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bloodline number 11 Cole Bamford [Applause] um [Applause] number six Chris number two Gavin Balla number nine Thomas Wallace following the worst number three Lucas number five James Diaz number 21 Ethan love The Love Boat number one Anthony Shea [Applause] and now the starting lineup threesome Little Spartans number 10 yo Fresno number three Zach Richard number six Shane Smith [Applause] number nine Samir Khan number five Andrew Oliveri [Applause] number four Kathy pascoli [Applause] number 24 Shea McCarthy [Applause] number seven Tyler Gretchen [Applause] number 13 Luca chevelli [Applause] number eight Jack Walsh can you go over the Stars double zero Nolan Garcia [Applause] our great country has persevered because of the men and women that serve our country in the armed forces we invite both veterans and current military personnel to please stand we thank you for your service to our country stand as we honor America with the blinds of our national champion Legacy [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] foreign thank you [Music] I don't understand come on [Applause] thank you I don't know um all right now thank you foreign [Applause] foreign [Applause] thank you all right [Applause] okay [Applause] thank you [Applause] very much foreign thank you good morning [Applause] [Music] [Applause] all right come on [Applause] here thank you come on [Applause] boys foreign [Applause] my dad [Applause] thank you [Applause] all right guys [Music] thank you [Music] one one come on [Music] come on [Applause] you [Music] [Applause] thank you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] thank you go in here [Music] [Applause] I was like [Applause] Michelle come on [Applause] we don't always there again get ready [Music] yes thank you [Applause] thank you [Music] thank you [Applause] oh yeah [Applause] [Music] oh okay foreign [Applause] [Music] [Applause] years [Applause] she was like the last picture oh yeah [Music] [Applause] oh my God wow [Applause] for the first time [Music] [Applause] come on [Music] down foreign [Applause] come on [Applause] I know right that's right [Music] [Applause] all right so that's a sweater inside 40.

foreign [Music] regular board meeting of the Brookfield board of education for Wednesday September 20th 2023. to start please join me in Rising for the Pledge of Allegiance to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you um all right thank you um so um we have five of our members here our sixth member is running late because they're at an open house and I think for the teachers who are here tonight they're all all know about open houses these days because brookfield's been running them now for the last week I think but Rosa will join us as soon as uh she can get get here you know before we start tonight I'd like to recognize an individual who will be retiring from our district in the very near future Ken post is retiring at the end of this month and uh foreign you know Ken and I are Finance guys we uh we share we share a love of numbers and spreadsheets in some ways but we also share a love of schools um Ken joined us in 2016 Ken from will with the Wilton public school districts um and I think being a resident of Bethel it made us commute a little bit shorter and of course loved working with the staff here um can you seen us through a lot of Journey you know when you arrive we were still trying to figure out how to improve our business controls and our financial systems and our financial reporting to be you know the top world class that it is today and also link and connect to the town so that we had a single Financial system that worked well with the town and the school it meant changing accounting systems changing How We Do planning changing How We Do presentations changing the system uh everything we did you touched and you handled it so well with your team so I wanted to thank you personally and on behalf of the board for everything you've done to help bring Brookfield public schools to where it is right now yeah yes you can please and those of you who know me know that I'm a man of a few words so I'll keep it brief um I appreciate the kind words Bob but I have to acknowledge uh obviously the support of the board and the support of Dr Brill and especially the support of folks like Eric and Joan and the other administrators in getting all that stuff done because you know I might have been leading the charge on some of those things but there was a lot of heavy lifting done by a lot of people and I agree we did accomplish a lot and we've it's night and day from where we were before so I appreciate that and I also want to make the comment that I am leaving and Bob will appreciate this most uh I'm leaving for good reasons I'm not running away from anything I have a grandchild out in the midwest who's going to be turning one next month and if I'm going to be a significant part of his life I need to get out there frequently so I'm running too good stuff and not away from anything I just wanted to make that point yeah public thank you before you leave we've got a little gift for you oh unnecessary thank you [Applause] and I had a few words I want to add that you're in great hands with Casey we've been working together for the last two and a half weeks and I'm I feel very good handing the Baton off to her I would just add we do have your cell phone number Ken yes Mr Bell and I I um if I may I just want to thank you for those kind words on behalf of the board um and um it's really important I said this one Ken announced it but um it should go without saying what I need to say again you've been an incredible partner for over seven years through all of the things Bob discussed the leadership the loyalty and the dedication and the commitment and they weren't always sunny and pleasant days there was a there's been a lot of challenge to get through to get to the point where we're at to really be world class and frankly a model of business controls and operations uh regulatory control but also some things we didn't mention is all of the capital work that we've done in terms of working on our buildings and moving forward and being a significant part of all of that work as well and just recently moving to the healthy school start times and changing the bus contract and the bus runs and all of those things there's just so many pieces to the back office essentially of running a school system and um you've been a great leader a great partner a great friend and from the bottom of my heart thank you and just all the best in retirement yeah as we as we said the other day taking the rest of your life off God bless you thank you Ken well yes the board members any of the board members want to say something sure I just want to say thank you I've asked you a ton of questions over email over the years and I some of them might have been really dumb questions but you never remember you know never made me feel dumb so I appreciate that and uh best of luck in retirement yeah thank you Ken I've been on the facilities committee since I've been on the board and you've been a huge support um it's been great working with you especially with capital and Facilities thank you I'll add I hope you can get to some more baseball games and I hope that the Mets start playing better [Music] some difficult times running all kinds of different numbers and scenarios but I appreciate that you were always calm and patient and even came with a smile so it was great working with you well join me in one last round of applause for attention [Applause] so next on our agenda we have the opportunity to be introduced to the new certified staff members and John I don't know if you're going to combine that with the opening of school report so you're going to do the introductions and then I was going to ask if that's okay if we can combine them while the principles come up if they could talk about their introduce them however you'd like to okay so um maybe we could start with principal balanda start with the high school this time and come up and tell us a little bit about the first couple of weeks and opening of school and introduce his staff members who are a new certified staff members who were able to make it tonight all right thank you for it's not usual I don't usually get to go first it's usually elementary school so um Good Luck Dave Dr Dr paid us off clearly um so I I really want to start with introducing my my new staff I think that's the the right place to start um and so we're very pleased to have uh three of our four new uh teachers here tonight uh one unfortunately is homesick um that's gonna happen this time of year it's happening already I think across the district so I'll introduce my three teachers uh to my immediate right is Mr Nathan Wilde he is our tech ed teacher if you could stand up [Applause] comes to us with many years of experience from Bethel High School so we're glad to have him here next up is this is Donna Lesh she's our chemistry teacher comes to us from Woodland with years of experience at high school so that's awesome and then also to her right to her left my right is uh Mr Dominic moroli who is new in our English Department um he came to us uh from years of experience in Oxford High School the person who is not here tonight could not be with us is Shannon Martin an English Department and she comes to us from Amity Regional with plenty of experience so um I'll apologize to the three of them and to um our student here tonight for quite an interesting first couple of weeks um I wasn't gonna say it but you know Mr Roland might have brought up previously he goes oh you got heat issues and it's let out early and then the the sprinkler and fire alarms today and you know it sounds like fire and like water issues and then I did tell we did have frogs I mean this is not the ten plagues of Egypt but I think we're on the other side of it I think we're gonna make it through I appreciate your work today as we dealt with the um the Techno strobe lights from the uh fire alarm for most of the day so I appreciate that uh it's been an interesting opening for sure um and then you know Monday we got to get out early like same old two o'clock like it used to be so um quick updates uh that we do typically every year in terms of enrollments uh this summer we had uh from the end of school to yesterday 38 new registrations uh and 20 withdrawals kids going to different districts uh our current enrollment numbers in each grade and 12th grade is our largest class 231 kids in 12th grade uh 220 and 11th 209 and 10th and 213 in ninth grade with a total of 8.73.

Board of Ed Danberry uh community relations today September 20th I call the meeting to order it's 5:59 PM um so I know it's been a long summer and the Administration has been working hard I've been in on some of these meetings so I appreciate all of the uh hard work and I know you've got a lot of updates you've got five items on the agenda so I'm just going to go ahead and toss it right over to you Mike if that works absolutely thank you Michelle thank you all right I'm gonna share my agenda here so we can all see and everybody can see it yes thank you okay great and I see superintendent walon is on the call as well so um he and I are going to kind of pingpong this one back and forth here and just sort of jump in and out on these different items um we we're both working on different aspects of these and then uh miss an will jump in to talk a little bit about parent University and then we'll all sort of have a hand in um items uh four and five just talking about some of the items coming up over the year um and what we think will be coming up on the October 18th meeting so um all right number one so uh we wanted to talk a little bit about uh board members and I know historically each board member gets assign to one or two schools um and that sort of you know the the region that they stick with and I'll I'll throw to to superintendent talk a little bit more about this we came up with a bit of a template here so Kevin do you want to talk through this one a little bit sure sure my pleasure um good evening everyone Kate Gladis Julie Al Michelle um thank you for shairing the meeting for chairing the committee for another year U Michelle and I had an opportunity to look at the um agenda um a little bit last week and and I was making her aware that previously just in terms of uh Board of Education updates and as a as a liaison to a school um my board members have the opportunity to kind of get to know what's going on in the respective buildings um attend PTO meetings or get feedback from PTO members about some exciting things that might be going on in the buildings and um during our updates on the board agenda they can provide updates for our board members and I was sharing with Michelle with so many new board members I don't even think many other members even were aware that that was a function of the agenda um and so I just wanted to find an opportunity to just bring it to everyone's attention these are as of last year anyway these were the assigned uh liaison schools um you'll see right now the PTO contact is blank we're working with Citywide PTO to get the appointment of every person for every school building plus their contact email um and we will work with um the schools as well to get any dates so you're not waiting too long on this um we we will also reach out and try to get the information from the school so we'll know when their dates are my understanding is a lot of these meetings are taking place remotely if you care to join or if you're available to join um and in then some instances they're um in person at Citywide PT we'll probably learn a little bit more of how these things will function across the District uh but in my first couple of years um in the district um in my prior seat as an assistant superintendent um and my first year a little bit um because at that point Rachel had moved over she was the person who was oftentimes giving the um the vast majority of the updates and reports but when she moved to the chair position um I kind of felt like she wasn't doing it as much but she had some kids at AIS and Westside and often times she'd give updates um and you know she would mentioning anything from trips that may be may have been going on for the school um to you know um fundraisers like um toy drives you know during the holidays or um kids coming in to buy books and it may have been a you know a drive to help a bunch of students buy books um and so she would speak about those things and other board members would also give updates about what was going to another school so it's a great way to just kind of be connected to the building and just kind of get an understanding the parent perspective kind of what's going on in our schools and update the board accordingly uh so Mike that was it and I don't know if there are any questions I know obviously glad as Kate and Michelle have been around for a while and and Al as well and happy to speak to this a little bit as well ask a question please please Kate um I just want to clarify Mr Walston um my understanding from the last time last year when when this happened is that the school uh principal or PTO um head for that school was uh supposed to be reaching out to us we had this discussion at the Citywide PTO meeting last year um and I know we haven't had one this year but I wonder if there's a way that um you know we could get a a a contact that we could be in touch with as board members because I never heard from anybody at the schools I was assigned to I I think he the and that's why we have this up on the screen in terms of of the PTO contacts name um and then email and hoping that would be the vehicle in which to be connected to these meetings um and and you know I I I recall you know communication last year that you know sometimes um you know there may be reasons why some PTO groups are not inviting in board members I don't know um and so if there's anything that we could do to you know address those barriers maybe it's something we could talk about at citywi PTO on Monday okay thank you we can certainly assist with connecting too if if um you're not being successful I think ahead let usly go ahead okay I would just like to say over the years it has always been and I think Co put a lot of things on the back shelf where people didn't feel comfortable having people in the classro or whatever the case might be but all my time that being on the board once we did the assignments I think it used to come about January where you going you know which school you're going to be representing uh the superintendent secretary always contacted that school and I'm going back to D Warner she did it for years contact the school and told that particular school I and and I would assume it went through the secretary and the secretary contacted that school uh PTO Le and said this is your representative from the Board of Ed would you let them know what when you're having your meetings and I know that's what happened when my son was at Rogers Park and that going back quite a few years good so uh I don't know why it sort of stopped and and we didn't get back into the swing of things but I don't see anything wrong with just calling um you know the secretary says you know may I speak to the principal you know I am your rep could you just let me know when you're meeting and I think uh half of the schools especially Ace they had no set time that they wanted board members to come in and they will always call you the the last the three years that I represented Ace they will always call you the same day that they having their PTO meeting to come and I said to him I can't operate like that so you know it it it's contact and who's doing what I I don't see it something that we should lose even though I don't like the way it's structured because Citywide PTO is doing the same thing that we're doing so okay so so I I know that last year Lauren and I went and we started visiting schools and it was almost it was the coid thing I think that kind of changed things up a little bit it and we were told as board members that you know you can go ahead reach out to um to carara and she'll set up appointments if you'd like and we were going to do it in like two or three at a time um to try to so I know that I had gone to my Rogers Park and I you know I hit a good amount of schools last year um but I think Kevin and I were talking that we were maybe wanting to focus on a particular school as well like Morris this month and so like if you were going to visit a school didn't we have that kind of a conversation Kevin do you recall when we met yes yes soting yeah so two so two different things um the the leaon school assignment would be a school that we would be connected for the entire school year right yes um Kate uh for example her school I'm looking up on the screen is hazetown and so if assuming you know Kate's schedule will allow for it um she would attend uh PTO meetings um as much as she can and provide updates to the board any exciting things that might be going on at the building like so for example I know they have um a food drive at that school on behalf and clothing drive on behalf of uh families in need at that school right and so that might be a thing she says hey it's coming up in November um and and this is what's happening at Hawn that's the kind of update you would give um on the other side of this separate and apart from the um board assigned schools um the spotlight your school that I'm going to talk about which is also in the agenda and I had mentioned this I believe also at the last board meeting um to try to encourage board members to um go in and so you know when one of our school is on Spotlight for the month um you know feel free to you know call the principal Carol will set up an appointment if you want her to do it for you and you know see if you can find an opportunity to meet that staff meet the principal see the excit things that's going on in that building and so when our staff and our kids and our families come to see us at the boardroom you know when we go to shine a spotlight on our schools you know we all feel like we've known each other already we've kind of gotten the initial introductions out of the way and I think everyone will continue to just um and just kind of embrace the process um as we get to know each other so that was that that was the initial thoughts around the spotlight and um again just kind of focus your visits if we could um on on the schools that are going to be spotlighted for the month so those those are those two different things but um but certainly both involve you know board participation yeah and this the spotlights a good transition before we do I and I'll just say this we'll be communicating with principles too just to let them know that you know the we know there was a little hiccup in this during during the pandemic but it's it's coming back to so they'll know to expect you know to hear from you all so and I also I also think that you know uh there's a lot there's a lot of things going on within the district young teachers new teachers you know sometime you know the communication don't get where it needs to be and teachers are doing everything that they doing they pops can do to maintain their classrooms and do their lesson plans and everything else so you know I'm not blaming anyone I just think it's just a sort of relaxed atmosphere and we haven't gotten back to the original thing that we had started to do because I know I can admit myself every time that I knew it was u a meeting it was something else because I you know uh South streak is my school and I wanted to go but something else was happening either bored or whatever that I couldn't go so that's what happened to me my whole first year I couldn't make any of the meetings but I could make the Citywide PTO meeting meeting so that you get a little bit of everybody's school and that kind of a situation if you can't make your own personal Citywide PTO you know that you represent that might very true very true yeah that's a good point Michelle thanks for raising that thank you right everybody ready to go on or anybody else thank you thank you so two and this is Kevin had just started talking a little bit about Spotlight your school and how that process works um as well as the portrait of The Graduate so Kevin I'll let you keep rolling on that one okay so we you know I had I had mentioned um and I hope the board is not getting tired of hearing about this but um I had talked about the spotlight your school at our last meeting and I just wanted to emphasize that uh we will be asking schools to make connections to portion of the graduate and and so if so for example um if King Street Intermediate is going to come in and say hey these these are our kids um and nobody eats alone for this week uh so for example that's going to be showcased at Great plane this week and that's an that's a perfect example of our students acting as advocates as they're empathizing with their peers they're showing empathy um advocating for everyone to be engaged um at their respective schools and it's a CommunityWide effort to make sure um everyone is included right and so like that's an an excellent example of our kids serving as ad advocates in that building um and so if Tina has pictures of her kids engaging in this kind of activity whether it's PBIS whether it's nobody eats Alone um nobody eats Alone um that would be an example of and being intentional about talking about our kids serving as advocates uh but if we have our students and I know some folks in this call Michelle I think you attended last year uh when Mar Park Middle School Broadview Middle School Westside middle school and they all had their um um their Project based learning presentations and you know in many ways that was that those were Char there were a number of different characteristics um showed during those events right so it was listening um it was our students acting as Learners um it was our students you can make the case serving as advocates depending on the type of projects that they took on and so we're going to be asking our principles to make connections to the many characteristics of the portrait of The Graduate while they're presenting because I want to make sure we want to make sure it stands aligned with our overall goals of where we need to get our kids um and so um as we and I think we talked about some of these things in the superintendence evaluation and goal setting piece um so Kate had asked a question you know um Kevin how how how do prek-5 um staff see themselves in the work of theems how does 68 staff and I'm paraphrasing K excuse me um but how does 68 staff see themselves in the development of theems and we need to be intentional about the portrait of the graduate in those respective connections and so if you know Miss Cooper's grandkids if they're going to access the curriculum at the ninth grade during a K1 and two years they need to learn how to read right so that they can access the curriculum in grades three four five and begin to learn um and begin to learn the content that's that they're going to continue to encounter 3 four five middle school and make sure they're ready to to access the curriculum um that we're preparing for them in the nth grade uh so we need folks to continue when I say folks I mean our staff and our families continue to see themselves in this this Global work that we're doing and I think quite frankly that the connector of all of this work is our PG work um and so we want to make sure that our board meetings we're continuing to educate the board about the portrait of the graduate but also push our staff to think about uh to think about these things in these kind of presentations so we can all understand connections um and that's not the only way we will connect to work but that's we we we wanted to make sure we found an opport we use this as an opportunity um to make those connections for everyone that's all I have on that one Mike okay thank you all right number three uh it's been another very exciting uh start of the year for parent University I think we have one of our biggest cohorts to date and uh an me is going to tell us a little bit more about what coming up uh with parent University great thank you Dr cig good evening everyone yeah this is a very exciting Year we're really into our third year with um the concept of our family University and exactly what that looks like um and so we will be hosting our first Saturday on October 21st it will be a um half a day workshop or work set of workshops starting in the morning at 9: with a light breakfast a keynote and then families will get uh to choose two different um workshops we're looking at things such as um substance abuse and prevention our ESL uh social emotional learning that we did last year my child's driving me crazy was a big hit and parents have asked for that again protecting your child online the the fairly new sparkler app that we are encouraging all of our families um to get enrolled on it's a birth to five program where families can um track their child's growth and development and each day on the app they get uh uh some ideas of things to do at home with their children of course the computer skills and financial literacy will be there easy meals um and of course our our new style of doing our um learning what children are doing in the classroom so we'll be using our curriculum coordinators again to um print out the students who are enrolled or the for the parents the Dibbles and the I ready tests they will talk to the parents about exactly what their child's uh test scores mean and then provide activities in their native language for them to be able to do those activities at home we did this um style workshop last year and found that it was one of the best ways to really engage parents um and then we had some tracking uh journals that parents kept the hours of minutes that they worked with their children on homework and we were also able to see their score development over a 3mon period of time with those extra interventions at home and so the the proof is in the pudding we were really able to see that children did Excel when parents were able to spend more time and you know many of the parents said you know this is so hard and then when they took the workshop they were like you know what I can do that you know my young child can be setting the table and doing one-on-one counting and things like that so that was really great for the students that day we'll have live animals we'll do some Harvest crafts with natural uh products from outside flowers and things like that um pumpkin painting terrarium building uh General arts and crafts and then uh physical movement probably some story telling in there too um so that's where we are with that um the other piece of Family University besides just that day is that the um enhanced p uh parents empowering people have has started it started last Monday night um with a wonderful group of students that enrolled in the program about 320 um students who have enrolled that'll be over three cohorts of students and they receive an hour of the people empowering people they then go into a 15minute time of parent and child time together because Child Care is provided but we want parents to learn skills um in their native language and in English to support um their children as well and then they have um their ESL class there is child care provided and dinner for that as well so um we are often running with a whole schedule of events there is a flyer that is out there um you can pick up the flyer on the Sunday morning broadcast of all the events going on in Danbury or request one from my office but um pretty much every month we are we are packed with different uh ways to engage our families uh we have a a coffee with Kevin coming up on October 3rd I believe it is in the evening at 6 um and so always just check in with our office here um to see exactly what uh we have going on and please board members uh feel free to come out to it really really important that we have you there last year it was a big success there was like five I think Board of Ed members Kate was there and Ralph and Julie myself and it was a wonderful day with the pet with petting zoo and everything and breaking up into the different programs um I know it's hard for you know not everybody can get out but if we could try to get several board members out there to show support that would be great I'm G to do what I can to be there so if anybody knows that they can make it please that time is and can you share those dates with Carie and when I provide my update for the board I can include it in there yes absolutely we'll do thank you thank you y all right thank you an your your programs are every year they just get a little bit more exciting and have a few new new pieces to them so this is this is gonna be another good one so we hope so yeah okay number four uh this one really just talks about um kind of some of the things we plan to talk about over the course of the year um as you know we have four Community engagement meetings scheduled the next one's coming up on October 18th um and some of the touch points we you know we won't just talk about these and we won't necessarily hit the one of these um every meeting but this is sort of the broad Arc of some of the things that we we feel are going to be important to talk about um this year we're doing a big push on chronic absenteeism and regular messaging going out uh we have a partnership going with attendance Works uh who's a nationally recognized organization um that that uh combats chronic absenteeism and they have a whole bunch of strategies and U communication templates that we can use to help message to parents just the importance of of coming to school and you know um just you know the not missing additional learning time um as everyone knows we had a a big bump at the Statewide it was a a massive bump in chronic absenteeism that started in 2020 and um continued through last year and um Kevin could talk a little bit more about the numbers I think we were around 7 eight% chronic absenteeism prior to the pandemic and last year along with the state we were up into the low 20s um so every District in the state right now is is really working to bring that down um and we're going to be really really um on top of it with some of our messaging um going out to families I know Kevin if you want to add anything to that one right so I'm I mean the The Chronic eism challenge that's in front of us is if something is a dynamic we continue to um try to overcome with our messaging with educating um our families and as we approach the uh fall and winter months I think it's something we have to be even uh more intentional about in terms of um keeping our families informed about the importance of being in school every day um unless of course your child is sick or has a fever or you know has those um kind of uh symptoms and so this is something we will continue to work on um and find Opportunities to um inform um our families particularly K5 because it's our families that are making the decisions to keep our kids home um the same is true for the most part in middle school as well um and so we'll make sure that these families are informed of the importance of having their kids in school every day uh making sure that they have um they can access the tools to monitor their their kids respective attendance every day um and you know we I'm mapped out a plan with an um in her office um kind of like monthly messaging for our families particularly as we get close to the winter months and in our holiday times uh making sure we're following up with attendance uh attendance messages as well um and so we're going to continue to try to find creative ways to um keep folks connected uh but also encourage our families to monitor their kids attendance um and and and find ways to um emphasize the importance of being in in school every day thanks Kevin okay the second one that we're going to be talking a lot more about this year is our Collective impact initiative and over the last year we've been in the very early preliminary stages of our Collective impact effort uh which is really you know we're we're a member of a of a effort that pulls together a whole bunch of community agencies and organizations um in an attempt to sort of look holistically at some of the challenges that our students and families face and think about just the wide array of resources that we have available to us throughout the community we at whether it's the schools or the Health Care system or social services and and uh uh Kevin I know if you want to talk a little bit more about the the the point we're at and in that process and what's going to be coming down the pipe this year sure my pleasure and I'll I'll ask an to tag in as well um so so one chronic absenteeism is one of the three things that Collective impact has uh began to discuss um we have a number of representatives from our respective um community at the table um and I think the way I described this to the board previously um it's an opportunity to have agencies and Partners at the table to really address what what is what I see as blind spots for the district um and so when I say blind spots um when we're talking about trying to trying to address gaps um with Early Childhood um and trying to encourage our families to have their children participate in early childhood programs from between three and five um this is you know not necessarily within the the jurisdiction of the district um but it does not mean it's it's not still important for the district um and so these are one of the goals that's already been established for the collective another one of course and you've heard a lot about this is chronic absenteeism this is well within our reach uh but then there are some issues um that may arise that without you know outside of our reach and so this is our families that might need um agency support uh throughout the community um and so we have um representation from these various communities uh we may have issues with child care uh we may have issues with um issues with uh social emotional challenges and so a lot of these things have been discussed in our meeting um and um collectively trying to find ways to combat these these obstacles um that the district is experiencing um and and make it and make it an opportunity for the entire Community or these Community representatives to find Solutions uh to problems for kids in schools um and I know we have some updates regarding the impact in terms of our ability to secure ongoing funding but also um a person who's going to lead the charge because it's you know right now the initial leading of this has been through consultation in really heavy lift for us um but I think the graduate release is about to start yes yes thank you so we had a meeting um at the end of July or excuse me at the end of August where we had 32 different Community Partners and parents at so we're really excited about um that number of folks and we looked at the work that's been done so far we have a draft vision and Mission and we are looking at the three areas that Kevin talked about absenteeism and learner engagement the early childhood and the mental health um of our students we realized that with the use of our consultant um we we needed to have a person that could lead the charge totally on this and so we started advertising for an executive director in uh June we did several rounds of screenings with uh 14 13 or 14 applicants we then brought it down to five and then down to two and this past Monday we had the opportunity to um interview at length uh two different candidates who actually had to do a presentation back to us on what their 90day plan would be in starting the um starting as an executive director so we were down to one candidate right now that the references and the background checks are being done on and then we're hoping that early next week an offer will be made um to that person so um we're very excited about this um and as Kevin mentioned we are working with an outside consultant was very well known in this St Alex lunding this is the work that he does and we will be shortly convening um about four or five different Financial Partners um to invest into the uh danber Collective impact um to keep this project going uh Nelly May found Education Foundation out of the Boston area has been our Premier funer on this and of course we'll um continue to work with them um for any funds that they might want to continue to put towards this but um as part of its growth and development and sustainability is to look for other funders to support it as well so that's right we were on with that yeah very exciting and thank you yeah it is exciting and Mike just wanted to um and I know Michelle um being at the meetings had an opportunity to see someone from other organizations that are also doing this work but I'm wondering if at some point I don't know if it would be appropriate with the full board or a committee um you know maybe we can ask the board members who are in this meeting um if there's an interest to see if we can have maybe someone from um Stanford or Norwalk or Waterberry um I know the gentleman from Waterberry is now is currently um the is is about to be the interim director at the Y in in Danbury um and and he's a very active member of collective in Waterberry now exactly but but guess my point being I'm just wondering if we can get someone to kind of give our board an opportunity to better understand what the collective impact is what it does what it is what it is not but just understand about the potential impact of having a collective in your community we we can certainly um schedule that um at the board's wishes you know one of the things that we did when we first started this up we had found out we had the funding about a year ago is we went to those Collective impacts and said okay tell us kind of the rules of the road where are the pitfalls we don't want to fall into those how did you start up yours and most of these are um a minimum of seven to eight years and Norwalk axe has been in in um a collective impact for about 13 or 15 years now and so we were able to Garner all their advice um to really move fairly quickly with ours which has which has been really really good um but we've taken their their great suggestions and I know that they're very open to coming um up to Danbury or doing a zoom meeting to talk more about their um CIS in their town I can also share all of the Norwalk work with them um I am a member of the Norwalk one as well and so I get all their newsletters and everything so um it's our aspiration of where we're looking for um to go but um yeah we can certainly get something scheduled so I I guess Michelle I don't know what your thoughts might be I think it's a great idea because it is um you know there's a lot to it um with the pushes and you know the strive program Cradle to Career you know that everyone's included I think it's important to really um get a little bit kind of a little bit deeper for the Board of Ed to get a real understanding of what this program is because I I know I learned a lot in a few meetings that I was in okay okay all right thank you Michelle other board any other thoughts sorry yeah I was just saying if there's any other board members Kate or anyone else that would like to add anything or if you're interested in further information to the board I always like to hear more information so you always get a thumbs up for that thank you you and me both good yeah it's really it's exciting once we get to you know know more of the details so I think that's great if you could uh coordinate that Ann that would be wonderful we can do that and what's cool about having some of those more seasons seasoned groups in there is is you start to see the longevity data start to come through places where you know we're only talking about chronic absenteeism now but what does that mean over 10 years right and you start to see some of these data points come out where you're like oh wow that that moved as well so that that'll be exciting to have them join yeah all right uh this next bullet now everyone heard about this one at the last board meeting so I I'll just go quickly through it adult and continuing education uh Rick rayi presented our last board meeting to talk about some of the exciting changes that were going on uh in Adult Ed um as you know we have a very exciting partnership that we're starting with we with weace that is uh bringing in a partnership with Milford that's going to really expand our array of offerings um for adult ed courses so uh we'll be talking more about that over the course of year just how that's going what the enrollments look like and and all that so um and last ly community events um as always you know the end of the year is going to be chalk full with these events so we'll have them on your radar early this year just to make sure everyone has time to to schedule around them um the big ones of course teacher of the year we're going to be aiming for late April again for that one so we can just get ahead of all the all the May events that are coming up the moving up ceremonies the graduation uh we'll be providing those dates as soon as we have them just to make sure everybody can can block out those dates and uh we don't we don't have any double bookings so and again and Kevin I know there's a thousand things that happen you know in the second half of the Year here so anything else feel free to to jump in and and list it out right and so I I was just gonna um say I think we missed the comma Etc U because these events and more you know the the big ones that we think may have might be interest uh to the board we will make sure those are included and we'll create some kind of like Community event event dashboard um and as far out that as we can possibly plan them we'll make sure they're available for the board and uh for our community quite frankly to to attend all right and then number five um just a quick overview of what we plan on talking about in our October meeting um of course it is budget season again so uh our colleague John Spang the CFO uh will probably be making an appearance at talk high level about some of the budget priorities um the way the the budget's shaping up with some of the the known knowns at this time usually it's talking about things like salaries rolling over the cost of inflation um and then maybe some of the things that that you know we just anticipate coming down the pipe so I think we'll have some high level numbers at that point um and then we'll we'll start sharpening our pencils and um getting down into into the weeds of of where we can save dollars and um where we need to invest um so that'll be uh uh uh the sort of high level um focus and I think the the two things that we'll be drilling down on specifically as it relates to this um committee is going to be adult ed um what the some of the costs look like for adult ed uh and of course um things like family liaison so we're going to we're going to drill down specifically on things related to community relations um in this meeting but but also you know talk about the you know budget just kind of more generally um so you know the you know the the public has just a more broad understanding of of the process and how it works and points at which you can engage and and um and participate in some advocacy so any questions about that anyone I think we're good then all right all right going once twice all right is there a a motion to adjourn anyone I'll make a motion to adjourn okay okay made a motion to adjourn anyone second or we just a journ I think Miss Cooper's on mute oh I'm s i second emotion okay great I couldn't see you on my screen

foreign I now call to order the regular Board of Education meeting for September 20th 2023. it is just after 5 00 pm and uh we will be going into closed session until 6 PM seeing that there is no public comment I'm I will now move us to closed session thank you all right I will um Now call this meeting to order um returning to open session uh the board has been in closed session since a little after 5 00 PM during closed session the board took action to and voted 4-0 to reject claim number 240011 I'd like to ask that we all stand for the flag salute please absolute pledge I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation thank you for joining us in that uh this is the September's 20th 2023 regular Board of Education meeting um I did say that at the very beginning but now that we have an audience I should probably say it again um just a reminder that um we uh do hold this over a live feed so it is being recorded um just FYI um and with that we will move to student reports well as you can see we have a group of students behind me here that are very excited to perform for you and I'd like to introduce Ted Sullivan he's going to give you a little bit of information about how this all came about yeah good evening thanks and we're excited to have uh kind of our new music program for lack of it award sharing for a couple minutes tonight so I just want to throw some Kudos out there also if you're going to think back the state about a year ago threw some money out there to augment art and music kinds of programs in our district or in the State uh we Nora Hunter and I have been talking about it for years of how how we can augment that in Chico Unified the money came in so we had some great ideas kind of thought through with Nora but we also have a great relationship with couta so we're able to take our current contract look at how we could kind of mesh those two great ideas contractual things with cuta and kind of come up with a programmer so every kid and she grannified is now getting music K-5 with those kinds of things so really excited about it so it's a nice change for us and we love it and with that being said I'm going to let Nora Hunter if you don't know Nora's music teacher extraordinaire for Chico Unified also but we'll let Nora take it with their class so we don't have to disrupt it hi everybody I'm so excited that Chico Unified now has it's weird to I want to face everybody but we now have 16 full-time music teachers for Chico Unified which is just so amazing and I'm so happy to be bringing music to elementary students and I know with that comes a lot of challenges and I think the biggest challenge we face in many ways is just space and I brought these second graders I've only seen them this year four times so they're very very nice to come here with me and they represent three different classes so some of them are mixing in ways that we haven't mixed before but I just want to say that you know music takes space Arts takes space and as we move forward as a district it would be awesome as we make future planning now that we have prop 28 money that at the elementary level having music and art spaces are essential what we're going to do today has lots of movement picture doing this in a classroom with a bunch of desks right so so music and art both take just space so hopefully today you see us take up some space we're going to sing a song called 2a2a which is from Africa and then we're going to be doing in honor of Hispanic heritage months Los machetes [Applause] [Music] [Applause] foreign [Laughter] [Music] foreign [Music] [Laughter] [Music] foreign [Music] [Laughter] [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] thank you very much also nothing is possible in music without support of people there's all the research out there but without supportive Parents Without supportive principles without support of unions without supportive School boards and superintendents nothing's possible so thank you for believing in music and seeing how important it is to make a whole child thank you [Applause] thank you students and thank you parents for bringing them here tonight you guys did great and I'm pretty sure if I had those sticks I'd have bruises so you guys are doing good great job thank you so much how about another hand as they're going out [Applause] so I'm gonna go ahead and move right into the superintendent's report and I'm going to invite up Emily Mullins who I think's daughter was also performing right all right good good evening I'm gonna say good morning it's been that kind of day good evening it's a pleasure to be here and I'm excited that this evening I get to recognize both a classified and a certificated uh employee of ours for the superintendent's award so I am going to start with our certificated recipient uh it's a huge honor to be able to present this award to one of my outstanding teachers Stacy Benoit Stacy why don't you come on up Stacy is a mild moderate special education teacher at Hooker Oak School when I first started Hooker Oak in 2019 I assumed that Stacy was a veteran teacher she was a leader on campus she was active in a variety of committees and a mentor to other staff members when she asked me a question about induction requirements I was shocked then I learned that Stacy was new to the teaching profession having worked in the private sector and then as an instructional paraprofessional prior to obtaining her teaching credential I realized then that Stacy is just one of those teachers who has a natural innate gift she's so good at what she does and what does she do the more appropriate question would be what doesn't she do Stacy wears many hats at Hooker Oak her primary position is the case manager of our students with mild to moderate disabilities at Hooker Oak she meets with students in small groups one-on-one and through push-in support to assist students in meeting their IEP goals she has a special ability to connect with students and to form a relationship that vastly improves their ability to learn she teaches her students far more than just academic content she uses social stories to teach expected and unexpected behaviors and she was an early adopter of the check-in checkout intervention system to modify Behavior she has been an instrumental member of both our school Wellness team and our PBIS team she assists in providing professional development to our teachers and to our paraprofessionals just today I observed her in the hallway with two of our Paras training them on how to use an ABC chart to identify antecedents to behavior and the consequence as a first step towards creating Behavior Support plans for students these paraprofessionals are now trained and empowered to use a research-based tier 3 behavior intervention support to support a few of our students with intensive needs this is a wonderful example of how Stacy creates the conditions for an entire staff to thrive she models teaches supports and then trusts staff to implement strategies she's a true leader in this area Stacy is always on the go you rarely find her with downtime she's always looking out for the needs on our campus and finding a way to best support both students and teachers I'm very proud to work alongside an educator like Stacy Beno I'm grateful for her leadership her knowledge and her dedication to students Chico Unified is incredibly fortunate to have this outstanding teacher in our district congratulations Stacy [Applause] I'm back up alrighty so next up I'm going to present the classified superintendent's award and it is with great pleasure that I present this award to our amazing attendance clerk Emily Moulton [Applause] so it's been really fun having two Emily's in our office at Hooker Oak School especially with the last name of Moulton and Mullins it doesn't get confusing at all when you know parents call uh so Emily has worked at Hooker Oak School for just over a year but she already functions like a seasoned veteran her knowledge of office procedures and policies is incredible but even more impressive is the way that she interacts with students staff parents and the public no matter how busy she is she always drops everything to make visitors to our office feel welcome and to make sure that their needs are met she often steps into the health office to assist with boo-boos and upset tummies and this year she is even filling in from our my office manager one day a week while she's out on medical leave no matter the task I never have a doubt that Emily will be able to exceed expectations and to do so with a smile on her face as an attendance clerk Emily makes a lot of phone calls to families to verify absences I love it when I'm working in my office and I have the opportunity to listen to Emily interact with parents she is compassionate helpful and always so kind when speaking with parents she offers support and resources when needed I have had many parents share how much they enjoy interacting with Emily in the office either in phone or on person our office manager Jess Rhodes works very closely with Emily and although she couldn't be here tonight she wanted me to make sure I shared this with you Emily is an amazing team player to work alongside with Emily has gone above and beyond to make sure that our office runs as smooth as possible she is never without a kind smile positive attitude and always willing to help in any way she can Emily has proven that she can tackle any goal or challenge that has been placed in front of her you are amazing Emily and you definitely deserve the award you are being presented tonight Emily definitely is deserving of this award it is an honor to work alongside her every day at hook Rogue school thank you Emily for all that you do congratulations [Applause] thank you all right that was great um congrats uh already we'll move on to item number six announcements uh does the board does any board member have announcements um regarding upcoming student events student awards School side accomplishments Etc all right seeing none here I just want to acknowledge that the school year is well underway now that we're in mid-september Merchant real quick towards that November cool down time but October is sometimes a big push to get through so um I think everything I'm hearing from out there is positive at our school sites and I'm I'm excited for this school year still um yes I just um wanted to make sure that we mentioned that the Ammon Bowl tickets are on sale and it uh Ammon bowl is John the 10th of October okay it's soon so make sure you get your tickets because somebody wins a new car from huh October 13th October 13th Friday the 13th yeah yeah oh Friday the 13th okay yeah please get your Ammon Bowl tickets win a car and see some really good football Robinson I want to thank you for your pronunciation of Ammon Bowl well done you I was a farmer those of us that farmed them still call them ends well that just leaves me out of the loop because I'm an almond speaker well yeah that's the Chester speaking is where she's from that's the mountain kid in me yeah yeah I was actually going to ask if I'm the only one who maybe pronounces it that way or maybe I shamefully shouldn't admit it but here we are I'm not ashamed all right um thank you for that that's good to know um October 13th Friday the 13th the Ammon Bowl uh at PB this year thank you um and get your tickets uh all right uh with that we'll move on to item seven items from the floor excuse me items from the floor are for speakers who wish to address the board that's the four of us up here today uh regarding a topic that is not currently agendized at this time we will take public comment from speakers who wish to address the board for topics not agendized for this meeting as a reminder speakers have three minutes to address the board uh a bell will ring when 30 seconds of speaking time remains thank you um that's your cue that you have 30 seconds to wrap up your thoughts and then um and then your three minutes is up the board can listen to public comment during items from the floor but cannot respond to any speakers under items from the floor due to Brown act rules which is a law uh and so at this time we will start calling up our speakers that have signed up for items from the floor this evening as soon as I pull my list out which is right here um so first up will be Loretta Torres followed by Michelle Cooper oh okay then we'll move on to uh I I hear I'm hearing that Loretta Torres is not here this evening so we'll move to Michelle Cooper and then um call on Gina backs to follow hey good evening okay so I'm here once again to urge this board to adopt the resolution that was presented to you in June a resolution that reaffirms the commitment of Chico Unified School Board to the fundamental rights of parents and legal Guardians to direct the Education Health and well-being of their minor children when this resolution was first presented I was met with doubt I was told that I didn't speak for all parents and that quantification was necessary to prove that this is indeed what parents want well today I bring with me the voices of over 1250 parents who have unequivocally expressed that this is precisely what they want in recent months we've witnessed troubling incidents in our state excuse me that underscore the urgency of this resolution in Monterey County a school district was ordered to pay a parent one hundred thousand dollars for socially transitioning a child without the parents knowledge or consent this case serves as a stark reminder of the importance of respecting the rights of parents to be actively involved in decisions regarding their children's education and well-being furthermore in Escondido an injunction was recently ordered against the school district's secrecy policy the presiding judge aptly characterized this policy as a trifecta of harm it harms the child who may need Parental Guidance and mental health intervention to determine the nature of their feelings and experiences it harms the parents by depriving them of their long recognized 14th Amendment right to care for guide and make Health Care decisions for their children and lastly it harms individuals like the plaintiffs in this case who are compelled to violate the rights of parents infringing upon their own religious beliefs these cases serve as alarming precedence and we must take heat of them it is not a matter of whether we support the rights of parents it's a matter of when not if Chico Unified finds itself embroiled in similar legal challenges if our policies do not change our resolution is not about impeding progress or stifling necessary discussions it is about upholding the cherished rights and responsibilities of parents it is about transparency trust and collaboration between parents Educators and administrators as a community we must come together to protect the rights of parents and legal Guardians to be actively involved in their children's education health and well-being this resolution is not a divisive measure it's a unifying one I urge each of you to consider consider the gravity of this resolution and the implications of ignoring it let us not wait until we find ourselves in the midst of legal battles and controversy let us take proactive steps to it to affirm our commitment to the rights of parents today let us stand together in support of this resolution sending a powerful message that we prioritize the well-being of our children and the rights of parents thank you is Gina Bax here all right um seeing no items additional comments from the floor we can move on to item 8 consent calendar uh we don't have any speakers signed up for consent calendar um so is there anybody who would like to pull an item from consent for further consideration okay seeing none do we have a motion on consent calendar so moved second I'll second that motion okay we have a motion to approve consent um by Mr tennis in a second by um Ms Robinson do we have further discussion board no I'm seeing this as actually yes uh do we need to do a voice call roll call vote tonight every time with an absent member okay um thank you we're gonna have to do it anyway but uh we'll do a roll call about each vote tonight so um I'll actually start it off uh dalby I Robinson I konk and I genocide thank you it passes unanimously and we will move on to our discussion action calendar Miss dalby on the discussion action calendar Business Services needs to pull item 9.1.1 and we'll bring that back at a future meeting okay thank you yes thank you so 9.1.1 um which is approval of a design build entity will be moved to a future meeting thank you um okay so we'll move to 9.1.2 discussion action Charter Schools measure K projects request and what that is is Julie Kissel good evening thank you for having me here tonight um I'm really excited to bring forward a project to be funded with our measure K Bond dollars for one of our local Charter Schools Chico Country Day School and as it was presented in the board agenda they have a fantastic project that looks very well thought out and planned for and it includes shade structures drinking fountains small play area Landscaping trees and an outdoor classroom which I'm really excited about the Outdoor Classroom we have a representative here tonight with us and I would just want her to come up and quickly introduce herself to you if you don't mind hi there my name is Gretchen Bender I'm the new Chief business officer for Chico Country Day I guess I'm still new I'm in my beginning of my second year and this project has been in the conceptual phase for most of the time that I've been there we've spent time Gathering input from kids from parents from community members and spent extensive time with Landscape Architects in order to design space to be usable and to be the to the maximum benefit for students so we're excited to finally be at this final step and to get to work on this project if you have any questions I'm happy to answer them question are you familiar and maybe somebody else's that Chico Country Day Has within the past week has has like abolished their school board or their parents committee or something like that do you have any knowledge about that at all um I do that's a separate item I don't know if I can speak to that but um the Parent-Teacher partnership has not been abolished um what we've done is created a new parent advisory Council that can be a bit more organized around parent volunteers creating events mobilizing families for the benefit of the students within the classrooms and for fundraising and donation collection been aware that there were some very upset parents at the fact that that body had been dissolved I gathered from the CEO of the school or the principal or something like that so I'm pretty concerned about that because I think that parent involvement in education is absolutely critical yeah that was the main reason for creating the parent advisory Council was so that we could have a more formal body that was an integrated part of the school rather than an external group of families that kind of operated on their own and have fundraising money controlled by an external 501c3 the North Valley Community Foundation rather than Chico country day which is its own 501c3 so that was that was the point um all parents are invited to participate in fact we had about 40 parents um attend the initial parent advisory committee meeting on Monday all right I'm gonna um I'm gonna move us along um thank you any more questions about the Landscaping project no thank you so much I don't think I have questions uh it does it seems like you have a pretty decent long-term plan for how you want to see your facilities grow or look in the future is that a is that an ongoing process you're always reflecting on on how you want to utilize Bond money to make investments in the infrastructure um this particular project has been at the Forefront for a while our our long-term goal is to create a facilities master plan that will look out five to twenty years in the future so that we have a better idea for our priorities lie and how to fund those great thank you thank you it's nice to see long-term long-term planning for long-term money when it comes to utilizing bond funds so it's really a really nice looking plan thank you so much yes I think I think they did a really good job on this plan and I think it's going to have a very meaningful impact on the students on their campuses with that I'd like to ask for approval of this project will spend the remaining dollars that were allocated of measure K to Chico Country Day School and I think it's a really good use of those funds um I don't see any public comment on this item and so um with that I'll ask if there's no other questions for Julie I'll ask for a motion I move approval of the major K expenditure request from Chico Country Day second great we have a motion by Ms Robinson in a second by MS konkin any further discussion from the sport on this topic I have a substitute motion I want to I've just learned today about what I was talking about earlier with the dissolution of a parent committee which I'm very concerned about at Chico country day so I would substitute motion that we put this vote off for another two weeks while we can see what the exact result is from that would there be a problem to the construction schedule if if this vote were to be put off for two weeks I I don't have an answer for that question Matt because I just I just don't know um what the deadlines are involved Madam president it's not it for discussion unless there's a second okay so the substitute motion fails we'll go back to the original motion which is to move for approval a discussion point on this is um that our job as the Chico Unified School Board is to approve how Bond measure money is spent in regard to measure K and how that ballot language was originally written and this is within the scope of that and if this board agrees that this is good use of that funding from our taxpayers for this project than it is it is under our purview to approve the project um otherwise the management of the school itself is not under our jurisdiction so we're here to approve use of bond money and that's it any other further discussion on this topic all right we'll call the vote starting with Ms Robinson Robinson I konk and I attendance abstain uh Dolby I um it passes three zero with one abstain thank you thank you all right we'll move on to 9.1.3 excuse me this is an informational item it's an update on the discussion with Charter the charter school Community regarding potential a potential 2024 General obligation Bond and with that I'll turn it over to Ms Jacqueline Krueger yes good evening board at the last regular meeting August 23rd the board took action to direct staff to meet with Charter leaders and talk about funding options related to a potential new Bond and related to inspired relocating out to the Fremont Street project Fremont Street um so chica unified administrative staff and one board member attended a meeting on August 28th I met with Charter leaders to discuss potential funding options and what that may look like in another Bond a lot of discussion about potential options nothing was solidified at that point in time the group then met again on September 13th to continue those discussions of how the dollars can be allocated and more importantly starting to look at what ballot language for a bond could look like so we are tentatively going to be meeting again a third time next week to continue those conversations to move forward with looking at the dollars the allocation of the dollars related to a bond in 2024.

and in terms of the future Mr Ross is planning to meet with all 150 seniors to discuss our future plans and Mr Smith and I are currently developing an idea of professional development it's a great idea that's an awesome report thank you very much for sharing any questions from the members I was just asking if anybody has any questions it's great yes thank you very much that's going to be a tough report to follow I'll do my best hello everybody Okay so um school year 22-23 report on harassment intimidation and bullying vandalism and violence we'll start with HIV can everybody hear me okay so last year 22 23 are numbers were similar to the year before especially in investigations of those investigations we add about 11 more confirmed incidents of HIV than the year previous you guys remember 2021 was the year of the pandemic where we were not in school for the entire year so that's our totals school by school at the high school the numbers were very similar from the year before 21 investigations 12 confirmed a community investigations were down 31 to 26 but we had more confirmed cases of HIV than the year before 15 to 10.

uh middle school this morning it's not on the couch ES foreign [Music] I wrote Nine Pages [Music] I have music teams am I meeting this one was just started the school year in relationship from my perspective I think it was a great source over the last several years have been involved from 19 year old to Mike Daniel when the biggest deal you hear about school opening is huge success because that's an issue that would never go away never can use any money and although I did hear from it things like social media that that was primarily it so give a huge amount of applause introduce Miss Pearson to the group the curriculum and programs committee uh she gave us a brief background on herself as well as basic goals it was refreshing in the way that it uh strongly continued opinion from the previous fact of some September programs such as even follow winter back to school night alone week is always included discussing one [Music] about that we didn't use others Brio is recognizing the month in a several different ways by teachers sharing with their students month itself through literature written by Hispanic authors in regarding Hispanic decision subjects discussing aspects of their culture and recognizing the commonalities that all cultures have have [Music] research resources have been provided to all the teachers each day and during announcements of influential respect Americans we can communicating on this pleasure will recognize this month to our community and we're also partnering with real public library and then we'll be displaying a few things there you go uh we've discussed the njsla results specifically to where areas and seven we discussed the mailing timeline in your district presentation we also discussed high impact tutoring Grant and there were a handful of the local items that the board members themselves wanted to discuss things like full day for preschool but after an hour and a half we uh he said any questions [Music] thank you so thank you for that um and like you said when you will continue to discussing preschool because that's something that we started talking about families [Music] all right so we're going to move on to human resources [Music] um what she had for the journey to the school has been in session just for today's in addition to some staff models where they are because she wanted to get them throughout the year um [Music] thank you any questions so we're going to move on to policy second Valley uh yes the policy committee did meet yesterday September 19th um I appreciate the committee uh Justin for my schedule it's pretty suspended for the priority um it was done by Mr and the student Administration the board attorney to show the items and board member for president Jones board members Dr d'ambersio Mr Walsh and myself uh the first was finalizing the verbiage of our policy system 150 as discussed in our last meeting this policy pertains to how the Mortal reception of just division annually only for cases such as policy where there's a permanent resident come to town who's delayed from detergent position Beyond eight weeks and our policy says we have to have a pollution in place um second we discussed policy 3756 transgender students in light of losing clarification of policy requirements in both the state Deputy major in general and Strauss estimate which is a fund that we use to review legislation in the state providers the guidance that some important parts of this policy were actually recommended and not mandated and Strauss SMA had previously performance a particular importance was a portion that was a previously caused uh causing concern for parents and Community where we believe that the school was unable to notify the students parent or Guardian in the events we've been addressed that concern uh it's best to be believed you could by modifying our policy previously to add language that required protocol and that remains our policy today the media is putting forward to change this policy the first meeting that was drafted by the sabbaths under the confidentiality and privacy section which now reads that School staff members may not disclose information and they reveal students check their status except as by Allowed by law the principal or designs to work with the student and the student's family to create an appropriate confidentiality plan regarding the state students transgender or transitioning status previously that policy that's provided the district did not prescribe or explicitly permit involvement of the students family foreign and actually not all parts of the policies that we're provided may actually be mandated so the community had numerous questions about this um you have previously operated under an understanding that if it comes mandated that there's not a lot of flexibility policy um even when board members might have serious objections to address this through the meeting with Dr Phil Castro straps SMA during our October committee meeting to have a kind of discussion about the disclosure and what it means for our business policies and those moving forward finally it was quickly updated uh progress continues we're one to two weeks out from the court completion including our proper formatting and then there will be a policy management training for and another is responsible to maintain those policies tonight we'll be moving the provision that was provided by Miss Adams under policy any questions just clarification to the highlighted section is our verbiage correct and it does not go against any state mandated aspects and so the word and the student's family means that the policy could be that parents or families yes [Music] stay that's what they put in the statue on which so it's still still has Concepts but right now the idea is the idea is to support a student who is making sure for people contravention um right because why I'm just so the situation I think it's sort of nearby schools possibly is that you have to do the issues that are going on with that word eventism with this particular kind of like the way they yeah are they not accepting the most they have all or is it the boys experience yeah so what we're doing is so what so this um based on this language what would it mean well the steps would be as I understand it is and then together with the students um and as part of that is [Music] communicating and being supported by the families and in a student 100 of them have a conversation this policy I'm talking about how it would be depending on what the situation dependable safety or health issues but this allows for the practicality the idea is we're not working to support the students and that is likely to happen it's not like I'm just looking at the mortgage and making sure gotcha you know the support of part of the plan and helping students um with respect any potential um [Music] well yeah it's basically it's not it doesn't say on instant one this is the first thing that happens it has we all discussed uh it involves developing a plan but the first Contact is with the student and hey Stacy he had some thoughts too um it's not it's a discretionary in the sense that it's part of a plan that's coordinated with respect activities um [Music] is instead of someone from New Jersey law against discrimination of discrimination so there are laws that mandate this kind of treatment during that discrimination laws whether it has to be the resistance and it's also reference in the law that said the Commissioners official guidance but most of it is mandatory this type of thing in terms of activities so this weekend it's all about America that's why I think I think not to totally remember [Music] um [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] it's been a Heritage Month October 15th we touched on the K1 pickup and drop off I know I've been an adjustment um for parents students in the crossing guards she was very concerned about the crossings so please across like the designated um also the update on the playground for The students what happens next with that um from the PTO there was a new the new kindergarten orientation and District orientation very successful they also held a vegetable breakfast with teachers the eighth grade weather first one year fundraiser of the year day um the sixth grade is having an ice cream social coming up on September 29th fall in Richmond again next week and spirit requests from our feedback organization um [Music] kind of the counterpart to um our behind group and we'll be collaborating with them here we have some excuse me questions together and the first meeting for the BPI group is and then from Administration and Pearson met with for went over to the real Library so they're working on the figure of the library and I think that's it yeah oh no I wanted to mention the oysters are having their moms now orders through September 12th if that's any questions last year um foreign [Music] and then our second one was um uh restructuring of Central atomics and that's very involved reviewing of job descriptions and um and I started that with Mr Russo was here and um we're continuing it with um so and I think that that's a goal that is important on it's a thing where we want to just make sure that things don't fall between price [Music] um responsibilities are clear with individuals so that's the goal that I think that we're going to continue with that for next year um but what I would like for all the chair people to do is to have a meeting with your committees and discuss what you've been um something that relates to your committee a goal aboard and then we are going to meet on the executive session in October and sometimes they see at that time the district goals we'll discuss that and take on this way account your recommendations and then we'll discuss that um when you meet with your committees if you can do that work at least any questions [Music] I do want to thank everybody for their cooperation [Music] foreign [Music] we had a great meeting with the library um and you know we hope to really do some great connections with them uh picture day is coming up on the fourth and the fifth and you'll get a specific days for when your which grades are going on which day is your picture day next week we do have a staff through service again on October 9th um that will be another professional development session that right now and parents should be keeping their eyes out for njsla scores are going to be mailed to 4th through eighth graders at the end of this week is there any driver s in my weekly Polaris I'm going to just request two things give parents um are not comfortable just dropping their kids and letting us Park in the drop-off line and get out of their car that that is kind of stopping things that could be moving a little more efficiently so if you prefer to hand your child to us then ask it plastic parts and then just as you see me out there doing this and getting some good biceps um you know it just pulls the way up at one time um so and then my observation this afternoon you know on that section near the driveway the kids are cutting across the street here there and number one it's terribly understated and number two what it does is the cars were supposed to be exiting can't exit exit and if you can't get the kids picked up so the kids need to walk to the crosswalk number one for their own safety and number two because when they go to the right the car is going to come up so that's you know if you have kids who are walking please we are going to you know today I was diverting a lot of kids um and making sure that they were you know not running out into traffic [Music] I'm not sure for safety reasons yeah yeah this year I understand [Music] like you may have to take 25 extra steps good exercise but you know I get worried with you know when the car is coming out and they're going to dash across the street right there [Music] so I yeah I don't know if that Constitution because it is an intersection is yeah yeah because that's a diagonal it's not like a direct it's like it's not really an intersection it's a parking lot where the exit is it's yeah like straight across the street in your house you have to go on a diagonal to the left so I don't know even people like if you can see yeah yeah so they're not getting you know walking out there we need any children any other questions [Music] and action finders or items below or upon the recommendation of the superintendent sure I'd like to look forward [Music] yes well yes Mr Walton yes [Music] Mr Becker yeah Mrs Jones this is false yes yes one second yes Mrs Jones yes yes this is sweet yes yes yeah Mr wall yes for human resources on page 13 um we have we have a D14 and um and then there's C15 I just wasn't sure if I got a little separate so all right so it is another substitute oh thank you John um that is correct is the ending of November [Music] thank you excited yes Mrs Jones yes yes [Music] members um [Music] in the district office away um Diane and I uh long interview process to find me period and um you know really impressive organizational skills the real self-starter um so I'm really excited to welcome and secondly um Julian dimmick is going to be joining us as our kindergarten teacher we also had you know many applicants and so the parents have Jillian joining us [Applause] [Music] visitors business visitors are committed to comment on agenda and not agenda items from the playground is there a worst case scenario [Music] um the playground and resize is there a worst case scenario when we know it will be bricks we're just trying to do it quicker or do we really like I could never get fixed it's a scenario well yeah well I hope that never happens but it doesn't get fixed um but this is why we have a meeting about it and um and so we talked about a plan um and as soon as we get more information then we'll give them to children are you measuring a repair virtual replacement well because it sounded like we thought we had money and then we did and now we're stuck in a situation so do we know that we can just get the money next year and but you want to do it quicker oh okay now see we apply for a grant and unfortunately we think that we have received the grants um and so uh so what we're doing now is especially now we've had our last meeting was [Music] as saying that your advancements so they've been working work with the one that we're in Oregon so I think we will be able to secure the funds it's just a matter of from where and more yeah [Music] um so my son's also in pre-k and I think it's great that the kindergarten but what's available to go outside and play can we get them some outside toys or something so that they're not just being taught you know I think our teachers are doing a good job um keeping them entertained but you know I like replay I like them to be outside it's so good for them to do that so can we do anything with that and if you certainly can look into you know providing them with more things outside you know what important and you know thank you um [Music] specific nothing [Music] not because [Music] um [Music] let's start and thank you thank you the question is foreign we have like various hungry PTO PDF and we've been talking to them organizations which is essentially that's you know parents and the community contributing through those community events we just thought the state was going to subsidize the large part right so now we've got to come up with Plan B and work on me and you know try to move forward because originally in that whole umbrella of brands in that pot of money the state's giving out playground is on the list and you know they came back and said nope it's not on the list anymore for a priorities instead so you know we wanted to be as cost effective and in line for that Grant last spring because we wanted to take advantage of the students but obviously they were putting out there for schools to use and unfortunately I think they were so overwhelmed with requests as you know districts office opportunity um to be really fiscally responsible to the taxpayers and then you know they changed the criteria you know anybody probably was the same playground the group is now trying to do the same [Music] I imagine [Music] particularly in the early childhood environment plan is not the students yeah it definitely can investigate that for sure I [Music] think it's definitely on multiple committees any other questions um we actually thought about the bef and the PTO I believe they're sitting on some big knots of money they would love to spend it on a playground um I think a lot of us have bought a paver for the Outdoor Classroom it's been to 100 bucks on a paper I think the community if um you know if the school did some sort of fundraiser would back that fundraiser if we had to um you know as a last resort if the town didn't jump in to do that I know that um you know our parent group would definitely jump on board to do that speak to other parents um for our kids to get you know developmentally appropriate playground but um one other question we had um Jen and I have been advocating uh for the past year with old Administration regarding whole day Pre-K um we were told last year that there would be progress over the summer and into the fall and we are wondering what the status is of that so last year [Music] um we started to pick a plan and so we just met um and we discussed that with space Stephenville Truman and so um there was so much to discuss um [Music] we did bring it up and so we're looking into them it was the next step was to send a survey to parents because we want to make sure because this is a huge problem and so we want to make sure that this is something that needs so um that was the first part of the plan was to send down the circle so um we will be meeting again um to discuss and put that survey together and just one thing about the survey um came up with that plan it was specifically said not to have anything go out until the school year was started so that people like parents weren't getting it being like Oh I can someone get to preschool full then each year like we didn't want that confusion to be a part of it so the idea was um to have that come out probably you know from this point before not too much more because obviously the timeline if it's involving Personnel changes to the building who knows whatever else like we definitely need to move on it but there was some distincts like kind of halting that time it was something I actually didn't know that living bag was um curriculum programs committee has spread independently so um I know that there's a bird I'm a personally it's definitely something that we are looking into thank you um how do we campus folks that are not in the school system here I know it was going to be based off of just residents roughly discussed that all but I don't think we need to move forward are you talking about like people who are already involved in school yeah it was it was going to be targeting too that work that happened to everyone again [Music] some sort of I think the reason I'm circling back is because there's preschool expansion grants um and I understand the whole picture of facilities and teaching Personnel staff and all of that this has been an ongoing conversation for over a year now um and I think the parents of this community are looking for steps forward um I understand you know parents call and say oh are you opening up you know your roster is for September um you know I just think that as long as we're moving together forward I think that would be great forward moving um my next comment to this polestra is polstra is back to school night was absolutely successful uh we want you to know that the feedback from the parents that um you know we represent said a few things that your message was clear concise and you were very thorough um so um thank you because in the past we haven't had that parent said wow that was a bit much and I said no that's exactly what it's supposed to be so um so thank you uh you know really honestly and that will take place again tomorrow right yes so kudos to you and your team um thank you for that um IEPs updated in Genesis uh the concern on bpag's behalf is that our children's IEPs are not updated within Genesis and our concern is that if we can't see the updated version and teachers so what is the protocol for teachers reading the IEP we definitely did it and in those opening PD games there was formal times um I believe they go through what time though right that there's and then if that's how I have I don't know the exact Logistics but I know that IEPs were red and signed off on and they're really specific time [Music] I hear your questions right to also go into Genesis click on the folder of the student who's classified and that brings up the IEP or 504 as well right what we're saying is that an RN is not updated so we just want to make sure that it is updated on the staff side because if not they're reading ideas from last year so maybe it's just a button that needs to be put but um thank you a couple more questions um regarding um like curriculum with the eight pages my my question is is a summary expected or this meeting to be shared out or does that summary happen at the next meeting next time okay [Music] um two questions Lobby guard do we have Lobby guard you guys are talking about Lobby guard and if not what is our security process here for visitors the double entry parents buzz in um you know our main office staff will ask you to identify yourself [Music] right so that is save your lunches lunches are left in the lobby and then you know our lunches come and pick them up and at lunch times so that's the way our lobby is watched we don't have any you know those tend to be larger School their license and there's somebody who's paying to be ignored um leather system that's thank you and my last part is of the results of the analysis of um Cusack regarding teacher evaluation um is it am I reading between the lines that staff was not evaluated no um you know I think what I within that is also timelines you know and look I was not here last year so I was not hard to make any assumptions or over speak I can only comment on what the comments are if you said so I was not part of the Personnel review I was not here last year um you know but that is where they lost points based on the certain elements of the evaluation process Ed maybe thoroughly completed or within a specific um but again it's you know I wasn't here for it I don't really want to go back um you know I would just like to move forward I'm still in the highly effective over 80 percent which you know is is mental thank you we have all the trust in you because we know when our teachers you know are observed and giving constructive feedback or kids benefit from themselves the process and it's you know it's feedback both ways um you know not only do these are teachers and give them the feedback but they also inform us about Pizza so that whole process is a two-way street and um support great thank you I appreciate it thank you one more um pickup um could the school organize Us for kids living within two miles of school because I know there used to be one years ago all the time so I know that my parents paid for that you know a lot of parents would be willing to pay for that now um it would obviously there are so many of the problems that so many of the complaints have you get here at 2 305 and I just think that that's something yeah and I've been looking into what they you know we call the private company you try to get the ball rolling on it but we didn't get a call for instructions approximately 20 years ago it was parent paid through a bus company and bus company contact accounts directly parents paid the bus company directly and it was for anyone who in that state mandated two miles to the elementary school and they worked at every University you know and not to put a damper even on the idea but we certainly recognize that the bus driver shortage is still very prevalent in New Jersey so you know if that did happen many years ago start a conversation about how to proceed with that someone also did reach out to jail uh to see if they could survey like in their neighborhood to see if there would be there would be parents who are interested um so I don't know what you know it certainly is there you know their right to reach out to other neighbors to be interested but I have not heard back from that person um and again you know the steps to put back in place of something I'm really not familiar with so it requires a homework um and [Music] you know obviously a school sending out a survey we've got a lot more responses you know like is this school put out some form of real um communication about this I think there would be a lot of interest ing yeah [Music] I remember seeing that big boss [Music] any other questions yes hi um my name is um I'm curious about the status of the library [Music] so I think I really enjoyed a lot of reading at home and I survived retiring and I'm just curious if there's anything anymore so that's why Mrs Pearson and I walk up to the library this week um I had a really nice discussion with the children's librarian and the director and we are trying to work out some plans to coordinate some programming to provide our students with the opportunity you know either to go to the library you know and I know it's walking and the time is um you know it seems like our students do use that library after school um you know some of our kindergarten students are very familiar with the staff we've done story time I know some of the songs that are kindergarten teachers um so that was you know I hope that's a reliability put things together in our own facility here that we can find a way to get creative thank you for all of your questions remember joining us tonight usually it's just us um thank you [Music] together [Music] all right yes [Music] we'll move on to discussion and there is no executive special tonight foreign [Music]

all those in favor aye opposed any post no but I do have a comment do you want to finish the vote and then make the comment okay so all four zero yes okay four to zero this is Van Hook um and the only reason why I'm commenting is because I didn't get the answers to the questions till after the agenda was posted but I did see that there was a question regarding um the s supplementals for staff and there was a question in regards to an amount that was on there due to a contract of a little over four thousand dollars and it was asked how this was an elementary teacher receiving certain amount but it was the response back to that question was this is an error should read hea president stipend to which my response was um that this was discussed in a previous board meeting um that I still don't understand why we are using taxpayer dollars to pay stipends to the AGA president when they are getting their dues paid by teachers to represent them so if they're attending events as an hea rep uh [Music] why are we using taxpayer dollars to pay them to to do what they signed up to do for hea that's all I just wanted to point that out thank you moving on to information item 7.1 presidential yes we had a board member ask for this policy to be on the board agenda for discussion this is policy beddd Rules of Order we also have Miss Jennifer McClellan here should we have questions or need additional clarification perfect thank you I believe this is when you need to sorry again okay um so I asked for this policy to be brought forward um due to the reason that uh at the last board meeting when we were discussing um the dress code uh board vice president Anderson made a motion to amend the policy and I seconded that motion and we had a vote on the floor and instead of voting on that motion another emotion was made to table it um and then that motion got a second and that one got a vote but the original motion that was made was dismissed and so the Amendments never were made uh because that motion never got a vote so I wanted to to um ask that we amend the Rules of Order um to say that um to so under the line where it says the motion requirement where each motion um each action requires emotion all motions must be seconded before discussion or voting and then to add an order of motion which would State emotion must be voted on before another motion can be made um to because otherwise we can just keep making motions on top of everybody's motions and the initial motion could never get a vote so that's just something that I wanted to get added to this policy so if we added that to the policy then the second um Vote or the second the amended would never have made it so Mrs Anderson's never would have been able to make that motion because we've already if we voted and presumably the boat would have died um it wouldn't have passed we wouldn't have been able to add something else to the agenda for a new vote because it's not on the agenda so it never would have happened if I am I correct Madam president Ms Van Hook I think what you're saying is that if that language were added that you couldn't amend emotion and I do believe that would be a unintended consequence of that language and if that language is added you will also have to reconcile the discrepancy between that language and the language later in your policy that states that emotion to table is in order at any time so that so the motion would have never been able to happen because it would have died and it's not on our agenda and so that's what essentially we would be eliminating the ability to even amend an agenda item am I saying I just want to make sure asking legal so that I'm saying that correctly Madam president miss van hook so if if that language is added if emotion was made you would have to vote on it to be able to amend it um and once you vote on an agenda item there would not be the ability then it either passes or fails so you're correct that once that emotion is made you would not be able to amend it you would have to vote on it and then if it didn't pass you would be required to consider it at the next board meeting because the the agenda item itself is the original motion correct that's why that is because the agenda item to discuss we have to do an original motion so that that's the first motion the amendment was in fact the second Motion in order of what happened for the dress code so not not just speaking for an amendment but in any situation if there's a motion made on any situation not just an amendment and then somebody can just make a motion on top of that Madam president how do we resolve the situation where if there's emotion to be able to to vote on the motion other than other than tabling can they make any other motion on top of another motion without getting a vote Madam president Ms Van Hook under your current rules you could make a motion and then amend the motion that's what happened the night that we were doing the second read for the dress code policy and that's permissible both under your current rules and under Robert's Rules of Order um and similarly your governing board policy beddd allows a motion to table at any time as does Robert's Rules of Order um but the language that you're proposing currently would require that once emotion is made in second it be voted on if I understand your language correctly and that would eliminate the ability for the board to amend a motion got it okay any other questions concerns this is me I would also like to express I think the only reason we tabled over that amendment is because neither the policy itself the agenda item would have passed because based off conversation only two of us supported it the way it was when you motion for the amendment it also still would not have passed because only two people supported with the amendment attached which is why we tabled it to readdress and then come back at a different date so it wasn't yeah in particular it's just the policy itself that's fair but I I feel like I I think it's important that if we're making an amendment the idea that you would have another motion to amend something else logistically we would have to vote before we look at a second amendment in order to progress so we're making sure we're keeping in line with our language a motion to a table I think should be protected in terms of superseding so if we have another situation in which we can't come to a consensus and we can't move forward instead of it dying come back and give it life again the other thing it would do is handcuff us to be able to make an amendment so if you did want to make an amendment or if somebody wanted to make Amendment on the board they wouldn't no longer be allowed to do so I understand thank you any other questions okay moving on to 7.2 uh bdg School attorney the first read and this is yes Mrs Richards or Mrs Van Hook okay it's it's a board member asks for this policy bdg School attorney to for discuss ion all right um so for this policy um uh the second sentence where it says the superintendent shall designate those employees of the district categorically or individually who may consult with staff attorney or an attorney from a pool of which the district is a member um so there's three things that on this policy I wanted to see if we can amend so for that section um if we were to switch the verbiage to say the superintendent can recommend District staff to the board for approval to consult with district attorney um and then um yeah so that whole sentence would switch to that to where the recommendation would come to the board and then the board would approve that recommendation you know I wish we had this in front of us because I'm having trouble following sorry so the second paragraph that's on the current policy to be changed to so instead of the superintendent designating the employees that could contact or consult with the attorney that the superintendent would recommend District staff to the board for approval um to consult with district attorney can I ask why you would like that um for the purpose of being able to uh bring back some of the controls to the board because based on this policy a lot of the attorney responsible like contacts with the attorney are attached to the superintendent and I believe that that should be something that the board should be able to approve or deny I think there's some unintended consequences with language like that um because don't take the words exactly it's just a recommendation no I I hear you and I I understand your purpose um but there's a lot of legal matters that are a time of the of essence and for instance our next board meetings not until October 11th um we have special education that works with attorneys all the time to make sure that you know laws are changed and that we're following what we're supposed to and and things like that they work hand in hand with the attorneys from the trust in our our pool of attorneys that we can can work with HR if there is a a Personnel issue that we need advice from an attorney I mean if if there's a tough situation that we're dealing with and we need to get advice from attorneys before we can can do something to make sure we're legally covered they wouldn't be able to do that until we gave approval these individuals are selected ahead of time well that's what this says is they're essentially it's cabinet members who if need be can reach out to District or to I want to say the district attorneys that the attorneys that represent our district so it's not anyone individually that's that's being able to do that um the superintendent's not going and saying oh well you have permission to to contact an attorney now if there's a situation that our superintendent's handling with an individual and it may not be one of our cabinet members that we need some legal advice on that the superintendent is going to make that initial phone call together and say hey this is our situation I have this person with me um can you help us and even if at that point our superintendent has to bow out for whatever reason but individuals don't within our district just don't have the authority to go and use the council that represents the district right there are certain like it says categorically so SP you know special education director not anyone within special education has the ability to to utilize our our Council right so those those people are are selected ahead of time anyway right yes there there are certain departments and head of departments I guess if you will those individuals may consult with right with an attorney um so what difference would it make to have those approved by the board okay so now that sounds something different to me so you're asking that the individuals be identified it sounded like you were asking before they could contact Council no that okay ahead of time yeah so instead of leaving it so vague on just individuals similar to what we have approved for the um hearing officers like you got a list so if we can have a list of who has the authority to do that right is what you're asking and to be able to as a board approve that list like annually or something okay I thought you were asking that before they could contact legal counsel that it had to come before them no no no and I like that was not gonna work out well okay that makes some different sense I'll leave that for some discussion at that point um should I go on with the rest or do we Is there further discussion just for that line Madam president may I be here on one concern that I have um so if what the board is proposing is to allow the superintendent to give a list and only those people are authorized to contact legal counsel um there is a concern that I would have that if another individual in your district is required to speak with legal counsel and they're not on that list that that might be a violation of your policy and I'll give you some examples so today I spoke with to a district principal District assistant principal urgent matter related not your school district related to a proposed expulsion and if those individuals certainly the assistant principals are not likely to be on that list that was the individual who had the knowledge that I needed another situation that comes up frequently is where you all are subpoenaed your individuals employees are subpoenaed sometimes that's your teachers and so typically those those individuals would never be authorized to get legal consult but they are under your current agreements so if if you are going to adopt language like that you would still need to give your superintendent discretion to approve the use of legal counsel for those times when those individuals couldn't come back to the board to get your approval I think your intent is to initiate is that correct I mean because in those circumstances yes those individuals would need to speak with legal counsel but they're not necessarily the ones who initiated the right yeah so for there to be an initial list and then from there like as needed basis and again like I these whatever I wrote down isn't obviously the legal language that would be in there but um just to get the point across is to be able to just like those officers to be able to get an approved list initially and then if there's other you know emergency cases that need to be added so did those individuals let's say somebody is subpoenaed did they caught contact you directly or do they contact Sherry and and then go through Sherry to get to the attorney Madam president miss Van Hook in in all instances in all school districts that I work with especially with the prepaid legal system there are only um it would go through the superintendent or the superintendent's designee to make contact with the attorney for the public body to get the legal resource so I believe that happens already I have not been contacted directly by anyone other than Sherry Richards since she's taken the home got it yeah yeah right just not to talk to but initiate that right can I ask a clarifying question I'm just trying to understand I guess the necessity of it outwardly I look at everybody that exists within the district office and within our our district as a whole and I wouldn't know or have any real reason to have an understanding of what I would be approving in terms of what needs to be done versus what's not what is a good list what isn't and I think part of that is because that's I mean that's not my job right and I I guess I'm just trying to understand like if the desire is because you want more control from the board to be able to have a say in some of these things I I understand that for certain for certain areas I guess I'm just confused as to why this is an area of concern like what about the current system and how it is being done are we unsatisfied with um that would require or necessitate a change just to have more control in an area that I just don't understand the reasoning from it I guess is what I'm trying to understand like what what do we hope to gain from this considering none of us even based off the questions we've had from the lawyer as we discussed this really have any clear idea on how frequently how often or in what situation who is needed right so in that case if you apply that to these officers do we have that information about these officers but we're still having to make that approval right as a board we're having to vote on these officers so same would apply here um I think what's happened is um and in reality like I think a lot of the boards um work has been or or the board's Authority has been given to the superintendent versus the Board having to do those things and so it's it's a matter of us as a board being able to have a decision in that um and obviously it would be in conjunction with working with the superintendent to identify those people but the ultimate um approval would come from the board I guess I guess what I'm hung up on is I mean a we hire the superintendent that is where our Authority comes in we are the ones who approve policies I'm just it feels like there's a lack of trust of individuals to do their jobs and I'm just trying to understand for example the the hearing people that get recommended to us it's because they have done their processes already any of the time some of these things come up for our approval it's because they have done their processes already and I think it's important for us to ask questions and I think it's important for us to to get justification for decisions when we need them I just this feels to me like like an effort to to have more control over something for the sake of control rather than expression that we can trust the individuals in there if our control came down to this is a policy or decision that we could have an understanding or an impact of like I I don't care if at the end of the day we have the list and we go okay good on you for that list but I still want to make sure that the the ultimate practice of us as a board in conjunction with everybody that works from staff to district office as a whole is that we trust the people to do their job that are in that job and then when we have reason to not trust that is when we start following the procedures and policies we have in place so I guess I just don't really understand the the the Merit of it right and and this isn't a trust issue just like they do the work and bring us these officers to approve they would do the work and bring us this list to approve as well it's there's really I mean it's not a trust issue it's just being able to have that as the role of the board which technically it should be but go ahead Michelle uh Miss Richards I'm not sure if this for you is it is it McLennan or McClellan it's McLennan McLennan yeah there's no problem I'm not sure call me anything Jennifer is fine um when we are approving the uh hearing officers tell my voice is going to hearing officers or the evaluators we've also approved that list is that something that we are mandated to approve or are we given those names by the district per policy or is that just a nice thing that you guys do for us Madam president miss Anderson it the I believe the list of hearing officers you're talking about is a list of hearing officers to hold hearings for personnel matters and that sort of thing and it is mandated that you decide as a board whether you're going to hear the hearings yourself or whether you're going to approve the hearing officers you're also required to approve them because you have to procure them so there's two reasons for that requirement this would be discretionary uh I can address members of the board the hearing officers I think that we're referring to tonight is for the long-term suspension expulsion hearing officers it's on the agenda on the consent agenda those individuals are brought forward because they've been through and certified by the trust as a trust certified hearing officer to conduct long-term suspension or expulsion hearings now they they're certified because of the trust s that we only use a hearing officer that's been through their training and that will help to keep the school district out of litigation to ensure due process is granted if there ever is an expulsion or long-term suspension so that's a little bit of a different comparison because those individuals if we're going to be backed by the trust for potential litigation we need to make sure that we're using one of their certified hearing officers who have been certified passed through the program and had gone through their standards to be able to hold hearings so that's why that list is approved because if we didn't use a trust hearing officer and the hearing was botched and we came back and ended up in litigation we wouldn't have the support of the trust potentially answers the hearing officers what about our evaluators for staff so we're required to make sure our evaluators are qualified evaluators and have gone through training so we always bring you that list of Administrators that are qualified to do that so next section um the oops the fourth paragraph um currently says the superintendent and the board president shall be designated as the representatives of the district who may confer with Council the district will not be responsible for fees that accrue because of an unauthorized individual board members or staff consultation with private Council um my recommendation is to change that to say that the superintendent and all board members shall be designated as representative of the district who may confer with Council for guidance and clarification on legal matters affecting the district or the board um and then obviously the the line that says the district will not be responsible for fees because unauthorized staff consultation with private Council um the main thing here is being able to add all board members because if there's ever a situation where uh one or two board members or three it doesn't matter the number of board members but if the issue is um let's say with the superintendent or if there's an issue with the board president or whatever and other board members need to be able to contact legal counsel with our current policy we're not able to do that and as as board members I shouldn't have to go through the board president or through the superintendent to be able to speak to legal counsel I think that we were all elected into these seats for a reason and we're all equally board members and just because one carries a title of board president that shouldn't be an you know it shouldn't exclude all the other board members to be able to have equal access to legal counsel when when and if we have questions um so that is why I'd like to be able to add all board members in there um and then um at the end of the last paragraph where it says only the superintendent may contact private Council by telephone or in person regarding matters pertaining to day-to-day operations of the district um this I don't know if the top portion what I just added would if we were able to change that to all board members would kind of help that section but to protect the board if there was an instance where there was an issue with the superintendent and the day -to-day operations then are we not allowed to contact legal counsel regarding that but not at where it says only the superintendent well there's two different things there because we're not we're we're not responsible for the day-to-day the superintendent is but if at that point is is we don't have an issue with the day-to-day operation we have an issue with the superintendent so we would have our board president contact legal regarding our superintendent not the day-to-day operation so the nitty-gritty getting in the weeds of the day-to-day operation is it's kind of cause and effect that may be the reason that there's an issue with the superintendent is what's happening in the day-to-day but we went and contact them regarding the day-to-day at that point the the board is contacting legal counsel regarding our superintendent because then at that point our issue is with our superintendent right not our day-to-day so I just I just feel like there it might be like contradictory um or maybe the verbiage can change to where in cases where legal matters relate to the superintendent the board shall have the right to resolve such issue and may contact private Council wording is the way it is because this is a a board policy like our our policy and all of them are board policies but it's regarding board members and that um board members should not be involved in the day-to-day operations that's that's not within our purview it's not within what we do and so I think that that's the reason it states that is that if we don't if we don't like how something's happening and going from one Department to another department we just we don't like that process and and we have some legal concerns about it that's about the day-to-day operation like we shouldn't be contacting legal counsel about the day-to-day that should be a conversation with our superintendent and we can express our concerns if there is any legal concerns or anything and then that's when they would contact legal counselor you can contact them together or whatever but I think that the reason it's worded that way is because board members don't don't and shouldn't be involved in the day-to-day operation it's not the day-to-day that I'm concerned about it's just as board members being able to contact legal counsel um yeah but I think that's that part that last sentence that you were talking about I think it's purposely in there to avoid board members trying to get legal counsel and guidance regarding the day-to-day operations right so I think that the reason the wording is that way is is to try and and avoid that saying that our policy we agree as board members this is our policy that we we are not permitted to do the day-to-day operations to contact legal counsel and then um and uh the section says the attorney retained by by the board shall communicate directly with the governing board on such legal matters so if we were to con it's not on in the policy that's just recommended like where is it um so when as a board we do contact legal counsel that they have the right to speak directly to the board and not have to go through um the superintendent now my experience and Miss McClellan can jump in my experiences anytime we've had to involve legal counsel whether it's be contracts whether it's personal issues or anything that the board has been involved in legal um once that contact is made in here it's saying through the board president that at that point that conversation between legal can happen between individual board members where if they needed to speak to you about something that they could contact you without the superintendent so once the initial consult and process for whatever the situation is going once legal counsel has been involved if there is a need to talk to individual board members they do that um as well as then the communication back that if there's an email you know if they need to keep us updated on something that they they would email the board directly and not necessarily it doesn't mean the superintendent's not aware but not it doesn't mean it has to go from the superintendent to the board members that then there is that conversation and and everything directly with legal I uh I agree with the with what the point you're making with the the second part of the language and the day-to-day operations but I want to pose a hype you know for the first one regarding just the board president the superintendent and the board president show hypothetically what if there's a situation where the superintendent not miss Richards um was you know handling money or doing things in in you as a board member not the president were aware of it and the president at the time was unwavering in the support for the superintendent not saying this has ever happened before how would that be handled Mr Clinton I think I mean from your standpoint um I'll let you answer before I give mine okay Madam president Ms Anderson and and Ms Reese it's a good point if the board in other words your point is if the board president's cutting off access to the attorney then how would you get around that if you're not provided and the answer is very simple you ask for an executive session any board member has the right to ask for an executive session and the attorney would come the policy as written is for the purpose of limiting your legal fees I did just have a slide bar with uh with Mr Moore and he indicated that your prepaid legal usage has more than doubled tripled in the last year so there's a good purpose to try to limit access to the attorney um and the other concept that you'll have to be aware of if when you're tinkering with this policy is that if one of you has a conversation with the attorney for the public body that attorney cannot is also a conduit under the open meeting law and can't reach open meeting law so the attorney can't have and multiply conversations between the five of you in um in breach of that law so there's a reason for that reason to have one person designated the other issue is that attorneys work for the board as a whole I represent when I represent Higley unified I represent both your District administration and the five of you so it to get direction from the attorney like you have an agenda item today to give direction to the attorney for the public body and the reason you have that is because the five of you have to come to consensus and direct the attorney so if you have multiple board members contacting council with multiple Direction being given and on whatever matter might be at exists the attorney is not going to have a clear course of action and is not going to be able to act and sometimes those actions have to be taken rapidly so um they're they're uh the policy as written is adopted by the majority of school district sandersella for the purpose of providing clear direction to the attorney not allowing the attorney to hear to their ethical obligations Ms Reese brought up the point that for the most part if there is an issue that concerns another board member they are given access and that you receive Communications as a board as a whole from your attorneys when necessary and that should be the practice of all the law firms that you work with um so that you you may want to consider to address Ms van Hook's concern two things number one if any board member has a legal question you should be able to ask your superintendent to get the answer and that answer should be provided to the five of you so if that's not happening that would be a communication tool you could use without amending board policy but you could also consider amending board policy to add that at the discretion of the governing board president authorization may be given to an individual board member to contact Council and that would address Ms van Hook's concern but also limit your legal costs um sorry did you have a question yeah um yeah so I I just I wanted to be able to get something in policy um mainly for the purpose that hypothetically speaking issue with board president or superintendent and not being able to go through them that we still have an ability to be able to call and ask a question um even without having to call an executive session I mean it would be awful to have to have to call an executive session and pay for you to come all the way out here when it's a simple question that could be answered over the phone Madam president Ms Van Hook I do think you would have that Avenue just not in through the telephone through email um to forward your question to the superintendent and get an answer back but if you can't include the superintendent due to an issue what do you do then it again Madam president Ms Van Hook if you are want to discuss the employment of the superintendent you should call for an executive session to get your legal advice because that especially in that situation um most open meeting law allegations that come forward concern Personnel actions so you have to be very cautious especially in that situation if you have con if any board member wants to discuss the superintendent's employment you employ her or him and you would just call for an executive session with Council to discuss that matter could potentially another Avenue be and I it could be a roundabout Avenue but kind of what you're talking about if for some reason there's a concern and what Mrs Anderson said like they're unwavering could you request an agenda item that the board authorize a member then at that point to seek legal advice I mean it's not pretty if you can't go to your if you can't go to your board president and you can't go to your superintendent you have a situation obviously going on um and could you not then have an agenda item where you ask the majority of the board that they be given permission I know we can vote on allowing someone to represent the board somewhere where we are authorizing that person to be the board representation for whatever it is could we not ask for an agenda item and say you know I I really feel the need to seek legal counsel and I would like permission from the majority of the board my concern there is then the majority doesn't really have an idea due to open meeting law what it's about to then be be able to say yes or no well that's that's Madam president miss Reese you you could ask for an agenda item to authorize an alternative board member to contact legal counsel you can also there's also the viable option of of switching officers mid-year so if you're if the majority of the board is feels that the board president's not representing the interest of the board as a whole so something else I would like to um at least keep in mind as a board member individually I one thing I appreciate is that when that does happen we're all given the same info and I feel like the fact that Avenues exist so we can call an executive session or the roundabout changing mid-year those types of things I I just want to make sure that all of us are on the same footing I think giving opportunities to do things that aren't currently already in place or aren't currently functioning given the fact that as it stands it is functioning right um I just I think there is potential for problems and it feels reminiscent of things that have happened in years past and that you have certain individuals who are given directives or believe they're given directives because they viewed something that was said to them differently and they're the only ones that have that information and then that continues to happen and it results in in us being ineffective right like I think we are a governing body for a reason this is something that we should do as a collective group and so I I guess I don't feel personally the way things are structured that we aren't we aren't getting the opportunity should this you know doomsday scenario present itself I think there are things in in place but I also think should that situation arise my hope would be that more than just a singular board member is aware of the fact that things don't seem to be following through so for example I sent out an email saying can you ask legal this and I never get a response back or my response is different I think that gives us opportunity then to start looking at executive sessions start doing those types of things right because I I just want to make sure we're all on the same page and have the same information because that can get us into some not great situations and to that point which is why I feel like we as board members all should have equal rights to be able to contact legal counsel in case there is a situation where we can't go through the super or um or the board president I hear you on that I think the only thing that gives me a concern based off of what legal has expressed to us is the cost I I think it is important for us to keep in mind our goal is to try to make sure that we're spending money in an area that is beneficial to the larger Community beneficial to students I believe that's why every single person is in this room at the end of the day is for the students and I I guess my concern is and instead of us channeling it through one of the two Avenues to where if you get multiple you can do it as one email instead of individual the billing potential of that the legal fees of that become really big and then I feel like we have to stand up here and then defend why we are essentially wasting public funds for things that still have that opportunity right so like I feel like if there is a situation that is of the magnitude with which you are describing we have options that exist I think funneling things to to limit our prepaid legal cost is important when we are struggling to finance other things throughout District well I mean you know you look at the situation uh we're all adults we understand that we don't want to overspend and charge the district you know any extra funds but to you know and and we keep that in mind when there are things that we might want to question and obviously if we can go through the superintendent and be able to ask them questions we would do that um but as a as a last resort um to be able to have that right as a board member to not be limited um and to know that if there is ever a situation where we can't go through these two people that that option does exist in policy um and anything else minor questions or whatever it is that yes those you know we can go through through them um but if there's a situation where we can't then and to be able to have that right as a board member but we do have that right as it was expressed right we have the right to ask for an executive session we have the right to do those things should you feel that situation arises so again I I'm inclined to to say funnel it through the channels that are currently in place as a policy that's been in place and has seemed to function just fine to limit prepaid legal cost and again should the situation arise where we need that we call an executive session and have the opportunity of doing that and it also again gives the benefit is all of us as a board member a governing body are accessing that same information at the same time with legal counsel separate of superintendent if you feel it needs to be I I don't think the last resort option doesn't exist it does right but the cost of calling an executive session versus a phone call in the scenario you're creating I think that's a legal fee I'm okay with if we have a superintendent who is skirting questions and refusing to go to Legal I I think that is something I can stand and justify in front of the community and say yes I'm okay with paying this money right because what may be a big issue to you may not be a big issue to me and that's part of the reason why we funnel it in the same way so you may view what I view as a level two as a level four and decide to contact and and do that executive or not the executive session the the extended legal fees and that may not be the same place like I I hear what you're saying my point is the process already exists we have those options and should it be a situation that is a dire situation I think an executive session is definitely warranted in that completely because in that session we can talk about do we look at new superintendent do we vote for a new president I mean I think those things exist and that's why having an executive session to do that in those moments is part of policy [Music] so Madam president Ms Van Hook what I would suggest is that uh Miss Vendo has proposed language that she'd like to see as a second read if you can send that language to Ms Richards then I will attempt to make those changes to the proposed policy and it would come back for a second read um I don't hear consensus that does not move forward at this time so thank you moving on to action items 8.1 ratify I move that we ratify payroll and expense vouchers all those in favor aye aye all those opposed I abstain from the vote okay motion passes four to zero one thank you four zero one um moving on to action item 8.2 approval overnight of overnight and or out-of-state staff travel I make a motion that we approve 8.2 seconded all those in favor aye all those opposed Christina I didn't know if there was any conversation before the vote oh uh questions comments concerned because I'm assuming there's a reason it was pulled up oh sorry so it's going down um I do have some things to say about this so um looking at the nctm math conference um I'd like to read some of the BIOS from the presenters uh sorry I'm not sure if I'm going to pronounce it correctly but Jamila is the first Speaker uh while we may feel a sense of urgency to address deep-rooted Equity issues our attempts are often thwarted by landmines that can be identified and removed through strategic analysis creative action through storytelling real world examples we explore why it is so hard to move Equity uh work forward while beginning to find the courage to move towards Next Generation models for school transformation and unhinge ourselves from a legacy of implementation over imagination second speaker Kevin let's identify the purpose of learning math consider the existing structures and what changes should be made examined how to equitably teach mathematics and help our students see themselves as capable learners Equitable equitably teaching math I'm not sure what that means um but uh I would assume that everybody within our district is equally and equitably taught math Julia and Karen two math educators of color challenge conventional wisdom and discuss essential non-negotiate negotiable elements needed to transform the math learning space to one that cultivates mouth joy and justice Crystal Watson Crystal has worked along other Scholars to develop culturally responsive reflective and or anti-racist curriculum resources that centers young people in every lesson and those that don't know culturally responsive teachings is the same as CRT just in different words Luke Wilcox Luke believes that traditional lectures based on math class needs to be disrupted in order to achieve more Equitable outcomes for all students [Music] um last but not least one of the workshops necessary but not sufficient building on five equity-based practices that impact identity in K-12 mathematics in this pre-conference Workshop we discuss actionable strategies that K-12 teachers and leaders can use to go beyond Equity as the ultimate goal working towards Equity is a necessary but not sufficient step to counter white supremacy anti-blackness xenophobia and other systemic forces that act on and shape mathematics education wow in this pre-conference Workshop we will explicitly discuss actionable strategies to dismantle systematic and anti-black racism in K-12 mathematics I don't know anybody who would say that there's anti-black racism in math if there is any racism in any of our classroom I would expect for it to be reported as racism is never okay and neither is teaching anti-racism by being racist hmm the other travel conference that's on here is the NS nceca conference the National Council on education for ceramic Arts um ceramic Arts connects us to physically to physical and cognitive experiences that Foster environments of cultural Equity diversity access and inclusion a Ceramics conference yet they still push this Marxist agenda I guess these organizations have to keep up with their ESG scores we continue to send our Educators on taxpayer dime to events such as this that is again extremely divisive about Dei social emotional learning critical race Theory it's supposed to be math and Ceramics conference how about keeping it about mouth and Ceramics instead of pushing and teaching Marxist agenda which is one of the reasons why so many parents are pulling their kids from public education at what point do we say we are for public education and we are going to do what is necessary to prevent parents from pulling their children and that no we will not participate in such training the more we participate the more they will keep doing it if we truly cared about public education we would stop funding these organizations that's all I have to say thank you uh presidential board member Van Hook um so there's a lot uh to cover and I will do my best to keep it as succinct as possible the first thing I want to address is the Equitable practices in math for example IEPs ensure Equitable practices for example you have some individuals who have difficulty with numbers you have some individuals with difficulty recalling certain types of information and so because of that they have certain IEP accommodations to help bring them up to the same level that's what Equitable practices mean by that it's not the idea is we do want everybody to be equivalent Equitable but not everybody's at the same starting point and not everybody has the same toolbox available to them so we make sure everybody has access to the same tools I hear and understand that these words are troubling for you because we routinely have these types of conversations um but the the nature of Equitable practices in education is vital otherwise students get ignored their needs their desires their their ability to perform and Shine for us is limited if we don't ensure that they have access to the same toolbox um as far as diversity in math I am a white individual so it is difficult for me to be able to express from a personal standpoint ways in which people are discriminated against for their for their outward appearance what I can tell you with respect to math and it is similar with respect to differing diversity groups for example we are all four women on this board and we all went to school at varying times in the past some of us were probably good at math and our teachers never encouraged us because we were women and the expectation was we couldn't do the same the point of ensuring these types of training and ensuring these type of Equitable practices is because we have biases that we're both aware of and sometimes unaware of and so we want to make sure that we correct for these things to ensure that we're providing for all of our students regardless of their Circumstance the opportunity to perform and shine in the same ways I hear your concern with things like CRT we have repetitively talked about how that's not taught in our schools and that's all we can care about at the present moment right we have talked about how the importance of making sure our students succeed all of us have talked about how it's for the students these Equitable practices are part of that right I hear that the language outwardly especially if we're already primed to be reactive to some of these words and then the conclusion is well it must be horrible what I'm trying to express to you especially in certain subject areas there are an important need to create Equitable practices because there are learning situations in which they don't have the same toolbox available they don't have that opportunity so I I guess my question to you when you hear these types of things we also have members of our community who are persons of color we are for white women representing a community of diversity there are some people in this community who are so very grateful that our teachers go to trainings that let them see their child and they know that their child will be seen and heard and respected because of these types of training if your concern is the curriculum that comes back again we have curriculum that's provided by the state we have standards that are approved and go through us and we have policies in place if you feel teachers aren't doing those things but the the words and the alarm that you are sounding as a result of some of these things aren't what's happening and the practice and the need is a must because students will suffer if we don't ensure these types of practices [Music] so are we saying that we have teachers currently that don't see children of color I'm saying the opportunity exists and that's why we go through training to learn what cultural norms are and to learn how to present these things um how does this kind of training that our teachers attend how does that look to our white students I mean it should it should it should it should apply to all the kids there shouldn't be anything with color we shouldn't be sending teachers to train on how to be anti-black if we have teachers that see a black person as a problem then they shouldn't be working but these this these types of teachings are racist to begin with ma'am I I hear you in that I agree in a perfect world nobody should be racist full stop the idea that we are colorblind or should be colorblind is non-existent there are I'm white outwardly you can see that I'm white there is there's no denying that that opportunity the idea of Equitable practices and me as a wide individual learning that there are aspects of cultural norms there are aspects of differing diversity groups that I am not a part of what that does is it makes me a better teacher to all of my students full stop our white students benefit just as much as our persons of color from Equitable practices we can actually prove it when you look throughout history and you look at efforts we have made to expand civil rights everyone is brought up everyone when we make protections for Ada students with disabilities everyone benefits by these opportunities that that's all this is it's not a big effort or Focus it's not as if any single person and if they are you're right we should follow through with that but we're not having teachers telling specific students that they should hate themselves for certain things or that they should do any of this we're literally making our efforts to try to encourage every single person to say you can't succeed and part of that starts with training on how to ensure Equitable practices and it goes beyond just race I need you to understand that there are other things that as a teacher I can benefit from when I learn how to see and meet the needs of every single kid and understanding that those differing needs just means a different set of tools that I can help raise up for success right now we have a curriculum in place and if you have students who are telling us that they are harmed by these things we can talk about it right now I don't see where the harm is in making sure our students get seen by all of our staff and there is nothing within this that excludes that because again Equitable practices raise up everybody that's how this works we literally can prove it if you could yeah thank you if you could just so we could keep in control of the meeting refrain from clapping please again teaching uh anti-racism by being racist is not something that we should be sending our teachers to there shouldn't be any type of racism happening within our schools and if you say that there's no CRT being taught in our schools you must have missed maybe you weren't copy on it actually now that I think about it but there was a parent that emailed in um about uh an assignment that their child was given at sauceman that was completely CRT um so it does exist and um we don't need to be bringing the stuff back into our school and teaching our kids how to be anti a specific color because kids don't give a crap about color they are friends with whoever they're friends with based on whether they're nice or whether they're you know however they're they're treated and we shouldn't be having teachers bringing this stuff back to our schools so that's all all right um as stated whenever we dealt with the language conference um it's not part of our standards it's I assume for math to teach certain topics and I would assume that if a teacher walked into one of these trainings that was perpetuating or trying to make it seemed like because you're a certain color you're racist or if you're not a certain color you're not racist and not saying don't read into what I'm not saying or that certain races can't learn because people have been insulted by that as well um then I imagine because it doesn't fall within our standards or it shouldn't be in our curriculum that they would just walk right out of the the seminar um and I want to believe that we have teachers that are capable of that and know better and if they have questions or doubt themselves or whatever that they reach out to are our instructional coaches they reach out to HR they reach out to miss Richards if they need to but I see both points absolutely being a teacher there are absolute limitations and it can go too far and it can push certain topics to go into areas that are untrue or there's areas that absolutely need to be discussed but let's stick to our standards let's stick to what our teachers know what they they should and should not be learning or teaching I guess any other comments questions concerns all those in favor aye all those opposed nay motion carries four to one moving on to 8.3 jica student attire third read imove that we approve this motion questions comments concerns and can I just say we've talked about this three times so I think we've heard everybody's feelings and concerns and yeah well thank you for letting us speak some more and expressing more [Music] um I just wanted I went and listened to both meetings over again and wrote down some points that um were never really clarified or that I just want to make sure that we come back to it was brought up that there were 10 schools that have passed this trust policy um I'm sorry thank you District thank you for correcting me um those 10 districts if I think you guys received them possibly um it's Arlington which is between Gila Bend and Tonopah Colorado River by the way so Arlington passed the original one that we received the first time I believe and they have mid-drift included Colorado River which is in Bullhead City they also have midrift in it Dysart which is in Surprise midriff Flagstaff has front has the language of front back side middle of thigh pants or pants that go to the middle of thigh Kyrene um they have a regulation on theirs where they mention needs to cover the midriff Lake Havasu also has a regulation with the language of midriff Queen Creek now Queen Creek is interesting um I called them because I said hey I want to listen to your meeting I want to know the dialogue I taught there I didn't even know that there was a change and I was told that they did a full whole all policy approval possibly one maybe two days is that correct you were there I understand Madam president miss Anderson that's correct they did a full reading in one board meeting a study session and then approval okay so it I see it as and correct me if I'm wrong there wasn't huge Dialogue on specific um policies if you will the governing board members answered asked questions as needed as we reviewed the policies I don't remember any specific Dialogue on this particular trust model policy okay and Queen Creek is one that does not have the word midriff in it Santa Cruz which is in Rico Arizona includes midriff Show Low includes midriff and Pima which they had posted since and they do include midriff so it's one of the terms we've been battling over to include or not include Gilbert um did not or has not passed this particular policy Mrs Reese in one meeting had asked what the definition or what is midriff how do we Define midriff so I just Googled it and it's the area between the chest and the waist so that's what they're saying specifically that area to be covered uh the neighboring districts so I looked up theirs um so we have Tempe l uh their language says cover chest and torso and the clothes to not be see-through Tempe High School and these are in regulations by the way the language to cover the private parts Stomach back chest undergarments and not be see-through Apache Junction was pretty much the exact same language as tempio Chandler wear clothes just don't be disruptive Gilbert was in a regulation it said cover all private parts and don't be see-through Mesa cover midriff private parts and don't be see-through um now the language of torso because I thought we'll cover chest and torso that seemed like the same and then it is it really is redundant to say that but the Torso is defined as the human body apart from the head the neck the arms and the legs so basically include shoulders chest lower abdomen back and buttocks I'd even just look what do you mean torso and what do you mean those areas so I'm reading these out specifically because um Miss Reese you were looking for good language and I'm trying to find maybe there's something in other policies that you would appreciate and maybe help guide us to getting the language right so I I do not mean to be condescending in any of this or take up your time but I just want to maybe point out some policies that are out there our current policy that we have in place uh GB EB Dash R so that is the regulation um for staff and kick myself because buried in all my documents but it states that teachers should dress to be an example for students so we expect them to dress literally says for students so if we already have that expectation in how they dress then I imagine we would want to follow through with our dress code that it it is similar to that it's in our policy I believe our current policy the one that we're not approving but what is already in place um is similar to most of the neighboring districts or those that um improve the trust language and I feel like it's pretty open we allow piercings there's no language that says no piercings we allow tattoos so there's no language that says you can't have tattoos we can have changing hair color you express it hats back in that day you couldn't wear hats even leggings those tight yoga pants Oh I don't care tank tops wear it wear a tank top um it doesn't even mention spaghetti straps it just mentions about showing the bra straps and even myself I I get it you know it's it's incidental a bra strap will show we're not going to dress code girls because that happens um our current policy has no language in fact nobody has mentioned spaghetti straps in our past few meetings but it keeps getting brought up like we had I just want to make sure that that's clear our current policy does not require any measuring either so there's all this mention of measuring we currently do not require measuring in our policy current policy um I'm not against males and females wearing tank tops or even spaghetti straps the incidental exposure straps on undergarments um in fact that's language and a lot of those too um no matter the decision what we make a group is will be or feel or will claim to be disappropriate disproportionately impacted I had males who believe male were dress coded more often than females and then I went and asked the females and they felt like they were dress coded more than females I mean more than the males I've asked over 10 female students current and recently graduated their thoughts on current dress code and I made it a point to survey those who were less conservative or not conservative um and those that were conservative I asked for their opinions and as Miss Wade implied to accumor's meeting the students were pretty tough and they were pretty strict on on the expectations oh is it Miss Reese I said that I apologize well kudos to both of you um I specifically asked the less conservative females if they if they felt like having a dress code with our current policies expectations so cover the midriff the chest the buttocks if it made them feel like their body was not okay unanimously they're like no um and I'm not naive personally I'm not naive to think these females opinions speak for all females but it's important to know that not all females feel a dress code like ours makes them feel shameful or bad about their body um I also inquired about feeling sexualized with a dress code and again it was unanimous responsive no one response from a female stated that stores songs movies and shows Market the sexualization of females I do find interesting um you know if we're going to talk about disproportionate uh Avid volleyball player played high school and college and I recently watching the games if you look at the girl shorts versus the male shorts completely two different links girls are very very short and the males are are like basketball shorts almost they're pretty decently I'm just putting that up there um and we brought a lot about business so a dress code school or business has the sole purpose of promoting professional demeanor personal respect professional respect and focus on the matters of the environment we are not saying skin is not professional we are saying that there is a professional and respectable disposition that can show skin in moderation we are a school district in which students are mandated to attend we are not a Parks and Rec entity in school just like in jobs there is a time and place for certain dress not all places of employment have the same expectations for dress but the majority of different career fields and jobs available have dress codes that expect employees to cover their midriff their bust in their buttocks for decency for the representation of the business for safety for camaraderie and professionalism these are some places I went to I went to department stores professional dress covered engineering firms covered they can wear shorts now by the way some of those firms are pretty casual grocery stores covered gaming stores covered Medical Offices of course construction companies and sites covered a financial institutions hardware stores hotels an airline and an airport emergency responders my city offices I've been in legal offices now restaurants is interesting I might be a little too open in my past life but um well so I've gone to I believe two breweries if you will um the dress was there were some short shorts and there were some midriffs but that was a brewery and it was laid back and we were all enjoying the evening I may or may not have a been like to some other entertainment type venues where there was not a lot of clothes on I'll mention Hooters Hooters would be one example not very covered but this was interesting whenever I was Googling Hooters so a Hooters amends recently amends their uniform policy after employees condemned disturbing new shorts so Hooters wanted the girls to wear shorts beyond the shorts that I don't know the last time you've been but pretty short to where the girls were describing them as underwear like it's short and they did not want to wear them and and it created such a backlash that Hooters had to say okay you can choose which short shorts you can wear I found that interesting [Applause] um there was a comment at um from a public member or member of the public regarding my research on the top 100 schools that I think the language was three of the top schools have a minimal dress code and that's three of the best um it I I just like my students I welcome The Challenge and I did I sat my butt back down and I went through all of it again um well I got to 49 I'm like I'm done um if I could just borrow your ears for a second just so you know I I don't want to give you false information that is not my my intention is at all the tops and this was 22-23 when I went to it today they had already switched to I'm sorry that was 2122 that was all they had and then as of today they were already at 22 23 and there's been Minor Adjustments not big but the top school which I believe is still number one to this past school year is in Virginia their language says I'm picking the ones that would anyway exposes gen so you cannot expose genitalia chest buttocks underwear or undergarments due to transparency length or lack of coverage all right and then we go to school number two which is in South Carolina undergarments shall not be exposed in any time clothing shall not reveal bare skin between the upper chest and mid thigh short skirts and dresses shall be of adequate length and is to assure modesty and that's not enough there's more if you need me to go further but I figured that was enough to drive that point for the second highest School the third school was in Indiana wearing low-rise baggie or sagging pants that reveal any skin or undergarments is prohibited see-through or sheer garments are prohibited length of shorts or skirts should be at least fingertip length when arms are resting at the side of the body the wearing of low-cut tops or blouses should be avoided number four is in Miami Florida any revealing clothes or tight outfits or items with Graphics that are offensive or create disruption inadequate coverage any revealing clothes or tight outfits and again inadequate coverage that's I'm just highlighting the language number five was in Chicago now they were one of them that didn't have specific they just went to having a sexual explicit images suggestive clothing or pornography on their clothes and it's a the administration will make the determination if it's battered or not adequate or not the sixth one Reno Nevada absolutely could not find anything for their school and there's one that I called and emailed and still didn't get a response I just find that odd number seven in Tennessee any dress considered too revealing will not be allowed see-through outfits bare midriffs open back slow cut tops tube tops tank tops halter tops do you see how our district is a little um I don't know I don't want to say better but not as looking forward you know what I'm getting at number eight Dallas Texas halter tops you can't have revealing or provocative the length of the dresses skirts and shorts will be no shorter than fingertip length um going on to number nine in Georgia shirts shirts that expose the waist and or cleavage are not allowed low cut see-through and or backless shirts uh the pants shorts and skirts must be worn at the waist so number 10 is I'll just stop at number 10 just so you can go to the top ones is in uh Pennsylvania shorts and skirts must be at knee length or longer garments intended to be used as undergarments must be covered appropriately sleeveless tank tops and camisole tops are not permitted tube tops tops to reveal midriff and exposed backs are not permanent those are our top ten there's one that wasn't very detailed just said the admin will determine and there's one I could not find top ten um if you need me to go further I absolutely will I'll hang out afterwards you're willing but I've got like 80 pages in here so if you want me to keep going I'm just kidding um but Christina I don't know if any of that language helped out if there's anything in there you felt more comfortable with or anybody on the board that you feel more comfortable with but I'm hoping I'm driving home that um neighboring school districts and top 100 school districts appreciated modest stress thank you Mrs Richards um you sent this dress code out to admin correct um we collected informal input from them yes and what was the feedback that you got from that based on I'd like to know what our administrative feels comfortable with and what their you know what they're comfortable with and how they feel about the dress code because they're every day seeing the kids and they're in the schools so president Schultz overall the feedback that I received was that they were okay with what was being proposed you know and they they said things like well if we're gonna let him wear hats can we have specific training on what that means or hoodies or whatever so I think whatever is determined it's our responsibility to make sure we all interpret things the same way if that makes sense so overall that's what they said about these proposed potency and regulation we would create the policy but then we would allow then you would create the regulations such as I'm guessing showing your face would be yeah with a hat on you can't walk with it that would be part of the regulations that you would support after that but this would just be our overall General policy like during testing yes sorry [Music] um expressing themselves sometimes they did want a hoodie on if they were having a hard day or they did want their hat on if they were having a hard day so it was a comfort mechanism for them I'm guessing yeah so I mean overall the feedback we received was they were okay with it they just want to make sure if they do have questions that we all work together to say just kind of like what we're talking about yeah so thank you you're welcome other questions comments or concerns I just want to point out also that um the amount of emails that we got in support of a modest dress code um should also be considered um you know the the majority was parents asking for a modest dress code and uh just definitely need to consider those voices as well I agree but I think that we are we all need to take it into consideration but I know there was emails that it was just sent to me nobody else was listed now if they sent it to the board individually I don't know um I would say it was pretty kind of half and half pretty even on I think that it's fine and others are wondering why we're even looking at changing it so um and that is something that I have considered with reading my emails and what I've received I do appreciate the regulation because it does put a little more definition to it that that there's some thought there instead of it just being so so wide open um but I want to say too is the last couple weeks I've been on different school campuses and I want to say the the majority of our kids are dressed appropriately I'm not I've not seen one of them going okay hold on and I mean my kids were raised pretty conservatively I don't think my oldest daughter ever wore pants until she was probably in in seventh grade she believed in long skirts and I are you sure you don't want some shorts nope everything was long skirts and and everything so my kids were raised pretty conservatively um and so I I'm pretty sensitive to some of that I I probably have a little more sensitivity on like well that's a little revealing um but no being on high school campuses I didn't nothing stood out and was like oh my gosh like this is horrible um and I think that that for the most part they dressed fine I I didn't um I didn't see where it was a a huge issue where I was concerned of well a wardrobe malfunction or anything so um I think we've spent a lot of time on this I think we've heard from community on both sides that it it's fine the the change is okay um and like I said I I trust our kids I think they've made I think our kids make good choices um but but our policy currently says no midriffs and and we see some of it though not inappropriate not too short but we see some of some of that middle stomach showing because you were saying you were seeing midriff's not covered and you were okay with that that it it was not right looking at it going oh my gosh they need to to cover up that it wasn't it wasn't offensive it wasn't um I didn't see people like looking up at other people um so yes I mean they're the kids are dressing and people have said you know we're already dressing this way and and this and that but they were it it wasn't over revealing it wasn't in my mind what my worst fear was like oh my gosh we're you know we're gonna have these tube tops and we're gonna have you know these things um and you know you're hoping that they're learning this at home and and they're addressing what is appropriate to their home life that we all teach our kids what our own um limitations are acceptable and that for some parents it's a little more than others but again like I said being on these because let's be real the dress code is about middle school and high school I don't think we really see if an elementary school's showing their midriff it's probably they're growing pretty fast and they they didn't keep up with with the change of clothes so um I I did not see anything that our current kids are wearing um even though it was outside of our current dress code that was concerning and so kind of goes back to we talk about trusting our our teachers um we do need to teach our kids self-respect and we do need to teach and that's boys and girls not just girls we need to teach boys and girls self-respect and respect for each other as people and I just I didn't see anything that was concerning that's currently going on and I don't think with the change in dress code that's going to all of a sudden make a shift and that we're going to see that they're going to make the the same decisions um the beauty of it is that this policy doesn't have to be forever and if we do notice that shift if we do have issues if um if we're finding that we are really having to worry about this and and that we're having issues and we have kids that are concerned and it makes them uncomfortable and they're uh we can change this policy at any time and if we find that the new policy does not work well we can revisit it and we can change it and if we need to pull it back because it's just too open and it's just it's causing it things to be too revealing there's always unintended consequences on things and you can play things in your mind and you can estimate um and there's some things you can't anticipate and if there are we can bring it back and we can look and see what do we need to do if we notice a shift in how our classrooms are we need to listen to our teachers we need to listen to our admin and I appreciate you talking to our admin they're the ones who have to enforce it um and if they're comfortable with it because that was my concern is that it is fake if we do have issues if there are concerns on it's not being enforced equally or properly um like you've been said before when we first started talking about dress code in high school middle school a kid should not get to third or fourth hour and that's the first time they're being dress coded then there's a problem and if we have those issues we can revisit that so um I really paid attention to what I was seeing on our campuses and um and is it what I would want tell my kid that they can wear probably not but that's my parent responsibility to tell my kid what they can and can't wear this is ensuring that we do have a practice address code is an expectation and we have an expectation for our students and um it's not a business it's not we can't expect them to be professional and Mrs Anderson I appreciate that you mentioned our staff dress code being the example because I still think that's important that they see how professionals dress they're not professionals yet they're kids there's and they're still learning we need to teach them but I think that I don't think this dress code teaches them not to be a good person I don't think the dress code teaches them not to have to adapt when you get a job you have to adapt to whatever that dress code is whether it be a uniform whether it be like you said an engineering firm that now they can wear shorts whether it be a construction site where they have to wear a certain kind of steel-toed boot those are your dress codes and and they just need to know that whatever that is they have to follow it so um if they're not following our dress code there's consequences just as any other dress code so I I did try and pay attention when I was on campuses specifically and sometimes that I was just like purposely like what are they wearing okay I gotta see what are they wearing and and everything but I didn't see the issues I thought I was going to see all right voting all those in favor aye all those opposed nay motion carries three two moving on to 8.4 I move the we approved Direction given to legal counsel during the executive session identified as agenda item 1.2 above [Music] all those in favor aye aye all those opposed oh sorry Amanda okay motion carries five to zero moving on to Future agenda items 9.1 I would like to add something to a future agenda item um given statements that were made earlier day earlier today I would like if we as the board can get I don't know like a presentation of sorts on how much prepaid legal fees are costing this year in comparison to two years in the past um if you know like and by your estimation as you're involved in this like what is causing it what are the reasons is there just certain things that are happening or whatever um but I would really kind of be interested in that um to to try to figure out why we're spending substantially more yeah where it's coming from I think that's great yeah I was concerned by those comments as well um and I mean I don't know what to include in it those types of things as far as like what you're after whether or not you what the reasoning is and how that comes up um I I would assume that's not something we can look at neighboring districts for in terms of like what theirs looks like or whatever but sometimes comparisons in those way are also beneficial maybe it is something we can compare to neighboring districts no we can't really okay I just didn't know what the trust go things into it yeah and size everything okay well you're just taking into those considerations all right anything else yep I just want to say thank you for continuing to update the Student Art in the boardroom I've noticed and it's beautiful and then the hallways so thank you I appreciate that you're welcome um board initiatives I think that's it president Schultz can I want to add like future agenda item we had a request for an update on ESI okay so we're gonna add that at some point um for you guys okay perfect thank you um with that um I hope everybody has a great oh well I wasn't I was going to say have a great fall break and then adjourn ing I hope everybody has a great fall break thank you very much I'd like to make a motion to adjourn the meeting all those in favor hi thank you be safe

so next time you take a ride around town go down magunco Road they've done apparently a very nice job in updating the facility and where they're going to be there now at 50 they do car repairs and they also have some sales that's what the class 2 license is for from there we went into and to discussed a proposal that Michael Herbert brought to us regarding the Valentine property we've owned the property about five or six years now we did some work before covid we had a committee if you've driven by you've been seeing all kinds of work getting done sideboard painting the interior is getting done the next step that I keep asking for and many people have is what are we going to do with the property so Michael Herbert the town manager brought forward a proposal where part of the house would be used for a new newly created Park and Rec Department the downstairs would be available for rental or for town or for private events and the barn would be available for rental for private events or even town events the next step after our proposed after us the select board seeing the proposal is we're going to be having a public forum so look for that date it'll be sometime early November the date wasn't selected yet probably the first or second week where we're going to bring this proposal to the public and look for your feedback so be on the lookout for that we had a discussion about our baa Grant process so we have the baa grant numbers we have the numbers for the runners because of the fact that we're a Boston Marathon Town Boston the town the marathon runs through town the baa gives us numbers and we have this process where we then give out funding we give out grants to different organizations certain money can go toward 501 3C or non true non-profit groups and other monies can go to other groups so we've split out now what that process is so when you go to the website if you're a non-profit you'd fill out one form if you're not a non-profit you'd fill out another Form we've increased the maximums so you can now apply up to four thousand dollars if you're a non-profit and over two Grant Cycles so a fall and a spring or a spring and a fall depending what order you can get up to six thousand dollars and there will also be some requirements for showing us how you've used the funds and all that will now be available on the website so go ahead and check that out we then went through our hold on checking my notes Here There we go we then discussed the closure of the MBTA station if you are a commuter into Boston from the Ashland station you have known for the last week that the station itself is closed due to Major Renovations almost three million dollars in repairs are going to be happening there so you need to either go to Framingham or Southborough depending on which direction you're heading or where you want to park we're trying to get them to open the station or at least the parking with the shuttle that hasn't happened yet so just add extra time and be on the lookout if we can get them to open the station at least for some parking we will let you know and there are shuttles available if you're dropped off or walked to the station we then talked about an all-premise liquor license so right now as a group wants or a restaurant wants to get a liquor license it's for a specific area when we allowed restaurants to do outdoor we had to extend it to their outdoor area an all-premise license would be for someone like the Warren Conference Center they currently have a liquor license for their Lodge in their hotel if they want to get a liquor license for another area they'd have to get a separate license unless we discussed or allowed them to do what's called an all-premise so you could you could get your wine at the lodge you could walk over to the white building and you could walk over to a tent we haven't made a final decision we said we would look at it on a case-by-case basis my feeling is and if this is going to help our businesses let's see what we can do but no final decision has been made and then the last part the last thing before a consent agenda we have opened up our acceptance for runners if you would like to run the Boston Marathon on behalf of the town of Ashland you can go to the website and there is a form where you fill it out to say that you'd like to run the commitment is to raise three thousand dollars in funds and then you can have a number if we have more than the 12 numbers that we have available the names would get picked out of a hat and preference is given to either Ashland residents or Ashland employees if you're neither of those but you see this and you'd like a number you can certainly apply and if we have any available you may be able to get one we then approved our consent agenda and we went into the town managers report he updated us on the mount downtown project if you're driving through downtown you're seeing that things are continually changing the paving is now completely done they're in the process of laying down the crosswalks and it's not just a matter of painting them they're actually textured crosswalks with a very interesting tool that they use to make the grid and to make it look like Cobblestone then we are in the process of doing the connections to the underground for all the buildings and of course the last thing we'll be removing the poles and that'll probably be next spring before we finish everything in downtown but every day there's something a little bit different that you notice as you drive through downtown from there we talked about the Mendes the Mendez school is open it was available for the first day of school on September 5th and their open house is happening on September 9th in the afternoon you get the ability to tour the school uh we talked about an upcoming bond issue now that the Mendez is just about done we're looking at doing some short-term borrowing for some large amounts and then eventually going into long-term borrowing and we'll talk about that as it continues moving forward grand reopening of the community center if you remember back in February there was some sprinkler issues some damage done to our community center it's hard to believe it's taken this long but the community center is now completely redone or at least the areas that were damaged and also as they were doing the work they found that some of the original construction might not have been done as well as it should have so some of those improvements were made as well so that the building will now be nice and sturdy and strong and in a good position for many years but that is September 12th from 10 to noon another thing we want to talk about is the tail manager talked to us about this is there was a firefighter Grant it's a regional Grant it was for 921 thousand dollars it came to the town of Ashland Southborough and Hopkinton Ashland was the lead on this and it is for new air tanks and air apparatus so what means is the three towns will now have the same uh the same equipment so that if someone from Ashland if we have to go help out Hopkinton and we're using their equipment we have the same equipment so they can work together and that was a real big win like I said almost almost a million dollar grant for this new equipment and that equipment is not cheap so thank you to Chief Roby and our assistant chief uh Morgan for getting that as well as Lieutenant Bolin for getting that grant for us and the other communities from there we went into board reports and we wrapped up just before we had to do an extension after 10 o'clock and that was the meeting that happened on Wednesday October I'm sorry Wednesday September 6th and the next meeting will be in two weeks

and as I mentioned we're 36 cities and towns located along 495. uh our population and of course this is a region that has seen pretty explosive growth in the past two generations between 1970 and 2020 our region grew by 49 compared to 24 for the state as a whole so this region has seen tremendous growth in just the past two generations it is also a region that is becoming substantially more diverse uh over one decennial census period so between the 2010 census and the 2020 census the percentage of residents who self-identify as white dropped by 10 percent it is an extremely Highly Educated region as compared to Massachusetts in Massachusetts as we probably all know is a very well-educated State 61 percent of the Region's Workforce have a bachelor's degree or higher that number is 45 percent for the state 29 percent of a graduate degree which is 20 for the state our region is a technology and Life Sciences Hub and I bring no news to folks here when I tell you that industry clusters that have a higher presence in 495 Metro West as compared with the state and the nation are I.T and analytics biopharmaceuticals as well as medical devices our Region's unemployment rate is consistently lower than the states and that has been the case since 1990.

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so that's very similar ironically with all that movement up and down in graduating class we're pretty close to where we were last year at the same time I want to offer thanks to and and my school counseling team who got the schedule together so much faster than we ever have before Cindy Wortman Sue Griffin my counselor is Jen Julio Deb Birch Bianca nasello and Caitlin McCabe um you know as always thanks to Carol Ann and Karen and Lisa for taking care of the main office and making sure that stuff goes well um I had Rosa hop Croft and Lisa Lisa Missouri who are currently stationed in room 109 and not even in their own office while we redo the roof so they're down on 109 and mobile sitting at the back of a science table at a repurposed room so they're just staying positive and doing a fantastic job down there in both School counseling and special education Mary negri was out there announcing for the field hockey this afternoon so I appreciate all her work that she's done you'll hear from Steve Baldwin a little bit later on tonight Kathy who is in the back and would definitely not want to be recognized but I know has done amazing things I actually I'll admit I gave her a hug the other day and said I thank you so much for being you because you've got it started and ready to go this year so she's been great and our custodial maintenance staff who cooked this summer to get everything done as quickly as they possibly could we got some new guys that came on we had some people coming back and you know I also want to give a shout out to Laura park and rec who's not part of our staff here but has really worked on this project out there which is one of the three new things I certainly want to talk about if anybody looked out the back window some of the new things we have the new Turf is down the pavement is down as well and they'll be hopefully putting up some fences and we're looking to get the rubber down on the track in the next week so it's coming fast and Mr bald will be able to update but that's thanks to the work Mr Baldwin did you know in working with park and rec and Mr Caldwell as well the locker room is coming along you know I thoroughly enjoy having multiple construction sites during school it's really awesome but that's almost done the which is and it's fantastic you'll see a couple pictures tonight the school counseling and soul studies roof is well underway they worked I think till 8 30 last night and they're there again for those of you that came in and saw they were there there again today just working trying to knock it out and get that roof ripped up and replaced so we appreciate that and the work that they've done this summer there's also two new renovated bathrooms student bathrooms a couple other things our physics enrollment has exploded our community has said we really want to work on science and so we really had enough to run we could have run seven or eight sections of physics this year that's how many kids wanted it so that's one thing I like to share some positives about enrollments we're planning for the 11th graders going to take the PSAT in October and we are tweaking things a little bit uh we're actually going to be giving the pre-act to 10th grade students and I want to make sure I ever explain that to people it's going to be in the spring it's something we've never done before but in the age of standardized tests and all the things that are changing across the board the ACT is a different type of test and we want to give kids an opportunity to demonstrate you know their Mastery and their understanding and get some quality feedback and maybe Act is an option for some of our kids so we're going to do that in the spring as well I wanted to share that as part of the PSAT that happens in the fall last fall the 11th graders took it so our current seniors and we have a student Dia gurish Kumar who is a National Merit scholar semi-finalist so she is up for that which is fantastic she is one of like 16 000 in the across anybody who took the national mayor test last year so that's pretty awesome um so she's working under scholarship application right now and hopes to finish it soon um the senior student parking lot we're going to be working on painting that we thought we could maybe do it Saturday but there's rain coming so we're going to be postponing that a little bit um the senior classes want to do something new and different so they're going to try a I think it's Phantom Fest or something and Ava will talk about that maybe a little bit they're going to take a trip to Lake compounds those of you that knew we were working so hard on trying to get Civic to work with a get a social worker from outside to come in and work here um you know part of the day starts on Tuesday of next week soft opening we're going to start nice and slow two days a week and so we're excited to have that resource and thanks to the board for the really I looked back to my opening year report and last year it was like she'll be starting soon and now we're a year later but we're finally there starting on Tuesday and we're excited about that I realigned some classrooms so we have student services so really in the school counseling Wing although they're not there now is all our school counselors and our two social workers so we've got all the student mental health support is down in that area and our school our speech language Pathologists are now grouped together and we've done a little bit of moving to make sure that happened new start time and able certainly talk about that a little bit um you know it's I'm hearing a mixed bag I hear like I couldn't tell you like yay or oh my God this it's from the kids side it's a little bit of everything right there's some some ups and downs so I'm going to come back I talked to Dr Royal today probably come back to the next meeting in October maybe give more an update about some data and some things like that to help share where we are there and pretty pretty much I think that's it I think I you know I would definitely leave you with um what open house and some parents were here so they got to hear this so I have to ask the question Dr Burrell what's the difference between a man wearing pajamas on a bicycle and a guy wearing a tuxedo on a unicycle I'm not sure one wheel perhaps a tire you're welcome attire well done thank you Mr belanda and we're started and here we go we purposely didn't record convocation because of what these gentlemen do to each other and everyone else when they have the opportunity with the microphone but I think it's time for a whisk in your middle school maybe Mr Renda you could come up share a little bit about things favor we'll have Ken do an icebreaker there you go okay good evening I'm Dean Randon the principal at Western Air Middle School this is always a very exciting uh year every year is such an exciting uh way to come back and see the smiles of the students the new staff that we have so this is one of my favorite um am I hitting something here it's one of my favorite meetings to be able to talk a little bit about the start of school but I will start with I have a couple of Staff here because like Mark had mentioned we do have a couple of of our staff out sick and I think I was the one who started it so I feel really terrible about this um I have Kara reisky she comes to us from Danbury she's a sixth grade literacy teacher we have Julie Andrews she is our seventh grade social studies teacher and she was had worked at Fairfield Woods Middle School we also have two staff like I said that are not here we have our new dean of students who are very excited about Nicole Buxton and we also have Fallon Campbell who is a sixth grade science teacher so and we also have two great pairs Tara mana and Reed Duff so I'm very excited the new staff is phenomenal love it do you want to talk did you want to say I was like a little nervous that they're gonna have to do a dance or something so of course it's my show now all right always start off with a thanks to our WMS secretarial staff for all the work as everyone knows the amount of effort and time it takes to shutting down the the previous year and then getting ready for the new year uh for anybody who's been in our building they also know Mary Liz my secretary who is able to keep me on track she's absolutely she's out this week and I've had numerous people tell me I look like a chicken with my head cut off walking around so I Gotta Give a big shout out uh for for them the custodial staff are always being doing a great job cleaning the buildings getting ready for the new year it's not an easy task uh staff that came in for interviews and students that came in for demo lessons for our phenomenal new staff central office for helping us the whole hiring process it's very time consuming tedious and we're able to get that done in a timely manner of course Mr bednarik as you know I did not have Miss G this year Miss Gordon she was in the building actually still in her office waiting to get to the new school but I didn't have her services this year so uh Mr benark and I um you know you're really helpful with the state reports things that we have to do and anything with interviews references paperwork for hiring student handbooks scheduling issues and scheduling a pair of professionals and really our whole admin team that that we have at central office and the administrators for all they do to help us we keep each other sane even though we do pick on each other because someone actually did say to me God you guys are mean to each other at the convocation and I said no come on we love each other don't we come on you're supposed to shake your head mark um Debbie an All-Star this is the first time that I can remember we did not have one student Mr bus so that's huge yeah obviously all the new routes and everything that they put together we'd have one student Mr bus the first day at least first day and Laura from park and rec uh I I've been meaning to post I haven't done it yet on Instagram or Twitter for our Courtyard it was very very overgrown and they came in and got a company to come in and do that so that's really awesome we can have classes and people can go out there uh as always beginning of the year our PD days we have our mandated training grade level meetings team meetings things that we talk about students that we have if it's IEPs 504 so on and so forth really getting ready for that first day so they're comfortable and ready to uh be ready for the students on the first day excuse me and also set up classrooms our first faculty I mean I just want to just talk quick about we spoke about again we we uh as we come back to a new year we talked a little bit about the Transitions and how truly important our job is especially the interactions that we have every day with kids also how sometimes you know we don't realize as as staff members not just teachers and I truly mean it's not just teachers it's everybody that kids come across in a building and bus try everybody that they come across how important uh excuse me or realize the huge positive effect that we have or we could truly have on our students um for you know it's for them to to think that we changed maybe someone's alive and the things life's and the things that we do and uh help them in amazing ways so we watched the video it was called life without teachers video starts by asking students What would life be like without teachers it showed some kids a little perplexed by the question making comments like um uh one kids goes that'd be crazy sorry can you give me a minute I need to think about that um so a little perplexed like why what do you mean what would life without be without teachers video goes on they talk about they teach us and help us move forward I don't know how I'd get through my day without my teachers they encouraged me all the time they teach discipline responsibility there'll be a decrease in a lot of dreamers and that they don't know what they want to do in their lives my teachers told me and showed me how to Chase my dreams and find Passions my favorite ones were one student talked about how her teacher's passion for working with special needs students really pushed her to want to major in special education in college another little girl star started to get a little emotional and cry and said that her teacher changed her life and taught her how to be a better person again the the idea of it's not just the academic part of it it's the whole picture my favorite one student says school was not for me I skipped I walked out I didn't care but there are teachers that just kind of make you come to school because they brighten your day and make it positive and make it positive and truly the only reason you come to school is to see that teacher he also states she pushed him and said without her he could not decide what he wanted to do in his life and was proud to make sure he told her and let her know that he was going to be the first person in his family to go to college so imagine knowing that one of the reasons a student might only come to school is because you brighten their day and make it positive that that's amazing to me it has to be the ultimate compliment as a teacher we ended the activity with just a little quote that I thought was meaningful it said the meaning of life is to find your gift the purpose of life is to give it away again as we start um into our new year so we welcomed 590 students each class about 200 uh 200.

I understand that early drafts of this language have the 10 million dollars coming out of the Charter School portion of the bond nothing's been drafted at this point the conversations have been that I think there's a conceptual understanding that when we look at the bond dollars that a portion would go to charter schools that percentage or dollar amount hasn't been determined yet and so if there are dollars to in improve facilities related charter schools that would come out of the charter school allocation but nothing's been drafted it's been peer discussion at this point has there been serious talk of taking the money out of Chico Unified program okay thank you yeah any other further questions um maybe it would be helpful to I guess uh in terms of the timeline and when it may be or where there may be a point where the board will actually take action on anything that comes out of these discussions um there's a fundamental difference in my understanding with our experience with measure K between ballot measure language versus like the final product of how the money just gets dispersed um and so I guess my question is for clarification that these discussions initially are focusing on um the potential ballot measure language and what may be agreeable among all educational agencies is that pretty decent summary yeah I think I understand what you're saying so really the first step is to talk about what the ballot language would look like um historically with measure K that was a certain percentage it happened to be 15.34 percent that was written into the ballot language that said that percentage of the dollars would go to Charter Schools and then it was followed up by a small paragraph talking about a subcommittee that would provide a charter subcommittee that would provide recommendations to the board related to projects so the prior agenda item was the perfect example of that recommendation coming from the subcommittee to this board for final approval so that really is the first step is what is the ballot language then I think Miss W what you're talking about is the second part is okay now that we've identified either a dollar value or a percentage then how do those dollars get allocated and that's really the Second Step then of who did who did the dollars get allocated how do they get allocated ultimately that would be a decision made by the chicken unified board because you are the fiduciary related to the general obligation bonds that are issued so in measure K the ballot language drove the kind of legal constraints about those two buckets of of money from the from the bond funding which was either to Chico Unified which was the 84 percent and some change and then the second pot of money which was to to Charter Schools there wasn't there wasn't Charter Schools identified in how much each percentage of each charter school would get in the bond language and so um as far as like legal constraints goes that percentage is a is a firm Line This goes to cusd this part this percent goes to charter schools within COC boundaries um but then from there it's become a final board decision to determine how those monies get divided out among all cusd schools and as well as approval of Charter projects and then the next step for historically was with the the um the oversight committee so I'm just trying to summarize yeah and I would say it's a great clarifying point the way we did it with measure K and really the Reclamation we're coming forward with a future measure is to not list individual charter schools within the ballot language and the dollar value but rather allocate in totality the percentage of dollars or we could even do a flat dollar value that says these will go to this amount of dollars will go to the charter schools but we're not we're not ready for that decision yet there's more meetings and more discussions to have to more discussions certainly and then and then at that at some point the group will be ready to bring forward maybe some recommendations for this board to consider okay correct because ultimately that that language will need to be approved by this board um prior to it maybe move forward to the elections office the final resolution will come forward in May of 24 to officially say we're going out for a bond measure at that point but you'll draft language prior to that but that's kind of the final deadline from a timeline perspective I know there's been some discussion about whether the chart or money would be divided um amongst the charter schools based on the number of kids who go to each of those schools versus some sort of needs based process by some other criteria will that need to be explicit in the in the bond language that will pass or could that decision be made later whether it was going to be that decision could certainly be made later yes it doesn't have to be in the language right yeah so we can initially we can choose to give you know people uh just whatever distribution we we thought was appropriate of the charter school bond money we could choose to give it all to one charter school if you wanted to yes I would say that is one option that the board has the right to do is being really responsible for those dollars if the board decided that 100 of the charter money that was allocated in that measure wanted to go to one charter school the board would have the authority to do that the last measure K did that have would that have been compatible or or was it specified that no it's going to be divided in this other way the ballot language in measure K just said 15.34 of the total dollars will go to Charter Schools and then there was going to be that committee that was created basically to advise the US and and that committee came forward with the recommendation of let's divide those dollars based on Ada but the school board in theory with measure K could have completely ignored those those recommendations and done whatever it wanted with that money with the charter schools correct yeah how do charters I had to go to Charter Schools right okay thanks no other questions for clarification I don't have questions or clarification just uh observation that the discussions have been productive those meetings and I'm hopeful that you know they'll continue to move forward with the uh very constructive attitude that's been exhibited in the meetings yeah I'd agree with that I think that with magic Chico Unified has really operated in good faith with the charter schools and everybody wants to see what's best for kids in this community overall so um I have confidence in all of our ability to be a productive creative problem solvers and and find the best path forward together so I'm optimistic for sure personally I don't speak for the board necessarily but personally I'm optimistic any other comments or questions all right since it's informational we'll move right along to our next item thank you Jacqueline for kind of diving into that a little bit for us um and there was no public comment on that item um either and I've lost my numbers we're on 9.1.4 yes yes okay uh 9.1.4 is discussion action resolution 1617-2-3 resolution of the Chica Unified School District Board of Education certifying compliance with section 17289 of the Education Code and authorizing the execution of exemption requests with State allocation board yes good evening so this resolution in front of you is related to our Oakbridge Academy independent study program so there's Ed code 17280 which is also known as the field act and that field act provides basically building and safety performance standards for for buildings and schools of which children reside but there are exemptions to that field act facility and one of those exemption is it is an independent study program so we currently have our independent study program Oak Bridge located on Lassen Avenue in a building that was originally you know basically built for commercial or Office Space um it fits the program it works very well there and so what we're looking for is this passage of the resolution this evening to acknowledge that they are exempt from the field act and then this will go forward to the state allocation board and this is required every two years for a program of this nature is there any questions related to the program or the exemption that we're asking for this evening I see none and I also don't have any public comment listed so if we're ready for moving on to emotion I'll take a motion um Madam president I move approval of resolution number 1617-23 second okay we have a motion by Ms Robinson and a second by Mr tennis uh we'll do a further discussion by the board a real call vote we'll start with Miss conken this time can I set aside Dolby I Robinson I all right it's unanimous thank you board yes yes unanimous is 4-0 thank you unanimous of 4-0 of this board tonight miss uh all right 9.1.5 is discussion action resolution 1618-2-3 a resolution to approve piggyback contracts and Cooperative purchasing agreements for 22 to 20 23 to 2024.

okay that's Smalley so both investigations and confirms went up a little bit from the year before and then I put Lafayette and LaMont Annex on the same because their numbers are so few we did have an investigation at Lafayette last year the first one in a few years but it came out to be not a confirmed case of HIV last year was our first year one last thing on hip with the Hipster program which did a good job of streamlining our process kept kept us on target with with deadlines and it allowed us to communicate building to building all the way up to Dr Freeman and to and to the board so that that was a good addition to the district okay now I'm going to move on to violence and vandalism at the high school we went down significantly from 49 the year before to 30 last year overall violence when it actually went down by 10.

we are not without our challenges our housing vacancy rate is 4.1 percent which is pretty well below the state's vacancy rate of 9.1 percent uh and just about a quarter of homeowners and 45 percent of renters are cost burden housing costs are present as a significant economic issue facing 495 Metro West however when it comes to residential excuse me when it comes to Commercial and Industrial real estate uh the pricing for commercial and Industrial real estate in 495 Metro West is substantially more affordable than Boston or the Cambridge markets inside of 128.

it was definitely different first time we haven't had uh fifth grade and I know it's over 30 years because I've been there for 29. I I actually was on the internet trying to look historical aside I was trying to find out what the exact date was that fifth grade came over to Whiskey in here but I couldn't find it does anyone know 1990 no way yep was it 90. my son was in the first class that went from fifth grade at Huckleberry it was 90. yep oh gosh that was awesome but thank you for sharing that um we also 28 new students and again that's it's funny because we usually um we're usually in the 30 range but we didn't have fifth grade this year but we had about 28 new students and and ones that I know that um left starting in in the summer we had I think it was only like five students that left in the summer part um that we have for registrations and leaving the user students IAS Magnet School AAS Magnet School area towns Newtown Milford New Fairfield Bethel Danbury we did have some come come from New York and as far as Ecuador Brazil and New Zealand so that was pretty impressive some exciting things about our staff that I just talked about is I'm very excited about that um we are now truly a six eight Middle School we are true middle school and having only three lunches is really weird because usually I'm used to over two hours of just a lot of noise near my office so it's kind of weird um our new parking lot which was uh which was really exciting now we have a new parking lot new side of the building we're looking really good uh our new UNH schedule which is a unified Arts where our banding course now our choice for the students in their specials rotation what does this do well students were and also excuse me students were able to get a chance to make some other choices for their specials which we haven't years ago we did for only our eighth graders but we're given a little bit more choice but with this change our band and core students will not be pulled from their content classes where they would be pulled for lessons and things like that and during our elt time which is I always say like our study time for for people that are old like me um that they would miss two or more of their elt times to go to Whole band and chorus groups now they'll only miss one for a lesson so that I think is going to be very impactful very exciting also over the summer and again today our mental health staff received some training in what they call DBT dialectical behavior therapy it's a great way for our mental health staff to have a set curriculum to help our students understand how they how their thoughts affect their emotions and behaviors and through this work we'll be able to help our students manage and regulate their emotions this is something we are adding which again as exciting as new we're adding it to our behavioral Serbia intervention process which I know we've talked about interventions before in the survey process which now is actually referred to as mtss which is multi-tiered support systems so as you know we currently do have lessons throughout the year we use ruler the ruler approach and ruler Twos for all students which we figured that's our tier one instruction that's a regular instruction for everybody everyone gets that this is a process that would you we would use for our tier two and tier three for students that are really struggling in managing and regulating their emotions so much it's affecting their academics social emotional well-being and really their ability to be successful so this will help all our mental health staff and really our whole staff to have a Common Language and approach with behaviors and how to deal with them and handle them in the use of common strategies for our students to use so that is something we're very excited about um geez I'm almost done I thought I had more um a proud boss story as always every principal feels that they have a great school and staff we're very biased at times I know but we do we think we have great school and staff so every year our new teachers come and I say to them one of the things I say to them is I feel that so many people in on our staff are so inviting and welcoming they're going to be coming asking to do something can I do something for you sometimes one time one teacher told me she had to shut the door because there's so many people coming which is funny in a sense but like that's really awesome that people are doing that so um one day after school I go to one of our new teachers room and I noticed that she had all this stuff to be able to decorate her bulletin boards I say something something effective oh God look at all that stuff to do the bulletin boards she says to me that her grade level staff the people on her grade level had come by and gave it to her to decorate her boards so just came to we want to help you to give it now I don't know if they helped do the boards but I did ask but I was busy um but to me again I think that gesture of just you know someone new here I've always had this uh things to put up for your board because I know it's one of the stressful things as you start the year also that a staff member gave her a binder that said this is why I teach on the outside of it which the inside of it you put thank you notes or those positive emails from students and families and look at it when you have a real tough day so again not something that people have to do I think just is so inviting about whiskey near and I know I've talked to each and staff members and they have felt that they have the you know the the other staff members are so inviting and welcoming to them which is really an awesome thing so proud Papa's story I guess now you know I can't leave without a funny one so I hope no students are listening one student said to me you really did I know yeah probably not you really did a great job Mr end of picking my teachers and my good friends are in a couple of my classes my response was I knew they were right for you as you may know there's so much involved in scheduling I really had have to say and it's misuse goes magic I guess but of course I couldn't let him down and I have him feel that I did pick every class for Him special so my staff made a little fun of me because I couldn't give that credit to someone else but seriously uh to the start of the year I don't know I didn't want to let him down they want to let him down so to start the new year at Whiskey near has been very exciting many students and and parents have have made comments to me about just the excitement around it so I'm very excited for the whole year to go thank you appreciate it thank you [Applause] into the best principle in the principle in the history do you know the joke best principle in the history of Candlewood Lake Elementary School Dr Dave pepsoski and I'm so proud to introduce a member of the best recruiting class in Canada Lake Elementary history Tracy dressel an absolute Superstar preschool teacher [Applause] watching you with your children and what you do with these three and four-year-olds is nothing short of magical your patience your humor your kindness you're awesome so thank you for that uh it is open house this week so unfortunately a lot of my teachers were not able to be here tonight uh Taylor Albert I'm sorry I'm like Albert Taylor no it's Taylor Albert wonderful Superstar fourth grade teacher crazy report Casey gruposo Jen O'Connor Judy Sanborn Nicole Guerrera Dean makes fun of me every year because I have so many teachers to announce I make them announce themselves and he says well it's because you're older you can't remember them haha Dean uh before I talk about the first two weeks I would like to say to the new teachers please go home and get some rest you you've come we've introduced you we love you and value you please go go [Laughter] thank you for coming thank you for coming [Applause] so for the past year or so I've been coming to the board of ed meetings and talking about the awesome beautiful physical structure and interior designs of Candlewood Lake Elementary School rest assured it continues to be the most beautiful building I've ever seen Bar None I challenge any Elementary School in this world to be a more beautiful building however tonight I would like to recognize something beyond the physical beauty of the school I want to recognize what really makes the phenomenal structure so exceptional the people within it and around it thank you to our secretary Sandy Deb Lisa and Claire they came together this summer doing schedules setting up procedures fixing up the main office ordering supplies materials and greeting everyone with smiles thank you to our custodians Julio Barb Greg and Frank working while construction was happening helping staff members set up classrooms keeping and that are keeping the building looking beautiful thank you to our cles PTO one PTO two schools United they did a wonderful back to school breakfast for the staff a nice little grab-and-go thank you to our amazing staff consisting of CES hes and or hhes and WMS joining forces to create one cles super staff coming in whenever they were permitted over the summer unpack and get their classrooms ready for day one now I already knew hhef staff were exceptional and I quickly learned that CES staff and WMS staff were equally exceptional and I'm beyond thrilled to be leading the cles super staff thank you to the cles community parents Guardians whose patience kindness and understanding have been nothing short of legendary changing tour dates not once not twice three times due to construction leaving Labor Day as our only option for student family tours before school started and yet they still came out in droves and were thrilled and excited to have the opportunity to see the building with their children before school started on the subject of those Labor Day tourists huge heartfelt thank you to Dr Burrell Dr Mann Mrs d l from central office Dr rodel Miss Gordon Mrs fehner from cles Mr Baldwin our athletic director Mr Renda WMS principle and Mr Belden our board chair who gave up their Labor Day to spend seven hours at Candlewood Lake Elementary School giving tours and I'm not going to lie there was a tour group that I was ready to take around and they actually said I would kind of rather wait for Mr Bell to give the tour fine we'll wait for Mr Bob to give the tour what else there we are in addition Mr Belden gave countless hours of his time helping teachers unpack boxes dismantle boxes move furniture anything they needed he and Mrs Belden were there and happy to help thank you to Mrs Greenstein who also came in over the summer and unpacked the classroom for a teacher who was out on maternity leave and now day one day one we welcomed 40 Pre-K 162 kindergarten 165 first graders 193 second graders 178 third graders 193 fourth graders and 180 fifth graders Mr render that's a grand total of what [Laughter] 111.

yes so the resolution in front of you this evening is related to piggyback contracts and essentially the district because we are a government entity there are Bid threshold dollar values um so when we go out to purchase for goods that are above a certain threshold we either have to go out to bid or we can use a piggyback contract which is basically an existing contract that another district has already gone out to bid for and selected a vendor and within the terms of that contract they allow a piggyback or other districts to utilize that same bid so what allows the district is we can save time and money on having to God forbid and instead utilize these piggyback contracts and get the same Goods at the same pricing and basically every element of the existing contract has to stay in place so some common examples of of times when we use these piggyback contracts buses are are often used on piggyback contracts so that the district doesn't have to go out for bid we know there's piggyback contracts out there where we can get the same price as our peer districts Chromebooks when we bought all our Chromebooks that was another example we spent over a million dollars I think the first time that certainly would have to go up for bid but there was a piggyback contract that we're able to utilize through RIT Department playground structures and classroom Furniture other examples where we can just save time and that's really what it comes down to is time to be able to get these purchases in our door and into our classrooms and our campus is a lot faster do you have some kind of criteria for identifying a good piggyback contract because I could imagine like if there was a really bad one floating around out there you know that like some company is was charging some astronomical price for an electric bus or something like that then we would say it's in the best interest of the district at that point that we just got to bed so oftentimes I'll use Chromebooks as a good example John Vincent our director of I.T very much has his pulse on pricing in the I.T industry and so when we find a piggyback that says hey we we can utilize the Chromebooks through this he's going to come and say yeah this is a good deal or no it's not a good deal and we need we need to go out for bid for example and I see that he's walking up right now but like uh you would you know before you just say hey look these guys over here bought Chromebooks so you know let from this company let's let's let's let's let's piggyback on that like you would also check you know Amazon eBay you know what's the price of these things out there in the world you know right so we do we can we compare the price on on multiple different brands and look at the quality of the product and then the price so it's really about quality and performance versus price yes so we do our best to get the best deal for the district we put if we put a contract out to bid such as this is it always the requirement to go at the lowest the lowest bidder lowest responsive bidder and so there's components that you can look at criteria wise for responsive bidder because that could kind of get us in a weird bind if the quality isn't as good so we have a bid sheet that we use like with Chromebooks and we use that for our e-rate project we got that from our e-ray consultant so 40 percent is for Price the remaining 60 is split between four other categories so prices weighted the heaviest but it's not the only thing got it great thank you all right seeing no other questions or public comment on this item I'll call for a motion I'll second that motion on resolution 1618-23 notice is there any further discussion all right Mr tennis we'll start with you Tennessee Robinson I konk and I it's been a while since I've missed my my uh button to turn my microphone on uh it's unanimous with 4-0 and one board member absent today um thank you so let's move right along to 9.1.6 uh it's discussion action on EB 2756 public disclosure documents for compensation agreement with the California Schools employee Association csha chapter 1 10.

vandalism went down substances went down we eliminated weapons altogether last year it was a good year overall at the high school Community 26 incidents total a little more than the year previous 21.

so how did the partnership come about and I won't spend too much time on organizational history tonight but as I mentioned for about two generations this region has been experiencing pretty explosive growth uh in the 1980s and 1990s in particular the region uh experienced substantial uh residential development substantial residential growth however by the time the early 21st century at dawn it was certainly arguable whether or not 495 Metro West or even Metro West had established much of a regional identity Middlesex news changing its name to the Metro West Daily News as some of you know is an event that only dates to 1983 and of course not all of our 36 cities and towns regard themselves as Metro West communities we do go all the way down to Foxboro rent and Plainville all the way up to Westford so certainly there's been some some questioning of identity and and cultural shift in terms of what region folks are part of but uh by the early portion of this Century there was a consensus feeling among business leaders and members of the Region's legislative delegation uh that we needed to have a vehicle to properly communicate the voice of this region cities have Mayors to speak for them there were some very well established Chambers of Commerce that were speaking for larger regions but these 36 at the time 32 when we were first founded 32 cities and towns had a lot in common demographically and economically but are otherwise split up by any jurisdictional boundary you can think of are 36 cities and towns sink or swim together but they are split up by County they're split up by congressional district they're split by Metropolitan planning organization served by five different regional transit authorities different chambers of Commerce different River watersheds any boundary you can think of where resources are allocated or decisions are made this region was split up and a lot of our communities were on the distant edge of other regions sometimes not really having their voice heard and having to clamor for resources so that was a huge part of the impetus to create the 495 Metro West partnership Ship by the time the late 1990s rolled around there were three distinct smaller entities that had roughly similar missions and in 2002 a feasibility study was conducted to explore combining them all and in 2003 they were formally combined into the 495 MetroWest partnership as I mentioned we are a stakeholder Alliance so my board of directors is uh as I'm pleased to be served by 52 voting directors and about 30 folks who serve in an advisory capacity were quite a substantial board as well as participating though non-voting members of the Region's legislative delegation former Senator Dave mignani and current Senate President spilko were instrumental in the founding of this organization in 2003 our board of directors as I mentioned earlier we are a stakeholder Alliance and our board of directors is carefully balanced to make sure each of those stakeholder groups is represented on the board so we have seats for Business Leaders seats for municipal leaders Town managers and administrators we have some of the planning and economic development officers for our cities and towns represented on the board higher education seats Chamber of Commerce Siege Regional Transit Authority representation so our board is deliberately conducted to make sure that all of our stakeholder entities have a voice in governing and leading the partnership so what are our values uh in in last year our board of directors voted to adopt a new five-year strategic plan for the organization uh 2022-2027 strategic plan looking out uh as I've talked about we're two full-time staff were a relatively small organization as far as advocacy and offer profits and economic development not for profits go and when the mission is big but the resources are small it's important to be as strategic as possible with how we use our time and where we focus so in developing our new strategic plan we sort of crystallize what areas we focus on but we also made a point of setting what our values are and just to go through those briefly a collaboration in Innovation we draw strength from that diverse group of stakeholders that we bring together you know we're not just a a business interest group we're not just another group for municipal government we are a voice for all of these different stakeholder entities where they're collected around the common interest of our region economic development is the focus of what we do we are an economic development organization but as opposed to just doing traditional Economic Development work and I'll go into a little bit more detail what I mean by that shortly we also make sure to advocate for the Region's needs when it comes to a few key issues including Transportation Water Resources housing and Workforce Development equity and inclusion our Region's growing diversity is an asset and we envision a 495 Metro West where everybody has a seat at the table we also know when we talk about complementary growth that a lot of things have to happen in tandem to support sustainable economic growth we need affordable housing we need effective transportation we need water resources that are capable of meeting 21st century needs and of course we need to make sure we're making wise use of our natural resources in the region if we don't take care of our water land uh you know this is not going to continue to be to be a place where people want to live in in quick spoiler alert the people who choose to live in 495 Metro West are what are the Region's real Advantage this needs to continue to be a desirable place for people to live if we want to continue to enjoy sustainable economic growth so as I mentioned we adopted last year a new strategic plan we crystallized the planet of five goals the first of which is largely administrative operational efficiency and Effectiveness sort of an internal look of okay we're a two-person organization that benefits from the services of a co-op student at Northeastern University with a large volunteer board of directors how do we make sure our internal processes are as effective as possible to make sure we're making the most of Staff time and resources but sort of the four key buckets that we put our work into Transportation natural and built resources housing Workforce Development these are the broad categories in which we conceptualize and envision the work that we do as necessary to support businesses and economic growth in 495 Metro West and I'm going to go into a little bit more detail on each in our 20 years we've managed to achieve quite a bit uh the 495 metric West partnership is a is a huge uh part of the reason that 495 is recognized as a region we are not only the we were one of the first organizations to come to combine 495 and Metro West and to use the highway 495 Metro West as sort of a moniker and identifying ourselves there are now a few other organizations that make use of that term we were along with now Senate President spilka instrumental in 2006 uh in the creation of the Metro West Regional Transit Authority uh which has been a huge benefit to the region we do a lot of advocacy as I'll talk about a little bit more in depth around major transportation projects some of you who commute or drive to the West may know that the interchange between the Pike and 495 is finally being replaced uh we were the ones we were the this the squeaky uh wheel that needed the grease to make sure that got the attention there we also do a lot of advocacy around the need to improve commuter rail service we conduct an annual employer survey and we serve as the official Regional Economic Development Organization for our 36 City in town region that is a designation by the Commonwealth that's actually a competitive grant program we compete for every year there are up to 11 Regional economic development organizations across the state uh some State funding comes with that uh and we compete for that every year to make sure that we're doing everything we can to support the business community in the region but we are the official Redo for our 36 Community region what are some of the work product that we put out uh each year and these are all available to members of the public if you go to 495partnership.org under reports and data you can access all of this but every year we put out a report we call strength and numbers this is a pretty brief overview of making the economic case for 495 Metro West for those who are interested in talking points about the advantages of locating your business or doing business in 495 Metro West and you know just to walk you through briefly what some of those talking points are as I mentioned earlier this is a region with a very highly skilled Workforce it is a region with very affordable commercial and Industrial real estate as compared with Points East and those things taken together mean that if you're located as a business in 495 Metro West you can enjoy all of the advantages of Massachusetts or the Boston Market while having substantially more affordable commercial and Industrial real estate we have access to the ads in the meds we have access to the transportation resources I described our region earlier as a diamond and if you think of it as a diamond Logan Manchester tea of green Wool Street you've got an airport at the end of each in addition to access to Port facilities in Boston you can have all of the advantages economically of being located in the Boston metropolitan area but with a substantially more affordable commercial and Industrial real estate not to mention 36 wonderful communities that people want to live in as Massachusetts is grappling with some population drain over the last few months what we are seeing is of our 36 cities and towns most are still experiencing population growth that does contribute to the high cost of housing here which is an economic threat but part of the reason we are experiencing that growth is that these remain communities where people want to live and make a life and that is a huge economic asset other work product we put out each year we put out economic and demographic profiles of each of our 36 cities and towns and I did switch for the presentation I switched it was Hudson but I switched it to Ashland for you guys but there's a second page but this is just some basic information we put out on each of our cities and towns every year it contains information on population educational attainment commuting patterns where do people in the community live excuse me what are the people who live in the community commute out for work where do people who don't live in the community but commute in for work commute from occupations and industries that employ people in the region and more and you can again access all of these on our website for each of our 36 cities and towns we work with Framingham State's Metro West economic research center Merck each year to conduct an employer survey which helps to gauge the opinions and temperature of employer leaders in the region and help to communicate those concerns to policy makers and all of this is publicly available information we're not a membership organization uh so most of what we do is available to the general public and is available online at 495partnership.org just to walk through a little bit more specifically so some of the work that we do Transportation has always sort of been a first among equal uh equals when we consider issues that are essential for economic growth where we do advocacy uh Transportation sort of asserted itself very early in the history of the 495 MetroWest partnership as an issue needing Regional advocacy and when you stop and think about it it does make a lot of sense Transportation especially major transportation infrastructure needs are issues where it just doesn't make sense for individual stakeholders to go It Alone it doesn't make sense for individual cities and towns or individual businesses to speak up when it comes to Highway interchange or they need to improve RTA or communal rail service it has always made more sense for us to speak as a regional voice on those issues and that's sort of why the transportation issues has always been front and center with the partnership so what do we do on Transportation issues we do a lot of direct Outreach and advocacy to massdot and other policy makers we engage very actively with the Metropolitan planning organization planning processes which as I'm sure you all know but for our viewers um it is through the Metropolitan planning organization that a lot of state and federal transportation dollars are allocated we make sure during any public comment process that the 495 MetroWest partnership gets official comment in in support of any projects that would impact any of our 36 cities and towns we maintained a transportation committee which in spite of the use of the word committee making you think there's some sort of formal membership actually it's open to any interested stakeholder in the region where we often invite representatives from massdot or other Transportation entities to provide updates on critical projects or work that is happening and we are currently engaging a working group uh and I'm actually going to going to jump ahead a little bit but uh this year in 2023 as part of our new strategic plan uh we decided that you know in the post-pandemic world we wanted to refresh and Revitalize what are our vision and priorities for transportation in three key buckets when we talk about Transportation our three key buckets roadway projects commuter rail and regional transit authorities of our 36 cities and towns none are served by MBTA bus or Subway none of these communities even when you go far east are have access to the subway uh none our MBTA bus service community so when we talk about public transportation in 495 Metro West it's commuter rail and Regional Transit Authority so we convened three different working groups this year of any interested stakeholder to to refresh and Revitalize when we talk about improved commuter rail service when we talk about improved RTA service and we identify roadway needs what are we talking about in a post-pandemic world I mean roadway working group is is the last project the last working group of the three to complete its work it has a draft listing of some serious major regional roadway needs that are going to be highlighted but part of that is going to be crystallizing the partnership's long-standing advocacy for increased support to the chapter 90 program and our policy belief that that program needs to make sure that it's keeping Pace with costs and hasn't kept pace with costs for many years much less with inflation that we've seen in the last few years making sure we're supporting our cities and towns and addressing their local roadway needs but also some major regional transportation projects I talked a minute ago about The 495.90 Interchange but spoiler alert The Interchange of Route 9 and 495 is likely going to make that list the spine Street Route 30 Mass Pike interchange at the Framingham Natick border is going to make that list Regional Transportation issues of significant consequence I won't talk too too much in detail about this but this is just sort of an example of our work on The 495.90 Interchange uh was a just uh something that really needed to be redone for a very long time it has been a high crash location for a long time not only is it operationally unsafe for commuters uh but also for Freight uh most freight truck Freight coming into New England that is not going into the city of Boston itself passes through this interchange and after they removed the toll plaza I don't know if anyone actually drives through this interchange but you know you do a lot of complex weaving just across other cars going in the other direction and when this project is so the 405 Metro West partnership made this project kind of a number one priority for many years and got to celebrate that work uh formally began in the fall of last year I keep getting asked when the work is going to be finished it's not going to be finished until 2027 but when it's gonna when it's done you're gonna see a much safer uh more cloverleaf-like Highway interchange that looks like a highway interchange you might see anywhere else and just to put that into context right now if you're headed on the Pike West with the intention of going to 495 North so for example if you were going to go from Ashland to perhaps Hudson you would go on the Pike West and then you would weave all the way around through two Loops before you get to 495 North when this project is done you will simply take a ramp that connects you from Pike West to 495 North so we're very excited about that but that is an example of something the partnership has advocated for for many years and we'll touch briefly on one big Transportation project we pay a lot of attention to that is not within our service area but has a huge potential to impact Points West and that is the Alston multimodal project very briefly for those who do not know the Alston multimodal project refers to a transportation project plan for within the city of Boston to replace the viaduct that carries I-90 the Massachusetts Turnpike through the Alston neighborhood along the Charles River this project is going to take about 10 years it will likely be the most expensive infrastructure project in State history this project will not just impact roadway traffic but the uh the rail line that carries the Framingham Worcester commuter rail will also pass right through that region uh so the the potential to impact Points West is significant the 495 Metro West partnership is advocating aggressively for a MetroWest specific mitigation strategy to be in place before work begins our sort of number one concern for this is we do you know this project is invariably going to involve some disruption to roadway travel on the Pike it's going to invariably involve some disruption to commuter rail service we want to make sure that these are properly properly staggered so we're not simply robbing folks in our region of their ability to get in and out of the city of Boston if you were to pull up the Ashland 495 Metro West annual profile to look at what is the number one community that Ashland residents commute out to it is Boston so we are obviously keeping our eye on that as I mentioned commuter rail is also very very important to us we re our working group on commuter rail completing its work earlier in the year and these are just some bullet points that give you an example of what we talk about when we Advocate on commuter rail but what are our priorities when it comes to commuter rail if you look at that lime green map our region is served by three Commuter Rail lines obviously the Framingham Worcester line has a station stop here in Ashland we advocate for safe reliable service that includes all-day bi-directional service and what that means is all day staggered scheduling that is actually a minor success that we achieve with MBTA during the pandemic is that pre-pandemic the schedule made a lot less sense and MBTA is being a lot better about scheduling trains that they're departing and leaving on a somewhat regular and predictable basis we know that a barrier to more folks using the commuter rail was the sense that there weren't a lot of midday trains so if you took the train in in the morning you had some sort of emergency in the middle of the day and needed to get home you might be prevented from getting back and so we do consider that a success with MBTA is better scheduling but also enhanced opportunities for employers to support employees using the commuter rail including incentive advising employers providing benefits to their employees to utilize commuter rail support for expanded parking infrastructure on commuter rail making sure that all of our stations have adequate parking that are ADA Compliant even though our region has a very small percentage of Commuter Rail stations disproportionate percentage of our stations are ones that are not currently ADA Compliant so this is a brief overview of what we fight for when we Advocate on commuter rail regional transit authorities are also tremendously important to public transportation in the region if you look at this fun map in the lower right hand side you will see MBTA service versus a Regional Transit Authority service our 36 Community region is supported by five different regional transit authorities we are huge Advocates of innovation in rtas and trying to to sort of back away from the old Hub and spoke model which to put that into simple terms the old RTA model was you had a central city bus routes that would carry Suburban commuters in and out or around certain and well-populated neighborhoods in a city at fixed intervals and the reality is that commuting and employment patterns are changing as such that those predictable fixed route Services just aren't meeting demand the way they used to we are big supporters of the state supporting rtas finding more demand response service which are app programs similar to Uber and Lyft but a lot more affordable we are very very excited we've always had a great working relationship with mwrta which as I mentioned the partnership was involved in founding very very excited to work with Jim knee and his team as I like to say if you're to look at our map I call it the uh the Hopkinton to Hudson connection if you lived in uh Hudson and wanted to get a job in Hopkinton or vice versa could you use public transportation to do it most people say no the truth is actually yes you could go into downtown Milford get a bus to Framingham switch buses over to Marlboro then switch onto a shuttle we have a transportation system that's that was very much designed to me 20th century needs and it requires a lot of innovation to meet 21st century needs we know that commuting patterns are changing so to make a long story short the 495 mentors partnership is a big advocate for financial resources for rtas to explore better ways to connect commuters to their destinations I'm looking at the clock and realizing I'm abusing my time a little bit so I'll try to go a little faster other areas where the partnership does a lot of advocacy water resources water resources are essential for economic development especially in a region that has a lot of Life Sciences and businesses associated with the medical community I bring you no news when I tell you that life sciences facilities Labs r d facilities have much higher water and needs than a typical Class A office space for example New England has very old water infrastructure and I bring you no news as select board members when I tell you that maintaining and updating Water and Sewer infrastructure is not cheap so we are we always make a point of advocating for increased investment in the Massachusetts clean water trust we are supporters of What's called the invest in water ma initiative which is a coalition of business advocacy organizations that are fighting to see a lot of federal more Federal infrastructure dollars used to support upgrading water infrastructure and we are also very much engaged with the epa's process on residual designation Authority in the Charles River Watershed I believe most of Ashland is in the sowasco but you do have a tiny little corner uh in the Charles River Watershed so some of your businesses may be very interested in that uh we are there's a section on our web page that uh where they can access some information on that and we would be happy to engage with them housing as I mentioned um is also something that's emerging as a substantial economic threat to our region this is a very affordable place in terms of commercial and Industrial real estate but it is a very expensive place to live that is a direct economic threat to the region because the substantial economic resource we bring to bear is our very talented people this is a place where businesses want to be insured because this is a place where people want to live we have a very low housing vacancy rate it is very important for this region not only to create more market rate housing but also to diversify its housing stock it's not just an issue of affordability it's also an issue of making sure that folks who might want to work here have options other than detach single-family dwellings we are our housing committee is actually something that launched just in 2021 and we were at the early phases of identifying a set of policy priorities uh that we think are are good consensus priorities that all of our stakeholders can be on board with to advance the creation of more diverse types of housing that more folks are able to access as I mentioned we are the regional Economic Development Organization for the area everything we do has Economic Development as its ultimate goal but we also do some of what I call traditional Economic Development work uh we support uh businesses in locating sites in the region so if there's a business that's in the region that's looking to grow a business not in the region looking to come to the region we would help them identify a site that might make sense to them we work with our cities and towns to help them identify priority uh development areas that they're interested in seeing developing we never promote one of our municipalities at the expense of another we will offer an interest in business everything that's available and it certainly explained to them uh you know what what goes into coming into a particular community help make introductions to Municipal officials as necessary we support regionally significant industry clusters we provide technical assistance to businesses and that can be everything from I heard about this grant program from the state how do I apply to you know we need we have a regulatory question and I'm not sure who gets this question answered for us that's really everything under the sun kind of trying to to help folks navigate municipal government and state government to the extent that we possibly can we obviously work very closely with all 36 cities and towns but I like to think we have a special partnership with Ashland Ashland is a rare community that actually has two members on our board of directors right now it is not the case that all 36 cities and towns get a seat there's only about 10 seats for municipalities but obviously Mr Herbert is currently serving in a municipal seat uh but your director of Economic Development and community outreach Beth Reynolds is also serving in an economic development seat last year we launched uh what we call the planning and economic development working group mouthful of a name but it is essentially a monthly informal Gathering of the planning and economic development officers from our 36 cities and towns uh it's a one-hour Gathering each month there's always a program topic but there's an open section of the agenda for folks to bring up anything they want the idea being our planning and economic development officers for the region we wanted to create a formal setting for them to collaborate in I'm pleased to say that Miss Reynolds is actually one of the co-chairs for that working group and helped to lead its development and of course in FY 22 we were as part of our redo Grant we had a one time quick turnaround opportunity where we were able to attach projects to our Grant application for FY 22 they had to be quick turnaround one-time Economic Development projects we were pleased to help secure funding for the town of Ashland to support a Montenegro Square seventy five thousand dollars for improvements including the seating and Landscaping you see the photo there that Beth sent me of the the finished work product and I do just want to pause here and and note why Ashland was able to take advantage of this opportunity as soon as we got word of the opportunity we put it out to all 36 of our cities and towns it was a really quick turnaround it was I needed all of the information within I'm going to say a couple of weeks it honestly might have been a couple of days not all of our cities and towns were in a position to take advantage of that opportunity not every all of our municipalities structure their planning and economic development role is different not all of them have an economic development focused person some of them you know all municipalities uh the work versus the staff uh is is substantial right now Ashland in the way that you have have conceptually thought about supporting businesses and economic development and having Beth in that role Ashland was ready and that's why you were able to have an application in and take advantage of that so that was an opportunity that went to all 36 of our cities and towns but when all is said and done I want to say nine of our communities were able to actually successfully take advantage of that opportunity so I'll just close by noting how are we supported uh so about a third of our funding each year comes from that competitive redo Grant from the Commonwealth but we are primarily funded by support uh from private businesses we call them investors I have here up on the screen just some of the companies that financially support us uh cities and towns also participate as well each City in town is annually asked to contribute 500 uh which uh of course is is uh very helpful in supporting all of our operations and so that is I could do this for about 45 minutes if left unchecked but I know you have other items on your agenda uh as a form and let me just close by saying you know as I mentioned we really enjoy our partnership with the town of Ashland but a few months ago I finished I stepped off after my third term as a member of the Shrewsbury school committee I know that this is a very um difficult time to be a municipal official in my day job I get to work with a lot of Municipal officials and I just want to say thank you all for the work that you do because this has been a difficult moment in the history of leading a city or town but just throughout 195 Metro West we're blessed to have a lot of really thoughtful really caring leaders in Ashland is certainly among them so thank you and I'm happy to take any questions you might have sure Mike before did you want to say anything or add anything to that no I think you know this is you know we had wanted to bring um you know different organizations in that had a regional Focus because I think over the last few years we've really kind of become a little insular in kind of our thoughts and our Focus areas and so Jason and the 495 partnership was certainly um kind of first and foremost amongst those you know I'll just give compliments to Jason you know everybody remembers or I think most people remember Paul Matthews the the previous executive director and he did really really great work but Jason's really I think kind of taken the organization to the next level and I've always complimented you on your strategic planning work because you know it's not just like the goals and everything I mean he's got it broken down to metrics and and you know really really detailed but it's that nice balance between detailed and doable and so just have to commend you on that great so thank you thank you so questions we comments what you want to start with Claudia or anybody else oh thank you that was uh my first uh really in-depth look at the group and uh I really appreciated the information that you shared tonight I particularly like the thoughts about transportation in this area and how it really has changed in terms of what the needs are of people to to be able to come and go and uh so that that's that's very interesting it'll be uh you know I'd like to see how that develops over time and uh and the housing issue right I mean it's uh it's a huge problem in the area so and uh you know I appreciated some of the facts and figures too I might be going on your website to get to get those and look a little more closely so thank you very much I hope you will great and um Randy we just go in order here sure thank you Jason that was a good presentation there's a lot of ground you guys cover um in in a the breadth and depth is is is significant um it's funny because um you know having a sort of a regional perspective is really good we hear all the time in Ashland that Ashland's experienced a lot of growth and there's a there's too much growth and there's you know that we hear from the state that there's not enough housing and we grapple with trying to um how do we grow in a in a very thoughtful way um but it's also interesting when you start looking at it from a regional perspective and it's like you know we are not the only ones that are experiencing this growth and I think that that's that context is really important in fact um so uh Yolanda and I are on um working with Michael and and our town planning staff um on a comprehensive plan and we looked back 20 years at the last comprehensive plan and I was looking at it to see like what we've had accomplished and looking at population growths and and you we realized that Ashland's in line with the region like we are not growing at a at a crazy Pace um and I think that that's important to kind of have that context because I think people lose sight of that um my question for you I mean I have a couple questions but I'm gonna keep it short but like when you talk about housing do you see housing as sort of like the biggest challenge in the next five to ten years because how are we going to continue to to um allow people to to first of all you know that the housing to have as much cost burden on residents as we do and and you know there's really no end in sight that I can see as far as like the cost um to buy a house in in the Metro West area and Ashland in particular but do you see the the housing as sort of like the biggest challenge in the next five to ten years I would without a moment's hesitation say yes I started this job five or six weeks before the pandemic uh and when I started this job I would have said Transportation was the number one economic threat to the region we still have substantial Transportation challenges but it is now very clearly housing um to your point about growth you know I like to say you know that there's no such thing as a static population there's no municipality in the United States it has the same population today or as it did 50 years ago or if there is that's an astounding coincidence you're either a community where people want to come or a community where people feel like that they're going to leave there are challenges that come with growth I don't want to minimize them expensive housing traffic strains on Municipal resources there are challenges that come with growth but at the end of the day you you're a community that people look at and say I want to live there I want to be a part of that and that's that's a wonderful Advantage when it comes to housing you know we are as I mentioned at the early steps of trying to find some consensus priorities that all of our stakeholders can be on board with it can become a very controversial issue and one of the challenges to be quite candid from a from an organizational standpoint for the partnership we speak to stakeholders we speak to policy makers more than we speak to the general public we're a small organization you don't read about us in the newspaper all the time we don't buy advertising when we speak for the region we're speaking to federal and state policy makers on behalf of the region we don't typically speak to the general public and what is becoming clear is that when it comes to housing who is the missing stakeholder at the table it's the General Public local governments are saying we got to do something about this the business Community is saying we're going to do something about this and you can talk to talk to folks in the community about that in the sort of a broad understanding that housing is important but when it comes down to specific proposals projects or developments that's where the rubber is is kind of not meeting the road so that's going to be a challenge for us is is really is is who is who is the stakeholder that that needs to be brought on board with the housing conversation it is the general public and organizations like that's that hasn't been typically where we've operated that's going to be a challenge thank you Jason for your uh your presentation there we go I want to piggyback with um with what Brandi had mentioned housing is very important to me I'm on the affordable housing trust Committee in town and I'd like to call it as we have a favorite saying called Workforce housing um it's a little bit different than affordable housing but um we feel that it's it's it's a necessary it's it's necessary at this time all the folks they want to downsize they want to stay in the area they can't afford to you know even though they're getting top dollar for their home what they're looking at what's available in the market is not appropriate for them or so they either have to move out or they rent and it's just not it's not a good scenario so you know Workforce housing and affordable housing there were almost mirror images of one another but there's some extreme differences and and hopefully your organization that you're working with and and run hopefully will help out with this and and give us as municipalities you know some some insight and clear paths too because right now Builders are making money and they don't want to leave anything on the table you know so when it comes to affordability they that's that's not in their scheme of things at all so we're not seeing those starter homes like you might have seen a few Generations pass when those starter homes come on the market because they're so much in demand the price at the end of the day not a starter home price absolutely absolutely and so Ashland is is far from along of our cities and towns facing that thank you Jason so I'm fortunate Jason often attends our metroless regional collaborative meeting so since he's been at the partnership I've gotten to know him a little bit through our meetings and in person but this was a great presentation I think certainly for for Claudia who's new but also for other people to really understand how you work with the municipalities and I know your partnership with the regional collaborative has always been very positive and very supportive and I know I've always looked forward to your day on the hill that you that you guys support so um thank you for this presentation and hopefully our public now understands a little bit more about what you do and can use your resources as well and as a business owner I also fill out your survey so thank you on both counts yeah thank you Jason for coming this is it's it's very helpful to meet with you you know get another review of what's going on with the 495 partnership um one of the things so one of the things I think could you talk about there's a ton of things of importance to us that you went over today and so I guess what I'm Nate or be aware of our efforts here you know are are um so for example I'm on the the MBTA Advisory board for commuter rail on the commuter rail committee and so you know we advocate for a number of things with with Team Management but I I haven't come in contact with any of the things you described at 495 partnership did I um and I you know I realized when we talked about the MBTA schedule and they started talking about clock facing which I think is is the another term for what you were advocating for I just didn't hear that that term so it would have been I didn't hear about you guys and what you're doing there so I think that would have been kind of um you know useful to kind of coordinate what we're pushing for our advocating for and so you know so in terms I know there's a ton of different things going on here and we have representation so I'm just thinking about how we can coordinate like you know Joe's interested in housing and maybe getting resources for that I'm involved a number of us are involved with the MBT commuter rail and I was glad to hear that you're really looking at mass transit because you know when think people think of 495 they think of 495 in all the cars and and that kind of issue so I'm glad to hear that but so that I guess that would be my thought of thinking about coordination or uh and it sounds like Yolanda's you know mapc is in the Metro was collaborative is in touch with you guys so that's great but just think about how we can work together or maybe close some of those communication gaps I think you know certainly and you know when I think of our role when it comes to commuter rail and rtas and roadway projects in particular um We're The Advocate on the outside as opposed to the decision maker on the inside uh and so while we do a lot of work directly with MBTA with massdot and and you know we create relationships with all those staff um folks on the inside have sort of their priorities and what they'll what they'll talk about and we have that sort of Outsider perspective of pushing so for example uh you know about two weeks ago we had a convening of our roadway projects working group the purpose of which is to identify the next 10 years worth of major regional roadway projects and three different Mass DOT staffers all signed up and I told them all we'd love to have you on but you're listening only this is not for massdot to tell our region what they think needs to happen we we know we can access that information this is for our regional stakeholders to communicate back um and so you know certainly when it comes to our role with them we do a lot of work with them but as opposed to being the one on the inside calling the shots We Are The Voice pushing for our region and always try to be I will say that of communities as I alluded to a little bit Ashland is is definitely on the more engaged side of our 36 cities and towns they're all engaged at different levels and a lot of that comes to capacity we do have of our 36 Ashland is the 13th floor just by population we do have some pretty small communities that have pretty limited staff resources and it in those cases it does tend to be sometimes us reaching out to the community a little bit more than vice versa uh it's it's like any organization there's joining and then there's actively participating and I will say that Ashland and you know it's easy to compliment you because I'm here and we're on camera but I mean this quite genuinely um I look at you know ilana's involvement with the Metro West Regional collaborative uh Michael and best involvement on our board I see Ashland not just having a seat at the table but using its seat at various tables and speaking up for the community's needs and not all of our municipalities are doing that at an equal pace and again that's often a capacity issue I don't mean that to be an insult but Ashland in in Mike's three years of experience doing this job Ashland doesn't just have seats it uses its scenes right um and so if I was interested in knowing what you guys are doing with commuter rail how would I find out about it great questions so anyone is welcome to join our email list if you go to 495partnership.org we do not send out more than two or three a month if you've ever wound up on some organization's email lists and they're sending you stuff every day that drives me up a wall so we make a point of not sending them out more than once more than a few times a month but as I alluded to briefly I was talking about our committees most of the events and meetings we do are actually open to any interested stakeholder most of the time you can sign up directly on our website there's an events and committee meetings page of the website um so you know we'll use the term can we use the term committee to describe our housing committee Transportation committee but really participation is open to any interested stakeholder we'll do some recruiting work to make sure we've got good representation and balance amongst our stakeholder entities but any interested party is pretty much always welcome to engage and getting on our email list is the best way to keep keep up to date and would you be interested in coming to the commuter rail subcommittee meeting or these are Zoom meetings with the you know of the MBTA is that something that well something to think about you know because we're looking for input about what's going on with commuter rail so if you have a certain perspective or thoughts that could be you know a helpful thing I think happy to rmo is usually to to pitch at the most senior levels so we do tend to work directly within me but I would be absolutely happy yeah interesting yeah okay think about that thank you anything else for Jason it's been a very helpful presentation appreciate you coming in in person to uh which is I think I mean most people like people coming in person I'm a little I'm I could take it earlier but anyway it's good meeting you so well yeah come in and you can take it no no uh I'd appreciate you on Zoom just as much I just want to say that I would say whisper we're headquartered in Westborough right near 495 nine interchange so I can go down computer drive and take sort of the back back way into Ashland so I rationalize this right down the road it's personal concern well thanks for coming in person that's very important to us thank you so I guess we got to keep moving here that yeah yeah right oh um okay that went a little over our presented time but I think that was useful yeah right but there was no time limit that's right who did who did this agenda it was pretty good no that was good that was good and and his his web the website is the website is really informative yeah it sounds like it yeah okay yeah I know I do yeah I'd probably get them and yeah select board yeah don't read them just keep going through yeah yeah they have good programs sometimes too they before the pandemic they were offering I went to at least a couple of them that they do it a day on the hill where through the partnership so everyone from the partnership from the cities and towns gets invited to go up to the state house and and that's been always very interesting great all right I think if uh we could move on to old new business and that would be the update on Cadillac paint Park the subheading discuss a name which I think was Brandy's suggestion yeah so um our contractor well one of our contractors on that project Brown they're still working on the pass and um you know those have been laid out and you know they're put in place they're you know putting in the stone dust where it's uh the section that's ADA Compliant they've done that and used the polymer that similar to what we did on the Riverwalk and have compacted that um after Brown is done so Lynch's Lynch it was our Paving contractor is actually going to come in and they will do the parking lot also at that time DPW will you know install the buttons and the lights at the crosswalk you know get that all set we're going to do some more cleaning around there as as brown has done a lot of their work they've actually done dug up some things you know just like just trash like stuff uh take care of that and then we'll mow it for the winter and then prep for doing um you know seeding or whatever we need to do our assistant planner Alvaro has actually had a light bulb moment and he is about a potential use for the Parker specific type of views and I think it would be really really great if he came to the board in a couple weeks and presented his concept and idea so all right so does it um conflict with all the conversations we've had already about the park and you know pollinators and just a walking area and not not a lot of active but very much in line okay okay very much together a number of okay yeah no pickleball um other questions discussion or thoughts um so a timeline for when the paths are going to be open is that going to be like are we gonna are we gonna plan to have that open for the public before the spring or are we thinking it should be ready in the fall okay really I mean people should be able to I mean we're probably talking about late fall but um yeah people should be able to access excess it it's not going to be I think the fully manicured well not until it's all completely exactly there was a con someone brought a concern to me that there's a lot of Poison Ivy at the front of the park are we doing anything to try to manage that or remove it or so we'll look at that when DPW goes over there to Mo and look at doing some of the cleaning there is a bunch of poison ivy yeah at the front but I think it still has that old you know chain link fence yeah some of the stuff is still there so okay okay is that will that be removed eventually it will stay there or get removed we will we'll probably have to put something in its place but yeah I'm not a huge fan of the chain link I'm not even less of a fan of dilapidated dirty Rusty chain link yeah even even rubberized Galvin would work better very difficult to spray paint in between uh that's true that's true but um so I agree do you have a time for substantial completion when you say it's open this fall that's that's not completing yeah you should be able to access the paths and everything this fall and like the parking area [Music] um I don't know if we've actually determined like what we would consider substantial completion Rob that's a that's a good way of framing it and looking at it we can put something together yeah so one of the things that we would talk about tonight if there's going to be you know how the ceremony of the opening would work but sounds like it's a little early for that I think I think it's something that we could potentially do this year um let's take a look at it when they kind of get sure get done and see if that's something that we want to do I will say some of this um you know if we want to do additional things we've really kind of expended the hundred thousand dollars that we received from the state so we'll probably have to look at you know CPC funding or something like that I'm really excited for you to hear alvaro's presentation okay and so that's kind of I think a couple at our next meeting or yeah you can do that at the next meeting well I told him if you're supportive of that he would have to do it at the next meeting who were meeting in early November uh October it's only September I'm sorry early October missed a month it's okay he's just moving along I'm moving ahead here and then Brandi had brought up discussing a name for the park let's talk about that so um I've talked to a few folks in in you know when we talk about Cadillac paint because we refer to it as Cadillac paint Park and it's the worst name ever so it really is so people know where it is people know where it is but but I think it deserves a new a new name um we've I I know that at heart who has been the driver of this project and he's the first to say that that you know it's been his whole Community that's been behind this and and you know we appreciate um all of the the the residents um on Nancy drive in that area that have advocated for this but I really do feel like you know this this would not have happened if it wasn't for Ed Hart so I think I know he doesn't want the park named after him but um I feel like we should acknowledge his his contribution to this in some meaningful way and but I I don't know how the rest of the board feels and if we if we don't name it heart Park um we do need to come up with another name for it so I didn't know if there was any ideas from from the board so I saw Ed when Brandi and I had um select board hours at the Farmers Market on Saturday and we were talking about it I said yeah we want to discuss a name and many of us really like the idea of hard park because of the work that you've done into it spelled h-a-r-t for his last name and he's like oh no I I don't think that's necessary I said well what why don't you see if you can get some input from the community so he did send out an email he has an email list and uh he caught he copied me so I have a few a few recommendations uh one was health and revitalation health and revitalization territory that's just a very big name but I think people are looking at this as a sort of restorative Park that you can just go walk and sit uh the other two that sort of got some some feedback was because we're going to have pollinators and hopefully butterfly plants and things like that someone said a few people said butterfly Loop or Butterfly Park but a couple of people also said that they really liked the idea of Hart Park and this is one of those things and I think I agree with Brandy that even though Ed may not want it I think for our community to understand the amount of time and effort and the consistency that he has had in making sure this happened he's been there since the beginning I remember meeting in someone's green area with Ed and Tony when he was our town manager and we were getting the EPA funds to get rid of the buildings and all that and then continuing to just add really when we talked about do we want to put the dog park there and him sort of galvanizing the neighborhood to talk about it and get ideas so and the idea is about the the pathway and what kinds of flowers so even though he may not want it I I really like the idea of Hart Park as well and and if we don't want to do it heart h-a-r-t so you know it's not his last name it could be h-e-a-r-t right heart Park a park that people would love and that the neighborhood can support you can oh go ahead no I was just going to ask you other thoughts on this yeah yeah go ahead the idea of having Edge name on it is a is a great idea for all the time and effort that he's put into it uh some brief history uh that goes way back before some of you folks are even in town uh there was a young lady well a young lady Sally Linus who was part of the senior citizens group down there she lived off of Sheffield Drive Sally was a driving force to get everyone's attention to what was going on at Cadillac paint many many years ago and it was her dream to clean that up and put something out there and I know that Ed and her had many a discussion with respect to that and um when Ed asked me about you know what what the idea is we should you know do up there I says well if we don't name it after her or name it in some way where there should be at least a bench with her name on it or a kiosk on it too her name her name is Sally lannis l-a-r-n-u-s and she lived on Sheffield Drive it was the third house on the on the right hand side she had this yellow Cadillac that was a bomber the thing was huge Cadillac it was a charity there and she never drove everybody had a driver for us because she didn't drive uh her husband her husband passed away she never drove and so people would drive her a run in the Cadillac long story shot um if Edge really serious about not having it um you know named after him we can always I was just thinking sitting about thinking about it earlier this evening and I said well we could call it Sally's dream just another thing to throw out there I mean you're right Ed had done a lot of work and and prep but there was the initial kickoff was Sally getting everyone's attention saying hey we got to get rid of this place we need to get rid of it we need to make it vibrant again and so another idea that just came to me is the larnis heart park there you go both of their last names to sort of the beginning the person who started it and the person who helped finish it so in terms of this whole process or we've seen or Sally's all right are you guys seeing that this is a name that we would come up with and decide at our meetings or this meeting or another or do or do you see like a public process where we do something to well what I would say is I I mean we could put it out there to get a lot of names but I like the idea if we have one or two names put it out to the public Michael can put it out in his town manager newsletter I can ask Ed to send it out to his to his neighborhood and say you know these are our couple of suggestions and get feedback yeah I think I'd feel better if there was some sort of public process yeah I mean there are some people who are like who will have no idea because they don't really know where Cadillac paint is or they'll have no interest but I think for those who are interested if we can give them a couple ideas I like the idea of Sally's heart that's I think really good or Lorna's Heart part you know one of those um I think I like the I just I like the idea of combining the history yeah before you get like wedded to park okay um I would encourage you to listen to Just Alvarez presentation but sure who's invited Eddie for that you know I think that's a great idea for the first meeting in October yeah or November I forget which one well if we want to get some stuff done this at all we're going to want to do it in October yes yeah we you know I think we had having Beth be there I will not be I will not be watching the meeting yeah because they're doing a lot of that okay I'm sure um the other thing I I don't know especially because that's funny did you have anything you wanted to say about this process so okay the naming contest yeah so we can continue this discussion I actually I always kind of assumed it would be named Cadillac paint Park and the reason I think that's in some ways fitting because look at what it was and and what you know it's been turned into through a lot of hard work and that's I think an important bit of history that we should consider retaining that's just Ally you know that's how I think about that area and you know but you know it's a name so but so I think Cadillac paint park has some you know people know what happened there and what we did to fix it or what was done to fix it and look what it's become I think sometimes when we if we're going to name things I think that um we should probably provide some history somewhere right whether it be in the past that's good good point you know so the people know I'm sure things are named after individuals or whatever we're naming yeah I think it's important to because years later people go wives yeah I would I would agree with that I think if we have history there yeah I think if we so I think that creates some kind of kiosk that says sort of the history or how it all happens so that when people come there they know how we got this wonderful space maybe we can get Justice and then make one especially very very similar to 433 Chestnut Street with the kios that's a good one it's enough people know yep okay so enough on this one we have kind of a plan yeah we'll be thinking about how to do a public process and we'll be and invite some folks to the next meeting in October okay thank you so the next item on the agenda is the Community Choice power aggregation program and Michael this is what your kind of annual presentation or is there something special that happened there's a couple things I want to talk about uh with relation to this first is kind of our new our new rate that's going to be coming into effect in January but what I want to start off with is there's a growing let me back up so this last round of the aggregation program what we had done is we had selected two different products one you know kind of a mixture of you know traditional brown and green energy and then one was going to be a hundred percent renewable option that people could take advantage of so the Deep so that has to be approved by the dpu and the dpu has just dragged their feet on this for years now and it's not it's not just been happening to us it's been happening to other communities too so there's been some growing frustration there and then now dpu is talking about doing an investigation of you know the aggregation program itself or the overriding statute and really kind of from you know my perspective and some of my colleagues perspectives really kind of taking local control away from the municipalities and determining what's best for the municipalities and really kind of having one of those top-down approaches um so I just wanted to make you aware of that and um you know I'll have some more details soon there's going to be a couple of you know Zoom calls associated with it um but anyway that's the first first piece do we think that there is um pressure on higher-ups from the energy companies to say we don't want you changing this or looking at this okay I do that's right unfortunate that is my gut um so could you give me a kind of a an overview of what the what aggregation is for the public yeah thank you so oh the aggregation program has been electricity aggregation program has been established or authorized by the state legislature a few years ago it's probably a decade ago now um and what it allows communities to do is to go out to bid on behalf of its residents to secure competitive or better pricing from other companies than what they might get through the Standard eversource Supply rate and so the concept is is that the more you know it's bulk purchasing right so the same reason you go to Costco you know you buy more you get it on a less you know cost per unit basis so and that's generally what it is and we have made out so well with the last contract so residents have been paying 10 cents you know 10 10 and a half cents when eversource was at you know 24 25 cents over the last couple of years so the savings that we've accrued for residents has is getting closer to 10 million dollars you know over the time period that we've had it so that's in a nutshell what it is yeah I actually was recently doing some research and and saw that we were paying the 10 cents and it is a pretty uh amazing it's significantly lower than what you'd be paying if you weren't part of the now how do how do how does a resident participate in that so you're enrolled automatically you do have the ability to opt out if you choose there's a lot of communication that goes out via mail and we have communications on like our website that shows people how to opt out but again you're automatically enrolled so do you know what the participation rate is in in Ashland I don't have the exact number but I'm pretty sure it's over 90 percent why would someone in general why do people um so they might have a contract with the supplier themselves that might be at a lower rate at the time um you know there could be a situation it hasn't happened to us where we're kind of upside down and for you know eversource changes its rate and all of a sudden we're now higher than the eversource rate of course at that point we would communicate that out to the public too and encourage them to you know make the best choice that they can for their households so thank you the typical time frame time frame and company will allow a citizen to be found in a full year or is it six months or three months so the contracts range from six months to three years in various intervals in between six months 12 months 18 24. yeah the only reason why I asked that it was we just got a ever Source Bill the other day and I was reading that you know I used to just 12.5 percent lower than last year at this time and it said you know the company who we buy our electricity from on the belt so I looked at last year's bill at this time frame and almost the same amount of usage but it was 200 more so how is that a savings oh that's a you know what you get two charges when you get your ever Source Bill oh yeah you get a supply bill which is like okay it's the same yeah and then you get the delivery charges which which is not part of the aggregation program you think so so I'm sorry without looking at your bill Joe that's what I would surmise well I'm sorry if I missed it what's the trend is it going down Are we more competitive than ever Source or just going back we have been extremely competitive over the last three years we didn't make out as well in this pricing uh scenario um and I should you know so what what we ended up with is a 15.8 cents which over a 24-month period but that also includes so in terms of clean energy that's um so Mass has a requirement state of Massachusetts I I want to say it's 25 it might be 30 rob you might know this better than that I don't remember clean energy plus 25 percent so you know if it's 20 if the mass requirement is 25 it's what we have elected is 50 clean energy so there really wasn't that much of a difference between yeah so far it's been pretty competitive so ever sources eversource changes their rate um so they they have they changed their rate twice a year and so this last round for the winter they dropped it down to 16 cents I do expect in January when they get ready for the air conditioning season and everything that will go back up again so 15.8 is going to be our new rate as of January okay great so still better but um not quite as much of a difference and that's the mixed what did you call it the brown plant so that is that is the um for a clean energy from a clean energy perspective that includes the mass requirements plus 25 percent so and these are class one wrecks Rob Moulin beak if you're watching so um just a I didn't realize people had contracts under like I just signed up years ago when this started so what's what are contracts in terms of that well some there are some companies out there who are suppliers and they they're the Alternatives yeah they offer you know alternative contracts but they have a years whereas whereas members of the public who signed up for this or stayed in it are just in it and they don't there's no contracts get correct okay correct so that's okay and it's an opt-out right so everyone automatically gets put into it unless you say no I don't want to do this and that does lead me my next question are you seeing any issues with these kind of predatory power suppliers and their practices because it seems to be kind of a recurring issue yeah you know so the only complaints that we have actually received have been more from people going door to door and just kind of that practice if you will haven't necessarily seen anything in terms of predatory um well because it was a big Statewide issue last year and I know the senior citizens are very concerned about you know there's there's a lot of praying on senior citizens for this sort of thing so yes well sometimes you you know you could end up signing a contract that has like a rate of eight cents you know for the first six months and then goes up to like 30 cents for 18 months and you're locked in fact so yeah I guess that's good that you haven't we haven't we're not hearing about issues so maybe that's I know the Attorney General was cracking down a year or two ago about it so okay yeah so that was my update on that one very good all right anything else on Community Choice power nope nothing else on that one so I guess the next one is sidewalks and that was um uh Claudia had asked the question if a few weeks ago and then that kind of reminded me of our discussion last year about sidewalks so just wanted to hear and Michael you would send an email about the sidewalk um your kind of sidewalk plan so I thought it was worth talking about um you know what we're talking about with sidewalks and you know especially on an interim basis because I presume sidewalks are going to be part of the comprehensive playing and you'll you'll come out with a list of I guess recommendations at some point but in the interim basis I thought it would be good to just discuss what we're talking about with sidewalks and how it maybe it's related to complete streets and things like that so well good question and since I sent that email there's um you know we've had a little bit more information about uh the West Union Street sidewalk I wish it was good but it's not but generally our our plan was to do West Union Street this year High Street finish you know the High Street section next year which would connect the network of Northern sidewalks with Southern End sidewalks and a place other than downtown um and then the following year do Cedar Street um so the board had allocated 250 000 for High Street excuse me 250 000 for West Union 250 000 for High Street and that's through the arpa arpa funds so then meet with Doug last week and you know he's anticipating construction and I think he's being conservative here for just the West Union Street sidewalk to be around six hundred and fifty thousand dollars so um and that's been at one time fortunately he doesn't think we'll have to do some land taking well one time we talked about multi-modal path there naturally yeah that does not look good because of the utility poles and the amount of takings that we would need to do so um if if we do a multi-use path the polls will be right in the middle essentially of the of the path whereas if we do the sidewalks they'll still be there but there'll be more on the side because these are typical kind of inadequate sidewalks they're like three feet wide and five and a half feet wide oh that's not bad um but you know you see a lot of the sidewalks around town have asphalt berm and asphalt it's asphalt which really it's not the best way to do it right excellent it deteriorates a lot quicker than granite Curbing and so so this includes Granite Curbing and concrete sidewalks okay okay and crop and a couple crosswalks and what was the price of the cost 650 now we are looking at Grant funds so Evans put in a couple Grant funds including an ADA you know an accessibility one and um I'll just have to figure out what to do that's okay so one of the things we worked on probably like four or five years ago was our complete streets project list and I know sidewalks on West Union was part of that is it time to sort of regroup and re-look at that so that we can make sure that we're getting not only what Evan has found out for Grants but there's always complete Street grants available and it's it's lining up Yolanda because really the last project of that first round is the painting on Summer Street the the bike okay um the bike lane or bike I know the third stop sign at Elliott Street was part of that project it was part of that initial review but the last one is the Summer Street piece and once that's done we would be eligible for another round okay so when do we expect that to be done and is it time to reconvene I mean I know it was myself and Doug and Sheila at the time um I mean I'm willing to sit back again but are there other people as stakeholders that would be good to we need to go that far but yeah I mean I think if we're talking about doing it for the purposes of finding Grant funds for existing projects that that could make sense okay um you know if we're talking about you know additional projects we'd have to go revisit our list and stuff right well that's what I mean looking yeah it's sort of a two-step process right it's grants for the projects we've already identified but also then looking at our list and we had a long list we just only could I think we only were able to submit for you know the top five or six and like all the the sidewalks on Fruit Street and all those ADA Compliant that was all part of that so yeah they probably look at that as part of the comprehensive plan again it definitely should yeah it's it we might but I think a lot of that would go into more detail than what we look at at the comprehension I think the comprehensive plan is a little bit higher level yeah and then maybe this could go part of that so maybe we start as a comprehensive plan and then separate it out afterwards are we looking to still be able to do the sidewalks on 135 this week yeah I mean we've heard from so many people that it's just wow from the students you have to my ears are ringing yeah really all of a sudden we've been talking about this for a while we've been talking about yes we have and so and we talked about it at the retreat we talk about you know so okay we go back to the traffic study committee and we bring that information up and okay well we're waiting to hear back from what the town wants to do I said I already thought that we already had this discussion and we were going to be working on it who's I'm not going to drop any names I don't throw anybody under the bus but I think it's a financing issue right because we originally had put 250 in the budget and now we actually actually have a plan and a scope and it's 650.

I thought you would know that one one one one our students enjoyed the fine dining in beautiful cafeteria spaces impressed by the quality of the cheeseburgers with four lunch waves in our K1 calf and four lunch waves in our two five calf teachers gave tours of the building to their students during recess in the wonderful air conditioning Mr Belinda instead of heading outside in the miserable Heat Wave I'm so sorry Mr Belinda teachers continue either have recess inside or outside in our Courtyards playscapes will be delivered next week and should be installed shortly thereafter our kindergarten hallway is magically transformed Dr Burrell saw it today into Legoland or dinosaur world with students playing in groups of three to five building awesome Towers robots airplanes and spaceships and then dismissal growing pains were definitely felt with our first dismissal with our final bus rolling out over 90 minutes after school ended due to the volume of parent pickups almost 150 27 buses and limited space because of construction and having no north parking lot yet I stood watching what could only be described as a colossal colossal disaster Dr bro witnessed the debacle brainstormed with the admin team and he had Gerber paint some lines and put up some Jersey barriers and poof we had two separate areas one for parents and one for buses day two and we shaved off 70 minutes we were on part of shave off another 10 minutes on day three but one of our Jersey barriers had other plans and decided it was going to snag one of our buses delanis another 20 minutes that being said I understand the board might receive a negative correspondence or two but with every communication I sent to parents the responses were overwhelmingly positive in fact when we were 90 minutes behind schedule and I sent the communication we're going to be about 90 minutes behind schedule over 130 families responded you know you kind of do the only three were negative three one of the negatives rescinded the email when her child came home with an ear to ear grin the rest consisted of positive affirmations many remarking that the smiles on their children's faces due to the above and beyond work of the clas teachers and support staff providing wonderful experiences for their children immediately put their minds at ease some students didn't realize there was a delay I just was hanging out with my friends for some time after school that was awesome my notification I sent for the jersey barrier incident received about 50 replies with only two negatives it was the same two who were negative before which is okay we're all entitled to our opinions all things considered the past two weeks at clas have been incredible and I do feel like I'm living up to the awesome responsibility of being the greatest principal in cla's history but rest assured my sons continue to keep me grounded when they're quick to remind me that I'm also the worst principal in Seattle yes history in any event the facility is beautiful the staff and Community are amazing and students are learning and laughing reminding us why we do what we do every day thank you [Applause] those were awesome reports so thank you guys thanks for having that on the agenda tonight thank you um do any of the board members have any questions for the principals on the first day you can talk briefly about the Healthy Start times and what kind of impact that's had on your buildings yeah either of them um I can honestly say it really we're only a difference in five minutes from what we had before so I haven't actually we the kids get off the bus before 7 45.

Jacqueline again yeah um so this is the before this evening is the ab2756 which is the financial disclosure related to a tentative agreement with our bargaining units so I'm not trying to steal John's Thunder here um this is basically the financial piece should you approve the TA under the HR section what it is at this point is an estimation of a settle up from prior year of 0.67 percent as well as a which would total for the current year 6.08 percent we'll know in the next week or two the final number it is the same methodology and language that we had for cuta and the estimated cost is about 2.9 Million for our employees any questions related to the disclosure I'm I just I noticed that some board members are still perusing so no you're fine I just wanted to make sure that I I also wanted to just take a few more seconds to look at the numbers and all that just out of out of interest and due diligence uh so with that seeing no additional questions um or public comment I'll call for a motion I move that we yeah I move you move approval approval yes I'll second that motion and comment that uh thank you to our bargaining units and our negotiators that we are able to get this done in a timeline that gets all of our employees compensated on the next cycle everybody gets a check in the box or in their Bank I've seen it on years when we couldn't get that done that's not a good time SAR kudos to everybody involved so we have a motion by Miss konkin to approve the public disclosure documents and a second by Ms Robinson uh we'll do a Voice vote again um starting with me it's all b i Robinson I konk and I I'm sorry all right 4-0 it's approved we'll move right along to I think it's time for Mr Shepard thank you President dalby we are excited to present to you the CSEA cusd tenant of agreement I say we mainly because I'd really like to provide a shout out to Bonnie McCarthy the lead negotiator for CSEA and Jim Hanlon I'm sure he's watching tonight um this this I'm sure he is hi Jim we are so appreciative of all the work that they put in over the course of the last month um and and the previous year to make this happen the vote was a little delayed because they wanted to be sure that they voted when their members were working and were present so this vote obviously didn't take place at the same time as this UTA tentative agreement however very similar language and we recommend approval of the cusd and CSEA tentative agreement can I answer any questions I don't think that we have any I don't have a question but I will make a comment that there was gratitude expressed from CSEA members that were affected by the tentative agreement part that we acted on at our last board member that established some good language in our board policies so they did reach out and say thank you yeah um I would add that it's nice to see just as like an observer of what's happening with the workforce good faith bargaining and successful contracts being implemented there's a lot of even at the state level with Cal HR is going through not great negotiations with state employees and obviously the writer strike and automotive industry it's nice to see that at least here locally we're we're doing a good job at keeping everybody in agreement and moving forward in good faith so I appreciate all the work that goes into those negotiation sessions okay see no public comment on this as well I'll call for a motion on the CSEA cusd tenant of agreement for the 2324 fiscal year I move approval I'm in a second so we have a motion by Ms Robinson and a second by dalby oddly I do sometimes refer to myself in the third person um okay any other discussion fantastic let's start with you Miss Robinson um Robinson I konk and I genocide Dolby I 4-0 it's approved hooray much fanfare it's really quiet in here right now I'm about to start telling really bad jokes I'm sorry um okay we'll move right along to 9.2.2 discussion action which is approval of a provisional internship permit for Education specialist credential for Gianna Hughes great thank you president dalby so as you've probably already noticed this is the request for approval of a provisional internship permit for a teacher that we you already approved in a previous action we did submit the approval to the to the Butte County Office of Education credential office and they do have a new credential analyst and as a result of communication with the analyst she's asking that we'd be very specific in our board action that the grade level be included in the action so this is just a resubmission with the grade level nothing else with this teacher has changed same supports are in place we just need to be sure we followed their Direction so we included the grade level see the grade levels six to eight well it certainly as bcoe's job to help keep us narrow so all right let's let's do this any other discussion comments questions public comment motion I move approval of a provisional internship permit for Education specialist credential for Gianna Hughes oh second depth motion for the discussion board all right Miss Kong and we'll start with you just one quick question so um this and I know it's already been voted on but it's specifically for marsh not doesn't correct okay we want to make sure we include the grade level and the the school um to so the Butte County Office of Ed is very specific request applied if it's at Marsh but that makes sense um okay yes I I conk and I Robinson I thank you all right um 9.3 is uh board 9.3.1 informational first reading of revised updated new board policies okay we are bringing forward some changes in board policy as you know we work with csba and they send us changes that we bring forward usually those changes are tied to changes in either case law or Education Code so this is a first reading there is no action tonight but we're happy to answer questions if there are any in the case of the deleted board policies I just note that they're just I mean I went on to them and they're just a bunch of red ink basically just that policy is gone um is it being I mean or is school health services aren't important anymore or this is probably finding its way into some other uh I'll bring up Jen Scala that was her board policy um and she had and I um she said she'd come up and explain why that one is being deleted and while she's on her way up I must make an apology um and I can bring up Mr Sullivan to explain but on the other deleted item there was a miscommunication between my team and that only a portion of that was supposed to be deleted and not the whole board policy and so we're going to need to pull that one and bring it back with the actual changes that was a great catch by Miss daily by the way the board policy on Health Services is specifically referring to the district bringing Health Services onto school campuses so we would have like a Health Center on campus and we felt like that wasn't some that wasn't a direction that we were able to go at this point so we pulled it back it is something that could come in the future and at which point we would bring a board policy at that time but it was a little misleading in the fact that we don't have it now correct ready for question um in the things that I've read for the preliminary formation of our um community school thank you very much Miss daily with a brain um that at the time that we begin going through establishing the framework for our community school that this some would be something that would work very well with with our community school services what we had talked about um at the the last collaboration about that Community Schools Grant was we would start working with building those intentional collaborative relationships with those outside Health agencies so we can make connections with parents on behalf of appointments connecting to Services Etc rather than a physician a nurse somebody coming onto campus and actually providing the service which is okay two different directions so that will really be kind of built out as we go through the community school process yes thank you there it appears as though there there is a difference with reality and perception so thank you for clarifying that absolutely any other questions um not particularly from me for for you mascala but I do have a just um did somebody else have some okay I thought I heard another voice I'm sorry I just want to clarify in 6174 as Jay said my error uh we're looking to delete part of that there's some recommendations from csba which we looking through we felt were pretty onerous on our part to do those kinds of things we liked most of the policy somehow my communication was going to delete the whole policy we don't want to delete all policy we want to delete a section of the recommendation from csba so I think we'll bring that back in two weeks again and with that clarification in there and make it really noticeable to you guys is that board policy 6174 and so um tonight when we do our motion will we be pulling so it's like sorry no action right okay but so I guess my follow-up question what I was really getting to is that going to come back for a first read next time okay so the next time we see the rest of these for Action this one won't be included for Action it will be a first read and then we'll also okay yep thank you do you guys click on the um I didn't wasn't able to grab my computer coming tonight would you mind clicking on parent Guardian notifications 514-516 I'm also going blind because I'm over 50 years old now so thank you for that that enlargement this is just kind of maybe Technical and non-substantive changes would that be right yeah right okay okay yeah right I remember seeing that this morning when I went over this agenda so as always feel free to call or email me if you have any questions regarding the policies and then we will bring them all forward with the exception of the one that looked like it was completely deleted and was not so we'll bring those all forward for approval at our next meeting this is informational in other words correct all right um with that that's our last item under 9.3 for the board which just takes us to item 10 items from the floor I do see that um Miss Gina backs is here so we'll take your public comment at this time yeah um as you're on your way up here uh I read the whole thing earlier but just a reminder that at 30 seconds you'll hear the bell and that's just a reminder that you have 30 seconds left to speak and then we can't respond I'm a VC mother of five I'm always crazy anyway so I'm here to request um you reconsider your decision regarding the parental secrecy policy you adopted at your April meeting I'm here to support Michelle Cooper's resolution for the past three years I've been coming to these meetings to learn and educate myself about the way the school system works in this country and I have seen the same patterns of decision making in almost all these meetings your decision making is always based on the principles of diversity equity and inclusion and how these principles would affect minorities and other groups of Interest but I saw those principles being ignored at the April meeting we had the transitioners victims of sexual abuse and even a transgender person rapidly sharing their stories about the horrible consequences of keeping secrets from parents yet their stories were ignored so how can we talk about diversity when these people in their stories were totally ignored how can we talk about Equity when this decision gave results to only a vocal minority whose leaders don't even have any children so have never raised one how can we talk about inclusion while excluding parents how can we talk about diversity when cultural sensitivity cultural differences and cultural perspectives were absent while making these decisions you should have taken into consideration that children from different ethnic populations religions and backgrounds are held to different expectations and come from families where sexuality and subjects of that matter are sacred conversations reserved for the moment parents decide is the appropriate time to do so there there were other issues that were ignored such as the language barrier many immigrants children experience certain disabilities and mental issues we cannot talk about privacy when you're making your sexuality Public public assuming every kid's struggling emotionally is a perfect candidate for gender and transition it's as dangerous as assuming all parents are evil so how so far we have seen seven school districts who have passed the policy against secrets to parents and it's time for Chico Unified to do the right thing I know this is not easy and we might have another lawsuit coming but I'm confident we will win because the law is on our side school should be places to connect families to resources that will help children to learn how to have better communication with their caregivers thank you all right that's all I have on our list for tonight for items from the floor and so we can move along to number 11 which is board member request to agenda as an item at this time no board member requests to submit an agenda have been received but just a reminder to encourage all board members that want to agenda as an item to go ahead and submit the requests according to what we had decided on our June 28th board meeting um and then seeing no additional comments or questions uh I can ask for a motion to adjourn I move that we adjourn second all right we're adjourned thank you