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[Applause] I'm kind of confused there why we're rolling out to the right side to the boundary uh I know you want Mason kind of not throwing uh turn to turn his whole body to throw the ball down field but uh I gotta use that white side of the field you got a lot of room over there to work with doubles for the Eagles ball on the right hash oh there's a Blitzer gonna be Nelson he takes a hand off he's gonna get to the line of scrimmage that's at least a positive yard he's only going to gain two and brings up a fourth and nine from the I think if you're coach Horner do you pin them and it looks like that's what they're gonna do yeah knowing how we've been doing tonight a lot of penalties we have two good plays and then you get set back again so I think you almost have to pin him deep here and hope your defense can play like it did last week I have another lockdown second half I do like those little rugby style pump that's been put in now with vaguely being your quarterback and your punter so it gives him an option good job by Taylorville forcing him to punt it early it's going to bounce and it's going to come a great job the rainwater getting down there and it's going to be down at the three yard line so now defense we need you to do your job you've done it for us all night good job by special teams switching the field great punt from vaguely good job by Dalton getting down the field too yeah that had a good bounce on it too that ball was bouncing quick good job by Rainwater down at right around the three yard line where I can't run a lot of plays here see if Coach G wants to bring a little Blitz package here try to get that quarterback in the end zone for a safety we'll take points any way we can get them quarterback is going to be in the shotgun set he's going to hand it off to his running back great juke move to make Keegan Thompson Miss and they're going to gain we'll give them five brings up a second and five Keegan was in the backfield right away but a Duke of stick there got him out of it you saw you went in there didn't really Force you back inside like I've been saying all year Keegan Thompson okay I got his ankles broken on that one a little bit but second five see if we can get two big stops here and make him pump the ball get the ball back second five ten seconds on the play Clocks aim formation for the tornado same play number 32 is going to get it this time and he's gonna get stood up great job by the Eagles D gain of one maybe two brings up a third down and we'll call it three attic Stefan gets credit with the tackle good job standing him up though whenever he got the line of scrimmage looks like I think that's 73 in there playing nose Lincoln Corbin [Music] [Applause] doubles to the right side quarterbacks and keeping himself going up the middle fouling his lead blocker he's got enough for a first down and it's gonna move the chains for Taylorville 742 20.

gain of four and that's been their bread and butter tonight sent A Guy In Motion have him log up into that hole and quarterback's just keeping it and they're getting four five six yards every time they run that play see if we can somehow stop him here and try to get this ball back try to make this into a one possession game [Music] doubles to the left side tight and right run right up the Middle with number 32 he's gonna gain a couple brings up a manageable third and three now ball at the 24. and Jared we talk about people from Colorado listening I believe we've had I think we've gone Coast to Coast I want California I want to say we had somebody in California and one of I want to say South Carolina as well so Colorado I believe right now he's the farthest listener we always have Florida I feel like Mr Horner's mom never misses a game so we've all seems like we always got at least one listener in Florida 32.

have we went internationally yet Alex oh that's a it's a question there I don't have an answer to third and two up the middle they go there's going to be a penalty flag thrown on the play let's hope that it's on Taylorville [Applause] some extra whistles blown at the end of the play Let's see what the white hat has to say tall start that's a five yard penalty brings what would have been a first down now you got to take advantage of that Eagles you know what's coming here up the middle round yep a quarterback for doing something himself oh yeah quarterback's definitely going to have the ball in his hands here if you all are like watching in the quarterback here tonight good thing we'll see him again next year he's only a junior so coach Kendall [Applause] coaching Lucas ribling the punt returner 445 in the third quarter Hunt is off good spiraling punt gonna be wave fair catch by ribbling at the 46 and Lucas ribling the senior never played football before doing a great job back there looking up at the ball and not knowing who's going to come hit you oh I tell you what butt return is scary man here you get that uh ball flying up in the air you got to look up sometimes you can't even see because it's in the light and you gotta realize the light yeah the lights are on the side of the field oh you you'd be surprised Alex Eagles offense takes over at the 46 showed a little hope there on that first drive let's see if we can take it to the end zone then you gotta think if you want to have a fair Catch and not get hit Jace is going to get the ball he's gonna run backwards right away nothing going loss of two second and 12th and I like the idea of us trying to run outside right now I just don't know where else we can really go [Music] put this ball in the right hash here hopefully we can use that wide side of the field on a play like this second and twelve so you can get into a manageable third down and not have to put the ball in fourth let's just not even get to third here comes a 13-yard run up the middle we go with Yannick I only forgot the one he got three yards out of it third and nine they might even give them third and eight we'll see where they're gonna spot the ball 39.

going to be at the Eagles 47-yard line two guys coming on two coming off for the Eagles so far only once come off 15 seconds on the play clock [Music] gotta get something moving here not any flow for the Eagles six seconds on the play clock doubles running back to the left side for third and nine Eagles are gonna have to make something happen it's gonna be a pass play he's looking for rain water and vaguely throws it behind him and it falls in complete Rainwater fourth down and we're gonna be punting again [Applause] stops the clock at 3 10 in the third quarter gonna need another good punt here out of vaguely Taylorville is pushing their return man back a little ways now low snap now Vegas gonna have to scramble he does get it off got tackled right as he was letting that ball go I don't know where they're gonna Mark that down right around the 40.

he's still walking up so from the the ball was at the 47. he's marking it at the 49. so it is a four yard punt and I guess there is no rough in the punter on that because if he looks like he's gonna run the ball tackle him which was a legal play there it's gonna be First and Ten from the 49 yard line for Taylorville 305 left in this third quarter doubles this time three down lineman Keegan showing Blitz and he's coming quarterback's just going to drop back they're going down the middle of the field and it's going to be number one going up for it incomplete good job two Defenders on the play it's like Denny he's wearing 12 tonight correct well he was a corner that came all the way over okay great job by Danny though get in the way of that receiver and make contact with the receiver after he kind of got his hands on the ball there second and ten [Applause] 259 remaining in the third quarter now five seconds on the play clock now they're resetting it to 25 I guess the officials thought that was a little too quick [Music] quarterback under Center this time power formation they're gonna fake it up the middle quarterback's Gonna Roll to the right side he's got a man wide open and thankfully it was dropped looked like a Darius Tony last night I can't see how many drops yeah one of them would have been one of the biggest plays of the game so that falls to the turf third down and ten this is still where you need the Eagles fans to get into it it's not a third and two but third and ten could sometimes be harder than a 32.

[Applause] Thompson comes off super white comes on on that animal position he's showing Blitz he's at the line of scrimity he gets picked up by the running back [Applause] Cooper white coming off the edge there everybody happy for him last week he almost had a sack as well and just came up short guys making me feel a lot I remember some of these kids I'd be there the blue jay can't they'd be out there as a blue jay player now they're out here playing varsity football I love it fourth down for Taylorville looks like they're gonna punt here riebling back to receive this one nearly blocked vaguely was there wait for the fair catch good job by ribbling once again catching it this time at the 29 Mason was right there almost got the block repair catch that was another tough catch there for Rippling guy legitimately in his face so the Eagles left First and Ten 210 remaining in the third quarter all at their own 29-yard line try to get some positive yards here on this drive gotta start taking some chances here too as the clock's on on your side and Taylorville is dominated the line of scrimmage [Applause] doubles pistol back I believe is Jace it's going to be a handoff to him up the middle good job blocking that time by the line and he's got himself six yards good hold there by the Eagles lineman oh that left guard was there on that play but he made a pretty good block that was Janik in on that can't see numbers I just assume that Jace is out there you're gonna have to look at the sideline more to see who's on the sideline we can at least see those numbers like 73 Lincoln Corbin coming in late playing that right tackle position looks like he's gonna reverse to the other side of the field and with doubles set hard count doesn't work second and four though a lot of options in the Playbook gonna be in left's hand off throws all the timing off luckily we get a gain of one out of it looks like 52 case in musk-off who had to come off there get his uh elbow taped up from trainer James James sepich third and two coach Warner hasn't had many opportunities to look at this side of the play card [Applause] third down look here Alex look at this corn simple catch him pass it to him right now yeah look at this and as quick as biltman is he'll be able to run away yeah that's what I'm saying trips to the right side pistol back middle linebacker stepped up right away we got ourselves a first down we got another penalty flag though holding [Music] organic first down on the Eagles First and Ten bring it back on the play I don't know who he's looking at [Applause] so what would have been a first down is now going to bring up third and 13.

boy how many times have we said third and teens 38 seconds to go in the third quarter [Music] are you in four down territory right now if you can get a fourth and manageable no no not yet all right now you still have all your timeouts so third and 13 trips to the right running back left three down lineman two linebackers it's going to be a straight pass Begley's got all sorts of time he's going to try to move the pocket he throws it down field it's built him in built him and makes the catch that's the first yeah your blind get up this might be able to get one more play 15 seconds ago [Applause] I think I take another shot at the end zone he's he's a kid man he's got some speed on the outside and he had two or three guys back there with him able to make a great adjustment on the ball wasn't a great ball but like you said he came back to it and made the catch First and Ten at the 30.

they're still playing 15 yards off of him give him the ball right now and it's going to be the end of the quarter [Applause] that's all right we got a little life there eagles nothing going on there in the third quarter Taylorville still leads this one 15-nothing we're gonna see if the Eagles can get in the end zone real quick and get another 100 donation from George Weber Chevrolet we'll be back to the Columbia multi-purpose field right after this [Music] thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome back to fourth quarter action live on kchs the Eagles just had a big play to get down in Taylorville territory good catch by Bilt them in now the Eagles got to get in the end zone Jared what are you doing I'm going I'm taking a shot right here yeah I think I have two that's kind of what I wanted right right as the time was expiring their third quarter but so I mean after a big play like that and you get on the ball your defense kind of hectic don't really know what's going on they're on the same same exact plane take a shot downfield who knows pass interference or might have a chance scoring a touchdown but person 10 Eagles now started this fourth quarter single receivers this time tight end right sniffer back right pistol back is Yannick we're gonna hand the ball off to him he's gonna make a man miss he puts his foot in the ground he gets a good three yards looks like he should be getting seven to eight on that doesn't it now and like I said earlier vaguely standing at five yards the running backs are over three yards behind him 308 yards away it kind of runs through there with both his shoulders down both hands over that football working you're on the car third two here you're definitely now you're in four down territory um I mean you're down two scores so we're gonna have to get in the end zone here at some point same formation again for the Eagles Hard count doesn't work linebacker on this side was being a little aggressive we'll see what happens there again the defensive backs are playing 10 yards off up the middle we go this time with Yannick first down for the Eagles on another hard run where's that been all night oh here oh here yeah First and Ten for the Eagles approaching the Red Zone ball at the 24-yard line number five do that three times we're gonna have a first down every time I'd still like to see a little bit more urgency here we've got 10 30 remaining in the game but taylorville's been dominating the time of possession if I had to guess first two games the Eagles were pretty much split 50-50 [Applause] it would happen same formation ball in the right hash we're gonna run this time with Nelson he puts his foot in the ground he gets five yards second and five from the 20.

good job on this drive now for this outline making lanes for Jace Nelson and cam janick be able to show their speed off a little bit same formation look at the linebackers They're all playing outside there's a middle linebackers playing seven yards deep this was an odd formation and I guess that's why we're just going up the middle we do it once more game three yards third and two but if you look there there's it's almost like the outside linebackers are playing animal positions in our Playbook and like I said that middle linebacker at seven yards deep we just got to be able to seal the middle is the main thing one two three four down with maybe two blitzers coming every play third and two big play here for the Eagles up the middle we go and Janet gets stood up at the line of scrimmage we're in the same play four or five times in a row didn't work so now you're gonna have a fourth down and three who actually lost a yard there look

foreign wow good morning um first and foremost my name is Jim Adams superintendent of schools and I would just ask that we all rise please we're gonna do the Pledge of Allegiance before we get going to begin pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you everyone this is such a momentous occasion for the town of Ashland the Ashland Public Schools and I can't thank everyone here for coming and spending some time in the sweltering humid heat today um thankful the the rain has held off for us because I really wanted to be out here so you get an idea and some visualization of what this is going to look like in the future as well we've got a couple Renditions over here of the rest of the project as you can tell we're still under construction a little bit and we'll be for some time but the school itself is is completed and we've been in classes for a week which is great um and the the number of folks who are here that have been a part of the Mendez history I thank you for coming today and for for gracing us with your presence that building was so loved by this community from the 50s on forward serving different grade levels all the way through and to have the windier thanks Paul to have former administrators employees Educators school committee members finance committee members to show up this morning is just it's a blessing for us and I thank you for for taking that time a lot some of you came from quite a ways away and I appreciate that and the community thanks you for the work you did prior to this building being built I want to say thank you again to everyone here we've got a number of speakers it is warm out I'm going to keep these remarks short and just really be the MC of the morning again I'll introduce myself Jim Adams superintendent this is my 10th year as superintendent of schools my 15th year in the town of Ashland I couldn't be more proud of of what we're doing here as a district and the opening of the school is really seven years 2016 is when I started the process of of creating a feasibility study not just with the msba but us looking at the demographics and the enrollment changes as many of you know Ashland is growing and has been continuing to grow and it's exciting and this is that you know the vision that we had to make sure the students the community faculty and staff have a facility Worthy of the work they do here and I believe we've done that and accomplished that and you know again I would miss somebody if I listed them all out who helped make this a reality but it's really comes down to the town the citizens who voted for this in overwhelming support during covid there have been challenges for sure with this project but the end result I'm most proud of so thank you again for coming as I said remarks brief we will be hearing from a number of folks and I'm going to start with introducing the school Committee Member but also the chair of the proper order here good uh oh my glasses on uh and uh chair of the school building committee Mr Paul Kendall thank you Mr Adams and thank you all for coming helping us so uh the grand celebrate the grand opening of our new building it's been quite a journey uh we're excited to show off the building so I'll try to be brief as well but how to be brief about something that we've been in the works for seven years if I was trying to sum it up in a word might be grateful as Mr Adams said grateful Community for their overwhelming support not just for the project but our schools in general so thank you for that I have the school committee here with me select board thank you for your really unwavering trust and and support during this process to my building committee it's been a long road and we faced lots of challenges but you've made remain committed to the promise we made to committee to the community to deliver a building and that they can be proud of and I think we've done that but this building is really just the realization of a lot of hard work dedication and vision of our educational team here led by Mr Adams and so thank you for your commitment to our students staff and this community we've had tremendous support at the state level Senate presidents bilka representative Lewis thank you for your continued uh advocacy and support on this project the msba you've been a partner not just financially but also you really embraced our educational Vision on this project so thank you very much and then finally a real big thank you to our project team it's it's pretty typical for somebody to stand up here and and just thank somebody for doing their job but this project was not business as usual to vertex our owners project manager the team you've been just a trusted knowledgeable leadership you've been the glue that's hold that held this project together and I don't think we'd be here without you so thank you flansburg architects you've really just did an amazing job helping us realize these great amazing spaces that really embrace our educational vision and then you had to redesign it all over again on the fly as things changed but somehow we still maintain exactly what our design intention was so thank you for that and shama design and construction uh you delivered a building with exceptional challenges never once looking for the excuse to push a date but instead rolling up your sleeves working with the team to find resolutions to the problems and delivering this building on time so thank you very much together you faced uh tremendous challenges in a construction market we've never seen in our lifetime yet you faced each challenge you Rose to that challenge and you faced it as a team and with great professionalism so thank you very much I'm proud of what this team's done and it's an honor to work with all of you so with that thank you all again I hope you're as excited to see the building as we are to share it with you thank you [Applause] and I would now like to introduce Ms Laurie tosti chair of the Ashland school committee good morning everybody um thank you for being here today and thanks to everybody here for your part in making this possible um this is my 13th year on school committee so I was around in the early days I see Kathy Bates in the audience and she was a school committee member that was here when we just started the early days of these talks and I see select board members and finance committee members and former teachers and principals and all kinds of community members who made this possible by supporting the vision from day one the statement of Interest which was submitted to the msba in 2017 I believe that in and of itself was a tremendous undertaking superintendent Adams had to do a lot of work and spend a lot of time putting that together and it was the quality of that submission that hopefully got us the approval from the msba to get this off the ground and then from the support of the community and the other boards in town with the feasibility study and then the community vote for the building this is just such an amazing moment to be able to sit here and celebrate that we have a new school in our town for all our students and Mr Kendall the building committee as well and the anybody who planned it built it did any work on the building we so appreciate you but I do want to say a few words about Paul Kendall and he doesn't really enjoy that and I'm probably going to get daggers looking at me any second now but seriously from day one his dedication and commitment to this project he is a volunteer in town he's on the school committee and he did volunteer to step up and chair the building committee but in my time here I really have never seen anything like it um if if it's not hundreds of hours that he put into this project but probably thousands of hours and the demand that he had for excellence from everybody involved and just the care that he took he was here all the time bringing people through Tours the entire building committee offering focus groups to get the community involved so Paul we appreciate you so much this would not have happened in this way without your leadership and as well to every single person on that building committee everybody had an input and what we're looking at here and thank you again for the community support for everybody else who had a role we appreciate you thank you Lori and next Ms Jenna lorenga who's the principal of the David Mendez School good morning everybody thank you for coming this is my second year as the principal of the Mendez school and we might just say that I hit the jackpot I knew when I took the position that the building project was going to be a part of what we needed to do what I didn't anticipate was how supportive the community would be the town of Ashland has been incredible with its support and its dedication to making this building happen thank you to the district leadership the building committee and the school committee for the hours of time you've devoted to creating a warm beautiful state-of-the-art building for all of our Young Learners I would also like to thank the teams at vertex and Shawmut every person has been dedicated professional and wonderful to work with I'm excited for the project to be complete but I'm a little sad to imagine what it will be like without all of the faces next year this week at Mendez was huge I wish you could have seen the looks on the faces of the children and the teachers as they entered the building for the first time I walked around and I asked the kids what they thought and here are some of the things they shared it's huge kids are learning and having fun at the same time the media center is beautiful it's very futuristic and one student noticed that it has a wonderful design so I hope everybody enjoys the morning and enjoys their tours and can bask in the glory of what you have all accomplished [Applause] thank you Jenna next from the Massachusetts Massachusetts school building authority executive director Mary pacetti [Applause] good morning very happy to be here today as uh stated my name is Mary picchetti I'm the executive director I have been with the msba for will be 16 years this fall I was recently appointed as executive director as of July 1st of this year on behalf of Treasurer Goldberg Chief Executive Officer Jim McDonald on the msba I'm very happy to be here today and certainly want to congratulate you on this beautiful new school I found Ashland's mission to be committed every minute every hour every day to every student very inspirational we can clearly see that mission in action as we stand here in front of the new school Ashland and its project team vertex flansburg and chamet have worked together and as mentioned responded quickly to the unanticipated changes in the marketplace from covid something that all of our school projects have had to face over the last several years they pivoted to make sure that materials would be available and this schedule that could be maintained so that we could be here today and they did that every minute every hour every day with an eye towards sustainability the school is designed to be Net Zero ready using geothermal Wells for heating and cooling and ensuring that the building is ready for photovoltaics while designing a building with the environment in mind you have also constructed a building that promotes the best possible environment for the students including Outdoor Learning spaces a courtyard within the building footprint and a rooftop learning space that will Overlook the new playground in fields this is a building that provides Ashland students with access to the latest Innovations in education and a building that the town of Ashland will be proud to use and share for generations to come I too must commend the community who demonstrated their strong commitment to the children by voting 95 percent in favor a town meeting to support this new school you've invested in the current Ashland students and you're delivering a 21st century 21st century education for future students here in Ashland I would also like to commend the support and advocacy from our partners in the legislature for being strong proponents for this project and the msba their steadfast steadfast support to every student has been critical to the success of today the msba appreciates its continued partnership with the town it's our honor to be here with you today to cut the ribbon and celebrate the opening of the new school with that I wish you congratulations congratulations Ashland thank you [Applause] next calling to the podium is Jack Lewis Massachusetts state representative [Applause] oh the scissors are actually at my feet I wondered what I was kicking they're big ones they look nice it is so great to be here with all of you and as the previous speakers have said once you start thanking folks it's hard because each of you have played such an important role uh but Lori did it and I just want to call out Paul uh I only had one tour of this building or it's because it's construction it was a couple months back and I'm not an architect I've been in schools but I didn't actually know what I was looking at but to see the building being constructed uh through his eyes was contagious and so I am nearly giddy to get in here and see what it actually looks like and to see the vision of all of you but you Paul being here on the ground I'm gonna say every day I'm looking to see if this wife would agree but nearly every day yes um and I also hear it's air conditioned so I'm excited about that as well uh as the principal said hearing from students about what the last couple days have been like has been huge I've heard from many of their parents who have shot me emails or grabbed me at the grocery store and what I have universally heard is that students feel even more supported even more safe and they're actually eager to go to school and many of us are parents I would settle for at least one of those things most mornings like get out of bed eager to go to school but this is a testimony as the previous speakers have said to this community but to the Massachusetts school building authority which I think we've all learned the town chips in many many millions but the Commonwealth does the same and it's taxpayers from North Andover to North Adams and everywhere in between that contributes to this fund and if communities like Ashland work to meet the criteria our tax dollars combined with tax dollars from across the Commonwealth are used to make sure that our students here in Ashland truly have a 21st century education and a building that makes it all possible I was doing math as I was reading a couple of the articles about the old building that used to be right over there which apparently was so much bigger than I realized now that its Footprints is more exposed and it was nearly 70 years ago that this community invested in a generation building a new school that met the needs of that day making sure that Ashland's next generation was equipped with all the tools to thrive for the 50s and 60s maybe not knowing it but it was their kids and grandkids and I will go as far as say great grandkids in some instances who were able to utilize that building and Thrive with the renovations necessary but now to have an entire New Generation who's able to walk in just a couple days ago with a building that has been met to meet or built to meet their exact needs for this 21st century is huge and I am so excited I saw the pictures on social media of the kids eyes and hearing from the principal and from their parents has been huge so again thank you for everyone who's contributed thank you to the Massachusetts school building authority and I am eager to see Paul's vision and the vision of all of you actually in fruition here thank you it always gives me great pleasure to introduce Karen spilka Senate President a friend of Ashland a friend of the Ashland Public Schools a staunch supporter of public education in Massachusetts a former Ashland School Committee Member someone who has been dedicated since I've known her to doing what's best for this community Karen was at many of the msba meetings advocating and supporting us and getting this project in the in the pipeline if you will so it gives me great pleasure to introduce Senator Karen spilka so this is a really exciting day and I look at all of the faces here and recognize that I think almost every single one here has some really strong connection not only to Ashland in our community but to this school and the whole school system so it just really warms my heart to look out at all of you and I welcome so many of you back it's great to see you and I thank you very much for inviting me to speak with you on this very exciting day uh but before I start I also want to thank uh just a few people I'd be remiss if I didn't and I'm sorry uh but uh superintendent Jim Adams thank you for all of your hard work and so not only did he oversee the the district and the schools and the staff and the kids but help to oversee the planning and construction of this school building as well and all the other issues and you've done a fantastic job Jim and we are forever indebted the other person we're indebted to tremendously is Paul Kendall again you can sing your accolades as well Paul so dedicated people don't recognize I don't even know if he recognized when he took the job of chairing this uh committee how much time is involved and what is involved and he more than met that challenge so from all of the bottoms of our hearts we thank you so much for not only taking this this Challenge on but for doing a spectacular job for our kids thank you and the school committee being a prior member and chair I know their hard work as well uh thank you so much for your hard work and support thank you chair Lori and to all of the other members uh present and past that are here again I look out and I see past members principal you did make great timing to come here uh wise move wise move and have fun and wish you the best with being here and I want to thank the Massachusetts school building authority we could not be be here today or doing things like this they do a fabulous job of working with all of our school districts sometimes it takes a little while uh for the district to get there to be accepted but they work really closely they work hard they make sure that whatever is designed and built is done to the very top standards for all of our kids and for our school districts and for our tax dollars I have to say so I want to thank thank you for being here taking your time and being here but for your support I do want to just briefly mention uh that the legislature in this year's budget that we just passed a couple of months ago and the governor signed so it is law put in an extra 100 million dollars to the school building authority to give a little bump to some of the schools who were building during this post-covered time and saw increases unanticipated increases because of covid so there may be some little bump or some help but it was in recognition that so many of the districts did not could not foresee uh the inflationary costs that went on so thank you I do want to thank representative Lewis my partner in crime I shouldn't probably term it that way but at the state house but we work closely to make sure that we can get things done for Ashland and and all of the MetroWest communities I also want to thank the entire faculty and staff past and present from the Mendes you know they have worked so hard the facilities team the staff taking care of the old school and you'd walk through the halls and you'd never realize it was like you know 60 70 years old when it was because it was so well kept up despite all the challenges and we know there were many many challenges I won't go into them but uh you know they did a great job and the faculty did a great job and the staff as well and I want to thank them and I know they have been waiting a very long day time waiting for this day for this new school to open Ashland schools have been on my mind for uh most of the 40 years that I've lived in Ashland uh they've been on my mind the over 20 blows me away 20 years I've been in the legislature as a former member and chair of the Ashland school committee the mother of two boys who attended the mindis school and have met countless people who and fam whose families who have been part of the mindis school I consider the Mendes uh the old but still now the new because it's it's inherited some of the good things I believe I consider the Mendes as the start of my political career so give me just one minute to be a little personal here uh in when my older son was in fifth grade I volunteered for uh Miss Mason and mataris's class helped get the neighborhood started in in the Mendez school that's where actually I met Claudia Bennett because she was volunteering for those classes as well and another partner in crime we ended up running for school committee together so that was her start as well um and you know the rest the rest is history uh never thought I'd that would lead me to running for State rapper for state senate let alone being Senate President so I have a really uh soft spot in my heart for the Mendes School and all of the staff and the kids who have gone there and a new life for the space and um a new school that will continue to serve our students families and communities for many generations to come it's a sustainable Net Zero ready building that's designed to put students first and that is typical of Ashland you know the way that the vote went to support this school it's clear that our residents our community puts our students and Kids First and that is really important the space Embraces the school community community shares common areas to spark collaboration between students at all grade levels and includes features that align with our learning and education planning it also has outdoor spaces that allow our kids to have a safe and welcoming space outside I'm deeply deeply grateful for all of the thousands and thousands of hours that it took to get us where we are now all of the collaboration between our community local leaders State leaders that has made this possible and I'm really excited to see the amazing things that our students and faculty accomplish in this new school and all the places that they end up get going in our their future Generations thank you very much so a couple things I'm going to go through just a little bit of logistics before we do a ribbon cutting so everyone understands what is next after we're done the ribbon cutting we will ask folks if you're interested one in tours of the building which I hope you are we're going to meet in the cafeteria and we also have lunch that will be served in the cafeteria so we have a couple options if you're interested in eating first you absolutely can do that and then we can go on a tour it is air-conditioned so it's fine doesn't matter or we can organize in there we will have a number of us who will give the tours around the building and then come back after and have some lunch but we invite you to have lunch with us please and to really see how beautiful this space is for the community and for our students and faculty and staff I think that's really the last part of the logistics we will be opening the building at 12 30 through 4 30 for the entire Community to come in today for tours throughout the facility which is really exciting to share that and you know Dr Cairo assistant superintendent was telling me he thinks there's going to be a lot of people today based on conversations within the community and I hope that's the case because I think it's certainly a facility that's that's worth sharing with this community so what I would ask is Mike can you come up in Gretchen and we'll pull out the the ribbon and I'll have the speakers here please stand and join me thank you so again let me finalize the comments by mentioning someone who's very dear to many of you here in this um audience today and when I took the job as superintendent 10 years ago for those who don't know I was a principal at the high school and within my first week of the job I got a visit and it was Dr Barry ruthfield and Dr ruthfield came into the office sat me down and said you're going to love this community you need to put your heart and soul into this community you need to make sure that you're there for them and those words were so profound to me for someone who I know has tremendous respect within this community and for him to take the time to to do that with me and sit with me and talk about how impressed he was about this community meant a lot and you know God Rest his soul but when I think of this community and I think of his legacy no one will ever reach that but as a superintendent when you get an opportunity to build a facility that will last here forever at least in my lifetime it feels really good I'm proud of that I'm proud of this community for supporting that so with all this being said let's have some food let's you know break some bread together tour the facility and get inside or it's a little bit cooler and we get the chairs picked up before it does rain so again uh thank you again for everyone making the effort to be here today appreciate it thank you okay let's go vamos we'll be getting tours in about 10 minutes

[Music] as a senior what is one piece of advice you would give to the upcoming class it's not about what you learn it's about the People You Meet uh just work hard enjoy the time you have here and just have a great time thank you chance thank you be ready to make real decisions because they're going to be happening very fast and all at once and get ready for change because life life is like a box of chocolates you never know what you're gonna get sometimes in life even in our hottest moments it's only going to get harder so you just gotta enjoy the moment and sometimes you just gotta find friends who do the Macarena good job guys Vengeance won't change the past yours or anyone else's you need to become something better you need to become hope buy the chocolate chip cookies in the lunchroom they're really good my advice will be to just not get the grades that I got um I mean I would say my advice is just do you I mean you're not worried about anyone else my advice is to just have fun uh be yourself too good um a piece of advice I'd say is just make sure you do your schoolwork like it sounds really cliche and corny but you need to do it and then if you do the important things for the first part of the year then you can at least not worry about it hi Hannah and my advice to you and all the other freshmen is do your homework and don't skip class um I would like to say to all the up-and-coming freshmen for the school that you know the best advice I can give you is to be yourself because if people hate you anyway that wasn't stopping you also shout out Bella if you're seeing this I just say just don't think about it too much like if you just just keep taking over overthinking it it's just gonna get worse for you just just let it go how it is and just put ever into like some things you'll start to appreciate it soon I think that's my word silver advice um so words of wisdom I would give is to always show up to class whether you're late being late is always better than not being there at all and do your best there's no reason for you to ever cheat or like give yourself less than like or do less than what you know you could do and be confident I'm confident so everyone should be confident in themselves [Music]

taken in and we've already appointed you acting Clerk so may I have a motion to adopt the agenda I'll make the motion I will second it hi can you please stand and join me for the Pledge of Allegiance United States job [Music] and I know it's not on the agenda but in honor of September 11th I'd ask that we all just take a moment of silence [Music] foreign and on to the first informational item which is the jom report the president members of the board uh GM coordinator Corey Williams and Jalen president along with the French coordinator of Mercy out on God and Robert Casey we'll make a report to the governing board on the status of the galem and title six Grant programs and before they do I just want to kind of share a little of a chronology about what is taking place from the last meeting to to this meeting and so we're all on the same page um on August 24th the leadership team of Dr chabotage Mr Casey also uh our grant specialist in Miss Williams our jail coordinator along with myself who met with Miss Joyce Council true professionals grants consultant to go over all the documents that you have on your attachments um on August 25th I believe Mr Casey and this Mercy I believe met with Miss cerventi if I'm correct um August 28th the leadership team of Dr chabot's uh Miss Adam calling Mr Casey myself and and JLM Cornelius Williams vice presidents on the body Treasurer cerventy to go over the information that you have in front of me uh the information from the Ade grants management Enterprise and also the breakdown all the line items the different information and I was presented the detailed description so we just wanted to share that uh with you I know also uh September 1st Miss Mercy also reminded me that there was an additional meeting I believe and um there was a parent meeting and uh September 7th I did what I did call my son a lot of President Sandoval I really wanted to be a great partnership and just to show up that were working in collaboration that that we really wanted her to present with the glm coordinator and our grants team just so well and I'll be on the same page and for transparency that that you all can see uh where we are in the process so uh that's where we are right now and so I'm going to turn it over to our leadership really quickly there's a doctor you're missing here because we have documents there is one two four the ones that we want you to have right there okay so um Mr Casey Miss Williams and our President we set up we sent us on the left okay good evening board members um I'll just quickly share a short breakdown of what was shared with you so documents one and two will be documents one and two is going to be the jom budget for fiscal year 2023 and budget for documents four and five will be for fiscal year 2024.

[Music] thanks for being here tonight if you're able please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance [Music] to the flag of the United States of America under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you and if I may if we could have just a moment of silence for this somber day of our history please what um thank you hi going right along item four is adoption of our agenda if we can have a motion to adopt tonight's agenda as presented I'll make a motion to adopt tonight your name is spelled wrong is that that's just uh that doesn't have to be redone right no I'm sorry if your name spelled wrong on the agenda on the on the agenda sorry I'm not with it today so okay all right so any other errors or actions okay a second please I was second thank you all in favor aye next is item five call to the public do we have any cards I don't know seeing none we're just gonna keep on moving on item number six our first item is item number six a superintendent's report and Cindy Daniels do you do not look like John Schultz nope here you go I can do this all right so first up we want to talk a little bit about Staffing in the superintendent's report that's in your packet the first item I'm happy to report is that the employee changed her mind and stayed with us so the position that we um when this Report was generated that we anticipated having open um is no longer open it's you know a new Young teacher and her parents told her to suck it up and the life is hard and so she decided okay so I was like whoever those parents are they're my new Heroes um and then in your package you also have enrollment from day 18 um and right now if the numbers hold we're down about 38 80 M and if you would note I wanted to point out on that paper that you have there's a chart on the top and a chart a little bit um like past the center line and at Heritage we're down um 30 80 am from last year and really this is attributable to we lost a large class to the high school and we gained a small class incoming classroom Del Rio ESO that's really the when you look at it district-wide that accounts for almost all all of the fluctuations just a quick question last spring we were thinking that the enrollment would Hold Steady any reason why we've actually lost some ABM as well so one of the things that's always since we um it was a small class you know big class going on a small class coming in in order to regain like senior numbers that are leaving or things like that we would have to see a slight uptick all the rest of around the district and there are a few factors that I can speak to for why we may not have rebounded from just some of the normal fluctuation um one of the probably the biggest reasons Statewide are empowerment scholarship accounts and we did a quick call to the county school office to see how many people from inside our district were registered as homeschoolers because even though people are supposed to register with the county school office they don't always register and um around 400 students in Chino Valley and paulden who are actually registered that doesn't mean that they're all taking empowerment scholarship accounts but we do know that it is being encouraged our state superintendent of Public Instruction has television ads that are encouraging people to take the esa and so we do know that that accounts for some it's hard to know what those numbers look like because if people move into our community and they're taking an Esa for their child then we wouldn't ever necessarily know that um in our community we have a faith-based organization that had only a preschool last year and they've added um through grade three I believe this year and they have a small enrollment but most of the students are receiving an empowerment scholarship account to pay for their tuition so that accounts for a little bit of it so those are some of the things that were seen and to that end I know that we had talked about in board meetings in the past families can up the amount of their empowerment scholarship dollars if their child has an identified disability and we have been flooded through child find with not only young students who we would normally be screening for potential special education services but also older parents of older students are requesting screenings as well so Mr Scholl dug into it we said hey we really need you to dig into this and find out um are we compelled to do the screaming if people are doing it basically and they're telling us so they can bump up the amount of their empowerment scholarship account and federal law compels us from Age 3 to 22 to screen anybody on their first screen at a charge to us so it costs us if they have been identified and they're asking to be re-screened we do not have to do only the first screening so we're getting a little bit of a feel for if there are some pediatricians in the area who are recommending to people that they you know call us to get the kids screened because we know that that is happening we don't see them at all but we're seeing some and so we know that the easy accessibility of empowerment scholarship accounts also is accounting for um fluctuating numbers in traditional Public Schools not just here but in our area those are the big reasons unfortunately a lot of very violence sounding reasons it is and you know no opinions about that that's you know different conversation right but those are just the reasons so so Cindy uh how does that 400 registered homeschoolers compared to previous years you know Chino has always Yavapai County is probably the single largest homeschooling county in the state it's one of the largest homeschooling counties per student capital in the nation and has historically been that way and we are within about a hundred students of where we typically are with homeschooling the esa has made homeschooling um a little bit more lucrative for people who would like to collect money to do that so that's changed it a little bit so that's the information about enrollment and right now and and then Mr Livingston will speak later during the board meeting about the construction projects but right now we have a lot going on and under construction is the teacherage which we are on track right now still for occupancy on October 1.

all right we resume back into Open Session can everyone please stand for the pledge iedge Al to the flag of the United States of America stand all right every year at this meeting we have to have our budget hearing so we'll start with that um can I please have a motion to enter uh the budget hearing for 20123 2024 motion second Vivian and Doug uh all in favor I I any oppose eyes have it all right I'm just going to review the two exhibits in your packet uh the budget actually from last month to this month did not the the draft to the final didn't change much in final dollars um I want to point out to you on exhibit one the bottom line of June 30 estimates um as you've known in the past uh these are worst case estimates if we were spend every dollar budgeted which isn't going to happen but I want there's three a few numbers I want to draw your attention to that are going to be different this year one is that the debt Services you see the balance goes from 3, 52,000 current down to 625,000 which is pretty significant and the reason for that is um we collect the debt we collect the tax money for the debt payments uh like right now your tax you're paying your September tax bills and we're getting we'll be getting those we'll continue to get those payments and then in February of this year we are going to pay the last large debt payments like5 a half million doll then but in our uh so next year our debt payment is a million instead of five and a half and so when we Levy this spring we're going to Levy for a million instead of five million and so next spring we will get half of that Levy so our revenue is going to be a lot less does that make sense so that the only reason it's going down is because we're about ready to pay the bond off is why so it's a good thing that that's going down it looks like we're losing money but it's a good thing that's going down uh Transportation it looks in there like it's significant loss I I'm pretty optimistic that we are going to get more revenue from the state I just don't know yet they haven't finalized it so I didn't want to pretend I didn't want to budget for something I don't know of so I budgeted pretty conservative on that I think we're going to be fine there uh working cash I just wanted to point out to you we continue to collect and working cash about a 100,000 every year and that's that's a uh uh balance at 1.7 we don't spend any money on a working cash it's a uh it's the rainy day fund for things that are going to be needed for this these buildings in the near future and so the the total I want you to not be alarmed by the total going from 15, 330,000 right now down at the end of the year to 10, 400,000 first of all that's very conservative and secondly that reflects that difference in the debt balance so there's a couple million dollars difference drop right off the bat because we don't have money sitting in the debt fund because we're going to be done with debt so that our overall balance is going to go down the near future but it's not a bad thing because it's just money that we're not collecting anymore for debt payments so um overall I feel like I feel pretty confident with this budget that we're going to be pretty good at the end of the year we should be uh you know we've been more than balanced been finishing in the black for a long time and I think we'll continue to do so and then a uh again exhibit two is just the the final draft of the budget which is very similar to last month in the final numbers I just had to I uh had to finalize all the benefits and everything in there so but that's that's the document that will go to the state that's all I got all right anybody have any questions uh for the budget Mr go seeing none can I please have a motion to close close the budget hearing second ashon Gary all in favor I any oppose eyes have it next item conduct the hearing on the proposed renewal of the e-learning plan for emergency days severe weather days so we need a motion to open can I have a motion second a Vivian all in favor any oppos I anybody any this is just real quick oh I'm sorry does anybody have questions on e-learning plan same as last year right it's yeah it's the last one we did was three years ago and it's you have to do it renew it every three years so it's the same one all right can please have a motion to close the E learning hearing motion second Doug and Gary all in favor I I any oppose I have it uh does anybody have anything to add to the agenda can I please have a motion to approve the agenda second Ash and Vivian all in favor I any oppose I have it public comments we do have one Mrs gues I'm gon sorry hello okay so um I am here to represent a former bus stop that is no longer there but we are coming to the board as concerned members of a community to address supressing issue that has arisen in recent times affecting the safety and well-being of our neighborhood's children over the past year we have observed a disconcerning change in the circumstances surrounding the bus stop that serves our neighborhood our children now find themselves walking past the residence of an individual registered as a sex offender only to gather at the bus stop in close proximity to another individual with a similar concerning background the situation has understandably raised considerable alarm among parents caregivers and uh citizens alike last year our bus stop was located in a position that provided a sense of security and allowed us to keep a watchful eye on our children as they awaited the transportation to school however the recent relocation of the bus stop has put our children at a higher risk by exposing them to potentially harmful situations from not one but two individuals of concern our primary objective is the the safety of our children and we believe that restoring the bus stop to its previous location would be a crucial step toward achieving this goal this would not only provide a safe a safer environment for our children but also Empower us as responsible adults to actively supervise and protect them during the commun to school we understand that circumstances change and decisions are made based on various factors however the safety and well-being of our children must always be top priority we kindly request that the school district reconsider the current bus stop Arrangement and restore it to its previous location this would this change would offer a tangible reassurance to our community that the district is actively working to ensure our children's safety we appreciate your attention to this matter and hope for a Swift and positive resolution that ensures this the security of our children thank you all right board member code of conduct review Gary I will model continuous learning and work to ensure good governance by taking advantage of board member development opportunities such as those sponsored by my state and National School Board associations and encourage my fellow board members to do the same thank you any have any questions on the consent agenda can I please have a motion to approve the consent agenda motion second Doug and Gary yes yes yes yes all right Mr Gold all right item 11 um I do want to clarify with the public comment that we're not ignoring we just business me we listen okay thank you and we'll get we'll get back to you okay um item a on the superintendent report is a slide Deck with all the certified staff we uh I chose not to invite them all to the meeting tonight because we have a lot of people that live far farther away and I didn't want to add another night to their schedule plus I think this slide deck gives you a nice glimpse of who we have as teachers and you you can always turn back to that to our new staff um I read through we asked them what uh their first impressions of being here are and and I read through them and uh think you'll find they they feel a good sense of community being a big Hollow and a lot of support so we're glad to see that we feel like we got a a good young staff uh good new staff this year at Big Hollow so uh that's exhibit 12 exhib uh you'll see our enrollments uh on exhibit 13 over that sorry you can see that we uh uh we took a little bit of a dip this year we continue to graduate classes in the 200s and bring in classes uh you know in the 160 to 170 range so um we have kindergarten class of 166 this year uh which is small smaller than last year's class um so that would be the reason for the dip in our enrollment this year uh class sizes are very steady we feel good about where we're at with class sizes um all the way across the board really so uh but you'll see that our analysis right there and our students being out outsourced is at 15 which is probably in the uh it's about in the average of past years last year was a little high we're back down 15 any questions on the enrollment not I'm gonna have Miss Ron come on up Cindy's goingon to give us a quick uh synopsis of the back to school Bash uh she did a fantastic job with it again this year uh it was it was a great event seems like every year gets a little bigger and uh so she's gonna come and give you a quick uh breakdown go ahead good evening everybody um first of all I just want to thank I know a few of you were there we saw you it was great celebrating I know a lot of you couldn't make it because you had other opportunities but I hope you've seen pictures on social media or you've heard about it we were pretty excited um just just a few highlights we had over 30 Community groups take part and those included School groups such as the district bpac APAC student council we had Fine Arts boosters and then we had Community groups from outside of the school we had youth AG culinary we had Fox Lake Library I won't list them all but some of the new ones we had were the regional board of education they were here we had the juvenal Justice Commission that was a nice one to have and rocking the Spectrum which is a new new organization in McHenry so it was really covered a big spectrum of different groups um we always like to see Grant Township out here and the Chamber of Commerce as well so that was a really nice addition to see that many Community groups out here and all of them had giveaways for people people walking away with bags of information and anything you can think of um we had the grand Junior Bulldogs which is expanding their program to in La Cross and basketball this year so it was it was great um we had seven food trucks the reason I highlight that is one of them was owned by a Big Hollow family when we bring food trucks in we do ask they consider donating a portion of the proceeds so we're still waiting on that to come in those do those proceeds go to the PTO that should be around $500 we brought in um in sponsorship $682 those sponsorships go through the PTO but go directly toward the expenses of the night we also brought in $150 in vendor registration that too goes to cover the expenses so that was a little over $6,900 brought in for the bash The Bash expenses came to 12,570 some do so the remaining balance was um 5,598 the district district covered $2,472 this year the remaining 3,126 was covered by the PTO so I thought that was a good balance we did a really nice job getting the sponsorships the biggest highlight was Ray Chevrolet excuse me Ray Auto Group um they donated $2,000 and with that we'll be doing monthly videos highlighting them and the work that we're doing together um we had three other big sponsorships which were more Sports Complex $1,000 a treehouse Play Cafe a th000 and then a child's place so we had a lot of sponsorships to cover the expenses but I think the biggest thing I want to say is just I I know we say this all the time but it really is I I love that at night I love seeing all the people out there I love seeing all the staff Who come out um and every year it changes you know what I always try to have one new thing each year this year was that big giant awesome it was a great great event thank you for all your work appreciate it thank you s thank you and the last item I have is approving board policy up the on second reading we actually forgot to put this in last month so two months ago we had the first reading we missed it so all right anybody have any questions on the board policy update can I please have a motion to approve the board policy update on second reading motion second Gary and Vivian all in favor I any oppos eyes have it the employment report anybody have any questions no okay I please have a motion to approve the August employment report motion Doug and Ash yes yes yes yes anybody anybody have any questions from the e-learning plan we discuss prior can I please have a motion to approve the e-learning plan as proposed motion second Gary and Vivian all in favor I I any oppose I sa it uh anybody have any questions on the adoption of the budget please have a motion to approve the 2023 2024 budget motion second Doug and Gary yes yes yes resignations we accepted resignation from Kobe FL per professional effed August 14th um anybody any questions on the Foye requests for the monthly reports for the board the next regularly scheduled board meeting will take place on Tuesday October 10th 2023 with closed session beginning at 6m and Open Session beginning immediately following Clos session can I please have a motion to adjourn motion second evening Gary all in favor I any oppos I me thank you all for coming out

to think about all right Julie if you could call roll H Dawson here Charelle Fuller here Jenny hagstrom here T pavage here Don Renner here J huni here and Al Mo here thank you okay we have a quorum let's stand for the Pledge of Allegiance iedge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all uh saying that tonight just means a little bit more yes it does uh Hank student perspectives yep I'll invite our good evening is it is it on you're good okay um good evening I'm really excited tonight um to showcase our dgs summer trip to France it qu classifies as a student tour um that the board approves and Miss Gina zardi helps us with so not only did it bring so much joy to the students into to South Community it was really fun um for me to follow them on social media and via email but I also thought it would be nice for the board to hear about the actual experience since ultimately the board approves the chores um so we have tonight our sponsor is Sophia Ron um she is here to answer questions and support the students but really this is about the students so I'm going to invite our four students up and they're going to tell you about their summer trip to France um okay okay hi um so this is um our slideshow about our friendship trip um U my name is Ava Arthur I a senior and I'm in French five this year um I'm Kim Torres I'm a junior and I am in AP French this year I'm van bogdanovich and I am a senior and I am in French 3 honors my name is Sydney Stapleton and I'm a junior here at Downers Grove South and I'm in French AP this year um so our planning for our trip started a couple years ago during the 2021 and 2022 school year um to begin we just started with surveying a bunch of students in the uh French Classes seeing who would be interested in taking the trip how many days and what activities we'd be interested in seeing and um different price points and how families would feel about um committing that money to the trips um as we went on to get a little bit more involved we started with two parent meetings um and this was for families to get to know about the information that would be um about safety um finances and just general itinerary of the trip um we had one of these at the end of the 2021 and 2022 school year um with uh greater amount of uh just Logistics and an idea of what this trip might be looking like and then we had another one two weeks before our departure at the end of the 2022 23 school year where we uh went over stuff like um packing and um just getting really into the details of what this trip is going to look like specifically flights and really going over the rules and what's going to be expected of the students um to prepare for this trip we had two fundraising opportunities one we did in the fall which was a brilliant laundry detergent fundraiser where students could sell laundry detergent and other supplies like that and we had another one which was giving bean coffee where we could sell coffees and teas um and those were great ways for students to help raise funds for their trip because a lot of these trips were student funded and came from the pockets of students themselves okay so over the course of our trip um we got to visit a lot of different iconic French landmarks and just a whole bunch of different experiences so on the first day of the trip we started in Paris um we met with our Explorer guide Andrea um unfortunately we didn't have our entire group with us because half of our group got stuck in Germany U because they missed their flight but um half of us still got to experience the first day which ex which was um visiting the Lou we got to visit the L Latin quarter and we got to walk along the sin um on day two we finally had our whole group together and on this day we got to take um a bus tour around France where we got to see the Eiffel Tower The Arc the Triumph and um the luxure Obelisk um after that we got to visit the Palace of Versa where um we took a guide we took a guided tour inside the palace and we also got to visit the gardens around it um and day three and 4 we got to visit a bunch of chat or castles um and we learned a lot about the historical and Architectural value of each um castle and we also got to explore the surrounding towns and we ended our the first half of the trip by um taking a 6-h hour long bus ride down to mon piler okay hold on okay I guess I'm going to lean um okay so I'm covering the second half of the trip um so as van said um we our mid point was Mont peler and our tour guide kind of just added that into our itinerary but but it was super cool um after that we traveled to ARL um and there was the amphitheater so those pictures are in the middle um two of them and we also went to pondu yard which is the aqueduct all the way on the left in the middle um some of us got I hiked up all the way to the top some of us got to swim over there um cool and then the next day we were in Casi for a boat ride and there's a picture of the top um it was absolutely gorgeous we were on the Mediterranean and cliffs we saw people cliff jumping it was beautiful um there's no other way to describe it and then um our last two days we spent in nie in Monaco um I loved Monaco I'm a big Formula 1 fan so I was kind of geeking out and then um n also gorgeous um there's a picture of some of us on the beach and then they we also went to a parfumery um so we got to buy our own perfumes and yeah and then last day we had to leave which was kind of sad but it was really fun so yeah all right so what New Perspectives did students gain from this trip um students who wenton on this trip were given firsthand experience as to what French culture is like in deepening their understanding of French culture students are more able to appreciate not only French culture but be more open to new experiences as a whole students who gain this willingness to embrace new things will also become more active Learners upon their return to school from personal experience I know that going to new country can be scary perhaps not due to knowing the food Transportation um or culture but because I had such a good experience on this trip I was really able to overcome this fear and be more open to new things as a whole I also know from personal experience that having the opportunity to try the new things that come along with the new culture can uh encourage students to want to learn another language um as right now I I felt inspired by that trip to learn Russian um for for many this trip also served as a financial goal to work save and fundraise for which teaches students about the value in saving money and working towards a goal I can also say that this trip uh really built friendships and relationships as I wouldn't have known um any of these people or any of the people on the trip as well as I do now if I hadn't gone and I think a want about yeah your experience too yeah I just want to add like two more things um besides what Sydney said I mean the trip personally for me um kind of solidified the fact that um I really wanted to be fluent in French so this kind of just made it like I was there and after the trip I was like oh my gosh like this is something that I feel that I kind of need to do um and I'm a senior so I'm applying to college now and my hope is to be a French minor because of this so I'm very excited about it um the just the new opportunities that this has opened up for me oh sorry I didn't mean to go that one oh but if you guys have any questions we're take we'll take any questions too so yeah was this uh your first time out of the country uh for some of you or um for me no for me it was mhm um no for me it was not and does this give you some thought about potentially studying abroad in uh College definitely yeah 100% cool and uh how often were you able to use French on the on the trip really all the time constantly okay with your tour guide and with each other or with just members of the community I think like with each other a lot of the time with members of the community um so that was really helpful it was helpful to hear how like um someone who like grew up speaking French might like say things to you or like I guess building that listening compation um so that was really helpful too kind of like experience that also and in addition to that um the students who were on this trip were from all levels of French um like my sister went on the trip with me and she had only completed French one whereas like Ava has done she's in her fifth year of French now um so getting to interact with each other and kind of help each other learn more of the language was a really transformative experience that isn't really present in the classroom because you have to be in that environment to interact with it um also adding on to that um our tour guide he was amazing his name was Andrea I miss him so much um he was the best um he was he spoke like a lot of different languages but he he told us like one of our first days he was like listen if you guys want to practice your French with me like I'll have a conversation with you so we also had that resource which is awesome but like we got to utilize French the whole yeah the whole way so as the week went on did it become more comfortable cuz I can imagine initially feeling um nervous because you're actually interacting with the French did you feel by the end of the time at end of the week you did the Comfort level change or was it there from the beginning no I think that it was um very like when we started we started in Paris so we were like immersed in like a very touristy area so people there did speak some like there was more English present in that City where if we needed a little bit more assistance people could kind of help us out but as we got more down towards the south of France where um maybe they don't have as much English knowledge we really kind of had to lean into it and I think um that really helped kind of knowing that the more we got immersed into it the more we had to rely on it but it also built our comfort and knowing that like the more we did the better we got and the better the conversations got as well while you guys were over there you have a chance to interact or meet any french students that live in Paris or surrounding area that are your age um I think a little bit yeah I think definitely like we were given um most days we were given like a little lock of time where we could go out into the city like on our own um and I think everyone had different experiences regarding that so it was like there were definitely opportunities to like meet other like French people our own age I think like kind of within that so cool awesome wow all right thank you congrats [Applause] very good all right student board members I can't remember who went first last time H it's her turn to go first all right with d all right hello board members so the first month of school has gone by already well I guess I guess so right yeah and through that we've had many different experiences and for example I'm going to start with curriculum night where parents got to come into the school and got to see classes and all that uh there was a few volunteers there helping parents guide them throughout their classes cuz there was I was one of the helpers and they were confused in the beginning like the first four periods they were confused and then after that they kind of got the hang of the the building and my mom also went and she got to see the cafe and everything and she said that the lines were out the door like they were super long so the the parents just got to experience how students were right and they got to see how long these lines can be and then right after curriculum night was our Mustang Fury which was like the next day so here all clubs got to just showcase their club and Recruit new people and all throughout you could see how energetic everybody was everyone was so ready to just include other people into their club and get as many members as they could and there was also a few like people who would just go out there and they would sign their name on every single sheet just to join a different club right just to see how it how it's going to be and then last week or the last two weeks with our access sessions I know the the ninth graders they they got to see what access actually is and I know a few leaders went to their classrooms and just updated them on rules that they should know about the school year and more about like how they should go and reach out for help for teachers and just different areas just to help them through the next four and we also got to they also got to play like a cahoot for candy too so then there's that incentive base there and they can actually be engaged through the sessions and then our sophomores and juniors they also had focused presentations on about productivity and how to be productive the first four weeks and they said that some of the lessons did help them and they will try to use those and utilize them through the four the through the next semester and then our seniors had our senior Focus presentation so here we just had we were updated and had a few like facts about how to start the college application process and different methods to we can use for After High School so those were very helpful for us and through that we also got our homecoming theme which is Barbie so we'll it'll be really pink but it'll be a great theme it'll be pink yeah so I guess we're we're still deciding on the uh dress up days and all so so I guess that will be a fun update to see how Barbie works out in our homecoming theme how you de that the theme of the homecoming that a student decision right um so there was a Google form sent out to all the students the first week of school and there was there was a few cool themes on there but uh Barbie was the winner and that's cool yeah and um yeah so everyone yeah a lot of people are excited to see how it is and then other people are like oh Barbie but I guess I guess at the end of the day everybody just has to suck it up and do it right in a nice way in a nice way and then along with that our sports teams we've had um we've had a few cross town like matches like for tennis and football and unfortunately down Grove South did lose both of them but it's okay it's okay it was it was a close for ten it was a close match and then football it was football and through and through we've had a successful first month of school and we're all excited for the events happening for the next month or so just like the music bowl or like the string festival happening and all of that will be fun to see and hopefully everybody can come out to that just to enjoy the things right thank you thanks do I just click no you just talk just talk hi oh there we go hello um so coming at that from the north perspective curriculum night was also a success for us our my parents came home and they were like wow that's a lot and I was like yeah um my mom really didn't know how to find my second period class but that's okay she figured it out um I kind of like that like my parents at least had my schedule like printed out and ready to go and I have a younger sister who's also a din Grove North too and so they like divided and conquered they like went to all the classes so that was super fun for them our activities fair was this past week and I that went off that was very good there was a lot of really good engagement there I had to run three tables and bless Mr mirandola because he put all three tables next to each other so thank you but that was really good there was a lot of Engagement there between all of the students and it was really great to see people be interested in stuff that they normally wouldn't be interested in like I had people who are seniors that came up to my tables and they were who had never done these clubs before that were like oh this looks really interesting I should try this it was just like a great way to really display everything that our school had to offer and I thought that that was really valuable our homecoming theme was also just released it's Neverland it's like the Peter Pan thing so um Monday is ding D no drive-in movie D in movie drive-in movie and that's also Barbie versus Ken Spirit day Tuesday is dress half your age day Wednesday is that's Peter Pan versus Tinkerbell right I'm looking at it right now and then yeah and then Thursday is Pirates versus fairies and Friday is purple yes so yeah all in all the first month went off really the first month in general was really good our access classes um I was talking to my sister about her access classes a lot of sophomore focused classes just how to stay on track and the senior classes have been really really good about this is how how you request a transcript this is how you submit your test scores because unfortunately we have to apply to school this year um so it's been a really really valuable to have like my counselor come in and be like this is how you like apply to college and use the comment app and this is how you like submit your AP scores that's a really big one that a lot of people don't know how to do so I think definitely more stuff like that would definitely be very valuable to us so yeah we're doing good well I like to say I'm happy to hear the return of Barbie because I was and then Peter Pan there's also something I'm familiar with so it's not um things the latest Tik Tock star which I would have no clue about our driving our driving movies Bary oh so I'm I'm excited about both because they're both both are familiar with both so yeah you can support it too so absolutely oh and um our little plug our dgn football team is 3 and 0 which is really good so we're doing good yeah all right any other questions for our student board members all right moving on to uh the content for this evening I'm going to turn it over to Ryan and Lisa who are joining us tonight for the first presentation hello everybody um side note glad to hear that access has start off good um so um this is probably the shortest presentation you'll get from me all year so I will here we go um summer school um went well um we had more students participate in summer school this year than in years past mostly because we increased our driver's ed numbers I was able to hire um two additional driver ed teachers this summer so instead of serving 50 students we served 80 students um I've already had another driver's head teacher show interest for next year so I'm Hopey hopefully we'll get up to 95 um and then we to out of cars I think so I don't know if we go any higher than that um we also had Stu uh 67 students uh sign up for credit recovery um so for credit recovery we had 67 students register um earning about 34 and a half credits and a graduated 11 students we were hopeful that it was going to be a 12th um but that student still has one class to make up so you can see the breakdown there at the bottom uh 55 students enrolled in one course and they completed 34 courses so we do have students who initially register for summer school um but um part of you know doing summer school is that personal drive and responsibility that they may not have finished um those courses and so you can also see that the more courses you sign up for in the summer the harder it is for some students to stay organized and finish um so um you know that's why we try to you know make sure that we're keeping kids on track during the year um rather than relying on online courses over the summer this is a grade distribution it's pretty even from throughout the school year for example during the school year um 40% of overall grades were A's and in the summer it was also 40% where you start to see a little discrepancy from during the school year is the B's C's and D's because online classes you can only earn a pass or an incomplete or um or a failing grade um so we did have some students that didn't finish by the end of summer and some of them are Contin some of them dropped then that course and re-enrolled in the fall um but otherwise the grade distribution is pretty equal throughout the school year um this year I added a couple of categories um uh last year when I presented for summer school um the other category was like 20% um and I believe a board member asked me a question about like what why is there so many other um and so I broke it down a little bit and so instead of just asking for categories I asked six um and so whether or not they're repeating for credit recovery 41% of the students did but you can see I added the the repeat for an improved grade so 133% students that took summer school passed originally they may have gotten a d a c or a b and they were retaking it in order to earn a higher grade um so that was 13% of our students 20% of the overall students who participate in summer school were for driver's education um and then 14% were enrichment whether that's AP Kem prep or um the the reading strategies class um and then uh 5% of them took it for flexibility so something like consumer education right um they wanted to get that credit out of the way um we had one class of 30 students um for drivers or for um consumer ad I still got a 7% other um which I was surprised by uh so um it's a little bit of like I meant to choose drivers said or um I I'm not sure if my student passed or not so I'm going to choose other they just my counselor said I had to sign up for summer school um or if they didn't see consumer Ed as a flexibility that they chose other so um I'm not sure if I'm going to refine that question any further but at least it gives you a better bit breakdown um on who took summer school and why hi everybody um my name is Lisa Balo I'm the director of special services for the district and um I just put up sort of a little bit of a definition um for what we call extended school year esy which is the sort of special education equivalent for a summer school which is why Ryan and I put this um together um so typically the student population that qualifies for esy every year is largely our population of students at North and South who are in our multi- needs programs um as well as our students who are at t99 and so through Federal law it really is just indicating students in that group are eligible and we are required to provide an extended school year um opportunity for those students um and so you can see down um in the purple section where it talks about the historical perspective prior to 2020 we used to as a district utilize SD exclusively for providing that esy opportunity um and then um as 2020 hit with coid um obviously SD among other places were not able to provide those opportunities during esy um for obvious reasons and so we saw that as our opportunity to really Punt and create our own program um and we did that on the fly with a virtual opportunity that summer um and so um I'll go through some of the numbers on the next slide but that really then sort of spearheaded us to say okay we were able to put that together really quickly and do a nice job even virtually so let's um go the next step and the following year provide um an opportunity in person for our students um and do it ourselves in District 99 rather than go through SD so that shows you sort of the um yearly breakdown there and this will show you some of those enrollment numbers so if you look in the top left corner box the blue box again historically we use scid um and so the last year that they Pro we provided um inperson esy Services through through sasid we had only a total of 27 families um access that opportunity and a lot of times the feedback we would receive from families were you know it's only usually about a five six week program my students don't really know the staff at SD so therefore it doesn't really make sense for my student to go other families just really like the opportunity for their students to continue with that structure um so there were 27 students within our multi- needs programs and transition only that were um really accessing that esy opportunity 2020 the virtual um we were able to do better than that even through virtual with the 35 total students then we provided a breakdown by building just so you can see um bottom left uh Corner then that shows numbers between 2021 and last summer that we went from 61 students to a total of 82 students this past summer um and we have always just sort of housed it at Downers Grove South simply because we're kind of like all in one hallway and it was just nice and easy for the students to really identify that hallway as their summer hallway um and it W South was very good to us um during those several years and then next year now that we have had the um uh build out over at the transition Center and because of that population of students is eventually going to mat matriculate to transition anyway when they're done with North and South our plan is to have um our esy program located at the transition Center this next summer I also like to always just kind of give a cost breakdown because I think um people would kind of think like oh wow back in 2019 we only we only serviced 27 students and now we're 82 like oh my goodness how much does this cost like just to see the comparison um and I think that's pretty astounding um and I think that we attribute that this last year these 82 students um you know we're not renting facilities we're able to really hire our own staff and be very meticulous in who we're hiring and how many people we're hiring um and how we can control our transportation costs and material costs and all of those pieces which as you can see um you know it it's definitely more than half and we're providing 82 fames Ames that experience an opportunity as compared to that 27 so we're doing it better and cheaper so uh we're looking forward to next year um and being over transition Center not only because of the great facilities and our students will get an opportunity to see eventually where they will be but because of really the location it gives us a lot of really direct access to community um opportunities that are just really close and walking distance over there as well good staing at summer school is why works is is it our our staff that then I don't know North and South I thought maybe it alternates each summer like how does Staffing work and is it a challenge to people St um yeah you know I would say so uh we do alternate for um General summer school so we were um at North this year we'll be at South again next year and um the STA it's open to any staff member and also external staff members um I would say though it typically is the same group that that applies um I do interview every internal candidate that applies um and then if we need to go outside we do so we had um like an two external driver ed teachers One external math teacher um but most of the teachers we have they come back every year Scott Parker's back every year Megan Mars is back every year uh John weight's back every year so um we do have a sort of a core group um I would say the toughest subject for me to hire is science and math so for sure yeah and I would say for special services um we really stuck it out at dgs simply for the consistency of the student population um going back and forth between each building for you know we have incoming 9th graders that come and you know it just was um going to be consistent for the students if they really had to learn one building for summer rather than go between um two which is why we stayed at South um and as far as hiring St staff it's a lot it's a lot of work um 82 students require a lot of Staff um and so I'm very happy to be able to say that I think the grand majority of staff are our staff which is why I think our parents choose to send their students to our esy program if I had to um hire a bunch of outside staff who didn't know the special needs of our very specific students I'm I'm imagining that that number might look a little different um we do have to hire agency Folks at some point to be assistants um because that's a very large group of people that um we even have to do during the regular school year but I would say the Lion Share of staff are our district 99 staff how many students do we have at t99 this year 70 so we're going to have more in the summer yes wow yes um and that total number that 82 also includes um um I the exact number I want to say maybe it's about 15 of those 82 are students who are also competitively employed um in the um in in the community so they're not at esy the entire time sometime of that time they are working so there's a little bit more of a flex um we don't have 82 students in you know classrooms at the exact same time for this full period of time um but that is absolutely something that um we would be able to use now that we have two mult multi-purpose rooms as well to be able to use that Flex although we do have eight classrooms so I think we're going to be in good shape at t99 um to be able to house you know our students for our summer school programs thanks for sharing the cost breakdown that was definitely one of my questions so I appreciate it I will say it surprised me um it it it's always been less it's always been less but when it came in um quite substantially less I was surprised by that simply because as the administrator who runs it and I see how many people we have to hire um I'm like oh boy this is a lot of people um but even so um because we're able to control a lot of the other costs we keep the the the total cost down MH all right thank you thank you and Ryan are allowed to run [Laughter] away all right I'm going to turn this next one over to Gina okay so I'm going to take some time tonight to talk about three areas um that are related um advanced placement courses are dual credit courses and Capstone courses so thinking about the way that they're related the these are our highest level courses for our students the first one we'll talk about is AP courses advanced placement courses and um just so that everyone's clear on what some of the differences are as we go through it these are considered to be college level courses that are meant to be like the first level freshman year in most cases freshman year um College introductory course the curricul is mandated through the college board so to teach an AP course you have to pretty much follow the curriculum there is some flexibility within it so when I taught apus history I was able to be flexible in many ways but there was certain um core aspects that you have to follow students have the opportunity if they wish to take the AP exam which is always given the first two full weeks of May so we pretty much can predict very much in advance um the College Board did change it several years ago um such that they changed the time frame where students have to sign up so that's been a little bit different in in recent years and the test measures student mastery of the content so in order for a student to earn college credit and it really depends on the school that they go to and the major that they decide to pursue so some schools will accept AP School course but if you're in that major in some cases they may not so it's very specific to the school the College Board has a nice um interactive calculator where you can go in and look at different schools and you can put in if you're in this score on this test but it doesn't always account for what your major is so for example you may have a school where you're majoring in science or some area of science may not accept your AP biology score so I just certainly I'm not going to read through these but certainly just wanted to give you a sense of some of the courses that we have that are AP courses the majority of these courses are uh open to grades 11 12 with some open to sophomores as well so for example um AP Computer Science is open to sophomores through seniors some of the art classes uh particularly second semester could be open to uh sophomores but the majority of the courses are open to Juniors and seniors Gina can I ask a question real quick on this sure uh I know when I served on the board previously we there was a lot of talk about expanding the number of AP courses can you touch on that a little bit and then could you also talk about how we compare to other districts in DuPage County as far as the number of AP courses that we offer so it it varies by school um and I would say that's true of both a AP and um dual credit on how many I would say we are comparable to most schools um we have some differences and some nuances here I would say for example um we have um just and I didn't put speech on there because the data I'm going to show you does not include speech because remember speech is the first year of this year so speech was approved last year by the board and it's a course that's running at both campuses this year but that's one that is fair unusual for schools in the area to offer so we have some courses like that that I would say are a little bit different and then we have um some courses um that I would say are pretty common in most of the high schools in this area one difference I would say and one question I often get from colleagues is about for example AP Computer Science because the approach that we've taken there is both dual credit and AP at the same time that is also true of macro and microeconomics at South High School so we've taken the approach that a course does not have to just be AP or just be dual credit that's relatively new although computer science isn't I should say only for macro and micro that they can be both the advantage have a question well there's mro micro at North too there is but they're not uh they're the they're not dual credit courses they're AP courses okay so that's some of the differences okay when you say they can be both you're saying if they take it they can get credit for either AP or duel so a student to get credit for an AP course has to take the AP exam m in May that's right right so some students many students will take the exam and they may depending on the score depending on the University that they choose to go to depending on the major may or may not earn credit they may not earn even Credit in the area so it could be a science course but they might earn like an elector credit right so that's dependent on the score that they get on the test dual credit is dependent on their grade in the course so the test reflects one day one test whereas the Dual credit reflects the semester or the year depending on if it's a semester course or a yearlong course um most of RP are year-long courses so a student has the opportunity to do it for both they can still take the AP computer science exam for example or they can transfer the credit from College of dup page and get credit that way for dual credit so the advantage let me so to give you an example um one that is close to my heart is that um at Purdue if you're a science major they're not going to accept an AP you have to take their introductory science courses but if it was dual credit it could transfer in so there's a difference how how are we educating the students on this and or or even educating the counselors because I don't know how how I mean it's very important for them to know but I don't know how curious I would be about this knowing what it could what it could do for me long term you know not knowing to be this curious now knowing what it means to me long term are we making sure that the and I don't know who would deliver this message the teachers or the counselors or educating the kids on these kind of things because the you know there is a very positive long-term effect if they're looking to go to college and I know that was some of the reason we were reasoning a lot of us on the board were very concerned about you know having these type of opportunities for our students um so are we ensuring it's here but are we ensuring that we're giving the education behind the importance of it to our students so that they know how to leverage this the best way they can for their future so we've done it over the years several different ways so we used to have sometimes night programs like our AP openhouse last year um which was really impressive I I appreciated the way they did it they did it through resource so students were already in the building um and they were able to um basically go around to the different content areas to find out about AP offerings as well as information was shared about the advantages of taking an AP or a dual credit course we have fewer you'll see in a minute but we have fewer dual credit courses um students seem to have a most students somewhat of an understanding of AP but to really kind of dig in to see what courses are in each um Department was I think really valuable for students and to be able to speak to teachers and to be able in some cases um speak to other students who've taken the the course as well they also do that um talking about their so they lay out a four-year plan so freshman work on what's called a four-year plan and they lay out what courses and what opportunities students have in various Pathways and that includes the AP courses of course counselors meet with which we know right meet with students every year to schedule classes and teachers also do recommendations so for example if you're teaching US History which is a sophomore course I the US history teachers make recommendations for all of their students and they meet with their students and sometimes it's briefly and sometimes it's more extensive depending on the questions and whatnot to kind of share what the opportunities are with those recommendations which includes AP courses okay on the prior slide it was saying that the macroeconomics and micro is only offered itself that's for dual credit but and AP credit oh okay at North it is offered for AP credit but not for dual credit why is that so dual credit so governing AP is the College Board governing um dual credit is several different bodies right there's state law there's iccb which is the College Board the or the Community College Board excuse me and the community college and in order to be qualified you have to work with your local Community College which in our this is obviously cood and teachers must meet certain criteria so it's teacher dependent so for example I could teach and I did AP US History I would not be able to teach with my degrees I would not be able to teach dual credit I don't have the college credits graduate hours Beyond a master's degree or master's degree in the content area to be able to teach that and so it is challenging to get to du credit because it's based on what degrees and what coursework the teachers have that is why um You Might Recall we um with our current contract so back in 2020 the contract allows for what is called tuition assistance teachers have to apply there's a whole process for this but one of the areas it has to be an area of high need one of the areas that we identified as an area of high need is coursework or master's degree that would make a teacher eligible to teach dual credit so that's where it's different okay so we don't have teachers at North that are able to teach macro and micro with dual credit yes correct but like for example in speech which this is our first year we have one teacher districtwide qualified to teach speech which is incredible because most degrees students need to take speech so this is a huge win for District 99 that teacher travels meaning teaches it at North travels across and teaches it at South as well to campuses and we wouldn't let students from North come over to South to take those dual credit we would but it's unlikely it students typically don't like to do that yeah and it eats up time in their schedule right because they're traveling so we have done it there was several years ago um where we were able to offer AP Computer Science at South I believe and we had one I think one or two students that traveled um that traveled but it's rare yeah I it's rare and and and part of it is a lot of our students in general not just students who are taking AP classes right we'll take seven classes yeah right so their their day is full and so to take that time to travel that that beats up part of their schedule so that's part of it no that's a great that's a great question thank you um okay so AP because I know I've been trying to explain the difference so going back to AP um this slide here just talks a little bit about enrollment I'm not going to read everything to you but what I tried to outl outline here is the total number of enrollments so that's not students that's students in AP courses you might have a student who takes three AP courses you might have a student who takes one AP course um the percent of our overall enrollment which you can see ranges between has ranged for The Last 5 Years between between 26 and 28% then I pulled the unique number so those are single students who are enrolled in one or more AP classes and as you think about that too some of the AP courses like AP Lang or AP Lit apus history those are year-long courses some courses are semester courses like psychology or macr micro economics for example um so this chart is showing um how many unique students and then of those students how many are taking a test so just trying to show kind of how the enrollment but also bringing in the test data a little bit there the next slide so it's been fairly consistent over the last five years and how bless you expand our offerings it hasn't MH it has been I mean when you look at the percent of all enrollment I think that's where it's key um because our enrollment is going down a little bit um we've seen that how does the uh enrollment for AP classes vary between the two high schools so the enrollment in AP courses is fairly similar at both schools we offer the same courses at both schools um we tend to have a little bit slightly higher typically and I'd have to go through data to give you exact numbers but typically a little bit higher unique student enrollment percentage wise cuz remember North smaller campus smaller number of students at north than we do at South um but in many cases uh the data is fairly similar so for example and this was huge I don't even know if I told you this yet Hank but it this is huge um so last year on both ends of town right 100% of our students who took the AP Spanish test received a 3 four five so we see some of the same kinds of results at both schools but typically if you're talking about unique students and looking at percentage based on overall enrollment in our high schools course tends to be a little bit higher okay that make sense yeah yeah totally thank so make sure I explain that um so this is about this slide is obviously about test scores um giving you the percentage now that's the percentage of students ATT tested of course right um so that AR a three four or five again some schools will take the credit for three some you might have to have a four or five some may not take credit and often times that's challenging for students because they may not necessarily know what school they're going to attend um obviously the second one there is the number of tests that were taken and then the number of students uh that tested we we did have some great results um this year I was really impressed by I already shared about the AP Spanish obviously but chemistry District was districtwide was at 97% and if I remember correctly that's up by about over 20% um from the previous year so we had some uh some great situations where we saw definite increase over the years interesting too I was looking at micro macro since that was something that we just added um in terms of the Dual credit and our scores uh were better on AP when you engage in dual credit sometimes you have to add things or well with ap we can't take out of the curriculum but you have to add things to the curriculum and we did not have to add much at all but I was kind of interested in that and seeing if there would be an impact and our students did better so that was that was great so about very so about 1,200 unique AP students and then about 900 test that's not all students test um and there's a variety of reasons why they may not and in some cases I'm not saying every case but where we do have that Crossover with dual credit some students may not test because they're earning the Dual credit so that's something that's other than AP Computer Science which has been a long time that way that's something that um that we've looked at as well do you know whether colleges just thinking about the whole thing about colleges looking you know that you challenge yourself as much as you could throughout High School do colleges care if you took the test or not or I mean you get what we've heard over the years from colleges is that they care more about the caliber of the courses the level of the courses they care more about students challenging themselves right with the most rigorous coursework than necessarily about the test okay so in that sense it's obviously great for students who may not even take the test I will take this opportunity to point point out that last year there was a lot of questioning around the schedule change and how that would impact the success of AP test scores and some that believe that we would see a significant drop in overall performance in our scores I'll take this opportunity to point out that we did not see that happen actually an increase from the previous I would say too there's a parental Financial incentive to having them take the test oh absolutely yeah oh yeah you you know you feel like you didn't come this far to come this far like you if you went through the course take the test I think it very from from my personal experience it varies a little bit of course by the subject but also how the teacher you know some really build in the test and I know some kids to your point it's the first semester and you take the test the second semester or so think right but maybe the the test could be a limiting factor for kids even going that room but despite theit you say parental Financial I I'm just saying like if if the schools do accept it it's pay I just wanted you to say that exactly say what was the purpose of even us wanting know initial board members prior to wanting this to be U something that we concentrate on with the cost of college continually continuously increasing exactly I say another student been a from a student I know graduated a few years ago took a lot of AP courses and was sort of went to a journalism program and was absolutely thrilled at a freshman year was all journal and poetry what enjoy yeah so was like she did all that work and was able to really focus on what you want do or you'll see students that are able to complete in three years and get a jump on a master's degree there's a lot of that's what I'm doing with mine or a double master doing um a double major and a masters in 4 years because I graduate with 40 credits just from AP classes awesome it's it's like amazing that's great congratulations awesome it yeah those are the kind of stories I think we need to and I'm sure it's happening sh everything's happening share within the schools because that's very important and I I always concentrate on the cost of it and I don't ever want that if we can plan to be a hindrance for kids who really want that opportunity yeah absolutely and while I always say the disclaimer that it depends on the school because I don't want people to think it's an automatic many schools will accept AP credit absolutely and we obviously think that's very important um but I just don't want students going in to think it's automatic and it's every school and it's every major yeah that's I don't want them to be disappointed if yeah that's why I was saying the education of it and absolutely is extremely important so we the right message is given around this correct message I guess would be the way to say it so this is scores of four and five because remember I said some schools will only accept a four or five so same idea but just focusing on the students who are in a four or five obviously that percentage is going to be lower than the three four and five but it's still greater that's kind of high and it's substantially higher and only get a three the next so this slide is one that when I present about AP I usually don't present about grades I apted to do it this time because we're talking in this presentation about dual credit as well and remember when I said we evaluate AP typically by the exam we evaluate dual credit by the grade and I was thinking well it might be interesting for you to see the grade distribution for AP as well also when I talk about the Capstone courses we'll talk about grades so that's why I'm sharing this information um so I thought you might find this interesting one thing I do want to point out um and I did focus on the last um obviously five years um when it says 23 for example there it means the 22 23 school year when it says 22 means a 21 22 um you'll note when you look at grades of f grades that there are some 0% that doesn't necessarily mean there wasn't a single student right it's just that there's so many grades that and we round up if it's 0.5 or higher um so for example one year for one of the 1% It was 27 F grades but out of 4,413 right so but for me to put it just gets too busy I've tried it it's just would be overwhelming and I wanted to give the fiveyear because we typically look at things in five years M um so as you look at this you can see obviously our students grades also are doing very very well um in in the AP courses so I thought you might just find that interesting since we'll talk about grades with the other two areas so moving to dual credit I talked a little bit about this when I was talking about AP so I won't focus too much on it but they're also college level courses that are here uh in the high school taught by the high school teacher same as AP um introductory level coursework they may also be AP courses and we have a few that are um and they can also be it's a just different Pathway to college credit there's for the courses that we offer that are truly dual credit our dual credit is with cood and there is no cost associated with that we do have a couple of courses that we offer um that are dual enrollment which is different like our calculus 3 and um some years we've offered astronomy we even offered one year a literature course those courses are through four-year universities and there is a cost associated with that but dual credit courses is through they through cood there's no charge so just somebody like myself who doesn't know much about dual credit um when you say it's through cood and my child goes to the University of Illinois what do you what does that mean and so and how does that dual credit work and maybe even for schools outside the state of no oh absolutely so the student would take the course with us and whatever grade they get with with us so let's say the student gets a b is the grade that they get from cood as well when the student is finished with the Dual credit course or it could be several we have students who take obviously many of them they would need to request a transcript just like if you took a course at you know Benedict and or wherever to be sent to the school that they ultimately go to so it would be transfer credit okay in CTE courses it can get a little bit um fuzzy in terms of whether or not they will accept dual credit so some of the CTE ones they may or may not accept but when we're getting into content area courses um they're typically going to be accepted at most schools even outside of Illinois okay you're actually I'm getting a grade from cood even though I'm and it's a student here at d99 right and it's the same grade and most of and you're saying most of those are going to be acceptable accepted by Major institutions across the country again the disclaimer is it's not 100% but many of them are going to be and it reflects the work that the student did for 18 weeks versus how the student performed and an a test would you say I it seems to me that dual Credit in some ways is more powerful than AP much more so but the the hurdle is getting the certification from the teachers for dual credit got it that is the main hurdle there are some other hurdles but that is indeed the main hurdle yes so I say there are some other hurdles one of the other hurdles is the time it takes to get a course approved and a teacher approved so for example AP macro and microeconomics I think I worked on for three years mhm before we got approved speech actually went much much faster um and that took maybe a year our um PE courses which that's an area where we are fairly unique there's not too many schools in DuPage County that offer any dual credit PE courses we have two um it's personal trainer and personal safety um that took uh over a year so it takes a while the CT courses which are the courses that are on the left right those um some of those take a long time too or took a long time or can take a long time um but they they tend to go a little bit faster and they don't adhere necessarily to the same requirements that are required for the content area so like the social St courses the English that kind of thing is the time because all the bodies that have to approve or is there it's all the bodies the meetings it's talking about textbooks it's talking about the layout of the course it's there's so many things that um are considered that it can take it just takes a long time and sometimes things go quicker like speech did um even though that's a newer course and not offered by a lot of schools isn't there no like programs at other there had been communication with our teacher and cood prior to even working on that degree um that enabled him to be certified so uh it was because of our teacher who is fantastic um and able to bring that opportunity to us um so that that's really you know sped things up for us um the biggest limiting factor is always staff and getting the staff approved thank you for the work you're doing on it I mean I just think this is very important so thank you for how many years have we've been offering dual credit we have had dual credit for intro to teaching since it's Inception yeah s 18 I would have to check I'm sorry I I want to say decades yes um some of these are newer right so personal trainer personal safety maybe five years ago speech this is our first year in the AP macro and micro itself keyboarding is new keyboarding is new um AP Computer Science has been at least a decade uh intro to teaching has been uh I mhm forever yeah forever interior design is three maybe four years incubators knew it's a nework course for us so it would have to be Financial Accounting was one we went back and forth for for a long time um and that one is in year two or three and the architectures are probably seven seven or eight years ago so we've had some for a long while and some we're still working on so one of the goals when I came in a superintendent that Gina and I worked on and brought to the board was expanding this and Gina has almost every year since I've been here added a course or two to the list so it's all Gina's work getting us getting us to where we're at and it's it keeps growing and we keep working with legislators too to try to make it so that it gets uh sometimes it is more many times more difficult for us to get our staff approved than it is for the University to approve their own staff and I I do appreciate you saying that Hank about um working on it but it's our teachers they they are the ones that deserve the credit that me when you're looking at dual credit do you pay attention to like basic entrylevel course requirements at colleges and trying to Target some of those classes so that we can test out our kids as a as a enter as freshman you know I look at the Dual credit and there's there's not a lot of math and science in there so is that just not an option for dual credit cour work or is it just a lot more requirements and a lot more requirements so we have struggled for years particularly in science to try and get dual credit I had pushed um uh probably I don't know 8 10 years ago to try and get anatomy and physiology which if I don't know if any of your students have taken it but it is a fantastic course we have fantastic teachers teaching it um it is um it is definitely in my opinion like an introductory College course um and I tried to get some of our teachers I tried to get our teachers approved and was told basically we needed a medical doctor so a doctor to come in and teach the courses and while that would be great don't get me wrong um we don't typically have Physicians applying to teach our courses so that didn't work um I do have however I do have a teacher at South that is working on a degree that we may be able to get approved not for anatomy and physiology though for a different course and um I know we have a couple other teachers that are interested and what's helped with that has been the tuition assistance because now people are actually looking for oh I want to take courses in that you know will make me El teach credit because you know the district will um support that they don't even have medical doctors peing that correct college so I'm thoroughly conf that's what Hank is referring to well I should no you are you don't need we've both been speaking around this to be quite blunt it is the faculty at the college that has the power to approve whether or not one of our teachers can teach at that college and there is some past belief of self-interest that that those professors would like to keep those courses taught by their faculty not ours and that is why we've had to continue to work collaboratively with colleu page and uh Dr Caputo the president of cood has been fabulous in helping support us move this forward and to make sure that cood is more support they're more supportive than they ever have been but it's still long way to go to get it so that we can meet the needs of our students and that's why we have also worked very diligently legislatively to try to make sure that uh barriers get reduced so that our faculty that many of these universities or work at other universities uh are sometimes not approved by college to page uh to be a professor there so um it's just Hoops that we've had to jump through for years and uh this has been a challenge we've faced uh with this we we we hope that it continues to get better uh I know that there's other legislation and Rule making going on with the higher learning commission that hopefully makes this easier for us but that has been a point of frustration through all of this no matter what um dual credit is always a challenge to keep a curriculum going because it is so tied to the staff that you have you know it's you get a staff approve staff member approved you get them there teaching it but then to keep that sustained in moving forward is really difficult because it is so tied to your staff one key staff member leaves takes a promotion like all of a sudden your whole curriculum comes down where with ap that that isn't the case so anyways I'll get off that Soap Box one of the other challenges that could impact dual credit enrollment moving forward which is new uh new to us is that some of the courses uh that we have dual credit specific Ally uh with the macro and microeconomics and speech starting this year we were notified I believe on July 11th that's a date that sticks with me obviously uh that our students had to meet a particular reading requirement and while I can certainly understand that um our students sign up for classes in January sometimes into the first week of February and so not knowing that at the time was a challenge and so um many of our students did meet that requirement don't misunderstand me many of our students did but not all students have and then there's an alternate pathway and so we're working through and our our teachers have been fabulous with that in terms of working with individual students and parents to try and make sure they can still take the course but the one of the other challenges and I'm this is the reason I'm pointing it out is that sometimes there are things put into place from my perspective to later than our students are aware of when they're signing up for the course that can can be a struggle we also have some courses like interior design that some students in the class will take it for dual credit and some will take it for just just High School Credit so we we've been even looking at models like that I I gu my last thought on this is regarding college enrollment I think at some point we say it was down period yes I guess the argument could be you're getting the opportunity to get a student to come to college that may not this could be the difference of them coming for two years or three years or no years no all the research Shel definitively points to students that take AP or especially dual credit at high school go on to take more college courses are more successful in them and stay in college longer as a result of it there is absolutely all the evidence points to that colleges that partner with high schools to offer a larger breath of dual credit end up winning in the end because they going to get more kids to take more courses but it's getting some of the faculty to understand that that's the reality when you know some people are just afraid of keeping their jobs which you get too you know um but when we're looking at it through the lens of what's best for kids uh that's a spot where sometimes we Clash so I know I I spoke of most of this so I'm not going to read it to you um but these are just some of the differences to try and understand the difference between AP and dual credit although in Gianna's case I met your since you're working on multiple degrees that it's it is saving you still College tuition um for sure around 77 Grand yeah saving you a lot of money um but it in some cases it might just open up opportunities for students to take a minor or double major those kinds of things um but and I talk about the regulated eligibility as well so dual credit enrollment just wanted to share some information um with you again total enrollments unique students um and then the percentage um and you can see where we're Landing in terms of uh the 5-year average as well since as I said earlier dual credit success is evaluated by grades um wanted to share the grades with you so that you could see how well our students are doing um you know obviously uh when we look at the well it's really all of the grades but particularly the fs you'll see like a 0% we did have you know a few students who did fail but it wasn't enough to push us to 1% um but you'll see that our students in terms of asmbs are doing fantastic and a lot of these courses particularly uh are of Interest interest of the students they're interested in the cours workk so they're taking courses they're interested in um so um that makes sense and again most of the courses for dual credit not all but most of them are also like the AP at more at the Junior and senior level wanted to talk a little bit about Capstone courses which are different than the other two Capstone courses are the highest level of course in a particular pathway it's focused in a particular content area area so like the highest courses in um could be an AP course it could be if it's in C it could be incubator or accelerator it could be a dual credit course it doesn't necessarily have to be but it could be so you're going to see a lot of overlap um between those um as you can see we have a lot of them and these are defined by us so when I talk about Capstone right AP we're talking College boards basically has a curriculum requirements that kind of a thing dual credit we're working with cood they have requirements our teachers have Capstone is what we determine are the highest level pathway courses that we offer here in District 99 okay now what can you do with these I'm sorry this is just showing you the the number of students that make it to that highest level of a pathway um so again just same layout as before to enrollment unique students and um percent of students uh enrolled in a Capstone course so these are students who've again gone through multiple courses in a pathway um and then um grades and you'll see very obviously very similar layout to what we just saw with dual credit um where students are obviously being successful in these courses when we look at um you know the grades through a through C we're looking at about 95 depends on the year obviously but we're looking at students being successful in these highest level courses questions probably asked enough yeah think we did it appreciate all the work you put into that that's fantastic I'm proud of our students yes and our teachers yeah I'm proud of the admin istrative staff and specifically Gina who puts in the amount of work that this has a real impact on our students and parents and their financial portfolio so thank you so much absolutely we have a real live example we do that is fantastic honestly I am so glad that you shared that with us appreciate so share with us what your plan is so I would do a double major I want to go to American University because it's the only school that has both of these Majors actually so the first one is called d data science and Justice law and criminology so it looks at crime from a more statistical standpoint and it can pinpoint like what's working and what's not using like statistics which I think is super cool um and then the other one is called kle so it's Communications legal institutions economics and government so I'd be doing a double major in those two and a master's in data and Justice and law and then maybe I'll get and then um my PL to get my PhD from American too so that'll be good so yeah that's good back and teach them dual credit class yeah ex I'll have all the credits ready to go but no I think that's really a good plan to get all of the things at the same University exactly because I noticed when my daughter uh transferred from one University to another it was a little hazy because they wanted their share oh yeah and am pay you 5400 a month to be a pH student there so it's like yeah he does what now pays me 5,400 a month to be a PhD student there no yeah so uh so that's a really good thing so uh current plan sh awesome that's all right uh the next one uh is my planned leadership events for the school year uh just to get it out there for the board especially because as uh one of the areas that the board highlighted that they'd like for me to focus on is being uh an advocate for educational Innovation both locally and nationally so there's a blend of local leadership and National leadership opportunities in there that I'll be proposing to participate in uh many of the events uh I'm attending at no cost because I'm either helping to plan them lead them or present at them um um and uh I I think this is a pretty good portfolio of experiences uh for me to represent District 99 at uh this year a lot of those look really cool yeah so I glad like to hear when you go and come back I'll report back as I come back just just just because they look like some really cool opportunities yeah yeah and it's really nice to get our name associated with with some of those events so thank you co-presenting with Google in the in the spring so that's kind of nice to be with a bigname company like that so well you've been associated with Google for a while now so yes I brought Google into K12 schools so I have a long term connection with that so that's good that's really nice when we when we hired Hank as superintendent uh it really came down to two candidates and I I remember wishes he would have hired the other one I remember being a strong advocate for Hank because I viewed him as a superintendent that could push innovation in d99 and I think um some of those opportunities that Hank otherwise would have had had we had regular and routine uh administration of a school district um kind of got lost over the last several years and I was really happy to see when we set our goals for the superintendent and the administrative staff this year that we really talked about pushing Hank in bringing new ideas to d99 and I think it's important that we support him as he brings these opportunities uh to travel to engage to have conversations with other leaders not just here locally but across the country and bring those ideas back and try and Implement those ideas here at d99 so I think we want to give him license and those opportunities to try and really expand educational opportunities at d99 uh so when Hank and I were talking about this um uh we we brought it to the board because we wanted to get all of your input as far as cost associated with travel and lodging and registration at some of these events just want to make certain that the board is behind expending those type of expenses to support Hank's Endeavors in expanding his knowledge base so I'm I'm a big advocate for that because I think that's why we hired him and I think you know I I'm really strong supporter and proponent of getting him out there uh and getting him those opportunities I'm I'm a with it I like the idea of not just uh threatening if that's the right what is with locally I like the U opportunity to see Han go and you know to superintendant Across the the country exactly now the one in there that is the most expensive is uh the Suburban superintendent conference um that one it returning board members know that that is a pretty exclusive organization it's 125 of the top Suburban superintendents in the country uh you only are in that if you're nominated by two current members so it is it's a pretty high bar to get in and then by being in there to remain part of that group you need to attend two out of every three conferences so this one's a little pricier you know it is in California um I I don't pick where they're at it's obviously where the organization picks where they're at um but uh it is one where I learn the most from over that it's all schools with similar def demographics to ours that are all just pushing the envelope and are really leading the way um I I learned more in those three or four days you know professionally than probably the other events maybe combined um just because there's so many like-minded school districts there um but that one is it it's an expensive one this year uh it's as much as the other ones I think put together it's one that I went back and forth with Don on and in the end we decided to bring it forward to the board as a request and recommendation to go to that one but I don't want anybody to be surprised by by the cost of that one I've tried to offset it by selecting into with some that are no cost or reduced cost because I'm like I said presenting or leading so I've tried to be responsible in that that way that's very good very good I think too just from a corporate perspective this is not unlike corporations that have not done training or travel for the last few years saying even times a lot of Industries here right now that we got to invest in our people we got to keep our organization looking forward so I think you know given your role as a head of our organization it's it is important so to apply that people for um one of the things and one of the reports that we do at work says that people will leave in corporate if they don't feel like they're getting the Learning and Development exactly right they need so of course that applies to you know industry all Industries I think people have the same mind not that you're going anywhere but I hope not no yeah yeah we've invested too much all all right that's it for that one unless there's any other questions all right I'm going to turn it over to Travis for the next one so for the 13 of you that were at the opening day Institute I apologize because this is going to be a lot of the same information but it's really important uh information um and and as a side note uh talking about AP and dual credit and I love there's so many layers to all of that right and dual credit has been a real challenge for schools about 15 years ago is when they made really the change that you have to have your master's degree in the content area or 18 credits if you have a master's degree in that area and that has it's handcuffed a lot of schools you're seeing though I think a lot of the community colleges where they're looking at it and saying man these other schools are doing it we better start being more uh working with our area schools so that's it's a good it's a great opportunity for for our students um so talking specifically about uh safety this is a this is a all Hands-On deck type of a of an approach that that we have really worked on in this District um long before I I came uh two months ago um and but it is something that is really a top priority for our district and something that that I am uh looking at all of the different pieces that we're doing related to safety so another thing that we've been really trying to do is focusing on our values so really this hits on that we care we prepare and we evolve so those are the the main lenses if you will as we're looking at our safety plans as we're looking at the different things that we're doing with our our students and our staff that we're really uh focused on um over this summer I read a it's called a pen test it was done in May of 2022 and what that did was it tested both our phys physical security and our our virtual security so we had a third party uh come in and test and see how secure both physically and virtually is our district so you're going to hear me reference some things and uh of that we've specifically put in place as a result of of hearing the feedback from that that test um and that is something it gives us if you will kind of the best practices uh that we should be we should be looking at so one of the things that we've been really focused on is evacuation and reunification uh especially at the beginning of this school year so it's important that we understand the difference because sometimes they get um confused a little bit so when you think about evacuation you're leaving right so the evacuation component is what you're typically used to where you're leaving you're leaving a premise okay it doesn't mean that you leave the grounds but it does mean that you leave if you will an area maybe the the building um that is an important distinction as compared to reunification when you think about reunification that's where you're reunifying individuals right so when we talk about that we're reunifying families uh with their their loved ones okay and it's it's important that we do both really well and that we understand those different components so when you think about evacuation that's Alice we are an ALICE District uh all of our staff I'm going to talk about that here in a minute but that's what we do for um a severe incident a vertical incident and then I love you guys Foundation um has been implemented countywide so all of DuPage County all of the schools in Dage County are implementing I love you guys which gives you a standard protocol for reunification which is huge with our First Responders because they understand and and they they know what it is that we're that we're doing with that so throughout all of this uh different lenses if you will when we talk about fysal security uh when we look at our reunification with I love you guys it gives us all of the protocols it gives us all of the documents that need to be filled out all of those things we need to look at it through the lens of how do we make that work here at at District 99 so one of the things um that we have been doing a lot related to this is working with our first responders so I can tell you um Bill buds with our our Police Department he has been phenomenal he's come to almost every safety meeting that we've had Tom Frank is uh a deputy chief with our fire department he's been great in coming and they their insight has been invaluable to say to give us that perspective right from our first responder lens and so it's been really good I want you to know that we're working not just internally we're looking and saying okay what are Best Practices that you're seeing what water areas that we need to focus on um and that is a a really really important thing uh as we as we look at what we do one of the things that we are focused on as well this year is our tabletop exercises so if you want to think about a a a tabletop we just actually had our first of eight tabletops that we have planned this year we're planning on doing four at each building so we had our first tabletop at South and we're we present scenarios we stress test if you will our plan uh the individuals that that are around the table how would we respond to this here's a new part of the scenario now with this information what would we we do next um and our representatives from our Police Department as well as our fire department were there and they've been invited to all of them again they're observing they're giving feedback uh we we did at the end it's called a hot wash where we go through and say okay what does that look like how did how did we do what are areas that we need to improve on what are things that we need to further uh develop in our in our plan so we have again four of those planned at each of the buildings uh which is um again you want to talk about some unique things I don't know of many districts that are that are focusing and putting the resources and the time to having those specific events so that's I'm I'm really proud uh that that we're doing that so I want to talk about virtual safety some best practices um a recent study that was that was released recently is that 80% of schools have suffered some type of ransomware attack 80% of schools so that's a lot so we need to do our due diligence here um and so these next two best practices arose from that that pen test that I uh mentioned just a little bit ago and that is um when you leave your computer so again all of this is is really good for our personal use as well not just you know as you're going through uh if you're working in a in a place of business but um hitting the window and L key at the same time locks the locks the computer so if you're ever leaving your computer you shouldn't just leave it open and walk away right because then people have access to that so getting in the habit of of Simply hitting those two buttons and walking away now when you come back you have to log back in but most of the time computers time out anyway so you'd have to log uh back in but that is a uh an easy thing that um Can detract a lot of potential issues second thing um is make sure your passwords are secure um having Post-it notes of of passwords is not a good uh way of going about especially if you put your username and your password in the same location right um I I've had conversations with my parents they have a a notebook right that has all of their username and passwords in it and if someone just gets a hold of that they have everything right so it's really important keeping that secure um and so we talked with the staff about um not having Post-it notes if you need to write it down we have locked filing cabinets and drawers make sure and put it in there and it's locked and secure and and put away so I would I would recommend that um as well the third best practice is to um make an annual p password change so that's what we're going to be doing tonight at the end of our board meeting is helping is assisting you in making an a password change um one of the criteria that we have in our district is that it's 12 characters long there's no special characters there's nothing along those lines but it needs to be at least 12 characters long um it it is an important part of uh what we should be doing and but I think why so many people write them down is because they make it so hard and then they can't remember was that a capital D followed by a dash right so it can still be complicated and you can go through that but phrases is a really good thing to use um as a as a password I know I use first letters of a phrase often that will have something that that goes through I'm not going to say what they are but it would use the first initial someone so that if someone were to look at your password go what in the world is that right it makes sense to me because as I'm typing the letters or numbers I'm saying it in my mind and then I remember it as I go through that that process so that's uh a really important thing so we we already sent uh staff actually on the on the day of the first Institute in directions on how to change their password right so that they could um they could engage in that best practice um lastly is to be diligent with what you click on with emails right so you've all heard of individuals that were scammed and they went through uh different aspects and this applies uh to you as well as you have a a District 99 account it's the number one way that ransomware gets in so if you notice in your email uh bar there's a a fish hook that is up in that upper leftand corner um and if you click on that then that will send a message uh to our Tech Team saying heyy this looks fish okay so then our Tech team will look at it and if it's something that's bigger they can address that with everyone on staff um but that is something that you can do you can always delete the email as well right so don't if you're going I'm not sure about this my my stance is if it's important enough they're going to email me back right if it doesn't seem right I'll I'll delete it if it comes back again I might hit the fish hook as I go through if it still just doesn't seem uh right also related to our our virtual safety we are uh we have a cyber event tabletop that we have planned on October 6th um and we have our entire executive Council that's going to be engaged in a 4-Hour tabletop related to cyber a cyber event right so we're going to go through that and test our our systems that we have in place uh to make sure that that we have the appropriate things uh put in place to handle such an event talking about physical you'll notice right we have the the lanyards on um and this is a way to distinguish staff members so we have uh we handed all of these out at the at the beginning of the year and all of our staff members are are wearing uh the common lyard there's a reason for that just like a a change word a password change uh refreshing that this gives us an easy way to identify staff we haven't had this before and as you notice it has the core values around it so that is one way that we can easily identify if someone is a staff member we also have visitor passes right but if we notice someone doesn't have on this lanyard we've talked to staff about going up and just saying hey can I help you right don't assume that because someone's in the building that they should be there so as we go through give them a reason hey can I help you right don't assume that they're someone bad and going through but it gives us a great opportunity to engage uh with someone and and be able to help in that in that way I'm going to move on to physical uh safety best practices um so there are five that that we shared with staff the next three again are related to the the 2022 pent test uh the first is something that was put in place last year and that's just the continuation of locking uh classroom doors when instruction is going on during the school day it's a best practice uh that that we are making sure that we we follow um also make sure that uh exterior doors are closed that Al times um the main thing here is don't prop our exterior doors right so that is something that we um we talked with staff and and reinforced and the third is to keep your keys your ID and your access card um secure at all times so if I were to leave this in my office hanging up you might look and say Ah that's not a big deal it has an access card on it if someone has access to that they can get into the buildings right so it's important that you keep that with you um and we talked with the staff about not giving your keys to kids for any reason um and because of that conversation we've had some different ways that we're approaching different things such as PE classes um as we're going through so I'm proud of our staff for thinking okay what does that look like then if that's not a best practice how can we work in other other ways uh for that uh another thing is to keep the windows um to classrooms free and clear so that individuals can can see into those uh it's another safety measure and finally um don't let others into the building as uh you're entering or leaving so there's tailgating uh so we talked with the staff about if you're going into a location and someone is behind you and they don't have a lanyard they don't have that direct them to where the visitor's entrance is right don't let someone in that doesn't have the correct credentials into it it can be awkward it can be tough right where you're going I'm sorry but you can't come in this way but let me show you where you can right so that's the that's the key to that not just saying or just smiling as you close the door right it's helping them as you as you can go through that but that's a that's an important thing and likewise as you're leaving making sure that the door is shut uh before you leave that area because someone else could could sneak in uh with that so the final thing I'm going to talk with you about is just our our threat assessment and the processes that we have in place so we have our our building level teams meet once a week uh to talk about um any types of uh concerns with students so if we're looking at a a anything that comes up we think that the student either uh might have some self harm issues might be uh might harm others anything along those lines there's teams in each of our buildings that meet on a regular basis and discuss those we have a a threat assessment team that has protocols in place um legislation in the last couple years you have to have a threat assessment process uh in place and we have that um and that is really to make sure that that we intervene in case there's a a potential issue with a with a student um and we also have at our ASC we have monthly meetings that we go through um we actually just had our first meeting uh is it yesterday last week yeah last week last week so yesterday would not we didn't get together I wasn't there yet no no weren't there so that is something that um it's important you understand as well there are there are teams of individuals that care about kids that we're talking about them more than just the academic component right we're looking and saying how how are they doing what are there other supports that we need to put into place uh for them uh one of the big things with uh threat assessments is um if you see something say something so you've heard this probably the news right if you see something don't assume someone else is going to say something make sure um and do that so on our website again giving you another visual this is on the top of all of all of our websites you see the the bubble over there to the left um when you click on that it takes you to our district 99 crisis reporting and resources site so it has different things in there about if you're worried about this here's what you can do um one of the things safe to help Illinois it's a whole Illinois initiative um that is shared on this website um it is also on the back of all of our student IDs again that is a legislative uh change that came down um last year so all of that is on the back side of there that is available to anyone right it's not just in schools anything along those lines it's available across the entire State um and that is uh an important resource if there's ever any concerns um so all that being said still the number one thing that research says that is important is relationships so we're really focusing on being intentional with relationships um I'm I'm a huge believer in knowing others and being known right so if you're in community you're more likely to care about those that you're in community with right so we want that for every student every staff member so we talked with the staff about that as well we have all of these things in place the best thing we can do still though is have good solid relationships where people know that they're cared for um and I have I have definitely seen that in my time here and I'm I'm proud of of all the work uh that that we're working on but specifically on the relationship side so I just covered a lot of information related to a lot of different things you guys have any questions one thing you talked about best practice itic is where do medical metal detectors being installed at the entrance of each building come in line and is that a best practice in your idea what your thought I'll speak to that so what is your thought about that I know it's become a big issue especially like in Highland Park and different Suburban districts where where do we stand on that yeah it's uh I mean it seems like when people look at like shootings in schools or whatever that's a natural thing to react and go to but the actual carrying out and Staffing that and managing that is uh really an intense use of resources not just the the equipment to put there that's the small part it's having multiple people there at all times to go through that and when you have a rush of students you know we we have 2,000 students or more that arrive within a 20-minute period of time each day uh now you take all of those students and stack them outside of the building waiting in cues to get in while you scan everybody to come in at the same time if you look at the incidents that we've seen out there in the world very few of them are coming through a secured entrance and gaining access that somebody lets them in or they force their way into a location or they're sitting outside of a building waiting for somebody in those cases metal detectors wouldn't uh be a prevention or deterrent in any of those things we think it's far more important to secure in the ways in which Travis outlined uh rely on relationships rely on supporting students that have demonstrated that there's concerns there and that's where our resources are best best spent I agree wholeheartedly you lose something in your in again my personal opinion you lose something in that culture of relationships as well right um so I think it's important we focus on all those things we do those things well I don't think that is a it's a need I think it would be really great if society and government would step up and take some of the responsibility for this so that schools wouldn't have to have all of it and that shouldn't be a controversial thing to say I I think the one of the most important things is if you see see something say something I think that really gets down to the Crux of the matter is you know it it can head off a lot of problems so I think those are great steps but for example a gun in a kid's backpack he's coming into school with a gun in his backpack how is that going to be alleviated you know what are we going to do to alleviate that as a threat to all the students that are in the class with them or can we I think so that's that student that I I think there's other students that maybe have related with that student and know that there's a a situation and it comes back to the if you see something or hear something you you tell someone about that situation because that student uh maybe has a lot of other situations that are happening in his life so or her life so that's and Terry you're right that's what it comes down to is when we've had those situations and we learn about them it it is from other students that are bringing it forward and I think that's truly the important thing that students understand it's it's okay to talk to other people about situations that could be and if they're uncomfortable that's why the tools like safe to help or there that allow them to bring it forward without you know fear of something happening to them I'm sorry Hank I didn't that's all right Cherry it's the right answer you you know the answer uh any other questions for Travis I think this is you you know every year in the spring or in the in the fall here we bring some of these updates to the board uh obviously we can't disclose to the public all of our safety plans because then it's easier to get around those safety procedures yeah um but I also think this is a good opportunity for the board and the public to see the importance of Travis's role in somebody that's overseeing the facilities our technology and our security as those things become more and more intertwined uh moving forward that you know as this board and this District continue to innovate having somebody that's has oversight of all of those things helps make us safer um just because you know Travis has his eye on all of those things at one time and with an instructional background understanding how those things connect back into teaching and learning so um you'll hear a lot more about the stuff that we're doing but we're really leading the way here uh in in these things Julie do we have any reception visitors no sir we do not okay then uh then can I get a motion to adjourn so moved passwords we need to reset passwords and then we can adjourn we have to do that in Open Session okay oh uh can we get a motion to a journ I like my password yes I guess you could adjourn but then uh good luck getting your help with your'll be back next next week yeah yeah because we can't get in exactly within a year I've changed within a year uh but now we have to set up two Factor authentication two Factor authentication Chang so we're going to do that then once we're done everybody set with passwords we'll take a motion to adjourn okay so we're done with the business of meting I'm sure nobody wants to sit around and watch board members change passwords that's why I brought all my devices they do we've brought in Matt our team expert that's going to help you with are we goingon to just go in a mass oh I wanted to ask you Courtney can I oh okay I know I need help either way they did Terry Terry they did it in like January or February at North last year like a wien radar no I don't even know my password help us everyone chocolate your characters do two at a time an American 72 I would like to go there yeah well no I mean everything helps no yeah all good I will make sure you Emil have some cookie before you leave happy [Music] birthday it's about like trying to get fancy with okay now what do I need to do bu you what's up she wants to write down your password tell me how to2 process I will turn on my device homecoming parade will you be participating IE riding in a car waving and throwing candy that we provide you already l no for either both of those yeah unfortunately not this year okay I'll plan for it next year and then the open house for North High changed October 21st from 9 to 12 a.

hi here that's good thank you you ready okay I called to order the Oswego Community Unit School District Board of Education for September 11 2023 can I have a roll call please here Mr Gatewood president please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States public ly nation under God indivisible with liberty pay 4.1 public comment on behalf of the Board of Education I would like to thank you I would like to thank the public for attending tonight's meeting we value feedback we receive from our members of the public and encourage everyone to take an active interest in their public school system members of the public interested in speaking to the Board of Education this evening are asked to have completed a comment card and presented it to the secretary to the board when the secretary calls your name I ask that you come to the microphone state your name for the public record and provide your feedback please note that comments are limited to five minutes per person and that no discussion of personnel matters stating staff names or responses to your questions are permitted the board does not participate in discussion during public comment follow up to your questions or concerns will be addressed by Administration through the contact information provided on the comment card thank you Lisa Albano hi Lisa welcome so I have nothing fully prepared I just need to give a little background and just kind of want to explain my frustrations um to make you aware because you all received an email from me on the 31st whether you I know you didn't respond but just to give you a little background I've been in the district my kids my oldest is a junior here and I have freshman twins that are also here we have always been in the school district so we don't know any different I have also been heavily involved in the PTO at Grand Park Elementary at Murphy and then I also was part of the superintendent's advisory Council for many many years when my kids were second and third grade up until just when Dr Spartan left I'm just really frustrated and I'm also an educator I've been 25 years as a teacher myself so I kind of understand how things work and how things go I'm just really frustrated with Transportation um on August 4th all documentation needed to be submitted to the district to provide them with information if you needed an extra stop um I emailed multiple times and as of August 30th which was the last email I sent I still have no response and my transportation is still not fixed so we are now 17 days into school the fifth week of school and nothing's been done and I'm also really frustrated with PowerSchool I get that we needed to change it I get that Tyler was gone I also heard rumors whether they're true or not that there have been talks of this since December and the way it was rolled out was a little bit frustrating for parents um My Two children who are freshmen still can't get into Power School I've talked to the help desk multiple times at which time they tell me they are not able to help me because there is one person in charge of PowerSchool and she has over 3 000 requests and she hopes they hope that she can get to me sooner than later to me that's not acceptable it's not best for kids I can understand in elementary if they don't have access to PowerSchool on a regular basis probably not the end of the world but for middle school and high school kids who check their grades check assignments if they're absent it's not acceptable my son sat in the wrong class for four days because the room number changed and he had no access to know that and so I spoke to um the woman from Power School finally reached out to me on September 1st she told me at that time she was going to talk to the director of technology to figure out what was going on and I still haven't had a response and it's just not right it's not best for kids and it's unacceptable and so I'm very frustrated um on the flip side oh my gosh I reunited with a friend that I used to work with in Hinsdale I'm at uh 181 and the special ed Department here at OE for my son has been absolutely amazing I said today I got an email from a teacher and I'm not supposed to say names but she was amazing because she took it to that next level and she just you could just tell how much she cared and all the teachers here at OE have been and wonderful with communication and just you know letting us know what's going on and so it's greatly appreciated so I'm not usually one to you know be mad I usually try to you know focus on the positives and look for success and I do that with my own students like I call home with good stories as opposed to what they did wrong because that's the important stuff let's celebrate it but I couldn't not say something because I was just so frustrated because it's not this isn't affecting me it's affecting my kids and so that's where and I know that there's other families in the same boat so I just had to say that and probably talked over my time and oh god look that's actually pretty good I'm usually two years ago sorry so yeah so that's all I wanted to say I just wanted you guys to understand hopefully we can move this along I don't know there's nowhere for the kids to go in the school to bring their computer and troubleshoot and it's frustrating because these kids don't I can only help I could get into Power School my oldest daughter could get into PowerSchool my other two can so it's just it's a problem so hopefully it we can get it fixed and hopefully Transportation can get on track and we'll be good thank you thank you thank you thank you okay next we are building we're going to welcome uh presentation this evening we have Dr petsky and the team Brent Kiger and Kevin McDonald who are going to be presenting on technology this year foreign yes thank you thank you for having us tonight my name is Kevin McDonald I'm the director of information systems and support and alongside me is Brent Kiger the director of technology and infrastructure we will be giving you our yearly technology update tonight along with some of the goals for this year even though we did not have any goals this past year in division 308 that doesn't mean we weren't busy but rather than rather than sharing uh and I'll just jump into the first let me scroll down a little bit there we go all right the first one rather than sharing Chrome uh yeah rather than sharing carts in the elementary we were able to supply each section in first through fourth with a cart full of Chromebooks for each student to use while in the classroom we also were in order to support a refresh schedule for all our Chromebooks in the district we work with the finance department to increase our yearly budget this will help ensure our fifth and ninth graders have a device that will last them for the four years that they will be assigned in collaboration with the High School administration we came up with a way to create a course that ran out of the tech hubs this course will help give students who are interested in technology the opportunity to get some career Readiness skills to use post High School they also learn customer service skills while dealing with students and staff that walk into the tech hubs so far the students are loving the course and are learning a lot we ran a pilot for a classroom management solution using securely classroom this pilot ran out of both high schools and included about 25 teachers by the end of the pilot we ended up with about 50 teachers due to all the requests that we received from others that were in the pilot we ran it for about three months and once again we received very good feedback from everyone that was involved all the projectors in the district have now been replaced this is uh this was completed using Federal and Grant federal and state funds or federal excuse me using multiple federal and state grants this was necessary since we were using 15 year old projectors in the classrooms and learning areas that didn't have good video and audio quality the new projectors help provide a clearer picture for the students to see from anywhere in the room we were able to purchase new Chromebooks for the 5th and 9th grade students using Esser funding this helped give us a jump start on our Chromebook refresh schedule we want to put in place and allows us to provide our students with new touch screen and higher performing devices in collaboration with student services and operations we were able to implement new door intercoms at each school's main entryway doing this helps protect and lockdown our schools even further by keeping the patrons outside the building entirely until someone in the front office lets them in lastly we are able to replace 52 of our highly utilized copiers with new devices to help prevent prevent breakdowns and repair calls leading to a better end user experience and now to highlight where some of those projects apply to the various core areas in The Envision 308 of course with Finance we worked with the finance department heavily to ensure that our budget would now allow for the future refresh of the Chromebooks for fifth well for fifth through 12th grade but in addition to that I our plan for the first through fourth grades will also be supported for in a refresh rate student learning as mentioned before we were able to create this uh Tech Hub um that uh the students I I will say that we did receive a quote earlier this week or last week that they say it's their favorite class of is great A lot of energy surrounding that class very exciting to be involved with that the support for student learning we were able to ensure that all students were able to have a Chromebook in their hands to continue their learning in classrooms as a side note there is an extra slide in the board docs presentation but it does go through some of the incidents that we were able to work through some very interesting numbers there um and then again want to hit upon the technology Hub it was kind of a double hitter not only are we providing the environment where they can learn and expand their skills but it also gives other students other staff in the high schools quick access to solve their technology issues uh and as mentioned the securely classroom we are hoping that it will provide a environment that students can or the teachers can use to keep their students engaged with what is being taught in the classroom and as mentioned we didn't have a task for The Envision 308 for this year but now we do this January and we are playing to form a committee an instructional technology committee that will consist of various staff members throughout the district that will be a place that people can come and brainstorm investigate and start to define the vision of what instruction looks like with the integration of technology and our final goal in year 2026 is that we will have that shared Mission across the district and in the community as so that was one task but again just like before we have other plans for this year plan to initiate the creation of the technology plan the committee will be somewhat a chapter in that technology plan looking forward to getting that out there the continuing the development of the tech hubs and those courses and those students involvement in those courses we also plan to finalize our district cyber security plan and we are planning to evaluate a new door access control solution for the district and there's a nice little picture there at the end with the students involved in the tech question questions yes one oh no go ahead just one thing I want to uh celebrate is the both the work you've accomplished but also the work to come around a tech plan I think it's important to really think about how we are looking both in terms of an audit of our current systems both the infrastructure and the ins um the infrastructure but as well as on the instructional side and within our security so really understanding the breadth and depth of what is missing and what is needed I think as the also the issue of personnel are we staffed appropriately are some of the things that you brought to my attention as you think about the need for a tech plan because that also determines the kinds of Investments we need to be playing for as we look ahead so before we open up the questions I want to know Dr pescue if there's anything else you want to add no it's funny I was going to ask Ty and Peter back there to zoom in on that picture because it was hard to see I looked at just some blotches of color but to go through those Tech hubs at the high school and you know watch the kids come in kind of get their plan for the day and some of the course material they're going for and some of the mentors that they're working with it's just uh it's really nice to have in our high schools and I think Brent and Kevin would agree that's kind of a some tech experiences that we'd like to see trickle down into middle school and even the fourth and fifth grades with some of the things that they're doing so I don't know if any of our student ambassadors have had a chance to get into the tech hubs at all or seen what those have been like um I've only been in there because I've had a problem with my Chromebook but um it was very helpful and um I do think that it's a good thing for our students to whether they're learning more or whether they just need some help so I do think it's really good so my question is for the tech hubs is it just for working of your Chromebook or like we heard earlier about PowerSchool or what is it PowerSchool and how people are have students are having trouble getting in is that an opportunity for students to come to power you know to come to the hub to see if they can get access to PowerSchool that way it is not the original intent for them to do that that being said we do have other members in that Tech Hub uh usually are on-site technician is there and our integration coach or the buildings integration coach we have a shared Tech channel that not necessarily with the students but with those individuals where they can reach out and reach other members of the tech department to try and find out a solution for them so and I would imagine at this point students don't know that that's available to them probably not right yeah probably not a lot of it would depend on the building's advertisement so if we have this backlog of individuals who can't get into power school then maybe we should consider it I'm just asked I'm just saying there may be an issue of student privacy of data as well with PowerSchool some of this so I think that's something that I would want working with the student that would be a crossover this part of it will be a student registration issue and so I'd want us to look at yeah look okay look into it because if there's only one person who's handling PowerSchool and we've got this long Jam then we got to figure out some other ways to get that yeah I would say let's investigate if we're thinking about some of the earlier comments this evening I think we need to look into the details of that because there are lots of factors before I would say that I could say that that is the case maybe Dr Kincaid but I would say that that is an important point we want to definitely be looking into it okay other questions or comments Jen is securely a learning management system no it's not um it's more of an access control monitoring management of the device environment okay it isn't like a learning management system like Google classroom or something like that and did is this being piloted because of why I guess like when I what is for me when I looked when I read this presentation some of these things felt I was trying to like okay where what what's the why behind this how does this align to our goals what is the purpose of us piloting this uh the main focus was to give the teachers the ability to not only be efficient in the classroom but also keep the students engaged and task oriented they with this particular software they can view what's on the Chromebooks so you don't want the students strain yeah and I totally understand that but I guess my question is did this come about because to teachers that we have this as an issue I guess I'm trying to get to the root cause the why we're doing that I know it's something that every school district does and so for them just trying to get to the root cause and when we look at our priorities of what we need to do in the tech World why was this something that we're doing now and so forth so that was my question and something I would like to see directly in the presentation because we can read the whole presentation but I guess it's the why and the root cause of what why we're running a pilot and why we're doing a pilot and then how it's aligned to our goals and then is that is that looking at securely as the pilot have we looked at any other Solutions and why did we focus on securely one of the main features of securely is that we work with them for our filtering and aware applications which also does some monitoring and if we felt that if securely had the ability to do what we needed it to do it was a great fit with the integration not some other system to support in the environment it already has the ability to open up and block websites that this that the teacher may do needed so it was really a good fit with what we currently have in the environment and how is let's say the next stage is to adopt this or purchase this or whatever how is that being rolled out to our Educators how are they going to be trained on it how are they going to use it and so forth uh yeah we we do have materials from securely uh training videos documentation we've been worked with the integration coaches over the last year to develop some of that and along with our department but honestly as Kevin mentioned those other staff members that wanted to become part of the pilot they were not part of the initial training and they just picked it up so it's a very friendly application not to say that we won't provide these materials but I feel comfortable that the teachers will be able to use the application very easily with all due respect many people think that about PowerSchool too and I spoken to a library frustrated Educators that don't have access to PowerSchool and don't know how to use it so providing materials and having that connection happen are one thing what I ask is that it's been done very intentionally and maybe not like at the beginning of school or you know at another time very critical for our Educators to be focused on something else in a very intentional rollout so and uh if I could just weigh in for a second so I do appreciate the question too Jennifer because it's it's one of those things how many Tech initiatives are we going to have and roll out and this is kind of an evolution of where we've been and where we're going so where we've been is we've had tech labs and we've had technology in the schools but not necessarily a one-to-one program so we had and correct me if I'm wrong but it was net support school that we had in the labs where teachers had a window into the world of what the students were doing rather than looking over everybody's shoulder and when we ended up going to one-to-one with the Chromebooks then we knew that was a concern all teachers now we're going to be concerned about what are the kids doing one of the strategies I saw while I was monitoring the pilot was a very easy one the teacher put their screen that had all of the kids little thumbnails and put it up on the projector and then walked around and helped the kids on the different projects and the kids kind of could see what the other students in the class were doing and not only does it give what they're doing in real time and help the teachers monitor but it's got a few other features including like limiting what sites the kids can go to or only putting sites that are available for the kids to peruse and the one one is also the history so you can a teacher doesn't have to put in a ticket to say Brent and Kevin what was this student doing at this time of day they can log into securely and pull up exactly the time and the sites that those kids were on so if people are trying to hide what they're doing there's a little accountability there and I I think the reason it came up now was because we've got teachers in the district who experience it in their Labs but when we went one-to-one with covid now we're taking the time and attention now that we've actually developed a refresh and gotten these resources out there this is one of those technology energies that actually impacts the classroom so to be able to give the teachers a window to the world rather than just feeling like hey all of your kids have Chromebooks good luck so this gives a tool to help manage and give us some insight but your points are duly noted you know professional development is key making sure people are comfortable with it and uh just kind of building some experience with that some different best practices what can you do with this test and I appreciate what you said at the beginning that was what I was looking for was kind of the trajectory of connecting the dots and I have to be very honest I did this five years ago in another District so a little bit because of resources because of a lot of reasons behind the times but it definitely is something that we have needed for a long time and when you go one-to-one you have to have let's be very honest with you so you know let's be very honest so I guess but my is connecting the dots on a presentation instead of just a bullet point that we're piloting this okay why what's the reasoning what's the projection or what's the connect the dots of why we're doing this and what you said is that you know what we did historically and why we're doing that now so that's all I would really appreciate good thank you it's just a point of clarification I was looking under the finance excuse me uh the tab for finance and I'm I'm remembering another report that I read but my plain question is is for our one-to-one devices are they leased or are they purchased we originally leased uh when covet hit um that contract is up I we just made honestly our last uh finance payment or lease payment for that from that point on we are now purchasing the prices so the ones that we at least originally are we purchasing those are we replacing those with purchase devices ultimately replacing those with purchase devices all right for the purchase or the least of the purchase for the leaves it's like a seven or eight for this year yeah yeah for this year only okay and Eugene just for clarification there the leases the the thing about Chromebooks their end of life is only three to four years and so when you lease them for five years they're pretty much at the end of life anyway so I I'm not exactly sure but what I know about the contracts probably we had a dollar buyout we don't have to return those machines when the lease is up we just need to get rid of them they're not really good to us they're not good to the kids they're end of life right so we're not really replacing them but what we are is we're replacing the ones that are end of life now using District dollars but we're only replacing them in grades five and grades nine where one of the reasons we needed to do the lease was we needed to get Chromebooks for everybody and then we're cycling through them and just doing like now kids will get them in fifth grade and keep it to eighth grade then in ninth grade they get a new Chromebook and they keep it from ninth grade to 12th grade so every student only gets two Chromebooks but over that eight year period it makes sense I'll just ask another question later about you know sure you have this but I I would say looking for in terms of our Tech rollout um both for our PowerSchool system and any other initiative we have doing some kind of a survey check I think is an important part of this checking with our staff how the professional learning is happening what are the kinds of things that what kind of feedback we're getting so figuring out a quarterly system we want to avoid over surveying people I know that everybody feels very strongly about that but I think for both of our students and our our staff and listening I think that's an opportunity for us to I'm sure you have something in there but maybe Elevate for future reflection three two one um thank you thank you John thank you thank you okay 6.1 Dr Calgary will give his superintendent report good evening board um I want to First Welcome to our group our student ambassadors we will have a chance to hear from you in a few minutes but it's about Luke welcome to the team I know the board's been very excited to have you joined this evening and frankly it's one of the first things I noticed when I was uh getting to know 308 was the presence of student ambassadors on the board and the value and the importance of that for this community to know that the voices of our students are centered and are prominent in this work you're not an afterthought you're at the table literally and we're glad to have you here this evening this evening I wanted to begin by Reading part of the comments that I wrote in my weekly update to our community um that um SD through once stands with our community as we remember and honor the memory of the countless lives lost and those forever changed following the 9 11 tragedy personal friends in that tragedy who lost their lives many Heroes put their lives In Harm's Way to save the lives of others during this time people from many backgrounds came together to care for each other and to help find a way forward we honor these Heroes for their courage and sacrifices and vow never to forget those who are God SD 308 also wishes to acknowledge and denounce the Judgment that impacts our Muslim communities because of the radical violence undertaken on 9 11.

okay good evening hello testing testing one two three hello everyone okay we're gonna go ahead and get started in our school board meeting tonight for those that are able if you could please stand to do the Pledge of Allegiance with us um so given that it's September 11th I'd also like to say a few words and we'll do a moment of silence okay um it's been 22 years since that fateful day on September 11th 2001 when the U.S endured terrorist attacks in New York City Washington DC and Shanksville Pennsylvania where nearly 3 000 people lost their lives some of us remember where we were on that day and how the world was changed forever while some of us are learning about these events as part of our history whether you live through the events or just learning about them I would ask each and every one of you to take the time today to remember those lives lost those lives lost since then defending our country if you'd all join me in a moment of silence thank you I will now call this meeting to order Dr Roberts if you would please we have uh first is the review of our mission vision and core values a reminder that Vision our vision is for bcsc to be the choice our mission is to develop expert Learners by partnering with our communities to invest in people and our core beliefs we have six of them listed we all can rise to the challenge of high expectations learning is most effective and we have Choice flexibility and see relevance thrive in our physical social and psychological needs are met our community and School District are stronger when we partner with one another flourish because of diversity and variability in our community our democracy and Democratic institutions are strengthened by civic-minded citizens sent to the public hearings Dr Phillips thank you hold on do I have to gavel out for a public hearing okay we're gaveling out for our public hearing tonight now now it's official now it's official doctor filter evening we have additional appropriation request I sent you some details on it a couple of weeks ago but in general when we passed approved the 2022 Geo bonds last fall we had advertised and published a Budget prior to that the actual payments due in calendar year 23 were higher than what we proposed during the budget process because we shrank the term and so shrinking the the term of the bonds we're just paying more each of those years of the bond so the additional appropriation request is from Debt Service and it is simply to make the obligations that are due during this calendar year towards our semi-annual debt payments for the 2022 Geo bonds and in the amount of two million 470 962 dollars all of which comes from the available cash already in The Debt Service fund we did publish publish a public notice of this hearing more than 10 days prior to the hearing and so with your blessing Mrs will then we can take any comments from the public questions anyone from the public I'd like to ask any questions at this time you did not have to sign up on the blue sheet for this part this is a separate separate session so anything related to the appropriation okay Dr Phillips can you describe the next steps for us in this process just so we're all aware this evening in your approvals is a resolution approving the additional appropriation and then I'll send that to the dlgf and within just a few days they adjust the maximum appropriation for this calendar year that's the final step okay we will now gavel back into the meeting yeah first thing on the agenda is presentations I believe we have Miss McIntyre and Mrs Marshall hello my name is Kristen Marshall and I'm the program director of bright beginnings and this is Kelly McIntyre the Pre-K director and we're here tonight to share with you what Early Learning looks like within bcsc so bright beginnings was created to help support the continuation in education and careers of young parents while also supporting the development of young children and to give a peace of mind for bcsc staff and Educators returning to work we are located at the McDowell education center and it was opened in 2012 with just a handful of children and only a few teachers so now it's currently serving still six weeks to three years of age we have four classrooms and then ones twos in preschool four lead teachers and eight teaching assistants and several families on the waiting list um our Center strengthens and supports the entire family by providing affordable quality and licensed child care quality foundation for social emotional and cognitive Child Development educational Pathways and resources for personal growth of the parents instruction-based Early Childhood foundations and project-based learning led by the child's interest and proficiencies and these are just some cute pictures and this is our infant room and at Bright Beginnings we're always striving to be our best and offer the highest quality of care we support our early childhood professionals to ensure that they are well qualified effective and valued through the continuation of training experience and evaluation our one-year-old classroom two-year-olds threes and fours and then here is a statement from a prior graduate that went through the program and had her daughter with us and then these are our lead teachers and I want to end by saying that the dedication these teachers have for the children's development and well-being in this program is exceptional I have worked in the early childhood field for almost 20 years and I have never witnessed such a strong relationship and great communication between families and staff the worst part of my day is honestly telling a family that we don't have any room our program is thriving and in high demand for bcse staff and Community as well and I know this program will Thrive and grow in the years to come and I'm excited to be a part of it thanks Kristen I'm Kelly McIntyre the director of pre-K for bcsc thank you so much for having us here because obviously we are very passionate about early childhood but I've been given five minutes so I'm going to really try to stick to that um just a little background on bcsc Pre-K so in 2011 we actually only had one location it was busy bees it's a standalone building down on Sycamore Street and it had seven Pre-K classrooms fast forward today we have 11 locations so I'm pretty busy but we still have busy bees and then 10 of our elementary buildings do house some of our Pre-K kiddos so age four that's 14 Pre-K classrooms in total and three Early Childhood classrooms and each week we are actually adding more and more kids so so it's pretty exciting um and so BC has a Pre-K and early childhood offers the ability to just play learn and explore that's kind of our tagline but truly if um if you've not seen us in action I really encourage you to do so because honestly what our teachers do each day is create Magic in the classroom so we create Magic every day through playing learning and exploring if you do become brave enough to come visit us just be prepared you're going to be hugged a lot so bring your hand sanitizer but we really just honestly do just that we create Magic every single day in the classroom my teachers are just absolutely fostering curiosity every single day which is children my husband actually said to me the other day we have a two-year-old at home and she asked me honestly a thousand questions a day and she's like how do you do this I'm like spend one day in pre-k you'll get used to it um so just a little bit more about who we are currently serving we have about 305 students in total 23 full-time staff members and then 42 part-time staff members um so super blessed and very supported but really these are just numbers so who are our students and these are going to be the the cute pictures that Kristen started so our students are future medical professionals they are future athletes future meteorologists future scientists I know the kid in the middle I know more about a cicada than I ever wanted to know in my 32 years but I know a lot about cicadas just asked me their future cosmetologists thanks to our C4 kiddos for coming over from the high schools future chefs future Pilots and we have lots of Superheroes every single day but most importantly they are future bcsu graduates and I truly believe in all kids and their ability to succeed and they're the future of our community so it is quite literally the why of what we do every single day um and they they show up every day and so we show up for them as well so I do want to close I'm really proud of myself right now um I'm just I just want to thank you for giving me and my staff the opportunity to serve our community in such a meaningful way I know I speak for Kristen and I for both of us when I say it has been such an honor to come and share the gift of early learning because we are super passionate about it and I know what you know everybody's here listening but it truly is it's a gift every single day so thank you we will take questions if you have them yeah thanks for the presentation I I saw on pre-K in particular I think it was around 300 enrolled so far this year and you indicated that that changes and goes up and down from time to time um how many and I know there are lots of other programs in the in the community that focus on Pre-K at churches and other institutions what what percentage of the target markets have you acquired with 300 are there 800 that would be eligible in this County or well to be honest with you we were having a lot of conversation about that right now like what is our Target I do think the conversation goes around to 80 percent of kindergarten kids it would be our Target because we do know we've got private institutions lots of uh daycare options that actually offer half day and things like that which parents do take advantage of but I would be really pleased if I could capture 80 of our kiddos from kindergarten enrollment and that's a different number in each building but that that would be my target and then um I know we have the ability to track and and look at students three years from now five years from now ten years from now and say well this is what we have learned based on the Pre-K experience this is what we learned for kids that maybe didn't have a Pre-K experience what what is some of that data telling us so a lot of it would fall under kind of a social emotional approach is our kids are ready to learn right so our kids are coming into kindergarten ready to go following expectations quicker attending to tasks for longer and just able to do school in the most simplest of terms date academic data wise so we do have to do what's called I Sprout twice a year which is kind of some of those academic pieces it's also social emotional pieces as well but those are two pieces of data and we're actually starting that conversation now because I do have kind of this instructional coach mindset through Dr hack and really trying to bridge that gap between Pre-K and kindergarten and what does that look like and are our expectations across kindergarten the same or what should it look like across kindergarten how do we continue to bridge that Gap those are great questions yeah do one more please sir and this would be for both of you what um it looks like you've got great employees associated with both of these programs what what is the career path for Early Child somebody interested in early childhood education and is it the same as a teacher or different from a teacher or licenses and certifications required could you talk about that a little bit it is and she just said all of the above and it is so we've got teachers I have teachers and I'll let you speak to your program but I have teachers that operate with a CDA which is a childhood development credential I also have teachers with Associate's degrees in early childhood but then I do have teachers that have bachelor's degrees in early childhood or a bachelor's degree in elementary education so but our Tas we do actually support through Indiana has what's called a teach Grant teach is an acronym don't ask me to say what the acronym is but they do support reimbursement of of college career Readiness courses and so we're super lucky to have that because that is tied directly to kind of our funding for our kids and if you've ever heard of on my way Pre-K dollars so that's tied directly to that so we do have to keep up with a certain educational requirement to be eligible for on my way Pre-K and passive quality thank you you're welcome so for your guys's program are you guys tied into the C4 program around early childhood education what's that pipeline of talent coming out of our program into your program essentially from the student's perspective so we do Host this is only my second year in this position um the former director was Shane Yates who is now the assistant director of C4 so we have a pretty strong relationship those are conversations we're having right now what that can look like um and but we do currently host students from the C4 program they're coming over and doing volunteer hours they're coming over and doing credit hours um and I don't know if they're doing the same at Bright Beginnings job shadowing and things like that so I always have students in and out but even then they're taking field trips to even look at what the Early Childhood classroom because we all know hands-on experience is really what's best and that's where the true learning occurs so same similar and bright beginnings and then I have one follow-up is you mentioned waitlists and you didn't give a number but like what kind of wait list are we looking at in terms of so right now we have about 27 um bcsc parents on the wait list between all the rooms now we did have more than that in the beginning but after kind of looking at the numbers and birth dates you go through and there's certain ones you know well they're not gonna they're not gonna fit in this puzzle because with the way we work it goes by birthday so you know one kiddo can start in the twos but you also have to have a spot like in the three-year-old room so it's all about the birthdays so then I mean honestly at the beginning of the year before we kind of went through there we would have had about 70 people that wanted in the program so and Dr Roberts might not like this question but what's capping you what are you constrained by Dr Roberts no not at all not at all um no space is an issue um so building space and and I know you know with hopefully with future Renovations and that can be not a barrier um because it is hard I mean it is hard when you've got a family coming in that um you know wants a certain spot for their child and you don't have that spot so space would be an issue of sometimes Staffing it's hard to find 75 staff members and keep them all the time so but I would say space would be my major barrier yeah I would also say space we have you know four classrooms and let's say infants has they can have eight and then the one-year-old room can have ten twos ten and then preschool can go up to 18.

foreign thank you madam president Dr Smith members of the board at this time I would ask Hannah clendenning of Barnes and Thornburg our legal counsel if she would I just want to introduce her to the to the board she's here for assisting with any questions that may come up and also bellvia Gray from Baker Tilly our bond Council so they are here to assist tonight in uh questions and and with the presentation tonight we're here to talk about our 2023-26 facilities transformation long-term facilities Improvement and buses and Equipment accus acquisition project so that is to say that the district has a need for long-term facilities upgrades major equipment purchases and you have a list in front of you of estimated costs of those purchases that would begin shortly after this were to be approved beginning late this year and running through potentially 2027 as you see we've got different projects around the district from an Ln roof replacement site improvements lecc phase two the building we're in our Craig Academy transformation curricular materials bus purchases technology upgrade and replacement extracurricular and equip instructional equipment custodial and maintenance equipment furniture and other equipment Acquisitions and some contingency money aside as well these are obviously estimated costs for future projects and give us some flexibility but all cost of financing and and any financing transactional costs are included as well so it gives you an idea of what we're looking to to do as we move forward through this Bond project or potential Bond project and at this time I will introduce Miss belvia gray to talk from Baker Tilly about what that Bond project would look like hi good evening good evening everyone good to see you here thank you Hello Kitty thank you Miss Gray at this time Madam president now we turn it back to you um to you for opportunity for public comment so um I guess I have a few um from the graph that we were by the end of this time period which takes us through 2045.

[Music] foreign [Music] good morning and welcome to the Greenfield school committee policy subcommittee meeting on September 7th meeting at 11 01 a.m we'll start with the roll call um Amy here Elizabeth here and I'm Glenn and I am here so we have a Quorum all are present um first item what what happened oh I see um we have public comment I don't see any members of the public here um approval of minutes from the July 6 2023 meeting take a motion to approve those minutes I moved and is there a second second any discussion would people like a moment to review them I'm not hearing any so let's call for the vote um Amy yes Elizabeth yes and I'm a yes so next is review of policies KF and kf-r Community use of school facilities um we approve this on first reading at the last school committee meeting um there been any changes updates or feedback since the last meeting Christine yeah mute myself so you don't hear me typing away but sometimes I can't unmute um no there's been no conversation at all since the last meeting not the most controversial policy in the world do any members have any feedback or changes there are questions related to the policy Elizabeth I just had a question I was hoping Christine could confirm so when we're looking at these and the the red appears and some are crossed out is that because we're removing old language or we're updating to current mask language I I know you told me this before but I can't remember so you have the you have the markup in front of you yeah yeah so anything that's crossed is things that were basically this is not necessarily a mass policy it's um Lauren and I reviewed based on what we encounter as challenges with our current and also the fact that the rates that you folks already approved the new rates were not covering the district's expenses for staff who needed to be there so it's really um truthfully Lauren and I looking to have the policy reflect what protocols we need to do building use efficiently oh okay that's good to know so all right okay so I might need a few minutes to just yeah I think it's familiar and forgive me with with the zoom on and the minutes up I don't have the markup of this up so you might have to read to me if you have a question okay I'm happy to share my screen too if we know that he's the looking Elizabeth no I'm done I didn't know if I was the only one looking but I'm complete thank you all right um any further discussion questions or comments are we ready to vote to advance this to the full committee for the second reading sounds like we're ready uh Amy uh we uh did we have a motion I'm sorry yeah um I I can do it I I move that we approve the um policy as presented to the committee uh and bring it to the full school committee for second reading great thanks and um is there a second okay I think we've established there's no discussion so let's vote um Amy yes Elizabeth yes and I'm a yes um great so thanks team I have some other policies we've been working on but I haven't Advanced those to The Next Step so hopefully in October for this and uh thanks Christine for continuing to Shepherd us through our policy changed its work do you have um any updates for us on the overall overhaul of the um of the policies and where we are and what's next yeah I'm um getting back into that I have some dates identified on my calendar to review the next sections and I think um I think we shared this but in in case not um Glenn and I had spoken previously about the fact that some of our um acceptable use policies are sort of holding up uh section I being complete so we're going to bring section I to the full committee I believe October will is very reasonable um knowing that those few policies will still have to be updated but they're complicated um and we'll need the attorneys to be involved and so it seems like we're I'm holding up a train because of you know one small thing so I expect that would be on the agenda for the full Committee in October and then um you know moving along we're we're down to I think the last three sections they're just big yeah they happen to be big sections they are so um but no that's one of the priorities and I actually have those things in my calendar to review the sections okay great thank you all right well with that unless there's anything else I would take a motion to adjourn move to a journey and is there second out second any discussion let's vote Amy yes Elizabeth yes and me I'm a yes thanks everybody for making thank you so yeah we keep the train running okay yeah bye-bye Mike [Music]

now for fiscal year 2023 there's a total allocation of 14 but total budgeted amount is 10 416. that means we have a remaining amount that was not budgeted of thirty two thousand one hundred thirty dollars and 21 cents a breakdown of the budgeted amount is this so salaries and benefits this was for tutorials after school tutorials for our kids so high school we're the mentors well the little kids were the mentees for the treaties then there were other purchase Services supplies and other expenses and then they're indirect costs details of this is in but uh document number two now from from all these remember this is for fiscal year 2023 we only have until the 30th of September to spend of all these we have still a budget of 3436 and 99 cents is available under supplies and we're working closely with the jom community and spending this because we have until the 30th of September important dates again September 30th is when jom Grant to close for fiscal year 2023 that means all and spent Monies will not go to waste but will be rolled over for this year in the meantime what's available for Budget 2024 is just this so the allocation is 3059 and 5 cents and all of it is budgeted as of right now following this budgeted under um salaries and benefits for the teachers that they'll be working after school but this should be revised right it should be revised so a strategy was made after all those meetings we realized that you know jom Community have two big events that's happening this year so we will revise the budget to lower the salaries temporarily and then free up some money so we can have we can add more more budget items for what they need for the two big events but we know that we're going to revise it again as soon as the a roll over money should be available which we're expecting around November so you have questions for me how are you I'm okay um so I know this comes from Johnson O'Malley right yes what determines how much money that we get in our school that's a very big question that we don't know exactly how the computation is and the as the years go by we noticed that there's a there's a depletion of the the budget has lowered and this year is really the lowest so far last year was crazy 7 000 at first around seven thousand it started with seven thousand and then the rollover monies was added and that's why we had appointed and then a year before that if I remember right it was 8 000 something see we noticed that there was the budget every single year we don't know exactly why we actually got seven thousand dollars of movements from last this was fiscal year 23.