not that their competing priorities in natural fatures scores low the idea is that um in any decision that we look at we are looking at natural features we are looking at other aspects of sustainability like electrification we are looking at creating housing in the context of a housing crisis and that the comprehensive planning process is the appropriate place for people to deliberate the relative weight of all of those things and that any one group may have its leading issue but it is through the comprehensive planning process that we get full public engagement and feedback around how um how people generally want us to prioritize those things or how we work through because it's it's not as if I say oh well today natural features doesn't matter to me um but tomorrow it will and then the day after I'll prioritize housing you're always weighing all of these things in every decision that you're making and you're never coming up with something that is good all the way around and Derek sometimes likes to say if a decision pleases no one you've probably actually gotten it right because you've gotten something right about every little thing but nobody is totally happy so I don't want anyone in this group to feel that natural features is taking a backseat to other things it is absolutely Central to this comprehensive planning process and that process is underway the planning team is in town in a week and doing stakeholder interviews with council members um and I think I don't know if there's other parts of the city going on right now and um it's series of public engagement meetings are going to be planned and up and running very soon so um you know I just I I really don't want especially Chris to feel like that work is wasted or or not honored um thank you C dish I think we'll all be feel better when we can see it and understand it you know right now it's kind of a theoretical and until we see it it'll that's when we'll um understand and be able to discuss better I think um um I know that um commissioner maren is not here um council member Amman do you have comments on Transportation I do thank you one thing uh this isn't Transportation Commission related but it's Transportation related um Friday September 22nd is world carfree day and there is a carfree day challenge going on actually for um the week of September 22nd to September 29th from the get downtown program um you can Google that and participate in it just as encouraging people to take bikes buses scooters and more uh you can show your environmental impact and win prizes um the other thing Transportation related is that we just passed in Transportation Commission a change to the neighborhood traffic calming program that makes it easier and more accessible to add in changes as we reconstruct roads that make the roadway um safer and more amenable to people who are outside of cars um right now that program is completely separate from Road reconstruction it's a petition Le process um certain elements that are useful for calming traffic are only used in that program and so they're not used outside of the petition process and so a funny thing can happen where basically they're reconstructing a road and they know that there's a speed problem and there's a certain set of elements that are completely off the table because um they're part of the petition Le neighborhood traffic homing program so anyway Transportation Commission and a subcommittee of that has been working hard on changes to that um for probably nine months and now has something that they're they forwarded to council and I'm bringing that forward hopefully for the next meeting a couple of other random non-transportation related things I'm not sure if people know about the um hon River Watershed Council fundraiser that's on the 7th sluds on the river I'll be there hopefully maybe I'll see some of you there too and uh last but not least some of our colleagues on Council myself that included went to Boston recently to learn about how they're doing District geothermal and it sounds like that was a really fruitful trip for all involved Dr staltz was there um the mayor was there a couple of other of my colleagues were there and they also I think spoke to someone who has I think I don't know if it's like a citizen science type of project or what but he goes around and he measures gas um because basically gas is leaking sort of all the time and he's targeted certain neighborhoods where the levels are off the charts and I think from what I understand from my colleagues we are having that person visit an arbor to kind of show us what he does and to create a map of our city uh with this kind of like gas leaking so I thought that was pretty interesting and relevant to this group that's it that's great um the next one I have on this list is Council and so we have our two council members here J do you have anything that you would like to um comment on from Council we just passed the first reading for the second time for the home energy uh home energy rating ordinance um it was a first reading again because OSI made some changes based on questions and feedback um from the first first reading so that passed and we'll advance to a second reading I believe on September 5th um that's a OSI has done a really good job of putting together fre frequently asked questions as they' gotten a lot of these so if you're wanting to know more about that's a good place to go I can't think of anything else can you council member dish um probably nothing of partic specific interest in the environmental commission other than that one that just mentioned thank you very much um I so I'm going to do a a chair's report I just want to say that um since our last meeting in June um Steve Brown and I went to the um Compost Facility and participated in the audit of compost sorting through a selection of composted composted delivered materials to find out what we get and there was plastic there was some treated wood there were some things that were inappropriate for that um and right now we're wait waiting for um the full analysis of what's going on with composting and that will be used to direct um information that will be given to the public in the future um I want to remind and encourage anyone who um uh know some youth candidates that we are seeking those youth candidates and we do have a form that we could distribute to all of the Commissioners to um pass out to um people you know or to post in an area that would be visible to um get an additional commissioner it would be great so um either Sean or I will forward that form to you it's just a quick write up of of what the commission does um I welcome your help um and then just to report on the ongoing monitoring of the one4 dioxine plume um there has been some testing that was reported just today in mli um that identified some low levels of one4 Dio saying in private wells in Township area s Township in an area that's north of the boundary of the um oh gosh the the plume boundary that's been determined um and so this is what's um not known at this point is whether this is actually new or if it's been there for a while so there will be some subsequent testing um ideally this will be used to support the expansion of the ongoing monitoring um as well as just support moving toward an EPA super fun um designation so stay tuned on that um the other thing is we had a big rain event yesterday um pretty intense not so much necessarily in an arbor but it was surprisingly intense so um we are living through climate change right now um I would say yeah four and a quarter inches in my house four and a quarter yikes the road and yeah yikes okay um that's the end of my report um and Sean provided the report from staff thank you very much Sean if there's anything you want to add to um that that well apologies I may have missed it um but looking at my notes I don't know did we have an energy commission report out oh I'm sorry you're right thank you commissioner mki sure uh at our August 8th meeting we had two interesting presentations first of all one about the grid electrical grid with a representative from the University of Michigan who studies grid and grid reliability and then from DTE uh the second was uh the updated greenhouse gas inventory for 2022 uh if I can just summarize both of those real quickly uh I I'd call everybody's attention to the DTE report it was covered I think fairly accurately in M live and the reason why I want to call people's attention to it is that um it really was devoid of any specifics um there was a lot of talk about improvements and reliability a lot of improvements about improvements in the grid and that the grid was going to be was one of the best in the nation in 10 to 15 years but in terms of real specifics real measurables real commitments something that we could hold DTE to there really was was nothing um and given that we have a carbon neutrality Target of 2030 and they're talking 10 to 15 years there seems to be a mismatch there um Missy in her opening or very early in the Monday meeting to council she talked about the fact that it's likely that we'll have more meetings with DTE and I think it's really important that the energy commission and also city council holds DTE accountable um and not just give really sort of anecdotal information about what they're doing um so if you're interested go to legis star or go to YouTube and watch city government Channel and watch that um the other uh topic was as I mentioned the greenhouse gas inventory real quick summary it's not yet posted to osi's greenhouse gas inventory web uh page U but you can also find the report on legistar greenhouse gas emissions in 2022 were up 99.6% over 2021 they are down uh 3.3% versus 209 the last year before the pandemic um if you look back all the way to 2020 or to 2000 I should say um and the the inventory was done a little bit differently but basically um we're reducing emissions at the rate of about 1% per year um it's been a little bit faster than that um between 1 and 2% since 2015 but we're basically reducing emissions at at about that clip so if you look at what we need to get to by 2030 we have really a tall task um in front of us let's see if there's anything else that I wanted to say [Music] um I think that's it thank you very much thank you sorry for missing that earlier um all right we are now [Music] uh um items for our next agenda you can see on on our agenda that we're looking for um a presentation from the group called Perpetual um that will deal with the um circular economy if any other council member wants to propose something for the agenda please let me and Sean know that'd be great um so with that um we are at our second public comment time unless I missed anything else Sean uh believe the next scheduled meeting is announced before the public oh okay the next scheduled meeting is September 28th at 7 pm so we will see you here on the little screen um and John Kart has his hand up oh I'm sorry uh just the the question I had was I if I missed it I'm sorry but Sean were you gonna be circulating that updated list of uh working group members it would just be helpful to have that sooner rather than later yes I will uh distribute that with the followup from this meeting thank you thank you for checking on that all right um and with that I'm going to move to the second public comment this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes please call 888 78899 and enter meeting ID 922 969 9 61644 UM City staff will select the callers that have raised their hand one by one using the last three digits of your phone number in order to electronically raise your hand please press star n on your phone you'll hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sounds so that you may hear we may hear you clearly please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments and um Sean do you see any people listening or with their hands raised we do not have any callers currently okay we give it a brief wait okay Sean do you see anyone now there are no callers okay so with that I would um appreciate a motion to adjourn the meeting commissioner kver I see a couple of seconds and move to adjourn anybody say I thank you thank you very much for sticking through this me meeting um administrative stuff um still will help us I think in the end so um thank you I appreciate it there'll be some follow-up messages coming and um we'll see you in September bye good night everybody thank you
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in order for our staff and our students to understand and handle cases of harassment intimidation bullying we provide trainings and programs for them some programs would be week of respect pbsis trainings would be everything that leads into those programs and right here is just a report of how many trainings and programs the different schools accomplish in both period two and for the year and our numbers are commensurate with what we usually have for each of the schools the last portion of this is the school self-assessment there is a document put out by the state where each individual school gets to score themselves so you imagine that out of a perfect score every school is getting a perfect score they're not and they know that and they need to look at this very closely and pick apart each element and make sure that they are reaching the highest level and you can see that we don't just give ourselves perfect scores the buildings each look at this and score themselves and then I review all of their documentation and make sure that their scores are accurate and for the most part everyone does score themselves accurately and sometimes are even a little too tough on themselves and I may bump up their score a little bit because I know that they've actually done more than they're reporting and you could see that from last year 2122 to 2223 we've had an increase a substantial increase in nearly every school and part of that is because we've been more proactive with giving them the information they need to meet this criteria so they're looking at that from day one of school and finally from our areas of improvement we plan to have continued collaboration with the building principles and anti-bullying specialists in each building to identify Trends and coordinate trainings and programs for our students and staff that meet those trends we have focused professional development program that's going to be completed by all staff district-wide influence implementation of pbsis is continuing and then a regular review of the code of conduct and discipline Matrix any questions any board members have any questions nope thank you Mr doctor I appreciate it very thorough report Mr doctor when's the second when you have to do the second one January okay thank you okay let me go back up where I skipped here all right we'll go back to uh number nine adoption of minutes of the June 22nd meeting motion second by Mr abadrabo second by Miss basford any discussion seeing none roll call please Mr Roberto um Miss basford yes Mr Brunswick yes Mr Mejia yes Mr Paris yes uh president Smith yes I'm sorry and vice president Danny I skipped her yes we'll let you slide adoption number 10 adoption of the minutes for July 27th meeting motion second by Mr abidrabo second by miss basford any discussion seeing non-roll cold Please Mr Roberto yes Miss basford yes Mr Brunswick yes Mr Mia yes Mr Paris yes vice president Danny yes president Smith yes [Music] all right next we'll go to number 11 superintendent's report Dr robitosi thank you Mr President good evening board members members of the community students faculty staff and attendance it's great to be here with you tonight it's nice to see you I have some good news to share to start off we like good news so every three years in the state of New Jersey school districts are evaluated by the New Jersey Department of Education through a process called Cusack which stands for quality single accountability Continuum basically it's it's the state's report card for each School District so this past year our district was cusacked which is a a verb that I made up and it's there's a lot of work that goes into being evaluated by the state people from the state particularly from the County Office of Education come to our district and visit our schools ask to see certain documents want to see certain reports and verify that we're doing all the things that we say that we are doing um and the district is evaluated in five key areas those areas based on Research are areas that are known to um Be an Effective school districts so those areas are instruction and program fiscal Finance governance which is you guys operations and personnel and we were a Cusack months ago we didn't get any results and today out of the blue I received an email from the state of New Jersey addressed to me um informing me that the Clifton public school district has been identified as a high performing School District by the state of New Jersey [Applause] in order to be designated a high performing District you have to score above 80 percent in each of those five categories so I'll review the scores for you without getting into too much details but in fiscal management 100 percent nice um and you'll see a resolution on the agenda later on that talks about the district was recognized for the um asbo international certificate of excellence certification which means we do really well with our finances and that's a credit to our ba and our system ba as entire staff and this board who's one of their primary responsibilities is to oversee finances so that's fantastic governance that's your job so the state comes in and they want to see did you evaluate the superintendent yes you did here it is um do you update policies regularly yes you do I mean and there's a whole list of other things I'm proud to say that you scored a hundred percent operations these are things like do we send the proper reports to the state on time do we have the appropriate data files when a student goes on home instruction does the home instructor that does it happen within a certain amount of time uh all those things and I'm proud to say in that regard we scored 100 percent personnel we scored 97 percent the area that we lost three points on it was an area which I may choose the dispute because it's doesn't really make much sense but a 97 is a 97 so I may just let it go but basically it dealt with um the amount of time it takes us to enroll a new employee in the um so we have to enroll new teachers in in this program and that's where they get a mentor right they get their their their certificate but what happens is sometimes we will hire a teacher um as a leave replacement and then we hire them full time and when it looks to the state life we should have placed them in that program when we hired them as a leave replacement and the which we can't they won't allow you to but now we're getting penalized because then we hire that person as a full-time teacher and it'll look like their start date they should have been enrolled in that program and they weren't so it's kind of a silly kind of thing so I right is that kind of the gist of it um is it worth fighting not really um we'll fix it and then there's instruction and program so this is the one that to be very honest with you we're always afraid of because the primary score is done before the people come into the building to see us because it's based on your standardized test scores it's based on student test scores so what we knew and listen there's no uh we're we're not ashamed to say we regularly report our test scores we know there are areas we're doing well we know there are areas where we need Improvement our test scores aren't fabulous um but we're we're getting better and we're improving so before the state even came in we were at 82 percent right so that means just based on our test scores we're at 82 but then they come in and they do all the other checks they check your curriculum make sure that your curriculum is aligned to the standards make sure that the board has approved your curriculum make sure 100 lists of hundred other things and in that regard we scored 82 which was the highest we could have gotten based on our test scores so to be designated a high performing district is um is our report card that's a testament to the administration to the board to our outstanding staff and I want to congratulate all of you and especially a big thank you to miss kusilevich who really leads the charge on Cusack for most of it um so thank you Janina for always being outstanding [Applause] I'd like to update the board on summer registration we've registered nearly 1100 students since July 1st that's correct 1100 students since July 1st we currently have around 300 students at some level of the registration process and we still have a week and a half for school starts and some people don't realize that it's like the day before school starts and they realize oh we have to go register our kids for school and then um the lines at the door but thankfully Mr Doctor Who is in charge of our student registration has created a a process by which has become very very efficient um Pre-K registration concluded on July 31st as the spots were nearly filled however those who registered prior to July 31st were put on a waiting list in case openings arise Pre-K uh ladies and gentlemen is not guaranteed okay it's based on need and the availability that we have based on the state aid that we get and we do not um correct me if I'm wrong we do not utilize any local monies for pre-k it's all expansion state aid we do not use local money for Pre-K as you will hear later in committee minutes are um our domicile investigative staff has been have been very busy this summer these are the people who check residency and you know when we did our budget this year we spent a lot of time talking about how much money we spend how much tuition we sent spend on charter schools and so we get the charter school bills they'll send us a bill and say you owe us this amount of money this is the tuition and it'll give us the list of students I know before I got here that that bill was just paid now we actually look at the list make sure the students ours meaning that they live in Clifton go to the house to make sure they live there and then pay the bill by doing that this year we um save the district over 350 000 in tuition not that we didn't pay that we told them we got your bill but your bill is wrong because these students are not ours so Bill Passaic bill Wayne or wherever the students live that's because I have great staff and they care about the taxpayer they care about the money that we spend that's that's not money that you would ever know about if I didn't tell you but it's important that that it's important that you hear that because that is real money finally I'd like to give a referendum update this summer has been a doozy to say the least we have construction going on in almost every building and if you were to walk into any of our buildings mid-july it would have looked like they were vandalized it would look like a bombs went off because it was just chaos um but as as anyone who's ever had any kind of remodeling or renovation done in your own home you know that things don't always go as planned you know you take down a wall and there's a pipe there that's not supposed to be there and then the plans have to change and things like that and that causes delays but despite that I'm I'm happy to report tonight then I want to assure the board and the community because I hear things that we are on time with all of our projects we will be opening school on September 6th for in-person instruction contrary to any other rumors you may or may not hear um a good majority of our buildings could open next week if we had to but many of our sites are still open construction sites um there was one issue that came to my attention today that it was on social media and I don't like to address social media I think social media will be the end of our civilization but I got so many calls on it that I just want to speak publicly about it because it's not a secret we've actually spoken about it publicly before in June we knew when construction started at the end of June at school one when when the when they were started to renovate the bathrooms and they removed the floors there they found that many of the steel beams in the bathrooms um the structures were not stable enough they were corroded and it just needed to be replaced that's one of those things that you don't plan for on a timeline but we knew that at the end of June we talked about that at a facilities committee meeting and we said then that it's very likely that the school year may have to start off with luxury Portable Restrooms outside the building for a few weeks I know that was said at the meeting I know it was said and read publicly at this meeting that is only for school one there are no other schools that will have any Portable Restrooms and it will be a very very temporary solution We Believe at the most the month of September barring any unforeseen circumstance right so don't hold me until September 30th if it's a week later right but we believe it's only going to be for the month of September now I will tell you this I'm not joking when I say luxury portable bathrooms you would you would want these in your house they're they're that nice I understand some of the concerns well the kids have to go outside to go to the bathroom yeah guys that's why you have Administration to think of these things and to figure out a plan so we have a plan in place we have we're going to have the area canopied to protect the staff and students from the weather we're going to have a security Personnel assigned outside just to the bathrooms the principal and administrative staff and the teachers will have procedures for when and how to use the bathroom it's instead of going down the hallway to the bathroom they're going to go out the door to the bathroom under a canopy and go outside is it the ideal situation no but do we not want to open school for a month so anyway I don't like to if somebody has a question send us an email right what one of us will if you send it to a board member they'll most likely forward it to me and I will get the answer but the Social Media stuff um is just it starts issues that that don't need to um need to be issues like so the you know the biggest thing was the principal of school 13 today had to call me and say they're they're telling me I said who's telling you well Facebook they're telling me I'm gonna have portable bathrooms you're not going to Affordable bathrooms Oh no you're wrong because Facebook says it so it must be true so anyway I'm making light of it but social media is is um not the best thing so does anybody have any questions about that by the way um it came to me so I have to yeah I flipped it to you too as well and I asked you and you answer my questions today um I know you're going to have a security guard is it going to be male or female if the security like who's going to be the attendance inside these but I've never seen them so I don't know what they look like inside are they gonna well to be very honest with you miss bassford if it was a regular uh inside bathroom the the students the the students will go in by themselves like a teacher obviously can go in there if there's an issue but there's not going to be an adult monitoring inside we don't we wouldn't have that in no no I understand it um I think what I I miss I miss uh spoke will there be a Changing of the Guard like when the guard has to go on lunch break or oh yeah we're gonna have full-time coverage plans in place it will it will be a hundred percent covered and listen you know no no plan is foolproof no we'll adapt and adjust if if things need to to change but I'm confident in the plan we have I'm confident in the administration putting forth that plan and and our teachers are resilient our teachers no matter what you throw at our teach issues they figure it out yeah nobody's gonna be happy about it but our teachers will do whatever they got to do to keep their kids safe and to you know to get it done and I have one I think the per you said the end of September the people were worried about that it was going to get delayed and it would be during the colder months that was the other issue I really it's boring I I did put that caveat out there barring anything unforeseen but I'm being conservative when I tell you October we should be good um over the next week and a half we will have cleanup Crews roving the district that's one of the biggest issues is that you know there was so much work done this Summer that the the buildings were filthy but again that's why you have Administration to come up with a plan for that and I just happen to have some great people around me who think about things before I even have to worry about them including our director of buildings and grounds Eddie Maldonado and our two supervisors supervisor custodians Sean Smith and supervisor maintenance Mo capacity they've have gone above and beyond in every aspect dealing with this dealing with all the work we have going on and kudos to our assistant VA met shehada who is on everything every single day and is always always number one goal is to make sure the district looks good so thank you Ahmed um that's my report for tonight ladies and gentlemen I'll be happy to answer any other questions but um you know anybody tells you school's not opening we're opening and it's going to be beautiful I have a question about Cusack do you know what we scored last year by any chance or the last last session the last time was my first one and we were high performing don't remember the numbers exactly though Judy but we were high performing facilities is in under um oh okay that's that's true that's a good point so yeah it is under fiscal management but facilities falls under that because that falls under the ba as well so that's part of the the 100.
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these reports they're submitted for review to an external panel and so they review them they judge them to ensure that they meet those high standards of the program and so getting those Awards actually represents our commitment to financial transparency since they are the highest form of recognition in the area of governmental accounting and financial reporting so I'd like to thank the entire finance department obviously they carry the heavy load on this and now under the direction of Miss Francie will foulman and the entire team they do an amazing job with Gathering the required information and so I'm sure they're going to continue to do an excellent job Meeting those high standards so I have the award here so we'll probably be displaying it out in the case out in the lobby for for viewing thank you questions thank you Miss Fidel that's awesome next we will move on to item C1 Ms Densmore this is the time for the public to comment members of the board may not discuss items that are not specifically identified on this agenda pursuant to ARS 38431.01 action taken as a result of public comment will be limited to directing the staff to study the matter responding to any criticism or scheduling the matter for further consideration and decision at a later date in order to facilitate accomplishing the business of the district in a timely manner a time limit of three minutes will be imposed for each individual or group addressing the board when you approach the podium please state your name for the record and first up we have Stephen lobert my name is Steven Wilbert I'm a father of a student over at Luke Elementary it came to my attention this school year shortly into the school year that the board decided to terminate the contract with Southwestern Behavioral Health my daughter utilizes those Services every week at that school and it has helped her increase her grades and her attitude at the school day in and day out and I'm extremely disappointed that you guys have terminated that contract limiting my daughter's access to these resources I struggle with five kids three different school districts I do not have a lot of time after my day especially with the kids getting out at 4 pm to get them around and get them some of the health they help they need and this greatly helped me and now you guys have put a massive burden on me I know there are other parents there are other kids in this situation that you've now put my daughter in and I ask that you guys reevaluate your decision on that and bring them back to help our kids in these schools and help them succeed otherwise take that last line off your wall thank you Dr curta will you follow follow up with Mr lobert yes ma'am thank you that was all we had okay thank you next we will move on to item D1 Dr Cordo foreign thank you madam president uh tonight we do have a student update school is back and I'll have Mr musee introduce our student speaker yes Madam president members of the board Dr crotto and guests tonight we have our student update coming from Braley Ratliff she is a senior from Valley Vista and one of our officers in the in the Dysart student council and fairly has some information to share with us good evening um recently or at our first dslc meeting we discussed that each school was presenting their back to school spirit week which was very successful a lot of participation and with the back to school dances from Valley and Willow and we also began planning our end of the year conference splitting up different schools into different committees to make sure everything gets done Valley Vista suko is working to present the 2024 Arizona Association of student council convention coming January 25th to the 27th today we represented at Ironwood High School at the 2023 Spirit conference and this coming week we are sending students from Valley Vista to represent at Cesar Chavez McClintock High School Perry High School and Tucson magnet that is all for tonight thank you very much thank you next we'll move on to day two Dr crowdo thank you madam president members of the board just a couple uh quick updates tonight so September coming up is going to be National attendance month uh we are starting a massive attendance Campaign which we've already started but September we're ramping it up so you're going to see a video message from me to community members to to our students about the importance of attendance uh bi-weekly we're going to do social media posts and schools are going to help share those posts and retweet them and all that other stuff what they do monthly we're going to even after past September we're going to do District reminders for Flyers use our Peach jar I encourage our tenant our teachers to highlight the parent attendance and then we're doing something pretty cool with the attendance contest between all schools so kind of like a March Madness so we're going to pair schools up against each other and that's coming up our PR department under Renee Ryan has done an amazing job to make pick up this bracket so we will have an attendance Champion towards the end of the year of the best attendance they're going to compete against each other and the winners are going to advance down just like the bracket in March Madness and and we're going to have a prize for that winner at the end so we're doing some awesome things to kind of highlight attendance is important for our students to be in school so they can learn very important so I continue to remind everybody and and those watching attendance matters and we need people to be in school or our students to be in school to teach so with that also you know that our fall seasons are upon us you can tell by the marching band they did an awesome job tonight but all our Sports football volleyball cross country swim and dive badmin palm and cheer golf band theater choirs they're all in full force so I urge everybody to check our website for our all the times and locations of all those events come check it out last week we had a great I've been cutting at Dysart high school so a celebration of their new new field it was an amazing night congratulations to Dysart they did a great job and they even got the win on a new field so they opened it up in a great way so I just want to remind everybody to mark your calendars for September 8th that's when Willow Canyon will have their ribbon cutting ceremony so we're excited about that and with that that's all I have this evening thank you very much we will move on to item D3 governing board update um I just attended the Countryside School of their coyote code celebration and that was a great way to start off the school year those kids are so excited and they were cheering and they were learning that code pretty darn quick but great way to start off the school year so that's it i i attended the um the Dysart field revealing ribbon um cutting ceremony last Friday that was a great experience my whole family got to attend and the best part is they won the game so end of the night with a with a great celebration and then today I attended the trust policy government summer Summit where it went over policies of the different districts it it uh it showed a lot of the districts are now going through the trust and and then there's a lot of other districts that are in the process of going through the trust so that was a good experience and I just want to thank Dysart for allowing us to attend with the with the administration so thank you thank you I attended Spalding night at Freedom Traditional Academy and it was really interesting not only from hearing from some of the students but but hearing from some of our Educators who say that Spalding makes their lives so much easier teaching so I'm excited that we're obviously we have it at Freedom but that we're piling piloting it elsewhere so I'm looking forward to hearing the feedback from other schools I also attended the trust policy governance Summit today it was just very informative not only from our own attorneys but also hearing from members of the Attorney General's office and it was just a lot of information sharing and it was really refreshing um just to experience something that was that's really seemed truly nonpartisan and very much appreciated that's it I also would just like to thank Countryside principal Miss McNeese for extending her invitation to allow the board to attend their first coyote Spirit assembly it was great to see the students so excited to be back in school and all that hyped up coyote spirit so thank you again for allowing me to be a part of it um I also want to take a moment to comment on a current issue in the media regarding the Arizona School Board Association as many may recall on December 8 2021 by a 3-2 vote this board adopted a resolution severing ties with asba which for me was not an action that I took lightly when I was sworn in as a new board member in December of 2006.
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that would be a hot day okay a simple wrong would have done just fine but uh all right Tyler what are you going with um I believe it was 123. Tyler's a little closer is 134 Death Valley California good guess guys we got some freezer pops over there for you to stay cool Friday fun day we can talk about the Heat we got people walking in the grass trying hey guys you want to be on Friday fun to talk about this this horrible Heat Wave we're having all right Wildcats I'm here with Kayla you're on the dance team I see yeah she's got fans over there it's gonna be cooler next week how have you been handling this heat the last few days oh what he's too busy talking to all her friends I've even handling the heat the last few days it is horrible it's too humid a little trivia question before I got an ice pop for you to help you cool down and keep you cool early 90s star Vanilla Ice became famous with what song sort of Vanilla Ice haven't you [Music] got back close another popular another very popular rap song in the early 90s there is a baby in the title by Vanilla Ice if there was a problem solve it check out the hook with my DJ revolt foreign that's right too cold stay cool get a freezer pop one or two more should we ask anybody else any other questions questions all right wow okay that's great first couple weeks of school stay cool gonna be a beautiful weekend ahead we got through the heat got through two weeks first football game next Friday night keep the spirit up see you next week [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you
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so you'll see we had that that kind of that coveted dip we're starting to see the you know those two grade levels that Maple Grove there was a grade level uh or two at Center Grove Elementary that are popping back up over where we were look at that I just so I understand what you're saying this current third grade class or the third grade class that's now sixth grade no would it be comparing those third graders to the city thank you I just nope not perfect data because every year in each of those grades we know we're testing completely different kids unless we run through it looking at it as a stair step which is which a lot of at the building level they do that a lot particularly when they're doing their school Improvement plans um they'll look at Dana that way too to see what kind of gains they're making or or where kids aren't making the game they need um and that's just a little preview we'll do school Improvement plans next month thank you for asking that question and then our SAT data um so knowing that sat is only one of the options in that third bucket that we call it for meeting graduation requirements every kid that we can get to cross that finish line with this test is great but we also know that's not going to happen for all kids so we continue to create and enhance those opportunities for students to meet those this requirement with all the other Pathways and the board has been very um not only um supportive but very unencouraging to creating those Pathways in our district I know when we bring new course requests each fall you see more and more of those coming as we open up more Pathways here in the district so um we're gonna we're gonna need that and to continue those opportunities the next one is looking across iLearn this is our Johnson County data and where we are how we're doing compared to the rest of the county and also the state average there um very proud of our school I know we just we just want to keep inching more and more toward that that trend of getting back to and exceeding where we were at um in 2019.
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okay and so Marcelo Deepa you're kind of nodding yes does that plan sound good to you okay yeah I think this was that you're seeing in front kind of covers all the big topics but I think we need to set the foundation first before kind of going deep into some of these topics because these topics can take different forms in different scenarios um so I think we should set the foundation right first to make sure that what kind of projects are we attacking are we kind of pigeon holding ourselves into one particular type category versus like looking at the big picture um and I think some of these questions if you go through this list like for example um I think it is Watertown for example recently came up where they are allowing residents to um if they're willing to plant a tree in their kind of property they are they can reach out asking for that so I think there's a lot of these categories can apply for a lot of those private owners as well big or small um and I think we should give make sure that that opportunity is set when we're trying to look at this bylaw before just talking about one aspect of this thank you Deepa and Marcelo you had mentioned some big ticket items are these the ones you were referencing did we miss one uh no no we I I don't I don't think we we missed one I think I think the these um this this document is is a great start I I Was preparing more of what was just discussed uh in the sense of the big picture um Margie was telling us you know this is the the objective the the objective is to to achieve this this big picture goals and and hear the bullet list is uh is is it's a good start of of of items that that would be part of it I I just I I think before we kind of bypass it and just saying oh yeah this would apply to to residential or not I think that's one of the critical parts that I I would hope that we that we all can discuss a little bit more and and see if we are kind of on the same page and and I'm just gonna mention what came to my mind as as I listened to to Margie and and Joanna at the beginning so the the in principle I think and I agree with Margie that that I think they are trying to to to adjust this to Taylor to to make sure that that is something that is uh well received by the community and it favors the community not everybody is going to be on board for it or for everything on it but but at least uh uh something that that that is in favor for the majority and and and it can pass so I think that's a good objective now when we started looking into that and we start saying okay it would apply to to to to just this or that I think that's critical because uh for example I I I would I I from for for several meetings have stated that there's no way that that that a talent should pass a bylaw that that impacts you know private developments or or even residential lots and not the municipal uh projects as an example excluding the town to me is philosophically unacceptable I think the town should actually lead on that and and we've talked about that maybe help the town to see if there's going to be our fund which I think is part of one of these Bullet at least points uh but the talent should not be excluded from this and I think setting that stage would be more amenable for people to accept it and and to accept the value of it um overall I think it makes sense what Margie said I mean commercial properties uh uh that there's some requirements especially if they go for for a special permit that makes a lot of sense to me uh the the residential part uh uh there could be gradations I think it should not be uh um like the honors in a way that is that that is that is unreasonable I think there could be a a type of exchange when somebody wants to add a garage like like somebody said um that's some type of replacement that is that is a little less stringent than what a commercial project would face or the town um and lastly I the idea of clear cutting I totally understand that because uh I hated when that happened and in general I'm I'm very excited about these possibilities uh but I think clear cutting and Margie I think you said that it's one of the key objectives of this effort and I am I'm a little doubtful of what the percentage of the problem in Ashland is clear cutting um my understanding is that there's not a whole lot open land that would be clear-cut for developing in Ashland uh so even though I think it should be part of it because I think it's important I don't think it's going to be the majority of of the applicability of these by law I think the majority is going to be what happens on large developments and and quite frankly on Residential Properties because that's the majority of Ashland so uh those are just general thoughts on on to to see if if we could discuss it and narrow to understand how Global the the the orbit of this by law really wants to be and that that's that's what uh crossed my mind hey so while you were talking Marcelo and you mentioned the importance of applying it to public areas essentially as a matter of leadership both deep and Kate you were nodding yes is that something that you both agree with I just want to see where there's consensus with the planning board absolutely I think that was a good point I think as a town we should set the example for people coming into the town to make sure we should we should be the leaders and set that uh example before expecting somebody else from outside to come and do it and Kate you you give a thumbs up do you want to add something nope I I concur I think it absolutely should be supportive sustainability folks are you are you in concerts and so bad are you comfortable with with expanding this bylaw to cover public space it was actually it was always my impression that that the town would it would apply and and I think that would point of contention in the last go-around because there were two um Municipal properties in the works okay so it sounds like there's some consensus with folks here that we can move on to other items and mercelo's point seems like a good point to start a discussion on which is what is clear cutting what's the definition and is that really what we have left in other words how many properties truly at this point are left for the potential of clear cutting and if there's not much are we focused on the right thing I think is that what you're did I summarize that correctly Marcelo yeah that's exactly the point I want to make sure maybe it is a big part of the problem I'm not convinced it is uh but just uh it would be great to to put all the energy on whatever is going to have the biggest impact so then my question for the sustainability folks hopefully you've been a little bit closer to this issue and you've worked on this for a little while do you have any data or knowledge that you can share with us as far as kind of the status quo of properties in Ashland that are kind of left um for potential clear cutting or you know how do you define it you know has there been an analysis done of what we're what are we dealing with here in Ashland I'll start um I I my understanding is that there are limited lots that are that are still undeveloped but they do exist so um and some of them are sort of in the works um but you might see this example so um the property up by the train station that is in in the courts right now is heavily wooded property so clear cutting could certainly apply there and um there's the property at 501 Pond Street that was cleared sitting there and granted it wasn't heavily wooded but there there was vegetation and trees that it's no longer there now it's just [Music] um a swamp for lack of a better word so I I personally think that it it is anyone else from the committee want to jump in um I'll say I think in one breath there it does seem like there's not a lot of big Parcels left in town but I think that's deceiving um I want to say there has been properties on Oregon Road and Oak Street um I know that the Town Forest has um there's properties of budding it that are large parcels and when I say large Parcels I mean over two acres um and once you start counting them um it's significant because of the value that each forested um acre provides um so I I do think that this is overall worth it um otherwise Margie and I and Matt and the rest of the committee wouldn't have been spending our time uh trying to make something that will stick um so yeah there there are significant amount of properties um yeah I I can think I can add to that because I do live on Oregon Road and I know the property owner who has been fighting off of developers who want a clear-cut and put up a bunch of houses uh I you know greatly sympathize with her but we don't but you know if we had a mechanism where we were protecting the large majority of the area that she um it's trying to protect I keep trying to tell persuade her that she should just donate it to the town Forest but because it does abut the Town Forest but so far she's not proposing to do that so but yeah so could I ask kind of an ignorant ignorant question um and maybe Marcelo and Deepa can jump into with their experience like what I'm imagining is a certain size of a lot is needed for a developer to come in and build you know multi-family housing right and so if you have a very small lot it's challenging to do that um what would be kind of can we agree what is sort of the minimum size that's needed for multi-housing development like how do we Define it is it is it five units is it 10 units like what is the size and I think once we Define that as a group and understand it we can have an easier conversation about how many of those lots are out there in Ashland that have enough trees that there could be quote unquote clear cutting is that a helpful exercise because I honestly don't know what the answer is to that so I have another way to look at though if we're trying to protect trees like can we craft it around like sometimes there's a small amount of trees and sometimes there's a bigger amount like I'm having a hard time seeing how if a half acre lot in my neighborhood got clear-cut how it matters if it's a five acre somewhere else like it's still got clear-cut it has those big impacts in fact that it happened in my neighborhood it was a wildlife Corridor right in a dense neighborhood but it was and it got so I I I'm not quite sure how it matters I guess except protecting the trees well I I would say just to address Anna's question first I think um it is it's tough to to answer it because every point definition when you develop a project every project is unique because every lot is unique on orientation on access and utilities Etc typically I think the building code considers I think four units or more a commercial building or this this volume or square footage after which is is considered a commercial building on the commercial building code applies um I I think the the the the challenge that I see because I think I I don't think we're going to have a lot of a problem a lot of an issue with people agreeing with it with the overall intent of what we're doing here what where things get a little dice is um addressing Kate's common let's let's pretend that that example takes place if the zoning bylaw on a district allows for that lot that that Kate was referring to to develop a certain percent a certain far because that's what the law says then and we all want to save trees or and I wouldn't say maybe you don't have to get into into a close position where you just save that tree or sometimes properly replace it with more trees which is better than save one at some in some in some cases you you have to take some trees down unless there's certain value of the tree uh but how how is these by law going to compete with the zoning where the the owner of a property has the right to develop a certain far uh and and now these other bylaw is going to say oh yes but you don't because we have to save these streets so it is it I I think that's the the difficult part of it uh I think is is easy to address I think how trees should be replaced on a certain type of or size of development uh how do you treat the the open space in the lot or I guess quite frankly then you would have to amend the zoning bylaw to provide certain portion of every lot of a certain size to be basically uh uh allowed almost like an easement for for for for green um for for tree planting or something like that so it's a little tricky that way in my in my head go ahead sorry is that Kara talking yeah sorry thank you we um Margie Matt and I um have talked a lot about um and this goes on to you know how do you measure um either or quantify the trees and their value on the property we've gone kind of back and forth a little bit about whether to do this based on tree canopy or to count individual trees by dbh and um that and we ran into you know how would we want this apply to a lot that is in the center of Ashland versus you know a property of budding the forest so we've we've talked about it it this is not an easy uh an easy Endeavor but we have given consideration to both um how do you make this something that applies to both types of properties and so how did you how do you guys do that just just to if you can explain a little bit more are are you thinking that would have some type of map where some districts in that map have a different gradient of of enforceability than others so I think um our current uh struggle with that was we were starting to like the idea of doing it more by tree canopy um and using different tools whether it be um I think it's I tree is a is a mapping tool that you know kind of gives a percentage of treat canopy coverage we kind of found it to be a little bit inaccurate um but you know we had tossed out the idea of like would a lower percentage be more acceptable within downtown you know and that would be based on like zoning or whatnot versus a higher percentage required and you know uh more forested um or maybe do we make it you know measure what the canopy coverage is prior to construction and then try and match it so that wouldn't actually be overall improving our tree coverage um but it would be at least maintaining it so these were ideas we have talked about we haven't settled on anything one of the things that um came into play when we talked to uh Becca Solomon our conservation agent was she was not a huge fan of measuring by the tree canopy coverage and Margie had more of the conversation with Becca on that I wasn't there for that meeting but um the overall gist from what I got Margie was that it would be difficult to measure by tree canopy coverage and therefore it's harder to enforce and yeah Margie do I have it right I have it right you think yes that that is a good summary um but I'm wanting to go back to the beginning and in the application because it's suddenly seeming even more complicated than I thought it was originally and I'm hoping that a planning board can help with this so we were advised in the very beginning about the the specific types of permits that would be appropriate for this bylaw and I just had to kind of go on faith because as I said before I don't know the ins and outs of of the permitting process and the various types so this whole discussion is just calling into question exactly where we want it to apply and I'm not quite sure how to move forward to resolve that so I I've been listening to all this and I'm trying to categorize kind of the concerns and listening to Marcelo and then Kara and Margie marcelo's point the first point he made correct me if I'm wrong Marcelo is a concern over the ability of private landowners to develop and how on a small scale small tiny pieces of land not massive ones but smaller you know something that might be four units were in that vicinity and the ability to kind of prevent private development and where that line is and so I kind of heard that as a concern um and I do think that one way to address that might be it's not like we're going to prevent the removal of every tree we're going to try to Define what can or cannot be removed and then we're going to create incentives to prevent removal and perhaps a tree fund so that if you have to remove for development there's a mechanism for replanting elsewhere I'm assuming we're not going to prevent development we're going to allow development allow tree removal under specific circumstances that's kind of a very quick solution I had if you will I think there's a way to allow development without saying no you can't develop here because this tree is too pretty right yes you're a private developer you can cut this tree but because it's a certain size you're going to have to do certain things yeah I I like the way you you just just put it I think you were very very clear I I think the the I guess the beauty of what this could do is um I I always like the word incentives uh even in small projects uh let's say that that they could be um uh special um benefits of protecting a tree of a certain canopy or a certain caliber even on on land right whether this goes there or not but the incentive of of maybe adjusting your your building or or or or the houses that Chuck was saying maybe adjusting the plan to try to protect as much as possible of a lot instead of clear cutting if there are incentives that that would benefit the project and the town I think that that that's all good I I overall I think I I would love if if there would be a magical way to to make this be a bylaw that is that that promotes the right type of development but through the doing that incentivize the increase the increasing the footprint of of of trees that we have in the town over time uh so like like you said Anna maybe there's a there's a place where and buildings typically especially larger buildings the more compact they are the more efficient the the the the they become uh and and so there's a place where that building is going to be located where obviously you're going to have to remove all those trees so what do you do then and and and if if if there there's a mechanism mechanism of replacing those in the side now tier one let's say ideal uh and replace them with more than those that were there which in some cases we have I guess the example is 501 um that the margin mentions is a good one because that project was permitted and and it was basically a material dump before and what what is permitted is going to end up with more trees than where they're at the beginning uh and and the the the the objective is that it doesn't have to be there that could be ideal if it's in situ but if if there could be a replacement to a fun or simply by putting having areas of the town where people can can plant the trees that they're cutting somewhere else as long as we are increasing all the time our population of trees I think that probably isn't positive route I'd like to respond to that go ahead um I want to point out that incentives and offsets are high on our list of things that we want to incorporate and Sam is actually working on that right now that aspect there are a couple towns in the vicinity that have what they call a green score that um give credits for various things that would other that can offset the loss of a tree and still contribute to reducing emotion emissions for example so um definitely want to do that okay so that sounds like a really helpful thing that we want to explore further in the future kind of what incentives mean and I'll I'll add to that I really liked marcelo's point about like tears of replacement like so tier one might be like if you think about it the ideal scenario is no trees are cut down and you somehow magically develop between them right and that should be super easy like that should be like a permit that we basically we will do we will create incentives you can build density you can you can do crazy stuff because you're protecting every tree on that property you're going to get a gold star right then there's like the second tier which is you have to cut some trees down but you're more than happy to plant the same amount same type on property yay so you're like not quite the gold star but like close right and maybe maybe there is an incentive because we we allow more parking or less parking or I don't know something and then there's like tier three which is oh my God you're gonna cut down every tree on that property but you're gonna stick a bunch of trees somewhere else or you're going to put it into a tree fund and maybe we have like some area in town that's public land where you're going to agree to plant some trees and that level might have the least incentive right because we don't really need to incentivize that that's like an easy way out you're just kind of moving your money somewhere um so is that what you have in my Marcelo or am I completely off well something like that I mean you just created a a a a great picture for it I I think but but but I I would say that that would extend even Beyond there is incentives on the municipal front um but actually not let me withdraw and rephrase that on the municipal front I think it should be a very strict uh requirement so the town leads on on how we can we can expand that but then you start getting into Scenic roads for example where I see an argument there which I think is used now I mean we've been talking about a tree on a Scenic Road for a long time right um the the in those cases there are certain trees that the tree itself is precious uh in particular in Scenic worlds I think we've we've heard that but there may be others in other places that are kind of not necessarily in development part of what the town or what an owner needs to develop there will be cases like that so maybe the bylaw needs to consider that as well and then there's the the ultimate tier of the larger projects and those are the most difficult ones but but I in principle agree with the way you said it in that case there will be um fewer incentives if there's not an effort to to do that but still the requirement to end up with uh uh an equal plus amount of trees either there or somewhere deeper do you have thoughts on this this does the the onion tier system kind of resonate do you do you like it I think so and I feel like uh the big picture is how is this going to support that Net Zero initiative right what is it that one is to preserve trees but what is going to help us to get to that NetZero which is what our final goal is during this journey of these 25 years what is that ratio that we need to make sure that we reach that effective net zero right there's like calculations out there like one ton of carbon dioxide is equal to that many trees so there is that ratio and math out there that we probably should also keep in mind when we're talking about the replacement quantities because you can bring down a 25 year old tree and plant something that's like absolutely the canopy is like one-fourth of what it was there it's not really it's quantities Apples to Apples but at the same time it's not really the same thing so uh I think the a lot of these categories have a very tiers within themselves so I think we one is to look at the big picture but also so go into each of these categories to look at that tier items and especially the replacement requirements I think has to be well flushed out because that's as important for that Net Zero initiative as much as trying to avoid the clear cutting that we are trying to do I think it's for me that feels like much more a stronger weapon like that Scenic row that you said we have brought down one tree and it's been two years we've never had a chance to put back that tree or put equivalent of that right because it's on a private property you just didn't happen so um everything every tree car is important and it's critical that was a one important one as well so um um this is a very serious topic it's got a lot of information kudos to the team you've got a very good list here for sure but as far as like the incentive because I think that's a really important Point does that resonate with you Deepa Kate and I definitely want to hear from the sustainability folks as well but if we can reach some consensus that we like the idea of incentives based on tears of tree cutting that's a helpful input for the sustainability folks so Kate are you are you there as well I I like the idea of tears and I like um I think definitely deepa's grounding it in that carbon carbon offset climate change people are becoming more familiar and that's we did support that as a community and I think um that goes along with you know it's a different world now than four years ago when you guys are working on it so we don't we we can be open to other things my concern about that um is the way we were initially just talking about it is that we're talking also zoning changes and that's a whole other animal which as you know is one of the reasons I signed up to be on the planning board so I'm not afraid of that work but what I I think we have to try to get something for Springtown meeting and so working the tears with incentives when it's going to involve density I I don't know how that can happen for spring so I would caution us to try to figure out how to separate them a little bit so there can be something brought to the public with the public for Town meetings right fair enough so you're concerned that once we kind of have the tier systems it may require some complex zoning changes and difficult to pull off um okay I I saw the the sustainability folks nodding like Matt is there something is this helpful to you guys as far as input for incentives if one of you I think I heard Margie say someone is working on something relating to incentives can this is true in that what you've heard so far from us sorry Samantha's working on incentives Samantha is this helpful as far as input very useful um what I've been looking at them um was sort of other ways that they could offset carbon so that they didn't have room to put in trees but then they install the solar panels or in speaking of constitution Meadows are very important to our natural Wildlife Regional Wildlife so putting in a meta there's been so many the full root of solar equivalent to kind of normal so this is very helpful and I don't know about you guys I have kind of a hard time hearing Samantha but I can tell you we're approaching the one hour mark in this discussion and so I wanted to kind of try to um walk away with kind of the next step and what I'm hearing is that this kind of idea of incentives meaning the more trees you have to cut to do your project um the less we need to give you incentives meaning the less flexible we're going to be in our permitting right um that concept combined with Samantha talking to Becca and developing some ideas around that what are your thoughts sustainability folks for coming back with maybe a memo or some high level points from Becca and Samantha as to what that might look like hey this kind of you know this kind of tree cutting that's kind of like the magical ideal version I mentioned where you know you just happen to build right around every tree um and so we're going to be super flexible in our permitting right and like walk us through each layer each tier and what some of these ideas might be of incentives right flexibility that you're willing to give at each level um Anna can I add one last thought I just just to to kind of wrap up I I think and clearly even in this bullet list point in the first uh the topics to be considered and this document the incentives analysis are there so I I think a lot of of of of the ideas that we discussed are in this bullet list which which is great I think maybe what we can try to to develop as a part of the conversation is create the com make this list start working on on some type of system and un understandable and and logical system where there is a a gradient of Tears or or something else it really doesn't matter as long as it's not arbitrary and and disconnected uh and I think a lot of these bullet list uh points here uh are part of that of that ecosystem if we can start kind of making it work towards maybe around what Kate was saying with with a baseline that has some math to it but also with with the zoning part I I think a lot of the meat is is here in this document which is a good point of departure and Chuck you've got your hand raised did you want to add something I just want to uh say a gratitude to the planning word folks I think this has been really a helpful discussion and I think you've given us some things to work with so thank you okay and then one question yep go ahead Margie um talking about next steps and going forward I'm wondering how often we will meet with the planning board and um well I have some other questions but let's start with that yeah that's what I was going to say I think our next task here as we wrap up the hour is to come up with a work plan if you will um and um I mean obviously the planning board has to consider this and our availability um and Trish is not here as chair and I think we should obviously check in with her as well um but you know my thought my suggestion to the planning board is that we if sustainability is available that we allow with 20 30 minute discussion you know regularly at our meetings for this so that we have a working continued working movement on this is that something that resonates with folks so that we're not having hours and hours every time but maybe 20 30 minutes a meeting um so that we can make progress and move this along I have no problem with that as long as the agenda allows yeah for sure the more we discuss the quicker we will make progress the only thing I would ask if that works for the sustainability folks is maybe the sustainability folks could come up with I would trust them to they've been working very closely with these topics that they have outlined for us so they probably know what is kind of challenging and controversial versus the easy stuff um and maybe they can kind of organize it as a what's it called a projected work plan for us and and get that over to Peter and Trisha our chair and then we can kind of break it apart and fit it in right so I would suggest getting some easy stuff out of the way so that we get some momentum and get to know each other a little bit and then you know get into the nitty-gritty challenging things does that sound doable to Margie and the team I'm not sure how to answer that I think a lot of the things on the list are um a few things on the list are easy um and for sure can we identify is there we need some resources that can help with some of the more technical things and and these questions about when we might um inadvertently move over into the zoning realm and not want to do that is planning board and planning department um able to advise on that Margie I'm always happy and free to help talk and work with you on this bylaw we're not I don't think we're saying that we never want to talk about zoning right I think Kate is just saying we have to be thoughtful about it not that it's not allowed to go there right Kane yeah I think when we get into density incentives though it's going to get quickly wrapped up in that tier so um I I can see to get I mean I would say try for spring and I think we one way would be we have four tiers but we're holding off on implementing the fourth tier right but you can still pass the bylai thing probably you can check with Town Council flush it out but yeah okay one question on that I don't know what your thought is but uh one of the key things that I think we discussed this before I think for this to be successful as we kind of condensing it to a more intelligible system that of of parts I think uh how can we somehow advertise this and make sure that everybody in the community knows that this is taking place and start participating because if there's no clear Community input here right it's not going to happen anywhere I'm concerned about that that was one of my goals for tonight that we didn't get to before the time ran out is to develop a community outreach plan I think that's critical that we do that and also well I'll link the rest for later so one of the beauty of our agendas right is they are I think Peter correct me if I'm wrong pretty regularly the town posts on the website on Instagram hey planning board meeting coming up um and perhaps we could um add hey the tree bylaw is being discussed and we have you know it's going to be a topic for the upcoming 10 you know planning board meetings and we start to put that out there so that the public is aware that we're having this and you know everyone in the sustainability committee on the planning board can spread the word and and that way we start to generate some energy around this continued work working discussion as many ways to run a Facebook or social media campaigns and be interesting bylaws and um you know it really trees of that matter um at first I just want to state that obviously we're talking about pre-complex bylog right now and I think a goodbye law sometimes can also be a simple bylaw so I think I just want to reiterate I think it makes sense that we all go back after today's meeting and actually reread what was proposed which was sent out and I'm happy to resend it tomorrow just tell everyone kind of get their eyes on it but also just to take a look at what other communities have regarding tree bylaws uh because you know a tree bylaw we're not we're not creating the first tree of the bylaw ever in the state of Massachusetts we are joining the Cause right the same trees and obviously the in the fight against the climate change uh we'll say um but it's going to want to say you know let's take a look at what other towns have had and what works for them because uh that may be a good format right and or um template to use uh moving forward excuse me Matt I see you every day and Peter to that point can can you help us with that like at the next meeting could we have some examples of that so that we have context for the draft versus what other can I ask about that sorry yeah go ahead so Peter yeah could you elaborate because I have we didn't get to it tonight but I have a list of um the definition of protected trees for all uh bylaws or ordinances and um to to what realm they apply so are there other things that should should be included or is that mainly it entertainment the size of the tree yes and that's a great Point that's a great topic right and and I think we all have to come together and you know have the consensus obviously tonight we're on Zoom uh however at the last 24 meeting which we had them so difficult to do ran late I think the Plenty board remembers I had actually cut out um cardboard um samples of diameter right to show what is a tree diameter right and so I can tell you right now luxury our dialogue our definition call for a six inch tree is a major tree now I can tell you right now industry standards has an eight inch tree at rest Amber height in an urban environment has a tree that is of of of a major right and then a 10 inch Tree in a forested environment is considered a major tree right so I think you know just to talk about I think that the both committees need to come down to a to a consensus on what is a major tree or what isn't a major tree um and that's just one example that we have to work together on and and that's the reason why I made those cardboard um pancake diameter examples so what I what I want to know is when you say let's look at what other communities have done what should be on that list what topic should be on that list besides the size of the tree I mean what else the the payment blew up right can I can I offer Just one thought and I know that I think Matt wants to wants to talk as well um but um I I I I definitely we getting examples of what other communities have done is is important and I think it's kind of um is going to help us speed up the process but I think before we get into the details of how they uh selected this type of trail that type of three I think would be great to have like a little like a little table where where we see how the overall philosophy of this town is different from the other one in terms of implementation in terms of public private or what have you have the big picture ideas and see okay in Wellesley that that Community considers these power of the bylaw the key kind of the the key enforcement part that is critical in Concord they don't do like that or what community that is really similar like like more uh of our um income level and our type of economic activity what is important to them and maybe we can start comparing and see which one it's more similar to us so we've kind of started a little graph excuse me I know Matt you get your hands up I'm sorry oh um well I I think go ahead and I I had something relating to the Outreach so it's kind of jumping to another topic but I think you were going to say that you've done some comparison already we've got some comparisons already obviously died in the tree was a big one uh came into uh um we really haven't looked at incentive to an offset but I think other elements that you have to take into consideration are uh home value um average even their average you know average home value uh average median income um lot size so those are all elements that you have to take into consideration because you just can't you can't take from another community that you're just a dash is right you have to make mold it and say yeah that's the passion for these reasons one two and three um and and we don't we can take some of their principles and apply them but obviously we have to make it our own um and you know and Marcel we take the town of Wellesley right it kind of wealthy has a home immediate home values about work I believe it's a little over a million dollars I think it's around 1.3 1.4 right absolutely was about between I believe it's around five hundred thousand dollars currently if I'm lost and that that's why I made that point because and and their density is different if you go to a density of an affluent town with a very little density well they have a lot more green area than we do so that'll that'll applies absolutely correct can I just kind of counter that because for me it's also about equity so just because wellesley's Rich doesn't mean they get to have all the trees like I don't know how to be more direct on this point like one of the reasons I live here is Ashlyn is green and beautiful and just because we have more density or we're not as Rich doesn't mean all of our trees should be under attack by development so I'm uncomfortable with this idea that we should not be comparing ourselves to those who have more ability to protect their development or protect themselves from cutting trees I think it's an equity issue I think our community is becoming more and more diverse and people who are moving here are of all kinds of backgrounds race class gender and they deserve beautiful green trees just like Wellesley so I really want to counter this idea that we cannot be like Wellesley we can be like whatever we want to we the people of Ashland get to decide what is important for us and if we feel like we want a green protected environment we need to develop for that we don't have to keep being dense we can be different and there's a way to build severe density with a lot of trees I I can tell you I grew up in a very Urban environment um not in in a more of a European environment and I lived in a high high Riser you know high-rise apartment building that was extremely dense but in the middle of it was a beautiful Green Space and so there is a way to build dense and green together you don't have to be just like Wellesley but you can protect trees just like Wellesley foreign I'll just add one thing about Outreach you know I think we've already done some Outreach uh you know the survey that we sent out we had about 270 responses there was high interest in it um so that that's kind of helped us to hone in on some of the things like why we're not necessarily targeting individual Lots um we're doing larger larger projects that you know a lot of that comes from the feedback so um if you there's a PowerPoint that has those results if you're interested but I feel like we've we've kind of started with feedback and Community input so that's helping to inform this so hopefully uh you know we can bring people along at key points but we've already kind of set the foundation that we're listening to the community on it so I think we're now past the one hour Mark um to summarize it sounds like we have some consensus on the applicability of this to public space um the importance of a work plan and continued effort between the planning board and sustainability and coming up with a schedule if you will and trying to spread the word so that the public is aware of our schedule maybe sharing that's that work plan if you will um and then the importance of incentives and kind of a tier system and having Samantha it sounds like Samantha's doing some work on that and maybe coming to us with with the results um and also Peter's input on other communities including income and all of those details um so that we can have a chart if you will that compares all the different communities and we can have a deeper dive discussion um some of which I'm sure is very different from the views I've shared um so does that sound good as far as the next steps so we can wrap up tonight's discussion I see the folks nodding um and with with that we can move forward to the next topic thank you so much Margie and and the sustainability committee thank you Mikey thank you everybody and the next item on our agenda is the public hearing for 949 Homer Avenue site plan and special permit application and Peter as I understand the applicant has requested a public hearing continuance to September 14th 2023 do you want to speak to that yep I'm going to pull that up on my screen up here everything exactly um where capability this is the continuance that came in for 1949 Homer Street I know after the last meeting we had discussion about when we were going to continue this too uh and if the applicants had the availability to get what needs to be done uh with that said the applicant after Consulting after the meeting in Consulting with those um architect uh Mr Wrong board a civil engineer uh Mr Rick Salvo the attorney um Attorney Morris um contacting me and obviously stated that he needed to requested continuance they had some end of the summer vacation plan vacations happening and taking place so therefore they're going to feel comfortable to uh bring something back to the clinic board tonight um and then with that said um worked on um some comments for the design Review Committee those were actually shared with the applicant so therefore the applicant's going to put together a package to go back to the design Review Committee uh and so here we uh are planning to go back to the design review hopefully on September 21st and then they would reappear in front of the playing board on September 28th so they're looking for a continuance to September 28th and uh please note that they're looking to extend um the Plenty board's time to move on this matter to October 15th so at that point uh there's as much does anyone have any questions or is prepared to make a motion I have a question so the last um the gcg report the last meeting right at the meeting or right before so it wasn't really discussed they had um the responses that go to gcg so that's usually a round or two back and forth that happens um you know they facilitate I think Peter's sort of involved one of the things was they said um the consultant our third party consultant recommended a traffic study and the response from the applicant was we're working with the planning board on it now I said to Peter that I do not recall a discussion that meeting and my concern was um of retiming if they come and they discuss it with us and we say you have to get a traffic study the traffic study then goes to third party review I've usually seen that a couple rounds what does that do to the schedule so I I think we have to be cognizant of that I know that I believe Peter had talked to the applicant about it but that if they're coming back September 28th with a traffic study that hasn't been reviewed yet and that October 15th I I do still have concerns about the deadline um just to reply to that case so um I did take your email and I did a conversation with the applicant um and they did what they do obviously do believe that is important so they do believe that they will I believe right now they're going to come back with some information on that I think when I when I talked to our gcg my partner about this they're really initial comment was regarding the visual the um excuse me your visual um for visual sight line coming in and out of that driveway so I think that's the main point that gcg is trying to get across uh but hopefully the applicant will come back I think and we've been working with this applicant and I believe that um they have been uh respectfully obviously going to be continuances not you know an extension to work with the planning board and I don't think the point is the word and and I think they will continue to do that uh uh and so I I do I understand your point regarding time frame however um we are um almost you know a little shy of a year-round this application so I think they're going to continue to be cooperative yeah and and I do know that they were going to try to have take a look at that before the next meeting and any updates I get regarding the traffic and in and out I'm happy to share with everybody obviously first and for them and Is there further questions some more emotion I'll make a motion to continue the 9 to 49 Homer Street project till the September 28th planning board meeting on second in a roll call vote Catherine Jersey guy and that passes um the next item on our agenda is the reports on planning topics Peter you want to walk us through that yeah I just want to I can walk everyone through this one so the reports under plenty of topics I just want you to know uh doctor in my screen so looking at my notes um I know going back to Scenic Road we've been we've been long talking about Scenic World Scenic Outreach Anna you worked with um Alvaro uh together you know language regarding a uh a postcard out and so I just want to update uh work with the DPW we have we have a list of of uh all residents that live on Scenic roads now a couple of the condominium complexes were on that list uh but I can tell you right now we have over 800 and well we have 835 buttons on our Scenic roads so we plan to do a mailing of a postcard um at 51 cents per postcard that's going to cost about 425 five dollars and so we have nailed uh we have not we just wanted to give that estimate to the planning board uh but I think it's appropriate to move forward with that element um and so since we do have this list we will be doing hopefully a mail merge uh and uh being able to print out postcards for everybody so hopefully at the next meeting in your upcoming meeting we can wrap up that text regarding um of language uh regarding the scenic bylaws um and or the scenic ways so we can kind of check this uh item off of our list can I ask about that Peter I I thought we had the postcard already finalized and so if it's already finalized we're just going to use that then yeah I thought we did that at a prior meeting another thought I had is I think you know I don't know what the planning board thinks about this but like I live in a condo Community I don't think I'm on a scenic route but I live in a condo community and condos communities tend to have boards that release newsletters to all of their residents regularly and I wonder if we can save some money to the town and rather than having hundreds of postcards go out that in my opinion don't always get seen we reach out to the condo associations and have them put it into their newsletter just for rather than a postcard but I don't know what I don't want to miss a chance to get individual residents a postcard I'm just kind of throwing it out there that if that's a significance cost savings we should think about it I'm happy to discuss it it's you know I can take a look at how many committee ah I would have to take a look to tell you two data to see how many um how many of the abundance are actually within the condo development which is actually pretty easy because you're just looking for a couple of streets but obviously I know Elliott Street is the scenic road so I know Spyglass Hill and or in Europe in you know for example Spyglass Hill would be triggered um Cedar Street is it in the Cedar Road so in that instance you know Workman Circle another big condo development I mean that's hundreds of people and so I think that's going to save us some good good money and you know I think where we can't find money to plant a tree we we may want to be thoughtful about spending money on a postcard when we can really spread that news through the condo association newsletters much more efficiently in my opinion yeah I mean I don't know if you every resident in the condo building really needs that because what's being taken care is like the property office or the office of that Condo building that's what needs to be notified to make sure that they can pass it on I don't know if the plan was really to send to every individual family in a condo complex that doesn't make sense because they are not going around cutting trees yeah so I hope the 800 that you said Peter is not really having individual condo families accounted for all right we can take a look at that it's it's it's it's just it's a very bad scenario yeah trust me the last thing I we want to do is print off 800 um yeah I can tell you I I can barely like put a plant on my porch without getting someone complaining about it so I can assure you condo folks can't really cut anything um so I I would definitely look into that and and it's a very effective way to communicate with condo communities in my opinion okay uh moving on I would just want to reiterate uh item number D the MBTA communities on September 14th we will be joined by the select board um to discuss the MBTA communities in resulting in the direction we want to go and the priorities of the town and so if anybody has any topics regarding MBTA communities if they're going to send in please let me know and I can add them to the agenda or if there's any information I can get to everybody regarding MBTA communities I'll probably dust up a memo that I did to the planning board a couple couple months ago and a couple weeks ago and I'll resend that out leading up to the meeting on the 14th but that would conclude any uh any updates I have on your reports great and now we moved to the reports from board members and town planner and we begin with the comprehensive plan key do you want to do an update um sure we we've had a meeting last month so right now it's just once a month I think depending on work plan the September meeting is September 21st that will be the first introduction of the consultant so I've been personally lobbying and asked other people to um their Community Resources that we're reaching out to um I think it would be helpful to have a warm welcome of the consultant and show there were engaged Community I think that's going to help push the whole process forward when when they see that there are people willing able and interested and willing to lend a hand on that on the project thank you Keith and then the next item is the design Review Committee 949 Homer Street item and Peter can you update us us on that uh yeah so I just want to make a brief note that everyone obviously received that um that we knew that Trisha put together um and that went back uh and I think Trisha and marcelo's comments were highlighting in green if I am correctly if I'm wrong um and I started to make a note that those went back out to the applicant as well as to the design Review Committee um and uh just to say that obviously that task was completed and it was circulated out to all parties any questions or comments on that from the planning board I would just say as a matter of a summary I think what we tried I hopefully you guys saw it uh that way what we're trying to do is to kind of uh uh have a um a real uh grouping of the different type of topics those that do not apply through that review based on on what we um asked them to see those that they are recommending uh and try to set up um um kind of a a more a more systematic way of doing this review based on what the bylaw says for for the guidelines of of the sound review uh so so there hopefully I think this provided some clarity on narrow the topics that are critical to that project to be reviewed by the design Review Committee uh so that we can get their recommendations and and bring it back to the board thank you Marcelo for and Trisha for getting that done and uh anything else on this topic before we move on to the rest Peter I think the other two topics in this category sustainability committee and CPC usually Trisha Commons on so I think we've covered this area that's proactive and that brings us to administrative matters and we begin with the associate member update Peter uh so just to give everyone an update this is going to close on August 31st and then we'll kind of then we'll move forward um I I was exchanging emails with one person no one's interested but you I do not know if they could fill out a talent Bank form and I believe we have received I think one other Talent of the position so how how many total applicants do we have I believe at this point we have two okay um and so presumably at our next meeting we might be discussing the applicants so that we can present our recommendations to the select board is that right uh we can do that yep and and also this appointment is going to be a joint appointment from the select board and employment got it I was gonna bring up is there any way um I don't think we need to rush it but on the 14th I believe that's our planning board meeting and the select board will be there for a joint meeting on MBTA communities so is that at all practical to add that to that meeting I think it would be practical you know depended on the number of applicants we get if it stays at two um then I think yeah we can probably put it on that agenda but uh obviously we have a couple more days until it's open and obviously we'll make that decision leading up to that meeting but I I would agree with Kate that it would make sense just to put it on the agenda if everyone's going to be in the same room then and that brings us to the planning office updates um so I can tell you there hasn't been much movement on Whittemore Estates uh we've been back and forth with their attorney to try to iron out what needs to be done from the contractual standpoint and so I think at this point uh I would have to touch base with uh Our Town Council um Ryan Winters who's been kind of spearheading the effort uh and then also our conservation agent we've been dealing with the uh so modern uh issues but no construction has happened uh because number one um the contract that they provided for us to review did not uh do not take care of all the elements that we had concerned over and so there's still discussion going on between the two attorneys and that's where I would uh because that's the update I can give the board at this point no go ahead oh I was just going to ask on that process I I seem to remember there was a 45-day limit to to that and uh where are we on that timeline well that 45 game will limit as expired and we if we decide the town we can move forward uh and take that Bond um I believe because we are still in conversation with the applicant the owner the developer regarding the work that needs to be done I think at this point we are trying to continue to have conversations with them uh to see if they can still maintain the responsibility to get that work done uh but we need to make sure it's going to get that the actual standpoint to to to Talent specifications if that breaks down I think then that's the next step with tile complete um and and I'm reading I'm leaving Our Town Council to make that judgment call yep okay did you have a question that that was uh more more or less my issue and more or less satisfactory answer okay Peter you want to walk through the rest of the planning office hundreds of uh 100 to 130 Chestnut Street continues conjunction I think everyone may have driven by that at this point however um they're still they're important foundation walls and footings uh they built a retaining wall um and so on the Queen Isabella side um and so work continues to progress and uh that's a project that um is continuing to kind of Move Along slowly um the rain had to help any of the projects out here in Nashville here doing elsewhere uh but uh but uh that project is is stable and it's moving forward and that's what I can see oh uh 501 Pond Street uh there's really no update on that project uh besides the um our conservationist Commission in our information region have been out there to do with some inspections I've been out there a couple times um in the conservation uh I believe had some enforcement orders uh regarding some stormwater runoff uh caused by one of those heavy down boards um a couple you know one or two weeks ago so that's the biggest update I could give on that project 3.99 pawns excuse me 399 Newton Street um is the Starbucks project so at this point they have Jack hammered into a whole rammed out the old foundation for the um Walgreens pharmacy and it looks like they uh impacted in that old foundation and so at this point I believe they are looking to start the installation of the underground utilities and the um the the development of the new pad Foundation site and so uh but the obviously the demolition has been complete uh and uh it just continued that that project also just continues to move along I'll just add that and my my daughter has expressed interest in working there when it opens so very random news on that just to get you all to laugh a little bit perfect excellent let them know when they're ready she'll apply I'll pass the word on um there's a lot of excitement in the teenage community of my daughter's friends about the Starbucks you know what there's been for what I understand people are waiting a lifetime and actually first thought about so I think it's exciting uh and that corner is really going to be nice I think uh you know there's a lot of there's a lot of energy around that corner and I think it's really kind of a Satellite Hub to the to the downtown you know the mural component of that project I know Beth and Michael were working on that with our team with our uh Council excuse me our cultural Council um but uh Beth you know we're all deal we're all using some vacation time right now with Town Hall so I haven't update that I can update you maybe on the 14th um that's acceptable uh 12 Pawn Street uh continue to work with massdot and our DPW on the sidewalk installation I know uh Mass duty is still out in that area uh finishing up the roadway um and that continues to move along um however um I I need to get myself an update on that project because it's been a little bit of time but obviously that project's not complete without that sidewalk on the tube side roads and obviously online and that will include any connection to everything and then the last but not least is 10 to 60 Main Street uh complaining board and it's like with the psych board received the email last week from Michael uh Herbert Our Town manager and I just wanted to inform everybody that I have received a throttle letter um which will be on the winning boards continue uh excuse me agenda on September 14th and so it seems like that project is going to explore other permanent Avenues um and uh and and I think that's there's a couple I think I you know a couple of reasons for that of being number one the project that was proposed um two years ago you know that you were working on for four years um is not feasible at this time um regarding construction costs and labor and everything that has happened in the last four years and so I think that's one of the major reasons is that the project that was up on the planning board was um not it was not financiable for elect a better terms uh from a construction standpoint so that's what I've gathered uh through conversations uh and I'll just let that with Gerardo staying on its own however this would be the item on our next agenda on the 14th um and I'll I'll just leave it at that because I know it's not really on our agenda but I just wanted to give everything shed some light to all clinical and then move on without my you know conversations I've had sounds like it'll be something we can discuss at the next meeting in Greater detail yes and as far as applications received anything on that Peter I know we have no new applications and so I think we'll be busy this fall talking about MBTA communities and three bylaws uh and obviously the comprehensive plan which is a huge uh huge element that obviously I'm part of and in the end of your part of as well so I think that will give us some time after uh I'm gonna say 40 Years of Permitting uh we can start to do some uh some greater planning work um after you know even though we've done a lot of grade planning work um with the with the housing instruction plan and the edu communities and uh but this is obviously you know pop plan it's a Once in every 10 to 15 20 years uh situation great and that leaves us with no minutes right nothing to go over there were minutes from June 9th June 29th I'm sorry notice they're not they're not on the amended agenda I forget the agenda though yesterday I'm sorry because Kate uh emailed me I did email the minutes out if we don't want to take these off tonight I'm I plan just to post them tomorrow as a draft just so we can kind of do that um and then obviously we can approve them and or leave them in deeper in detail when that's needed I mean we can definitely do them tonight as long as they're on tonight's agenda I just the email I opened was from yesterday so if they are on the agenda we can certainly do that now at the end of the day yesterday okay brought up to my attention um I just need to find them have other folks had a chance to review them the June 29th minutes you want me to bring them up and share them sure then like I said if we don't feel comfortable doing them but I'm happy just uh no as long as they're on the agenda let's let's move Let's Do It um I I did just find them so uh Peter this this kind of yellow section Sean's comments were inaudible due to horrible Echo at the podium is that kind of kind of standard to have in our minutes uh you know what I'm gonna go back and I mean it adds a lot of a lot of uh flavor to the yeah the visual is really unique you know what Anna let me go back if the planning board's acceptable let me go back and try to read do uh let me look at the the um let me go back and look at the tape and I can try to fill in this line I mean I kind of like horrible echo in the minutes it gives it something different um so it sounds like you're going to take another stab at it before we address the minutes yeah why don't I do that I think obviously it wasn't on the agenda from the get-go I put it on there last night I missed it so why don't I go back through and take a stab at fixing those issues and then um I'll post a draft though so we can stay in compliance so it sounds like we've made it through tonight's agenda um it's now 8 56 and is there a motion to adjourn I'll make a motion to adjourn the meeting thank you and all in favor aye aye I think we need to go do a rolling call right Peter so everyone is in agreement and I think we almost had the shortest meeting ever um almost an hour and a half I hope you all have a lovely evening I don't know what I'm going to do with myself until 10 30.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
so the county office comes out here visits we don't know where they're gonna go they don't visit every building but to come out and we don't know where they're going to go and they come and they uh check buildings so that that 100 in fiscal also includes our buildings maintenance and stuff so you you all should be very proud of that as I am Could you um could you get us the um let's say the last three um scores um I know the first I know the first time I'm not going to put her on the spot but I bet you Janina knows it over the top of her head very close and I'll have a question but before beforehand three ago we we were not high performing yeah that's then we were and the last two were high performing right but that was only because there was an that was a very long time we weren't at a hundred percent in the majority of the areas though there was a and I had presented about this three times ago we lost the majority of our points in curriculum and instruction because the person who came in to evaluate as at the time had put in there was a misnumbered section in this in a science standard and a misnumbered section in one out of 187 guides in World languages and as a result we lost all of our points in curriculum okay just curious to see um again not to put uh keep giving them a pat on on the back but you know the board brought Dr robitosi in for a reason and that just showed you that um and he can't do it alone his staff is all part of that the board working together is all part of that just so the public knows there's a there are um courses that board members have to take to keep themselves current and if the board does not complete those courses that will affect our Cusack so it's extremely important and board members know that that that's their responsibility I have to tell you that I attended at our convention last year and spoke to Other Board presidents they didn't even know that they should be taking these courses they didn't know that they were even required that's happening in other districts in the state of New Jersey it's not happening in Clifton and it's not happening because again going back to our slogan one Clifton none of this can be accomplished by one group it has to be all of us working together and I think under Dr robitussi's leadership we've done a pretty darn good job working together and accomplishing those uh those things so Clifton should be proud Clifton should be proud and and we are extremely proud of our staff in our Central Administration for for proving which we already knew so again thank you Dr robitosi to your staff and to um miss the Llama to all the the teaching staff and you know everyone down the line none of this could be accomplished if we weren't all working together so congratulations on a fantastic report and I'm just curious to see uh what the scores were before you king um we'll move on thank you uh we'll move to 13.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
asba was an amazing non-partisan organization that supported local control and provided invaluable guidance and support to school board members so they could be successful in their board governance it was led by strong ethical individuals that had a pure vision of supporting School Board leadership over the years the supposed non-partisan organization known as asba transformed into an unrecognizable political machine driven by radical left ideals and created more division than unity in regard to school board leadership in our state I was therefore proud that Dysert was a forerunner in severing ties with asba who continued to align with the overarching organization of nsba which referred to our our parents as domestic terrorists I would urge all school board members to read the current article regarding the alleged unethical practices of asba approximately one quarter of the association's revenue comes from Arizona school districts school board members are charged with being good stewards of taxpayer Monies as evidenced by my vote two years ago my conscience would not allow me to continually pay dues to fund the salaries of asba leadership and I furthermore no longer wanted the good name of this District to be associated with what I view as unscrupulous practices I urge all school board members to examine your District's mission and vision statements reflect on the oath that you took when you were sworn into office and decide whether asba is an organization that you choose to feed financially and represent who you are as a board member and as a district thank you that's all I have thank you I also attended the ribbon cutting ceremony at Desert High School field so that was always great to be there they have such good spirit very good team spirit it was just a great atmosphere it was wonderful so that was a pleasure to attend and that is all next we will move on to item e one and with that I will move to approve consent agenda items as presented motion made by Crystal Chapman seconded by Joe Grant motion carries next we will move on to item G1 Dr Credo thank you madam president members of the board tonight we have two presentations to continue our CIP reports and Mr musee will be introducing our schools thank you Madam president members of the board Dr croteau we are going to hear two different continuous Improvement plan reports tonight our first one will be coming from Willow Canyon and the interim proud principle of Willow Canyon and he'll start us off [Music] good evening Madam president members of the governing board Dr crota and cabinet I am Tom ludeman the proud new principal at Willow Canyon High School and I'm excited to be here this evening to share with all of with all of you with the wonderful things that are happening at Willow Canyon High School our school goals and how our work directly aligns with the district governing board goals as you can see last year we experienced a decline in ACT scores across the board from the previous year obviously this is an unacceptable outcome and I aim to outline the steps we take to remedy this situation are as Zella scores data from the other hand is very strong you can see that we've improved year over year and the percentage proficient in our ell populations which resulted in full points being awarded by the state in our letter grade assignment Willow Canyon High School at Willow Canyon High School our primary purpose is to prepare students to be successful academically this aligns with the district's broader goal of equipping students with the knowledge and competencies needed to attain success in higher education and future careers we are committed to nurturing our Wildcats and fostering their growth to achieve these aspirations we have developed a series of strategic action steps Central to our approach our professional learning community structure and collaborative teams there within which will collaborate closely to ensure harmonization of teaching and learning experiences that harmonization will be guided by a thorough understanding of our students needs rooted in our data driven decision making to facilitate the process our teams will undergo specialized training in utilizing specific protocols tailored to their collaborative groups furthermore they will benefit from targeted professional development that caters to their distinct needs by empowering our Educators growth we ultimately empower the growth of our learners our academic goals for the upcoming year in the ELA Math and Science are as such Ela proficiency increase of three percent from 45.5 percent just Foster stronger language arts skills math proficiency we aim for a three percent growth from 39.02 percent in 2223 to enhance our mathematical abilities and in science proficiency we strive to see a five percent Improvement up from 19 in 2223 to strengthen our scientific proficiency our strategic action steps to attain these goals are as such collaborative study groups for ACT boundary math students trailer math classes for credit retrieval and GAP closure comprehensive act preparation and an intensive act boot camp leading up to the exam our ultimate objective encapsulates the interconnection of our student staff and our winning culture at Willow Canyon High School our institution is deeply ingrained in the fabric of our community and it is our aspiration that this identity is consistently mirrored in all of our endeavors are over the preceding years we have witnessed a steady escalation of both parent and teacher satisfaction and our commitment to perpetuate our positive influence within the community by maintaining a satisfaction level of 85 percent or above at all times this year we continue the unwavering commitment to Foster the winning Culture by actively seeking input from parents teachers and students concerning various events and activities at our school the solicitation of feedback will remain a Cornerstone as it guides our efforts to involve and enhance the offerings of the betterment of our students our overall ambition is to elevate Willow Canyon's High School's status to become one of the Premier educational institutions in the state we recognize that this aspiration can only be achieved through the collective support of all stakeholders and we remain steadfast in our focus on the students and families that we are privileged to serve our strategic action steps surrounding this goal include comprehensive customer service training for all front office staff quarterly surveys and action plans student-centric principal student meetings and weekly community events hosted on our site goal number three our Focus shifts to our third goal which centers around attendance and its crucial role in creating necessary circumstances to provide learning environment the aim is to reduce the number of students who think face chronic absenteeism to tackle the challenge we've designated a teacher to spearhead the attendance compliance initiative with coordination with site Administration regular collaboration and data analysis enable us to devise interventions and support structures tailored to each student's individual needs we will Leverage The expertise of our dedicated Personnel to Foster collaboration between teachers families and students the ultimate objective is to chart a course towards Student Success and this goal is aligned with the overarching pursuit of academic excellence and dovetails with the district's commitment to achieve College and Career Success for all recognizing that learning cannot Thrive if a pupil is not present we Endeavor to ensure the presence of our students our strategic action steps aligned with this goal include engaging in chronic absentee students in pre- pre-meetings at the beginning of the year adherence to our attendance protocols strictly as well as semester credit denial and the appeals process to ensure that students are being held accountable this concludes my presentation at this time I will stand for any questions that you may have thank you very much do we have questions could you please talk about that attendance one more time yes ma'am um specific point that you would like me to emphasize there the beginning okay one of the things that we've uh done is we went through our data from last year and we identified a um a group of students who are categorized by the state as chronically absent these are students that Miss more than 10 days per semester that are unexcused by a doctor's note suspension or Student Activity we've taken that list of students and we've identified Target students there within who we believe with some intervention we may be able to change that behavior and we've met with those students in the first week to two weeks of school they are placed on an attendance contract notified of the expectations moving forward what needs to happen when you're out sick because one of the things that we have found is that some of these students are legitimately sick but they're not bringing those doctor's notes into us they're just not following the protocol so therefore they're finding themselves on that attendance list we are finding in these meetings that we have students with exceptional circumstances and we make the appropriate step to make sure that they're supported where that needs to be but essentially the idea is we're emphasizing the fact that you need to be at school every day and if you can't be here you need to have a good reason why you're not the second step to that is then we mail letters at the fifth absence we mail letters at the eighth absence at the 10th absence they meet with an administrator and their classes are closed until the parent meeting is set up and so we're making sure that we're going through all the appropriate steps as outlined by our student handbook and that we're being consistent with that with each student once that happens if they continue to miss then they're placed in a credit denial situation where they have to come into an appeals and we have a board that meets with them at that point at the end of the semester and reviews kind of where they've been through the whole process and the idea here really is initiating conversations with kids sooner rather than later so that we they know the expectation thank bye did I understand you stand directly person that's that's coordinating this whole thing as a teacher yes ma'am we took two sections of our you know a signed teaching assignment and we have assigned that person to work in the office alongside Miss lamazo who works with our attendance folks and so she's overseeing that he's meeting with those students along with Administration and he is this kind of the person who's coordinating a lot of those efforts yes ma'am yeah and it's within our allocation so we didn't ask for anything above and beyond we made sure it made it work with what we had okay yes ma'am any other questions I actually have a question and I appreciate the fact that you're you're interim I understand that but um just in regard to the decline in ACT scores have you determined um any information as of yet regarding the cause just so you can develop very specific intentional interventions to help increase those scores again absolutely um there are a couple of pieces we think that led to that primary amongst them this last group of students that we tested had not seen a state assessment since they were in seventh grade we don't feel as though our ACT prep or our act boot camp was done well if I'm just being perfectly candid and so these were kids who maybe had some knowledge but didn't display it in the way that we would have expected because they didn't interact with the test in in a regular way so being is that if you look at our strategic plan there and our action steps there's half of our of our piece there is making sure that they are comfortable with the exam we show that our current group of Juniors that have moved up matriculated through our system we know where they're at we know which kids are are boundary sitters we have placed some of those students specifically in mathematics in a collaborative study group method for twice a week where they're getting additional support we've got kids taking extra sections of mathematics outside of the school day so that they can catch up in those trailer courses because we do see that they have holes so there's a couple of pieces going on there and the bottom line in all of it if I'm being 100 candid is we are focusing really heavily on good tier one instruction because if we're not teaching them the math that they're learning now it doesn't matter if we've closed the hole that they had prior to that so there's a multi-faceted approach to it we know where each of those kids are with our Benchmark data aligned with the ACT we have multiple steps there and we have some projections to where some of those students are are tracking whether they're going to make those thresholds or not and we're providing interventions for those individual groups depending on where they fall in that in that Spectrum so do you feel like willow also struggles with tier one instruction everybody struggles with tier one instruction yeah 100 um you know I think that that we've made a real Focus over the last uh two or three years to identify uh learning intention and success criteria what do I want you to learn how do I know if you learned it I think we're at that point and so the piece that I think where our next step is is it's establishing some common formative assessments where we're then looking at what's been learned and adjusting instruction um you know three or four years ago there was a lot of teaching that was focused on activity or on material not on learning not on outcome I feel much better that we are clear about intentional learning and that we are clear about outcome now it's a matter of what adjustment happens so that we're addressing those those areas that didn't get covered and that's our next step at Willow Canyon in my opinion and you feel comfortable letting the district know if there if you need any extra assistance to make sure your tier one gets going Dr crota gets phone calls from me all hours of the night perfect thank you it's like it's paid the big bucks [Laughter] any other questions um just a quick one the the um the survey for the parents yes ma'am what is do you know what the current um percentage is we were at 84.6 on the last time and so that was one where we've been predominantly over 85 percent okay we saw a slight decline in parent survey um part of what we believe there was a part of that in in our opinion was that we had a relatively low return on survey this last year um you know anytime you send out a parent survey you get one of two flavors parents that are super happy and parents that are really unhappy and the ones that are kind of doing okay tend to not respond um and so we're doing some things to try and initiate we feel like we're really good at one-way communication we send stuff out we let them know what's happening we invite them onto campus but we haven't done a very good job of soliciting feedback back um and so we're working on a couple of pieces there one of which is going to be some personalized emails to parents from me each week especially specifically our freshman parents we want to engage them let them know that we know their kid that we care about their kid ask them how they're doing um and you know what what our feedback has been on that or my feedback has been on that so far I've done it one week is that most of the emails back are like hey thanks for checking in we appreciate it it's been pretty you know they just feel happy that somebody cares I think um and it's not the normal canned email no right it's yeah it's the uh it's specific I see there you know in this extracurricular activity or they've got this math teacher how is that going for them that kind of thing um and they've been pretty positive responses um I've gotten one so far that was hey I'm really having a problem now that you've reached out please help me with that that's great because now we can address some of those needs and some of those concerns and my focus this year is on our freshman class I think most of our upperclassmen know me pretty well I've been there four years so our seniors all I know all they know of me is that I've been the athletic director but our freshmen are brand new they don't know anybody and the indict the idea there is by the end of the year I will have connected with every parent of every kid on our campus at the ninth grade level that's amazing and impressive thank you yes ma'am thank you any other questions thank you very much thank you Mr musee you can continue thank you our next presentation will be coming from Asante Preparatory Academy miss Emily Dean and she is the proud principal that has some great information to share with us good evening for Madam president board members Dr Grotto I can't sneak up on anybody right now so my big old boot so I'm here today to present on Asante I'm proud to do so I also can't seem to adjust the mic so I'm gonna try one more time I'm just gonna hold it like this okay so as you can see we're going to start out with our AZ um PSI and our aasa results last year we did see an increase across the board we're very proud of that we did not see the rates of proficiency that we were hoping to see although we did see an increase across we were very impressed that's not listed up here but we did see an increase in highly proficient in all of those areas as well which we are tracking separately which you'll see in our goal as well because we want to make sure we're not just crossing more kids over to proficiency but also over into that highly proficient category which is a focus for us as well we did which is not totally reflected up here though just to be very honest with you our eighth grade science was not as strong as our fifth grade science was so that is an area of focus in our individual planning for this year as well as our overall fourth grade math is a strong area of a focus for us it was not as strong as some of our other areas of math which you don't see in the overall role up here but just to be honest when you're digging down deep into the data arazella to be honest with you looks pretty good when you look at it up here it is a very different picture though when you look 21 to 22 23 our population is changing quite a bit as you may know when you're looking at enrollment numbers and so I was looking this morning because I was kind of like looking at it in our 2021 a Zella number and our 22 23 is all a number like I think we have the total number in like K4 now was like our total Azalea total of K8 and that number so you can look at that data but I'll be honest it's not maybe as showing really the growth it is we really have to dig down Kid to Kid to really see where we are growing and not growing um with the azola so we are monitoring that heavily we are moving our kids especially in the primary when we look at it at that level so these are our goals for the year we have three goals um as most of the schools do our first one is focused on our growth in aasa so we are looking to gain at least that five percent in proficiency across the board in all areas as you'll note we're also looking to increase our highly proficient in each area by five percent as well so we want to look at both of those pieces as we're moving forward we're also looking to continue to grow you this has been a continuous growth goal for us since we opened one of the things that we feel as a community is very important is providing ways for our parents and our students to be involved in our community so one of the things I'm glad to see as a feeder school we have in common is that two-way communication piece going and we think the best way to get parents and kids involved is to have things for them to do at our school that interests them so we're continuing to grow those and then our last one is to reduce student referrals so continuing to work on pieces for that so in order to do those these are some of the action steps we want to take so for goal one we're going to continue to work on our teacher Clarity plans so we've been focused for a number of years at Asante on not just objectives for kids but learning intentions and success criteria so kids can accurately see what it is to be successful in the classroom every day and they can self-assess what they can do and what they can't do in every lesson so that's very important for us and for our teachers for them to be able to do that we're going to continue work with that we're going to focus our PLC work on not only tier 2 PLC which is that Focus work on Intervention planning like what's going on in intervention but also in our tier one plc's where our plcs are talking not only necessarily in grade levels but also cross-grade levels on Common Thread areas to talk about areas we've seen that are things we need to talk about so like informational writing what does that look like fourth grade to fifth grade fifth grade to sixth grade so we can start having those conversations to continue that growth across the board we're also going to be working on getting kids in more real world experiences in their learning it's really important to get kids not only to be able to learn in the classroom but to transfer that to those real world experiences so often we get them to the level yes they can complete it on a sheet but will they be able to apply it to a real world problem so that's what we're going to be working toward and then building that culture of growth mindset and student self-efficacy so that focus on them being able to assess where they are in their learning and knowing that it's not about being perfect it's about where I am personally and how I get to that next level so for goal two we're going to be focusing on again that creation of clubs and activities that's something we've been doing you've heard me talk about I think you heard me talk about it may we're continuing to do that we continue to add things every year that our kids are interested in we just had a great meeting right this afternoon after school that was just talking about our new readers theater Club expansion that the kids were very started last year in a couple of grade levels that were expanding further this year and then our increase in parent involvement in school programs so our literacy night planning meeting was a part of what we were talking about today so we're talking about in conjunction the clubs and activities but also the things we can do for our parents to help bring them in and make them feel a part of our school um and then for goal three if you'll remember that goal was focused on reducing our referrals we're looking at our implementation of our school-wide behavior management plan so that's that focus on our common expectations at our school we have our Ranger reports so kids are focused on their professionals and our unprofessionals and on our primary grades we call them their um their try agains and their good jobs um and then our we're creating a new recess peer mentoring program where older kids can come down to primary recesses and help coach kids on you know those little life lessons when you're learning in kindergarten how to share balls and how to make friends and what you do when you know your friend wants to play with a new friend for the first time and you're trying to figure out how all that works and then last but not least the implementation of differentiated supports through RTI so that's a continual process that we'll be working on through that piece um and with that being said I'll stand for any questions you might have [Music] thank you very much do we have any questions okay of course it might be three no um what is your um enrollment right now as of this morning I don't know I have I stopped looking about two weeks ago I was getting a little don't want to look anymore I think we're sitting if you don't count Pre-K around a thousand fifty if anybody's got enrollment comparison up with preschool that's another 70-ish kids AM PM so 11 something and change and with the growth out there of more to come yes sorry um you talked about wanting to get parents more involved with things that interest them yes how are you going to do that could you just talk about how you're going to find out what interests them or so what we find is I feel like parents want to be involved in their kids education I think that there's a few blocks that stop them first number one is time so we try to plan things that are in time frames where people can get involved in different ways so we've tried to do some night things that are community events that you know if a family has you know they work they're not going to be able to come to something we have during the school day so we've done things like donuts with the principal and things like that that may work if you work a different set of hours and we do a morning event you might be able to come to that you might not be able to come to that you know some parents can come and they can eat lunch with their kids and that's great we try to invite them in for things like that but then we also try to have night events we try to do things where maybe you can't do that but you want to be involved in learning more about how to read with your child or things like that so we do take take away home things that they can do I think that one of the things that's hard for some of the members of my school community and I think I could speak for other school communities that feed into Willow is sometimes parents didn't have a great school experience themselves and so that holds them back from wanting to be involved and so we want to create things that make them feel invited in like maybe you didn't have a great experience but just come on in and have fun and do this with your kids and it might be a great time so that's like our literacy night we used to do it like we had parent rooms where you could like it was very parent University like learn about how to read with your child and if you're very intimidated about that that wasn't very fun and so what we've started to do is we do this really fun activity where they can do something fun with their child and then we have like a little thing with that goes with it like this was really fun wasn't it and you could do this at home and it's just a takeaway and it's real fun and we've had a lot of positive feedback from doing things like that so then they have a positive experience they remember this fun thing and then it's something fun they can do and this year we're even going to build a website like with a QR code that they can take with them so then they can have that to go home with them so be happy to share that after we get it created that's the vision that came out of today's meeting we'll see if I can pull it off we can pull it off I should say we I'm not tech savvy but yeah somebody said QR code and I'm like somebody on this team can create a QR code and I can create a website I know I can do that I really appreciated your presentation and the time that you put into giving very detailed like specifics on what you're doing I know you mentioned that um your scores aren't where you'd like them but as you said you're growing you're showing growth and that's the main thing and I specifically liked your comment regarding um just not just focused on getting the kids to proficient that even moving those highly proficient I mean that's always harder to show the growth once you're already up there so I appreciate your Insight on that as well so thank you for everything you're doing thank you um I just had a maybe a question um around the goal three the strategy two creation of recess peer mentoring program how do you select the mentors so we let kids decide if they wanted to apply okay so they decided we put it on the announcements they decided I'll be honest it's a very interesting group that some kids are kids that have had challenges themselves with some of the things that they applied for then they get to go to a training they have to sign a contract so because they won't miss like one 15-minute period of Class A week and they have to their parents have to sign off that they're going to miss that they're going to make up the work it rotates when they'll miss it so they won't always miss the same thing they have to be responsible to do it um and then if they fall and they don't do that they have to keep their teacher recommendation then they won't be able to stay in the program so we're real excited it'll be the first time we've done it so we'll see how the bumps go but the kids are really excited about it I will be honest they've just started getting trained and they have their little vests and all of that and we're very excited for them because to be honest with you the littles really look up to the big kids um and it'll be interesting because I really think that some of our big kids will actually learn from working with little kids how to do some of that stuff yeah that was my I guess my where I was going with that I think it's really just as important for the older kids to have that experience especially maybe those that have had the challenges like you said so yeah we had a couple of kids apply and a couple of people came to me and they're like do you think they just I said you know what let's let them try because to be honest with you it might be very good because even the training itself is going to be a learning experience for them because the questions they have to go through are very like so tell me about like let's talk it's your turn to talk now it's your turn to talk and then and then they go through a step and then like if hopefully it gives them the tools to change their own behavior especially as they get into the into High School correct just dealing with conflict I think that's really critical so thank you I'll keep you posted okay you can come out and see it in action maybe around December if you want I think they'll be rolling by then really well cute so yeah thank you very much thank you I was supposed to pass this to somebody okay next we will move on to item G2 Dr Credo thank you madam president members of the board cabinet guests uh tonight we bring you the update on enrollment and Staffing for the 23-24 school year as requested at the last board meeting from a member Grant and I believe member Dinsmore had some input so we're here to present that to you tonight um and Dr polling will be doing the presentation Dr pulley thank you madam president members of the board Dr crotto cabinet and audience it's my pleasure to talk about enrollment and staffing has everyone's been working very hard in preparation for the school year here's the current enrollment as of 10th day and it's a comparison over last year I'll just go down to the total for pre-k 12 a year ago we were at 23 078 students this year we have an increase to 23 304.
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and then the last one we always look at our peer schools those schools most like us across the whole state in size and demographics and we continue to stay up in that that top part and honestly the difference between School number two and us is very small there's not a lot of um we're really tight that run in a pretty tight race there right at the at the top so you know are some of the players there they switch positions in it right field they did they did um Plainfield um had been higher last year also and Dune land and Valparaiso have moved up and I know um we're already starting to ask questions about that's what you do right what'd you do what's going on differently that big conversation we've had and I appreciate this board's support of saying continually seeking Improvement but also knowing who we are and what we want for our kids and your very whole child centered that um one thing shouldn't be put about some of the other important things for kids in their development and other Opera we offer so many opportunities here that you value and support and say just keep getting keep trying to get better and I think I've heard you say before you know educating the whole child educating you know whatever strengths whatever weaknesses trying to not just focus on test scores but focus on the kind of the holistic approach yeah if I misstated it I'm not trying to I'm excited to see more and more what kids are able to do at the minute they walk out our door lots are going to continue to go to four-year colleges to your trade schools but there are so many kids that are going out right now and getting really good jobs um and we're even looking at some more things to bring this year to increase the number of those programs we have I ask a question about you know trying to track a third grade class trying to track you know all the way through eighth is that a table in the future we could see just so that we could see if like year over year each year if that because a couple of these if I'm looking at it right looks like there might have been a significant dip from for instance I'm on Page Six from 2022 into 2023 from like sixth to seventh grade now I know it could be the test was harder it could be a lot of different things but just kind of to track not only how each third grade class but just if we can see anomalies things that and I would say in the data they're looking at that but you also when you look at how fifth graders to sixth graders compare that state average is way different every year unfortunately fewer and fewer kids are at proficiency that's not okay all right but but it's just trying to recognize who they are and having the right instruction for that so when when I look at that trend on slide six is there has and obviously this is a problem across the state as you can see the data yeah you know from third grade to eighth grade there's a significant dip in in the uh percentage there is there any hasn't been any study or work on that even at a state level as to why there's such a drop off between third and eighth grade in terms of passing rates do we have any idea as to the I would say you know back when I first got in the business here and came to and I was at the Middle School and we were achieving that was that when it was istabbed there was a little change to the test if you don't need to go back but on the slide I think in like 2014 the test changed a little and we got into the 80s slowly getting back up to 90s there's a big difference in our standards from 2019 and this test that we now use with with iLearn it's it's not easy at any grade level and it just keeps getting harder and harder the math that we're asking our students to do and it's not the wrong thing to do it's just it's very um very rigorous gestures written differently every year right um there's four math studies but the format stays the questions are different yes because they the state uses a vendor that bets the questions and it should be pretty consistent from year to year it should be yeah yeah I mean I don't I'm not I'm not a test maker so I can't really yeah know that but um there are you know sort of asking the same questions year after year um which wouldn't be helpful which would be fun news have to a fire in places of features it is a um it's not a Norms test it's a Criterion test so it's needing a standard instead of seeing how kids fall so I'm sorry Jack go ahead 100.
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um no idea thank you have a good night take care bye
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all right we have first reading of uh policy uh Miss Pastor you just want to read them for the public um oh zero zero one four five board member resignation and removal 1642.01 sick leave two four one five point five oh um school for it title School parent and family engagement two four one five point five one school 11 title School um School parent and family engagement two five two four one five point four two school 12 school 13 School 14 School 15 and School 17 School parent and family engagement two five one five point five seven CCMS Title One School parent and family engagement two four one four one nine I'm sorry two four one nine I'm in a lot of pain right now um School threat assessment um I'm sorry do we know could you what why are there not why are all the schools not there because they're not Title One schools are just that okay these are all the title one schools yes I got you yep I see it any question well actually that's first reading any questions all right we'll go on to um board committee reports um Mr Paris would you mind uh doing facilities please sure uh the facilities committee met on August 9th uh Independence was myself Mr gengaro uh Mr Maldonado Mr doctor Mr marcione Mr capacci and we had uh guests in attendance Mr Costello Mr Watkins Mr Oviedo and Mr ganchi we started our meeting at 3 30 we ended at 4 50.
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so we're pleased to see that a lot of the increases in pre-k and that's promising so hopefully uh they're staying our system next year our Kinder numbers will have a nice bump and then we have a slight decrease in K8 and a slight increase in high school overall we're pleased with these numbers and they came in very close to projections so thanks to our planning administrator for his great work he projected these numbers back in January I believe so HR is focused on hiring not only all year round but once January kicks in we're really focused on hiring for a new school year put total employees hired since January 31 and I included certified hires and transfers so like certified hires 186 transfers 115. the reason I do that is we're always working very hard to hire new staff but we also make it attractive for people who want to stay in Dysart but maybe they want to look at a new job and we post all jobs those folks can apply for a transfer and they go back through HR through the hiring process they get interviewed recommended and we believe it's a service to our employees to offer those transfers so we look at those as as hires for a new year and you can see we have very good numbers of transfers and again very good numbers of certified classified licensed hires so all in all almost 600 staff who HR is really working hard with to onboard to bring into our system and and to serve our our students there's our total employee count overall certified classified licensed and again we're working hard just to support those staff foreign requested some specific vacancy information and so here's High School teaching vacancies as of 8 14.
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what is a realistic percentage that we should be hitting I I honestly just want to see Us increasing those numbers every year until we get to the point where we feel like we are really getting all kids there um I mean obviously even when you pointed to Brownsburg they have over 30 percentage points also to get to all right so it's this is not a this is a multi-year decades work to do everyone goes back to No Child Left Behind when we were two keeping that percentage closer and closer every year right and States didn't just get people kids there but I'm okay having lofty goals to reach to the nice thing is with the different graduation pathways well if we can continue to keep kids tracking toward being proficient and getting them a little closer to that every year and they get to high school and we do have all these great options a lot of them have very high interest for kids they can meet those Pathways often in you know they get their academic requirements then they get to really get into those courses that they love and so that those Pathways to careers as well as College um are setting kids up have those really high quality of life for high school that we want for them and then on the irie data I mean obviously I'm fundamentally concerned about the steady drop in 2021-22 and 23.
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uh items on discussion where the referendum update uh we got a review from the Epic rep of what's taking place so far in the referendum and what's taking place throughout the rest of the year we discussed the baseball field uh electrical that's still in process uh was it expected to be completed until the middle of this month due to PSEG permits I believe we're very close to uh getting some power to the field house there bathrooms will be operable for graduation um building a ground updates Administration gave an update of projects taking place throughout the district donated Mustangs were delivered and installed Paving took place at two schools with new parking patterns cooking kitchens at Woodrow and Columbus are near completion tiles and color scheme will be similar to the CH to CHS for uniformity stucco was removed at school 13 and being replaced making great progress there request to rent the CHS parking lot came from Brighton Asylum they explained uh the parking process that they are looking uh to accomplish at CHS and if the board allows the use of the parking lot uh the management there gave an in-depth explanation as to how that process will work um number four Embrace relief a mobile food pantry that now provides fresh produce to families in collaboration with the health department and notifying the families in need we discussed the music suite update an estimate was given by our by our architects of between 1.7 and 2 million and a school 14 parking lot the parking lot is complete repaving an older lot was completed a new traffic pattern will be proposed by building Administration meeting concluded at 4 50.
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um we have two academic interventions at Dysart high but then you can see ESS resource and science are other main needs and um that was definitely a focus throughout the District of hiring those folks Kate teaching vacancies some primary teachers some art but then again math and interventionists are the other ones that um that remain vacant other vacancies besides social workers you know again a big emphasis on ESS and that is an ongoing recruitment effort partnering with ESS partnering with PR to recruit and fill those positions just a long list of other vacancies that we have whether classified Community Ed and ESS transportation and so again HR is working with those directors working with PR to recruit and hire for those positions recruiting efforts so what are we doing in terms of trying to hire and fill our positions first HR is a partnership with PR and they're great Partners everything revolving around the digital media and newspaper and print PR is a great partners and they collect lots of data on how our work is going last year we had increased Dysart Career Fairs to three and those are annual every July December and March and work with PR and putting those in the newspaper we'd know that over time most of our staff live in our community and so we work hard to Market and recruit to our community and we feel like having somewhere they can walk in get interviewed and get the hiring process started right away is attractive and so we'll continue to do those this year we did Career Fairs around the state whether it's up at NAU Ade across the valley last year we did 12 total and we are working to increase that this year in terms of digital marketing geofence digital ads as well as digital media and they're all listed there lots of ads that are created by PR and and pushed out and to attract people who are looking for jobs whether they Google them or whether they pop up on ads on their digital device tablet or phone and last year we had over 550 000 clicks so the ads are getting seen and so we're trying to attract people to then go on and apply to our jobs again print media surprise independent we run ads with them particularly on our Career Fairs and then with the connect and the achiever that PR sends out we have Billboards whether sometimes three or three sometimes 101 depending on on the time of the year and what we're doing we had one in Northern recently which was very nice looking down by Luke Elementary School our district website and social media again very active in making it easy to apply for jobs and click and see what's available and uh and apply for those Dr wiefridge worked last year to iron out some Kinks so that when we post jobs on our district website they automatically go to LinkedIn School spring indeed and we could tell that's working because when people apply we say how did you hear about us and a lot of times they'll put indeed or LinkedIn and so that's been a positive as well we also apply to other job boards such as Ade and or asbo and again just to try to get an Outreach to hire staff and lastly the board approved employee referral program and this past year we had 52 on the employee referral program but since it was an Inception in 2021 242 staff have received that employee referral so thanks for the board for their um support of that effort sorry for my speech tonight I'm a little under the weather so with that I'll take any questions thank you Dr polling do we have any questions go ahead thank you Dr Pauling and thank you for putting this together really do appreciate it am I reading this correctly that we only have 11 teacher openings yes vacancies that are not filled correct and that does not include correct okay correct some of our some of our previous vacancies do have a long-term sub and those are and those are not included there so yeah great job thank you it's a good number so thank you so much of course I'm just curious um what is the employee referral bonus amount uh if someone gets hired and puts their name in then after and they stay three months they get 250 dollars if they stay three more months they the employee gets another 250 dollars okay remember that's been continuing since its Inception we track that data in HR because they have to put their name on there right the other thing I know that um at some points we had like hiring other different hiring incentives for different positions I know we had one maybe like for for bus drivers or something is that correct we had something like a hiring incentive it wasn't an employee referral bonus we have been some some incentives we have like the board increased um the stipend for ESS teachers to three thousand dollars so that is a type of hiring incentive that we offer that we offer to recruit people that if you sign up then there's a three thousand dollar hard to fill stipend so we have those types of incentives fifteen hundred dollars for math or science so those types of things uh probably two years ago when Dr crotto worked um overseeing you know recruiting and Staffing he brought to the Border proposal to increase bus driver pay to 20 an hour which is now higher and and so that was a main recruiting effort for bus drivers I was thinking prior to that we had like a hiring stipend as well no not that I'm aware of okay maybe that was discussed I can't remember um just looking for I guess maybe for an opinion I know we've struggled with bus drivers for a long time what do you find to be maybe the biggest challenge in in hiring for those positions one of my main goals this year is I'm overseeing Transportation this school year so I'm working with director Doug Curry talked with him about that just the other day it's a little bit of a struggle we see drivers come and go so we'll train them and they leave and so we're you know competing with other organizations that need drivers with CDL and so it's just a challenge as we train them sometimes they leave he feels like we're in a better position than we have been in the past we do have 10 openings but we do have a class coming through and so anticipate that closing soon Madam president member Densmore with the bus drivers also you have to remember it's a split shift so it takes a special individual because they do the work in the morning they have to wait a while and then they come back in the afternoon to work so it's not a complete continuous work day so it takes a special individual that has that time or is willing to do that time and split that time so like Dr polling said we're doing some focus groups with them this year coming up real soon and going to get some feedback from them as as how we can make things better because we know that our kids cannot get to school if they don't pick them up and do that so you know that's the very as I talked to him this year that's the very very first important thing is they pick the students up and they bring them to us that we can teach and they can learn so we're anxious to talk with them and figure out those those things that can help thank you so in regard to the bus drivers being 10 short how are we compensating for that and making sure that our kids get to school on time or are they getting to school on time and we are tracking are they on time and so that's data that I could bring at a future time um he will has needed a hill pole um the driver trainers that are available and um to fill in and plug those caps and so um you know we're working he's working on any staff that can help drive a bus to make sure that kids are on time and so okay so really there's there's people in a lot of those positions it's not bus drivers correct okay and then um the only other comment I have that I guess would still technically hopefully tie into this agenda item in regard to just the vacancy piece of it in regard to the parapros being down 19 and ESS I know you know you had mentioned how the board really pushed for that increase in stipend for our special ed teachers but I don't know what we can do to to fill those vacancies we I mean I guess maybe that would also maybe be a budget question too because I'll tell you having been in those classrooms and ESS those those people get beat on and injured and hurt and we don't pay them enough I mean nobody should have to endure that in my opinion in a job but I understand and they go in understanding that it can happen and you know we try to set them up for Success the best we can but um for sure you're not going to find people that are going to do it for that wage and I know we try to negate that by having the what the different tiers well and the um the special ed Behavior text right that get paid a little bit more than a regular parapro but I don't know hopefully that's something that maybe I don't know what the budget or creatively somehow we can look at what we can do I think it's going to have to be financially in my opinion but to get that number down because to me that also represents you know concerns for classroom management it means certain children may not be getting serviced the way they need to be per their IEP or behavior plan and so I hope that's a priority absolutely thank you I agree with Miss Pritchard I think it's definitely a conversation worth having because I know some of the concern with our Paras is they need work in the summer they they don't get paid enough to where they can split up their paychecks in the summer but they'll end up going to get summer jobs and then those summer jobs will be just as much money if not more and so then they don't return so I don't know if maybe we need to have a conversation about a solution to offer some sort of summer employment I don't know maybe through Community Ed or um you know I'm not sure but I feel like we at least need to have a conversation about that absolutely thank you thank you are these pair of the ESS parapositions are they primarily um high school or K-8 or a good mix of both I don't have the information but I can get that for you okay um just I you know I don't I don't know if this is just happens to be at my son's school or not but I know that they were short on a few different positions not just Paras but but others and I know that there was a concerted effort to recruit parents that were maybe already volunteering in the school um I don't know if that's something that we could do at every school and obviously not all parents are going to be eligible or you know for that sort of thing but I wonder if that is a possibility or a different approach we could take and maybe it's already being done but if it's not maybe we can look at that thank you absolutely we'll follow up on that thank you any other questions comments thank you Dr polling thank you Dr Credo next we will move on to item H1 Dr Cordo thank you madam president members of the board cabinet guests uh tonight we're proud to present to you a recommendation for the position of uh director of safety operations for the district as you know from OAS board meeting this is a brand new position in our increased focus on safety creating our own Department of Safety and this person is going to run that so tonight we are recommending Mr Jason Yeager for the assignment for the 23-24 school year you're very well familiar with Mr Yeager he currently is our safety coordinator for Dysart Unified School District but I think you know as you hired him before but he has a Master's in psychology from the University of Phoenix he has extensive Safety and Security experience as well as 20 years with the Department of Public Safety and and we are very well very lucky to have him and he's doing a fantastic job and we are proud to present him tonight to you for the position of director of safety operations thank you Dr Credo do we have any questions with that I will move to approve the appointment of Jason Yeager as director of safety operations motion made by Crystal Chapman seconded by Christine Pritchard motion carries congratulations Mr Yeager congratulations next we will move on to request for future agenda items do we have any Miss Grant um I don't think it's going to be an agenda item but it's a reporting request so I know we get the suspension report but I'd like to see the unexcused absent report um because I'm I'm going to be curious now to see how it starts out and through all of these things that you're doing um how it's working that I would just like to see the uh in the weekly or your weekly reports if you could share with that please I will get on that I'm sure we can add that on there thank you any others okay thank you next we have a call for executive session pursuant to ARS section 38-431.03 A3 and 38-431.0388 for the purpose of discussion or consideration of school safety operations and programs to obtain legal advice regarding the same at this time I moved to establish an executive session motion made by Crystal Chapman said goodbye Ms Grant Joe Grant yes to be done close it motion carries
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are we going to are we going to be allowed to continue to test the second graders moving forward is that going to be now and every your thing or is this just uh the state allowed us to do it trying to based on where we were coming out of covet um I assume that they'll want to continue doing this okay um the year before we opted not to honestly um part of it was timing and it was a decision we've had that choice we hadn't even had a chance to have a discussions okay with our teachers before we could have to say yes or no um so we ended up not um seeing the data this year though I'm being pretty excited about how well our second graders did and knowing then the impact on what we can do for those kids who aren't there yet I I'm more excited about that than I than anything else and being able to test the second graders I mean you've put a goal of 95 percent in for the third grade do we have have we established a goal for the second grade at this point are we still no no I would almost rather not have one to be honest because that's it's a practice test well I don't have any problems with that either I was just asking I didn't and you have to after her left we get scores back for the second graders and they either passed right they're on track or they're not so of that percentage that didn't lots and lots of those kids a high percentages are on track to pass already so we just need to do whatever we were going to do in third grade and they'll get there because we see that we do well with just what we've been doing every year we'll really get to hone in on those kids who aren't on track who need something extra they need to grow more than a grade level this year to be able to pass our kids who are maybe in a special program um uh English not English non-english language speakers um or our special education students that we can have a lot better data to see what we need to do to get them there they're the same for both second and third grade or are they well hopefully with the second graders taking it now we'll see a bump in the third grade because the second grade's almost a practice test and then we can see where the Gap is yeah they've already they already count that that percentage those kids don't have to they don't take it again in third grade yeah I missed that yeah they're done 34 that practiced good practice yes they've taken it once and there is a lot of value to preview yeah we all know that see what that I can't imagine taking sat for the first time and not know what that was going to look like so as a third grader foreign any other questions no I do I would have just like compliment uh I appreciate that your statement of we educate the whole student not just you know that one thing about them we want them graduate is rounded uh educated students so I appreciate that and and I appreciate our uh our uh the doe now has it the graduates prepared to see the dashboard and it does include more data than that it has attendance on there because just showing up every day means something right yeah um and I learn art testing scores but then it also has um they're gonna we're gonna be able to start tracking some of those employability skills too the news about more than just being able to take tests and the dashboard will show where we're at on all of those different measures too and that also is ahead to my action item for later very good right thank you Dr Hoover all right next up public comments and I'm assuming we have none wonderful next up is the consent agenda do I have a motion Mr President I move that we approve the consent agenda we have a motion and a second are those any discussion all those in favor signify by saying aye motion passes five zero thank you I'll ask Dr Taylor to introduce to you some some of our folks today got uh two administrative appointments the board just approved and we're proud to introduce them Mr Craig Butler is here from Center Grove Elementary I mean he didn't even something else Johnson super excited for that time to come thank you [Applause] Olivia press oh do you have someone with you yeah go ahead I do have somebody with me can I drag him along this is my husband Tristan welcome so he will be at all the PTO events all right thank you and I'm also pleased to recognize Olivia Preston she'll stand up Olivia's going to be our new Dean at Middle School Central she's been working as a social studies teacher for us she's starting her 10th year with Center Grove schools we're just going to be more excited to have her and she has a familiar face with her too that I'll let her introduce foreign [Applause] yes thank you okay next up under action items um we as you noticed earlier we took the multi-purpose facility off the agenda we have some logistical things we need to to get resolved in plan to put that back on the agenda next month so we will those issues resolved next up is 8.2 employability skills survey Dr arcanov thank receiving I'm recommending that the board approves the employability skills survey and Dr Hoover will provide you with some additional information Indiana these are skills for mindset learning strategies and work ethic and those are mostly developed in the classroom setting there's also social emotional skills that are taught explicitly by our SEL counselors in K-5 and during homeroom for middle school and small groups for high school as well as reinforced by our classroom teachers as the graduates prepare to succeed GPS initiative requires schools to teach and monitor employability skills we need to collect data to ensure that our schools are being responsive to the needs of our students and measuring these indicators in addition to providing an opportunity for student voice Center Grove will no longer be partnering with Panorama therefore all assessments will be given via Google forms and is accessible only by Senator Grove staff more importantly and this process keeps our student level data local and provides an Avenue to show proficiency for the state GPS dashboard skills our schools will offer an opt-out choice if approved are Monday on Monday August 28th families would receive District communication that provides information about the employability skills assessments including the student questions that will be available to them and explain the process for opting out parents would submit opt-out requests via a Google form by Friday the 8th of September in order to opt their child out additionally all of our student questions will be available online for parents to preview grade level data will be used to formulate school-wide support from the counseling department in addition to providing anticipated state required proficiency student level data will be used for students who may need additional support in tier one or tier 2.
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okay any questions yeah I have two I'm sorry the two schools that have new parking traffic patterns which I know when you said 14 but what's the other school Paving taking place at two schools with new parking patterns that was under two a number two are you changing the parking pattern no we just uh okay repaid and then repainted the lines okay so it's only one and the other one was um when uh because I know we had talked about the um parking lot a rental for the Brighton Asylum policy this came up are they going to um my question is are they going to have a parking attendant there to make sure that rules are followed and who set the price of the of the rental I could I could answer that um we we set the price to the rental okay uh it's still in negotiation with we haven't presented it to them yet okay um our security the owner there it was open to basically anything we want to do whether they provide their own security or they use ours um I think our preference is to use ours if at all possible so they would be somebody for more uh Security Department managing the lot and during the operation time and we also talked in policy about a maintenance maybe a custodial staff member because people come with stuff they drop stuff and that we were concerned about that as well yeah so Mr gengaro is going to update us and okay an executive on that since it's a contract all right thank you he has it all but um we did address that in policy with one of them we do rentals thank you any other questions um it'll come back to me on the first part of what you said um I'll come back to it uh Mr Brunswick would you do Finance please the finance committee met on August 9th uh myself commissioner Paris uh Mr gengaro Mr shahada Mr doctor uh Mr D Stefano and Mr shagawa was there as well items of discussion and 27 energy presentation presented different options to the board can that can utilize to save money after the ref after the referendum is complete the committee agreed to have them proceed to the next steps Special Olympics discussion ensued about Special Olympics Logistics committee agreed to waive the fee I'm going to move around over here a little bit Legacy acoustic shells CHS CHS Administration and Man team wanted to purchase the equipment to enhance the sound during the performances the expected life the expect the life expectancy of this is is a is a probably around two decades or three decades so uh the committee agreed to purchase this Band Room estimate was given by the art architect of 1.7 to 2 million dollars committee agreed to have the architect proceed to the next steps and finally I want to give a big shout out to our business office as Dr Robert tozzi referenced previously they received the certificate of excellence in financial reporting for fiscal year 2022 annual comprehensive financial report and the business office received the coveted award for the best financial practices and this award represents a significant achievement and reflects their commitment to transparency and high quality financial reporting so this is out of the five out of the last six years the business office has obtained this and I think we should give them a big shout out in a round of applause to the business office for what they have done anybody have any questions okay thank you Mr brunsiak um yeah just going back to the um just going back to the facilities report um I just want to make no uh notice of it it's my uh excuse me I just want to make notice of it um a local law firm in town coradina and papa they have been so gracious to donate a very large structure of a Mustang uh the first one was at the high school and uh the other two have been installed at Woodrow and Columbus so they look great and uh we're very thankful to what corydina and Papa for Their donation so I just wanted to mention that in the facilities okay let's move on to um actually we'll do policy first Miss Master sure good evening the policy committee met on August 14th we started at 506 PM in attendance was President Smith uh commissioner Fahim abadrabo commissioner Richard Mejia myself from Administration was Dr Danny robotazi Mark gingero Lou Ross and also president was our new board attorney Maggie Miller the committee reviewed the amended changes to propose policy 2419 school threat assessment teams as recommended by strauss's May since our last board meeting the changes are made to incorporate the details of guidance issued by the doe on July 19 2023 the committee recommends the adoption of this policy the committee reviewed a new proposed policy from Strauss Isme 164201 sick leave this is to address and incorporate into our policies the requirements of six leave for School District employees pursuant to a new law which took effect on July 3 2023 the committee recommends the adoption of this policy regarding these two policy the committee recommends that the board suspends bylaw 0131 and adopt the revised policy 2419 and new policy 164201 with one reading based on recently approved sick leave legislation that is effective immediately in recent New Jersey Department of Education guidance provided to school districts that is effective on September 1 2023 bylaw 0145 board member resignation and removal was reviewed by the committee in order to clarify when a board member may be removed from missing meetings it is recommended that the sentence after number six be amended to read as follows a board member who fails to attend three consecutive regular board meetings without good cause may be removed from office on the affirmative votes by the majority of the remaining board members providing that um there's a policy that everybody got did everybody get it or I want to make sure everybody got the policy the committee discussed the bylaw regarding Commissioners attending meetings virtually board attorney Miss Miller will review the policy and make any recommendations at LMX committee meeting for informational purposes the length of time of a commissioner comments was discussed without any recommendations to change the bylaw the meeting adjourned that 4 5 45 pm and Mr Ross wrote the minutes for us and he submitted them any questions I I just want to add that um Miss Miller did some work to the committee and she sent everybody the um the updated verbiage and we'll discuss that at our next meeting thank you thank you um residency and security um I'll just read this on behalf of Mr Santiago um present at the meeting was assistant superintendent uh gengaro um director of operations student services Michael doctor and a director of District Safety and Security uh Miss Megan zanola from the Board of Education Mr Santiago is Chairman Mr brunsiak and myself um The Residency security met on August 17th um Mr doctor started the meeting with an update on registrations he said there's approximately 260 students in the pre-registation process for grades K-12 uh the registrations are in various levels of progress with regular and special needs there are approximately 80 students in our pre-registration programs and the remaining spots for pre-k will be filled by these uh registrants Mr Docker briefed the committee on residency investigations um through July and August they found 16 charter school students who did not reside in Clifton resulting in approximately 268 thousand dollars savings back to The District in addition from regular investigations five additional non-residents were found at a savings of about eighty three thousand dollars that is a total savings to The District in the area of 351 000 dollars explaining the emergency drills continue through the summer for all buildings where programs were involving students occurring drills were completed and conducted appropriately he also explained that a meeting was held between the school district Clifton police department and the city to discuss traffic issues at some of the district schools two specific issues were Clifton High School and Sila B uh bus entrance to the high school property will be rerouted this year to keep the large buses from driving through nearby neighborhoods um issues at clb several aspects of the traffic issue are being addressed including ideas on different drop-off routes finding additional parking for staff off property and in streets in order to allow more space for parents Mr gingara and Miss Enola briefed the committee on the successful New Jersey Department of Education event that was hosted by Clinton Public Schools on July 25th Security Professionals from all other state gathered at the Clifton High School Media Center to complete and advance Behavioral threat assessment training with speakers from the office of school preparedness and emergency planning the Secret Service and experts in the field of threat assessments briefed the committee on training which the school security specialist will be receiving including General training received by our first group of Specialists last year along with focus training in techniques with dealing with students with special needs in addition she explained the assessments that our security Specialists will have throughout the school year to ascertain their strengths and areas of improvement for the staff she also explained uh some new security equipment available for large events and sought approval to receive specific quotes and begin the ordering process for those security items for big events the meeting concluded at 606 PM any questions again to Mr doctor to your uh residency investigators into your entire staff um bringing 315 thousand dollars back to our district money that is our money and without those investigations we wouldn't have it so we appreciate that and all the hard work that you continue to do with the residency and security president Smith yes oh I've seen them since uh chairman and uh Santiago is not here perhaps somebody from the residence committee can can answer this so for the 351 000 that we see coming back to the district for these charter schools have we also how are we handling non-charter schools any schools that we fund um not targeting particular schools uh but what are we doing with re-registration there and trying to see if they those students still live in Clifton Mr doctor could probably answer that better do you want to come up and answer it without naming any schools I want of course not uh each year we do a thorough investigation of our new students any regular residency cases that we get uh internally uh returned mail things like that we do it for any school that we send money to without naming any schools any school that we send money to for tuition purposes we also check all students who receive Aid in lieu which is transportation funding if a student is getting a family is getting money for uh transporting their child instead of us busting the child we check those as well and if I may continue um so how do we work so when we do re-registration obviously it's hard to do 11 000 students in one shot so do we do for example this year we're doing grades one two and three next you're doing four five six just the public understands this way how does registration work are we registration work or uh registration validation how does that work oh we don't do re-registration or registration validation we haven't done it since I took over uh a little over two years ago what we do is we go out and check all of those students so all the students that go to any Tech schools that we pay tuition for any Charter Schools any schools at all we go out on all of those students all 550 that might go to a high school nearby all of the students that go to Charter Schools anywhere we send tuition we go out on each and every one of those our own students we do it based on don't want to go too deep into how we check on addresses but we do have certain techniques that we use to validate um the addresses for our students plus we receive tips from the public sometimes we receive information from schools we receive return mail all things like that are all investigations that we do thank you yes um that includes special ed students as well for tuition students that we pay tuition okay and I and I like your answer about not to go into deep and you kept it secret thank you Mr doctor no problem and to reiterate there is no one particular School that we target as he said any school where we send tuition to because there's been some people that think we target certain uh schools and that's not the case not at all it's every school thank you okay we'll move on unfinished business is there any unfinished business before the board seeing none will move on to um education Administration uh we have Mr Smith can I just make a motion to move uh B1 separately to suspend the bylaw um so I would make a motion to suspend by law oh one three one three one and adopt um policy number 2419 and 164201 and one reading and then unsuspend the policy itself got that Mr yeah all right everyone okay with that all right so we're going to do um so it'll be um we'll just do a separate on uh ea1 with those provisions okay I have emotions shouldn't buy this password second by Mr robodrabo is there any discussion seen on roll call please Mr arbitravo yes yes so we're complying with statutory rules yes Miss basford yes Mr Brunswick yes Mr Mejia yes Mr Paris yes Dr Danny yes uh president Smith yes uh so we'll do the rest that's um ea2 through uh ea16 motion by Mr Roberto second by Dr Danny discussion seeing none roll call please Mr abujabo yes Miss basford yes Mr Brunswick yes Mr Mejia yes Mr Paris yes Dr Danny yes president Smith yes all right moving on to uh Personnel um I'm gonna do uh I'm gonna do no um all right so we have uh P1 we got a lot here I got P1 through p 30 excuse me P 54 motion by Mr Roberto second by Mr Paris discussion roll call please Mr Robot yes Miss basford yes and I'm abstaining all my name only on number 48 and number 49.
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