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those have their own spot I'm sorry to interrupt the wrong spot yes item I comes a little bit later conference um in closed session the Board of Trustees took action in support of the following recommendation from the superintendent conference on litigation government code section 54954.5 subsection d k Parada versus avusd on a motion by opara seconded by RC the board voted unanimously to accept it and pay the claim of Kathy Parada on a vote of five zero that's it okay the board May approve the agenda as is or add or pull item from the consent agenda for discussion or action you have a motion so move second a second all in favor all right are we having a presentation Mr Pat slosher student services update [Music] I'm here briefly to introduce David wheeler I was counting up the years we'd worked together I realized I've worked with Mr Wheeler in some capacity as my sort of right hand um in the in one realm or another for half my career so um served as assistant principal at appellate high school and now works as director of student services in his eighth year in that role probably one of the longest serving in the area and so um he's going to give you some updated information there's uh samples there the slides are printed for you as well and so just a general overview of a incredibly complex part of our system Rife with law and all kinds of complexity of student program so this will be a general overview and we'll stop there at the end for questions I'll let Dave take it over and here you go okay all right thank you so much uh for this opportunity to kind of share what we're what we're doing in student services um so just um I'll go to the first slide so as a general overview what we do in in student services we serve students from pre-k through age 22 and those are the students that have some kind of special need all right and those can be a wide range of disabilities from from very minor disabilities to those that are quite severe um we in within the department we have the speech and language Pathologists who serve the students as well as our school psychologists that help to identify those disabilities of the students may have uh by way of assessment and then we have a very robust nursing services that has uh has really become much much more involved since covet has ended they all came on as as part of our coveted response and now and I'll get to that part in the end of this presentation as to some of the things that that they're participating in Mr RC mentioned one of them with the big smiles and I'll give you some numbers on that it's pretty impressive um in terms of historical growth over the last decade here in Apple Valley um we back in 2013 and 14 we had students receiving Services we had 1 572 students okay here we are 10 years later and that number has grown by about 250 students my math serves me right um and so that that's a pretty fair amount of growth considering our our our enrollment really hasn't changed um you know it's about the same as it was those those 10 years ago but our demographic of students with disabilities has has grown immensely in that time um just to give you an idea those students who are in the moderate to severe classes and I use that terminology because that is the credential that those teachers must have to teach that class has grown from eight classes those 10 years ago to 18 classes and so that that is a significant amount of growth and there there are kind of the raw numbers as well of those moderate to severe students back 10 years ago we had about 95 students being served in the district and now we have 245 which is which is a significant amount of growth all 245 of those students will be participating in our field day which happens every year at Grand Hills High School I put the date up there for you and it's in it's in the the printouts that you have March 14th is the Thursday before our uh spring break and we would love for all of you to come out and be a part of that it is an outstanding day I was not able to attend last year because of a meeting that I needed to attend down in I believe San Bernardino and it was it was probably the worst day of my year because that is the best day of the year when you get to attend that at that event so please please we would love to have you all come out to that and I'll I'll send you all the reminders as we get closer to it okay you don't have to you don't have to keep track of it um so what we've been doing this year um yeah that's it and turn too many pages um least restrictive environment is a term that we use in special education you might hear it as the the acronym lre and what that um basically is is that is a requirement of the law for students with disabilities that they be placed in the least restrictive environment and and it is incumbent upon the IEP teams to determine what that least restrictive environment is so the the least restrictive environment percentage of the day that or the percentage of the day that students spend in the least restrictive environment is is monitored by the Department of Education and it is part of our um review each year to see if we have our students in in the mainstream or general education as much as possible there is a Continuum of services that that do exist where the least restrictive environment is our general education classrooms on the campus that pertains most geographically to the student and it kind of goes from there where they then receive and I'll actually move to the next slide to kind of talk about that more where this is kind of a pyramid we put together earlier in this year yeah this year to kind of uh explain that Continuum of service as far as what the least restricted environment can be so if we look at the bottom tier there which is in that blue color it kind of talks about that where it's the general education classroom where certainly the teacher will differentiate instruction to make sure they are meeting the students needs um where they're at and then we kind of continue to move up that pyramid and you might notice on on the right side of of that pyramid all of these interventions are in the classroom and these are interventions that are that are made for students with disabilities students that have an IEP an individualized education plan um and and from the the bottom up we go from least restrictive to the more restrictive as we go up that pyramid so you you can see there in the green tier general education setting with consultation support of special education teacher Okay this may include extra time special seating things of that nature to help the students be successful as we go up general education setting with in-class support from another adult maybe a para educator acting under the direction of a res of a special education teacher resource teacher um and and continuing up integrated co-teach which is something we have really integrated more into this this school year as this is an area of of growth that we have in our district where we we need to get our students with disabilities in the least at least in a less restrictive environment meaning more in to the general education setting as we are we are um I'll just say it's a very strong area of growth and and so um as you can see there you know we have the co-teach where there are actually two teachers and that is not one teacher teaching one teacher helping students that is an actual uh Rich environment where it's language Rich where both teachers are teaching they may even be debating in the classroom to kind of stimulate the students uh you know Minds to kind of you know look at the information differently and and participate more fully um and and I'll tell you when when we started that and the first the first um co-teach classrooms that we had at least during my tenure um here in the district was about five years ago at Apple Valley high school and I'll tell you the the input that we got from students that had been basically isolated in in classrooms without were just uh with with special education students when they were able to then go participate with their general education peers uh there were statements like I don't feel stupid anymore that is that is a miraculous thing where they can they can feel you know like they're they're for lack of a better word normal because they've been kind of segregated into those classrooms and so it is something that we've kind of tried to be thoughtful about as we've moved forward um uh with that plan um and and as you can see you know there's the last couple steps there um separate classroom uh with students pulled out um and that's that's kind of the model that we've been doing where our students kind of get pulled out for some services and then there's of course the model where their students are not able to be in the the general education at all and they're in a special day class um so and kind of going into into the push that we've been moving forward this year with inclusion is is just that where we have um you know six School sites that are that are actually integrating that that co-teaching model into their campuses um it's not every School site you'll notice that and why isn't every School site doing it well like I said we wanted to be very thoughtful about our approach to this and make sure that that it was a successful plan that went forward and so we wanted to make sure that that the that the principal was able to uh at whatever site we opened it up to all the principals and we asked them you know do you have staff that is ready to do this that have a passion for this that that are are ready to make this this change and kind of delivery model and so that's why you'll see there's only six School sites there and we're hopeful that each year as the successes continue to to come forth that that will add more school sites to that so much so that eventually all School sites will have some kind of co-teaching or other types of inclusion like I mentioned before where there's you know perhaps para Educators that go into the classroom and help students because we want students to be in that general education setting first and foremost every student is a general education student and they they deserve the right to be in there and that's that's our job is to provide them those services and those supports in that general education setting um here's a Hot Topic that you may have heard about in our district this year seis stands for special education information system sace is going to take over for web IEP web IEP was what we our teachers have been using for the past probably about 15 years I think to to write IEPs to store the documents for the students that that have those those IEPs and this was something that was decided last year that we would be rolling out this year um the selpa kind of gave us a timeline as far as how that was going to roll out and to say that it's been bumpy this year is probably an understatement um you know we we have teachers that that now have had to write like handwritten IEPs where they haven't done that in about 15 years um I I know that that uh that has caused some some extra stress on the teachers but I'll say that um to kind of help with that because now we're giving our teachers a new system to write IPS with and now they're gonna have to write them by hand which they haven't done in you know more than a decade Priscilla Avila who is our coordinator of student services I really need to sing her Praises here she has been instrumental um in in helping to roll out the new SASE program with the with the teachers and and staff she comes to us from a district where she had used safes for many many years and is really our resident expert and very proficient at it and so prior to us even getting access to to SASE she was she was holding trainings uh to kind of help that the teachers hopefully lower their anxiety to use these forms and to show them how to to fill them out and kind of say well this is what the verbiage was in web IAP this is what it means in SASE um up until just last week um we were able to start getting the teachers their their login information for sace we held uh six trainings over three days after school to crack kind of help help them walk walk them through how to use that software certainly they all know how to write IEPs but they needed help in kind of navigating the new software and so that is something that that we've done in out of out of those three uh six trainings we've trained 130 people so 92 of those were teachers so we had a we had a good turnout of that we will be holding more trainings uh once we come back from fall break and those will be during the school day to help those those teachers that weren't able to make the after school trainings because of whatever commitments they may have which is completely understandable um and we will continue to offer support for sace throughout the school year Priscilla Avila like I mentioned she's been she's been our biggest support with that she's been offering office hours all school year before and after school um to help teachers write IEPs in the new the new format and we have had many teachers take us up on that she's also conducted trainings at school sites um where you know there have been teachers that have come in and participated and so it's we're hopeful that um that when we come back from fall break we can get the rest of the folks trained and be able to start using that program and I I'm the feedback that we've gotten from a few teachers that we've kind of used as our guinea pigs if you will uh to kind of say you know could you use this on an IEP and kind of let us know what you feel might be some feedback that teachers might need help with and and she says that she's she's in love with the program and it's just so user friendly but we just have we have to have people use it for them to now have confidence with it so how that is something that is coming um moving on to the uh we've been holding a couple we've held some parent workshops this year which has been super um super cool honestly because we've had Parents show up and here they are they they may not have a background in education or in special education and we have provided them with the opportunity to come and learn some techniques and some some strategies to help their students um that we had to make and take Workshop where they came and maybe they made a visual schedule that they can have at home for their students to help them navigate their lives at home or maybe some other kinds of communication devices or or things like that we had a workshop where we went over IEP processes and so um you know it's it's important that we help the parents understand because they they don't necessarily have the guidebook on this and so that that's another service that also has been headed up by Priscilla as she oversees kind of our professional development also of the development of our parents in that way too the the district nurses have really taken on a lot of really cool projects and and things as as we've as we've transitioned out of the coveted years where where they were really just doing covet testing and and counting numbers and whatnot um and uh CPR certification so in fact we had a CPR class going on in the gym uh while you guys were well you all were in closed session so um in that group we had some we had some coaches from the high school um that were taking part in that so they are CPR trained um they're also training new employees with the CPR requirement that that they have to have to be employed um teachers if they need it um and they will soon be working with the students and the medical Pathways to provide them that CPR training all free of charge the district is covering that cost um so that is that is one cool thing they're doing Narcan which we're all familiar with the fentanyl um you know really crisis that's been going on in the county and really everywhere um that has been distributed at all sites in the abusd 197 have people have been trained it's a voluntary training that they that they have to say yeah I want to know how to use this our nurses have trained 197 of those people to to administer that life-saving medication so that's a big rock that was moved vaccination clinics has been something that that we've attempted to do in the past and we've had we've had some but not with the great success that we've had recently by way of a partnership with the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health and our registered nurses in the district we have held nine shot clinics since May of 2023.
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even in those cases um that the existence of those funds is going to get need to get reported on the so-called FAFSA on the form that that the uh that the federal government would use or or requires it in many public institutions and those funds are typically also reportable on any other private college forms and it has been my experience although this obviously varies from school to school that typically when colleges are evaluating the availability of scholarship or loan funds to a student if they determine that the student has funds or has access to funds or will have eventual access to funds they will often subtract those funds dollar from dollar dollar for dollar from the amount that they're willing to give the student in student aid so as they tell people you know you may find that you thought you were funding you were giving money to your grandchild but you're really giving it to Harvard because they ended up shrinking the uh the aid package they would have given because of all of that so it may be that you want to do that you can also certainly put money into so-called 529 plans those are the plans um and there are there are other there are other kinds of plans that are like 529 plans that are kind of specific to certain industries basically the concept of a 529 plan is that you're putting money into an account uh you are the the the the the income that is being earned on that money is not getting taxed while the money is in there and as long as the money ultimately ends up getting used to pay for that child's education uh the money ends up never getting taxed uh however the the person who has that 529 account or it or a like account can always get the money back the issue is that of course if they take the money back at the time they get the money back the income that has accrued from the interest or dividends or whatever at that point there's going to be a tax on that income the other thing about these the 529 plans is is that people should be aware for so many among seniors for Mass Health Asset Protection purposes even if the money is in a 529 plan for your grandchildren because you have the ability to get it back uh if you later need to qualify for Mass Health and there is money in there for Mass Health purposes that's money is still yours you have to cash it in pay the tax and spend it down on nursing home care before you can qualify for Mass Health um you know one of the one of the questions regarding any of those issues is if your if one of your children has died and you've got money that is going to the grandchildren who's the trustee managing the money for the benefit of the grandchildren we would typically recommend that you sh that shouldn't be a spouse right because we've had situations now once again you you know your family situation we don't right lawyers don't but we certainly had situations where someone dies a younger person and the spouse remarries and suddenly finds himself or herself having raising the original children your grandchildren and raising these other children and then having trust money available for some and not for others and that's just not a good situation to put that spouse in so in so typically we advise that if if your concerned that if a spouse if a child dies where does the money go typically we recommend that another one of your children be named as the trustee for the benefit of the um of the grandchildren finally there are all these um considerations regarding how to deal with this what's the best vehicle for doing all of this stuff well certainly there's a will and then if you've got any of these issues regarding a particular child that will couldn't contain any of the trust Provisions that we talked about there is joint ownership of assets or there's there's there is a provision that you could put regarding many of Mary's bank accounts and things where when she dies the children simply receive the money or there's irrevocable and amendable trust each of these has pluses and minuses certainly the easiest is to Simply put assets and Joint names with your kids or to name your kids as the death beneficiaries uh if the assets are in joint names with Peter for example then at the moment of Mary's Death Peter gets all the assets nothing goes through probate it's very easy bad news is that if Peter ends up to be not as nice a guy as Mary had hoped uh Peter can just grab that money at any time because he's the joint owner it may be not the right answer the second solution is often to have a will that's a that was is traditionally a common solution through which you can divide up all the assets do all the things that we just talked about the only problem with with owning assets at the time you die is that if you have they're being distributed through a will just like if they're being distributed through intestacy before assets can be distributed creditors have to get paid in Massachusetts creditors have one year from day of death to file a claim against the probate estate which means that assets don't get distributed for at least a year then of course there were the legal fees of going through the probate process and it's an easier Forum to have arguments the final Choice therefore and the choice that many seniors will will adopt if this is their only issue is in their estate planning is making sure that things are distributed correctly after they die and they're not worried about nursing homes and other issues would be to have a revocable and amendable Trust revocable means whatever Mary puts into the trust she can take out amendable means she can change it anytime while she's alive she'd be the trustee but she would name one of her kids as the successor trustee and then the child immediately could following Mary's death uh distribute all of the assets I was going to talk a little bit about Cottages but I'm not because I'm um looking at my clock and wanted to make sure that we covered all of the issues that are the basic issues that Mary needs to know about regarding these the uh Distributing assets to her kids and to our grandkids I hope this was hope helpful for you as I mentioned at the beginning your situation is not necessarily Mary's it may be similar but it's never going to be exactly right exactly the same we really need to talk to a lawyer about making sure you get all of this right thank you very much for watching and I look forward to seeing you uh in the next seminar episode next month thank you
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I know I was about me that's okay you don't have to raise your hand because that you know everybody will be thinking how old are they now anyway um it is with distinct pleasure and honor that I am going to ask Mr uh Bernie Temple to come forward if you would please all right Bernie there he is okay I knew he was here he was hiding he was hiding in the back he always hides in the background because that's what I was told that's where he does his best work is in the background of things Mr Templer my pleasure sounds good on behalf of the National Day committee and I'm sorry this couldn't have been Saturday September 23rd on a beautiful day like today but you know when you listen to forecasters when I come back in the next life I'm going to be a forecaster because no matter if you're right or wrong you still get paid and you still have a job so I will like to present this to you on behalf of the Ashland Day committee as citizen of the year A Brief History of Mr Temple and the reason why we thought it was best to present this award to to Bernie Bernie's been involved in the Scout since 2006 so that's a little over 17 years I believe he started with troop 23 in 2010 when Ben Advanced to the troop 23 he attended a lot of the winter camping trips with his son and when he crossed over to Scouts he continued the uh the five mile hike through the snow and waist deep snow sounds like that's the way he went to school back and forth Waist Deep right but your dedication to this troop over the years and and I can attest since being uh on the board for a number of years having attended many Eagle Scouts not not just a single Scout but many and we found out how many over 52 Eagle Scouts over those years quite the distinction my friend and that's the leadership of the troop and that comes from you and it comes from everybody that's part of that troop leadership and now that you folks have Merced 232 uh it's it's a it's an honor and privilege so I just want to say thank you to what you have done thank you uh for being part of the Mayflower console and I believe you're still uh part of the eagle scout projects that that'll go on in town and heavily involved with Saint Cecilia's and and other matters of the public schools you've been married uh Jacqueline uh your daughter is 27 she goes to UMass Ben is 24 and he's in his third year as an assistant engineer so you know these folks are not just you know they also have smarts too they're good looking they're smart so they must follow their parents in many many ways uh you're an avid Boulder we were a little surprised and shocked that we were told you may not be around on the 23rd because you may be down uh with your boat and it would have been probably a real chore to pull you away from that so that was the reason why we try to keep it to get you here and he's on the board of directors of big Indian which is uh greatly appreciated and uh the name of your boat is called what's up what's up okay see we do our homework yeah good detective always does his homework and your rear commodore of the club I understand out of one and with all these with everything that he has and does he still has time to go boating and spend time with his family and enjoy life and but more importantly enjoy Scouting For over the years that you've continued doing it and it's it's this is it right here this is I this is our heritage this is the history of Ashland right here with Scouts like you Eagle Scouts that's what you that's what you strive for and Ashland has been very fortunate to have great leadership with the Boy Scouts to become Eagle Scouts so I can see a good portion of you working hard to become an eagle scout and it's because of the efforts of Bernie and all the other staff members of The Troop and again congratulations sir you are a leader and a half and you're a prime example of what a role model should be for Ashland all right so thank you very much hold on there bro I don't know stay right here you're not done you're still being roasted I mean you're still being honored let's just stay here I just figured it's a congratulations Bernie I think it's I'll just read the proclamation from the select board from this uh can everybody hear me all right so I'm not going to repeat all the things that Joe said but uh uh the shortened version is whereas uh Bernard Bernie Temple has been chosen as the Ashland citizen of the Year by the Ashland Day committee for his volunteerism and the significant contribution he has made to scouting over the years and he's got this list of accomplishments now therefore we the select board do hereby Proclaim Saturday September 23rd 2023 as Bernie Temple day we were Joel residents to make known their appreciation for his Devotion to scouting and to the town of Ashland we wish him good health and good fortune signed Robert share chair Ashland select board congratulations Bernie good job so we should do a picture right yeah too bad uh Yolanda and does that any select board members want to say anything that's a kind of Russian I'll just add my thanks um and you know I would and I would just say this is quite the Legacy that you've built so um and I I would say to all the scouts here there was a very polite Round of Applause and I think you could all do better than that what do you say I want to hear it all right and and just thank you thank you for all that that you've done on behalf of our community because you've made our community a much better place so thank you so thank Claudia and you you can uh go ahead and unmute yourself too thank you thank you you know I'm really sorry that I couldn't be there tonight uh to celebrate Mr Temple because uh you know he is uh certainly been a leader in our community and and I think there's nothing more important than uh you know people who lead for our children and certainly uh he has done a tremendous job I know that I have witnessed around town in the Town Forest perhaps and some other locations some of the projects that have been completed um under his leadership of of the Eagle Scouts and that so I I do want to thank him I don't know if he knows this but uh I was actually at his wedding when he married uh Mrs Temple who was my daughter's first grade teacher at the time and she invited all her students um to go and and and be there for their wedding so um so I've I've known him and his family for many years and certainly they have both touched the children of our community in so many respects and so I thank you for that and uh I wish I could be there to see all the Boy Scouts I bet I know a few of them and uh and they and very polite Applause I can tell you uh guys on on air it looks like you're just putting your hands together and there's no noise at all so so I'm glad uh that Miss Kinsman uh had you had to share again so thank you it is uh special when people lead our children thank you we want to take a picture of you over here too yeah we said yeah let's get uh look at me all right take a knee crazy oh holy cows I got you perfect that's awesome [Music] yes [Laughter] I was like they're welcome to stay and I don't think they probably I didn't get my homework done because I had to be here that's a great excuse okay all right so you're gonna go back yeah I'm gonna go back up front thank you Mrs Carmichael always a pleasure okay we're not quite done yet we still have other groups of recognition and I apologize for maybe being a little over over time but I think these folks deserve the recognition over the over this past couple of years in addition to the citizen of the Year award the Ashland Day committee also has an award that's usually uh on the field and it's called the Grand Marshal Field Marshal of the Year award and that goes to a group of individuals who uh oh that's not me I hope it's not me anyway I feel like dancing um it's um again this is a this is a an award that goes to different committees throughout Town who show a community Spirit a community need and the Ashland Day committee felt it was in the best interest of the town of Ashland to award area which is stands for Ashland residence for equality and action and Maggie if you're here would you please come up as the representative for area yeah it'll bring everybody up if you like to come on up everyone and I know Alan's up on the screen up here you I'm well thank you well I'm sure it probably wasn't easy we would have been a heck of a lot easier if we had it on the day because you had a booth in I was just going to grab your wall and bring you up to the Gazebo that was the intention but it didn't so the field Grand Marshall September 23rd 2023 area Ashland residents for equality and action we present this from the Ashland Day committee and we want to thank you for your efforts in keeping Ashland I can do a quick history of of it was I believe it was created back in December 2020 is that sound right Michael uh June okay all right and um you have become an essential part of Ashland with all the programs that you have with the initiatives that you you provided for this for the for the folks in Ashland uh with serious discussions on this topic because it's something that needs to be heard and not just slid back in a closet we need to open that up and I think what the efforts that you all do is to see that's not me is it me oh they probably want me to hurry up um and we as leaders of the community uh they thought to establish this program and you folks taken it by the horns and you have taken it to levels that we never expected to happen but you folks with your commitment and dedication to this to this topic and this serious topic we greatly appreciate so we wanted to at least honor and recognize all your efforts in Alan I know you're up there congratulations Allen's part of our affordable housing trust then so I haven't seen him in a while but we'll be we'll be seeing each other soon and I just wanted to say thank you for all the work that you do to bring equity and equality to to the town of Ashland in all your efforts and programs and the topics and discussions so thank you thank you thank you so much thank you I'm just going to read the proclamation before your speech if that's okay Bernie didn't have a speech but he should have okay um so where is Ashland residents for equality and action area has been chosen as a field Grand Marshal for Ashland day 2023 the Ashland Day committee selected area for a number of reasons including their dedication and Devotion to the well-being of the community I won't go through every point in here so Joe talked a lot about it whereas area Works ensure that people of color have a voice and are represented on local boards and committees and area works with the school to ensure people of color are represented to have a voice and whereas area promotes people of color to run businesses and MetroWest and highlights these businesses as economic development agencies and now therefore we the select board do hereby Proclaim Sunday September 24 2023 as area day we urge all residents to make known their appreciation for the Devotion to Residents businesses and employees of the town of Ashland we wish you all good health and good fortune signed Robert chair Ashland select board congratulations to all of you here's this and go ahead and go ahead if you wish to say something yes Junior area members could you please come up [Music] area has been working with adults and also we make sure that the next generation is also involved in this work and areas set out in June 2020 to uh to start work around diversity equity and inclusion and I would love to thank the town of Ashland the community of Ashland Our Town manager all the boards especially select board for uh being a voice for us and calling us to the table I would love to thank all the Committees in town and the other kind of clubs in town that area members have been able to be a part of and we've been welcomed I would like to thank the school Ashland Public School leaders to accepting and inviting us to be at the table and be part of this important conversations I would also love to thank the Ashland Police Department the fire department when we have the events they've been you know being able to come to the table and having this tough conversation and I recently voted the you know Town manager that speak about that the vote that went through uh enable you know increased uh number of to make it easier for the police to be you know higher than that which will also help us work continue to work together to help with community policing I think shortage was what part of the issue but we hope to now be able to hold some events and have people of color be more involved and be able to narrow that Gap and the fear and improve relationships between police and the people of color and if I left anybody else I think that's the things police what else the school department businesses what I think Beth from working Senti uh you know Sandy's kitchen and all other businesses have gotten increased visibility uh as a part of the hard work and again thanking the entire community of Ashland for uh you know welcoming us and actually working doing this work and actually not just on paper but actually doing the footwork and making the voices heard and helping these efforts move forward so we're very very grateful to everyone thank you forever do you have anything start getting on but yes um like Maggie just said you know truly it's a great thanks to the town of Ashland you know it's something that we studied and everyone was open everyone we talked to was opening to hearing us to hear what the plans are and help us how to to be successful in whatever plans we were planning on doing um and we have a lot of members that are joined different groups even just encouraging people that even if you're not part of a group you know like they most groups always have you know citizens participation if you have if you want to see some change you got to be part of it so we continue to hope it's going to continue working together with the town thank you everyone thank you so much well thank you so much we're very appreciated just um right before this was this was a great surprise I have to say this area board members and not the easiest in all good ways my job was to surprise them I tried and had a lot of questions but uh so we're glad we're here and some of them so I just want to just just really quick because I've known I've known Maggie through our work with leadership Metro West and I've gotten to know area over the last couple years and just I just want to thank you for the work that you're doing because you have made us more aware and better like if it wasn't for area I don't know if we would have done a racial Equity study a couple years ago I don't know if that would have translated into the Deni Task Force and and the work that we're currently doing um and the partnership with area is is incredibly important to us because the work is incredibly important to our community we always say that we want to be an inclusive community and any way that we can be better and do more that is at least you know my one of my priorities is always to do more and I think the the way that we do that is is in Partnership and by listening and trying to um um Embrace change which sometimes isn't easy but I think is for the best for our community so I just wanted to thank you for the heart and the soul that that area is and um you guys have a great group I mean it is such a great community of of people that Advocate and that um turn things into action so I just wanted to say that Maggie and Aria have have been um have have mobilized to help um recently the the families in Framingham the migrant families and have taken carloads of things over to help our neighbors in Framingham and so it really is a uh it it's it's it's neighbors helping neighbors and and um such a community spirit and just thank you all for all the work that you do anyone else really comments from I think Claudius Claudia yeah I really want a second a little bit of what Brandi just said and and uh really thank you all for you know helping us to learn and explore and really celebrate the richness of our community um because I agree with with Randy if it wasn't for you folks I'm not sure we would be as far as we've come today and and with the hope of going further in the future so you know thank you for all of your efforts to um to to help us you know like I said learn explore and celebrate the richness of our community thank you yeah I I will just I won't repeat what everybody else said but I will say thanks and uh the work that you're doing is hard work and it doesn't go unnoticed obviously and uh you're well well deserving of this recognition and much more thank you so much thank you so much Claudia thank you so much yeah thanks so we'll have a picture of you we're very humble and thank you curves okay ready okay ready you want to hold it up hold on and we have a good picture all right everybody looking up at me thank you yeah congratulations I'll be really shy tonight [Music] that was good yeah absolutely in 2024 .
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now what those shot clinics are as you know there are certain vaccinations that are required for students to attend school and in the past because we've struggled to get vaccination clinics here for our students we've we've had to exclude students that didn't have those vaccinations and and it's that's heartbreaking as an educator to say yeah you can't come to school and so we have served 249 students by way of those vaccination clinics with 616 vaccinations because many of them had more than one that they needed this certainly has minimized the the exclusions that have had to occur this year most sites have had zero exclusions some sites have had a couple and and they've been able to participate in the vaccination clinic and and they're back in school so it's been a complete turnaround we a few years ago we had a few hundred students that we had to unfortunately exclude for a short period of time and that like I said that's heartbreaking that that is not our business to kick kids out of school so that is that is a huge rock that has been moved by by the district nurses um like Mr RC said big smiles is another partnership with the San Marino County Department of Public Health as well as dentists and really the Southern California region they have come to the schools um and they have um they have helped um provide students with with dental care that they they may not have had access to um and if you'd like to know more more about the program I put the kind of the website there smile sbc.org so if you'd like to check that out after after the meeting you can so far eight schools have participated in the big smiles and I listed those there um with 332 total students having been seen by our by those dentists every single one of those students received a cleaning um some received you know fluoride veneers uh or Florida um I guess they call it veneer treatment as well as some sealant if they TF their teeth needed it um 30 of those students that were seen received restorative care and what that means is cavities the cavities were filled and many many more many of those students had many more than just one cavity that needed to be filled and those were those were things that were provided on the spot when those dentists saw them um so that is another way that we're helping students stay in school um as the the county has identified the dental health is one of the greatest needs across across our County and and if they have good dental health they will also have good health in general which will allow them to stay in school more um and as as the dentists have identified students that needed more in-depth follow-up our RNs have been following up with them providing them with other providers that will give that more intensive treatments that they need to get them get them where they need to be health-wise any questions sorry I know I talked a bunch there real quick but any questions and on that yes please not so much a question but I wanted to say please tell it was Priscilla right yes tell her thank you because I have been stopped twice at Stater Brothers to like listen to complaints about safes understood yeah and we will definitely tell her I have a question on says yes um I I know this was not uh something that is a district set up is something that cell phone set up um but school started in August and the IEPs don't stop you know so we don't wait for supper to get say it's going um so those teachers were busy writing IEPs by hand says is back on who is transcribing their IEP back into space because my this is my this is my uh issue when supper knew they did not have this ready to go they should have left web IEP in place until seis was ready so that these teachers can continue the process and they can easily transfer it but now we have a lot of IEPs that were written by hand who is transcribing it back into sales because this IEP is still continuing teachers are still doing their IEPs they really they have no time to pause and pull the IEP they've already done into sales so it's South Park going to be responsible for getting that IEP back on yes so we we made that point well known at our monthly steering committee meetings and uh selpa has hired additional clerical staff to input all that information so it is not going to go back on our teachers thank you all right great job thank you now we have discussion information footsteps to Freedom superintendent Nelson and yes it does September board meeting August board meeting um Miss apara had asked about getting the information I received it after our September board meeting and sent it out to the board the information is um was provided to all board members I just have to have direction from the um in a consensus model from the board if we're going to participate um it includes a cost of sixty four hundred and fifty dollars per participant it also includes eight days participants have to have a um passport because they do travel into Canada and so if it's the desire of the board for me to um put a budget together to do this then I will work with Mariana Torres in our equity and access as the Director of equity and access to identify staff and I am aware that a board member is interested in going and if the board gives me direction I'll move forward I just need I need some direction from the entire board in a majority okay I'm going to start with that I'm going to start with that one um I do know that District participates in all kinds of activities and we don't usually get involved in the actual decision of curriculum we you do your curriculum and you just let us know we go for it there's a whole lot of things that our district is is been known to do and we've never had to have a discussion on on whatever it is we we do safe and civil we never had a discussion the board the district tells us that's what we need to do and we go for it we've never had to discuss what we do in terms of our Avid or or the all of the other programs that we have that enhances our educational process never have have we had to have a discussion on the board on this particular matter and as I was reading the information that we have on the lcap because I have always maintained that the my guiding force is that lcap and I think Mr Schlosser did a really good job of putting together the lcat that we are that is our blueprint as a district and our blueprint I said District says that we have to do something for lcap number six and this is part of number six you cannot learn about a people if you don't want to know what the people went through so as far as I'm concerned this should never really be a discussion item it should really be an item of how we're going to go about it getting it done but we don't need to discuss that's my opinion I will do whatever the board directs the board by law indicates that if I have a request from a board member that I ship I provided out to all board members and because it was in public session during a board meeting I followed that guidance I've sent it back I just want to make sure that we are when we make decisions about how which is staff's responsibility that we are mindful of the dollars that we are utilizing that are student dollars and when we do this we are always focused on those things and my impact to staff is and students is overarching um the cost of this is larger than I have ever sent to stop on anything well it's 6 450 per participant um and I would suggest that if we're going to do this that we have a process by which I have direction to budget this in the future as well because if I have 10 slots which I don't even know if I have but if I have 10 slots then I want to be able to continue that process for others that might be interested in that participation in future years as well so um to get to Maria's plan on discussion I think it's wise to discuss I mean we're talking about sending staff out of the country so I mean this is a little different than so are we saying we're going to send 10 people at 6 400.
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all right if I get people back to order you don't have to set up that's above and beyond great thank you for coming in so that was thank you very much miss those thank you thank you Joe for in the Ashland Day committee for bringing forth the citizen of the year and the Grand Marshal very nice so um Switching gears a little bit our next agenda item is reviewing and signing the intuition anticipation note documents for the mendesk school in the amount of 17 million 458 a thousand one hundred and three dollars with a net interest cost of three point eight eight five percent and I'll turn that over I think to the town manager sure of course and shortly I'll turn it over to our town Treasurer collector uh Cindy cincotta but um just to remind everybody that this is uh essentially the last tranche of money that we're borrowing for the Mendez school project it did come out to 17 million 458 000 so we netted out what we get from the msba from reimbursement that's we have to do that and um Cindy why don't you come up here and you can let us know first of all um how many bets we got and who was the the winner and um so we went out to Market on September 26th we received five bids um in order to compare bids with different coupon interest rates the market convention is to use net interest cost which is net interest cost which deducts the premium bid from the coupon interest so we're looking what the town actually pays in net interest so um the winner was TD Securities they had the lowest interest cost and yeah we also had Jeffrey's LLC Bank of New York Mellon Oppenheimer and Company and fidelity so we had a bit of Interest so and so just to remind everybody this is a band so we'll be we'll be borrowing this is a one-year ban so we'll be borrowing for basically permanently probably next year I don't know we might we might do another band it depends but the way we're going to structure this one is also as basically the payment's going to be structured like a bond so there will be a print not only will there be an interest payment there will be a principal payment as well and Cindy thank you and thank you finance team thank you for all you had work soon all right questions from the board or so I have a question so I know that you said that this like Nets out the um the msba reimbursement but I think if I remember correctly there's still going to be like one final adjustment that's going to happen with the msba based on the additional funding that came through on the state level so this is this does not include that correct so whatever that anticipated amount is is that why we're only doing one year because we know that it will that that amount will change one of the reasons yeah the other one is that the um the interest rate Outlook actually looks like in a year interest rates might be a little bit more favorable than they are right now so okay that's another reason okay good good point that's a good that's a good reason that would be great and then can I just add a that sure go ahead Claudia yeah so in addiction yeah in addition to that um we still have more um sorry um we still have additional funding coming from the state um but we're just about at the 95 percent reimbursement rate and so there's a they they lock us down at that point until we're ready to close out at which time the additional five percent of um that they're offering us will be available at that time but the reimbursement gets locked down when you hit not the 95 of what you're going eligible for um now just procedurally we have this vote of the select board to be certified by the clerk uh who's Joe and Johnny do we need to read does someone need to read this book you do I do okay well have at it I'm ready good time [Music] talks amongst your cells it's a little long I had the clerk of the select vote of the town of Ashland Massachusetts certified that at a meeting of the board held on October 4th 2023 of which meeting all members of the board were duly notified and at which a quorum was present the following votes were unanimously passed all of which appear upon the official record of the board in my custody voted we hereby determine in accordance with General Law chapter 70b that the cost of the David Mendez Elementary School construction project authorized by a vote of the Town passed on January 23 2021 Article 2 being financed with proceeds of a portion of the notes defined below together with all other bonds and notes of the Town previously issued to pay costs of this project does not exceed the portion of the total cost of the project that is not being paid by the school facilities Grant and we hereby approve the issuance of notes bonds to finance this project under General Law chapter 70b further voted to approve the sale of a 17 million 588 thousand a hundred and three dollars at five percent General obligation Bond anticipation notes the notes of the Town dated October 10 2023 in payable October 10 2024 to D to TD Securities USA LLC at prior and accured interest in any Plus premium of 196 107.35 cents further noted that a connection with the marketing and sale of notes the preparation and distribution of the notice of sale and preliminary official statements dated September 19 2023 and a final official statement dated September 2023 and each such form as may be approved by a town Treasurer be in here by ratified confirmed and approved and adopted further voted that at the Town Treasurer and that the select would be in hereby authorized to execute and deliver a significant Advance disclosure undertaking in compliance with SEC rules 15 C 2-12 in such form as may be approved by Bond Council to the town of which undertaking shall be incorporated by reference in the notes for the benefit of the holders of the notes from time to time further voted that we authorize and direct the town Treasurer to establish post-insurance federal tax compliance procedures and continuing disclosure procedures in such forms as the town Treasurer and bond Council deemed sufficient or if such procedures are currently in place to review and update set procedures in order to Monitor and maintain taxed exempt status of these notes and to comply with relevant security laws further voted that any certificates or documents relating to the notes collectively the documents may be executed in several counterparts Each of which shall be regarded as an original and all of which shall constitute one and the same document delivery of an executed counterpod of the signature page a document by electronic mail or a PDF file or by other electronic transmission cell b as effect as delivery of a manually executed counterpart signature page to such document and electronic signatures on any government shall be Dean original signatures for the purposes of this document and all matters relating thereto having the same legal effect as other signatures further voted that each member of the select board the Town Clerk and the town treasury be in hereby are authorized to take any and all such actions and execute and deliver such certificates receipts or other documents as may be determined by them or any or any of them to be necessary or convenient to carry into effect the provisions of the foregoing votes I further certified that the votes were taken at a meeting open to the public that no vote was taken by secret prowl and that notice stating the place date time and agenda for this meeting which agenda included the adoption of the above votes was filed with the Town Clerk and a copy therefore posted in a manner conspicuously visible to the public at all hours in or in municipal buildings and that the office of the town clerk is located or if applicable in accordance with the alternative method and notice prescribed or approved by the attorney general has set forth in 1994.
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no it's 6450 per participant that's the cost of the travel um I don't have the information as to other fees that would be associated with that I think it's an inclusive for that portion for the the travel um we as a district reimbursed um people to get to the airport we reimburse parking those types of things so this really isn't a solid figure it could be up to eight nine thousand dollars well I I have included a a little bit more than just the 6400s that would that would have been about sixty five thousand dollars so I put it as not to exceed 75.
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thank you siama 29.03 paragraph 2 Section B at least 48 hours and not including Saturdays Sundays are legal holidays prior to the time of the meeting it remains so posted at the time of this meeting that no deliberations or decisions or connections with the sale of these notes were taken an executive session all in accordance with General Law chapter 38 subsection 18 through 25 as amended this date October 4th 2023 signed by Joe mignani Clerk of the select board all right thank you Joe I will take that as a motion and look for a second I'll second that motion's been made and seconded no seeing no further discussion we will now vote on the motion all those in favor say signify by saying aye hi opposed not opposed motions unanimous the bond issuance is approved all right great thank you thank you thank you for all the awards thanks for coming up Cindy yeah all right okay so the next um the next presentation is from our assistant Town planner Alvaro Esparza about he's put together a presentation with some ideas about the Cadillac paint uh area and its restoration at 409 Elliott Street thank you Alberto go ahead when you're ready yes thank you uh I'm ready buddies on online you folks are allowed to move forward in the room you may not watch it I'm glad to share from here oh yeah who's the host could you please ask her make us so everybody while we're doing that this is Alvaro Esparza who's been our assistant Town planner for I'm going to say six months but it's been longer right what a veteran huh definitely a vet but he's been a wonderful addition to the planning staff and has certainly become Peter's right hand and Rob like you had mentioned uh Alvaro took an interest in the Cadillac paint property and I had a couple of ideas and put those together we've already talked about it with Ed earlier this week and just kind of gauge his his interests and thoughts on it before presenting to you and it looks like Alvaro is ready so my time up here is up okay great thank you thank you Michael um yeah so yeah so a few weeks back we went to kind of like paint to with death economic director and Peter the town planner we went over there to kind of like see and but it was showing us what was the progress that was happening over there and so I asked what was going to be the next step of this um of this area and then she told me that there was no really like a clear idea of what was going to be the next step that you know like possibilities of like Parks or something like that could be um and so previously when I was in college I did a volunteer working in Arboretum but it was part of my University and I genuinely enjoyed because I'm personally not around from New England and I feel like being in that space taught me a lot and I was able to see and learn a lot about the different agriculturally different trees the different type of plants that are around this area and so I thought that was space will be actually ideal for something like that and so of course the location that we are asking this Arboretum to be will be on Fourier 409 Elliott Street um former known as Cadillac paint and just kind of like the definition of Arboretum is a place where trees shrubs and herbaceous plants are cultivated for a scientific and educational purposes and I think that's kind of like the main point that we are trying to create in this space you know I think that it would have been great if all the Boy Scouts would have a stay because I felt like that would have been a perfect connection um because you know like these spaces will be actually meant for that you know kind of like bringing different species of trees of plants of shrubs of grasses and actually giving a space for the community to actually be to see it um how they look when they are like full grown have a lot of signaging information so they are able actually to learn and see what a different Leaf would look from an oak tree or something like that so you will be able to see and feel um what is happening in this environment um another benefit of this area I think it would be um it will be a very positive environmental asset for the town I think you know like having a town four is having the river walk and now having an arboretum is just kind of like um a perfect like amount of development I feel like as there are more buildings and places going as for development also putting more green spaces kind of like gives the sustainable aspect to our town as they're growing and then I've been reading a lot about what their spaces mean after covet there's a lot of research of how you know like there are spaces which are kind of like the place where you find Recreation have become the phones have become all kind of like the technological aspects of our life um and so outside of your work in your home you really don't have a space to have more Recreation and I think another Rhythm will actually become that and you know it can be very um it can be a lot a lot a lot of time that you can spending in a space like this for a Community member by being a volunteer or you can have like very small time over there just by like walking and kind of like seeing the trees so I think it kind of like open up the the opportunities for the community um and so kind of like just coming back to the main idea the proposed area of course you know the history of this area but I also think that is another aspect to highlight I think kind of like creating these plays from going from a Brownfield or maybe having like a rundown building then going into a Brownfield and now becoming at these like promising area that is very recreational for all the community I think it will be a great story to be told in show um especially for like the younger generation seeing kind of like what is the progress that spaces like these can can have um and just kind of like close down that idea of here is like some pictures of how the site has progressed Through The Years so on 2017 when the old building or the former building was still existing there to 2020 when all the remediation work was going there and the cleaning of the soil and now you when you walk into this space you see something like this and I think that you know through this idea there will be even more potential to kind of like make anywhere even better and more recreational and and enjoyable to the community members um yeah so kind of just like wrap up um you know the focus of these of these projects to like provide an educational Space full of plants and trees for the community um I when I went there also I thought that maybe the size could be a limited but through doing some research I found that in lingwood New Jersey you have an arboretum that is less of an acre and in this space you will be having around 3.5 Acres so that gives plenty of space you know to to kind of like create this this area um working with the conservation agent we she put a list of all the native species that will be a possibility which I'll be showing in a second so there could be only native species that could be grown in there and that will also minimize the um the process of carrying of this area and then for funding opportunities we were thinking of working with CPC looking for state grants and also finding for the nation opportunities so you know this could be a lower lift economically for the town as well but it still could be a viable project um yeah and so lastly these are some of the species that the conservation agent put together so we could see what could be the things that could be growing over there yeah that's it thank you great so thank you Alvaro um thank you so I think I'll open it up for comments uh both from the board and from the public um and then we should spend some time talking about next steps and how this fits into the process at uh Cadillac which has been going on for quite some time so I'm just um in terms of uh comments Brandy sure and Claudia just raise your hand okay I am eating Michael had said you had some ideas thinking I'm like I wonder what like I was curious what it was going to be and I really like I really like where this is going I think that that is a really good way to encapsulate what we're trying to do there um so I really like the concept and and I think I I think it could I think it could really work um I only had a couple I have a couple of questions and then just um sort of a separate comment as well um so as far as like maintenance goes because I think one of the things that we had initially talked about it was going to be kind of a a pollinator garden and a passive Park and there wasn't going to be a lot of Maintenance so um is this something that you know can we do an arboretum with some minimal effort on like I I know it's probably going to take some effort to get everything planted and to get everything in place and but as far as like an ongoing maintenance thing I don't know is like you know DPW is going to be kind of like you know I'm just throwing that out there yeah before I before I throw in anything in there Al bro do you want to just talk a little bit about what you found in in your research yeah so um I think that the maintenance would be actually very minimal if very strategic about the species that we're picking um you know like we met with Ed and we kind of like talk about like wow could it be like some possible species that will be low maintenance mainly grasses and trees of course like the first stage of it could be a a bigger lift but I feel like um working through the funds that we will be getting to plant the trees that already will kind of like cover the first stage of Maintenance and then I think the next party will be kind of just maintain the trails we could be like mulch two times per year and that could be done through work of volunteers um so I think overall the maintenance could be covered as long as there is a good strategic plan for it okay question is um just I know you were talking like CPC and other potential funding mechanisms do we have a ballpark of what it might take to get it started beyond beyond what we've already put you know because I know that there's been funds have been put aside for for Cadillac paint but um and those will be expended after you know this this phase is completed um we don't have any hard estimates yet but um one of the things that we were thinking of is the possibility of maybe a local Nursery like you know Western Nurseries or quebecios being willing to donate okay some of these and you know in exchange for recognition as part of that that reminds me there's a there was a presentation from a guy from Western Nurseries about native plants at the Historical Society about six months ago so he sounded like somebody would be interested in a project like this so it was a great contact there yeah because so you know the idea is each of the each of the plants each of the species would have like a little educational anybody who donated or volunteers you could also acknowledge them on that you know same section as well but we don't have a firm cost yet no okay I really like that I really like the idea and I think like in my mind I start thinking about okay you're going to have little little you know plaques on the different species of things but then we can also do like a larger kiosk and kind of pay tribute to what Cadillac paint was I love that we're not going to call it Cadillac paint anymore like that needs to change but um but so I like the idea of having something that kind of talks about the history of it like what it was and then also you know some sort of kiosk that pays um that that thanks the people especially Ed that have worked so hard to make this possible because I know I know we had talked about at our last meeting we kind of talked about the whole naming it heart park or something along those lines um and so you know I I think I think we can maybe my personal feeling is maybe we we can say thank you and pay tribute to the work that you guys have done in a way that kind of honors that and at the park at the site because I think that that's really important it's important to me to make sure the whole world history yeah ladies first my generation thank you thank you no I just wanted to say um you know first of all when I was going through my uh packet and I got to these this presentation I was like oh so um you know I think sometimes that we forget how much joy um even a picture of nature um can bring us and so I thank you for it was a great presentation and certainly um like I said just to even see it in uh the pictures of what it could possibly be um you know made my heart happen so uh thank you for that and you know I I do think we have be careful in terms of uh maintenance we certainly don't want to make things um something very complicated but I'm I've certainly seen um I think most recently over uh the Cushing park there uh lots of uh I think lots of grasses in particular and they're very ornamental and um they don't seem to require much in the way of um caretaking at all and certainly um you know there are I'm sure many varieties of plants that that would fall into the same category um I also like the idea of being able to ask people in the community that might like to donate either a sum of money or particular plants that might have special meaning to them and you know I suppose we get into that we probably want to limit it to certain uh plans for the very reason that we've been talking about in terms of Maintenance but I think that could help to offset you know any some of the costs and and uh along with partnering with perhaps Western Nurseries or Vecchio or or perhaps others but um thank you it was it was a great presentation and I um it's exciting to think about those spaces in our community as we develop them thank you Jill go ahead thank you Mr chair Alva a great presentation um when I first started on that packet I said well this is really nice I I love trees and it was I was heartbroken when I saw matter Reese's uh tree gets cut down that was it was sad unfortunately it was unhealthy and it needed to come down and it it it killed John more than more than anybody else was sure um so you know to see you know planting more trees and maybe getting a similar tree not that size but for it to grow over maybe 250 years which is what that tree was I think roughly age-wise uh that would be nice and it would be a nice Legacy for the town considering what that was and and what some of the issues that it brought health-wise so I think that that would be a nice it would be a great touch and then I just wanted to thank you for all the work that you have done and and and the sacrifice that your wife had had to put up with but you know enough being around all the time so I appreciate you both and getting this project up and off the ground and maybe with the CPC monies that are available and I know the general fund we have some you know the buckets pretty deep in there so hopefully we can get that money and put it to Great use so but great great presentation and I'm looking forward to seeing the final product for sure yeah thank you thanks and I'll just uh my comments are brief yeah it looked like I like the emphasis on native plants and simple Simplicity um and I think this is a good opportunity to you know um uh you know native pollinators and and uh native plants um and putting that together so that's great and um I just had and I'm going to ask Ed to come up and comment as well but I just had a question in terms of fundraising do we have any mechanism is it worth and I'm asking this of Michael is it worth forming a non-profit for fundraising or does the town have mechanisms by which we can collect funds and use them to offset our costs um we can take in donations and do that yeah so that might be a doable yeah well sure so that may be a mechanism to talk about in the future in terms of I think you'd find a lot of support for something like this um and so you know one of the things we should so Ed do you want to come up and say a few things you hate this plan is that it that's what I heard no I like the plan yeah I like it very much and also I talked to uh five of the six director Butters of the property and ran this by them and they all like the plan and I'm sure that it'll be unanimous in the neighborhood this this is a good idea I have a few documents I'm going to give to Alvaro tour history a little longer history a few other things going on I I think it's very important as Joe said that this is a this was a place that Ashland dealt with since 1937.
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just so that we had a budget that was maybe send like history teachers well that would be as we look at this we haven't made a decision about ethnic studies as to where it will land what it will look like um whether it will be a standalone class um the if you're asking my opinion I think it should be our history social science teachers that are in the high school level conduit back to the classroom and English at 11th grade because those are the two grade levels that there are two courses in 11th grade that would be appropriate for staff to participate in um yeah initially that would be um truly the goal of this is empathy right for um a person to have an understanding of what um people went through to have freedom it is yeah I think um if trustee um Buchanan has traveled on that joined them one time right um yes but it was probably eight years ago and I know it's very different now so and and I'm more than willing to look at I mean the footsteps to Freedom also has several traveling groups that come to school districts and present it's not the same as being at a location that's the Underground Railroad I have visited two of the stops that they've done just because in my early 20s having taught fifth grade um history I was in Northeast Ohio every summer and lo and behold every day that I walked down to the lake I passed a stop on the Underground Railroad with the placard on it and I you know was amazed that I was standing next to something that I'd only read about [Music] as far as how many you know I'd leave that up to the Super Fitness office for what do you think I think it's wise that we discuss a bill I think Hawaii's move because the amount you're sending people out of the country so I'm not opposed to discussing it but I'm to move it forward I'd be agreeable to that my I agree with the Rick we need to move we move forward on that I do have to have direction for a board member because there is a board by law that says the board has to give um Authority for a board member to participate because of professional development because of the amount of money that is involved I have already stated um outside of this meeting that I was going to go but I was going to pay my way because I don't want to take money from students I really because I don't have the experience this is brand new experience I am from another country I may be whatever it is but I'm from another country I want to get to know so that I have better understanding and I cannot I cannot just go ahead and not have an understanding and this information is coming at people like me so I'm more than willing to pay my way like I said or if if the bird wants to it's totally we approved okay does the board because I know um does the board have a budget set aside for their not now we don't that's why Rick brought it up that we need to plan on this in the future I'm going to be shooting from the hip right now meaning does the board have a budget that they pull from for professionals yes is there a budget set aside at all no we have um traditionally done California School Board Association in fact when Tom was superintendent um there were many years that we didn't travel North for the California school boards Association they only did the southern version so they went every other year um in the recent history obviously we didn't go to California school boards Association when everything was shut down but we have California school boards Association we do as a group anybody that's interested and then there are the um the coast to coast has been one that has been added because it's advocacy and that's limited because they don't always allow more than one or two board members and then um we do the um San Bernardino County um California school boards Association group and then we do the joint meetings with San Bernardino and Riverside County and that's usually the training and any other boardsmanship pieces because that's what is identified in um training for board members so there's no budget for that Matt sets aside based on um the the knowing things that we do um if anybody agrees you put together a plan where you can send to teachers that we could develop it into part of the studies for history what how many do you think would be I wouldn't be opposed to sending Maria if she wanted to go and actually sit you know having the District of the system the travel and things like that I don't think she used to pay completely out of her pocket now yeah I don't know but you know so I don't want to take it away from them or something okay well let's so what I'll do yeah you don't need to have a mission I just have to I've heard the majority I saw nods in there unless there's somebody that wants to say something else and so what I'll do is I'll provide it to Mariana Torres to get out to those principles to get out to staff and we'll do it based on basically a first come first serve in those categories for now and then we'll ask those people because it is summer travel we will ask that they um come together probably the September board meeting to be able to present to the board the outcome of the travel just so that they're here to be able to share that information okay what is important though too is to graph the information and put it into the study back into the system put it right in the curriculum yeah thank you all right number two portrait of graduate yeah so when I took over a superintendent in 2019 three of you were on the board and one of my goals was to work on a portrait of a graduate for our district and then we closed and portrait of a graduate is a wide um grab like you have to have community members um parents and when I say community members people that aren't associated with Apple Valley Unified School District but are local businesses parents students staff and then what it creates is a portrait it looks like you know many of us have them of our children where they did the outline of them and but this expands it and talks about what a student in this district will look like when they cross our stage and in some cases a year later what we expect for them to have access to and so as we look at visioning because we have a very robust Mission we have our values we have not moved to a a vision statement or a vision this could accomplish that um and we could spend the next couple years working on that with a goal of having it done at the end of next school year so to you know giving it a couple years because of the people that would need to be involved and then you as a board would have to approve it um for it to be established as our portrait of a graduate will you will you give us um updates as you're building onto this portrait so I will have an idea as we travel yeah there isn't a cost to it other than time um we certainly can work with the company to do it but they give you the resources the resources are out there we can we can move forward with those uh the the biggest issue for us would be giving you updates about where it's coming several of our groups that already come together are El Cap District advisory committee our APAC committee African-American parent advisory our d-lac elac groups our student advisory groups we already have them in if we can add this as part of what we talk to them about and get um support and ideas then we can bring it together in in and show you where we're at okay okay and just continue establishing the experiment process and continuous process student discipline yes at the last um board Workshop it was recommended that you have a subpoena process I asked if we needed a policy the statement was you don't need a policy just a process you can follow my suggestion since it doesn't have to be all board members and not even a majority of the board it just has to be a board member that has the authority to then move forward and give an extension as necessary for a continuance or offer to sign that the subpoena is appropriate because we're compelling somebody to come and testify which we don't do that often I will tell you I do believe you'll see more um of the extension issue continuance than you will on a subpoena but you know anything happen my recommendation to the board is is that you take two members typically I would think the president and the clerk because those seats rotate that would mean that there was always somebody if there was a new clerk to the group you know if if the if they're moving the seats down because you know that's what happens you move your seats um but then there'd be somebody that had been practicing with it before and it would always be two together certainly one could make the decision if somebody was absent but it would give us the option to always have two there and be trained well that sounds good I I I hear you but I think it it will make better sense if we have a cover sheet like we always have on all of our decision process where we have all board members listed okay and then when the time comes if we already have it already signed and we just date it and then all of us are have given the um the okay to go ahead My worry is that if you have one person signing off on it that that one person will not be on the chopping block and people think that they're the ones that said it and the others didn't say it I understand so that's when my worry is that all five of us we happen as a team we you know one person is not a board it's all five of us so if all five of us say it's okay to go ahead just get that cover sheet and we'll date it and we're done do we need we hang separately can I ask a question do we I don't think everybody has to sign you're saying a signed sheet that then the the two or the one yeah would would have the authority but everybody else's names would be on it is that what I'm hearing so that so this is subpoena doesn't say Miss okara did this right okay we can we can work through that I believe and but we would only call one or two board members is a good president and clerk we're good okay okay we have any public comments we do we have two cards tonight okay first Mr Reyes how you guys doing um last meeting last month was my first meeting here so I apologize if I went over the three minutes I wasn't aware of that okay so I'm just here kind of following up on the issue I brought up last month in regards to Mariana Academy not having the proper facilities for PE kids working out in their clothes um just want to see if you guys came up with any ideas of what we can do work as a team I'm not trying to ruffle anyone's feathers here I just want to accomplish something for the kids at Mariana because it's not fair like I told you last time for them to be working out in their clothes it wouldn't be fair for you guys to go run a mile right now and then come back and your ties and Suits like I said last time so I just wanted to see if you guys uh even discussed it throughout that the whole month you know see if you guys came up with anything okay and I'm gonna work yeah and I I'm aware of the facilities uh assessment that's going on and you know so I but that's going to take a while so I was just trying to figure out something we can do in the near future so that's why I'm here okay I'll be I'll be here every every month so okay thank you thank you for your time thank you next we have uh Mr Javier future um before I start I just want to let you all know that the combination of Granite Hills and Apple Valley High School won first place and for the Happy Trails parade yeah so thank you very much and then this is just a personal note I just wanna to say thank you very much some of you guys already know about the transportation department if you don't know they saved my bacon a couple of days yeah so I'm just going to say thank you so much to our transportation department they're absolutely wonderful uh ladies and gentlemen of the board in a steam cabinet I stand before you with a message of unity progress and unprecedented opportunity for our students and cherished School District today I Spotlight the anticipated arrival of prop 28 funds great Academy is at the Forefront collaboratively working with the with Peter Salas and Allison frenzel at CDE to administer these resources effectively as a model technical demonstration site for the California Department of Ed this influx isn't merely a financial windfall but a golden opportunity to amplify the quality and reach of Education specifically with the visual and arts performing visual Performing Arts coordinator in a world rapidly evolving where creativity and Innovation are Paramount we have both the challenge and extraordinary opportunity to nurture and Elevate every Nason artist musician dancer and actor in our schools to illustrate the transformative potential awaiting us let me share two compelling examples first our Capstone student at the recent future of Music Summit weren't merely attendees but ambassadors of our esteemed education character and Innovation great Academy Fosters they left engaged and left indelible Impressions upon representatives from industry giants like Disney Netflix Tick Tock Dolby and Spotify I too received an acknowledgment at the summit wild humbling I see this recognition as a testament of our joint efforts the unwavering support of board and cabinet the spirited Endeavors of our Educators my principal and our CTE coordinator and and Chris who was her secretary and the boundless potential of our students the second significant Milestone is the generous donation of the AMC movie theater to the town of Apple Valley this gesture underscores the profound impact of the Performing Arts galvanizing community support and hinting at the latent potential of transforming it into a vibrant hub for an artistic expression facilitated by the great Academy in this context the role of a vapa coordinator becomes not just relevant but essential Beyond administrative duties this position will serve as a Nexus harmonizing and elevating Arts education from elementary to high school and ensuring our curriculum is not just comprehensive but transformational numerous studies corroborate the unparalleled cognitive communal benefits emanating from robust Arts programs as we anticipate the prop 28 funds let's Envision them as seeds sown for a future where creativity and education converge Illuminating Uncharted Paths of opportunity and communal enrichment in unity there's underlying strength creativity ushers in unfettered freedom and education resides in the promise of a future where boundaries are not just pushed but reimagined we're not just shaping students we're sculpting the future of our community and by extension our society with prop 28 funds as our Catalyst and a dedicated vapa coordinator as our Navigator let's embark on this transformative Journey I'm asking for your support I pledge to return back in November fortified with additional insights and commitments to this Noble Endeavor we hope you will stand us with us to make this a reality for all of Apple Valley thank you very much yeah we are familiar with the monies that are coming we just don't have the regulations yet and so we can't do anything until we have those regs because we commit money to things that they won't allow us to do we would have a problem but we will watch for those coming and I know that um it's a it's positive and Powerful for our students in this District that we are going to be receiving these Monies Rick no Amanda uh I forgot to turn the page last time what's that mean it means like it's fast okay congratulations to Maria she received an award um on Saturday night for uplifting our local community at the inaugural AKA um Alpha Kappa Alpha evening Under the Stars Black Tie sneaker Gala and I will say it was actually probably the best black tiger ever because I came home and my feet were not sore and they were not cold so that's like the first time ever that's cool all right thank you Gary nothing further Maria I got to say thank you to the students at the Phoenix Academy I just turned my card and then assigned by these students and these are Priceless I tend I go out to the store and I buy frames so that I can have it is on both sides so I can see the signatures and the thank you of uh you rock thank you so much to the students at Phoenix Academy that's it okay thank you students and staff enjoy the break there's nothing else come here approve the recommendation of the administrative hearing share person effective immediately on expulsion case number one 2023-24 have a motion move it second a second expulsion case number one 23 24 be expelled to San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools Community Schools for the remainder of the 2023-2024 fall semester student is to complete the terms and conditions of The Rehabilitation plan prior to the end of the 2023-2024 fall semester expulsion case number 11. NX um I move second okay in expulsion case number 11 22 23 um we had to vacate the expulsion yeah we did we already did that all right all in favor um approve the certificate and classified Personnel actions as listed motion approve the recommendations for requested leave as noted motion Mr Bender um because this item includes a relative of mine I'm going to abstain from voting so okay avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest that's smart thank you all right promotion I move awesome all right Amanda second it all in favor aye consent agenda is a long one in order to expedite things we can approve it all one through twenty nine do I have a motion to do that so move second all right Rick second it all in favor aye then I'll entertain a motion to uh adjourn and move second oh second all in favor all right thank you for coming thank you now we and we know that's a problem [Laughter] yeah yeah he's skilled he's skilled no no no you know foreign
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and way back then it was a positive thing because time was very different but after 1950 it started to get into a gray area in to 19 late 60s it started to become a problem obviously everybody knows the problem in the 70s and the 80s and when it was abandoned the first thing you saw when you entered Ashley from Sherman was an abandoned paint factory now you'll see the Ashland Arboretum and that's another thing I wanted to say last select board meeting you talked about the title the name and I think it should be named the Ashland Arboretum for a number of reasons first it's a national an asset the entire town worked hard to get rid of this and I think the future Boards of selectman and future Town managers will be a little bit more attentive the maintenance if it has Ashland algorithm uh rather than Joe schmo's artery or somebody else's Sparkle okay I mean that's just my I mean it's strategic you know think about it that way and also that this CPC you know as far as getting money we're going to get it for the Ashley and Arboretum and you know when you enter this town from the five surrounding towns uh the first impression is always the most important impression as Joe said this is part of the legacy of the town we took something negative and turned it into something positive and then this latest idea and I welcome Alvaro because of his Youth and and energy you know we've been at this for a long time and after a while you get kind of worn out you know you feel a little Stone so now we haven't handed off to some young guy that a lot of good ideas um and uh like I said I think it's a great idea everybody I talk to think it's a good idea I like the idea of native plants pollinators grasses self-sustaining uh this is something beerless for the town and uh I strongly urge you to consider naming it the Ashland Arboretum um so let's did you want to say something Michael go ahead well you know I I will say just the prospect of taking a Brownfield site that has such a negative connotation as Cadillac paint and then turn it stay around here into an educational yeah you know natural educational place is really really cool but I think maybe in terms of next steps I was just going to propose we can get some more information and some more details about you know maintenance and costs and things like that and um you know then bring it back and and discuss it and hopefully it'll all be good does that sound good yeah I think it's a great idea Eleanor you had one slide that I that I really enjoyed and it looked like it was dead center in in the park itself and it looked like an area where it had been bricked off and there was benches around it it looked it looked like a piece Act trying to yeah he's right up there that would be ideal yeah you know as part of an arboretum that would that would fit that flow you know flow in you you know so don't don't lose sight of that because I think that I think that's a great idea and I I will say just uh thanks to everybody that's that's worked on it you know Ed Beth I know Yolanda's spend some time on it uh DPW Alvaro I know I'm going to forget somebody but it already looks so much better than this great so quick question just from a logistics standpoint because CP CPC funds if we're gonna ask for for funding would be town meeting yeah okay that's a good point kind of planning point I think yeah yeah we want to make sure CPC has adequate time to vet it yeah um Joe's comment reminded and perhaps there's some Native American or you know the local uh Native American maybe they'd have some ideas if there's uh people we can talk to about you know maybe some sort of Sacred Space or something there but just as you're thinking about a design in a place like that um that's Dan's work over at the Memorial Drive kind of reminded me of that so anyway so um so we we good for now with this it sounds like we have a we'll talk about the name when Ed's not around and um anyway all right thank you Alvaro thank you thank you thank you Eddie thank you thanks for coming in thank you thank you thank you great all right yeah what a surprise though okay old uh next item on the agenda is old new business uh oh this was discussed providing feedback on changes to State programs and draft potentially draft a letter communicating our needs so this was something I had requested to be put on and if you'll recall I uh we'd all received an email from the uh the mass selectmans Association and the MMA has an opportunity to the UMass Collins Center is putting together comments um to to make to the Healy Administration from Municipal viewpoints on changes the state programs and regulations so I had responded on my own with one of my little pet peeves which I think I sent a copy to which is uh really I saw this trend extending that really accelerated during the baker Administration um you know when I was on the public policy Committee of MMA which really specialized in public works um you know chapter 90 funding for example the legislature would not add to chapter 90 um um funds but they would instead put together more Grant programs that people had to see and apply to and so my little pet peeve was and I think I shared this um was that I thought they should look at general formula Aid more and kind of de-emphasize the kind of targeted grants but that was just my take on it so but I thought I'd open it up to see if other folks had other ideas or thoughts that they wanted to communicate to the MSA person Andy Hoagland either individually or as a group if we felt strongly about something so I suggested and it's really this I think we really like to do with this meeting because his deadline is the 20th in our next meeting is the 18th so that's like two days before the deadline but I'll just open it up for discussion thoughts go ahead Brandi sure I'll um I'll start things off so I had a couple of things um one is relating to housing um where you know we ask the state for some real incentives for developers to partner with communities on affordable housing because I think there's a real Gap in looking at like the mass.gov site you know you look at like the local Initiative Program which provides technical assistance and there's like a low-income housing tax credit but that's only for rentals there's really no State I don't and and Joe probably can speak to this probably much more than I can but there's no real incentive for developers to develop lower income and I'm not talking like 80 Ami I'm talking like real 30 Ami developments or housing like we talk about like when we did our housing production plan we talked about the types of housing we would love to see in Ashland we've talked about more small small houses starter homes more um uh Town Homes people want ownership opportunities but but developers are you know looking for maximizing their return on larger projects and so I think it's really up to the state to to Really provide some incentives for developers to really want to partner with communities because I mean we have some Town property that we could partner with a developer who would be willing to do it but I know you know like I said Joe can speak to this a lot more than I can but it's been hard trying to find those developers and the state doesn't offer any assistance on that so that would be kind of like my first thing is asking the state to to make because I think you know we had Jason palace here last last meeting talking from the 495 partnership and he says housing is like going to be the hardest challenge for this area to be able to retain retain people and I think of like the Next Generation so I think of like my son who's 16.
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how are how is that next Generation going to be able to afford to buy a home like we we have to solve the housing so can you you put your proposal in like into a 50 sentence or two like how would you so what would you say so I would basically say that that we encourage the state to um to adopt um more incentives and programs for developers to partner with communities to develop affordable housing okay on the on the lower AMA Ami side would be like and just open up so it was so I don't so I think is there General support or thoughts on that so I'll Joe and Claudia I mean I support that Claudia if you have any comments I like to finish up yeah you can you can go ahead Joe I can jump in after you the um I I agree wholeheartedly what Brandi just said one of the one of the issues is that you know the Ami uh you know 30 to 60 you know the base is 80 right now well that's that's that's Workforce housing more than anything else uh if you want to go lower than that because folks that are on fixed incomes are the ones that this is that we're aiming for you know so if they want to if the state is willing to you know instead of asking you know for matching grants they should come up with an incentive to help Builders like the affordable housing trust did and provide you know Monies to help offset their their loss to do that so if if they're willing to build you know affordable units and I mean real affordable units then instead of changing zoning laws which is what we are currently doing right now and working on let's let's put something that really takes a bite out of it and make make it a financial issue and provide Financial uh conditions to the developer that's going to come into town and say well you know if the state provides us this we can build in know affordable units at 60 or 30 percent in my instead of the 80.
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so and so it's it all comes down to you know the monies and the monies are available the federal government has Monies to do that and and you know I know I know fish was was one of the issues that when we're building uh the Robert Hill White Project up there uh and we still have land up there that may be available to build an additional building up there if I remember correctly because they only Built one and I thought they had been permitted to build two do you excuse me do you support brandies I think you like the way she said it yeah I mean I would be a little bit more dramatic on it but yeah I mean you have a little bit more cool than I do I just don't like it is but yeah absolutely I I don't have a problem all right great Claudia yeah I think that's a tremendous idea Brandi I think that um you know not only just as starter homes but also for kind of wrap-up homes or however you want to call it but um you know I think that that would be just huge I I would love to see us even if even if this isn't the avenue to get that done I I would love to work on that uh on in some way shape or form because I think uh it's such it's so critically needed and um and in such a constructive solution to the to a pro the problem so I would agree 100 Rob in terms of the comments that you had made um in in terms of I I appreciated the fact that you know if money is only available through grants it does kind of complicate things for maybe sometimes finding those opportunities um but I don't really know that you know I I have the um enough of a sense of sure of you know what which one would be better for us funding wise so we can do we could do either yeah that's fine um any other things I think I think we're going to support brandies and you should think about the wording but other thoughts or other proposals so I have one other thing wait a minute I had my I spent a little bit too much time on the mass mass.gov website just looking things up because I mean this is kind of it goes back to part of our conversation last uh last meeting when we were talking about sidewalks and infrastructure and how um first of all how costly all the infrastructure um you know maintenance and and putting in sidewalks and maintaining our roads and um the chapter 90 money is just not it doesn't cover it and you know we talk about um we've we talked a while back about need there's a bridge that we're going to need to make sure it gets fixed in town and that's at some point in the future and we haven't talked about that in a while and I assume that'll probably come back come back up at some point but um I was looking at Mass dots um Highway division section of their website and they they talk about their mission is to assist cities and towns with roads and bridges um and to help fund resources to do it and but I was looking at what those resources are and you know they they help with like a cost of design for like a hundred thousand dollar Grant or a cost of um doing construction for a five hundred thousand dollar Grant and you can apply once a year for one of those two grants and it's just I don't feel like I don't feel like the there's I'm sure there's a lot of towns that are dealing with this that do not have do not have the staff to to be able to to work these projects have crumbling infrastructure and things that need help like sidewalks and bridges and the funding mechanism of five hundred thousand dollars for construction isn't gonna nearly cover the cost of of funding a bridge a bridge fix in our town so that that burden goes back onto the towns to to um to shoulder that so you know I I would say that that um that I would ask the state to to put resources towards um to help complete some of these uh infrastructure projects just like massdot does with like our 126 project and we don't have to go through a tip process and there's like an actual Mass DOT resources for us to be able to utilize I don't know how that's kind of less yeah I'm trying to understand you saw the difference so you're talking about specific infrastructure what's the difference with that in 126.
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well 126 is done through what's known as the tip process so because it's a because it's a highway or yeah well it's a state highway so um it doesn't have to be a state highway to be on the tip process but the tip process basically takes Federal money that comes that flows down to the state and allocates it it mixes it in with a couple of other funding sources as well but Brandi I think you're talking about either like increasing chapter 90 or having some stand-alone yeah so really really having the state not only just the funding mechanism but like the resources behind it so so you know massdot or the state however you want to frame it really helps actually pay for these projects and also helps manage the process too because that's part of it is like you know we don't have we don't have the staff to to manage a major Bridge Project right now I wouldn't think maybe maybe that is mascot Maybe I'm Wrong what depends on the bridge so if you look at something like the quarterville road bridge the state has agreed to take that on okay but if you look at like the bridge that goes down murder well that one yeah um the one that goes over Cold Spring Brook I mean that's on us we might get some technical assistance grants yeah yeah so um you'd be surprised at how many bridges we have I don't have the number right in front of me but it's significant what Brandy suggest is it as simple as saying you know we should there should be more chapter 90 funding or is it a different kind of mechanism what what um I'm trying to get a handle on what yeah I mean I I I'm I'm struggling with how to frame the ask yeah but I'm trying to do you understand kind of where I'm going with it like I just feel I just feel like this that there's so much infrastructure that needs to be fixed in the state and the state isn't stepping up to do it and giving the towns the resources to do it and they should because massdot says that they do so how do we encourage that so how do you yeah how do you compete with the city the city issue then the suburb issue for chapter 90 monies awarded currently it's the general formula right there's there's a formula Claudia and it's based on population and also the amount of miles that you maintain Our Town maintains and so what happened this goes back to kind of what I was saying so what happens is typically like we always ask oh increase it by x amount and it usually gets increased by like half that or it never gets it hasn't been increased since I've been here good point so but what is happening is that it gets diverted those debt potential funding because the legislature and I think the governor they love this idea grants so they split things up into these little grants and that people as Brandy pointed out have to apply for in some of these small cities and towns have less capacity and even larger ones like us we're using our capacity to apply for Grants instead of just getting funds that we then decide how to use you know so that goes back to my kind of pet peeve is there any way we could circumvent that specific process and go directly to the Federal government and ask for I yeah essentially despite our nose you know because of our face but is that something that we can do potentially but the thing is is and this kind of goes to Brandy's Point too is that you have to have the staff resources to do it to it you know apply for Grants you know to navigate some of the federal bureaucracy which is entirely more regulated than um State I mean bureaucrats Galore well is it is is it simple as like Brandy's is it it may be simple as saying look the state should pay more attention to infrastructure spending including Staffing Resources for cities and towns well I I think first of all infrastructure as opposed to things in general you know we need to I think we need to be honest with ourselves in terms of how effective this is actually going to be right um how effective what it would be well I mean I I get you know I think it's very nice that they're asking for oh oh this process yeah and you know it's very quaint um but um you know and I'm I'm sorry I'm pretty direct um you know I just think we have to be honest with ourselves about that oh sure but we're going to say I think it's worth saying something right things that are straightforward and you know you should just be a collaborative effort let's click like the Metro West group the Metro West collaborative group and all this all the towns that are involved in well this is one simple like a class action well I would suggest you know when the different cities and towns within the region like when they put their list together that you know Yolanda who's our Metro right West Regional collaborative rep you know she take ours to a meeting and everybody else can and they can you know maybe consolidate a NASA mapc to put something together I think you'd have more of a this more weight the saying is strength in numbers yeah you know type of deals so I just I just wanted a process by which we would respond to Andy Hoagland um you know and just say what did we want which so isn't to say that this is not a great idea to move forward but I also just wanted to get something direct to him that we you know if we thought there was something important um so where are we with this so I think we're supporting we think it's worth Brandy's first uh first proposal and what about the second one we also think that that's maybe some I I would suggest it just be Focus like pay more attention to infrastructure including the resources unless we don't want to you know I don't know is there any are there other ideas or thoughts um Claudia or I I kind of had the same reaction as Mike when I read read this and thought Oh Yeah you know in terms of how much they would really this would matter but I mean I don't is something I think that is important above and beyond this it's it it kind of has its own stand by itself and that focusing on that might be just giving it another place to be heard um focusing on you know I think I'm sorry I missed it the housing the housing and some kind of whether it be um you know some kind of uh encouragement to give to developers um in terms of building you know smaller homes really that that as another option um so I mean I think that that is something that we could work on and maybe in a few different Avenues but certainly maybe um this would certainly be one of them and and again bring some shed it shed every time you shed light on this you know it's going to gain a little bit of ground so okay so all right so how are we feeling about it I will forget about mine I just made that comment uh Andy on my own but so the two things that Brandy's I just want to move forward if we're going to so Brandi's proposed two things do you um is there support for both of her uh responses yeah I would I would say in terms of the um infrastructure one that maybe if we could kind of narrow it down to what do we really want you know we don't necessarily want them just to put more money in the pot because if then we still get a percentage based on the formula or how do you you know we want I think Brandy's talking about uh in a focus on this kind of crumbling infrastructure as opposed to General chapter nine right yeah right I can I can cut I can work on like a sentence or two and put something together I think and I'm just thinking in terms of process um what's the best way to kind of finish this and make that response do you think you can just send it to you you want me to send it to you and you respond back to yeah I guess okay the MSA yeah either that yeah that'd be that'd be fine I think so if you send me those those two things and I think we're kind of reach consensus that's worth communicating oh I've got a couple ideas you might the board might want to consider oh I'm sorry yeah go ahead yeah no just one I think you know we talk a lot about you know increased housing what I think would also be great is to see a goal focused on expanding open space in the state so yeah you know uh I could I could come up with something maybe for every 10 units built of housing new units built there's a corresponding goal to save one acre of additional open space and how would that like State funding for that based on that well if they would need to figure that out just like we need to figure out yeah incentives think about incentives we'll put something together and I think is that supported by the members what do you think yeah I mean I think it's always good to to um have the state look at look at open space because that's that's the other side of all this housing this is it um yeah works are hands in hand that's a great idea and then one I mean it's going to sound tongue-in-cheek but it's really not meant to be and I'll preface this by saying that I respect the lieutenant governor a lot and all the work that she's done but um I think members of the administration should go to a planning board or a zoning board meeting in every city in town in Massachusetts that has a multi-family apartment building on its schedule just to actually experience what it's like so you don't have to support it yourself maybe that one you think I like that where's Joe oh Joe would have been all over them no we have a controversial one no I don't think it's controversial I think it's I think it's um I think there are very few people in state Administration that knows what it's like to sit in all of our chairs so I think you know grappling with all the issues that we do so what would it be saying something like you should um go to a go to a planning or planning board meeting when it's discussing multi-family housing how about I put something a little together a little bit more couth all right so we've got it sounds like we've got one two three four there was one other we discussed Joe when you were gone it was Mike's idea about um open for every X units of housing we get either you know the aim would get an acre of open space would be preserved and somehow some kind of program that would do something like that yeah so how would you eliminate this MBTA zoning Fiasco that's well that kind of works that's a different avenue so it sounds like we have four kinds of proposals in the people and their support So if you I guess send them to me I'll say the board uh supports these and send them and I'll forward them with our kind of approval or so maybe that'll get a little carry a little more weight than individual responses so thank you all for thinking about that and moving forward on this so that's great um so that brings us to reviewing the special town meeting warrant sure um actually why I typed this stuff up I'll turn it over to Jen he's always surprised when I turned over to her so um I think in your we pack it and maybe a little late um you received um the sort of beginning um index list of the warrant um we don't have too many sort of um sort of heavier topic um we don't typically or special town meeting so um we always do a free cash appropriation which is you know we'll be on uh the warrant we always do the pro the senior property tax exemption in the fall this year we will also um have an acceptance of land on zero Fountain Street Michael do you wanna sort of elaborate on that one yeah a little bit um so I believe it's Fountain Fountain Street yeah everybody knows Bill and Carolyn Bell and they are actually interested in in donating a small piece of property to the town so looked at it Becca um recommended that we move forward with it I can I can provide you with her little memo that she put together oh yeah that'd be good more for ecological habitat than anything where is it zero Fountain Street um it's closer to how trying to think of the little subdivision um let me get let me get back to you on that I want to give you an exact spot but they're not it's not is it adjacent to where they're living or is it just a piece of land no it's a piece of land apparently Mr Bell's father was a developer in town a long time ago and had accumulated different pieces of property and there's still a couple outstanding is it close to the to the Framingham side believe it's closer to framing okay well thanks to the bells for uh thinking of us and um the next born article would be to accept an easement on High Street and that's really for uh DPW to access that field land so they can maintain it um and then um we've discussed uh a few times here is authorizing a home rule position to increase our liquor licenses so working um to work on the language for that and then two CBC funding warrant articles one is to fund the dog park construction so the dog park committee went to CPC earlier this year and asked for funding for construction and that would obviously um be all we would also apply for some Grant funds to make sure that we can construct it we're still working on design and working with the committee on what a maintenance plan would look like so that I'm hoping to have that before represented down meeting any round numbers on this yet or the authorization I actually actually 25 I believe is what the grant is but but what are they going to ask the CBC or two I'm sorry 225 is what I believe okay CBC approved completion no so the estimates right now are in the High 400s um based on our design so you know in the interim of this process before we receive permits the designer retired and so we're in the process of looking for another designer that will help us do the permitting process and contract and the construction the driver really is sort of finding parking and the way they'd have to cross Memorial Drive and then also the way we have to sort of construct the entrance because of where it is located on Memorial Drive we're just a line of sight making sure it's safe so it's still on the right hand side it's still in the same location yeah and really instead of just in in and out of parking lot um after meeting with the designer and DPW and Kara Terrell who's leading the charge on the is um coming through one way so you'd Park and just kind of go through so there is down the street a bit I mean we certainly had the conversation they're obviously and still in right um we may still need it because yeah on the weekends so yeah and then this the Stanton Grant is um 200 pounds I want to say it's either 2 or 250 yeah I'm getting my numbers it's 250.
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I think it's 250. um and we have a Sunset date on that right yeah 2026. okay everything everything is 20 26. that's interesting spend all the money before 2012. 2027 is going to be a long nap yeah so if if we have that Stanton Grant which I'll just use and we asked CPC for 250 that's a half mil should that cover the cost or no so I haven't the estimate's a bit old now we'll need you know obviously we we need some funding to um continue the design permitting and then construction oversight so I don't have that cost but in theory that we should be um in the ballpark yeah and so we certainly asked the designer to take a a good look at what what our previous designer had presented and see if there's any cost cutting opportunity have you had the opportunity I'm sorry have you had the opportunity to talk with the city of Framingham we did the folks that designed it the dog park because it's it's pretty pretty nice yeah so I believe the dog park committee he has they had reached out and they've had some conversations with Natick Natick also has one I've reached out to the Stanton Grand and asked for some recommendations on designers we haven't had much luck getting people I think partly it's a smaller job and people are super busy and so you know we have reached out to three or four I'm going to meet with Peter and alvro and sort of brainstorm other people that might be good too I'm sorry no that's correct what's the square footage of the proposed so because of the wetlands so the the property that we allowed them to use was about two acres I think when we're looking and they haven't gone to conservation yet but when we looked at what the wetlands look like and had some conversations with both Megan and now Becca I think there's a usable like a little over an acre and so there's a big the way they design it there's like a there's like one big trail and then a smaller area and you'd separate the bigger dogs from the small shops keeping it very As Natural as possible but obviously some line of sight to make sure you can see yourself so what are the major costs is it the fancy the tray so you have to have water um for cleanup and for water and to you know make sure you can clean up dog waste including piping is that why you have to bring in and then I think the parking lot is the driving factor and so um okay and the parcel is have some challenges in terms of making sure okay I'll find out is proposed site to the trail that we have that's already there with the parking across by me uh trolley Brook Charlie Brook yeah it's just a little so it's in between so it's a little ways up because of the wetlands if there's always that Brook and then it obviously it doesn't it it ends before the solar array you know there's like that access point for the solar array we could use some of that yeah um behind the ball I think it's being used informally now um say that that should be continued to be used that way but I don't see anybody stopping it from being used that way in the near future because I know when people are going to the memorial they were popular wood stove it should be more like a community depending on designated at that yeah if that's going to continue just an idea so do you know how much information will be available by the time tal meeting comes like will they have some visuals for town meeting so we have a plan we certainly could share I'm hoping I've asked for a maintenance plan so that we can explain that because that's a it's a real big sort of just sort of thinking about what that looks like for the years to come you know it was making sure that it's heroes are friends right or is there there's a committee there's a community they're in there yeah and they're a non-profit so they could raise money and do things yeah they've been raising money for like 10 years yeah so yeah and so they were just thinking I think they met a few weeks ago had some conversations about what that maintenance plan may look like they said a lot of questions came up okay and so I'm waiting to get that and we'll have a little bit more information there um and then the last Warren article um I went to CPC yesterday to receive to receive their support to extend um an old and older allocation of funds for the Riverwalk so um that was a 2018 allocation and so it has it's coming up on its Sunset date and um you know I think that was one of the projects that we sort of talked about at the retreat that you know hopefully we can do um not this year but maybe next year so just really needing to spend some time to design the flood plain change so the initial design doesn't quite work anymore so we need to sort of rework that okay and we're expecting at least one article from sustainability good question so yeah that is a little bit up in the air and I need to reach out um to the chair so they were they were focused on the tree the tree is definitely not going to be ready uh for November I know they've they met with the planning board uh I believe last week um and they have some work to do and so I think they're still shooting for perhaps May um the enhanced stretch code I think there's some conversations internally about whether they want to bring that um to town meeting and so if they've done have they done some Outreach because I know that they said they were going to do Outreach for that stretch code and I haven't seen have they been in front of the planning board or have they been in front of anyone well while they they did have that meeting that I thought was very useful um with the local kind of expert developer that you knew um what's his name his name he gave him a lot of advice about the issues with the stretch code and how to how to uh that was what six months ago I'm trying to remember I attended that oh you know you're thinking of um the architect Glenn Travis yeah and so there was that kind of Outreach they had a meeting where they discussed the kind of issues with the new stretch code and if they're going to be resolved and the building inspectors issues with having to enforce it and with some of the uncertainties and Glenn gave a lot of uh advice from from the point of view I think was that the local The Architects or the builders about their issues with the stretch code so I thought that was very helpful and they came away from that meeting with some Direction so I'd be interested to hear from Ash where they are with that but they seem to have at that point some idea where to go but it's been a while now so but as of now we haven't received no anything yeah so I would say like you know if that given what happened at town meeting and just sort of you know I think I think it's in their best interest if they are going to move forward with an article for fall town meeting that they start doing some some Outreach because if if they don't it's not gonna it'll end the exact same way that it right that is so this meeting was part of that Outreach so they they've at least started the process I'd be interested to hear what's happened since then so yeah but okay so do we have to take any action tonight and this is just an update okay anything further on this from anybody okay we'll move on so this is really this is the exciting the reason the opeb evaluation report so oh yeah anyway we saved the best for towards the end well we should be able to move through this pretty quickly um just so for a reminder for everybody here everybody watching oh this is Claudia's first opeb report oh Claudia it is but you've heard it so much at town meeting so oped other post-employment benefits which is retiree health insurance thanks to you too Claudia I just want to let you know oh yeah she's the factor and you too you guys are not to take Medicare or maybe you are to take it I forget which way it goes before so every two years we're provide we're required to provide an Actuarial study about our opeb liability what our obligations are um with the projected obligation is and then also where we are in terms of how we're funding that obligation and um you know just so you know like 10 years ago we didn't have I don't think anything towards opeb the interim Town manager at the time Jim Purcell actually put four hundred thousand dollars into a just a like a stabilization fund and later we created a trust in the funding mechanisms that we put together so we had it's actually a very good report I'll turn it over to Brittany iacaponi who's our finance director who could share with you some of the details Britney's Brittany's been waiting patiently on all this time go ahead Brittany I almost I almost missed it but I heard opeb and I oh so we got a good good work this time around um our total opeb liability is just over 63 million but our funded ratio actually increased by two percent so we're just shy of 10 for our funded ratio we have a little just shy of 6.3 million in our op-ed trust fund um so that's due to you know a few reasons our opeb liability only increased I think it was like 75 000 from our last evaluation um due to plan changes and so forth we had a slightly higher discount rate but it's still very low compared to what other towns are using we went from 4.79 to 4.82 which is still being very conservative um so also for opeb we're still continuing to fund it through the general funds uh health insurance budget we do a pay as you go for each new employee so I want to say for fy24 we have 300 000 factored in for an appropriation to the trust fund and then through our um free cash policy will be appropriating at least a couple hundred a thousand dollars there as well so each year we're putting into the trust fund at least five hundred thousand dollars and then that does even include um you know interest earned on the fund as well so um obviously s p the standard employers our rating agency looks very favorably at that so overall we're doing well we got a great report we now have almost seven million dollars you know so we went from zero to seven million dollars in ten years so that's that's just through you know crafting good policies and the discipline adhering to it so doesn't that help with the s p uh I would think it does and as Britney mentioned like on our recent report um you know they're starting to take a look at this more and more seriously um especially as a percentage of your payroll and um so they have expressed really good reactions on our plan like our our dual action plan um so yeah it's I mean I I was really kind of surprised it went up to Four Points um you know almost 10 percent funded funded ratio and as Britney mentioned I don't know if you caught it but I mean we use a very conservative discount rate I mean it's in the fours most towns are using discount rates in the six and seven range which is never going to get that kind of return so their liability it may on paper it may look like they have less of a liability but it's not in reality I mean we could make our we could probably cut our liability in half right Brittany if we probably if we went to a seven percent range if you you know but it's all paper yeah so it's it's a game it's the show it's a moving Target that's what it is you know well I just you know I think it's one of these kind of obscure good government things that you know it's a really um it's uh you know kind of uh you know it's a good for Michael and uh Jen and Brittany um in town management for continuing to stay on this and and work on this so this is one of those things that you know could easily get out of control and we could leave it to the Future to deal with it but we're handling it so we'll able to hand you know our successors uh you know something that was in better shape than we got it so that's great so so uh and you know so I certainly appreciate this ongoing effort to address this and thank you all for continuing to work on this just I just have one quick question did you Michael I know at one point in time we were really well a lot of cities and towns weren't funding the old pip line line item in in their budget is there was there a deadline set by the state and has that come and gone or have they extended it it's not necessarily the state it's it's the governmental Accounting Standards okay correct me if I'm wrong here but it's gas b40 yeah it's not a state mandate it's more of an accounting standard okay and I think as I recall the last audit we had they talked about the was it in the audit they talked about the increased thresholds for OPEC it's my recollection or there was something that changed was a guess there were assumptions that were changing so they were going to bring more of the liability on the books right which has already occurred yeah yeah so before before they implemented the standard this liability existed but it wasn't reflected in any of the financial statements and so over the years they have as Britney said brought on more and more of that liability into these are more stringent and realistic more stringent more realistic it more transparent actually what the what the town's liability actually is so any further comments or questions um we don't need to take any action this is just a report and it's it's good to hear it and again thanks for continuing this effort um and we're going to talk about this at the special town meeting is that I hope not okay well no I I think um I do no we will probably say something yeah no we'll probably say something because we will have a transfer from free cash into right that's when we talk about it exactly yes I knew there was some hook okay great so we'll talk about it all right well thank you we'll move on and Brittany thank you thanks Brandon further we'll move on to the next item which is the update on the comprehensive plan so that Michael or um sure um so I'll give you guys a quick update so our last uh comprehensive plan steering committee meeting which was two weeks ago we were joined by um Jen Goldson our consultant um and her team um cadenais and Brenna uh who are going to be the three women that are going to be um leading the charge with our comprehensive plan steering committee we are um they they kind of went through an outline of um sort of a a high level timeline and the components of a comprehensive plan and um we are going to be having our first Community visioning Forum I think it's called um and that's going to be in December we don't have a date quite yet but that's going to be the first real opportunity for um for formalized Community feedback and um but it was a really great meeting we did some exercises um in groups and we had some folks from the community out and joining us as well and so we were able to identify special places in Ashland we had huge Maps as well as areas of opportunities for Ashland and they are taking all that information and um and the reasoning behind it and kind of um codifying all of that and um so it was a it was a it was a really good first kickoff meeting I think that Jen and her team are going to be a really good fit for the steering committee they've worked first of all they've worked with large steering committees in the past and so I don't think that our 29 member steering committee um intimidates them at all which is good um and I think their focus on you know like we we interviewed them um and I think everyone had somewhat similar feedback which was that um their model of community engagement I think is um really top-notch and I think we will end up with a really great product that accurately reflects the goals and visions of our community and also um really engages the community so I I think you know the feedback that I got from that meeting was really positive um I think the steering committee feels like there's some really good direction and um so and I also just wanted to give a shout out to um uh rajashree gosh gosh sorry um and Stacy Grant Lewis who were um voted our co-chairs for the steering committee so they're going to be leading the charge for our group going forward and they're great they've been working on an interim basis as co-chairs for several meetings and I think now that we have a formalized um co-chair arrangement plus the consultant team I think we're I think we're in really good shape so I did want to also say we did get um we had put out a call to the community for project names we're like naming our comprehensive plan project and uh we received I think it was something like 45 names from a good number of folks in the community so I just wanted to thank everyone for sending in their their thoughts were in the process of whittling it down to kind of our top view and those will be um sort of like the steering committee is doing an initial vote and then we will do a vote of our top three at our next meeting and um so I just wanted to thank the community for that also um we are hosting a community table at the Ashland Farmers Market this upcoming Saturday from nine to one so I would encourage folks that want to know more about the the comprehensive plan process and what the project is all about because we all talk about planning but nobody knows what we're talking about as far as like the real nuts and bolts of this um and I also receive news that we'll be able to kick off um or show the new yeah we should have a website the new website so um for the conference yeah so um so lots of good things happening our next uh steering committee meeting is the 19th and um we'll be joined Again by at least one member of the the Golson Consulting team and uh would love folks to to join us on Zoom or um come in person it's a little tough because the room is is is tight with with quite a few members of the steering committee what's the room and zoom's tough too zoom's tough too yeah that's that's that is where's the meeting um we mean in the library in the big room in the library so um what about the community center that's a little bigger because we don't have like the capability to put up with the technology yeah I think I think that was it um we have our newsletter that goes out at the end of every month I would encourage folks to sign up for for that um no I think that pretty much we're chugging along yeah the last meeting was really good so we're feeling we're feeling positive cool all right thank you um oh the next uh fortunately this is a should be a quick update update I originally asked to put this on the agenda update on the federal government shutdown so fortunately we do not currently have a federal government shutdown we has been extended the agreement has been extended but only through like November 17th hopefully Congress will find a way out of that to continue the government we had looked uh you know um I think the realization came to some of us the longer that continues the more and more the effects are fortunately uh we're okay for now and I don't know if anyone else wanted to comment on that or Michael if you had anything else to say I think we just dodged the country dodged the bullet and we'll see what happens next yeah I mean it's like you said we dodged a bullet we'll see what happens it seems like we're furthering into chaos now than we were really bless you a week ago but sogo's Congress yeah so if there's nothing further on that I'll uh we have the consent agenda is there any um anybody want to pull anything but consent agenda if not I will entertain a motion to accept any consensus the exempt agenda as presented and I'll second that all right motion's been made and seconded uh without any further discussion I'll ask uh for a vote all those in favor accepting the consent agenda say aye aye aye consent agenda has been accepted that takes us to town manager reports so first we'll start off with something fun uh fire prevention week is next week and so our fire department is kicking it off with an open house at the new facility on October 7th that's a Saturday starting at 11 A.M so would encourage everybody especially the kiddos to head over to the fire station the public safety building and um you know get to experience you know the big trucks and get to meet some of the firefighters and Sparky will probably be there too bless you um next is an update on the downtown project so they were supposed to do the lining last night as you can see that did not happen they just did not show up so unfortunately yeah this vendor's been pretty tough and unfortunately they're like one of the only vendors that does this type of work but over the past week they've been doing a lot of landscaping so I don't know if you've noticed those trees the trees a lot of trees looks like they've been there for a while it's really interesting yeah a lot of shrubs we might want to use some for the Arboretum and they think about it there's a lot of them but I think the biggest the biggest news is um you know as everybody knows or should by now we were looking at doing a stamped asphalt treatment on the medians and with the crossing Islands and once we had one of those done it was well it looked like stamped asphalt it that did not look like Cobblestone or you know what we were trying to emulate so we're now in the process we're actually going to Brick the medians and the crossing Islands so and then next year the medians are going to be um in inside those medians will have a couple of landscaped areas as well okay not yet what are we talking about in terms of substantial completion at this point well the streetscape work is it should be done by by the end of this month um I mean so in terms of I think the big thing on people's mind is traffic slowdowns and things like that we pretty much passed that or how does that look at the at the end of this month yeah we should be pretty much I think they've gotten so they've done all of the crosswalks which has caused the majority of the traffic detours recently the median work like you know they've already poured the concrete for the base so all of that's done you should just see people in the medians doing the bricking um I think I think pretty well yeah I think we're in we're well beyond the um traffic delay stage so can I just ask a question uh I did send an email to you about soft brick yes so can you tell me exactly where you were seeing the crack ones yeah right in front of Nick's Pizza okay right in front of the next Pizza we we actually had an A Day meeting and we were coming out and look I said these were just late like like a month ago they shouldn't be cracking like that and they were they would you could see like little cracks coming okay I said that's crazy that shouldn't be happening so to me and the the little education that I had from my uncle and dad is Mason's that's soft brick there's different types of uh hardness of Bricks now of course the the cheapest work is the softer work the harder break is because it's killed more it's you know it's a little bit more expensive I'm just kind of curious because you get those types of cracks and you've got seeing weeds this and that and everything else then you had to pull it up again so it's labor labor intensified so sometimes it's easier to pay up front and not after you know well we won't be paying it paying for it again if they I mean well no I understand you don't have to keep revisiting it and you know and saying oh geez this doesn't looks like you know whatever yeah that's um so we'll definitely add that to the Finish list because we've got a few things on the punch list which they're starting to knock off um but um but yes definitely add it okay thank you so because it looks really nice you know it absolutely looks nice I drove down there last night I was went for a ride to and I went down and I said man the vision that we had five years ago when we made that walk downtown New Colony and we looked up mainstream because we were worried about the sight of the church and this and that with that 120.
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and I said wow it's come to fruition it's right it's there yeah just get rid of those get rid of the poles makes the polls stand out like I saw it from though for sure but uh but no it's moving along um it's great to see it coming together update on the West Union sidewalk um so let's talk about the permanent sidewalk for right now we do have the engineering completed and right now it's I I've got to talk to the engineer because the sidewalk is on the southern end or the eastbound Lane going towards um well from the southern eastbound which surprised me because um there's so many driveway aprons there yeah along that side so I want to check with Mike Carter and see we just got it so I just want to see you know what the thought process was about that so we're thinking you know the well we talked about the estimate I do think the prudent thing to do would be to take the 250 that we had already allocated for that sidewalk and take the 250 that we had allocated for like the next year to do the High Street sidewalk and combine those make sure we do the West Union Street sidewalk Evan is applying for a 250 000 Grant to help cover the cost too and so so that should cover it okay actually I'm sorry we're meeting tomorrow uh traffic study committee is meeting tomorrow at 10 30 at the uh substation APD substation I know that was going to be a topical conversation so if anybody wanted to be part of that conversation or had any other suggestions or ideas uh 10 30 at the uh APD substation at the market back at Market Basket Plaza and uh you know to hear the the conversation that will happen whatever the focus is West Union yeah the focus is Washington yeah so okay so if we do it on the eastbound side because I know we had talked about not needing to take easements right is that still the case on that side that would still be the case and actually I should have elaborated a little bit more you know we've we've got some space there for in addition to a five foot sidewalk we could create a four foot shoulder on the other side and actually create a bike lane oh a marked bike lane not a protected one but but I'm marked without it right I mean that'd be better than you know and that would be on the uh Valentine property side exactly okay cool and there are also two crosswalks I should have said that too when it when basically at Edgewood and then one at the middle school okay and we'll be electronic yeah those will be the push button push button okay it sounds like we're moving in a good direction here yeah sorry yeah go ahead Claudia she's giving her thumbs up okay so there but I do want to talk about a temporary solution as well so Doug and Kevin um worked on basically this idea and I think it was brought up at the meeting of incorporating those I don't know the best way to call them they're like those flexible bollards like you see on 495 um putting those in and then putting a crosswalk and we were pretty excited about it and then I have not heard directly from the engineer about it but I did get word that he wasn't going to sign off on that from a safety perspective so I just I need to have a conversation with him and figure figure out what is it because of the narrowness of the road in that area no it just doesn't provide a lot of protection and that was basically yeah it is a visual thing I was thinking like after our last meeting like is it possible for the schools to hire someone to do detail for like time where kids would be Crossing like so there's actually police detail during that time because you know I keep thinking like because because it's really like the crossing that's the issue I mean it's walking on the street but it's also it's also finding a safe spaced cross so I I was curious like maybe that might be some option I don't know well we do have a crossing guard there right but she's down but she's down by the middle school because because Donna's like you know having the kids cross but also directing traffic because right the middle school job office she usually has them stand by until the traffic's cleared out a bit and then she'll hold up traffic and have them cross the street that way but it's getting them to her but the crosswalk is an another point right down the street to the West so right now we don't have crosswalks but the ones that were planned would be at Edgewood and then also at the middle school but that's what I was thinking about the Edgewood one is that would be a solution so at least the kid crossed safely but yeah I really want to talk to Mike and just kind of hear his thoughts on this um this stanchion idea I mean because we had I mean we were budgeting for a lot of them like 150.
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um and you know so I mean it's pretty awesome part of this is the walkway as well yeah you'd create like a little walkway along alongside the road but you know the thing is is they're walking there now without without anything right right um and I wondered how they would do with with the snow yeah I mean at least they're able to do it in Hopkinton so we've got to be able to do it we've got to be able to figure out they put those up just recently not you know within within within the year I don't believe they've gone through a a winter season yet I really yeah I think that's true Joe I wondered how that's going to work when it comes uh file time but you know I think um I I don't know I think they must be flexible they're pretty fast flexible I'm just saying this the snow with the the weight of the snow would they would they get buried so what so what happens is basically the base gets drilled into the asphalt and then I'll call it the stanchion which is flexible goes on top of that and so that base is not moving um okay that stanchion has some flexibility yeah like a polo stick but we'll figure we'll figure something out there you said there's going to be another crosswalk down by the school yes well as a signaled one a signal you just have school traffic is on no because you have you have a you have this Crossing goddamn wow okay and that's when she stops the traffic on I always it's funny because I've gone through there dozens of times but I don't know it's a cross yeah okay so um yep so that's my report all right thank you anything else for town man or update any other updates uh no not right now great so that brings us to board reports we'll start why don't we start with Claudia since she's up there in The Ether go ahead Claudia up here the clouds yes thank you um no I just wanted to uh just a couple of things uh last week we did have a school building committee meeting and I just wanted to kind of restate a little bit into a very good job of it earlier when um talking about the bonding so uh you know Brandi I think brought up about there's going to be some additional funds that come through to the town and that is going to be part of the reimbursement so that will be on top of our original reimbursement we anticipate between 3.4 and 3.8 million dollars in additional reimbursement monies so which would ultimately you know bring down the amount of money that we have to bond um those dollars are coming to us from the state um because there are some projects are being one of them that went out to bid after inflation just went through the roof and and uh and you know the bidding was just crazy compared to um what had been anticipated and the actual costs um you know in fact we actually spent a lot of time in those early days um looking at where we could cut cut back and save some money and still produce the building that we had promised to the town um so we can't bring back some of those things some of those things were gone forever because once you know obviously the building's built you can't bring them back and indeed the money can't be used like that anyways um so this is a money that comes back in the form of reimbursement the actual amount of money that we borrow or the limit of our borrowing um the overall budget it does not change how much the overall budget was so um but those will be some additional dolls that come to the come to us and to help a little bit with some of the money that will be borrowing and then um you know they're working hard to get the uh playground up and running um and trying to get that done before the weather turns um they most of the a lot of the construction above ground has been done um the thing that they're really working against the clock is uh the rubber uh I don't know if it's a cement but it's a rubber material that has to move forward underneath the playground and that has to be done when the temperature is 41 degrees or above so that's the what they're racing against um to get you know a nice playground structure for the kids so fingers crossed on that and then I just wanted to say that uh that you know my husband and I were able to attend um the performances by Mike and and um the project empathy group in Hopkinton on Saturday night right um and and it really was it was uh that everyone did a wonderful job uh Mike was very impressive um as I guess he often is in our meetings as well um and and uh he actually um he just did a great job so uh thank you for that Mike thank you for putting yourself out there um it's you know really important for people to to to hear what makes us all human um and uh you know gives us all a story to be told so that's it's a hard thing to do to put yourself out there so thank you for that um and that's about it I um you know succumbed to uh uh covet uh after three and a half years of fighting it off with a lot of exposures wow in the schools and uh managed to dodge it and uh I did finally succumb but I'm feeling really fine I just didn't really want to be there tonight with a mask on all night um and and have anybody feel you know uncomfortable or concerned or that so I just thought it'd be better to stay home even though this is not my favorite way to participate I can tell you that so that's it for me thank you great thank you Claudia Claudia thank you for thinking of us we appreciate that kid yeah all right so uh Brandi uh sure I only have a couple of things um I just wanted to remind folks that um a week from Saturday October 14th is fall festic Corner Spot one of our Cornerstone events um in the afternoon from three to six it's usually just hopefully knock on wood it'll be a nice day I'm hopeful it'll be a nice day we deserve a nice day for one of these things right um I wasn't able to to do the um the ash hop porch Fest but I heard that was really great I think people loved walking around and listening to music so I just wanted to give a shout out to um the folks that organized that and hopefully next year is is bigger and better and and less rainy so um it's actually turned out pretty well you know both the weather was great Saturday was fine and good awesome so um and then the only other thing I wanted to just say is um so Joe and Yolanda are going to be at um yeah same day um at the farmers market for office hours from 9 to 11 I know Yolanda's going to be there just on the early side and um Joe will be there holding down the fort okay I'll be there I'll be at nine to one of you can pick up some corn for me or something no never mind sorry um and uh yeah that's just I I also went to the the project empathy show um in addition to Michael I had another friend that was a part of the cast and I had um a friend that was also involved in the production of the the um of the event and uh it just it I Echo exactly what Claudia said and you just never know what people's real stories are and so just kind of understanding where people come from is um uh it's it's a good reminder for all of us so anyway yep yep great thank you Brandi uh Joe thank you Mr chair uh quickly um Trish Peter and I met uh last week uh we said some of the uh things that we wanted to our agendas for the zoning discussions one of them had to do with uh seeing what the percentage of the zoning would be a wimpy in certain uh Parcels of land and we we haven't set a date yet but we thought it'd be best just to go and do a a walking tour of the of the lands up and off that off the area off of Pleasant Street so we put in uh hiking boots on so if anybody wants to join us with the mosquito infested areas up there is it okay for us to join you in terms of open meeting no no because it's it's just we're just going for a walk in the woods as soon as uh Peter checks his schedule and checks here as we'll be able to do that and one of the things we were looking at was uh future discussions with uh the ideas and plans of adus and the percentages and changes uh with respect to a 40 billion we had that earlier discussion uh this evening so I won't uh put other potentials yeah right so we started on that and which is nice so uh we'll continue working on it and hopefully we'll provide information for everybody that will be happy just we attentively talked about late November or second November meeting for an update but that's that's if you guys are ready to up yeah so right so we're working on it we're getting there um just want to uh tell everybody that tomorrow uh at 10 30 uh the traffic uh study committee will be meeting at the APD substation which is at Market Basket Plaza uh 10 30.
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uh anyone who's welcome to attend it's an open meeting so please feel free to join us and one of the discussions will be the West Union Street sidewalk engineering proposal and some other areas of concern in town and East Union Street which is still a bone of contention with some of the residents there and speeding and things of that nature and I guess a resident of 154 which is the old Bishop Farm which is right at the corner of Cedar Street and East Union Street the house almost got hit again and that was because of an individual who fell asleep at the wheel wow so we don't know what we can do to try to protect that that house any more than it is it's it's high the house is high so we'll we'll look at it and we'll probably have to put some sort of barrier yeah Paul's house yeah so and I know he'll be there too discuss that matter with us people are going straight on Cedar Street and just keep well he fell asleep so you know when you fall asleep yeah you know you just went kept on going straight and there's really nothing there to protect it other than that Arrow sign double arrow sign and that's really nothing there you know that's going to suit protection so anyway that's that and then uh on October 27th uh at six o'clock it'll be uh 35th annual Halloween parade uh and party for the kids starting at six o'clock at Montenegro Square I still need to find someone contact somebody to be able to utilize the the new midday school so Claudia if you can give me a name that I can contact to get that that would be very helpful um we just want to use that Joe thank you appreciate that um we want to use the uh the cafetorium and and the gymnasium as we have and I love to drive up there and take a look at the uh the path to get to get to the school because now that's it's changed a little bit so I don't want the kids to walk through mud and all that you know in in areas up there so we'll probably have to go through the uh the new entryway by that beautiful electronic sign and uh and um we'll go from there and that's all I have great thank you very much yeah thank you Joe uh I just some items I had just mostly notes um and again yeah I did go to porch Fest that was a great idea and um or at least some of it and um yeah hopefully you'll do it again next year I know the musicians were all volunteers I don't know if people knew that I was like yeah whoa we should at least come up with something to do some fundraising to pay them something it was wonderful um the MBTA new schedule has come out um and so um I don't know there's been some feedback about issues there's supposed to be include late night it doesn't seem to be all that late at night there's some issues with the the westward bound commuters I don't know Brandi if you've been hearing anything about from the Boston crowd about the new schedule or um I could only talk about my experience which was that I'm used to I'm used to not having it when they say they come out with a new schedule because they do that like a couple times a year you literally you look at it nothing's changed and you know yeah this one's different this one is different so um I found that one out on Monday so but um I mean I I don't think you know it's it's not huge changes not a huge change I think it seems pretty Boston oriented I mean I think because it really um which of course no surprise but uh it does have some other issues but um I gotta look I gotta take a closer look because I think it I don't remember if they've added more Express trains but they needed to add more experience I think they did I think that was in terms of your typical kind of especially going to and from Worcester there was a lot of attention paid there I think and and trying to um and um the Lesser stops like Wellesley and West Newton they're kind of trying to de-emphasize those so which you can see why they'd want to do that but so um yeah so if there's any other feedback we're having the commuter rail committee is having a joint meeting with the sustainability Committee of The Advisory board on March October 16th at 10 A.M these are all Zoom meetings so they're very easy to attend if you're interested we're going to be talking about their sustainability efforts but also the new the schedule any kind of schedule issue so if people are interested in that that's I can I think I think Brian just routinely sends us all the the links if you want to do that um I just want to say the for you know one of the things I was you know um in terms of the MBTA zoning uh one of the things I wanted to kind of follow up with which I'm trying to do is that whole formula issue which I think we all understand that we're kind of it's um the overall formula not necessarily how close you are to the to the commuter rail station but how did they arrive at the fact that we had the zone for what is a 1200 units multi-family 1150 and so I thought that was you know really that that formula worked based on the fact that we had built housing before so now we have to build more housing whereas other communities that had build housing got lower numbers so I thought that was essentially uh unfair and then you know trying to you know just carry on an effort to kind of get the administration to tweak that a little bit and maybe to our you know to decrease it a bit so that was kind of something uh discussing with Joe and Friday would if you recall it originally brought this up some months ago so I'm going to try to kind of pursue that and I and I expected the board I think the board supports that but just see if we can push uh the executive office to do some to look at that formula again is is but you know how realistic that is I don't know but I'm gonna try to push on that a little bit and if I can get some help for valet you know I think there's a position the board can take and help I will I will let you know about that um the um uh we got an email about the lieutenant governor visiting Chestnut place I don't know did anyone yeah I know you respond I just wondered you know maybe I'll try to follow up it sounded interesting I'm not sure if any uh I know Michael wasn't able to go and I wasn't either but it just sounded kind of interesting but I don't know if is there anything uh big with that um just enough just we got the MMA trade show in January 19th the 20th is coming up so people could think about that Claudia that's you're new to that that's um you know I I went a few years ago when I went remotely during covid that was good um and so it's usually a good event if you're interested in doing that so people think about that I'm not sure what I'm if I'm going or not this year we'll see um the marpa conference next Tuesday that's another thing that we got an email about I'm thinking about that I'm not sure if anybody yeah Yolanda is not here so I'm sure she has some insight about the usefulness of that but that was another thing we got invited to um oh and I did want to note that the Ashland cultural Council was at the Ashland farmers market last week I think I stopped by and chatted with them so they're they're pushing the Starbucks murals so that was great they're very energetic Stacy was there along with other members of the committee and Stacy I guess is going to be there next Saturday as well for the comprehensive plan so she's a bundle of energy so that's great to see them moving ahead on that um so I think that's that's all I had just some general updates and thoughts but so with that having said that I will entertain a motion to continue this meeting for another two hours is that no yeah sorry no that's okay uh just one quick thing we have some signatures that need to be well we have some paperwork they need signatures so Claudia when you have an opportunity to swing by the town hall uh your signature is going to be needed on some of the people with the bond yeah great okay okay all right so second of motion motion I'll make I'll make a motion to adjourn okay and now it's second all those in favor Jordan say aye aye aye thank you all night see you in two weeks you feel better great all right okay
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the Environ more enjoy this afternoon we have the I must host by the Burlington Wild midle e [Music] did that [Music] cting [Music] different for burlingon has deferred to the second half and iol will receive the opening kickoff again ladies and gentlemen we appreciate you being here with us today to uh participate and watch middle school athletes compete and to be led by coaches that volunteer and dedicate their time and efforts to the education of the student and we also ask that you respect and honor the calls of the officials who also volunteer and participate with the children and if you please rise remove your hats Cassidy Cole will sing the national Anthony [Music] we [Music] FL [Music] the and home of [Music] [Applause] the beautiful thank you d for [Applause] returns theck from the yine to the [Music] 15 starts their possession from the 15 yd line [Music] number 31 Jeff Harper on the carry and number 28 for Burlington on the tack [Music] Grayson again [Music] I almost now 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schedule the football players [Music] managers grandparents these F young men pleas stand and accept our as a small token of our appreciation for all that you do [Applause] all thank you very much to the par grandparents and Guardians in attendance here tonight your participation live [Music] TR [Music] I [Music] me [Music] okay [Music] you pleas [Music] I'm [Music] e [Music] for noing [Music] no
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e like to open the regularly schedule meeting of the clion board of education for Thursday October the 5th 2023 if you'd all please rise for a salute to our flag followed by a brief moment of silence I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the Republic for which it stands one nation God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you roll call please Mr abrao here Mr aad miss bassford here Mr brunak here Mr Mia here Mr Paris here here Mr Santiago here vice president Danny here president Smith here we have a quum uh mission statement please uh vice president Danny the mission of the Clifton School District in an open and reciprocal Community Partnership is to provide all students with a quality education to develop the skills necessary to become literate lifelong Learners who are responsible and producti citizens contributing to a Democratic Society in an everchanging world the open public meetings act the New Jersey open public meetings law was enacted to have the to ensure that the right of the public to advance notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act the clipton board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be publicized by having the daytime in place thereof posted at the city clerk's office Clon Public Library administration building senior citizen nutrition Center on cable TV in the local press on the district's website and mail to parents of uh presidents of parent teacher organizations this meeting will be tape recorded in accordance with our policy 0168 of course I don't have my thing up okay um just going to deviate from the agenda briefly I'd just like to um make a statement um concerning um uh some uh unpleasant accusations that were um alluded to last uh last board meeting um as I've stated uh being a board member for uh com coming to an end of 17 years doesn't happen uh with a um a tarnished reputation um people in this town know me they've elected me [Music] um it's very hurtful in this town when we start attacking people and we have no no proof no evidence and we don't bring that if if you have it you bring It Forward it's just amazing with all the good things happening in this town um we always seem to attack the negative never do people come up and talk about the positive this district has done many things that are positive and we continue to do many things that are positive the negativeness is not going to be accepted CED here you may think you know it all that you're going to bring somebody down because they didn't vote a certain way that you wanted them to vote um that you make threats that no matter what I'll do I'll make sure the person doesn't get reelected that was what took place last meeting on an attack of my character and I'll face you face to face be a man and face to face but how dare you drr D how dare you interrupt the progress of this district and waste waste people's time on lies complete and utter lies all because of one thing because somebody's wife wanted to be the board president that's what this was all about and when you don't get your way then you come in an attack as long as I'm sitting in this chair no one's going to attack myself or any board member here this board has worked very hard to give our district the Excellence that it has and we will continue to do so so don't think you're going to come here and disrupt things I guess you're hoping that I don't get reelected and then maybe we could you could get your way doesn't belong here doesn't belong in a public setting like this to waste people's time to had so many positive things last week with all of our presentations and come up with this negativeness and there no place for it we are here to work to educate kids bottom line it also amazes me board members go through a criminal background check every one of us have to go through a criminal background check that is required so again making accusations if you think that makes you a better person you think you're going to wear certain colors that make you a better person you do what you want to do but don't come to this meeting again and bring negativeness to the Board of Education doesn't belong here and shouldn't be here and my character speaks for itself last election I had said that 25,000 people voted for me I guess if I was doing something wrong it would have come up a long time ago wouldn't have no and if you're really willing to work with somebody as they said there's a whole another way of doing that so as I said last time not going to take any more time but we as Commissioners are here to do a job don't come here and waste our time and if you think you have something as I said bring it on because I had a lengthy discussion with the Department of Justice the FBI and the prosecutor's office so you want to continue to do these things they already know and a file has been made do not ever come here and hurt any of our characters this board puts a lot of time and volunteerism for you to come here to do something to undermine because you want to sit in this chair not going to happen and I'm sorry to the public that you had to listen to that and go through it thank you to board members for allowing me that time thank you wh there's trisuit so just in case you thought I was hiding behind my dog also I wanted her to come here tonight so everyone could see her she's not the rat girls in the back don't worry that's Triscuit all right we'll start with the uh we'll start with the agenda uh we're going to start with public recognition could you grab her yeah watch your step thank you okay thank you thank you you can't go out and say hi to everybody this portion of the meeting is open to Residents and non-residents of the city of Clifton for the purpose of addressing any subject matter pertinent to and directly related to the operation of the Clifton Public School District residents and non-residents are requested if they're in person to sign the register provided for this purpose all speakers are asked to State their names municipality and subject matter before they speak comments are limited to 5 minutes per person issues raised by members of the public may or may not be responded to by the board all comments will be considered and a response will be forthcoming if it went appropriate your questions may or may not be answered by board members the board ask the members of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of other individuals when they are speaking specifically comments regarding students and employees of the board are discouraged and will not be responded to by the board students and employees have specific ific legal rights afforded by the laws of the state of New Jersey the board Bears no responsibility nor will be liable for any comments made by members of the public members of the public should consider their comments in light of the legal rights of those affected or identified in their comments and be aware that they are legally responsible and liable for their comments okay we'll start with our virtual do we have anyone yes we do we have one person in the waiting room and that's m Tanya Suarez Suarez if you would unmute yourself it is your turn to speak you have five minutes thank you so much I appreciate that um good evening everyone my name is t suus been resident for five years in the Delana area I'm also running for clion Board of Education this November but I'm not here for that today I just want to be transparent about my role today I come to the board in the community as a parent recently I like many other parents and Guardians and tended my son's back to school night to meet his teacher and see what he's up to during the school day as always I was pleasantly greeted by the principal and his teacher his teacher decorated the classroom beautifully had created fun incentives for the kids to learn and behave and had a positive attitude about the way she cared about her children my son meeting the teacher and seeing his classroom affirmed my trust in his school and that he's surrounded by Educators who truly care about his overall wellbeing and with all the wonderful things I observed there was something that I found concerning that I know was out of the hands of this teacher and very likely out of the hands of this princial my son's school schedule is jam-packed from 9:00 to 3 having it heavily front loaded with math for the majority of the morning reading and social studies after lunch with only a spattering of five specials throughout the week I'll note that my son is seven and in second grade as an aside the fact that classes such as art music and world language are called specials devalues their worth and sends the message that those classes are secondary to a child's Learning and Development the reality is that such classes allow for students natural-born talents to emerge and develop giving them opportunities to be proud of what they can create and enhance and being eager to want to learn more but I digress with his schedule or rather within his schedule each day after his 30 minute lunchtime recess the schedule for 20 minutes according to New Jersey state law every Public School from fifth grade and below is required to give all students recess a minimum of 20 minutes per day on a full school day on shortened school days recess is not required his school is complying with the Mandate also it's important to note that the schedule does not seem to allow for transition time for anyone who has worked with young children you know that transitions can be very tricky and even at best most efficient transitions when walking through the hallways can take about five minutes so unless lunch is shortened by 5 minutes or the following period which his half happens to be reading is shortened by five minutes children receive roughly 15 minutes of unstructured play time during the 6-hour school day why is this important even though it's not academic learning free play for children is still learning and plays a critical role for a child's development through play children learn skills that are necessary to be successful uccessful academically for example children learn appropriate risk-taking through play which encourages this class participation for many children raising their hand or sharing something in the classroom is a risk because it's a chance that they not may not be called on or given an answer play allows them to cope with that and learn how to deal with it free play also allows for problem solving when children structure their own games with tag hide-and seek and even dramatic play they need to learn to negotiate and problem solve about who goes first how much time they should have and to take turns what they want to play together and so on these skills also reinforce reinforce other math skills such as sequencing and understanding time when we deprive children opportunities to plan their own imaginative Accord then we deprive them of practicing real life problem solving scenarios that will support their academic skills also especially since our young children are of the co generation many still learning how to interact with peers with school free play encour excuse me free play encourages social emotional well-being for all students whether it's being able to release and decompress from a heavy mning of challenging brain work or learning how to cooperate be compassionate with peers and learning how to cope with disappointment because maybe the game they wanted to play was chosen allowing children to free play for a longer period of time uplifts their Spirits gives them a chance to truly breathe and gives them okay Miss Suarez I'm sorry your time is up thank you thank you for uh calling in today thank you thank you sorry anyone else no one virtual okay no one else virtual motion please motion close V Mr abrao second by commissioner Mahia okay in person anyone wishing to address the board please come up to the microphone sign the register and state your name municipality in which you live and subject matter stay here anyone wish to address the board I'll start this when this is you can start it you sure yeah sir I don't know if I could talk for five minutes that's where my wife says yeah you didn't like that at all hope I did that right good evening members of the board and the Clifton Community my name is Joe sieno I am running as a candidate for the board of education on November 7th number four on the ballot having grown up in Clifton my entire life I am not only a proud resident but also a product of its Public School System 22 years ago I'm old education was very different my parents played a crucial role in my education advocating for my needs as I was a student who was diagnosed with ADD my parents fought hard for me to remain in general classes as I had a learning disability that did not impair my Behavioral or social skills back then your only choice was to be placed in special education I did not have access to the same resources tests or curriculum as my peers however my parents fought hard for me believing that I deserved an education on par with every other student although education has progressed since then I am passionate to ensure students are receiving the best support possible however I don't want this to seem like the Clifton school system failed me in fact I had a teacher who had a major impact in my life Vincent Farrell my eighth grade teacher at woodrill Wilson throughout my time with him he showed me unwavering support care and belief in my potential despite moments of difficulty as a student he stood by me and helped me overcome obstacles without his constant guidance and belief in me I would not be the person I am today it is important for me to express my Foundation of who I am thanks to my parents and Mr phell without their support in my journey I wouldn't be standing before you tonight I am running for the board because I genuin ly believe that my perspectives experiences and dedication will be valuable assets please know I am running my campaign as myself not running on a ticket also not accepting any donations if you would like to know more about me please reach out to me anytime on my cell phone which is 973 56314 49 again my name is Joe sieno I am number four on the ballot for Clifton Board of Education thank you all for your consideration and see you at the polls on November 7th good evening everyone uh my name is Joe Kenova I'm running for Board of vid this November 7th number seventh number seven on the ballot so lucky number seven my children are attending Clifton schools I did three and a half years on the board where we accomplished many things some of the highlights of we were the selection of the superintendent getting every child a Chromebook on negotiations where we brought all contracts current and settled ones that were pending for years getting a $50 million Revenue stream back from Clifton from the state passing a historic referendum and surviving the new Norms of coid so I've been engaging with people on Facebook with this Clifton citizens concerns questions of the week and the Clifton news and Community tag post for candidates but I just want to meet people who weren't online so I'm going to let you know where I'm going to be at for a couple of these events October 11th there's a Clifton Republican organization League of women's voters they have a board of ed candidates night at City Hall from 7:00 to 9: I'll be after afterwards there to meet with people and discuss there October 16th boys and girls Taste of Clifton I'll be there on October 18th the Palestinian American Community Center pack is having a candidat forum at 388 Lake View AV at 7.m on October 20th the Boys and Girls Club at St Peters Haven have a Tricky Tray I'll be at that event to speak with anyone the 26th and 27 I'll the 26th I'll be at CCMS and the 27th at school 3 I'll be the DJ for their trunk retreat but before or afterwards if you want to I could speak with anyone there on any of my thoughts or ideas uh October 29th at the Halloween parade now I know that mail and ballots have been sent out already and I know just a reminder that early voting is from October 28th up until election at the library on pav um so I'll be getting my lawn signs in next week if there's anyone that wants lawn signs please let me know message me on Facebook or reach out to me um and I'll drop it right off to you again my name is Joe Kenova and number seven on the ballot thank you thank you sir Keith bassard Cliff New Jersey I was going to go off to Speech but my daughter will finish it what I can first of all I was listening to this whole thing Mr Smith you can put your eyes down all you want last time last time last time I was here you made the thing comment Bring It On okay I don't have to bring it on and another thing is I'll come to these meetings anytime I want that's my First Amendment right okay you can make all the faces you want and another reason why I don't meet with you because anytime you meet with you you lie about things and I could prove it okay you could sit up there and take all the minutes you want and make faces you know what someone just did that up in the council area too and they're going to be gone soon too okay whatever the people want to say and vote the way they want that's up to the people on November 7th if you do get back on there nothing I could do the people voted that way okay you up here making all these speeches thre I had the stuff for you to see no one said it was definitely you okay you so choose not to look at it you did and it's still here in my hand so if you are interested and everybody can hear me now in the TV Land say I want to see it and I'll give it to you but you won't you won't because you know why just like you said you in touch with this law enforcement that law enforcement let me tell you some you could talk to them all you want but there's nothing to say except hey someone had something I don't know if it was me or whatever but your stuff did go to law enforcement that was here and whoever else I don't know but there is stuff here okay and they do have it and if they find out they can't find it fine they can't find who it was or they find it's somebody else it's somebody else I couldn't tell you I just brought it here because it was kids involved and what happened what I found this is given to me okay so you should say me oh Keith thank thank you you know I'm very interested what you have you didn't even say that that's what the normal person says okay you can make your clown face is all you want Jimmy let me tell you something okay you think you're running this District bring your dog to school six all day and people just refrain from making any accusations just you don't at school six go excuse me I'm the chair I I don't care what you are okay I'm First Amendment right enough no I'm not enough I have First Amendment right sir and I'm going to ask you I went to years I won do not have a one-on-one cons uh conversation I say what you want to say before here what's the difference say what you want to say and finish you're stopp at me and I want my time back you're getting nothing back go ahead oh I am Jimmy go ahead I will get my time back go ahead okay Madam attorney will you please advise him okay but I want my time back to plain and simple I want my time back go ahead am I going to get my time back sure we'll give you thank you very much okay I have a right to vote the way I want and say what I want okay whatever I say it's always in black and white it's here okay so you can't say to me that I'm saying something wrong I'm saying something against you when I said here Jim I'll show you I don't know about you and it's on the tape from last time okay you said you had all these people calling you and everything I opened that phone they won't give it to me until after the next meeting maybe okay your policy says that if you use any electronics that have nothing to do with this meeting or has something to do with the meeting I could see it your phone and your computer you had so if you want want to deny me I'll bring you to the right people in court and we'll take care of that you can do it and the lawyer could tell you too you could stop me all you want and try not to give it to me I'm entitled to it I didn't make the policy you guys made the policy here this is your policy so what do we do the policy is only good for children or other people or whoever you select even h h hi I policy by saying this to me bring it on comment guess what you violate your own Hib policy that you guys formed here not me so it's like okay Mr bassard we're not satisfy what you're saying so we'll use the policy the way we want to guess what you could do what you want right now cuz you know you're the board here but I have rights too and I've proven this before Jimmy cost me $10,000 last time but guess what I won so if you're going to go up there and say something about me tell me about come to meetings or something it's not going to happen because I'll be here to next meeting okay I will be here and if you do win November 7th God bless you okay and I won't be at any more meetings because it's a waste of my time then coming here but that's up to the people the voters out there so let's just understand that too and people you I'll say it again you heard me I offered to show him this stuff again he hasn't said to me Keith I want to see the after the meeting so you guys think about this stuff you can put a Blinder on all you want but you're dealing with kids everybody up there took an oath about dealing with kids and what's the best for kids these are children we're talking about from Clifton here okay I don't know who who did it I can't tell you who did it but you should be very interested at board as board members cuz I'll show you what I have too I'm not holding anything back I don't hold things back and when I talk it's straight thank you where that okay hi uh it's gonna oh oh yeah Anthony Dal Salvo I live in Clifton I've been here for the past 17 years some of you guys probably know who I am some don't uh it's tough to follow that up but um there you read something about the missions statement and it was to teach and make people their children to make them Pro good people of society and to teach them and to make them you know learn well I was reading about Governor Murphy's standard uh and with regards to uh informing a parent whether or not um you know gender identity with their children and that makes me very very anxious because in that there's a paradox there and it's a bit of an oxymoron because the school is going to have power over whether or not my child can tell me something or something should be going but remember your school no one gave birth to my son my wife did I am his father and last time I checked I think I know what's best for him more so than any politician or elected member would know some of the school boards out there and some of the cities have sued and challenged Governor Murphy's um new law my question is where does Clifton stand on it if you guys already spoke about it or whatever forgive me I'm ignorant of it I haven't had a chance to really look at it but where do you guys stand on it that's what I want to know because in reality last time I checked I feed my son I clothe my son I protect my son I will fight a grizzly bear with a toothpick for my son if he needs to say something he should say it to me there should be no law out there that says some school board or some teacher or some person who has nothing to do with the raising of my child has the right to withhold it my kids's got a snotty nose I want to know I don't need anybody to sit there and say oh the government says because when the government says there's a problem and you know what Thomas Jefferson said when the people are are scared of the government there is tyranny when the people when the government is scared of the people there is freedom problem is there is an undertone right now and there is a ground swell and people ask me all the time what is going on and I don't know I don't have an answer for them do I like it absolutely not now I'm rambling on I didn't prepare a speech I didn't I'm not running for a school board I'm not doing any of that I'm just a parent but I'm a concerned parent and you guys know even during coid I was very very active with regards to what people said what people did and I remember a lot of the school board meetings that were done virtually and a lot of the comments that were made and those people are filed away in my brain and I know who they are and how to take care of them because you guys really don't know who I am but the reality is I want to know where you guys are going with it if you're going to challenge it if you're not going to challenge it if you're going to amend it who's going to be doing what and that's it and I'm not running for Schoolboard thank you very very much a good night yep I'm ready Samantha bass for Clifton New Jersey I really did not want to have to come up here and I really didn't want to be saying this and my heart is literally coming out of my chest and I can't even tell you when the last time public speaking or anything made me feel that way very new to see I don't know if I haven't been here in a while so new to see security up here that seems very interesting to me you know I'm very disheartened to see what has been happening in our city first with the council meeting on Tuesday sitting here in the seats it it's the election seasons are getting worse and worse and uglier and uglier and I also don't know if people are calling 1 1800 numbers for lawyers not you ma'am I actually really like you I watched you on TV I think you're smart um but what law is and what people's rights are unless you threaten someone you can't ban them from a building you can't also interrupt someone when they're speaking unless they're saying something wildly inappropriate that someone's right right yeah I don't know where on the agenda I was looking five times to see where we had this very big opening speech and I understand you're upset but you want to talk about being appropriate that's not appropriate having a service animal run around here is not appropriate I know because I have to constantly tell people what to do with their service animals when they want to sneak them into residence Halls when they're not actually service animals and they're a rabbit okay I understand these things so we need not to we need to practice what we preach that's my message practice what we preach know what we're saying wow I'm like I'm disgusted disgusted you know I'm not even going to read this people can come and ask me if they want to see stuff but you can have a clean track record and it doesn't mean that you haven't done anything guilty it just means you haven't been caught and I hope that sits with people whatever the truth may be whatever it is it always comes out and finds a way just calling people social Med media bullies I've been a product of a social media bullying just for existing and having a last name do you know what that's like I know you know what that's like Richie you get it all the time right you post about it all the time just for existing I felt it last election when the Republicans wanted to say we don't need another bastard on the board that felt really good that I as a woman a young educated woman got that so we can make all these big Grand statements we can fight whatever we want to fight but if you and your character is not what you practice but is only what you preach that's garbage and it means nothing it means nothing to me and it means nothing to other people and I'll do whatever I have to do for the next month with other people who align with myself to make sure I'm practicing what I preach and I'm making that a promise and that's not Revenge that's not coming with vengeance cuz I'm not bitter whatever happened I'm just tired I want to be happy where I live and I want to be proud of where I live and I want to help the students who get a proper education because they are our future I see it on a daily basis that coming to college and what they need and their support so do whatever you have to do but I'm going to do what I got to do too thank you just wear mine higher ready good evening my name is Judith bassford I live on Mountain View Drive in Clifton New Jersey I'm not going to give you the number because Daniel LS protects me under that as you can see my my daughter hit the the subject a little I'm going to talk about something U sorry Danny I wanted to speak to you all summer and we just didn't connect social media is a very powerful tool used rightly it's great I can connect with my nephew in Hawaii my cousins in Florida people around the world but when it's used wrong it's it's wrong I can assure you Mr bassford has done his due diligence with everything that has come to our house it came to my house he has connected with law enforcement officials duy sworn from the state and the country and they are looking into it if he's wrong he will apologize he said nothing wrong but if he's wrong he will but I'm pleading with you if he's right what are you going to do about it that's on your neck not mine during last year's campaign someone from this board went around telling the community not to vote for my daughter and it's true it came back to me they said one mistake of a bassford is enough we don't need the other bastard so I have screenshots of everything it was coming back to me it was a board member and former board members as well now this is an issue with the service dog it's policy number 5337 service animals dogs individually trained to do work for a specific job or task benefits of individuals and disabilities in all areas of the district dog has to be leashed cat has to be leashed it has to It's supposed to stay with the person all time so board members are you the fact is that the dog comes to school 6 and hangs out in the Welcome Center for hours when the person that it is supposed to soothe bring emotional support to or empathy to is not with that person in fact recently Somebody went out to lunch and left the dog here without him the person how to go home with the dog because it was after business hours and take the dog home is that in your policy that staff takes care of somebody else's dog are you paying for that person what are you gonna do about it Dr Robert huzzy I'm I'm reading Keith's speech show by the way when you're not in the district the big joke around the community is Mr Smith will run the school system because he's here all the time he's in the building quite often staff have come to Mr bassford and complain why did they come to us they drop stuff in allps I don't know maybe they think that we have the gumption to do something about it we lived here for 30 38 years and never seen a board president disin volved in this running of the district every day two things I want to leave with you New Jersey ethics number three I will confine my board duties and actions to making policy planning appraisals and I will help to frame policies and plan plan only after the board has consulted with them who affect them not running the district confine your duty to making policy not living here not being here all day not taking up residents here none of that number two I will carry out my responsibilities not to administer to the schools but together with my fellow board members key word is fellow come to see that they are well-run start listening to the employees fellow board members start listening there's a lot more going on than you are aware of this is the beginning of an Ethics charge we spent a lot of money $80,000 in the past two years do you want more ethics charges police your own board thank you hey everyone um okay hi everyone I'm Cameron Hebron 61 George Russell way and I'm one of the potential commissioner candidates um I rushed over here as soon as I heard you guys were talking about the trans subject so as someone who has a lot of trans friends um New Jersey State's not the safe or easiest state to transition in also in general I don't think policing parents is a solution I mean of course if they commit actual crimes against their child like hate crimes against their child like you should police it but we should do more to support these families only 05% of New Jersey State's population is transgender and I'm tired of seeing both political parties use actual people as ploes for whatever power tactics that are happening I'm seeing it happen in Clifton New Jersey like back and forth not just about the trans issue but about other issues too I think these parents these voters deserve a lot more for their Buck if we're actually going to be calling ourselves officials you guys have a lot of power in in the sense that you guys have titles names and even institutions backing you you can make more informed decisions okay now time to get into the part about why I'm running and who I am I'm running on a platform of advocacy accessibility and accountability I've seen a lot of politicians not necessarily here but across New Jersey and across the country widely just Bank on accountability as a fun buzzword that they just throw around whenever they want to avoid touchy subjects however I'm holding myself accountable as an ally to various communities regardless of if I belong to the them or not I want to see people I want to see this District drive and school districts leading to my second part is accessibility school districts are a vital part of a community schools are expected to not by the voter but by the state they are expected to be a source of free child care as well as generally health behavior modeling this is something that we've seen the who report on decade after decade and and it's part of their sustainability goals and Healthy Living goals of 2030 we also need to consider accessibility as it relates to the infrastructures in our town when we're talking about accessibilities how are students with disabilities expected to get home dur during rush hour when we don't have adequate sidewalks thank you Mickey godette for bringing that up how are we expected to be accountable for students who are English Learners when we have a huge housing CR crisis causing a lot of the white fright white flight issues that we see at the council meetings um you guys are Commissioners the town respects you you are expected to stand up for whoever your constituent is regardless on what side of the aisle they fall on and I I have to give it up to Keith bassford Samantha bassford and Judy bassford we may not see eye to eye on every issue but I respect you guys you you stand by your morals you make it a point to be involved in the city and to take care of the city that you care for um yeah I I yeah that's all I got I was rushing from the train station so thank you do I need to sign or cool yeah I did so yeah anyone else wish to address the board seeing on motion to close motion by Mr Santiago Mr Abad drao our student uh representative here I didn't see her oh Elias you're going to take her spot right um good evening like I said Jay couldn't be here today because the tennis team had their state competition tonight um so I'm going to be filling her spot um on the subject of tennis I'll start with sports um on the girls tennis team I believe it was last week um annias Jenkins won her third County Champion um so she's a three-time p County champion and that was her third time in a row of winning that title um Saturday October 7th the varsity boys and girls soccer tournament um will go on the boys will be at the the stadium and the girls will be at the high school field um the the homecoming game will be next Friday come to see our homecoming court and support our Mustangs um and now news from CHS the Hindu Student Association will be having an event of cultural dance called Garba this will take place Friday October 27th at 7:30 in the lower gym all are invited to support and attend let's see the M team is doing well in our competitions um and the Key Club they thank the Clifton Education Association for two grants they received these grants will help with an event called key leader and the Key Club district convention um they also thank Mr O'Reilly because he recently stepped down as as an adviser but recognize him for his kindness compassion humor and fun that he so naturally brings with him everywhere um and he will certainly be missed um and that's it for the student report thank you all very much Mr Smith may I address sure Elias thank you as always for um for your report I just wanted to tell you I received your email I'm about 200 emails behind I haven't had a chance to respond but Elias has asked to um attend our next policy committee meeting which M bassford I don't have a problem with if you don't Mr Smith do you have a problem with that um so Elias it's going to be next Monday night I'll send you an invite 5 are we at 5 5 5:00 it's virtual okay um and Jade is welcome to come um and we'll talk about what you what you email me about okay thanks okay adoption oh excuse me we'll do U Miss verosa you're up next Miss Rosa you're up next is she not I'm sorry M SMI yes hello good evening everyone good evening Commissioners president Smith Dr Robos Central Administration I always like to start off by thanking you all for your time and um just as always your presence you're presently here for better on most days right so thank you all tonight um we bring you a very special guest let me cue this up real quick oh yeah this just it moved my queue as I was working on some there we are tonight we are celebrating a fantastic um a fantastic staff at school 11 our head custodian Mr Martinez Escobar in the past three years Mr um Escobar has changed the lives of not only our students but our staff at school 11 We Are Forever grateful for his service dedication and most of all his personality um I want to take a moment before um before I play the video that uh h team put together along with uh the help of Mr Michael mccy um and share my sentiments in Spanish for he and his family um Dr Rob president Smith would you do me the honor of um celebrating Mr Escobar with us oh I'm sorry wait I got to play a video first let's check that out as it's buffering [Music] Mato absolutely embodies the best of us and is the most rare of all of us here at school 11 the way that he cares for the school the staff and the students is the way that a person would care for their home and their family he pours so much love attention and effort to go above and beyond to make sure that this school is safe clean warm and welcoming and he makes sure that every teacher's need is always met and the way that he interacts with our students is also treasure Ed in that he is fatherly he is caring he is kind and he's a treasur gem at our school in every sense of the word we couldn't be more grateful and we couldn't be more excited to recognize and celebrate him this evening Mato is one of the first people we think of when we hear the word rare he greet us each morning with a smile and makes our health and safety his number one priority he goes above and beyond each day to help meet the needs of staff and students thank you for all that you do for us Mato your hard work does not go unnoticed thank you mat thank you Mato you are amazing at school 11 and we don't know what we would do without you thank you for being there every single day Mato we appreciate everything you do for us here at school 11 you exceed our expectations every day and we're super lucky to have you here tile what would like to say than you hi Mr Mato Jenny and I would just like to say thank you for all that you do for school number 11 we really appreciate it congratulations Mr Mato exemplifies being rare he always goes above and beyond to give us everything we need getting a building ready over the summer is no easy feat he did it with the construction projects and the referendum with a smile in his face Mr Mato thank you for always being rare and thank you for being my friend Hi Mr Mato um we just wanted to say thank you so much for everything you're doing for school 11 and our one example is how you're always enthusiastic and that um everything you're doing you're constantly doing it with a smile and it's something that we really appreciate because it just brings a smile to our face um and it just warms our heart that you're doing it with such gratitude so thank you very much hi Mr Matteo thank you so much for all the help that you give you're most definitely responsible you juggle so many things to help make our school great and better than it was the day before and even though you have a million things on your to-do list you never fail to help us out and remember everything that we've asked of you so thank you so much you deserve this so much the great teachers want to say thank you for all the amazing things you do you are respectful and that you continue making school 11 feel like our home you are attentive and that you come and take care of every need we have you are responsible you're always here every day you are enthusiastic because you always keep our spirits up thank Mr Mato is responsible because he always gets his work done I appreciate Mr Matel because he's nice and he keeps her school clean Mr Mato is attentive because he always keeps our classrooms clean I appreciate Mr mat because he works hard and he does whatever he need Mr Matel is respectful because he always greets us with a smile I love Mr mat so much Mr Mato is enthusiastic because he's always happy to do what we need him to do we [Applause] love I want to leave this picture up because this is exactly what school 11 gets day in and day out from Mr Mato as you heard every single person wanted to join his video When Miss Amanda rhods and Miss um shabby helped us out uh with this with putting the footage together everyone wanted to congratulate uh Mr Mato and look at the kids so we talk about our kids right we talk about relationship building and we talk about the importance of all of our stakeholders I thank you for allowing this platform to exist on the pbsis level because check this out he is living that rare dream um and so thank you so much at this moment I would like to ask for your support and helping us hand out the [Applause] [Music] certificate thank you think es to school 11 that the support of the faculty were here tonight so let's take a picture together and then I'd like the whole team to come up picture and then like thank you I'm gonna get one more with this just to be safe thank you two questions one why does Miss shabby have so many posted notes on her guest who was the student that was in the video five times come on up oh it's a big okay um Dr um trying to get Dr Dany and the P I'm so sorry the person in front of Dr Dan yes I cannot see you I cannot see you yes I'm so sorry no it's not everyone gets in the picture and Dr Danny if you just move a little bit to nope this way there you go I'm directionally uh inadequate here there we go and then I'm going to do one with there you go and one last cheese three two one thank [Applause] you on behalf of the uh Clifton Board of Education we thank you and say congratulations and it shows in your hard work and your dedication um as all of school 11 uh we're so proud of all of you and um because of that I know you want to stay for the whole meeting so no you could kindly if you would like to leave you're you're welcome to do so now thank you awesome y absolutely all right we'll do the adoption of the minutes of September 21st do I hear motion to approve uh motion by Mr Santiago second second by Mr abrao any discussion roll call please Mr yes Miss bassford abstain Mr brunak yes Mr Mia yes Mr Paris yes Mr Santiago yes vice president Danny yes president Smith yes motion carries Dr vosi ready yes thank you Mr President good evening Commissioners members of the community faculty staff uh students that just one of my favorite things to hear um to hear about a wonderful employee Mato is a a hard worker he's one of our go-to guys uh when we need something done you just couldn't ask for a better employee and it's so nice to be able to honor uh him tonight um speaking of honoring employees um next month at our October next two weeks at our October 19th board meeting uh for the first time the Board of Education will be uh honoring employees of the month so um we started a nomination process we had over a 100 nominations for the month of October uh there is a uh committee made up of a variety of uh employees who selected uh a winner uh an employee of the month from the elementary level employee of the month from middle school an employee of the month from the high school and a district employee of the month so at our October 19th meeting we will be uh honoring and recognizing those four employees they will be getting notification tomorrow um that they that they won this award so looking forward to that a lot because I me the best thing we do is honoring employees and and recognizing kids it's the only reason why I really want to be here to be honest with you um so I look forward to that I got to give a shout out to the wild mustangs the wild mustangs is my intramural softball team um we started the proud to say we started the first ever one Clifton intramural staff um Sports league and we started this week we had uh over 60 I think 65 employees sign up and we're playing a very very intense level of co-ed slow pitch softball it's not really intense um but we had our first game Tuesday uh my team played today and although uh we lost it fun was had by everyone and that's the goal of the uh of the entire league is for staff to go out have fun meet new people and and to bring uh staff members from all over the district together so it's been a great success so far uh go wild mustangs like to invite um the board members and um our middle school students and parents next Wednesday excuse me next Tuesday October 10th to the annual Clifton High School open house uh starts at 6:00 ends at 7:30 um and while the event is targeted for our middle school students and and parents everyone is welcome so it's next Tuesday October 10th 6th to 7:30 please stop by to see all of the great programs that Clifton High School has to offer from academics to all of our clubs and activities to all of our various Sports and I've said this before publicly I I will say it again if you live in Clifton and you have children that attend our schools when it's time for high school you need look nowhere else because Clifton High School has everything that your child could possibly want to study want to participate in or could hope for um so please if you're unsure um come out check it out ask questions our Administration will be there our teachers will be there and find out what Clifton High School is really about I have a message from Dr capy the principal at school 13 who wanted to thank uh the administrators and board members that came out to the Centennial Celebration this past Sunday uh 100 years of school 13 and hundreds of people um were in attendance including alumni going back as far as the 1940s um Dr Capi said it was a wonderful experience to see the impact that school 13 has had on the neighborhood and community and for our staff and students to connect to their history she specifically wanted to thank miss kusel levich Mr Mr Jenaro Mr Smith Mr Paris Mr Mahia Mr abdrabo Mr bronc and Mr Santiago for uh stopping by at school I want to give a shout out to school 15 couple things going on uh School 15 counselor Mrs Duarte will be hosting a bullying workshop for parents of students in G grades K through uh two Workshop will help parents learn about the Hib law and ways they can help their child's social and emotional development School 15 will also have its first Hispanic heritage day October 11th where staff and students alike will Adorn cultural Garb uh or shirts to represent their native countries and finally pbsis is off to a great start at school 15 um with the school 15 fund run on October 20th students will complete laps to raise money for pbsis to be used for academic assemblies fun activities and schoolwide giveaways their goal is to raise $5,000 and if they reach their goal the following teachers will be pied in the face Mrs Schwarz Mrs Cruz Mrs sud sudal Mrs Macaluso Mrs Saba Mrs Betsy and Miss pcel kids would love that so I'm pretty sure they're going to reach their goal um that concludes my report for tonight uh Mr President we do have U presentation from Miss kusevic uh on our state and local assessments and I just want to inform the board I do not have anything for executive session tonight however on October 19th at our board meeting we will have a a couple things including a uh a grievance hearing and I'd like the board if you can discuss possibly starting earlier that night and meeting in executive session at 6 PM Mr Rose just tell me what you want me to say ition Education Foundation yes I did actually mention at our last meeting the Clifton Education Foundation will be having its 25th anniversary um Suare on October 11th at Pizzeria Uno on Route 3 in Clifton from 5: to 9:00 p.m.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
all right good evening everyone I'd like to call this meeting to order and welcome all of you thank you for joining us this evening if you are able please join me in the above the case there's a flag in this I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you moving on we made a motion to adopt tonight's agenda Madam president yes please can I make a recommendation that we actually um we're going to for 7K we will just put that off until November V absolutely so the motion needs to include um except for 7K correct only 7K cor thank you so I'll make a motion to adopt this evening's agenda minus item 7K a second a second fantastic all in favor I all right call to the Public Public all right then we're going to move on to information and discussion items and first up is Dr Ed Moody from delal elementary oh we go back fantastic um Madam president members of the board um esteemed colleagues um I think all to often in these meetings and in the media and in um our daily discussions and talking to parents we we don't hear enough good things about what are going on in schools and especially you guys sitting on the board you you don't get to the schools enough to see all the great things that are going on um and one of the things that has come up at this board meeting time and time again has been the increasing number of Spanish speaking kids that we have e kids that we have um SEI kids or whatever you know we're we're using these days and that always shifts in my mind um so I thought I'd take a moment um with um as we're kind of rolling through schools just to take a second and show you something that's really good about and what we're doing with those e kids that are coming to our program um I I do have to say um um in full disclosure um our e teacher is Mrs Moody um and and she does um she she does great things I didn't hire her and I don't evaluate it but um um she has a um Aid in the classroom with her AA in the classroom with her and um she has a variety of things I'm going kind of go over the the format of what she's doing here in just one second um but first off we sat down at the very beginning of the year and Cindy Daniels was part of those conversations and there's been several people looking at what our goals are um and I'm going to start at the bottom and work our way up um obviously we want kids to be able and I've said it before this board time and time again and on my campus it's like leading the dead horse you know we want kids to learn how to learn and we want them to enjoy where they are and we want them to be successful socially that is to say to build friendships to build cohesion to learn how to function in classrooms and in society and with one another and I would hope that if you're coming to our campuses any one of our campuses kids are holding doors open for you you're saying yes sir and no ma'am and we pledge allegiance every day and we do those those wonderful things and that's part of our our society and our culture and so we're we're acclimating kids to that culture to the the culture of Del Rio and the culture of of uh Chino Valley obviously we want them to be academically successful and if you come here and don't know the language and don't know the the social cues and you know like we have obviously kids who come in and they don't understand to ask a question you raise your hand and you have to start with those things and so we want them to be not only socially successful but academically successful and give them the tools to be academically successful and then obviously acclimate and assimilate um to our culture without losing their own I'm going to come back to that in in just one second as well um and then um you know because we are a datadriven society you know we look at math scores we look at reading scores we look at writing scores um the primary testing function for the um um English language Learners in Arizona is the AEL test U measuring whether they're proficient in English or not and they take that at the end of the year um typically in March we'll start testing kind of in February and move into March um and and we're preparing them for that as well part of what we'll do there and I'm not going to mention it um when I talk about the E class and some cool things that are going on that we're trying differently because I think that's one of the great things about education if we don't show kids that we're learning and we're striving to do things even if we kind of drop the ball sometimes um that they're not going to follow in that so we're we're trying a couple different things but one of the things we will do you all know about Friday School we've mentioned it here um several times um in um second semester January February and right up until the test we have um Friday School boot camp for kids who are going to be taking aella as well um and Mrs fips who's one of our fifth grade teachers and a um Spanish speaker as well as the parah Veronica aan who was in that class and Mrs Moody will be will be doing that boot camp next um semester for our kids and she already knows those kids she has a relationship with those kids and we're kind of moving them along directly to that test so those are our goals well how do we do it um we're doing a variety of things and then I'll kind of show you what it looks like and and it looks like the sun doesn't like some of those but um the the schedule um for the E classes um um it's it's kind of like a jigsaw puzzle and if you wanted if you were to call at 12:30 and say to miss apman or Mrs Moody hey what are you guys teaching right now she would have to look at a schedule um it's it's kind of in and out but she does reading um specifically for English language Learners in third fourth and fifth grade she also does writing for fourth grade specifically um that is our largest group with the lowest level of English proficiency um and then at the very end of the day um we've made a decision at Del Rio um to have a beginner English class what I mean by that is we have nine kids on our campus that speak zero English and um so we've put them they're in the reading class they're in the writing class but we've also put them in this beginner English class which is at the very end of the day it's 40-minute class and it's not associated with a zel though it's going to help them it's not associated necessarily with with any particular standard-based um U progression though it's going to help with that it is a social acclamation class and I see those kids coming out of there every day smiling and every day knowing more English and wanting to use it and and so they'll come out and they'll walk up to you and you know what what they talked about the day before cuz they're trying it out hello principal hello America how are you I am good how are you and that's kind of where to stop at that point but um every day it's something new and it's something different today they were going over some vocabulary and they were going over um emotions and feelings and I have some of these pictures here and the word that they they put up the definition um the kids have to take the English definition and then translate it into Spanish and then they um because if you can translate it you know it and then um um they'll put something up in Spanish and and Kira will translate it into English and they kind of go back and forth um but the word today was um um surprise and that they were working on while I popped my head in there for a moment and if any of you know me kind of one of my the greatest things to do during the day is like pop around corners and surprise people cuz it's funny um and um I was kind of waiting outside the door and um she come with a definition what's the word what's the word and finally this this little boy goes and he he knows zero English 3 weeks ago and recently surprise and I jumped in went surprise and the kid fell out of his chair and so um my point in that is he's he's trying English he's using it in that beginner class and he has with her a couple classes during the day well what do we do in those classes you can see some of it up there you see more of it up there um um obviously they're translating on a kind of a um on the-fly type of situation um they're translating um um verbally they're translating on whiteboards they're translating on paper they're translating with the person next to them they're translating as a group um if it's harder um we're encouraging them to use Google Translate um what a wonderful tool that is and obviously obviously because we now have computers in the classroom and and you know we've had that for a while but um that's that's a huge deal um and in fact we had um um every kid loves it this Monday was our writing day across the campus kids write an essay for the entire day or until they're done and some kids it takes the entire day um and I say they love it sarcastically but it helps them prep for the the standardized test at the end of the year um gets easier if they go along well the kid who doesn't know any English what's he going to do and so we gave them the prompt in Spanish so they could write that prompt in Spanish um we gave them the documents in Spanish um and we have Maria Garcia our attendance grp translate those for us um and then we had them write it in Spanish and then use Google Translate to to turn it in um Google Translates now perfect um one of students I don't know what she wrote in Spanish but it translated to Seasons like what's your favorite season and why and her favorite season was duck and so I I'm not exactly sure what where that came from but we're using Google translate obviously we're practicing and practicing and practicing and part of the beginner English class as well as the reading classes is that they're required to go out and find three adults um to practice with obviously with the peers um and and um um Miss Daniels and um superintendent scha were on campus just the other day to um give teacher and and certified and classified up the quarter and I don't know if they heard him but as we were walking down the third grade hallway from my office there was a little girl that said um good morning how are you it's because you were the adult she was trying to get um and so come on there we go um we're reading we're writing and we're doing both of those in English and Spanish they're using flash cards and they're taking them home um and um we've had several students actually um and this goes to something Miss Daniels and I've been talking about for quite some time several students are coming back and like my mom's helping me with the flashcards and she's learning with me and that's actually a really cool thing to to hear as well um we're using foldables which are you see English on one side and Spanish on on the other um and as every um anyone who's ever been in class to understands competition is the is the biggest motivator and kids will do almost anything for a Skittle um a singular Skittle um so the budget not B but um the the biggest thing is every day you see kids coming out of there um what's that budg yeah we'll work on that once you s that just for you um but um the biggest thing is is kids at every grade level regardless of their capacity and ability um and I heard this from Miss Al this one of our fourth grade teachers today I heard this from Miss tips one of our fifth grade teachers and I heard this from Miss Bond one of our third grade teachers today that those kids are coming back and actually using what she's she's making them use and so we're already starting to see some gains um for our STAR testing and and reading testing for those kids and I'm super excited to see what they do not only on a z but on the sa well what does that look like just just so you can kind of see um you know some kids one of the things they had to they had to go up and and what's the word say the kid in the bottom left is my favorite like he's really really sad so um he looks so they were there were playing without um but you know again you know if you can if you can make the make the facial expression you understand what the word is this is this is real translation um um that's supposed to be the other way I apologize but um this is um she it's written on Spanish it's written in Spanish on the board they have to translate to English I love the one in r view it's on the right but um I like math they translated I like math and then they go from here she asks a question in Spanish and they have to answer it in English what's your favorite subject who's your favorite person um you know those those sorts of things um again facial expressions and they have to drawn um a surprising number of them as you can see here um when they draw faces and I don't know why this is don't use noses that just alwayss me out um but and Logo um but just that you know when we talked about flash cards last one here um they have to match the the cards with the um the cards on the left with the cards on the right and um the cards are in English obviously it's the word in definition words in green definitions in pink or red and then um then once they're they're done with that then they have to put them in order of importance um there's no right answer apparently I'm told I disagree with that but there's no right answer but they just have to be EXP be able to explain in English why they put them in that order and so this would be kind of a dayong activity for them or at least in class per so I just wanted to take just a moment um and that's the the the last one there I just want to take a moment and highlight something that's that's going on that you guys don't typically get to see um that that I think directly affects our kids and and is making a better world for our kids and that's really what our goal is so I'd be happy to answer any questions I know that was was um quick and sideways um you have questions I just think it's awesome that the kids are you go so fast and children do pick it up a lot faster yeah they do they do te their parents at the same time I've had the translators were their parents I mean foury olds 5-year-olds that were translating for their parents so this is so great that the parents are learning along with the children oh absolutely and and the teacher is too we were sitting in the kitchen the other day and my wife was asking for a box on the counter and she's like [Music] Rob so drood uh are these students um in Miss Moody's classroom today no so um so there will be a third grade reading class which will be during their reading time um during the regular classroom um but it doesn't take up their entire reading block so they'll come to her for 45 minutes um there's a writing class um which is uh 45 minutes as well which will be during their normal writing time so we have the time blocked out for each grade level um these kids at the end of the day this isn't actually the um these kids are in her her beginner English class um these kids at the end of the day we are taking them out of their social studies and or science time depending on what grade level this is a mixed grade class you know um third grade fourth grade and fifth grade um and we're we're hoping that this is going to allow them to be able to Garner more from the regular Ed classroom and we think this is more beneficial for them Aela wise um reading and writing wise than you know a a lesson on F clouds that they're not going to really Garner much from so the beginning English is that a 45 minute period class uh it's 40 actually right right at the end of the day but yeah it's a short class and U and then so how many total students are in this particular program 29 Del 29 yeah well and and we just involed another one today starting after the break 30 and there are just nine that are they Chang to us speaking knowing okay and then uh I was just wondering is Miss Moody is she a Spanish speaker she is not she speaks Swedish when she was nine her mom moved to Sweden Mary to Sweden mov to Sweden and they put her in classes on day one she knew no Swedish and by the end of the year she knew Swedish and so she kind of wants to mirror and emulate that for these kids but no she she's learning Spanish she went to has been to several programs and it's kind of slowly picking it up but she does not speak at yet thank you thank you well Dr Moody thank you very much we commend you and your staff for doing such a great job thank you all right next our superintendent rep Mr all right I'm excited cuz as of today um we are looking for only one teacher which is a science teacher at CH Valley High School we do have two openings on the website one of those is just um for Visa purposes we have a a teacher on a Visa that requires us to post their job and we have got it's a special ed position we've got no viable applicants so um that's the only reason why that second one is on the website and we have a special education care professional although that that could change in a in a heartbeat that just seems those are classified positions that come and go um relatively easily but right now that's all we have of than some substitutes and things like that so actually we're in pretty good shape stat-wise um and our enrollment as of the end of day Monday we are which is our 34th day so about a third of the way through the 100 days we are um about 49 ADM and most of this is at the U Middle School and High School um about 2/3 at the middle school 1/3 at the high school and um there is a summary of the enrollment attached to your any questions on those two hours before I move on S about where we were last we were down we're down a little bit more this month than we were last month right so I think it's you know typically what happens is through the first semester especially at the end of the first semester High School tends to go down and the k8s go up so we're we're um kind of in that mode right now but just the high school's going down a little bit faster than the Cades are going construction update thank you um you all were attended the teage um r cutting I thought that went really well we are having uh we are hopefully fingers crossed going to have our final inspection tomorrow and people can move in over the weekend um and get settled during fall break and then be ready to go have a weekend their home and then be ready to go for it when school starts in a week and a half we are hopeful for that um and I I think they turned out really well we've got some really good press and it it um has gone um very well um we are currently still doing um I like using this this term this is comes from um the high school principal our Burn Unit which is our cvhs fire reconstruction we're still working on that after well over a year we have um if you've been anywhere in front of Del Rio you've noticed the parking lot um reconstruction we have the gas lines that the high school still going and then of course we have the hbac install they're actually working on the top the roofs at Heritage um right now along with the roofing project that's going on um I have under upcoming the D the Del Rio fire alarm that's actually in process right now um we don't have a we have a fire do we have a fire watch or we waiting on uh we we have a fire wash for one portion of right our campus so we're working on that right now we also also have that quote weatherization project at B which is painting um that's kind of in in planning right now and then we also have um we're waiting on when you order any kind of hbac units they tend to be months out especially for the kind of stuff that we're looking at so replacing the HBC units on the gym at the high school things are slowing down we were pretty hectic on construction things to be slowing down a little bit which is okay so um now that the Summer's over um and we're already the way through the school year either or not but things are are getting sett down yeah uh any questions on construction now do you have all the homes be rented we have one we have nine of the 10 um that will be occupied we have that 10th one that we hope to use to lure in a science teacher if that's what it takes so that's that's going to be the recruitment part of of the project hopefully get somebody in there so 9 out of 10 we do the Asda annual conference for those that are interested in attending is December 6 through 8 at JW Marriott if you are interested please let Karen know sooner rather than later those rooms tend to just fill up right away so let her know when the time comes for that to open up she can be Johnny on the spot and get those reservations then CU it will it will sell out so we want you to if you're interested in going we are want to make sure that you are a roomate um Thanksgiving lunches I'm sorry Mr F you have a question okay Thanksgiving lunches we're getting only a month and a half out from that from Thanksgiving lunch week so there is a schedule November 13th through 16th we have the days and the times for you please RSVP with Karen so she she knows we want to make sure we have enough people um and just let her know and she'll on the list and if you're not on the list and want to show up we'll accept you um we just want to kind of have an idea so one of the neat things that we get to do once a quarter right before breaks is we go around and we honor our staff with our staff of the quarter and I want to thank Donna web from jeds she came out and provided the goodies and a gift certificate for lunch at jeds and so she comes around with us and then Matt takes pictures and we have their pictures on Facebook if you are a Facebook person you can see their their bright shiny faces it can be a little alarming when the principal superintendent and assistant superintendent walk into your classroom some if if they aren't you know knowing what's going on it can be um it can be a bit alarming but um we have some you know we honor some really good teachers at territorial a long-term special ed teacher Shannon pel um and then actually they were in the same room Amber is her par professional so we was a one stop at territorial Del Rio we have Ella Alvis and Sarah Paul um Ella is our teacher Sarah Paul is our permanent substitute she happened to be Manning the gate that day um because we have an alternate entrance into Del Rio because of the construction going on so um we got to call her down and surprise her as well at Heritage we have Erica wary who's our teacher she's in one of the Portables um so she's she's there and then Sarah Bradley is our Behavior coach and then at the high school we have ailio Cardis who's um one of our teachers and Cory Fuller who's our day Porter so um and and then um someone that's uh uh close to our hearts in our district office is Kathleen little she's our student data coordinator this is her last week we celebrated we had a lunch for her on Monday she will be sorely missed she's been in the district over like 23 years she and I worked together I Mr Fogle you were there when when she was working at the high school um she was secretary when I was um admin or she was Administrative Assistant when I was assistant principal we were closely together I finally convinced her to come to the district office and it's been a a blessing to the district as a whole her coming she she really um has taken on the role of student data coordinator and so we wanted to honor her in her last week with the district and fortunately we found a a good replacement that um I won't say will be as good as Kathleen but she'll be she'll be close she's going to be um right up there so we're excited about that a calendar of course we're on fall break next week next why we're having meeting today um we have um Thanksgiving at here at the high school November 13th our governing board meeting will be November 13th that after that evening Del on the 14th Tech on the 15th and HMS on the 16th all the with the times there 6 through the 8th of December is the asba ASA annual conference and our final board meeting of the calendar year it will be on December 11th any questions concerns comments from the board lot of stuff happen well this is a this is just a skeleton calendar there that second quarter seems to be filled with concerts and plays and you know all kinds of stuff that's going on um basketball is going to be ticking off in wrestling and there's a lot of Athletics going on and so it's going to be second quarter season will be one of the busier quarters of this school year all right item six C1 our financial reports good evening mam chairman members of the board staff Administration ladies and gentlemen a quick look at the month end in September 2023 September 30th I've got uh three reports I'd like to just summarize real quickly and hopefully again just be comprehensive but but direct as well uh a look at our operating budget operating budget is at this point the one we adopted 19.7 million that's probably going to go down just a bit to 19.6 maybe 19.5 million I'm just going from the front based on a slight reduction in our daily membership um year to date as of September 30th 4.7 million spent on a budget of again around 19.5 million uh the balance there is 1.2 million unspent and uncom and that's a really cool term for schools to use there can be five people in a department and each want to buy certain things with certain line items but as soon as it's encumbered on a purchase order that has to be released until um something else would be added so once it's in there and it's encumbered in payroll or encumbered on a purches order those funds are tied up once you add together all the expenses and the incumbrances of 13 million we have 1.2 million left or about 6% of the budget whether that PS throughout the year we'll have to just well we keep you updated that's a really strong position right now uh capital budget 2.2 million Capital as you know the last three years 20 1 year 22 year and 23 year we've squeezed our operating funds and transferred ending fund balance and those funds to Capital so when our eser funds dry up and we have some employees out there and they come back to ml we can move Capital balances back to Capital almost as if we were just reserving them there so my goal this year and it's it's it's interesting trying to work this through but my goal certainly is the $2.2 million budget in capital to not spend over a million so we have that million coming back to M next year and it doesn't leave us much room if you put together the expenses of 270,000 and the incumbrance is of 670 you see there's about 35,000 left to do something wor the capital and that's 3,000 not even 3,000 a month left so if we want to do something we have to reduce those incumbrances give up something or else we're not going to have that million to come back to the fund and a reverse transfer this year uh you look at the cash flow it's not really strong but there's two answers that explain it you go to that cash flow page which is the cash flow analysis you start looking at the the top July that's cash all funds 6, 475,000 and that held pretty strong July and August then Along Came September and two things happened in September if you take a look at that Top Line of revenues the the county has a I guess you could say a practice of receiving in the department of Ed send is that million 40 up top that comes from the state you get about 11.5 million from the state and about 8 million from property taxes that money usually hits the county about the second or third of the following month and then they do a real quick move and dat it back to the prior month where it belong that didn't happen when I did these reports I did these reports I think the 29th of September so those October transfers hadn't Mo that money back you see a nice zero in that state Equalization that was a little bit over a million and then with school facilities board we have 1.2 million in play they got us some uh 1 about 1.2 million in September but it really was dated August when the school facilities board sent it to us so the county booked it back to August so there's 2 million you see now we ended with 3.2 million end of the month of September it's not really a concern at this point because that money will be posted uh in fact it is already posted in in September I just didn't Revo the report so when you see for the November meeting should be caught up because no meeting I think is the second Monday is that is that right so by then it gives me time for all these have cleared you'll see the 1.4 or 1,40 in September you'll probably also see it in October so that's the equalization and you'll see some property taxes there as well so so not really a concern any any concern so far and anything I've brought forward you answered my questions without me asking so it's just uh it's just nice to know those are budget funds and the county knows they will be paid eventually if you could take a look at that cash balances fund on the next page uh this is the one that gets slack every once in a while the Arizona Republic likes to kick this fund around and they're strictly cash and I remember a report way back in 2019 one of these reporters reported on the cash that some districts were keeping and they looked at 17 big ons Deer Valley ma unified uh Scottdale and if you look at these cash funds these are ones that you can't purchase from unless cash is in the account they put together 17 school districts and they were complaining they wanted this legislature to come along and and reduce that and make them use those funds 550 million were in those school districts in these cash control funds in 2019 and you look at a couple of ours and you look at 570 we we have a a pretty decent balance there that's our indirect cost funds this is one that Scottdale had 8 million in back in the day 57 464,000 that helps us with indirect costs such as utility costs such as travel such as uh providing services that we might not be able to provide so these are cash control funds if there's no cash in the fund we can't do it food service is definitely a cash control fund uh our cash balance actually increased about 120,000 last year a very good sign but they're reserved for one purpose only so we like the freedom to let them build in case other things happen any questions on that cash fund page okay and then the very last page then is simply a fiscal summary with our cash balances I do apologize I can't I can't uh as of this meeting when I put this together a week and a half ago I can't bring or a week ago I can't bring the cash forward from last year in these reports from our financial software until the cash was brought forward and they roll that from one year to the next so July August and September we kind of go into this fiscal trough where we know where we ended last year but we don't bring that forward until the annual Financial reports approved which I hope you'll approve tonight and then I'll get with the county office the ed Service Agency and then we'll roll those forward next week the goal list of next Friday have all these beginning balances on that cash report for cash balances the last part of this report all brought forward from last year and then we simply do cash we started with plus revenues minus expense equals the ending cash balance and then it's active but until we do that they and it's really smart because we've got how many grants see that go till the end of September so like five grants again September 30th I'm and June 30th our end of our fiscal but they're really they're really generous and and intelligent to let us keep our last year cash in the prior year because so many things happen in fact there's about eight funds that that we're still spending out of last year's funds and then we stopped on the 30th of September so this will be updated any questions then on the financial report for the month of September thank you thank you oh and then we go ahead we have our Student Activity yes please yeah we are we are seeing some good activity in our Student Activity fund and you look at boy soccer for one they've got an incumbrance for their travel and tournaments $3,900 you look at student council their their trips and activities Never End high school student council $4,400 encumbered and that's a a current balance of ,000 less we started the year with 151,000 now we're at 140 and that includes reducing the cash balance by incomes just like our our general ledger accounts these are kept in a separate Ledger in QuickBooks uh just so we can be we can write checks then when we need to rather than wait a week or more from the county to write checks so we're in good shape thank you thank you all right moving on to our consent agenda um I'll entertain a motion to approve tonight's uh Cas agenda as presented I will motion to approve stated second all in favor all I Personnel report schol good evening Madam chair board members Mr SCH Miss Daniels um I want to just go ahead and draw your attention to number eight um on the Personnel report um we had to do a little um moving um things around so just um number eight will be extended resource teacher not math and they will be uh replacing number nine who is now going to be apparel okay and then overall we had um six new classified six resignations one of them was a retirement one termination one certified change three classified changes when classified sub 12 coaching positions and 152 great I just have one quick question that I actually ask us to show the other day number 17 was he un employee previously um no he was not he may have he may have um helped yes he may have help of that particular program it personel all right seeing them again I'll motion to approve tonight's Personnel report along with supplement move that we accept today's uh Personnel report along with the uh agenda I'll second that all in favor I thank you thank you thank you agenda item 9A our 2024 2025 District calendar it's hard to imagine that we're thinking about 2024 2025 but it's this time of year October November that this calendar gets approved that way families can start making plans for the summer and and and things like that so this is the 20 2425 calendar that's being approved if we just kept everything the same like we do every year um school would start on the 31st of July I have an issue with school starting in July I think a lot of other people do as well so this calendar is similar to one we had about 5 years ago which was the same situation um we I know that um a lot of Staff like to have a coule like a short week with with students at the beginning of the year then they can take a break and we get into it kind of go over the administrative stuff that was the first couple days um school will start on July 5th which is a I'm sorry August 5th which is a Monday um teachers um returning staff come to start on July 29th new teachers start on July 24th but I can tell you that both a lot of staff are in buildings in July for various trainings and and things like that but those will be the official start dates for their contract a lot of them are on time sheet earlier than that so school would start on the 5th our goal is for school to end no later than the Wednesday before Memorial Day and so we do end the Wednesday before Memorial Day there um we have the same inservice days we do have one snow day that we try not to use that would be a inservice day otherwise um and the one kind of big uh it's not a significant change but one difference for this coming up calendar year would be that spring break was pushed a week later and that's really to match yle College's calendar um and then presc could approve their calendar which matches out by colleges so we just kind of want the area to be on the same col so we kind of push that so normally it would be on the week of the 10th but this um in this coming up year it will be on the week of the 17th for Spring Break um I looked at the PD calendar I looked at the um the YC calendar today just to make sure everything was to confirm things and this looks good matches theirs relatively so any questions regarding the calendar I'm glad you're not starting very all right this is a action item and with a motion we can approve tonight's um agenda item 9A which is the district calendar for 24 oh if I can add one more item sorry this was reviewed by the cat committee superintendent advisor committee and was um voted on by the ca for recommending approval I move to approve the 2024 2025 District calendar second as St yes I will second all in favor I all right last item of the evening Mr Livingston again item 9B 2023 annual Financial reports there's some some updated pages and then there's some D that I've done a little bit of a note taking on so you've got hopefully a chance to review these um and take a look at where we were about a week ago it's it's gone from about a 14h hour process to about a 74h hour process 75h hour process going through this data because now there's links from certain spreadsheets that use n and if statements which are familiar with logic statements in Excel and lots of pivot tables and vlookups and they're all macro enabled so it's a lot of back and forth I'd like to just do some highlights from the the year ended June 30th of 2023 and that's the July 1st of 2022 fiscal year some things to highlight and probably probably best to just if you can go Page by page I'm not going to get every page but it' be kind of Handy if you could just look uh front page you see that our expenditure is 17,23 th000 uh on the mol side uh fastro and site funds 1, 455,000 that's that's one of our strong funds that really is I guess it's it's kicked around a little bit by the auditor general is it cash control fund uh or is it a budget control fund for years it was treated like a budget control fund now we've got a healthy fund balance in there and they've been very generous it used to be $272 a student you get per year and now it's gone up to $455 last year so there's a nice healthy fund balance that that inter that we I guess that uh calculated to about 13,000 total cost for our 113 teachers last year if you just divide by the about 11 was it 11 or was it 12 actual cash last year they got they got I think they got 11 when you include the signing bonus and this year it will be 13 plus um $1,000 signing bonus or retention bonus so that's that's probably our healthiest fund right there that 0 one0 fund and then you see Capital 2 million even uh and we got a real break with the expense in our Capital fund 610 uh when we paid for our teacherage component we paid for that last year out of the capital fund and then I was able to move that expense over to the new Co fund so Capital expenses would have been 2.5 million which would have made it more difficult to at year end move that half a million or a million back to M so that was just it came in I went to Flag Staff last Friday and got the half a million dollar check from the openo county head Service Agency otherwise Capital expenses would be 2.5 million it would be much harder to do that this year because this year we're using our borrowed money and we're not paying it directly up our Capital so that's really good news that's that's kind of a start you take a look at the second page it's called one of 10 you take a look at four numbers in particular uh the M column there started the year with 1.12 million cash uh fund Balan is is what they we're going to end up with fund balance 1.1 million there in the operating fund and you come down to uh total expenditures 17.0 2 million ending fund balance went down from the 1.1 to 810,000 lots of things in play there we brought in some new Staff last year and that kind before that took us Capital you go back to the second column started at 171 spent 2 million even uh ended at 1,641 instead of 500,000 less than that because of that transer were able to Mo those costs and now those revenues are there and that fund will equalize over 2 years last year this year are 356 buck so that's a a quick look at the big picture you take a look at page two of 10 and you see it's all everything here is our operating fund and you have three columns actually Four columns on the far right budget that's the all for the 23e actual that's all for the 23 year prior year is all for the 22 year budget last year for operating fund 8.07 5 million expenses 17 million even and the prior year 151 so we we did increase 1.87 million in expenses from the 22 year to the 24 year see where we were at there the rest of these you can go to page four into the middle there's a nice little chart we do have1 19 million in fixed assets the auditor general likes to likes to treat us like a business and have us calculate depreciation on our depreciable assets we don't get an expense break for that we just have to track it so that's what we have at the end of the year and then we have our Capital expenditures outline same thing go up to the upper right act has 2 million broken down by buses or Capital we did buy $730,000 worth of textbooks for textbooks last year which I think was somewhere over 20 years had been replaced so so that was necessary that's something well everything we do I think is necessary and then you see Federal programs and state programs on page five you go down to revenues 3.87 8 million on page five that's the second column from the left um and again a great part of that if you look at the 300 399 column 2.1 million a great part of that was Federal S 3 and S 2 and a little bit of the uh 691 fund is not mentioned there for impact a is not mention we will see fund 691 here going on to page six and seven and eight uh just calculations on things that we're doing uh we had a gifted I didn't get a lot of data at the top of page8 I would like to get a report from from each School telling me how many students they would say were it used to be the definition was tested in the top 5% of a nationally normed test and I just you just it's hard to document so I'm not sure we have zeros there but that's what I was able to put so be nice to we this this page nine is is probably a 15-hour page making sure things line up with every one of these this is the Chino Valley School District contribution if you read the title there on page n to the national public education Financial survey report about 15 hours to do this page to make sure it tied out uh and as you can see they break it down by funds 01 to $799 so it's everything that happened in the district and we come across with Debt Service and it gives you totals as we go across for every expenditure basically in the district then you go down below that and you've got another breakdown of 5.2 million in regular education for teachers and contract substitutes it's it's still something that we're we're talking about superintendent shol and Cindy Daniels and myself we did bring in four full-time substitutes last year and before that all of our substitutes were contract substitute teachers were contracted with head services so I think over time we can see some cost savings from them because they're they're full-time in schools one per day so that should reduce that contracted services and that's kind of what we're getting at here uh contract substitutes 98,000 last year divided up then we hit page 10 and this is kind of an eye opener uh the way page 10 works I put some numbers in the lower right corner those numbers in the lower right corner are expenses in the current Year from all these funds uh 335 is 100 day Co eligibility fund they're all Co related 265,000 there fund 356 was the way I was fund I was able to set up at the auditor general last year for the 498,000 we spent on the teacherage fund that's the 498,000 for copino County 329 and 330 were both homeless funds but based on Co funding 227 and 228 are based also Co funds based on special need students 336 is the 1.5 million S2 fund and 346 is the 3.5 million as for three fund and that's what we spent 20 2, 238,000 last year and then they want it down in the lower right or the lower left in the middle there by year so I itemized it by fund by year and this was about a about a two hour report so nothing really strenuous here just LS tying out to the penny so thank you Cindy for writing all these extra grants so we can bring more services to the dist thank you uh this is a summary on the the page right following that and and um it's just got everything from beginning cash balance plus Revenue minus expenditures takes budgeted expenditures and then actual and then gives you a cash balance at the end and we see that classroom site fund with that nice $1.2 million F 01 Z ending balance even though we spent 1.4 million we still have a nice ending balance that's something we can count on uh we go down to indirect costs we've got that 371 there we come down to opep opep is one that other districts have done and it's a supplemental retirement program from the bottom but don't think you'll ever really get involved in that don't we then if we go back to the back this is a new page the very back page this is one that's got small writing so I just wrote all over it myself so you can see what's going on we had a little discussion last spring uh about the word fund balance and I believe President Thomas mentioned that the city had a like fund balance goal or policy 5% and fund balance is is a difficult thing to get your well sometimes can be difficult so if our district started keeping these Financial records in 1927 let's say and every year there's a $10,000 Surplus Revenue over expense over time that's simply the same equation Revenue over expense it's not quite as simple as saying well if we want a 5% uh fund balance or a 5% carry forward we make sure if we have a $100 budget we only spend $95 it's not quite that simple that's a that's a good way to ensure you're going to continue to increase your fund balance but your fund balance is Cash Revenue over expenses so this is a brand new sheet I just talked to president Thomas and superintendent SCH about this and they're at the top where I did the double underlines it's about 2 inches from the top says does the district have a process or policy it follows to establish a targeted or a goal fund balance Reserve level that the district is working to maintain each year so and I think Super I think the word working to maintain allows us to put the word yes and then it asks right next door it asks for give us the policy from your as policy book well I think we can say yes we have one we're working towards but I don't think at this point I look for one I don't think we have one policy I think a no answer might trigger uh just some questions and phone calls that's what they do the auditor general gets this from all the district and then they make phone calls till January if they have to and then they make you do a corrective action plan if they think something is remiss so I think we can stick with the word yes because there's a little generous language there are we working to maintain we certainly are last year we brought forward 1.1 million which was 6% of the $17 million budget and this year we're we're down to about 4% so then that results in some math and they say well what is your target percentage and last year there's a 1.1 million here my writing starts down below 22 year we carried 1.1 million forward 23 year we carried 810,000 forward uh and then I have a little corner corner chart there if we said the goal was 4% the target would be 4% of 18 million which is a 7 23,000 that was our Target and we brought forward 810 we're slightly over and it says that in the the little box up above as I I put that in there District fund balance Reserve exceeds its Target Fund balance so if our goal was 723 and we brought forward 810 the result here on this sheet is exceeds fund balance if however we jump to 5% our Target would have jumped to 93,000 and we're at 810 so we're we're short so so then that Spurs the discussion do we want to have a fun out by policy we can look at other districts and bring forward and just for some context um before we went into current year funding we were maxed out at 4% that's the maximum we were allowed to carry forward um and so that's you know carrying what we're doing now for more than 5% actually is is a pretty healthy carry forward and so we're we're doing really well on that whether it be 4% 5% somewhere in between is probably spot on where we want to be anything above that you're not spending money that you should be spending anything below that if there was something that happened it would be difficult it could be difficult to U maybe fend off whatever that happens to be but um you know between those two between four and five is is a very is a very healthy um Carry forward in my my opinion um and I hope we others agree since the actual question is do we have a policy is it something that we need to be looking at and actually create policy for and that's something that I I talked to Mr Livingston about before the meeting that um we can do some searching in our policy book just to kind of see if it's there um he may have an idea or he may know another District that has a policy in place place that which will give us the the citation that we can look for in ours as well and if not it's something that we can take somebody else's word smth that meets ARs and and then it would come to you guys for for normal adoption policy adoption any other questions for Mr Livingston or Mr scha just going to say thank you thank you thank you for keeping us good thank you that's it thank you all right so this also is an action item if we could have a motion to approve tonight's 2023 annual Financial reports and mo to approve the 2023 annual Financial reports thank you all in favor fantastic good night everyone thank you for coming all this way everyone I appreciate it
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above