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they just called a code red I'm in lunch and no one is moving everyone is so scared the kids have texted me before while in lockdown because they say I'll know what's going on before they will I checked my email nothing I looked on on social media finding other parents doing the same I waited for news while rumors swirled active shooter four students shot gun found on and on and on still Fielding texts from my kids one of whom left the building after hearing what was thought to be a gunshot the police have their guns out checked my email again still no news at 1:23 p.m. I received a notification of the Lockdown from Principal hfield 43 minutes later notification 5 minutes after that creep police chief posted in an explanation on Facebook letting the community know that the threat was unfounded and all students are safe at 1:46 p.m.

May 11th admal Yuki's Scout Plains discover the Bunker Hill she's 60 mil off the coast of okan the day before the Bunker Hill was resupplied with 90% fuel capacity she now has 1,870 3,000 gallons of fuel and she has 2,500 gallons of aviation fuel at about 9:45 in the morning the flight deck a is filled with fresh planes they're stacked Wing Towing fully loaded with bombs fuels shells rockets and naom Below them on the hanger deck were another 48 planes waiting to be raised in the sky returning from a mission a 20 airplanes low on fuel low on ammunition and they're waiting for permission to land among them 1500 ft were a couple members of the combat Air Patrol they were coming into to land also at 10:02 in the morning Colonel sweat observes two kamakazi diving out of the clouds at 6 to 7,000 ft and headed directly toward the Bunker Hill he he radios there two kamakazi ding on you within 10 or 15 seconds the first comicazi releases its bom the plane was piloted by Yori seio he's firing all his guns as he St scrapes The Plight deck filled with aircraft he releases his bomb the bomb's 550 lbs it bounces ahead of the plane it blows through the flight deck just after number three elevator it tears a hole through the deck rips a passageway in the gallery deck where the ready rooms are and then blows through the heade de ceiling blows out the port side and explodes it had a timer R so all of this tra traveling is doing and she still hasn't explored them Gunners Manning guns on the port side where the bomb came out were torn apart his crash his plane crashed into the planes on the F section within 30 seconds most of the ab section of the flight deck is a blaz his plane cut through aircraft whose propellers were already turned it ripped open their fuel tanks setting fires blazing and throwing straple in all directions 1500 ft above sweat in his plane he says he just cleaned house God it was a terrible mess in the second kamakazi kayoshi oawa radios his base at 958 I found the enemy vessels then I see an enemy plane in his final message at 10:02 his last words were now I am no diving into the ship his plane was spotted by Gunners everybody is shooting at him he's taking several hits It's not slowing to CL him down he releases his bomb at the right moment if falled right ahead of the plane and explodes instantly crashing through the flight deck it hits the side of the island ripping away the capwalk he misses killing both Admirals by less than 20 ft fires are burning everywhere the gallery deck has disappeared machinery for the 16,000 lb elevator is melted twisted and broken fires block the catwalks smoke and poison air fill the whole area cutting off at visibility exits within moments of his crash crew members s to fight the fire tend the wounded gather the dead and Implement damage control steps in the water destroyers are picking up men who either been blown overboard or jumped simply to avoid the fire alongside of the ship is a rer trying to put fires out in the boiler rooms men are having difficulty breathing the toxic air Sears their lungs Burns their throats and scratches their eyes soon carbon monoxide appears causes the men to get tired and they want to sleep normally ambient temperature in the engine room 110° at last check it was 139° there was no Escape they had to keep the engines running these men knew it and they stayed at their post there was a marine captain of a 20 mm in aircraft gun tops side and he took a grievous wound in his stomach and they tried to stop the bleeding with shirts and rags to no avail and he said get me an American flag and they got him the colors and he gave him the flag and he died holding the flag in the boiler rooms Commander K Michael's men were ordered to keep the boilers running at all cost they were ordered not to leave their Post in essence this was a death sentence there was a case of men pounding and screaming behind their secured water typ door denied in spite of their screams do not open the door on the flight deck men are trying to rescue Pilots that they think are in the ready rooms below them they had a lumber jaacks on board he cut a small hole in the circle with an axe again it's only one 1/8 of 1/5 of an inch thick steel and 4 in planks and the plag most of them burnt off any so they cut this hole and the petty officer ordered Jerry Hansen to be lowered into the black hole and the hole is just big enough for him to be lowered head first and it's black it smells horrible fuel oil gasoline burned Rubber and the stench of burned flesh and as he getting lower further and further and he has minimal light he suddenly looks at a blurred jumble and then he realizes it was a tangle of dead men they died in Blackness and confusion he screams get me out of here all these are dead later Hansen said it was like how you would imagine uh hell would be I guess these are fellow kazis this is what it looked like before they hit again Oka and the carriers and the escort ships are all close to okanawa at the Battle of okanawa more men in the Navy were killed than the Marines because of the kamakazi and these are all ships that were damaged by kazis these are the killed the wounded it was just it was just a Slaughter the plane the first plane landed over here this is where that Marine Captain was the two Admirals were right here they were they were missed by 20 ft this is the uh the flight deck and and then below you have the gallery yet it's just a thin line here and then you have all of the planes below this is the fire and the fire if you were could get forward you you stood a chance of being uh of surviving so Uncle Al got forward and he came across a young guy and he said the guy his face was terribly burnt he didn't know him and Al said can I do anything to help you and he said the kid says yeah can you light me a cigarette and Al said I never smoked again after that here she is C this is from a distance so here's water these are all Indi aircraft guns a lot of them were wiped out by the explosions his water from the fire fire has being dis funneling overboard here's a cruiser and they're accepting wounded in these baskets from the carrier she got very very close and she would also help with the fires up but if you look at the size of the carrier compared to the cruiser I mean the carrier wasn't huge here's a fellow who is wounded and he's being transferred from The Bunker Hill to uh to the cruiser he actually was from Massachusetts and he uh survived the war listed his missing three months uh ultimately went to work in Boston at New England Baptist Hospital he died in 2017 this is the flight deck trying to put out the FES here's one of the holes one of the bombs made here they are cut cutting the hole in the flight deck I mean it's just a small circle this is below decks this is AF looking forward I mean everything is just totally ruined attending some wounded men and these men are all dead is the Japanese plan beinge pushed overboard they dead so we got another minute at 12:03 on Saturday M May 12 the captain ordered the flag to be brought to half staff for the burial of 350 two officers crew Airmen and the Admiral staff this service would be would last until sunset it would be the largest Burial at Sea in the history of the US Navy before each burial each body was placed on the sheet of navy blue canvas two 55b projectiles were positioned to weight The Body Canvas is folded over the body tied securely with 40 foot lengths of rope with half hit every 18 in they would do six burials at a time honor God straight an American flag over each body a priest a minister and a rabbi presided at each burial if the deceased was unknown all three would speak by the end of the day these chaplain could hardly utor the praise that was they saved the ship they she made it back but they took her out of the war forever and that's the story of uh of the buker Hill

on uh November what is it 14th um so we've got a jam-packed agenda thank you everybody for joining Kristen thank you for joining us uh remotely hope you're feeling uh okay um so thank you Beth for working sort of diligently on the agenda with a bunch of different folks um we wanted to open it up first to community comments is there anybody is Kristen the only one's the only one online um or anybody else that would like to uh provide a community comment no all right perfect um so I'm going to call this meeting to order um my name is Dennis Quant I'm the um chair of the Sherburn school committee um and we're going to get started right so first super intendent comments great thank you good evening everyone I'm just going to give you a few brief updates on my um goals this year and then obviously we want to get to the um showcase of this evening which is the first phase of the budget so few updates um as you know one of my goals is around developing a vision for teaching and learning with Denny's help um and so at this point we have the nine best practices is identified you've seen them and we have posters now going into every classroom um Educators have chosen one or two of these best practices that they feel they'd like to work on this year so they're learning from each other during faculty meetings they're learning through professional development that they're either getting through or outside the building um and the November professional development day the Monday after Thanksgiving a reminder we don't have school that day but our educators will be here um all of the workshops that Denny has arranged are around these nine best practices so educators will be able to choose which one they want to go to um and be to fill their toolboxes so that we can see more of these in action um every day across all classrooms our leadership goals are also connected to these and how to support the Educators in bringing these practices to life in the classrooms so as Jenny and I do classroom observations with the principles in all four buildings we are looking for these best practices and then calibrating the feedback the constructive feedback we would give to teachers based on what's going well and perhaps how they can stretch themselves and grow um as as Learners themselves I mentioned the monthly faculty meetings in each of the buildings um each one is dedicated towards one of the nine best practices and sharing out best practices um that are happening in the classroom next door and November PD of course um more to come on that Denny will have a lot to share as we get closer and then as we reflect on it my second goal is around taking um a look at how to capture measures of success as we know we have multiple ways of measuring success as a district um both um quantitative and qualitative so um Denny and I are working with a company called open architect um who creates data dashboards so we are going to be creating a data dashboard around quantitative data including academic benchmarks standardized assessments including mcast SATs APS um and then attendance and discipline information and then on top of that we will be able to pull qualitative data and quantitative data from all of the surveys that our students take over the course of a year um and be able to highlight which aspects if we want to focus in on belonging or connections or um um um extracurricular activities and students involvement in those we'll be able to highlight them and then track Trends over time to make sure that the goals we're putting in place particular around Dei and belonging and making sure that all students have access to high level courses and feel like the sense of belonging in the building that we are holding ourselves accountable to making progress in all of those areas so more to come on that and then transparent communication is my third goal um you saw my superintendent newsletter go out a couple weeks ago I will continue to try to do those um every other month I have held three out of four office hours that have been scheduled for parents to drop in to come and ask questions to give feedback um to give ideas um I've had kind of low attendance at those so I know it's a busy time of year so I'm taking that as good news because I would hope that if people had questions or concerns they would come but I will continue to hold them from time to time so people have a space where they can come and chat with me um I've attended three of the four PTO meetings and due to come to Cher PTO um in December but otherwise that's been an opportunity to connect with parent leaders um share the district strategy talk about next steps and answer questions um I've also scheduled opportunities to meet with both councils on Aging so I've already been to the Sherburn one and I'll be going to Dober in the new year just an opportunity to check check in with our older community members um share some great information and wonderful things that the schools are doing um and take questions and feedback Sheran was great they really had um our our community members had questions around um technology and how we balance screens versus screen free time what's the future of Education around um artificial intelligence and I said it's a great question we're all wondering the same thing um and then lots of questions about the um Lost Art of cursive and where does that fit into society so um great conversations there um I attended the Mas masc so that's my Association and your Association joint conference for the day on Thursday um and attended two workshops on communication the first one was um how to communicate on polarizing topics um Chris horen who is the presenter I used to work with in Boston and he's fabulous he now owns his own consulting firm and he's Consulting for the entire state of Massachusetts as well was specific districts um but all of the um recommendations he had to help a community Through polarizing topics or things that we did last year so I feel really solid about the way that we handled the community um conversations last year um and try to kind of find Common Ground moving forward in terms of our goals for kids um the second one was on how to bring the Strategic plan to the Forefront of all of our work so I got some new ideas on how to rearrange it on the um District web page again the data dashboards to help our to hold ourselves accountable to making progress um and then making sure I'm always providing updates on the Strategic plan to you and to the community Through newsletters flyers and mailboxes Etc Chris is going to ask be working with our leadership team on some strategies around newsletters um so we have come up with a common template and a common platform for all four School newsletters so you'll be seeing kind of an evolution of those over the next um couple months and Chris will also be sharing with us some strategies on how to be better at communicating all of the good things that our that our schools and our students are doing I've also applied to be part of an organization called lead now they take superintendents from across the country um bring them together for one full day workshop together or two full days actually and then a bunch of zooms online um around strategizing around crisis communication um being proactive being reactive sharing problems of practice um I've heard wonderful things about it from the two courts two cohorts that have been through it already so I'm hoping to be part of that group as well which would launch in January so lots going on around communication as things roll forward and please provide feedback updates areas for improvement um because certainly want to get better at that I thought the newsletter was fantastic really consumable like sort of snackable content really clear it was I thought it was great really really good thank you appreciate that feedback is that a posted to like the Council on Aging or something like how is the audience obviously sent it to the parents of the schools but there's a lot of like Community Information to the extent that they're sort of directly funding a lot of what's Happening Here how do how do it's a great question because you can get to it through our website um but certainly an area we can work on in terms of trying to get an email out to other members I know some districts you can sign up for the newsletter you don't have to be already in the student information system so that's probably something we should look into for those not already assigned to the school how can we add those external people yeah we should look on the town websites because a lot of times when I'm doing research um you know because we're like I look at the region and we're our own website but a lot of you watch from the towns so we should make sure that we're clearly we are on there okay so then that's the other way if people are interested yeah um that's a recent update we are on one Town's website but not on the other we're now on both with links to our website but again you know how can we be landing in people's email boxes as opposed to them having to reach out we want that two-way communication so we can we can figure that out great suggestion would you say you're quarterbacking the communications through the district or is that like somebody on the team or is it sort of like a a team team sport I would say I'm probably the the primary person but with certainly help from the principles and the assistant principles and between the dino the the Duos and each of the schools you know some have their strengths and and they kind of figure out who's going to be the prime person but um I would say I probably the quarterback despite my size um and lastly um Denny and I had an opportunity to attend the um metco leadership conf conference two Fridays ago with all of the metco districts so it was the superintendent assistant superintendents and Meco directors that came together um at Gillette Stadium um and it's an opportunity for us to share best practices and what's exciting is that Meco is launching Meco 2.0 so it's really an opportunity 50 plus years later for communities to re-engage and relearn what the metco program is all about and recommit to its core principles and values um and it fits right in with the work that we're doing around teaching and learning belonging to EI Etc like it's just such a great mix on wanting all of the same things to be happening in our district so this is a quick short video it's only 2 minutes that I thought I'd share with you um just to give you a taste of what Mecha is working on oh okay so Dennis just unmute just click the speaker racism has been very bold in recent years people are losing their lives walls are being built children are being separated from their parents but the MEO program can be bolder and stand up for racial Justice after George for was killed we developed an anti-racism road map we're embarking on a journey toward a vision we call Meo 2.0 where every student in a Meco District receives an inclusive Equitable and anti-racist education every student Meco 2.0 means changing improving and enhancing the work that we do each day in our schools let's ask ourselves how can we do better by breaking down racial various and stereotypes by diversifying our teachers by creating inclusive and representative Curriculum by building interracial friendships by implementing restorative justice practices and by preparing students for a diverse Workforce we cannot end racism but we can make the experiences of all students better by implementing small and large changes our founder Ruth Bon said business as usual as a way of life must be totally discredited we have to continue to evolve as individuals as a community as a school system in as a world Meco is not a basting program this is just our mode of transportation me mobilizes people people's hearts and people's minds being a meal Community carries a lot of responsibility we are the largest voluntary School integration program in the United States people see us as a model for school integration you are participating in something special and unique as long as the community begins to see it that way then every decision that you make will benefit everyone in the community medo was Grassroots then and it's Grassroots now what is your role in this next chapter of mecro 2.0 remain inspired to do this work be intentional about your approaches and insist that change can [Music] happen so again very much aligns with the work that we're already doing um and so as uh more information comes out this year and opportunities for the community to engage with MCO 2.0 I will certainly keep you um posted do you know if this video's been shared with like the the pto's or the csas I don't think so it's on the website under on the Meco page um so people can pick up it from there but I'm certainly happy to ask the principles to send it out in their newsletters yeah because I know that on the CSA they're still looking for some some metco families and I think that there's still as much as everyone tries to communicate and and have the proper messaging there are people like I don't really know what it is but this is a beautiful beautiful piece that should be utilized in as many ways possible sure so we'll send that out and people can check it out there's also if you go to the Meco page on our website a longer video about the whole history of the Meco program and it was produced by students so that's super powerful um will are we still planning to have a meeting at Meco headquarters again in the yes in April I can't remember if it's the first one or the second one but we'll be um at the office yep it's the second one thank he any questions in general about anything else I have a just a really basic question and it's mostly for Becca's benefit um are you able to share your slides with us um because just a as a reminder for especially people who haven't been through the process before these updates are so helpful when we're doing your evaluation in the spring I'm just like prompting what um what you've told us throughout the year so it's good to just save them and have them um so you prepared for that absolutely typically they're part of the packet and it was um an accident that they weren't included so I will make sure that the packet gets updated with the slides great awesome thank you they also help me when it's time for me to do my self-reflection CU I can go back and spread all the together on time for many of us good call great thank you any other questions I do I do just want to Echo your great point about having um Community stakeholders receiving your great updates Beth because it's one thing that the parents and the caregivers and the administration and the teachers are seeing them but as he just wonderfully put the voters everyone else you know who is living in the town um I'm sure would would really appreciate seeing all of the great work that's going on and and in some ways not having to go look for it um so in whatever ways we can be helpful in our circles or with our conversations that would be great okay absolutely yeah I mean we talk with um the town halls frequently and now I have contacts in both Council of aing I brought hard copies of the um strategic findings and the Strategic plan to um the Sherburn one I plan to do this same to Dober so now that they have the hard copies it'd be great to keep everyone updated so we'll find a way to make that happen thank you I'm just trying to find Kristen on here now oh there she is all right perfect um Don Van report reports I'm so you have your standard monthly Financial um or warrant report of all the expenses that we process uh since your last meeting um and again I for going town hall and getting the warrant on your behalf on the U monthly statement um you know this is a um an update from when we just met which actually was last than a month ago um and as I I forgot to put on here the little saying that what we'll do is I'll keep the report running and any information that's new is in bold so it brings your attention to that um but it's actually good to sort of leave the bases Basics there um so we don't have to recreate the story every month um so looking at salaries I just wanted to highlight that if you remember the budget last year carried a reserve for negotiations I did a draft in your last statement but I we did the formal journal entry so all the numbers that you see in your budget for salaries now are reflective of spreading that 200,000 um if anyone went back and compared to the last time there were a couple little swings so I just wanted to make sure I was clear about about that um and they're really um we're going to continue to see variances we have leaves going on we have Staffing changes going on um and so every month you may see a little something different happening but the good news is that at least for um building our budget for 25 and where we are now we do have some salary savings from post budget change uh Staffing changes um and as one line item for sure is the special education where you see almost 100,000 and that is reflective of uh positions changing um from March when we did the budget to September when we opened school um so that's very helpful for numerous reasons one for our current year a of District situation but also it does give you already a reduction as you're building your fiscal year 25 budget um other than that the other really good piece of news is that are out of District uh negative variance went down by 35,000 every little bit helps um and so that's reflective of about 200,000 now and as I as I always say it's a very volatile um sort of scenario so um you know things could change either direction every time we meet but for right now we're looking at about a shorall of about 200,000 but um keep in mind that we're going to have additional circuit breaker because we don't budget um we don't offset the budget dollar for dooll for a circuit breaker so once we get that final number which we should have before we meet next time um I'll be able to say uh we probably have another you know 80 to 100,000 that we can apply towards that deficit um and again other things can change as far as placements um so I'm hopeful that we'll be able to close the gap and not have to ask um the town for additional Appropriations this year um but again that's just part of the budget that we actually have no control over um also included in your uh Financial packet is sort of the quarterly statement for your special revenue and evolving funds um and there I just wanted to sort of highlight the building rental because we're going to talk about the use of that Fund in a couple different places this evening um and you can also see that um what we've applied already to circuit breaker the 340,000 and that we're hopeful that we'll have at least 400,000 when the uh calculation is is um settled um and then you can see your other um preschool non-resident tuition the saw and gift fund um so this is a report that we give to you on a quarterly basis just to give you a feel of the ins and outs and sort of how the money is being used you can see in the building rental fund for current expenditure activity is that we did um pay for the rental of the portable AC's that we had at the beginning of the school year um and so we use that fund for that piece Don can you explain non-resident tuition how does what is that so um we have an agreement with do that we actually sending students so there will be activity in there this year because there's two students from do who are attending but it's only do it's not okay cool I remember we have a committee to committee agreement um for that right now um and so that will yeah so you're um we haven't booked anything to that right now so you're going to see you're going to see Revenue coming in you're going to see tuition coming in this year um but at this point we have um we have no uh plans to use it just for uh historical purposes when we find that we need to add a section because of enrollment and it's past the the budget period we have tapped into that fund to pay twice three two or three times okay I believe so it's sort of a little bit of a safety net for us to give us some flexibility great thank um because even last year so the year before we did this and then um in fiscal year 23 fiscal year 24 then we added that teacher or that section into the budget so it's sort of a nice little and it was getting it was getting low so it's nice now that we're actually going to get some more um tuition Revenue into that fund to sort of build you back up another sort of safety net great thank you that's it on the monthly financial report any other questions thank you for that appreciate it just to clarify Christine thank you for um signing the warrants she's ohe oh thank you Christin I just put a hat on and say um all right discussion items so couple items that we just sort of just to more keep the uh the members updated on on where some of the big ticket items are moving um Christine did you want to give a quick update on the calendar task force yeah thank you so much so um Beth kindly compiled a task force uh for us to look at the school calendar for greater inclusivity of religious and cultural holidays and she did that in Spring of last year so around May and I think um the group was comprised of uh students parents caregivers staff and School administration members and um school committee members and we have had at least five meetings I think some um many in person and some over Zoom where we had really wonderful discussions about um you know what we hop to see in the calendar what students hop to see there was a lot of great data collection around what the parents and caregivers were hoping to accomplish and same thing with staff and again students um but we were meeting recently and I think as a group it was a very organic decision ision that in light of the current tragic events that continue to unfold in the Middle East on a daily basis that this is not the time to be altering uh the school calendar um so we have suspended conversations at this time um I think we will look forward to a day when we can continue and have reset um and in the meantime we have such a great wealth of data collected by so many intelligent and thought voices but for now um the task force has paused any questions that's a great explanation thank you I would just add that you know everybody is affected by what's going on in the Middle East and um there's so many raw feelings and emotions um in our Jewish and Muslim and Christian communities that now didn't seem like the right time to be saying what what belongs in the calendar and what needs to be added or changed so that it's suspended and is there a mechanism to evaluate that or what what is the process to either continue the yeah I think um I think one of the benefits too was just a little bit of space because as we thought about um the next iteration of questions that we wanted to ask our stakeholders um we were so entrenched in the data in the conversation where um we looked at the survey questions we had drafted for the next round and thought to ourselves if you weren't part of these you know 20 hours conversation these questions might hit you in kind of a um strange way so I think it's a break for all of us to take a step back and go back to the balcony and say what's our mission and how do we work with our stakeholder groups to make a decision that is representative of of the um you know the larger group um I would say probably after the New Year we can you know I will work with um the school committee representatives to reassess you know obviously we don't have a crystal ball in terms of what's going to happen in the world but knowing that decisions have to be made in January February about next year's calendar we'll see if we can come back together um you know having taken a little break and with the ability to be more thoughtful about how we move forward or if if we just need to you know pause again um I think the good news is you can tell next year's vacations December February and April based on when the winter holidays fall President's Day um Patriots Day so people can plan their vacations it's just a matter of and school we still I assume begin just before lab day so it's just a matter of you know those other days off here and there that might shift so we do have a little bit of wiggle room January February to make those decisions but you know at that point we'll come back and and speak to you about if we weren't able to make those decisions yet what do we want to do about next year's calendar okay did the data have any clear results I would imagine this would be just a lot of different opinions but I'm curious if there were any key themes like too many not enough or if it was really all over the place was all over the place okay otherwise it you know it would have been easy to make a choice yeah okay so we're trying to stay true to kind of the mission of you know obviously having an excellent education for all of our students is number one recognizing the holidays in some way shape or form and that doesn't have to be with the day off there's a lot of conversation and just about making sure it's recognized and students are learning about holidays during the school day or during the school year um the equity piece um you know there was conversation about when you have the majority of people saying one thing then the majority voice continues and the minority voice isn't heard so isn't that the problem to begin with um so no clear answer and um I think the conversation kind of landed at this is not going to be easy some people are probably going to be pleased with the outcome some won't um including some of the members of the committee and then I I said well welcome to my world that's do every day um so no okay thanks like we recognize the CSA as well they provide a lot of color into the various holidays and celebrations and whatnot that kind of exist and I've noticed over the past couple years that there's been sort of a more uh purposeful push on sort of if we can't necessarily recognize something through sort of change in school calendar at least let's acknowledge and and make sure there's awareness of what that holiday or celebration is and and whatnot so that certainly does go notice okay any other questions cool all right building assessment and engineering studies you want me to give the high level sure yeah so we talked about this at our last meeting this is the sort of professional engineering studies um of the physical plant um over at Pine Hill um it sort of think about it in two different sort of phases and what is kicking this off is sort of an acknowledgement that there's a lot of space constraints and other kind of difficulties in managing the building itself um and that has been sort of exacerbated with some of the heat related um uh changes to the school day that we've experienced in sort of June towards the end of the year and then also in September and early August or sorry end of August um as as well so right now on the table are two different assessments that are um likely going to be executed by sort of a um two different folks working very closely hand in hand one is sort of a building assessment to understand and kind of rack and stack the data and the um elements of the actual building itself so heating system and uh various mechanical and and other kind of attributes of the building itself to kind of say all right here's where the building is and what we're actually dealing with uh the second assessment is sort of more focused on the cooling strategies I guess is the best way to say it around okay these are folks that do engineering work around um you know developing you know hbac systems for these kinds of buildings what do they think is possible um not coming up with the plans to actually go install but just sort of say here's what you're dealing with and here's some things to uh to guide sort of decisions and and next steps um I miss anything big on that no and I think that so that the um cooling study is sort of kicking off initially with the building assessment and then they will go off and do more on just the cooling so uh by by actually combining these were probably Sav we being efficient and in cost um and we have asked them and I and we talk about Capital you see I mentioned the capital plan we've asked asked them to sort of expedite that piece so they'll get started first um be able to gather the information they need for the Architects to do the building assessment and then continue on with sort of looking at um ideas they can have for cooling um and they will probably give us a couple recommendations and with those recommendations come estim at cost as well so that you'll have a little basis um to sort of make decisions about um and so probably by the end of the week we'll actually formalize and kick both those off um we were waiting I had initial conversation with the um the architect after we had our meeting clarified a few things um it will take them a little longer than what was in their proposal um cuz when I at the meeting if you remember I said 3 to four months and the report said 6 to8 so I went back back to him he's like yeah I don't know why I put 6 to8 sorry that was like it's really wor 3 to four but that's where we talked about the engineering doing the um HVAC work to to sort of move faster and that won't hold them up um with his with their report will come as well as potential re um suggestions maybe renovate and give a Cost U build new give a cost so if anything it's going to give us Insight too as to what we're talking about moving forward so that is part of what their report will do as well sort of give you some launching paths as to what direction um and all necessary for any work that we want to do at the msba this is definitely a starting point and something that would be required of us to do along with multiple other studies afterwards but this is this is a good starting point and it at least answer some of the questions I think that we've all had and then give us a premise of like what does construction cost today so then we have something that we're just not pulling th air yeah so I think I want to be incredibly clear that this is not like the precursor to a new building this is us doing diligence to understand what options are available I think it's good diligence and good sort of governance to make sure that we understand what is it that we are um working with we're putting 400 or so kids in this building every day during the school year and making sure that it's fitting the needs of what we kind of have and the goals and and you you know strategic vision and whatnot that Beth kind of has mentioned so um there's a variety of different data points that'll come out of this and that will give us sort of a good foundation to then engage with the Myriad stakeholders community members the various boards and other committees within the town um to start to work with actual data to kind of say here's here's what we think um the problem is and here's some potential Solutions and to uh to Don's point trying to marry the AC solution in here as well cuz we I think very clearly recognize that there is there's an issue at that point I mean so in my uh actually monthly report sort of summarize for you the cost um so the building assessment itself is uh 16,800 um we've several meetings we've had with the town they've agreed to sort of cost share that with us um and then we'll pick up the full cost of the cooling study um and so those two half of the 168 and then the whole 8,000 will be things you'll see next time on your report Inc Comber against the building rental fund um and again that is great use of that that money um to sort of allow us to sort of move forward with that and not have to wait for um additional to build it into the budget itself um and I will just to for the newer members the there's multiple ways we get Revenue in the building fund um just to sort of make you feel comfortable that we're not going to deplete it won't be replenished um we do a lot of rentals of the gym to basketball program and um our largest revenue gener generator is actually the sheeta program that is run by the region so we do assess the program um rent to use pine hill and so that's $3 to $40,000 a year um so that is definitely will be replenished and sort of gives us a lot of flexibility in the past we've actually carpeted like the auditorium so we've been able to do some building projects that we need to do done sort of more um um expeditiously than if we had to go through the whole Capital process we always share it with with the town so they know what we're doing um and later on in the meeting I feel like it all comes back to the building rental fund tonight um when we talk about the playgrounds there's some other expenditures that we've agreed to do with the playground too that um will come out of build rental fund great it's a hot hot fund right now to to have it's it's definitely allowing us a lot of flexibility to get a lot of good work done um and provide you know um great information and also take care of some things that we need to take care of so we'll keep you updated um definitely the the both projects will be well underway before we meet again um in January so look forward to uh you know seeing what they say questions thank you for studing all that great good work got so many studies going on right now and budgets and budgets yeah all right now for the star of the show the budget yes so there's where do we start right um well I always like to just sort of give you an overview of the budget book and then we you know we won't delve too far into the details tonight know that this is just our this is our starting point um we're required by the town to have a budget prepared and approved by you and submitted to them by think December 8th I'm going to say um so we're going to meet that that deadline and it it should Encompass as as many new things that we can that we know about at this time so that we're always starting with um the largest budget and hopefully as as time goes by it won't grow it'll only either stay the same or get a little bit smaller but it's an opportunity to sort of put a placeholder on on funds for fiscal year 25 uh keep in mind that we're only a couple of months into fiscal year 24 which why makes this a little more complic ated because you don't even really know what's going to all happen in 24 before we start building 25 um but you have an overview where we try to summarize sort of our assumptions for the budget some key budget drivers the financial statistics which you know um at the high level is included in there uh We've included for your review sherber and advisor's um budget guidance and you can see that I've highlighted in yellow for you um the school department Liaisons and we're to have them all in the audience with us tonight Dan Paul and Mike so we thank you for being here um and then it just gives you some other timelines um uh the town that we that we work into our calendar um it's important to also to we try to tie as much as we can into what we do with the district strategy so just as a as a reference point um the two-page summary is included there for you to reference back if you're ever questioning something where does this tie um hopefully we you know are are practicing what we preach and this is what we want to do and this is how the budget's going to fun to do it um tab two is where you get so this is you've got the line item from our general ledger buildup of the budget um you don't see this on a monthly basis if you go and look at your monthly reports they're sort of summarized by the function codes um but within this budget detail you can see what makes up those function codes by line item so it's a great way to sort of delve into the budget and understand how it's um derived so much of our budget is a people payroll um but then you can just sort of see the categories and in the addition to that we give you a summary of um Staffing and in bold we sort of have put sort of the new um reductions or ads so you can see the changes and then we've also given you a summary of the anticipated grants I never want to lose sight of the grants and the importance that they play in our budget um just by chance for some reason that these grants go away you know what we depend on these grants for so that's another piece that I think is important um to see um and then you have um enrollment which why do we that's why we have a school right is is based on how many and as we typically have done we have our three-year projection and our one-year projection rates um this is looking at inmigration and out migration as of October 1st so we look at October 1st um data and that drives what happened so you don't um every so you can see the ins and outs that happen over the year that's what's playing out here and we always use that same date at the top you see that either the growth or the decrease um per grade so if you look at the three-year rate you've got 112% 103 99 107 101 that's the expected um growth that we expect on the class moving from like first to second over 3 years it's averaged that it increases by 3% um and then we also just keep our eye on the oneyear projection rate too just in case there's some outliers that are happening that we should just sort of um keep at the back of our mind and but we typically we're we work with the threee just because that's more of an average of what happens um but it's it's good to see both so we'll keep our eye um on these numbers in case we uh do identify anything that we can sort of um make decisions on but your class size is 18 to 23 and you can sort of see with the three-year projections where we would be um with the sections that we currently have in the budget which is 21 um and then your fourth tab is sort of just more detail about out of district and we'll talk a little bit more about that um when we start walking through the budget and your fifth tab is actually your capital your 5-year Capital plan um so those are the pieces that you have and as you either have requests or we get additional information that's why I like that you bring your books with you because I'll bring additional um documentation for you and documents to go um into your book so if we update Capital if we update um you know the budget when we start doing the different versions I'll actually bring you hard copy so this can be sort of a a reference book for you um for the coming year so I always like to just jump and say okay where are we starting um so we are uh presenting tonight a budget that's um an increase of 8.3% over last year um just to give you some perspective version one last year was an increase of 8.57 and we settled at um 8.17 so as you can see we always start with our high number and then hopefully when we're done the increase um is isn't quite um as large as we start out so I feel like we're in a good a good position where we're um starting out we clearly look at um your budgets in two pieces one is the IND District which is actually operations of Pine Hill and the second piece is your at a district which is basically all students who we don't aren't able to service in our district from ages 3 to 22 so any of those residents of Sherburn who are placed out of District um we cover the cost in your seran school committees at a district operating budget the region has no operating has no costs in their budget for added districts it sits in the Two Towns respectively so I think that throws people a little bit but that's um how that works um and then um we do look at that is two different budgets because you really would never want to sort of impact your IND district with what might be happening in out a district so we we definitely look at those as two distinct budgets looking at our assumptions um as we just talked about we're assuming that we have level enrollment for fiscal year 24 um we obviously work in compliance with the town budget guidance so any new ask that we're asking for we'll make sure that we can substantiate the need obviously we align it with the district's um 2328 strategy um you know even though we're a couple years out we're continuing to sort of look at um students needs postco there was a lot of learning loss at the elementary level so we're constantly trying to see what we can do to shore um those students up and as I just mentioned just making sure that you're aware of the entitlement grants that do play a part in your budget looking at your drivers obviously as I mentioned we're we're a people-based business and payroll um represents approximately 87% % of your IND District budget um I will uh point out that we talk about the contractional increases on all of our ratified Agreements are 3% for fiscal year 25 that is actually up from the previous round of contracts where you used to see me say more like two to two and a quarter so that is an uptick in our budget that has really been driven by the market and um the last round of contract negotiations that we just undertook um the only group that doesn't have a current contract right now is our educational assistants if you remember we just approved a one-year contract with them because we were looking at um sort of the different levels um we're hoping that that study or that group will be wrapped up soon and then we will reenter negotiations for uh fiscal year 25 and 26 so that we put them back on par with our other um barting units of having a three-year contract um looking at sort of Staff addition uh we're bringing forward in this budget an increase of 0.5 to the math coach as you know we share a math coach right now between the two elementaries I think with what we talk about that we're looking to pile or to actually bring forward a new math curriculum it makes sense to make sure that we have the support in both buildings so both elementary schools are requesting a a05 math coach to sort of make them whole and we'll have one in each building uh we do have some staff reduction though that are helping offset that um our elll educator based on student needs is decreased by 0.1 and um OT when we're assessed what current needs are in pin hill with the student cohort is down point2 so that's a savings of about 15,000 and as we talked about in our fiscal year 24 monthly report we had post fiscal year 24 budget Staffing changes that netted about 95,000 um it's not a coinci idents but a lot of these numbers are going to sort of net and I don't plan this this is actually all it this happen um but when we get to the end you'll see that really all these ins and outs we're only looking at a net increase of 10,000 the other piece and this is the only um place where we did rely on Esser funds but it allowed us to sort of try out a couple of different positions um but we are looking to add two positions that were funded by Esser through this year and one from circuit breaker so for the last two years because of our added District activity you've noticed that we've pulled the budgeted educational assistant that was going to circuit breaker and brought it into the operating fund to provide some additional relief um to uh out of District activity um so to be safe I think we're going to start version one bringing that circuit breaker EA funded historically into the operating fund we'll see where we shake out without a district we can always put it back into circuit breaker um but because 2 years is running we've had to pull it I thought it made sense to at least roll it out in um a version 1.0 so we are adding three positions that have already existed but were're not funded with the general funds um but it is offset with one Jed position that was um sort of now combined with one of our new positions that we tried so we have the um academic coordinator that's sort of in the Learning Center that was one of the the positions that we've been piling in at Pine Hill that can sort of serve some of the um same needs that we had for one of the Gen atas so we combined that so then that gives us just a net increase of 70 the other position that we were sort of piloting was uh floating EA which is instrumental to helping classroom coverage when staff members have to attend IEP meetings so we've done that for two years um where we funded it with Esser it definitely is worthwhile so we want to bring it into the general fund um and then if we have any retirements um we will bring those forward in later versions um but right now we we don't anticipate uh any retirements and had if if we were made aware of any retirements the way our educator contract um is sort of written as they have until February 1st to sort of pull that back so we never really talk about retirements until we cross that February 1st date um but that would be something that would be coming uh forward in uh later versions so we talked about the math coach and and and the addition of the math curriculum that's one of the big increases um then we'd be looking at adding it um well the cost would be 47,500 for pil for bringing on a new math curriculum that would be K through five the sort of nuance here is that it's a 5year package price that you are required to pay in Year One um so it's um Master law has actually been a little bit more uh Savvy with working with schools in that they know that's a lot of the vendors are sort of creating um contracts like that or and purchasing contracts like that that actually build in Savings in the past we weren't able to really take advantage of that because you could not prepay um but I think there see they realized that we're they were costing municipalities and school districts money by not allowing that so I I think that's why more vendors are sort of crafting packages like that the beauty of that is that we would pay for it in 25 then we would really have no math expense for the next four years and when you pick back up in year six we'd really just be getting the workbooks so we'd be back to where we are with everyday math where we spend 10 to 13,000 on just um materials um so that is again still totally under discussion but with was important for us to at least put a placeholder in the budget um we had some funds that were being used for other uh um textbooks that we didn't need so you're going to when you look in your detail budget you'll see an increase of only 21,500 and that's because there was already some money there that would have gone away um if we weren't doing this math curriculum so it sort of helped um sort of uh make the increase not look so large dollar for dooll um and so where the plan is for for um uh a full presentation on this initiative it may even be a joint meeting with both elementaries to sort of hear the plan um in sort of uh sometime in the J January February timeline definitely prior to your final budget approval in March but I think there'll be a lot of items to hear about to discuss and see how um we want to proceed um you don't have to do k35 it could be something less but again not knowing in November where we want to be we're went for full full mentation um the majority of our other operating accounts really remains um level um and I think that's going to be in Guidance with um um sort of the Town guidance to sort of take what you have and still make it work um two areas that we really don't have any control over of doing that though is our general educ our general um education transportation we have an automatic 1.6% increase but fuel is still not the price of fuel is still not in our favor um and I've been hesitant to keep adding to the fuel Reserve but it seems to be pretty standard that we're going to have it so rather than having a deficit I did increase that a little bit and our utilities you'll note that um our electricity cost starting in December of this year is going up 40% so we only had half of the year in fiscal year 24 we'll have the full experience of that in 25 plus delivery costs are continuing um to increase on it so that we have no control over that we do um do we B you we do we actually sign long-term contracts for electricity so we were sort of in a really sweet spot um and then there was no way around it you had to you had to get out of that sweet spot for a little bit but I think we locked in in a pretty good rate um I think we we locked in at like 14 cents a kilowatt so if you look at your eversource bills and see what you're paying you'll see that actually um it seems like a 40% it was a 40% increase but it's actually really good um considering what's still is going on in the market right now um and then so we talked about enrollment so the added District um we are looking right now at 11 placements and I always like to have um sort of show you the gole forward of that so if you go to Tab four you can see that we're budgeting a million 2.95 last year the budget at this point was um a million6 so it's increase of 235,000 if you go down to the changes from fiscal year 24 budget you sort of see how it all plays out as I as I mentioned in 24 we saw uh increases we saw changes in placements that resulted increases in cost so that's 100,000 of the 235 we had one new placement um between budgeted 24 and budgeted 25 and then we're um luckily not seeing 14% increases this year but we're buting for five and part of that is the um increase so those are the components read on that H is there any early read on that didn't they give us a like a heads up that that was because that was across the board on a on a normal basis it's school by school basis but that was a one time across the board for all private placements um so we 5% we had in the past had always done 3% so I did sort of go up to five after 14% last year I don't think you're going to see a lot of of schools having anything over five we know our collaboratives right now are ring out their budgets and looking at 3% increases so that we've got a little bit of of leadway in that five but better to sort of hold that now um because we're still early in the process everyone's doing their budgets now so we don't really know how everyone's going to play out um but we all I think I feel very comfortable that 5% will get us um at the top where we need to be the one thing that we don't have a good handle on right now is sort of our transportation for out a district we still have not received our first like bills for this year U they're slow in getting those out and we use our collaborative for the majority of our transportations with all with like one vendor um once we get that then we'll be able to get a better sense of where we are with Transportation but I do know that they're only looking at a 4% increase uh per mile which is actually really good for us um for 25 I just don't really know how our B how who's riding and how many miles people are going right now until I get that first bill so we will try to update that but and then you also have the in the category sort of so I told you that we cover students who live in sherban between the ages of three and 22 it's always good for you to sort of look and see where they are in the realm of that age group right so um in Elementary uh we have less than three prek 5 uh we have less than three in middle school we have five sort of in the high school 911 range um we don't have anyone next year who's going to be a 12th grader and why that's good to know because a lot of those them will graduate out and you can sort of know that you'll get some relief um and then we have less than three in the 12 plus so we do have placements that we will continue to um be responsible for until they turn 22 um so we're sort of spread out um but it's always I think good to just sort of see it's also good to to see like where we're placing uh students so we don't have anyone going to sort of that another in District um public program because other school districts have Pro think about Pine Hills program right similar to that um collaboratives are usually the most um uh cost savings because it's it's usually collabor like we're all districts all working together so that you're looking to just sort of break even and help each other right the masses of working together um so we do have a a good amount in the collaborative and the non-public obviously is is our largest um category and Don for the changes in placements is that maybe when a student um is identified as being better served by a dis a different out of school district okay yes where we saw increase in cost we had one or two students actually last year that were in Mass public that that wasn't working in so they had to go to uh non-public and those typically do cost more um so that was that uh so if we just go back to um just looking at the overall um I there's an operating summary expense um that sort of gives you again the categories it's on Tab one um so if you look at um salaries and we talked about how your salaries are 87% you can sort of see the breakout and um it's a it's there's a lot there's a couple things going on that make so if you look at other educational expenditures and we've talked about the textbooks being increased but you only see $25 when you start going through the line items and when you read the staff report that we took two positions from contracted services and move them into the contract those amounts used to be in the other educational expenditures we move them up to salaries so it's sort of hiding the fact that we added the textbooks because we delete we took the expenses away from those contracted Services uh cuz when I first looked at this I'm like wait why does this only say $25 it's it should be more than that but if you look at the detail you'll see that there's um 21,500 that's coming out of one of those Contract Services accounts actually turns turns out to be exactly what we increased textbooks for so that just gives you the indication that everything else that we did in that category netted to $25 so we're really not looking for large expenses we did look for um we look we say Trend budgeting if you look in your your detail you've got five years of data you've got three actuals the 24 budget and then the proposed 25 we look to see if like certain line items it always going over is it always under and try to adjust for that understanding like we will understand why it's happening but you'll see some ins and outs on some of the individual line items in the D of where we sort of done we have done Trend budgeting somewhere up and somewhere down um but in the most part we we didn't touch a lot I mean salaries is where your activity really takes place and then you can just sort of look at your tuition and transportation um for outed district and sort of see how we have you know what our expenditures have been in the last three years um and then what our budget was for last year compared to this year and then knowing that we right now are using $300,000 a circuit breaker so you're at a district when you go back to that sheet was higher right because the number here is net of the 300,000 that we plan to cover with circuit breaker and that's a that's a conservative number that's about um assuming we're going to get 50% reimbursement we'll get prob we have now um for the last couple years always gotten 75% so there's some cushion in there that too when we work with the town is trying to balance our budget we can bring more circuit breaker in um but it's um it's comforting to have a little bit of a um Reserve I think that we have some control over in addition to the stabilization fund that the town has and so that's where I would like to not try to deplete ourselves to zero as we he but we'll see how that plays out okay I've been running at the mouth but hopefully some of this is making sense um you know looking at your having time just to look at it um over the weekend and just sort of how this the timeline will play out so our next meeting um would be February 6 that's your next committee meeting where we would present version 2.0 and then um we have a meeting with advisory that typically is just the chair um we thought maybe we might consider a different date February 14th but maybe we'll have a big Valentine's Day party um and um then the final version where you'll have your open hearing and do your final vote is March 12th and then we turn it over and it's all in the town's hands to go through their open hearing and and annual town meeting so as you spend time with us if there's any additional data that would be helpful for you please let us know um happy to provide it um detailed any detailed questions send to Dennis um and we can you know make sure that we address that at the next meeting so um no question is is too small or too large uh we want you guys to feel comfortable with the budget um and uh know that we actually from a salary standpoint I will tell you we build it employee by employee and um so it's very detailed what we have and um luckily it's one school it's one school then one school and two schools but um you know there is there's not not I'm going to say there's not fluff in this budget um we really work hard um to do the best job that we can for both the staff and the students at at Pine Hill in the most economical way and I think that's always just sort of been the motto at Pine Hill they make um a lot with little and I think that anytime we're asking for additional funds it's because we truly do need those additional funds to continue to be the successful school that we are questions would you prefer us to send questions offline versus now or either way okay I just had I think three questions okay there were a couple um like percent changes in salaries that were higher than we had previously talked about and I was just curious again sure there's good reasons right but like the the um guidance counselors is up 10% I think the custodial is up 7% and it didn't have like an explanation so I was just curious about some of those big some of that so that um when you when we talk about the Educators so they have steps in they have Cola and steps so at least they have 3% then the steps range from 4 to 9% so um there are staff in there that probably had a yeah and they're all like they're spread out on the Matrix like it's not even in the Matrix so some places it could be 8% so it's 8% plus 3% so you could have an 11% increase um and so when there's only a couple of people in a line item like there's only you know 2.5 in there it definitely got it will vary that way the custodians I will say we had if you remember when you approved their contract their contract was uh exceeded sort of the the reserve that we had in the budget but there are so few employees in that category we went ahead and approved it so you're seeing a catchup of what we didn't have enough for to cover in 24 got it plus the Cola in 25 perfect thank you and then my um other question oh was the exact same question Christine had so just the the jump in the um out of state oh tuition out of state M we just hadn't talked much about is that that the right location for a student happens to not be in Massachusetts yeah okay that is those were my questions right and there you can see we didn't have anyone out of state last year right we had someone in 23 but nothing in 21 22 so that just all it varies and out of state for us is um you have to be like Rhode Island a lot of them are Rhode Island got it yeah okay great that's where Transportation can then start to get a little high transportation is mileage based yes got it and I did have one question on enrollment if and if we're ready to move there but if not I can wait oh okay um excellent so I'm just curious how these numbers are are calculated so I know that there's a lot of conversation in town right now about apartments and building and things like that and it did didn't seem like we were accounting for student increases as a result of that and I was just curious if that intentional or well I don't think there's anything concrete right so we would not start um inflating our numbers for the unknown and I will say in talking to other school districts that the net student the students that usually net for some of these is never as great as like what they say um we definitely have um a little bit of capacity um but you've got to think about a housing project that potentially the kids would be spread between prek and 12 right so when you start like just putting a few in all the grades it's I don't think it's as overwhelming as an impact as it can seem to be and sometimes this is um a little bit of a scare tactic right yeah um because I know I was getting some calls about when they were having that meeting that it was going to be you know how much was it going to cost per you know student to do this and I'm like when you at a student or two it really is not incrementally going to increase your budget but they were taking our price per student multiplying by how many students they thought it's going to cost us $5 million right so hopefully that didn't get presented that way because I spent some time talking with um one of the select board members about how that really works and that we have capacity to pick up some students and that's really not going to cost the district any more money um it's with there's it's something overwhelming so we have not we have not been told or we're not aware that there's something that's going to definitely cause us Mass yeah chaos chaos what I was going to say do you want to explain the three-year projection rate in the one year or do you want to take a break and I can yeah no I mean so the threeyear is just looking at um what has happened between grades over three years and doing the average and extrapolating it out yeah and then the one year is just what happened um like what was the growth from K to one last year that's what the okay cool thank you and then the kindergarten we just usually take the the threeyear average so the the previous three years and roll that out until we get Census Data um Barb has an indication on her Census Data though that we're still looking in the 50s actually for the next three years um which is sort of what our numbers say uh but that is um that's the only sort of unknown we have is what our incoming kindergarten is going to be got it great thank you the one cost driver on this is the um the class size limits that we've established right so I don't think we've had to increase Educators because we couldn't meet the cohort um class levels we did a couple years ago shift though no but we have added we added yeah we had to add in 23 using the non the non-resident tuition fund and we built it into the 24 yeah so like grader one of the years had a new teacher you have 21 sections now in in 2021 you had 19 so between 21 and now we've added two so that's where like cost could if you cuz Barb and Allison do a lot of gymnastics to try to figure out how do you make these like this uh chart down at the bottom guys help to try to forecast it where the things go so there is Shifting between grades y yeah yeah so you look at the sections last this year versus what they're projecting it a little bit different based on right so like um and if I recall correctly that that's a guideline of 23 students not a hard yeah that's limit correct 18 to 23 and then we combined you used to have two guidelines you had KY through three and four or five and four or five actually went up to 25 um and so there was the decision to sort of make it all one and get rid of the 25 but maintain the K3 which was 18 to 23 got it yeah we were trying to get closer to Do's Dober 17 to 22 but at the end of the day it all sort of turns out I mean you've got some class sizes that are below 18 cuz when you're dealing with numbers this small it's there's like a place where you know yeah there's not a lot of decision making yeah cool great those were the questions I came up with thank you so much thank you for looking at other questions do you want to just talk a minute about sort of you hit on it but like what's the interaction with Barb and Allison around like thinking about right like what their call their asss are working I jumped right in so I skip that part um so um we actually opened the budget up for um the building level um administrations start looking at like the third week of October so they do meet with their PLC leaders they meet with their um internally and they sort of talk about like where what changes they need to see what they'd like to request and you'll see some changes in there like library books went up um a thousand because they that was a request um uh you know talked about the math coach and maintain the same level of educational assistance that we have so they do a little little work then we actually meet um all all everyone in central office our whole team meets with the assistant principal and the principal at each school to walk through where we are with our work and then combine it with their work so you're seeing sort of a a collaborative budget here based on what they've told us they've need um what we have already identified sort of at the central office level of bigger initiatives that are going to happen um and it all sort of culminates in this obviously the taking into consideration um the town finances and and what we can do so it's actually a a little bit of a a juggling act to do the best we can but also not ask for the world and strategically using our our our grants too um I think that's where you know it's great um we've there's a new Grant system that actually is forcing us to be much better at our budgeting and actually took a lot of work this year um but it's it's actually making us um not just put some something together in a budget to get it done because they're going to hold us to it so we had to be very thoughtful and so there's some additional like uh textbook textbooks that can be used that we can put on some of the grants and so when we start spending those we'll share with you um where we you know how we're spending that money so you better understand I've given you a little bit of a glimpse because on the consent agenda tonight is actually all the fiscal year 24 has just been approved that gives you an idea of what they're used for and if we specifically uh Target them for something I've included that in as the background and I and I'll have to say too we're so grateful for the CSA because the um the funding that they do to sort of add the extras to the school is so um well appreciated and then Pine Hill sort of has the soln fund mhm um it's unique to all to any of the other schools where there's U money there too that's at the discretion of the administration to use to benefit students and they you know have made some significant donations in the last couple years um mainly your Outdoor Classroom has been heavily funded by by the Sol funding and the CSA so it's it's sort of the partnership that we have um to sort of do some of those things that we might not have a capacity to add into our general fund but add so much to the school um and that's coming from from the support of those who um you know contribute both to the CSA and then just sort of the the U Genesis of the the solent fund and what its goal is and those are kind of the thank yous that we usually put when we do your formal budget presentation we highlight how important those are to the operation how they do um you know make it a better experience for the students couple of things just having looked at this number of years in a row um the first couple lines on the budget are all sort of District costs that are divided between Dober Sherburn and the region um another point was the HR manager that was hired that doesn't show up in here is that right because Sherburn isn't Ben technically benefiting from that individual I know that's come up in terms of that role what what yeah it's actually only in the Region's budget because even though it's shared partially by the town of Dover it sits at the town of do's budget not in the school budget because it's there for the town not specifically the school but keep in mind the region is a town and so we we have that because we don't have any F house so that's us so it sits in the Region's budget and that's the only place you see that position you don't see it in either one of the elementaries um I like we've got like a relatively long break between now and our next meeting the next meeting you'll have sort of a revised version of this so we've got some time to let this marinate and think through and see if there's anything that you know sticks out um but coming back in January with like it's really like things are getting real close to right right and then the monthly report is always good so those are your actual so that's what I one of the last I I do um when I'm finalizing is I take my most recent actual and say okay where are we now and am I making sure this there something that we haven't accounted for so you can sort of do a little looks there but you can also then see where we have the changes in payroll you're going to see how that's going to reflect in the budget because um one either we staff changed or in a case in point with the custodians you'll see that we're probably over this year because their raises were a little bit more than what we had out at one other thing I that's minor but um you'll see is an increase in there in the admin assist at the building level is increasing the um one of the front office people to be their 7 and 1 half hour a day is increasing it to eight eight hours a day just because it's been a little more chaotic at the end of school and it's nice to have the two people there so that's built into here to give the extra two and a half hours a week um so that was one it's not huge dollars but that was actually um an request from the building to have better coverage Mak chaos if school yeah shocking anything else huge thank you to not just you but to the entire team so I will and we'll need and actually let me just go to Capital real fast so you'll see there's nothing being requested Capital right now for fiscal year 25 but we put a placeholder for improvements to address the building temperature and I mentioned in there that we're doing the cooling study and hopefully we'll have something that we will still be able to jump on the the capital um uh committee's uh calendar if we can and then really looking out the only big item that we have even for the next four years is really just determining that building and the roof covering so so there's nothing I I updated that we had a rough assessment done for all the schools in 21 we made a few little repairs we have absolutely no concerns with that and the on-site Insight plan puts that at like 20 years but we know we all know we can get longer than 20 years if you have a good base of a roof so that um we're still holding it there as a placeholder in 26 but that can all also be pushed out probably another couple years and it could be depending on what we decide to do that we just never replace that that road because it it it's not an investment if you're looking at a 20-year investment it might not be the right thing to do so other than that our capital is looking pretty um empty um so we'll see what comes forward um from the cooling study but uh before you leave tonight I do need you to approve separately the operating budget and then the capital budget so we can submit it to each of the two or speci can I get a motion to approve individually or oh you can do uh the operating in capital budgets um as Don has presented to share first drafts with the town Christine M so moved second Amanda BR second thanks Amanda all those in favor Kristen I'm not sure if you can hear us yes I can hear you Kristen Abberly yes thanks Kristen thank you I forgot to check with you Kristen do you have any questions on um I'm assuming you're no I'm good thank [Music] you um all right thank you and any questions that you guys have feel free to reach out um yeah we'll we'll get in touch okay perfect thank you uh consent items these each need to be approved um so first and these are all in the package that was sent um earlier uh so the first is the approval of the September 19th meeting minutes so request a motion to approve those do it as a package all right um thank you so let's take a step back then so there's the minutes if you do have any edits I didn't notice anything um flaring donations do you want to give a quick summary or sure as Don mentioned you know Pine Hill wouldn't be Pine Hill without the CSA and um they have uh generously donated including ourselves $50,000 to um support uh additions to the playground including the climbing structure that you have in your packet as well as um some other items that need repair um so thank you to the CSA for that huge donation that in addition to some of our own funds will kind of bring Pine Hill playground back up to Snuff um with a few additional bells and whistles so yeah just to piggyback on that so we've agreed to fund about 10 $15,000 worth of repairs we're we're sharing with the CSA the slide that's has been non-existent um we're doing the open slide and also uh repairing another piece of equipment we're cost sharing that so it's about 15,000 that you'll see coming out of the building funds and that's part of their the gift from CSA to sort of I make that all happen and the last is just the grants so this we started this last year just getting school committee approval of the grants that we um have been that we have been um awarded for fiscal year 24 just to um sort of round that out I gave you the amount and sort of like um if we receive annually if we don't receive annually one thing I should point out when you look at your budget book for 25 you'll see in the title one Grant was much higher in 23 that one does um fluctuate based on our free and reduced lunch increase uh so when you go over the 5% threshold is where you get the higher amount which is where we at the 40,000 level um we were under that this 24 so it's really our October Sun's date from last year so it's 18,000 um we do fund a position with this grant however we have have carryover money from the 40,000 so it will be okay but we'll have to keep an eye on that for fiscal year 26 um speaking with our director of um Food Services she feels that we're going to probably be back in the 5% um for Sherburn in in 26 so in 25 I mean 25 my years I could not in [Music] um so want questions on that makees sense all right motion to approve the group of concept items as presented you know I'm so sorry um make for the last for the minutes from last meeting um mega attended and provided the update Ariana was unable to attend and it's got both of them done okay great we make that change thank you yeah uh um so moved Christine msh any second second amand discussion all those in favor hi hi hi Kristen Kristen Abberly yes unanimous all right um informational items so including the package or the uh newsletters for November and October I think you guys have probably received those your other mechanisms as well uh do school committee minutes from June um feels like an alterity go and then the regional meeting in September um just for kind of awareness and and what what's going on there our next meeting is the fifth I thought we had one in January but that might be the joint joint that's joint um so any items I know that I've talked to some of you guys about like committee updates or whatnot and you know if there's nothing to duck we don't obiously need to force it but I'll reach out when we come closer just to make sure that if there are any updates we'll we'll cover those at the meeting if there's anything else that comes up through talking with any of the stakeholders in town uh we can evaluate getting that on the agenda as well anything else cool so we adjourn at or motion to adjourn so moved CHR second second all those in favor uh

seven I'm I'm sorry I'm sorry Kate um John what is the it was a almost a $5 million gap I think that's what Kevin was talking about with the cuts and the ask in front of the council is three million right now so okay thank you numers right okay thank you I just want to make sure um I appreciate the clarification and then if you could if you could throw that last slide up on on the screen for a second um I want to ask a question but I I think it's helpful to have that visual okay I'm trying to find it now give me one second k no problem thank you Mr wson [Music] Pate was that the one with a bottom total budget request of 179 million correct the one at the end Kate yeah the very last one thank you right before okay there we go there we go perfect thank you so I just want to ask this because I I think like part of this is like I want to make sure I understand it correctly when we talk about those salaries that are and services that are currently being paid for by Esser dollars that would be new to the general fund in my head I'm still looking at you know when we talk about to turn the lights on budget and maintaining the services that are are currently be being provided by the Esser funding I'm thinking that that two point Sorry the 10.

that's the second Tuesday of the month at 5:00 pm at this location if there's nothing further can I get a a motion to adjourn a motion of a second from Chuck all in favor that's unanimous also thank you very much

gmail.com and December at balabas December 2nd um from 11 to 1 is when we'll be meeting again thank you so much all right that concludes our public public comments and that brings us to 4A which is governing board reports and Miss MC cheffrey do you have any anything to add um I would like to give a report about um the student outcomes Focus government um governance um uh conference that Mr Man and I attended but I'm going to save my voice um until and and bring it to December I will just say two things what one thing that was really great about it is that we heard there was a lot of student voice at the conference and there was the kids repeated several times that they are facing enormous anxiety and it's it's a reason that they're staying home because they're they're not feeling safe in the classroom for a variety of reasons um and just generally facing a lot of anxiety after coid so that's contributing to our attendance um and this is kids across the country it's you know it wasn't Craton kids but um I know that we're having a a spike in um attendance issues and and everyone is and um from the kids we heard from um they are facing anxiety and do not want to don't feel safe in the classroom don't want to be in the classroom for whatever reason one of my own children fa this as well preco actually so it's a very very difficult and serious issue um and then another thing they discussed a lot which I know we've discussed before is that kids need to have somebody one person that they can go to as a safe person and if you don't know who that kid's person is it means they probably don't have one like if if these are kids who are really quiet and not your you know leaders in the classroom but if you don't know who that student's person is who their safe person is on your campus then it means they probably don't have one so I thought that was a really cool session and I I mean I have like 15 pages of notes so I will bring it back in December assuming I have my my voice back thank you thank you so much Miss MC cheffrey Miss sis good evening everyone it's so nice to see a bunch of people here tonight um I just I'm really excited about the work that our board has started to um do we spent a whole weekend together not last weekend but the weekend before and tonight um before this meeting um and I'm just really excited that we are moving in the direction we're moving um the second thing I want to say is I'm really sorry you guys have to sit in these seats because I sat in them last week when I was here and they actually really suck so I'm really really sorry about that and I know I talked to Jay about getting some new chairs because those are really bad um I also want to say uh thank you to um the people that prepare our meals when we're here for dinner um we had great food um when we were working together and then of course tonight so um I just want to thank them for being um available to us for breakfast and and for dinners thank you so much Miss MB um really just ditto to what she said I'm really excited about the work we've been doing and will continue to do um and it's just really it's enlightening to and validating to know like we are so in alignment we get feedback from our community from our staff um and we're we're able to do this good work because of that alignment um and not every district has that so um I'm just really excited about all of it I also hope everyone had a wonderful three-day weekend and hang in there because it's about to be what a Fed Day weekend so almost there thank you Miss Gibson McLean I mean I'm not going to repeat everything but sure um I agree with what all you said and uh if you haven't had a chance and you're really looking for some entertainment go ahead and go on our YouTube and you can watch all the conversations we had last weekend and today I know some of you are just dying to go home and do that so please go ahead and do that but honestly though if you're trying to figure out what the heck we're talking about because we haven't given an in-depth uh explanation of this student governance I we've voted on it and discussed in the past but as far as like what we're actually doing and how the conversations we've had um honestly if you really want to know you can go on YouTube you can watch what we've discussed so far um and and and Community Council will bring we're going to be bringing some things on Thursday to community council at least our goals that we just um figured out today so I'm excited moving forward I think um we're in a good place if things feel good um hopefully we're not just like believing things feel good and they're not good I wouldn't want that to happen but I think things are good right now so hopefully it keeps going that way and I know I think for me it like feels good and I know we're going to hit some Road bumps and that things aren't going to go as well as they might but I think that we're all on the same page and that we'll figure it out even if we don't get to exactly where we hoped we would be so not that I'm not saying we're going to meet our goals y'all but I'm just saying that I know it's not all going to fall apart and we're going not going to scream at each other if if that doesn't happen so that also feels very good thank you oh yeah sorry I forgot I'm on that uh so Mr Man and I are ex officio members of the of the student conduct I don't like calling it The discipline committee y um it's student conduct committee um and so we've met a couple times already uh we've been digging into some interesting content um I guess it's probably a good thing that I'm there even if it's not that exciting for everyone else um so we've been talking about the law a lot and um I think you know um I'm really grateful for the staff members we have a student as well who's on the committee um and so just grateful for their time and energy that they're putting into this work um and we're making progress so we're going to continue to make progress we have another um meeting coming up the week after Thanksgiving I believe yeah I think so yes the Tuesday after thanksgiv or yeah Tuesday after Thanksgiving we're meeting so looking forward to continuing the work there you can also watch those on YouTube back you know there's plenty of hours of entertainment for you watch on YouTube thank you Miss Gibson McLean well I'm not really gonna go into it a lot too but the student outcomes FOC Focus governments work that we're doing is really amazing right now we did do a two study a today study session and we had a study session today to meet our goals and our goals were kind of adapted to the information that are on your right side for those that are in here we have some data and this is how transparent we're going to be when we're talking about our data so after the board meeting if anybody wants to head over there and see where our data is and why we decided to adapt this new framework is to be really intentional with our students and making sure that what they're learning and the um the outcomes that they they do and make sure making sure that we are doing everything possible to make sure that they're succeeding and not falling behind so that's a little bit of the data that we got to talk to about last weekend and today and um as mentioned before Community Council would be a great place to for anybody to come and join and hear about the board goals and why we decided to choose those board goals and have Community input on that it's very important that our community takes ownership of these goals as well because when we're working together that's the only way that we will be able to produce these outcomes for our students when we all have the same tone going around so I would love to see everybody on Thursday whoever can come starts at 6m we do have child care we provide food starts at 5:45 and it will be at Papago um Elementary School District so I'm hoping to see as many as you there um to get a little bit more of this sofg work or the student outcome Focus governance work um I also attended Our Family Resource Center baby shower that we had we had a community baby shower which is one of the most amazing things I love about our Family Resource Center we had about um I I want to say a little bit more than 20 um families come they got free diapers we got food we got to play Baby Shower Games and this is something that I know the community really loves and at the end of the day this is important work because those babies eventually will come feed to us and how awesome that they have a place where they can actually call Community or a home so thank you to Our Family Resource Center for putting that um baby shower I know we have two a year this was the fall we're gonna have one in the spring as well I like to say we because I show up and volunteer a little time so I take a little bit of credit for that too um I it's almost like I work there but I don't um so that's awesome and for any other event that are going out in the district I know that um Mr Man us as board members would love to attend them so if you guys ever have any invites in your school districts I see a lot of principles here that you would like to see us at just send them over to miss Horus and we'll make sure that if we can and our schedule permits we will be there because part of being an elected official is also being my partaking in these things with our community if I don't know my community then I don't know how to best advocate for them so if you create that space for us and invite us we will try to be there at least I will I try to show up everywhere and that's the end for my governing board report and we're going to go ahead and turn it over to Mr Man for his superintendent report thank you very much Madam president um and thank you for the reversal I'm going to comment on several of the things all of you have commented on and so I appreciate the kindness because um I feel like I didn't want to steal anyone's Thunder but um and I will go light on councilor great City Schools as well that um conference that Miss MC cheffrey and I attended together a couple of weeks back because I don't want to give her an opportunity to share but I did want to point out that um I both that it was quite honestly one of the best conferences I've ever been to because the focus was so much about the types type of work we've been doing with student outcomes Focus governance and as Miss MC cheffrey pointed out there was a lot of student voice present um in those conversations it was really powerful and one of the things I really appreciate um that we've seen from the student outcomes Focus governance work and we saw reflected at the Council of great City Schools one of the things they do very effectively is when they try to solve problems they don't just work with governing board members and they don't just work with superintendant they kind of bring both sides of the equation into the space and um create a space where everyone's working together to create improvements which I think really aligns with the philosophy we see emerging from the partnership that we have here and so it feels like a very good fit for the work that we're doing um and so that I think was was very very powerful um I sat in on several sessions as well I'll probably share more after Miss MC cheffrey has some some time to share a few things because we did sit in on a few together because sometimes it's helpful to have two people see the same thing and kind of be able to talk about you know they saw in that experience but one of the ones that that we kind of split up to cover more ground on that I was able to attend included Santa Ana School District in California and one of the things that they focused on was um trying to provide better supports for their special education students and one of the programs that they developed was instead of doing their trainings that they did for their Special Education team as focused for that team they built training that was for every teacher in the district and so you know what I really liked about that was it was a focus on um it's kind of that old PLC um kind of concept of this isn't my kid this isn't your kid these are our kids and so that our kids philosophy was really deep within that and one of the things I really appreciated about them is I said hey we have um one of our items coming up um is related to our director special education I said well we have a new person who will be joining us um how open are you to having conversations with our team and they said we love partners because if we share our work you will leverage what we've learned and you'll do something with it and whatever you make better all that we ask is that you share it back with us so I mean one of the reasons I love education and particularly the K12 space is that we do all share and try to help each other improve and so to have you know a group of stay away that's willing to help support us I think is is super powerful so that was kind of the power of that conference that was my best example um I really want to thank not only the board for the student outcomes Focus governance work this has been powerful I shared with them that I'm not normally competitive but when Dr Ramos said that we set the record for creating draft goals I like kind of gave a little you know fist into the air um because you know I know we have the best board in the world so it's kind of nice to get that reinforced for us but I also wanted to take a moment to thank Dr dupin Dr Lauren Dr pombo um Tyson Meers and the rest of the cinaa team um I know everybody dropped everything to try to pull data together quickly so we could do this work not rushed but efficiently and even with specific you know data manipulation requirements like we wanted to see you know total student count versus number of students passing rates and all of that stuff I know that meant pulling several data sets together to get that done so I just wanted to thank all of you for the extra hard work um to support us in doing this because this doesn't sometimes it looks like oh we just grabbed this stuff and we're doing this work but there's really a team behind the scenes that's that's helping to support us and allow us to do that um and then um just um many thanks to uh Miss Gibson mlan for her support of the uh know I can't call it discipline committee student stent support committee student conduct committee um and I think our co-chairs in the back of the room even been from that group and a couple of our members are here tonight um so uh I just really like that work is really important um and that team has really really kind of drilled into it and they're moving quickly and they have a lot of moving Parts they're dealing with but one of the things that was mentioned earlier was all the legal structures that are tied in and so having Miss Gibson mclan there to help us with um some of those State Statute questions really has made things I think go much more smoothly so that's been from my perspective been very much appreciated um learning about the criminal code we are we're we're deep we're we're like up to our elbows in criminal code to remember there's a student there right yeah there were a few comments that you know I won't share in in in public again so um and then the last thing that I wanted to share just as an awareness item is you may have heard through the media that there was a press conference yesterday afternoon um there was a group of um I guess Republican lawmakers uh that that came out to talk about a plan that they would like to put forward um to make some adjustments to the state land trust funding and how what prop 123 is used in order to create some um salary increases for teachers and so the number that's been bandied about is roughly a $4,000 per year increase for teachers um you know of course as you know working in public schools and knowing how hard our teachers work 100% in favor of seeing more money for our teachers um I was with a group of superintendents this afternoon um Howard Carlson the former superintendent from Wickenberg was kind of leading our group conversation with a member of the Senate that was part of this group and so one of the things I appreciate is we did at least have the opportunity to create awareness around some of the things that happen when these conversations occur where sometimes people don't take all the moving Parts into account so one of the things we shared that people didn't understand when 20 X20 happened a few years ago is if you give people enough money for a $4,000 increase and Dina who's sitting in for for Miss Shapiro tonight May fix my math for me but it is my belief that in order to give a $4,000 raise the state needs to provide us with $4,840 because there's roughly 21% in other um you know uh sort of required benefits costs so things like State retirement uh Social Security uh you know Federal and and state taxes and all of those things factor in and so sometimes they forget that and you may have heard a lot of noise in the news our district actually exceeded the 20% by 20 um because we really had a focus on that but there are a number of districts that weren't able to make it there and I think in many of the cases it wasn't Foul Play by the teams that were doing that work in those districts it was the fact that they technically were not given an adequate number of dollars based on you know a lack of understanding of how that math works so um so we'll see what happens with this if it catches fire or not um but I just wanted to share my appreciation out to those leaders around the state who are trying to keep people honest if they're going to make a promise make sure you're promising to really give us enough dollars to to fulfill on what you're telling people we're going to be able to provide so and that's was way too much but that's all I have to share this evening no that was perfect thank you so much okay so that brings us to our next agenda item which is being moved up 7A which is approval of exception exceptional student services director so I'm kind of really excited about this one um I know that this is something that the governing board has been talking about lately and it we've I'm just excited to get new people and get started on the new things that are going to come so I don't know if Mr Man or Dr Lauren I'm gonna turn it over to our expert Dr Lauren thank you uh thank you presidents kuo doll and members of the board sorry I just suddenly have a th frog in my Thro uh so we had a comprehensive search that was conducted for our director of exceptional student services uh human resources department advertised in the typical ways that we do uh through Frontline through ad as well as through asbo and aspa uh as well as indeed uh we had eight applicants that submitted applications and uh or eight applications and then of those six were screened and invited to apply there were two internal and four external candidates uh from that we had five participants in the interview process um they also completed an in basket activity uh the interview panel consisted of teachers members of the exceptional student services team members of the curriculum instruction and assessment team as well as a parent as a result of the process there were four candidates that were then selected to present their 90-day plans which were part of their in basket to that interview committee following that presentation the candidate that was referred uh met with the executive team uh Mr Man assistant superintendent of teaching and learning Dr dupin assistant superintendent of business and development M Shapiro and myself uh we held final the final interview with the preferred candidate and the candidate that we are recommending to the board this evening is Gretchen Kaiser Gretchen Kaiser grew up in Scottdale Sheed studied special education at Arizona State University she moved to Chicago where she began her career as a teacher in 2007 she returned to Arizona working with Scottdale Public Schools as an elementary special education teacher curriculum specialist assistant principal and then principal from that position Miss Kaiser then worked for the Paradise Valley Unified School District as assistant director of special education she continued her career with the Mesa Public Schools as a director director of special education Miss Kaiser holds a bachelor's degree in special education a master's degree in educational leadership and administration from Arizona State University so we are proud to bring Miss for Miss uh Kaiser forward for your approval thank you so much for that so with that being said um if we don't have any comments or questions or anything I would like to move the governing board approve Gretchen Kaiser as exceptional student service director for the special education department effective November 27th 2023 second all those in favor I hi I I am awesome yay I'm so excited and Miss Kaiser we would love if you could come up and give a few words welcome to the [Music] team thank you Madame President esteemed governing board members superintendent man and executive team members I am so honored to be here tonight thank you so much for the opportunity to join the kraton family I look forward to joining in on all the great celebrations I keep hearing about Craton I look forward to joining in and building on the many many great qualities that makes kraton so great to be a great District um and I look forward to being a collaborative member of the team that contines to innovate to move our systems forward as we strive for the high levels of success our students and families deserve I'm thrilled to be here I'm honored thank you for the opportunity thank you for your support thank you so much and I look forward to working with you thank you thank you [Applause] yay all right awesome so that brings us to to approval of consent and I move the governing board approve consent agenda items a through n and I'm going to be pulling o in accordance with policy bb- e second all those in favor I you thank you um the only reason why I went ahead and pull o is because there is a cohort that's coming up for the sofg work and right now it's named as myself and superintendent man however after discussion and speaking with our sofg coach too because there's going to be so much work from Mr Man it would be not prudent to send him to this added on cohart since he's going to be boots on the ground working on getting this data for us and all this other info so the only thing that I would like to change is keep myself there and any employee that would like to go from the cabinet or after you have discussions Mr man if you can give us a name afterwards um that would be great I'm not sure how that needs to be added in the background or how that works yeah I I think if if you were to uh make it as written with changing my name to um a member of District staff as identified by the superintendent okay perfect do I need to resay that or can Hilda just take note of that well you we already approved the um consent agenda items except for that one so you would I can just do it um I moved to approve agenda item o the request uh of the 2023 effective School Board cohort great City School travel requests to allow uh travel for Sophia kod doll and uh a staff member of the district as determined by the superintendent at a later date for both uh trips in February and October of 2024 so moved you're seconding it yes all those I mean second all those in favor Hi I hi thank you all right um all right and that brings us over to our educational services so this is the adoption of the 2 for 25 Academic School calendar and possible multi-year Mr Man I will turn or Dr dupin I will turn this over to you gonna turn it directly over to Dr D thank you Mr Man thank you madam president uh we've had a committee working diligently to explore a variety of calendar options and this evening we're going to bring you the uh kind of the current culminating efforts of their work uh for your consideration we have some data that we've collected and really have tried to craft a uh suitable recommendation for next year to get us by while we continue to explore potentially more um substantial changes to the calendar structure overall there's an option for your consideration to look not only at one year but to look at the structure for three years if you wish and Mr Guyer and uh Mr Diaz will be sharing all the details of the committee's work today Mr guy there is a slide deck do we provide our own laptop or I can yeah hold on let me find it used to having it all right here Madame President members of the board executive team good evening and waya noes um my name is Jeff Guyer and I'm here with Mr Diaz come on closer we're here is Representative members of the calendar committee there's a really great slide deck I can't wait to I looked at it it's all we saw it already yeah I'm looking at it right now looks great this is just proof that none of us would survive without Hilda yes that is abundantly clear it's funny you say that because she was a very um important member of the calendar committee oh so yeah it was great to have her on that committee she has a lot of insight and knowledge about what makes a great calendar we're so lucky to have her yay y thank you Dr I'm gonna look off to the left or the right I'm used to having a monitor right here but our committee is has been aligned to strategic plan goal one to provide Innovative learning time for our for our teachers and our students this is based oh thanks that's helpful it was that book who Moved My Cheese now we have the new book who Moved My Cheese back where it's supposed to be the governing board gave some guidance back in September of 2022 and they said that we want to make sure that we're aligned as close as possible to Phoenix Union that we maximize pre-service time for our teachers that we honor holidays cultural traditions and we're open to Innovation and before I go much further I want to make sure that I thank the members of the calendar committee there were formal members and informal members people who contributed there were 14 um certified and classified members of the committee made up of teachers Administration classified people from payroll Hilda as I said so it was a pretty well-rounded committee and they all contributed greatly to what we have to present tonight um it's always been our goal of the committee to present to gather stakeholder input and present data as our decision so it's not a it's not a recommendation from the committee it's a data informed decision based on what stakeholders think um and so we have as Dr dupin said we have the we're recommending the ver revision to 2425 with the option to extend I can look right here and we presented two options to the parents and to the staff this is draft a I think you saw this in your preview of tonight this option starts school for students on a Monday it includes an additional pre-service day for teachers it does not include PD after the fall break and it does and it's a normal school day after fall break and then instead of having an extra day off after spring break it's a return to school for everybody it does make space for Caesar Chavez Day and also the Wednesday before Thanksgiving as a holiday and the conferences removed per the meet and confer recommendation from last year so that's basically draft a and otherwise it's similar to what we have right now it's ends Before Memorial Day we have a two- week break 10day break in the in the winter draft B starts on a Wednesday prior to the Monday that we normally start kind of gives us a running start at the year with students and staff it does include a PD break after fall break or PD day after fall break winter holiday starts on a Friday so the Friday before the winter break is a holiday spring break through Monday so there's a day off for students and teachers after spring break it does include a day for Caesar Chavis day the Wednesday before Thanksgiving is a holiday and the conference has removed per meeting confirm so those are the two versions hopefully hopefully you've had a chance to look through those and I'm gonna let Mr Diaz talk about some of the data and the people actually this is this is still me I I have a quick question go ahead um additional pre-service day that's professional development before uh school starts that's exactly exactly right there are nine days on draft day okay there are nine days now in Draft Day nine days before the student start versus eight which has been traditional for us thank you okay thank you so much for staff we had 247 responses um and it was a mix between 169 certified and 84 classified um you can kind of see how it distributes between the sites oh that's out of place don't go there yet goes last there were 342 family responses 45 of those responses were in Spanish we pushed this out to families in our s'more newsletter through the district through our Facebook page and also out through the sites there were over 9,000 clicks on the survey only newsletter that we sent but we still received only 342 responses so we hoped for more but this is what we got back we know 9,000 people clicked on it over 9,000 people clicked on it but possibly was survey fatigue or just the time of year this is what we got back for our responses I have a question did we have any paper surveys or was everything just digital and online we did not have paper versions everything was online is there a reason why we didn't we wanted to not hurry the process but we felt the urgency of getting the data back and getting it before you because we we know that families and and teachers are and staff members are making decisions for vacations coming up and I know the dist Support Services have to provide for subscriptions and for vendor Services often a year in advance so we felt the urgency of getting this back as soon as possible so that we can make a decision hopefully and move forward with with a recommendation Mr guy Madame President if I may add we've actually seen some nice increases in our return rates on surveys when we use digital tools most of them are their smartphone compatible so it's pretty easy for All Families to quickly and efficiently enter their perspectives when we do it paper pencil that means staff have to enter them into Google forms in this case so there's always number one just the workload and then number two always that question of transferring the respondent's intentions to what's actually reported so we we know that there's work to do in terms of increasing the response rate we have about 3500 families in the district so this represents as much as up to about 10% of our families which is statistically pretty decent um we don't have a way of really guaranteeing that you know one family might not have had more than one response um we tried to make it as inclusive and open as possible so we didn't lock it down to just one account you know like one response per email um and I think you actually had an experience with that so you know we we we believe this is a statistically valid representation of our community and of course you know we would have loved to have had 3,400 responses but we'll continue to to push those messages out with the future surveys okay thank you thanks so about 600 total responses and we want to show you some data that we got back and James is going to kind of talk us through that yeah so this is sort of a graphic representation in terms of the support one way or the other for uh a versus the B part and um so he gets a little bit of information there this is the staff version uh blue is version a I guess that's yellow orange whatever that color is uh version B on there too and uh just to kind of reiterate what Mr guy was talking about our our purpose in the committee was to just be data collectors uh we are not recommenders we're data collectors and sometimes there's some confusion about that U because I mean me personally I I I telling Mr Guy this is like I don't think I would have chosen this but the data speaks for itself and terms of what people supported for stuff so like this one in the staff um is 40% more strong support for version a versus version B and then three times the number of low support for version B versus version a and then the middle parts there kind of like cancel each other out in terms of H how things work for stuff like that so and then for the families uh similar patterns that you see in the staff on there um little slight differences but mostly the same uh 27 % more uh respondents strongly support version a versus version B and 30% more respondents uh who had low support for version B and similar patterns in the little support and moderate and regular support that you can see too so if you can get an indication of there and then uh the most fascinating things to me are the comment sections I always enjoy that part and Mr Guyer uh went through some of the comments and looked for patterns and stuff and these are some of the patterns that he noticed from the comments that were in that particular section um it's like a little part I guess down towards the end of the survey and uh so you can see some of the stuff in there I'll just highlight a few things that I I was a little confused about um that the uh SE seven uh seven respondents favor Wednesday consistency uh this is in reference to sometimes throughout the year where uh you have like a Friday short day and a Wednesday normal day um sometimes that kind of throws people off um I know it throws parents off we still get parents showing up saying you know where's my kid we're like well we're here till the day ends and it's a normal school day or they don't pick up their kid on the Friday when the time so it's a there's uh there was some respondents on that and I thought that was a little interesting thing to highlight on there um the 11 people uh had mentioned that they weren't aware or not informed of the MNC uh adopted change for conference scheduling um and the rest of those kind of speak for themselves the alignment to pxu stuff like that so oops is that it oh right you got to go back to section PA any questions wait we have to go for the big shebang right well let's just call it a choice so the data recommends version a for the 2425 school year and like we said before the option to extend that most respond us favor version a version a fits most closely with our current version it preserves traditional holidays cultural recognition be worthwhile to learn more about what our stakeholders feel is important through the in-depth stewardship resources survey developed by Handover that's something that we can consider late in later in the fall or early spring um but the data recommends version a for 2425 thank you so much for that information Miss MC cheffrey do you have any comments or questions yeah really like I think um it's something I've been hoping we would move to especially the Wednesday before Thanksgiving um and I like that we are more aligned to Phoenix Union now too um but obviously this is it's kind of a big change for us so we just want to make sure we communicate it um really really well and I think um the Wednesday before Thanksgiving will be great for for teachers um but might be a little more challenging for families who are trying to get um preparation done for pre you know Thanksgiving dinner if that's what people celebrate you know um but I think just communication on that because parents are going to have to be home with kiddos on that Wednesday which um um you know makes it a little more challenging if they're trying to prepare a meal um for Thursday but I think this is a really a great move in the right direction thank you Miss MC cheffrey um is there's any other additional comments or questions no um this calendar looks almost exactly like our calendar um and I'm really glad that you guys decided not to start on a Wednesday because it's kind of a nightmare um we've done it before and um you end up teaching um your procedures multiple times because you don't have a lot of students come back to school in the middle of a week so I'm glad this almost thank you Miss MB um yeah I mean ditto and I think I just appreciate the work that you guys did um again of course we always want more people completing the surveys but um that was a tremendous amount I especially I feel like in the past when I worked in this District I don't ever remember being asked about the calendar changes um uh nor in other districts so I just appreciate that there was a lot of input given um I especially appreciate the addition of Cesar Chavez Day because I think we're one of the last districts near us to adopt that so um yeah and the data speaks so thank you Miss Gibson McLean um I don't have anything to add other than that I was surprised by how many how many responses you got to things because I feel like it would normally be lower so I was actually surprised by it um yeah thank you for all your work yeah awesome um I don't have any additional comments the only thing is the same s Travis day I know that we talked about that two years ago and for somebody who was such a pable person in Arizona to not have that as a holiday and really you know take into account for the work that he did for the farmers and it was a big movement you know for us the Latino community so um I'm really glad to finally see that on there I'll say this really quickly that we know it falls on March 31st and on the years when that's on a weekend the holiday will be celebrated on either the Monday or the Friday closest to it I think that's okay un observed okay awesome yeah that's I'm I'm really happy about that so thank you for that um one comment oh yeah go ahead um Mr Guyer can we just make sure for Cesar travez day what can we do whatever Phoenix Union does like if is that how they do it they switch it from Friday to Monday depending on how close it is I don't really know find out yeah usually if it's on let's find out justserve on Friday and if it's on Sunday You observe on Monday make most sense to match probably with Phoenix Union so we'll explore that and we'll get you the information in a board update awesome thank you so much and Hilda chimed in and said Hilda said uh she'll make sure as well thank you okay she will too of course Miss White is would and Madam president if I could make a recommendation of course U yeah I I would it' be my recommendation to make the motion for the three years we can still move forward with that further more detailed surve survey if that survey vets information that there's a shift that's needed we can bring those future calendars back but if that survey um comes back and says yeah A's a is where it's at then we don't need to take additional action we will already be set up to move forward and we can stay focused on student outcomes Focus governance that is what I was going to say too I forgot to say it and you guys can always change the calendar if you're finding it's not working but if this works yeah just let it go and if you have complaints you can refer them to the survey data about how the results came out not necessarily to the committee [Laughter] chairs yeah go ahead and do it all right um I move the governing board adopt the Academic School year calendar for the 2425 25 26 and 2627 school year second all those in favor I I I perfect motion passes awesome thank you guys so much I appreciate all the hard work yes thank you always nice to go the subway that brings us to our next item which is 6B and it's the discussion about the cron Virtual Academy restructuring restructuring per proposal and will that be Dr dupin yes it will okay perfect yes I will give you one second Miss s stepped away for and Miss wat is Miss A stepped away to the bathroom oh I was like thank you H Hilda acknowledge it are you guys hearing Hilda or is it just me no just not just you but Russell let us know Russell is being her voice need to work on your uh impersonations Russell STI to my day J all right Madam president of the governing board once again um this topic is another bit of information for the board's consideration this evening as you know we've been very mindful about how to best utilize our Esser funds and how to prepare for the eventual sunsetting of those funds uh We've supported uh for the last few years our kraton Virtual Academy and we've been looking at ways to continue to serve the communities the students and families who rely on kraton Virtual um while at the same time bringing those Services into a cost model that addresses the sunsetting of the SR funds and is potentially sustainable for a long term so we're going to share the products of that work with you this evening and engage in conversation uh to hopefully get some guidance about where to go next Mr Guyer right Madam president members of the board executive team I'm Jeff Guyer still and I'm principal at CR Virtual Academy and I'm here tonight with Julie Davis she's the administrator at the M Mesa digital learning program hi too hello I'm Julie Davis as Mr Guyer said I am the administrator for Mesa digital learning program I have been um working in mace public schools for 26 years all 26 years of my career have been with that one district and I am spending my 17th year with Mesa digital learning so I am well immersed in in in Mesa and the online world so crate Virtual Academy is in its third year now we've had decline in enrollment matched with other Valley online schools um we currently serve third through eth grade students about 35 students we have at CV a high level of parent satisfaction as measured through Handover uh families choose CVA for a variety of reasons but it's for sense of safety parent convenience student preference medical reasons social reasons uh travel reasons uh but we've diminished over the years we start the first year we had well over 200 students and we had about 110 last year and as I said we're down to about 35 students now so we're recommending for your consideration that we Outsource the online teaching to an approved vendor beginning in January 2024 the idea is to provide quality learning for those families who wish to remain online or transferred to online learning and reallocate our existing CVA staff into open positions at our sites and departments we've explored three different vendors including proximity learning they're sort of a national online school also ASU digital prep local here and the Mesa digital learning program and we're presenting Mesa digital learning program as a Craton personalized so it's very cronish it has a very Craton feel I hope to show you the website tonight um local um coste effective established alternative for our current model of the three programs we reviewed Mesa digital learning stud out as a platform for our kraton Learners as you'll see Mesa digital learning program has been in operation as Julie said since 1999 provides quality online learning while ensuring a Craton look and feel this is you already you already know who Julie is she's right next to me here um she'll describe the program the logistics and the crate and family connection so before we get too far into it I just want to let you know that the students if if if we decide to go forward with this the students remain enrolled as Craton students they remain enrolled as crat Virtual Academy students so I just want to put that out there as the anticipatory said and I also need to turn around a little bit and introduce Veronica Hernandez she's our office manager and she is amazing and she has made the gears turn at kraton Virtual Academy for three years now so is her recruiter Mr Carval who brought her to me one summer three years ago and the connection was made so um so Julie's going to kind of take you through what Mesa digital learning program is like and actually we're going to click on that link not right away but I want to make sure they see that eventually okay that's fine um so partnering with Mesa digital learning programmer mdlp which is much easier for me to reference so if if I say I'm DLP I'm talking about Mesa um like Jeff had said it it really is it's a true partnership and the students are still your students they are still kraton students they are still CVA students St um but the partnership with Mesa allows for you to utilize our content our courses our LMS our teachers and what whatever else you may need um but they are still yours um we are able to provide your district with a reputable costeffective online learning platform for students in grades four through eight you want me to talk about the okay um so Mesa digital learning program um we offer services and support for students in grades 4 through 12 um so I understand that right now you have a handful of third graders and what um Jeff and I have been talking about is how we can still support those third graders for the remaining of the school year um so we have um a proposal and a plan in place where any remaining third graders we would still be able to support them and what we would do is actually develop content for them for the second semester and continue to support them through this partnership and then moving forward it would be fourth through e8th grade so we know you still have current third graders and we did not want to leave them behind for this remaining school year we wanted them to be able to get the support they need I have a question so that that contact that you're saying that you would develop it's not developed yet for third graders you would just figure it out as it comes we um I have um we actually develop all of our content in house so mesa's content is all developed by a team of teachers and a team of instructional designers um I do have an elementary specialist right now who focuses on my fourth fifth and sixth grade content and students and teachers um and she acts as an instructional designer and a coach um I have talked with her and we do have a plan in place to develop that content within the next few months and to continue continue developing it to support your third graders um but we are not expanding third graders for any other District at this time and how many third graders do we have nine nine okay um just so you know I'm going to be very transparent I don't know how I feel about that throwing nine kids away into something that's not even developed yet I know you say you have a plan but in order for me to make the right decision to these students I would need to know what that plan looks like I I I don't feel comfortable saying cool you'll have a plan and figure it out um if and that's why I asked if there was something developed already or if that's something you're going to work on because I don't it's a disservice to those nine students to just say yes let's move on forward and there is really no plan for those third graders yet yeah well the the plan is to develop that third grade content before January so then when the students enroll in January there is third grade content okay so in a month you would create third grade content for these us to provide yes yeah we used to actually provide I'm sorry I didn't hear what he said I don't know what he you used to provide third grade content yes we used to provide K through 12 and we chose to move four through 12 for a variety of reasons years ago um so we had third grade content years ago we just do not not offer it currently okay thank you for answering that question um as we said it allows the CVA students to remain here within your District all right I was saying you're not Reinventing the wheel you're saying that some of that stuff you're not having to build this all up in one month is basically that that is correct but it does have yes yes needs to be refresh and to be fair like my teachers build content every week for the following week like it's not it's not a we're building content on a daily basis that's what the instructional design team does any other questions regarding that okay um it's the it's coste effective as Jeff recom said um it's $175 per semester course which is roughly about per student per year um it allows um kraton to collect and retain their ADM mdlp does not or Mesa does not collect any ADM on behalf of your District you will still collect that on your own and retain all of that ADM um it is guaranteed through an IGA with Mesa Public Schools we are a program of Mesa Public Schools um it supports students in their desired format if they still desire to remain online and we're helping support that desire and it provides a personalized partnership that meets kraton's needs little history about mdlp um we actually started as Jeff said back in 1999 as one of four tap b programs that was the technology assisted assisted Project based instruction we are one of four programs in Arizona we then um grew to one of 14 programs in 2003 there were seven district programs and sever seven Charter programs and then aois came around in 2009 and we became part of that um since 2004 we have supported over 115,000 students from 62 partner districts across the state and in a few other states as well and really our goal has always been to support families and districts with their online le as superintendent man had said previously he was talking about partnership with a District in California and really they're they're willing to share and as you guys grow and learn from that and develop new products they wanted you to share back that's really what mdlp school has always been um is to share what we know and to support other districts and families in in that online space right now we currently serve about 1,800 students in grades 4 through 12 um we do have students who are concurrently enrolled so maybe they take one or two classes while they're attending another Mesa School we have summer school offerings we have full-time students who only attend with mdlp just as students who are at CVA attend and then we do have partner enrollments throughout the state um our staff right now consists of 40 adjunct teachers so we have 40 teachers supporting our students at the current moment um we have seven instruction designers and content Specialists those are the people who are developing the curriculum and the content on a daily basis they're coaching teachers they're supporting students um we have one programmer who is dedicated full-time um to our program and our team we have one registar a data specialist an admin assistant and then myself um and we are continually meeting the needs and exceeding student and parent expectations um just a small sampling of our of our surveys um and you would have access to all of this data as well for your own parents and for students this is a sampling of Mesa families they are overwhelmingly um they strongly agree or agree with the quality of the courses um they're standards based they're personalized um again this is just a sampling of the four of four questions um and but the survey obviously has much more than that we are we're very data driven and um I understand I can relate how hard it is to get survey data back from from families but we do survey our students at the end of every course um we survey our parents whenever students complete a course and then we do survey students if they don't complete a course because we want to know why you completed and what worked well and why did you enroll in all those kinds of things but we also want to know maybe why they didn't complete and what we need to fix and we are constantly looking at that that that survey data from our families and our parents and students um our proposed partnership a couple things that it would provide is an online learning envir environment where the kraton kids students can continue to become adventurous thinkers collaborative Learners and kind kind-hearted leaders so they could continue in the mission that you have already set forth for them um we have a proprietary LMS um so a lot of online programs use canvas and they partner that with Synergy we do have our own system that was developed in house that is actually a product that is approved by the um State of Arizona and it's an easy mechanism for you to upload your upload minutes and collect ADM um that would be given to you um we have relevant and timely onboarding so any staff members that would need to be onboarded we would provide that either remotely or in person whichever the preference is um we have training tools um any training that they need any tools that we need we would provide all of that um we would go through all the ADM collection and how that can be done with the state or should be done with the state um we would support um the CVA team with um State Testing accountability requirements um supporting kids with IEPs and 504s elll and so forth that learning management system that Julie referenced has a crate and look and feel it uses our logo our branding so when the kids interface with their iPads to to take these courses it looks like they're enrolled in Craton um so that's just a nice touch it's more personalized to us um in addition just a few things um additional things the courses are engaging they're rigorous they're personalized for the kids um we have all of our teachers are appropriately certified in the um content area that they teach um so whether it be Elementary or it be a core content area at the junior high level um there would we would provide support with the IEP resources um the kraton kids um they would still have access to on-site clubs and sports and events um we would provide on-site technical support for any of their needs or any of the parents needs um we would also provide progress monitoring tools to um any of you if you wanted it to um any of the admin team for Craton virtual to parents to students um because we do feel like I said that the data is very important um and progress monitoring is a huge part part of that data and then there is obviously opportunities for potential part-time or concurrence should you decide to go that route before we go to the timeline I want to pause for questions so far I know there's a lot a lot so um I'm gonna start off with Miss MC cheffrey Miss McCaffrey so far do you have any questions comments concerns yeah um a couple so um what kraton staff would we need to continue um to m maintain to support this the families still enroll through our kraton district so we would need at least an ed secretary or office manager to work depending on how many students there are enrolling or disenrolling and transferring back to our inperson schools we would need an office manager or an ed secretary who can devote part of their time if there's a lot of students all of their time to that task okay yeah that's pretty much it besides that actually I'm gonna actually pull that back that um and say that during testing time when we deliver the aella test and when we deliver the asasa test we are going to have the students come to our campuses our campus or our campuses to take the test in person so we would need staff uh we would need to either integrate the students in with the classrooms that are there or depending on how many students we have be able to run it in a classroom at one of the schools okay because that's required by Statute right it's required that those students take those tests yeah in person yeah and then they still would have access to on-site club sports events activities that's like at kraton right not not in Mesa they would definitely have access as kraton students to the Craton events and sports and activities yeah cool um and then is have you guys discussed like how you're going to pitch this to parents to these to these families like this is this is what we're moving to and if you choose not to do this what are their other options that's a great question and I will tell you that Veronica Hernandez and I have had the most success with either iners or direct phone call straight to the parents and we would discuss it with the parents first and then kind of craft with the parents how we would discuss it with their child we have a low enough number right now that it's completely feasible to call every family individual ually and let them know what's going on okay and then um to the last to the last bullet opportunities for potential part-time concurrent CSD enrollment what does that mean like is like I think I know what it means but can you expand on that a little bit there are a few different ideas um and and opportunities there one of them might be that a student for whatever reason might need to take part of the afternoon off as an inperson student they might need to take say the last time of the day when they have I'm I'm just going to say mathematics and they might be they might be able to take their mathematics course online with Mesa digital learning um or they might need to start later in the day and miss the first part of the day um they might be able to extend with an extra um uh extracurricular activity that they might add because maesa digital has a lot to choose from especially for the seventh and eth graders they get to pick from all the way seven through 12 all of their all of those extracurricular activ activities okay and Mr Guyer we talked about this when we were visiting gosh last year I think like potentially not we weren't talking about Mesa at this point but um would this be a possibility for like online algebra for kids who are interested in that potentially we're actually Gina uh Clark and I are meeting with um a representative from phoen Union next week to talk about algebra and so let's get some more information about that and see if we can meld that with something like this and come up with something that provides multiple opportunities for our students but it it could be an opportunity for our kids to get that algebra qualifying class in in in place okay thank you Miss MB I have so many question no so do I um so first I just want to say thank you I know this is hard work I'm in the process of these decisions myself um I know that Julie and her team um and their program is really amazing they've given me advice over the last several years with our aoi um so I just wanted to start with that um I did have just some clarification so um if they are remaining CVA students then that means we're keeping our aoi active correct we not using like the itm or anything correct um the sorry mixing in notes and questions here [Music] um for technology Mesa does not provide correct like or we would provide the same still provide the iPads and the Chargers and support for parents um they also have an option to use their own device and Mesa digital has a whole techn technology site uh that explains what will work and what won't work our iPads will work through this LMS okay perfect because I was also thinking yeah like if we can it's not just about making sure kids have technology but if we can keep the same technology you're reducing the learning curve especially with a new LMS um and with the technology piece you mentioned onsite tech support um like I know it's like you guys have on-site techport for call and email if the kids need to phys phasically come in though if they're using our devices then would they still come here I'm also thinking Mesa is a far drive and not everyone has Transportation no our devices are supported by our district it department and that would continue uh most issues we can solve right in the office Veronica can solve them um and other things we have an outstanding it team that can take it on and fix it sometimes we can fix things over the phone for the people they don't have to drive in at all perfect yeah I was like I don't know if all the families are getting down to Mesa um then um the I know you guys talked about State Testing would there be opportunities for benchmark assessments and I'm thinking in terms of like we're talking about all the goal setting and how we're going to progress monitor our students and if they are CVA we want to make sure we're also getting that students are certainly eligible for all the fast Bridge screening and the um the DNA Benchmark testing okay and they are they currently doing that online no going in person they come in person okay um and then I thought I had one [Music] more I had one more but I lost it so come back to me let see that was a marshmallow I know I have lots of notes about it oh I know what it was um because it wasn't explicitly written um what as far as like a typical day because I know our day right now is much more synchronous and mldp is much more asynchronous correct yeah MLD DP n pld ABCD is completely asynchronous okay all right now this so I'm gonna say that I didn't say that out front but is completely asynchronous the parents or the students have time any any time during the day to check in with a teacher and get one-on-one support for the assignments or their progress so far but it is an asynchronous environment okay because that's my only my only concern is just I know that we were offering you know versus some of the other programs out there that are much more asynchronous part of WI our families choose here and my program is that synchronous piece so I know that can be hard um but they do have they can check in with a teacher any time of day like it's not like a these 45 minutes at the end of the day yeah it's um and and I definitely understand the concern with moving from synchronous to asynchronous um and and that can definitely be a little scary and so what we've implemented within our program a few strategies and in order to support our own students who need that live instruction is our teachers do offer what we call supplemental live instruction and students can request that should they hit a roadblock you know I don't know how to do this math problem I'm you know I just took this test and I really need to review and I want to review with my teacher rather than my mom students can request that supplemental live instruction and set up office hours Virtual Office hours essentially with their teacher um we use WebEx in our in our district um some students just want to pick up the phone they don't want to be on camera so they can set up an appointment to either WebEx virtually with their teacher or talk on the phone with their teacher and actually get some live help you know obviously um in in some cases it ends up being face Toof face because the teacher may be at the students Bri and mortar school but oftentimes it's phone or it's webx and so students can make appointments for that um or sometimes teachers will request that of a student I'd really like you know follow you I I see you struggled on these three areas on this math test I'd really like us to talk before you retake that test um and I'd like us to review these problems and so sometimes the teacher will actually request that live instruction so then they can meet essentially face Toof face um you know on the phone or virtually with that student before they progress and and sometimes it's the kids reaching out just because they you know aren't sure how to get started on a writing assignment or they need some ideas for a project um and and sometimes it's you know math review because you know sixth grade math is tough so you know different things like that so we've actually implemented that um years ago and um and and all of our teachers provide that to to all of the students regardless of where they are from and the the students will have access to an online message box where they can send message to their teachers and the teachers check that multiple times a day um our typical response time with our teachers the majority of our teachers do teach full-time in a Mesa classroom and they are adjunct with us um but our average turnaround time is um less than 12 hours our teachers do log in almost 365 days a year um they have a few holidays off um and they can optionally take Saturday off most of them work on Saturdays um but they do work six days a week supporting our kids answering messages providing feedback rating assignments um providing the supplemental live instruction when requested and required um so they're not on 247 but if you ask them they are logged on all the time so if a student does need help or conversely a teacher I'm glad to hear teachers also reach out because I know a lot of our students won't we have office hours and don't we have that same thing you know there's kids who are still hesitant about asking questions even through a message box um so our our teachers we do a lot of um we have a strong onboarding program and we provide professional learning to our teachers throughout the year and we actually have quarterly plc's and and all of those things um and one of our strongest strategies is engaging the kids you know how do we not only engage through them through the content um and make it personalized for them and give them student voice and choice um and Implement those udl strategies but how do we also engage them through the message box and we have a kiddo who has been enrolled for x amount of days and hasn't sent us a message how how are we reaching out to them and so there are some specifics that we have in place from the GetGo but the teachers are really good about reaching out and checking in and asking questions and um you know probing the kids and and getting them engaged through that message box because we know synchronous you know asynchronous can be can be yes Russell I I have a follow-up question to that I think that's what he's he's raising his hand for um this is really good I like what I'm hearing um because I mean we're talking elementary school kids they're not the best self Advocates yet um so what's the engagement with parents when it comes to this and and and is there a method of teaching them it sounds like you're You' you're trying to get you've got those things in place but um can parents reach out if they're concerned and um because I just don't think elementary kids are great self Advocates period you know yes and and and we we get that as well um so yes parents can definitely reach out on behalf of their student um be we have a lot ofal and goal setting and different strategies throughout the courses that really we're hoping to teach students the skills they need to self- Advocate and to have have student agency and all of those things but it's perfectly acceptable if Mom calls for her her 10-year-old you know we we get that um we know that calling a essentially you know an adult on the phone can definitely be scary so parents can always reach out um they will have access to um teachers email um all of our teachers have a unique mdlp email that they so solely use for our um program they can always Reach Out by email they can reach out by phone they can always call our office I'm you know Jeff knows that I'm always available um sometimes it feels like 247 um as you guys can can understand um relate to so parents can always reach out if they have questions as well and like I had said that Elementary instructional designer she serves as one of our instructional designers and Al also a teacher coach but she also supports parents as well um and one thing that we had put in place years ago and we still use with mdp is any of our full-time students so students who are only with us um we actually require them to go through a Readiness module and that could be an option for your kids as well and it's actually um we set it up for one week it's a onewe Readiness module and it's kind of like a unit um that gives students and parents kind of a look at here's what online learning is all about and it takes them through different lessons within that module of time management and how to use the message box and how to submit assignments and how do we how do we take attendance because attendance looks different in the online World um and and we have it set up it is is it extremely easy it's honestly a push of a button so do not stress out about attendance at all or ADM it's very easy um and so we really walk through the kids through that and at the elementary level we really want the parents to go through that with their student as well so then the parent knows how to use the message box the parent knows how to support their kids with submitting assignments or taking a quiz um and so there's that one week Readiness module and then once our students successfully complete that module then that's when we enroll them in courses but we do require them to demonstrate Su success in that Readiness module before we actually enroll them um and we have dedicated teachers for that Readiness module um there there's actually no cost for that module but I do have um the Elementary in in fact the instructional designer for elementary teaches the module for fourth fifth and sixth graders and then two of my other teachers and designers teach it for the seventh and eighth graders um so the students would actually get to know one of the elementary teachers through that Readiness module because she would be there that sounds that sounds amazing yeah like we would I think that would we'd want that to be mandatory for our kids and thank you for the question um another reason in addition to that why we implemented the Readiness modules because we know um online learning is not for everyone and even though I've been in that space for a very long time and mdlp has been around for a long time I know it's not the right fit for every student and every family and as we have um developed our Partnerships we understand that it's not right for every District either and it may be right for some of your students it may not not be right for others so when we talked just briefly about the cost of $175 per course along with that there's really a 30-day trial with that for every single course um so how that works is student is enrolled in a class really they get to engage in that learning and engage with the LMS and ask their teacher questions and do assignments and if they get to we actually do not Bill our any of our districts until the student reaches 20% complete or that 30th day because we understand that sometimes kids get into it and they may struggle or they may say you know what Mom I want to go back in person and students you know change their mind all the time and sometimes families change their mind all the time um so we kind of have that grace period for the first 20% or 30 days before we actually do Implement a tuition charge um because we know students need and families need that that that choice and that flexibility that comes along with education thank you Miss MC cheffrey any other questions comments NOP thank you very much thank you Miss Gibson McLean um I don't I actually don't have any questions now I mean I've heard a lot of answers here about the actual instruction stuff I did have a question about um when this is going to be brought to us for a vote and when that is brought are we going to see the IGA that we're voting on y if um if the board is interested in moving forward with this um we would bring that IG IG back on December 12th okay um and uh one of the things that we would do prior to that is also have our legal council review the IGA okay um I do have some questions I feel uh well I guess the first question is is that we haven't even talked to any of our parents about this right how much asynchronous um time are they receiving in the classroom right now about 150 minutes a day so 150 minutes of live and about 150 minutes of asynchronous so half and half yeah okay um why are we thinking of this partnership because the enrollment at CVA has diminished and it's uh perceived as an Equitable for our teachers to have low numbers of students while we have unfilled positions in the district and also considering the sunsetting of Esser funds our teachers aren't funded out of Esser they're funded out of m&o but the other two people who work at cbaa are funded out of Esser so we have to start making decisions based on the decline in enrollment steady right now but it dropped a lot from last year so that's the main reason why we're considering that and why we're considering Mesa digital is all the other things that we've heard T tonight you know it's personal it feels very cronish they're not out to make money from us they're out to serve our students and our families it's a true partnership okay um I think I would like a little bit more information before we decide I know that you mentioned to other proximity learning and student or ASU I believe it was um I can't make a well-informed decision if I don't know what their asynchronous time looks like what their fee looks like if we have others um I I'm kind of nervous about even having discussion this discussion without having our parents we have 31 Stu uh 31 students I think that's a little bit manageable for us to get a hold of those parents and see how they would feel about their children being sent to completely asynchronous um I'm weary about this especially with the um framework that we just adopted um I I don't see I I just feel like I get the eser funds but I I I believe that that should be that's a more of a budget thing for us at the Schoolboard and if we did not prioritize that CVA school that's something that reflects on the board um directly so I don't think seeking to me this just looks like a an easy out you know by December let's get this going January we'll move all these kids we don't have any parent input we don't know how these children feel about going completely asynchronous and that's what I'm most worried about so if we are going to have these discussions I would like to have some kind of parent input before we decide on their behalf and also see what other options we have with ASU and proximity um especially when it comes to the as synness we just went over data I'm pretty sure our data is not as great as well and moving kids directly to asynchronous um I'm not sure how that provides us the outcomes that we want so those are my kind of things I also would like to see um how much it takes CVA to keep it running um the amounts how much we're spending on our staff those are all questions that I would like to have brought forth before we make an actual decision so we can look at all the Angles and see if this is the best decision for our district and for our students first of all we Madam President we we can provide a comparative cost model and correct me if I'm wrong I think we have that data and we can verify that data with each of the partners in case they have alternate models that we're not familiar with um I I our hesitation in reaching out to the parents prior to having the conversation with the board is we didn't want to Blindside our governing board so um if at this point the board feels that prior to having a further conversation on December 12th we should reach out to families um is that doable in that time yeah so so we can definitely start those conversations and get that feedback um what we would want to do is you know look at the available options we and we may want to structure an instrument or we're not promising them any particular tool set that we might not be able to deliver on or that the board might choose a different one but perhaps ask those questions in relation to you know there are these models available what are you know what are your preferences what are what are things that are important to you um about this dig experience and when you say that the comparison you're not just saying I heard you say cost but we're also taking into account the the synchronicity yeah we we would certainly you know showcase that because what what I can tell you honestly and hopefully Dr dup and and and Mr guy will correct me um if they have a better recollection than I do but the initial model we looked at for synchronous was basically replacing our teachers with teachers you know that would be provided to us from an outside vendor and that cost model was um basically I don't know 95% of what our current teacher cost model is and it didn't replace those additional staff positions that are currently funded out of Esser so to maintain that for next year we would have to move those positions that are funded out of Esser back into M and they were not M costs prior to coid and Asser um we absolutely can do it it's just it's a tradeoff against other things that we currently fund out of M and so that and that's certainly the board's purview to make that choice um so so as we look at that I think what we would showcase for you is not only the cost but what the differentiators between each of those models are this one includes this percentage of synchronous this percentage of asynchronous you know at at this annual cost model um and then the other piece is different models will need different levels of administrative support so um you heard shared this evening the support systems for attendance that are built into this tool set some of the other options may have different requirements to support attendance so we want to make sure we capture all of that so we're giving you an honest overview of what the differences are between the options what about the um with the other two I know we don't have all the data tonight but with the other two um Partners or potential people um what about the the ADM situation so I don't know you may know Jeff the um how ASU Prep does it my understanding with proximity Is that they're not tied into the state and so that would actually have to be handled by our own staff but we'll certainly ask that question because if they have a way to do that for us maybe they work with another Arizona district and they've built away we want to know that because we really want to present to you the honest you know here's the sort of joke Friday just the facts um version of the information allow the board to make an informed decision yeah I would appreciate that Mr Man and I understand that a budget is a huge thing and sometimes um it may seem right now that we can't afford it I guess quote unquote but it is important for us to get a Grand View of things and also part of the framework that we've been talking about is that sometimes if it's going to best serve these students to keep the online school let's say that that was the option and if we have to reallocate funds then that's what we have to do to better serve these students and honestly like this program sounds awesome but for me personally and being a parent of two kids asynchronous is very scary to me um I have a very very smart child he's gifted and he completely failed when he was online so that's just my personal story and maybe I'm gravitating this on my personal views but I it's it's just really hard for me to be sold on these other beautiful things and then that one component that our kids need the most which is the live instruction we're missing so to me that's not a fair tradeoff so I appreciate all that um added on information and hopefully we can make a better decision next time all right thank you so much you oh oh I'm sorry that's all right you're right Miss SS I'm so sorry all right I just had one question um I was just wondering what the transition would look like for our students and family well when the time comes we want to provide something like what Jill was describing that read Readiness module so there's communication with the families and students uh to prepare them for a transition um there's usually about a two week technical transition where the computers talk to each other and make friends with each other um but the Readiness to module as Julie described is one week about five to six days in length it's like a unit of study and um after that they're pretty much ready to go okay thank you um I had two other questions um so for attendants how would that work like does your system talk to our Synergy time tracker beautifully it's a beautiful thing it's it's if we adopt their LMS which it's which we would through the IG it is a one button push per week it's a one button that is jealous easier yeah I am jealous um time tracker is the bane of my existence um does uh is Mesa do you guys follow your school calendar or is it the full 365 days to complete mdlp in essence the calendar report to the state is July 1 through June 30th but each partner District adopts their own calendar so some Partners choose to be open entry open exit just as we are in Mesa um and they allow students to enroll virtually 365 days a year um other partners want to stick to their calendar so they have students enroll like for example you know in January on the first day of inperson they would enroll on mdlp and then they follow that calendar and then their end date is the last day of school in May so it it's whichever the partner chooses um and and some do a mix so you know if you have kids starting March that you could allow them to start in March even if you're starting in January or August okay so we can choose because yeah I think like as we're looking like the advantage to this would be they are still our students but as we're looking at goals and all this data it's really hard to have nine schools on a school year calendar and one not so it would be something to consider um I do I think there's amazing things like I said that you guys are doing in Mesa um so out of the three choices just because I do know a lot about the other two I I feel if we are going to partner this is a really strong partnership I am still concerned about the asynchronous time for our students um and I feel like rushed to do this in January um I like I know we were you know hitting the SR dollars but it just feels very quick versus trying to finish out this year making those plans having a longer transition time for our families um having more time for the staff like I know they could be redistributed in our district right now but that's also really hard on teachers to middle of the Year be put into a new school um so that's my I just I'm not against this I'm just it feels like a lot really soon and and we we don't we don't have to make a midyear transition the board could choose to make an endof year transition um my recommendation would be and I know it feels rushed but you know it really there's been a lot of research that's been put into this we're we're having the opportunity for information discussion now we have the December meeting um my concern is if we wait until March to make a decision what we'll do is will put ourselves on the same timetable we are for parents now just when there's no space to make another you know to to extend things even further so um if we're if the goal is to give parents an extended transition time frame making a decision in December or possibly January at the latest would give them the opportunity to have that spring semester as that transition time but if we wait until May to make a decision we'll fundamentally be back where we are in December um for for the amount of time those families have for preparation for that transition so yeah no I wasn't saying wait until May to make a decision I wasn't implying I I just wanted making this decision about the future for next year like making that decision in the next month or two just makes feels better it sits better with me than making a decision in the next month about January um because we already were kind of abrupt and short notice when we um stopped serving K2 students in this program um and I received that feedback directly when I got some of those students so um I just I don't want to do that again it doesn't sit well all right any further questions comments yeah I just have a followup I assume there's a cost and that's why we're rushing it or whatever if if maybe we could get a board update of like pros and cons um you know layman's terms for me please but like what is the cost of waiting you know doing another semester what are the other proposals and costs that go along with that um and obviously that can be in a board report but that would be helpful to me just to see the pros and cons of all the different options we have out there we can absolutely get that to the board in an update prior to the December meeting so that there's adequate time for any additional questions to be asked yeah especially the financial piece too of it right because we want to be good stewards of our money too um and making sure that we get a full scope of like how much it's costing the school right now how much are we under you know all those fun things um so we can be make better decisions um going forward any other question questions or comments thank you guys I know this is a lot of work and it's a lot of balancing and tough conversations so I appreciate all the work that you guys have done thank you you thank you all right that moves us to our next agenda item which is the eth through F School letter grades resolution review I'd like to also hand this one off to Dr dupin and it's ironic that it's tonight after we spent our study session doing our student outcome Focus governance work so thank you Mr Man um Madam president members of the board uh it is our custom every year after the state issues the a through F letter grades to schools to bring that information to you we've tried to keep you up to date through the board updates about how that's all worked what our projections were so at the end of October they were published made official and we're going to go through those tonight we are bringing forward a little more information that what we have done in Prior years this will be a bit more comprehensive in terms of the structure of a through F how they're calculated and we've also got background information if you should have any questions or things you want to drill down on um relative to specific schools so further Ado Dr Pomo good evening Madame President members of the board superintendent man and executive team and I also want to say I want to thank Tyson Myers for being here he helps lead our our team with assessment and data and also all the principles are here because we're talking about their letter grades today so thank you for being here I'm Gonna Stand away from the microphone but you can still hear me right yes okay so I'm just gonna talk about four things our letter the letter grade timeline just a quick review the letter grade model the kraton school letter grades and then the next steps of what we're doing about our letter grades as a team um so first the timeline before the pandemic 2016 to 2019 we had letter grades then the year 2020 um due to the pandemic there were no letter grades and then the year afterwards or postponed to the pandemic so in 21 we did not have letter grades so the first year we had letter grades was in 20122 and then this past year 2023 and then we will have letter grades again for 2024 this is how our letter grades are determined you can see that 50% is for growth 30% is for proficiency um for our El population is 10% and the accelerated Wess is 10% and these are how these categories are broken down if if you had questions later we can go through that but these are how we get points for each of the categories and What U measurement they're using to determine the points these are the cut scores for this year that were used to determine the letter grades this graphic just shows you a comparison from last year uh for 2022 results is the black bar line and then La this current year 23 is the purple bar line and where that red line is um those are all the schools that are B's and A's and um and that's above the state average and if you add the B column and the a column for this 2023 year there's more B's and A's this year year than there were for the prior year so there were less um in 2022 but you can see in order to be a b or an a school you have to be above the state average these are the letter grades for our schools um starting in well what they were in 2020 which was basically the the last year that they had the letter grades determined what we got after the pandemic for the first time letter grades were given in 2022 and then our current 20 23 and just a quick overview um Loma Linda school you can see has improved over time and so this past year their letter grade went up to a b um the Kennedy kraton Academy Mackin and mon Vista schools they all stay the same from 2022 to 23 and then we have four schools um builtmore ex excellencia Papo and Gateway that went down a letter grade this year so you have a question well just for quick clarification because I know for example um excellencia school right I think it went from B to C but what I was informed and sometimes by two points or minimal points they drop down so they're like right on the borderline so just for transparency reason sometimes when we jump down it literally sometimes is by one or two points and we barely miss that Mark yes it is some yes one or two points and sometimes even less than a point sometimes that can happen it just where the cut off score is and just to connect a couple dots that's why that conversation we had earlier about how a through f is structured and when we're structuring our goals those two and a half points can make a substantial difference when it when it happens here yeah the one point can make a big difference like not just the letter grade like the point system that we got oh okay yeah definitely so what are we doing why and how and this is before the student governance like we had uh made a plan and so I'm so excited that we're all aligned and working together and working towards the same goals and so what are we doing why and how and how are we doing it so we implemented the datawise process which is it comes out of um Harvard but it's basically a school improvement process that has eight steps and what it is is the purpose is to improve teaching and learning for all students and it's a systematic way for data informed decision- making used a collaborative team- based approach so that all of us are working toward towards the same goal together um and that we decide on our problems together that we need to do to create an action plan there's three parts of the datawise process first is preparing so preparing for collaborative work the second part is inquiry where we're looking at the data similar to what you did today and determining what our problem is and where we need to move for our student learner problem and then also our problem with practice as a team and then act phases what is our action plan going to be and what we what we're going to do to progress monitor our action plan and why are we doing data wise process so that was the what we're doing it to make better decisions about instruction and assessment identify address the needs of all of our students improve student achievement and create a more Equitable learning environment for all of our students and the data wise process is uh founded on the ace habits of mind where we have a Shar commitment as a team to action assessment and adjustment intentional collaboration and Relentless focus on evidence so every decision we make is based on evidence and so how are we going to do it and this is just what we've determined as a team at the beginning of the year this is aligned to our Str strategic goals and also our IEP goals for all of our schools so we started and we talked about this a couple weekends a was it one weekend ago or two weekends ago that was 10% growth for all students St because this will help us raise our well our students learning and growing but also the letter grades um the process is that we want all of our leadership teams implementing the data wise process and then our instructional goal is that we're improving instruction in our classroom especially learning Target success criteria engagement and rigor I have a quick question will the um because you're part of the study session before too um and we kind of talked about it but we hadn't set draft goals goal like we did today do we see those learning individual student learning goals changing at all or adapting based on what those draft goals are or do you feel like there's alignment in what I definitely think there's alignment um and I think that as we're doing the strategic planning process that we'll make sure that we're aligned more directly to the goals that you are going to share with everybody we're definitely um working towards the same thing yeah yeah one favor that I would ask and I don't know how we implement this but we may want to hybridize what we're doing so it's you know November it's almost Thanksgiving and so if we pull the rug out from everybody and change what we're doing right now um we may not get the level of efficacy that that we would from sort of staying the course for the time being and so it's why a couple of times I've mentioned one of the things I'd really like us to to be doing is when we're having this these conversations this time of year to be setting the goals for next year so that way when feet Hit the Floor on July one everyone's moving in the same direction and beyond that what we know as people connected to education that perhaps some folks at the state don't understand is that if you really want to see a district make a change in what they're doing if you let them know prior to January they can spend their spring getting ready for next year year but if you wait till say July to try to get them to make a change then you don't have the best interest of students at heart because making a change at that late stage is going to have a negative impact on um teachers and students yeah that's kind of what I was thinking like stick with this it's simple and then we can really merge all the details of everything for next year yes because even our um spreadsheets are aligned to this to be able to measure we make you three to four% % growth on each Benchmark um and that's what we're looking at as um Leadership Council team and our and our schools I should ask this when you were there before but do they change the cut off scores how frequently does the state change the cut off scores for the letter grades are um right now they're close as possible to 2022 but they vote on them every year right Tyson every year the cut scores B yeah the State Board takes action um in October of every year um but the cut scores have not changed since Inception in okay thank you just changed the name so that's what's scary every year we know what our points are but we don't know what the cut scores are yet so we don't know if we're gonna be and there's a lot of conversation every year about changing them and there you know it's there's a dynamic among the members of the State Board about you know to what degree do they want it to reflect you know passage rates and and to what degree do we balance growth versus achievement to a specific Target tet and so that's going to be the conversation for the coming year is reintroducing those student growth targets where within three years time you have to make each kid has to make a certain amount of percentage increase so so we'll keep you informed as that dialogue um evolves but it's it's always kind of a lingering question mark but they have definitely worked on keeping everything as consist pretty consistent for the last seven years I mean the other thing that it brought to mind was like it's hard to then compare a lot after that so when they start changing things around Okay cool so this is just what we've done so far we during a Leadership Council and also during our um coaching session with the coaches we've been learning the datawise process and implementing it um each time as we're learning it and all of the schools are working collaboratively with their leadership team their coaches and their teachers to implement the different steps but we're just doing one step at a time and learning it um this first half of the year and you can see that in this timeline um steps 1 through 8 and then the second half of the year um we'll be implementing them as we're getting data and going through all the steps so the first half has just been learning the steps are you getting feedback from coaches and teachers as you go are you going to get feedback on their reception of this datawise like I guess kind of how are we measuring people's willingness to engage in this and accepting of it I get feedback from the leaders and the coaches I haven't personally met or worked with teachers is really getting our our whole team aligned together cludy District like all the whole District team leaders and coaches on the same page of the school improvement process anally what we're hearing is that it's a lot it there's a tremendous amount especially among leadership a tremendous amount of enthusiasm and and the and recognition of the importance of this work um and and when you build a professional development plan or like plan out your Wednesdays for the whole year and you can do that in the summer for the year ahead it it's it requires some adjustment and so people are responding to that and trying to balance initiatives that they already had in place with a refocusing and reframing around this but there's there is a lot of support and commitment to doing it it's just about blending it with um existing priorities at the campuses okay and that was the impetus for my comments about changing making a shift or a change yet again because it would be a secondary shift or change for us um you know because we didn't really have the Leisure of starting these conversations last February right so you the principles were left in a position to have to put things together for this year prior to bringing this on board and then we were able to bring this to bear and so that's a a shift um if all of a sudden we start moving targets as well you know we're really going to be frustrating our teachers and our coaches and our and our leaders so um you know I think the the challenge for us as we move forward is how do we blend in for this year the the student outcomes Focus governance in a way that it doesn't derail the work that's being done certainly but how do we ensure that the work that's being done is even if it's not getting us to where we may want to be in year one for the five year plan how do we blend that in in such a way that we know where we're going to end up at the end of year one and then structure years two through five based on knowing that um and still make significant Headway and be able to enter into next year with all of our spring planning in place for that bringing together of the datawise process with the new learning targets because they're completely compatible it's just for us mid year is there a plan to like um I guess take this directly to teachers and stuff just in a way that explains the why and the what and how everything that I mean just so that we're clear I think oftentimes we're assuming that everybody is on the same page about what the heck's going on and there's a lot of feedback since I've even just I I haven't been even here a year yet right a lot of feedback about and this is in every place top down stuff and so so I just want to make sure that it doesn't feel like we're and not that I say I disagree with any of this I think this is all the direction we need to go in um I just am not in the business of trying to force things down people's throat or or start things and then have them not understand the why behind it what we're doing or the forest for the trees and so I would love and even if that looks like you know some board members um and uh cabinet members one like maybe two at a time like going to all staff or something and explaining what student Focus governance is how that ties into to this how everything is working in conjunction so that they can so that folks can see the bigger picture and it doesn't feel like another yeah I think we absolutely can do that in relation to the shift of student outcome Focus governance um and I'll let Dr pombo answer but my understanding is part of the way all this has been built and structured is when the Leadership Council training is done around the data wise process it's a the concept behind it is we're training the leaders but we're also trying to create time and space for them to prepare to then bring that training back to their teachers and so a lot of those conversations about the why that are happening in Leadership Council for the leaders should be being replicated at the school sites with the teachers their local leaders but um you're closer to it than I and Dr dupin I know has been deeply involved so um I'll leave it to both of you to go into more DET well that's exactly it so they they actually take the slideshow that we're doing in our Leadership Council and do that with their teams and the whole purpose of datawise is collaboration and that we're making decisions together not that top down um situ so they're coming up with the problem together they're coming up with the action plan together it's just that the leaders are learning it right now so it's kind of like simultaneously happening but not happening at the same rate everywhere because every staff different every leader and Coach is different that's more reassuring I just you know I was like well I mean we could count on that but if if we don't if we're doing the same thing we were doing before we're going to get that same feedback from people at the at the you know giving direct services to our kids we have um have set up a system so through Dr pombo and all of our uh the coordinators that are in the curriculum Department they're all tied to specific campuses so we're out at the schools while the work is happening there um in order to support the leadership as they're working with their teachers and I think and I'm sorry one last thing I mean I think that's all great I think all of this is is great I think also though still moving forward maybe you know I think there's some value in in surveying I know surveys are great everybody loves them um getting some feedback from teachers about their thoughts on this process and how it was implemented how it was rolled out did they feel like they were adequately being informed or or it collab feel like it was a collaborative process like I would like that in information especially as we're trying to set um guard rails for you or benchmarks like how are we how are we supposed to know that this is something that's working well right I'm not saying that it's not but I think there's just information that we should probably be gathering and being proactive about thinking about what that looks like ahead of time and not assuming that because this is a different process that everybody's going to love it and it's going to work well um I just want to make sure that we're getting all the information that we need and I think um Miss Gibson mle one of the things that Mr Man and I have talked about is doing a study session with CA as well um bringing them to the table once that information is said once we have a little bit more data and um doing a study session even with the principles as well so those are some avenues that we can look into um to create to make sure that we are getting a well-rounded view um of everything that's changing and to go back to what Dr jupin said I had this on slide later how we're supporting the leaders and the coaches is the periodic um professional development and then we go do site visits and meet with the team and we talk about datawise process and then go into classrooms and come up with um together like a discussion of what our plan would be and then lastly um coaching and mentoring by the coordinators from the C CIA team with the coaches and so this is kind of a graphic that we made that kind of shows our support from the executive team from any director or coordinator and then the coordinators and site coaches and I mean there's details in there but how we're visiting the schools um for me at least twice a quarter and Dr dupin's going um a quarter and the coordinators are there um at least every two weeks supporting the schools in this process and also instruction um and then the schools are doing professional development the same thing they're also talking about this in profession learning communities and then coaching and mentoring individual teachers with the coaches does does this take I'm sorry I have so many questions as this goes on does this take over almost pretty much all the professional development for the school year or is there okay I didn't know like what we're talking about here okay I just making professional development on the steps giving them how to not just like we only data wise PD for the rest of the year and I was like wow I'm sure that's going to be well received well I assume like when when the bring it back like a step back to their staff too like is that not just you know the Wednesday afternoons but is also maybe being Incorporated like in grade level meetings like okay so and the other thing too is you know we recognize that not everybody has access to like the Inception of the idea of doing something right and and that you know kind of start with Y concept that you shared earlier so we're we're really trying to use a bunch of different Avenues to also share out some of that why with our staff and so one of the things that's been powerful and I've got to give a shout out to Emily wasik our communications director is that she actually participates in some of these site visits and so what the reason that we have her doing that is she shares out takeaways from those site visits through the kraton connection on Fridays and so you know some of these conversations and then the other thing that's new this year is she also shares out the work that happens in the Leadership Council meetings so when the leadership teams from the sites or with the district leadership team and we're doing this work it used to be that the staff at the schools were like well my principle's gone and I'm not really sure why all I know is I don't have anyone here to support me um and so now are like oh there's people camping on Facebook right right but now they can you know they're get they're actually getting a feed back Loop um people that are checking in which are statistics are really good on our on our newsletter which is another credit to Emma um they can not only see what that work is but they will they will get when that Leadership Council happens on a Friday or on a Thursday the very next day on that Friday they get a summary of what their principles were gone doing so they may not agree with what they were doing but they at least know what they were doing right and so they didn't they didn't just leave the campus they ran away he went someplace they were actually someplace working on something and the reason that's important is some of that work has been around datawise so um so that datawise process and the principal's involvement in it is being shared with the staff and then in addition to that Dr Pomo was kind enough to join me and I think it's going live this Friday I know it doesn't have a huge listenership but for multiple modalities we've actually uh recorded a podcast together where Dr Pomo shares some of the information about the why and the process of datawise because some people aren't you know they're auditory instead of visual and we want to make sure that we're pushing information out to support people and answer their questions in as many different ways as we can because we know just kind of putting something out there once or posting it on a website doesn't really reach enough people so we're trying to cast that net as wide as we can and make sure that we're getting that information out there cool I like that a lot so we're going to have a regular podcast now in the district we are that will be our fourth episode um and episode five stars your own board president uh sopia codal who um explains gives a quick overview of the student outcomes Focus governance process so and we'll keep keep going from there and we got some feedback from a friend of the district um Jason raduka who is the owner of noble bread um actually uh donates their leftover bread for the kraton Community Foundation to distribute into our community and he was also kind enough um and we get together every once in a while and the man's brilliant and so we sharing with him a little bit about what we're doing and he had the amazing suggestion that I haven't even had time to share with Emily yet of adding a bumper to the end of the podcast with a way that people can reach back with their questions and their requests for future topics to be shared out through that programming so we'll you know be sure to add that as well just a guy that owns a bread company he's a brilliant guy that owns a bread company so I just want to end with thanking the the School principles and the coaches of all their hard work and everything that they're doing and working with our teachers all of our teachers everyone wants to improve it's just a new process that we're doing together to help our students grow and reach that proficiency yes thank you yes thank you so much do we have any other comments questions I have a comment I just like the idea of um Mr Man and I he shared this idea with me as well um of having a study session with um leadership principles um and cea you know I I feel like I've promised CA a study session listening session with them um many many months ago and I think this is this is something we want to get them on board with obviously with principles as well just to have ownership of um of how we're we're attempting to move forward with this so I love the idea of that awesome thank you I don't believe we have any other questions or comments I appreciate all your hard work and your team's hard work and I'm really excited to see where this takes us so thank you thank you thank you all right that brings us to our next item which is the aggregate performance classification princip and teachers so just to mix it up instead of putting Dr dupin on the spot we'll shift over to Dr Lauren for this one good evening again I was going to ask Mr Guyer to support [Laughter] but uh oh I disappeared I was up there and now I'm not you gotta keep the jokes fresh people we're pushing five hours here yeah sorry not sorry for the loopiness it's okay it's only like hour 14 straight of work normal all right so uh thank you for your time this evening I appreciate it uh we're here tonight to present the uh information relevant to the evaluation outcomes for teachers and principes for the 23 school year uh by Statute we're required to have a conversation with the board annually regarding the performance classifications of principles and teachers so I wanted to remind uh remind the board about the components of our evaluation system we'll spend just a little bit of time talking about what that looks like uh this is of course based on statute so AR AR15 d537 uh there are two main components to our evaluation system 67% of a teachers Effectiveness rating is based on classroom observ a so that would be up to two formal observations that are done by qualified evaluator either principal or assistant principle and some others that might be involved with that uh that data is gathered through the Danielson framework for teaching that is our adopted framework for the district and has been for many years now uh the other component so that's 67% of our uh final valuation score the other component is the data compon component uh 33% of a teacher's Effectiveness rating is based on student achievement and that 33% is further broken down into growth and achievement so on the graph you can see or on the chart uh achievement represents 30% of the data score while growth represents 70% so often what you've seen uh as we just reflected with the a through F letter grade and some of the conversations we had earlier this evening uh growth is a really big component of how measures are done to evaluate Effectiveness throughout the state in many different ways Dr Lauren I have a quick question are these is this uh percentage breakdown what we've been using or did it change at all this year it did not change this year no um this was changed I think three years ago there was a change in the law uh and this is this has been consistent for the last several years at least that I that I call that's what I thought I just want to thank you you're welcome as a reminder there are four performance classifications that are identified by the Arizona Department of Education highly effective effective developing and ineffective and the Hand the writing is really tiny and I know you have copies so I'll leave you to your own devices to review that on your own so looking at our performance classifications uh we have a longitudinal View uh from 2014 forward you'll notice that there is a gap uh that was noted in the a through F presentation that during the pandemic there were sort of uh holidays on the teacher evaluation scores uh they were carried over from year to year as we were adjusting to the pandemic and revising the way that those letter grade or those uh teacher ratings were communicated and those principal evaluation ratings were communicated so for last year and the year prior uh the data set that we used for the data portion was based on exact path uh that was the measure that was used at a classroom level to support uh that evaluation process um we no longer have exact path so next month I'll be bringing to you some work from the evaluation committee uh to review a recommendation for this year and what that might look like you'll also notice that on this slide there's a reference to academic progress plans uh for teachers for whom they don't have data that's State Testing or Benchmark testing uh they have a little bit more flexibility in how they determine the students that are uh the data that's collected and how that translates into uh their overall effectiveness rating so it could be uh kindergarten through second grade teachers for instance who don't necessarily have that connection to a benchmark it could be teachers in self-contained classrooms special Area Teachers so there's a variety of ways that that's um given that opportunity for those teachers every teacher in the district however does have the opportunity to do an academic progress plan they would work that out with their principles so having said that our teacher ratings are as follows for last school year 67% of the teachers were scored at highly effective effective was 32% we had 1% that were developing and we had 0% that were ineffective how many teachers do we have so the total end count is 363 represented in this uh in this graph chart highly effective would represent 244 teachers 115 effective and that we're developing look at you so prepared it's in my notes thank you all right moving forward to the aggregate principal ratings um we have nine principles in our district and those nine principles are represented here 88% receive scores of Highly Effective 12% received score of effective um what this also looks a little different from a principles evaluation perspective in that they are using schoolwide data uh so their data portion is a little different their goals are aligned to professional development goals as well as uh some other factors so their instrument looks just slightly different but they're using the same data set as teachers so now we're at discussion or questions thank you so much for that information do we have any questions or comments Miss MC cheffrey I will start with you thank you um so I mean I think I I think I make this comment every year but obviously we went through some pretty um uh serious academic achievement um uh challenges and so it's just doesn't match up with how highly effective our staff is um and I've discussed it with Mr Man and I think the presentation you know presents all of the reasons why the data is kind of out of sync but I mean I think we have to also that's another reason why we're we're venturing into this um student outcome focused governance um you we can all be highly effective and then our our students are are at the lowest rate of some of the the achievement levels in the state so it just doesn't match up that's all can I make a comment yes so I live this life um I am highly effective every year um my students about half of them achieve um on the ASA I consider myself a phenomenal teacher along with um all of my fellow teachers um I totally believe this data because I believe that our teachers do work hard they are really smart um just because their kids aren't scoring on ASA doesn't make them less of a teacher than getting if a school gets an F there's still phenomenal people out there that are working super hard um and they should be getting highly effective whether our schools are getting any letter grade I just don't see the correlation between because I do live this life um and my kids don't necessarily score but when we are working with children that um have a lot of deficit and we are working the hardest we can a lot of the time we see growth through those um I know we don't have the exact path what do we have now uh DNA DNA okay so now that we have that our kids are making phenomenal growth I'm sure they are my kids made 179 % growth last year but they still didn't score as well on the aasa so I think we have to kind of take some of this stuff in stride because I really don't think that it shows a lot of correlation thank you um Miss MB any questions or comments no Miss Gibson mlin okay the only question or comment or I guess comment that I have too is that um I would like to see some of this stuff too on our principles and and it doesn't have to be in a public if it's in a board update um I do believe that we do a lot of stress on our teachers and we're always focusing on our teachers and teachers but we do have leaders over those teachers as well and just how we hold our teachers accountable I want to make sure that we're holding our principls accountable too since they are the leaders of those schools so ask well kind of like what they were talking about this information I don't have any of this information on the principles I know that there's a certain way that a certain rubric I think you were talking about that gets done differently with principles I just never seen that especially in the three years on the board so I would like to see what that looks like as well um and then if eventually if it becomes something bigger we can bring it but board up whatever since it talks about principles and teachers but I know this is State statue but I would like to see that as well we we can certainly add that to a border report thank you any other questions comments yeah I just have a follow-up comment I know Miss SS this is personal for you and I understand that and you know I'm come from a family of teachers I totally get it but you know we have 0% ineffective teachers and um we have some of the lowest state State achievement for our kids and I've been in our classrooms and our I know we have some behavioral problems you know but our kids are here and they want to learn it just is a mismatch um and I just think it's it's a disservice to our kids and our families um if you're in 1% developing I mean that's we we want our new teachers to know that they have room for improvement I don't think there's anything wrong with that um so that's what this is about is saying look you there's room for improvement here and and that's really all it is I I think this makes us look like kind of a joke in my opinion to to say we're we're all pretty much highly effective our kids just can't learn for some reason and I don't believe that at all all right thank you so much and um I do appreciate the work from everybody in this I know that sometimes we get put in certain standards and those standards are not exactly reflective of what's going on in the classrooms so they they put us in a hard spot by judging us off of what grades these our students can produce so I know that's a hard spot to be in and appreciate all the teachers and everybody but um hopefully with this sofg work we can get a little bit more aligned and reshift some things so our outcomes will be better and with that being being said and hearing no more comments um we're going to go ahead and move over to our next agenda item thank you so much for that information Dr Lauren I appreciate it and that brings us to our Solar Energy Efficiency shaded canopy project thank you so much for sitting here for two and a half yes we appreciate you our our sincerest apologies no not at all we only got paid by sitting in board meetings I mean you're salar right yeah I'm like I mean that's why I said at work right well we you know I've been in some longer ones so no worries Tucson holds all the records so that's what I hear and you know quite frankly we've been members of the community before it's always good to be able to hear everything that's going on um you know we like to be stewards of the community too and be able to be outspoken to support you guys so we don't mind yeah so so madam members of the board I'd like to introduce Shannon repy did I say it correctly at this time of night even um and Randy Falconer and um they're both uh representatives from verie um Shannon is their resident solar sorceress expert right sorceress yeah so um well solar sorceress is just way more alliterative when it's almost sounds really cool print that on a business card so we um uh m Mr Wells who's our director of facilities has been working with the team he's here um Miss dine who's sitting in for uh michiro this evening um is you know Director of Finance and so um if there are questions you know kind of from our team we do have folks here who can help answer those questions um Dr dupin and Dr Lauren have also been involved because one of the things we've been looking at is appropriate placement for these panels so you know there's in instuctional implications of some of those things that the team will talk about tonight um but you know it also doesn't hurt to have someone who was last year a principal so we get that principal perspective as well so the goal is always cast the perspective as wide as we can and with that I will turn it over to the team and um let you share with us uh the information thank you um I do have the presentation on a USB Dr dupen if you need it uh yes you have no No Bananas so um Russell do you have a US oh I have a USB you do not have a USB do I is there a doctor on the plane yeah PA has a USB I have a USB wait and you can connect your Dell to the Apple TV it's called Uh air parrot oh it's a a way to now you're the sorcerer actually after 9 o' Russ after 9 clock anyone's a potential [Laughter] Source but yes thank you Madame President board members superintendent man and executive team it's it's been a pleasure going through this process and meeting with everybody gaining feedback is is really invaluable because at the end of end of the day it's it's Student First this is your this is your home right all of these buildings you know your your future plans your current plans and we really want to um make sure that we align with your goals um and I can kind of jump to a little bit first couple slides are introductory but um really our agenda is just a quick introduction and a background on our partnership within the school district um oh thank you so much how we got here you know Road traveled um you know specifics on the solar project and really break it down as well as uh the path forward for Success so quickly on our partnership we've partnered with kraton school district since 2016 and it's hard to believe that was seven almost eight years ago I know the last few years have been kind of a blur but uh we're excited about that and long-term Partnerships are what we take pride in uh we've worked with over 80 school districts in Arizona we have a 30-year ten tenure in the state um we like to tut our horn a little bit because we're the only K through2 Energy Services Company that actually self- performs the work we have our own technicians Engineers project managers um you know licensed electricians that actually help out in in your backyard we're located off of 34th Street in Broadway um it's it's worth mentioning the accolades and achievements that you guys have um received thus far in the previous Energy savings uh phase so I've highlighted here some of the energy conservation measures that you guys have already uh conducted and are in place currently HVAC lighting uh HVAC controls water upgrades and restroom remodels and so with that it was within a guaranteed savings model which is also a state statute regulated model and you've actually achieved nearly 150,000 over what the guarantee is for your District yay yay so I'll move back really quick one big thing to note um on phasing and a lot of times we phase with school districts Pendergast is a prime example what do you need now what do you need in the future um so at the time your current needs for energy conservation were met and it's great timing because a lot of times districts will choose solar first without first upgrading their buildings into an energy efficient space which can lead into putting more solar in than you need right you're maybe producing too much you're not getting the ROI based on export rates or obviously the cost to build if you build too much kind of down the drain so you've retrofitted and right fitted your school district to be energy efficient now the next step is to do solar so that you're not overproducing um it's also really good timing uh as you've heard the inflation reduction act it was signed into law August of 2022 um took into effect January 1 of 23 what this inflation reduction act does particularly to renewable energy and battery storage is it takes the investment tax credit which has been around for decades out of the singular space which is private investment firms that own and operate solar and actually allows public school districts municipalities higher education to recoup those back in a direct pay option so instead of the trickle down model where it goes to somebody else and maybe you recoup some portion of it actually goes directly back to the district which is a huge feat um given your District region and census track for income levels the majority of your campuses actually qualify for an additional 10% which is called the lowincome adder so up to for the most part I think all but one 40% back via direct pay to your district for the total cost of solar per site um so that's outstanding you know it's really good timing for you guys and we're excited to present know what that looks like moving forward for your District so and please feel free to ask questions along the way um the project path and the road traveled I've kind of simplified this a little bit though it was very very thorough and I commend uh Mr Man and executive team for really sitting down with us multiple times and putting the effort together um it's more or less a three-step process you want to get the goals aligned of the district which is really Student First and in Arizona uh that means a lot of shape also so a dual purpose between solar with a return and uh shade for students was the primary focus now once we identified those locations um we looked into some of the parameters for solar and how to maximize the profitability for your District uh sometimes if the electrical equipment is super duper far away or you have current or future plans to install other means of shade in certain areas we look for alternate areas so we we did that with the first step we met with the facilities team really walked the sites identified all the locations met back with the executive team to cross reference and and provide you know a real sound solution for the students and staff um the result is a roughly 60% energy offset of your current utility bills which is which is huge um utility rates year-over-year continue to rise I don't know if you see it at your homes too but they they don't seem to be going down and so when you offset your energy usage by producing your own energy then you're insulated from those utility costs that you know you kind of have to pay to keep the lights on um so that's the avoided future utility costs and really the federal incentive of it so Kennedy is an exciting project for us uh we loved working with the architect and the general contractor and we would continue to do so um we want to make sure that that's an outstanding um addition to the current design for the campus which we love um Kennedy is a is a huge one that I put on here too then the basketball C uh canopy location couple additional structures um and then you can see some Blended solar locations here just based on the three steps that I had mentioned before um mostly shade is first and foremost there are some schools where there's parking canopies as well or a blend of the two so I really wanted to out outline that here in some of these I hate to interrupt Shannon but if I could for a minute um one of the things that we really appreciate about the ver team um is that they've worked very closely with Mr Wells and his team so they're you know as frequent as we frequently deal with in schools there's multiple moving Parts at the same time and we're living through a period of time with un I hate the word unprecedented but I'll use it anyway I'm too tired for an acronym or for a uh synonym synonym thing can't even say synonym I would I would be happy to have a cinnamon but um but what what they've done is they're really blending um three different things that are going on right now um we have some Partnerships uh that have come to us through a variety of means including some of our board members like President C OD doll and Miss MC cheffrey have brought us some outside Partners like sustainability Alliance city of Phoenix and so we are in the process of a number of tree canopy grants and so those will bring some additional shade to the campuses and um in our consent agenda tonight you approved um shade structures for the Kennedy School through a grant from the federal government through the city of Phoenix and there will be more of those forth coming for our other campuses um and so one of the challenges with planning all of this out and I know you um alluded to this is we we don't want to put solar panels where trees are going we don't want to put solar panels where shade structures are going and so what the team has really done an excellent job of is figuring out for each space what's the best solution so if we put the solar panel over this playground um it's cost prohibitive but we have the possibility to get a shade structure for that playground through the shade Grant so in that case it might make more sense to then move the solar canopy over a parking area where it's closer to where the power comes into the campus it maximiz es our return on investment without taking shade away from students because we have these three different sort of legs of a three-legged stool to increase not only shade on our campuses but hopefully reduce overall temperatures on our campuses by removing that direct captured sunlight that's being absorbed by you know the other objects and masses on our schools so so with that is there a plan for uh Kennedy's parking lots um there is currently I I believe not solar for the parking lot but we do have um other components to provide shade I believe trees trees okay okay perfect that's what I thought I just wanted to double check because I'm like we're gonna have a really nice green Campus surrounded by a lot of asphalt that will get that will counteract which which is why in that case I mean ironically on that campus the solar structures you see in the diagram are actually closer the what they call the sces where the electrial comes into the campus is actually more Central on that particular campus and so these are both more cost effective locations and student shade centered locations and they're in the areas near the green spaces the parking lot is sort of the asphalt and concrete space near the edge of Campus so we're able to soften that up by focusing the tree grants into some of the tree grants into that space and bringing trees in as the shade um shade canopy for those locations a lot of car washes y someone who went to school here uh with no shade over the playgrounds and metal slides this is all just just like yes I'm with you on the metal slide subject I can't tell you how many times I got burnt growing up but um no so much for adding that color too there's there's so many different things I go into selecting solar locations that I couldn't imagine you'd want me to bore you with at this point but I'd be happy to give you all of that information too um but we're happy to have such a great team that is willing to sit down with us and really put our heads together to identify those locations because it's a hard decision to make and you know the team efforts definitely appreciated I just have a quick question with the parking lots that doesn't um create any less parking spaces in any of the parking lot does it no no it doesn't the way that we do it is where our columns are positioned we create them where the the parking SPAC is tea off okay um you know one in one of our offices I don't know who did it 20 years ago who built it they definitely didn't do it that way so we reminded of it every day and uh that's definitely something that we avoid every single time just making sure because there's precious parking at mon Vista yeah all parking typically for for schools are precious it's it's a tight squeeze most of the time um so a quick project review of the specifics here um the way that this all works per statute and some of you might be familiar with it already is uh 15- 21301 is a guaranteed savings model which I know the district is familiar with from a few years ago um any energy and operating costs reduced um for for for the project has to pay for the project period and that that is created to eliminate risk to school districts um so the person or or a company that is doing it such as ver G would be on the hook to pay any difference of it we have to guarantee that it pays for itself through the duration of the project otherwise we have to cut the check uh which we've never had to do and we're very good at putting together a net neutral project for you all so that you don't have to worry about that we provide annual and more recently quite regularly um reports on measuring and verifying those savings that is also an Arizona statute and it's mandated by the department of energy so it's highly regulated uh within your uh District we're very close on Kennedy uh we've been working closely with the architect as the school's already under construction right now so we're trying to hone in all of those specifics um but in general the 30,000 foot view here is roughly a $9 million project with $3 million coming back from the IR and first year savings at $352,000 that would be guaranteed um these are 40-year panels uh they're warrantied how many I'm sorry these are 40 year panels yes um so we typically do our models just so you can see the longevity of savings within your school district within a 40y year and this takes into account you know how the age of the panels as the years go on but within the 40 years it's roughly a $34 million long-term back to the district um for a $9 million investment so producing your own energy and avoiding those additional cost increases take makes a huge huge part in it I don't know if you have anything to add to theel in general yeah we don't even need Mr he's like why am I here Mr Man and I had talked about was you know there's the guaranteed time but then I mean it's not like it just stops working on day one after the 40th year or whatever yeah yeah right that's years yeah that's the expectancy that they have on these so they degrade a little bit each year we do a lot of studies on older systems so school districts will call us in to solve problems and they don't really degrade as fast as the manufacturers were saying either so I would suspect that 40 years is probably light still at this point in time or how long they'll last but yeah the production warranty on these panels is 30 years yeah so they have to be conservative just like anybody on their degradation rate and how long the are lasting so we base that on the conservative model for you guys too okay um so really that's it in summary what we're really excited about um as well as part of this project is what we've been doing for all the other districts as it pertains to solar the technology is there to provide stem learning opportunities we really enjoy having like kiosk a lot of districts enjoy having kiosks with in their within their vicinities and Facilities so that people in the community can see what the solar is producing there's curriculum plans available that were provided by science teachers there's one kind of displayed here that was developed for sixth grade students which can be really fun and it's interactive um there's a 247 monitoring platform that you guys have access to versus if somebody else owned it you can actually see and verify what your system is doing and teach students how to calculate some of these items as well if you're interested which can be really fun um those exercises I think you know I don't know I remember when I was growing up having like the the hot dog exercise right in the sun I'm from Arizona and it's similar to that right utilize the Solar Sun in those curriculum to be able to do activities and it provides a lot of fun for students and learning uh We've even done solar car races too for school districts which is a good time um but really that the primary item here is just giving shade to students um maximizing their their Learning Potentials and their environment for the school district and guaranteeing that the Project's going to pay for itself so that you don't have to worry about that burden um I don't know if you have anything to add in there's environmental equivalencies that the students can also do um calculations on it's provided by the EPA and so we've provided some equivalencies there to over the 40-year lifespan of solar you'd be producing over 137 million kilowatt hours um so you can do some quick uh math there on the EPA website nearly 11 million and gallons of gasoline consumed right or prevented of consumption for for solar we'd like to have a little fun with that on the science side yeah and this also kind of makes my brain Wonder right as a governing board member and the potential of having solar buses and all these other beautiful things that can come and stem from this that eventually can be great benefits for the school district so um yes I'm glad you mentioned that actually too because one thing that we're including within this project if you choose to move forward with with it what we've done we have a director of vehicle electrification that we actually kind of stole away from Valley Metro I did a project with him back in 2018 and use berry wise so he does long-term and short-term vehicle electrification plans for both battery electric buses and fleets um so another thing that we talked about with the district was how do we cover these buses and how do we get electric buses and when is it time to get those electric buses so the philosophy is the same with the path that you guys have followed thus far which is identify your building load identify your kwh usage and then go solar so that philosophy is the same for battery electric buses what we do know about those buses it's going to increase your load because it's connected to the grid now so how much is it going to increase how do we offset that with solar and potentially battery storage too so we're going to develop that plan for you guys also so that you have a long-term and short-term solution um the main thing that we look at you know is if you have all new buses you know is it is the return right right so it's based on age it's based on mileage it's based on um routes it's based on need um but that way we can land lay out a year-over-year kind of path for you guys so that you can reach that ultimate goal um you know and be able to use those Federal subsidies that are available now right yeah yeah we look at other grants that are other thing as well try to match up with timelines on the age of buses and so so the beauty of it is while this particular phase of implementation wouldn't include that um the team's willing to help us with that future planning and Mr Wells has been a step ahead as well um we don't know yet um we're still waiting to hear back but we are part of a grant that is a partnership with one of the vendors we work with um a lot of the grants require a minimum of 25 buses which isn't really a fit for us right now and so one of the local vendors um has created an opportunity for those districts who don't need that many buses to kind of go in together so we're kind of in a grouping um and still waiting to hear back as to and if I'm saying any of this wrong please correctly so um so that may those may be our our first three electric buses if that comes through so having this pre-planning will be super helpful to us and one of the things that that Mr Wells and I have talked about for years in relation to electric buses and solar and the potential for shade is one of the most um fuel consuming things with a bus during the heat of the summer is trying to cool it down and he taught me years ago that those air conditioning units only reduce the temperature by a certain number of degrees so the cooler the bus is when you try to cool it down the more effective the air conditioning use is the less energy you're consuming and the cooler that bus will be when it gets to kids so by being able to look at a future where we might we might add in addition to this project solar shade for those buses we may be able to accomplish several goals at the same time and so having the team to support us with that planning is is really super helpful that's a really good point and uh we've actually conducted uh or hired a third party assessment to conduct that just the same the the time to idle buses yeah and the fuel consumption of them and I mean the bus drivers especially right like that's a hard job during the summer and then during the hot months to have to get in those buses um we did the we covered the Valley Metro Mesa facility years ago and did that analysis there and the savings just on diesel alone before they went with some electric is is huge yeah but yes please if you have any other questions I just wanted to double down on um like this slide and and opportunities and especially thinking about Kennedy where they're looking at curriculum around that school um and I'm just excited to see that you know there's already some things created and and you know I'm sure the team is working on like how can we also pull this in um like I remember when I taught at the Old Kennedy um I got to do one of the SRP Green Team things and like with that like I got a little solar panel I still have it solar panel uh Fountain and the kids loved it like they absolutely loved it we got kilowatt readers and they were going around the school like it was hilarious ious how excited they were and and like I had kindergarteners at the time they partnered with a fifth grade class and they became like the judge and jury of every teacher that left their projector on and lights on in their classroom but um it was just awesome and it and it gave them so much ownership so I'm really excited to see pieces um like this and and it just makes me feel good about um partnering with an organization that's not just thinking of you know yeah the here's the solar panel like yeah just asked Jay this seems like a tight business model yeah I was like where's the Prof lots of Grants yes yeah we're great at finding grants we're great at finding rebates and we were elighting and uh hbac controls I mean we go out and find those rebates for you guys and grants may make a big deal that's a big difference for sure um and so lastly really just a path forward uh the landscape and kind of what we're working boards right now would be um if you choose a December board resolution and approval executing the guaranteed savings agreement um then the construction would begin and the goal is to have everything online by the end of 2024 this aligns with the IRA it's within a calendar year so as long as you have each system online and it's by address then that it follows the the following tax year right just like anyone who kind of pays their taxes there's a little bit more time in there on the tax side on the following year where you would get the the direct payb via check in unrestricted Capital funds in 2025 for the the year of 2024 so and just to make sure this is abundantly clear what we what we would be doing to do this is we'd be looking at a lowest loan product um and then what would happen is for the initial portion of the life cycle the savings the the savings on utility bills is what would be used to make make those payments however and and we need to verify the specific details on it it's our belief that if the board does decide to recommend um a bond election in November of 24 we believe we should be able to bundle the solar into that Bond and then pay off that refinancing and fundamentally re we would refinance it through a bond structure may even be more costeffective from a percentage but what we would be doing is capitalizing the cost through our bond payback um which would then mean that we would be recognizing each year an additional $350,000 roughly in M savings that would help support some of the challenges that we have with you know some have ahead of us so so we're we're verifying all of that and to make sure we bring you the best possible information when we come back on December 12th resolution the reason for that timing is to get up and run to meet that deadline of the end of 2024 in order to be able to realize those 40% rebates so the capital fund return for 2024 that they're talking about that would go to pay on the principle of the loan that we're getting or would go back into our I think I think there are multiple options um uh and one of the things that we're also verifying as what the the various available options would be so um it may make sense to pay it against the principle of the loan and um shift and by shifting it to the bond then we're shifting less dollars to the bond um the other thing that could potentially happen not wanting this to happen but let's say we had a challenge with passing a bond in 24 and we have and we have Capital needs we might want to continue to make those payments out of m&o and that would at least give us a couple of million dollars in capital money to TI Us by until we were able to pass another Bond so it it gives us a lot of options and prior to coming back on the 12th we'll make sure we know all the very specific dets next steps are we wanted to see the board's interest and then the next steps will be to talk to some of the financing gurus that we work with out there awesome thank you um Miss MC cheffrey do you have any other questions comments concerns no I just love this idea and um I appreciate you guys for chasing it down I know the grant part is um not easy so thank you I love it um board members do we have any other questions comments concerns awesome um I think this is great I think this is very aligned with the vision that we have especially with even the student outcomes focused governance work we want to make sure that um we are aligned in all the aspects and bringing not only the cost savings but bringing the instructional piece for our students is like a double whammy so um thank you so much for being here I appreciate your time and I can't wait for the next meeting to approve this so much we appreciate it thank you thank you guys all right that brings us to our next agenda item which is future agenda items does anybody have a future agenda item so I just would like another update of um Larry C Kennedy um where we stand um the last presentation we had um I still don't understand the Outdoor Learning um curriculum as a parent like I'm not sold I just from a parent perspective um maybe it was over my head um but I I I just don't understand what the curriculum is and I would like to know the hiring process for the principal and also where we stand on the name of it I I think I've heard pros and cons uh about Larry C Kennedy um in the community many people think it's named after John F Kennedy obviously it's not um and I know Larry C Kennedy is a is a amazing person but I can't give you the elevator speech about him myself so um those are three things I'd like to know kind of where we are I would agree with all of those and in addition to that I mean I I know I was the only person that I don't know if Amy was here but I voted no on on on the original spending but I was hoping that then we would be getting pretty consistent updates you know given what I thought was lacking in the presentation that we got and so I would hope to continue to get updates about what progress is being made um and what we can afford what progress is being made in the way of these grants that are like coming as they come on the consent agenda items that sort of thing um any more detail that we can see in um floor plans or blueprints or whatever I mean the blueprints I thought were lacking as well um and then like the the curriculum piece I would tend to agree with I get the gist of things to me it felt like somebody was explaining in query based learning to me but that's not a curriculum and so that's why I was like what is the actual curriculum not the teaching meth method here yeah we can just put it as a future agenda item so we're not discussing so much of it absolutely and and I I just want to be thorough in what we're expecting for the agenda item I also I know it's off topic but I'd like to put a plugin for the last board update because there were um quite a bit of update information in there as well which is by no means um being against doing a presentation at the board meeting but one of the things we're also trying to do is make sure that we're going to be putting regular updates in that board update so you don't have to wait for a board meeting to get that information certainly just for the public as well yep thank you and the only other f um future agenda item that I would have is to get an update on the renaming of the paple school that could be uh a board update but I would really like to find out where we are with that any other future that's like three we're like three hours into that I think she miss MC cheffrey was that for us or did you just forget to mute yourself no that was for you I'm sorry I'm I I would like that as well the Papo update okay thank you any other future agenda items all right seeing none that brings us to our next agenda item my motion we adjourn second all those in favor hi W notes thank you guys so much hi

principal hfield emailed a similar message and air returned to my lungs as I'm sure it did for every parent awaiting that news I'm asking you to put yourself in our shoes we have to figure out a better and more timely way to share emergency information this this was unacceptable 43 minutes of panic scrolling hoping for another Proof of Life text parents and Guardians need to be notified as soon as possible regarding what is happening in these situations and with the level of Technology available I'm sure it can be done give us details when things settle down but notification needs to happen sooner than later our kids are in your care we should hear it from you further the following up was lacking this incident was traumatic for many of the kids in that building and probably the staff as well in a perfect world a phone call home would have come that night urging the kids to come in the next day letting them know that counselors would be available if needed I know we received messages about partnering with Schoolhouse Counseling Center it would have been wonderful to bring people in to provide services we get a call every Sunday evening all sunshine and Roses to not have mentioned this yesterday that was toned deaf these kids are more than learning machines they are human beings that have been through something terrifying to support them and enable them to return to learning we have to acknowledge that especially since not everyone may receive the support at home thank you for all you do Melissa Joe's weak okay that will conclude the public comments and definitely was some you know experience that was you know kind of touching and a lot of questions and all of that as being asked regarding the event last week and with all things being considered I thought our school district and our law enforcements did a tremendous job and our superintendent will speak a little bit more on that matter all right uh board updates I would like I know this probably may not be the optimal time but I don't think we kind of acknowledged our veteran an the last time we was here and we was in between B days so I just want to acknowledge our veterans um those that are still living those are in in the armed forces at this time and those who have went on to be to be with God so if I can just have everyone take a moment of silence for that particular topic all right thank you thank you veterans so we are at board updates any board updates yeah I'll you want me to Sure Nel and I are teammates in this one so uh Jamie and I attended this morning the First Responders meeting the monthly First Responders meeting in and uh led by Robin Tobias uh representation from First Responders from all the communities were there um we spent the full hour debriefing what happened last Wednesday at the high school uh I won't go into kind of the hold back and forth in the conversation but I think um you know one of the themes is communication and you know there's going to be a lot of lessons learned from that incident and thankfully nobody was injured in that so um in that incident and we can take the you know have the opportunity for the Lessons Learned um um you know one of the things that I think do have to look at Skyward and some of the things about how that how that communication gets out um but I just want the public to understand that when we have that when we think it's an active shooter situation or red lockdown that it's you know the principal or Administration they have to want one take they're responsible for making sure the K children students are secure but themselves secure as well so they can't stop and go hey I'm going to send out an email right now you know so I think just some understanding by the public about that when these things occur sometimes the communication is not be perfect that said we're going to they're looking at it and going to work on that so um and I think uh again to your point Mr Brown um the police uh got their very quickly uh and handle the situation extremely professionally along with our staff uh so I couldn't be prouder of all of them I think one of the takeaways is kind of how do we have better communication and maybe a command center outside of the building to help navigate everything because there was an issue with really Exchange Street becoming a parking you know becoming a parking lot with parents trying to get there and you know if something you know if ambulances had to get had more ambulances had to get there at that time they couldn't have gotten there so how do we how do we nav you know inside the building went as planned outside the building there's still some work to be to improve on so and I know all of the First Responders stayed after we left and you know kind of had a round table to start to to address those things because a lot of that's not in control of the school district we need the cooperation and the leadership of the First Responders the police fire Etc to make sure that all happens um so anyway but it was a a good meeting this morning and just to reiterate as going there both as a board member and as a parent I made sure that I had discussed the disconnect in time between um information between administrators and the disconnect in the 45 minutes from parents receiving that same notification because as a parent parents I also did not receive the notification till 45 minutes later and so it was discussed and how they are going to be looking at ways to mitigate the disconnect in time from all of the notifications excellent thank you both I have a question so you said that they had that they're going to discuss um that piece of communication with how to when to get it out and how to get it out and and that will be worked with the law enforcement or did they say that'll be worked within the district because at this point um how can I'm trying to put it um as equal as possible um from doing that that that should who sends the email out shouldn't have been in question at all no having an email sent out in 45 minutes shouldn't have been a question everybody has a job and and it wasn't that the email wasn't sent at that time someone hit send the disconnect happened in the communications platform of Skyward so it went out to all district Google email addresses but didn't go to the addresses that parents had registered on their account for a 45 minute delay so they're going to work on trying to figure out the district knows it's their responsibility they acknowledge that it is their responsibility to figure out and and we as school board members acknowledge that it is up to us to figure out where that disconnect happened from pressing send to it actually being received by parents and it may have been a communication Delay from internal workings so they're going to be looking at all aspects of communication and communication the internal like technology of it and also looking at additional platforms to maybe better enhance our communication with parents in an immediate setting so I will Echo onto that just to reiterate that so the original email I think was set out the the alert was set out at 12:38 the time the alert went out was 12:47 so it's 10 minutes but what happened like uh Miss Z was saying is that the way the Skyward is set up there's a layering effect it's actually faster to do that the emails than a robo call because what happens with Robo calls is it will it will dial a number and it won't go to the next one until someone picks up so there is delay so that's why we tend to do the email and the email the way it's been set up in Skyward we think we can do it faster by reconfiguring it so that's with the team we're going to be working with the IT department to do that but it was sent exactly at 1247 7 um shortly after it was sent out at 12:38 but not uh but Skyward didn't release it the alert the alert was called at 12:38 and at 12:47 sent so that was 10 minutes but it didn't get to our parents for 30 and we did not know that at the time so it was through all this debriefing that we figured out that there was indeed a delayed out there that caused some confusion rightfully so certainly to our families and we completely understand that so our protocols were set we've got to go back and look at a tech issue within our Skyward system and we will get that resolved and that's never happened before right like we we we didn't know that that would be that would happen until we we actually went into this situation right when you need something that timely yes you don't notice it like when you get the Sunday night lives he hits send and it just rolls through it and no one really appreciates whether they get it at 8:00 or 9:00 right but when you are under um when there's some concern out there yeah minutes matter when you're that parent so we would have never fig known that until this happened correct and that is why I think it is so important Mr debias has done an excellent job going through and we we timestamp everything when we do the debriefing so that we find out where the errors were where we were um um where we were fast where we need to work and so forth and and uh so we've got a whole report that's been generated that we are working on internally but overall you know we were actually pleased with the staff our students and everybody did follow the protocols uh fairly well and our First Responders I can't say enough about them and I did want to say that I I know there's always room for improvement and of course we want to improve but being in this district for several years I see the Improvement I mean it was never the standard ized you know um this practi as it has been lately then I don't remember that at all when my kids were younger so I mean we've really come up and we just have to go that a little bit more to make it to the top but I I mean we really have made great strides so um room to improve yes we have and uh like I said and we will continue to practice to we can get as perfect as possible and we did have some conversations with some students and you know um you know conversations were certainly varied but a couple of the students that we did talk with or hear from um some of them said they actually felt very safe in the room uh some other students um felt that they knew what to do um in directing substitute teachers and so forth so the students have been practiced and they knew what to do that's what we've been hearing from many of the students and that's the thing is I I I know that you guys were on the first responder that's not like our first meeting we've been doing that for a while right so and and the trainings have been going on if you talk to the local law enforcement and the fire departments they've been doing this type of training so I think we just had a drill didn't we not a couple days a couple days ago so was so fresh in their minds so it's good that the students are aware of what's going on this is just today was a regular scheduled First Responders meeting it happens monthly and so they regularly scheduled so means that we're like you said Miss R 10 years ago there was nothing at all one of two safety teams that were B on so there's there's a you know there are two separate are you on one too no there's then there's a school the district safety team which meets with teachers administrators Etc and then a building one and building so they're they they're doing truly they're working on all layers yeah and I think it began when we hired uh Patrick seamonson that was the first time this District actually had a security person in there and we we are trying to make the district better and safer adapting to what's happening in society right I mean with what's going on in the world we have to make we want to make sure that our staff and our students feel safe by hiring him and starting that process look at where we're at now you guys are going to monthly meetings and we're learning and evolving and I think that was a start but I with um Robin Tobias as the head of our security no yeah taking it to a totally new level which is great I mean that that's I mean think about we were 3 four years ago Ser seriously it it's it's a night and day yeah but we always have room for improvement when you have these events you definitely have these events and you come up with lessons to learn what went well what we need to improve on so but at the end of the day everyone everyone was safe that's really what matters but we definitely going to improve on the process where we find some in ad inadequacies and any way and the district will get back to the board on those improvements you know well thank you again parents for pointing out some weaknesses and as well as some strengths so I got quite a few calls myself quite a few things that was on social media where parents actually you know mention good things that happen as well as bad things but so and one thing I can definitely say that the word is not going to get out any faster than a student could get it out prior to administrator putting it out because they are right there being wrong or right what they put out they're going to be right there with their cell phones and put in and out so I don't know where we can improve on that but we're going to try to do something with that as well all right any other further board updates oh I got a few we have our conference coming up all right y yes indeed I expect everybody probably be there okay and I do challenge each board member if they can bring back one good thing that they believe is good back to the board you're going to go to a tremendous amount of good sessions I I definitely can tell you that if you haven't looked over the schedule you're going to see some good things that you would like to go to so if you can bring back one thing that you said a little book report please yeah something like that if you want to do that that's why but at least one thing you know and we kind of put all of those good ideas together and maybe give it to the superintendent which one you want and really work on let's try to do that at a December meeting so it's the past president wasn't very good about schedule oh that's all right okay so I'm definitely looking forward to going down there and new board members I saw a couple classes for you guys too finance and all the other things security okay so and there's quite a few other things happening in the district I think I know a couple weeks ago the superintendent put something out about everybody coming together and and being united on one cause giving whatever is a whole list of things that would be considered just a a Unity unified person that really does something well for the district I believe that's a November 28th I I don't know if that's a Tuesday you said something out I'll send it to you if you don't have it November the 28th and all of board members it was it was something I get it I'll send it to you I'll send it to you before the board there been a lot going on November the 28th where just board members they wear colors or they go do a good deed for the district that day in there classrooms or whatever you pick and choose on that date the 28th that all board members can do something good for the district got it okay and mentioning colors did we ever get some a tire for our new board members any did we have you got a tire yet I went I went to the holiday booster and specifically to buy myself a polo just to make you happy sir a okay I have now oh wow okay that needs to be higher not less some after that one District came to I think we've ordered it I think it's getting embroidered right now that's where it's at okay so if we can get something to our new board members yeah I got great stuff for the sherff we want to be unified that's great and I forgot to give accolay to uh Dr Hall on his presentation at our last event that's the isba right in School Board Association that we held it was among about what five six other districts was here oh lots of districts all of County and Dr kogan and chery and magnificent secretary amazing job with yeah yeah I have one of her moms at home right but an excellent job the rooc the ban the catered food security just just knocked it out the park again excellent job and again Dr Hall you did a excellent job representing the school district and your presentation it was it was it was great thank you so good job again and there's another event that's happening being sponsored by the running club of cre I think that's the club on Turkey Day on Thanksgiving so if you feel energetic on Thanksgiving day and not cooking and not cooking 7:00 in the morning Heritage Park there's a 5K and it's going from 700 to 9 please join us she got me to join and my wife actually there's another one that day too though is it really yeah okay University Park scholarships I think and that one's at nine so I'm doing that one oh so you can do the 7 o' and the 9 only you can do that and you can eat all the turkey you want okay wow great and I think that is enough and that should be enough for me and enjoy your holidays all board members welld deserved and complete staff in public okay that being said turning it back over to you Dr kogan E for administrative update yeah I've just got a couple uh in recognition of some celebrations that are going around this week uh number one uh it is American Education week this week um this is a week we recognize and honor and thank all of our staff staff who touch children's lives um regardless of roles here everybody does interact with our our students in one form or another and uh they are huge support for our students um they're dedicated to helping our students Thrive and grow into young adults and ones who will grow up to make a difference the U has some of the hardest working professionals that I've had the privilege to working with and I truly do believe that and so this is our week that we publicly say thank you to all of them for their work today we sent out for staff uh a special Gourmet Apple for them as a token of appreciation uh this is I think our second year of doing the apples and um it was upon request they wanted them again so we sent them out again wow so uh anyway so we want to thank our staff this week for all their hard work and let them know how much we do appreciate all of them um we also acknowledge that on they're week on the our website social media and our building Marquees so uh shout out to all of our staff also this week is national board day so board members tomorrow is national board's day this is a time we take a moment to let each of you know how much we appreciate you not a moment of silence no moment of silence you know each of you is stepping up not with this board that's right we li we Lively each one of you has stepped up um to invest your time and sharing your backgrounds your talents for the common goal of our students and um and helping our staff grow while enjoying their educational experiences here our board is diverse which I believe is the strength of our district truly and though there are different perspectives and experiences collectively you believe in doing what is Equitable and right for our students families and staff you spend hours reading through endless board packets reviewing policy in school code reading Weekly Newsletter attending school and community events attending countless hours of professional development as far as a volunteer job I say you're very committed so on behalf of the students families and staff we sincerely thank you and appreciate your work thank you thank you also uh I wanted to go back and think about Veterans Day I'm glad you mentioned something uh November 11th Saturday was Veterans Day our schools were closed on Friday Fray but each of our schools on that Thursday celebrated Veterans Day with assemblies and special events our schools were able to post pictures on their social media Pages um to share with our families um I did send out to all of you a special veteran in our district and that was William Perry he was on our alumni page um Mr Perry is uh an alumni he's currently works as an IT Help Desk Manager and Mr Perry gradu graduated from the U in 1980 so after high school he spent uh time in the armed forces where he was stationed in Germany soon after he met his wife and they now soon after that he met his wife and they now share four children and all of them have graduated through the district he's been a dedicated employee for the last 10 years so if you see him you know certainly make sure that you uh acknowledge that if any of you know uh an alumni that you would like us to recognize please give a shout out have them contact Calla Erikson uh because we're always looking for some uh alumni to uh highlight and put in our uh our little magazine so that is all I have for today okay and I will give you B Bravo teaching and learning Miss Perkins this well awaited PowerPoint oh how did I I skip over that what's that dress code sorry I just jump right over there I just so I know she's so excited she's our one presentation tonight okay dress code is important to the kids it it is what's what what is the alphabet before a that's the way she R it so dress code as you know uh our students had had come to us and you know our high school students were saying they really wanted us to reconsider and update to be a more Progressive dress code for you know the new Millennials so we did go back and we worked with the students we brought that to you you asked if uh for us to also go back and talk with the other stakeholders the administrations it's mostly the middle school and uh the high school administration to get their input um and I also talked with uh the teachers in um cmea as well shared that information got their feedback as well so this is it took a little bit more time so this is more of a compilation of it with some some compromise in the middle of it um I was not able to meet with the students today because I was in a lot of meetings but Mr holfield did meet with the uh student government uh students to share this is the rendition that we came up with so I'll go over some of the highlights you'll see lots of pretty colors in here so I'll kind of talk about what they were um the one in green is the one that we've done the most recent so the one change is that we were going to eliminate hats and hoodies and things like that um but what it came back to us is our concerned about the hoodies with the ear earbuds in the classroom they uh felt very strongly about that so was they uh cmea and administration okay um so we went back to saying no hats or headgears may be worn inside the building these items must be removed upon entering so we kind of went back to the original language um but we are allowing uh um hats or headgear for religious hygienic or medical reasons so we kind of uh got the middle ground on that um number five the only thing that we added here was this outdoor apparel we had outdoor apparel sunglasses outer vest glov scares are to be worn uh it be stored in the students Locker during the day and may not be worned or carried to class other outdoor items such as coats jackets and sweaters may be worn indoors throughout the day and this is the caveat here however only with express permission from the building Administration can you clarify that to figure out who's going to make that decision so this is what I as I talk with Middle School in particular um the Middle School basically had said sometimes the building classrooms are cold students will kind of complain that they're cold in the morning and so she uh least administration at the middle school said and there are times that they they will say yes you're allowed to go get your coats because it is cold in that that classroom for the day so that's how this is being directed in that capacity it's not so much individual so it's not so much giving the the kids the right to do that is what I think they're asking for but it's still allowing Administration to dictate that right correct with some flexibility so if students are cold um you know they can you know allow them to do that so that's kind of where the middle was on that one can you help me out with sweaters oh let me see what that is I mean like I like wearing a good sweater I even like wearing a cardigan Mo's wearing a gorgeous sweater Well w well I bet how are we defin like what do you mean by sweater yeah I think uh we talked about just the heavier like a sweater you would wear outside it's outdoor wear not so much sweaters that are other outdoor items such as coats jackets and sweaters and I I I can't even give you an example of what an outdoor sweater would look like that's what I'm wondering like Cardigans would not be considered an outdoor I mean it's an outer layer of clothing okay this seems to Outlaw Cardigans just like or like I'm not how are we defining what an outdoor does anybody what an outdoor item is yeah I mean like just just the sweater is confusing is anybody no am I I agree with I agree so what suggestions you want me to strike sweaters yeah okay so are you going to go back to the students and review review the changes well it depends how drastic we have for reviews but I meant the green areas that you added we already did okay and they're okay with all this from I talked to Mr holfield I said how do the students do with this he said they were happy okay as long as they're I mean that's the premise of them ask asking them to come giving them enough voice and like I said they they were happy just to have had a voice at the table they were glad that we were not met with them they felt happy and heard so do you want me to eliminate sweaters X that one out yeah I'm I'm fine with that else thing sweater would be yeah okay and then the rest of it oh excuse me if it becomes if there is a sweater that later becomes an issue can we go back and readdress that okay cool yeah I bet you could take a survey of our middle school and there AR a lot of Cardigans being for they got the Walmart Walmart specials they get the 995 specials occasional Taylor Swift fan who wants to see a cardigan so you never know Jamie you are so funny um I think that was really the only one that was um and then the green on the back Middle School uh Administration I think also as well as cmea in the green wanted to make sure that adequately covered their private parts they were worried about you know we took we uh were a little leaning on the the mid drift shirts but we wanted to make sure that things were covered in the back so that's why we put that on there that was the only changes and like I said Mr hollyfield indicated to me that the students felt heard and they they felt this was good so you I just have one question to myself you you struck the first paragraph in green and you had beanies or hair covering for Hair Care are acceptable as long as it is does not cover the face and the ears are open that's the lines that's struck there yeah and you kind of let me see where you put it back we use we kind of put it back with kind of hygienic because we're looking at students that are doing their hair in the day and their hair is not right they'll put the cap on sometimes at the end of the school day okay you show pass by an administrator for religious hygiene so you're using that Hy hygienist more of appearance though yes so that's okay that's okay for is that more applicable for a female it could be it could be for either could be for males too okay okay yeah okay so they would have they would have to go to their Dean or an administrator to get a pass in order to get permission to wear this that's what they've done now that's what I know the middle school I believe is doing that now to get permission for okay mhm if like I said um Middle School said that they the students for the most part abide by most of these um and they haven't had significant issues so in in one CA we heard from the high school students but not the middle school students only the Middle School adults correct okay correct and and like I had said you know a lot of this this was brought from the high school students as a student government and um so that was their voice so so then they said no hats or head gear including hoodies um I can I can kind of understand the hoodies but um I'm wondering why no hats or hair gears that just because a tradition because I I could tell you right now there's never been a time where I had a kid with hat or head gear and I looked on the camera and couldn't uh describe or recognize a kid even with a hoodie personally but I mean for the most part I can I can almost guarantee you you can go to Kady and say hey do you know this kid oh yeah that's Joe he uh with the same H so that's never I mean I'm not if they this what they want this is what they want but I'm saying unless it's just for tradition then that's one thing but to say you can't recog you can recognize it's because you get the same kids over yeah I I think generally the overall statement was about safety when kids are coming in with the hoods they can't hear and they're putting their earbuds in put and the earbuds constantly they're they're talking to the students they can't hear them even in the hallway sometimes if they're being directed they they can't hear I I can go I can see that yeah okay teachers stakeholders in this process the teachers c c c yes they're good they they yes she's nodding her head look at we all turn to look at her Mary yeah thumbs up yeah cmea was specifically concerned about the earbuds and the hoodies in the classroom so we we backed off on that one okay okay so we will um yeah that was just our update today and that is that is a course a session to attend having students having a seat at the table will we be voting on this next time yes okay cool yeah so okay um now teaching and learning the student achievement presentation must say before you even start it's a good presentation might not really like what all I see in it but it's a good presentation here's what I'm going to tell you there's glad you're giving me a hard copy to yeah it depends our our opportunities yes thank you always no such no such thing as a problem right just an opportunity to excel right I got three of them to make a couple of changes no cuz I don't have any Pockets so I'll use this mic or like my dad reminded me I haven't needed a microphone since I was about five so let's see all right uh good evening uh to our Board of Education Dr koganes students parents staff and our communities I do want to start off by saying happy education week and acknowledge our staff and our board of education for their dedication to this work I also want to personally thank um my OTL team as they do um amazing work to help us so tonight here's what you can expect you'll see a overview of the district data we'll talk about the importance of understanding where we were uh where we are now and where we are headed um our data conveys a story of recovery and opportunity for growth we'll look at some data from 2019 2022 2023 um we'll talk about those results some of those results we can celebrate and again like I said uh we have some opportunity for improvement and growth we can build on the success stories that we've heard come from our teachers and administration and then we can address those remaining challenges that we have uh will focus on sustainability our continuous Improvement efforts and our engagement in professional development and our learning communities you'll see some collective approaches from everyone in the district kind of rolling up their sleeves as we talk about the work we've done with prioritizing K12 standards reimagining our adult learning adopting new curriculum creating common assess ments for k12 and in conclusion what we hope that you walk away with is that 201u gets to tell our narrative about recovery and progress we'll talk about our commitment as we collaborate and more importantly we'll get to show you how we're working to empower each student to positively impact the world for a greater uh for a bright new future so feel like I got too much paper up here the first thing I wanted to show you is the Illinois report card so if you go to illino report card.com one of the things that we realiz is uh I was talking with Dr kogin is that people don't know how to navigate um this ISB website so we wanted to show you what it looks like in live time and so this is our district report card pulled up and I know you have the PowerPoint I'll go through that in a moment but the district snapshot shows us where we are basic general information eight schools graduation rate our student Mobility our Summit of designations you'll get more details about that momentarily our growth on I our school finances our ebf funding that Ken talks about all the time our chronic absenteeism and then our teacher retention and in this is the public domain so everyone um can access this site um administrators have a little deeper level as we can log in and get additional information the tabs here to the left again take you into the site and talk to you about um the academic progress and so it lists all of the assessments that we take in again anyone in the public domain so when your constituents are asking you how do you get to it this is how you navigate it and it talks about all the assessments that we give from the Illinois assessment of Readiness to the SAT our dlm um Science assessment it looks at our proficiency rate again you can see the graphics that the state has provided um our participation rate there are some Scatter Plots that delve really deep into the data our ninth graders on track this year um we are not uh the state is not doing our Career and Technical education but next year we will be reporting that data our graduation rate postsecondary information and enrollment again there is a plethora of tabs that anyone can um click on our Equity continuum Journey our district environment students accountability teachers administrators schools in the district and retired test so this is where anyone in the public can go and take a look and delve into those reports and if you show so choose you can build yourself a customer report card Builder and it's about 260 Pages if you want some reading so you can take that information as well all right so let's look at our data let me pull this up all right there we go all right so in this presentation we're going to talk about Summit of designation the types of data that you'll see our key findings our framework work that we use in ela and math we'll look at our ninth grade on track High School graduation our Equity Continuum how we've spent our Co funds our school Improvement efforts and monitoring and then I've included a glossery in case um someone wants to go back and look at our terms so each year based on Essa Esa uh the state is required to give out a sumita of designation that looks at various measurements um from the state and overall performance some academic and some on um student environment there are five categories going from exemplary uh down to intensive support exemplary there are 830 is school districts over 3,000 schools um in the state and so what that looks at is that the top uh 10% of schools performing at that level and the high school cannot have um they must have a graduation rate higher than 67% if a school is commendable commendable excuse me uh that means that they are not in the top 10% but they also don't have a targeted group of students in a group um that are measured at um 5% of the lowest schools again the high school graduation rate must be above 67% a targeted School means that there is a subpopulation of students that need a little additional support um and comprehensive also means that we have uh students that are part of Title One schools um and students who have um a subgroup of students who have scored at 5% um or below and and it could also mean that a school was at targeted um before we went into the prepandemic um and I know that we were classified as commendable last year for all of our schools but if they received um a targeted support this year then it put them at the comprehensive level of support and then we uh and what that means is that these schools will go through a 4-year cycle of support with the state and funding from the state for school Improvement status and funding to help the work with those targeted um students that need that additional layer of support we also have the Intensive support and again that would be a school that was comprehensive before um and then their same subgroup um was in the bottom 5% and those schools went to intensive support so our designated schools are as follows uh Boral summative designation is comprehensive CSK commendable C Elementary commendable mon Elementary targeted tala commendable the Middle School comprehensive and the high school commendable and so we'll talk about what the work at the schools look like and we'll talk about the data the weight of how the state determines this it's a very complex um calculation that they do but the biggest piece for elementary and middle school is that 50% does this have like a little circle or um this is on growth so Elementary and Middle School the state recognizes that students that tend to be um with their schools and within their District the schools can get them to grow and so they put 50% of that weight on growth um then there's also the climate survey that students take that's worth 5% chronic absenteeism is 20% of the weight our uh elll students that test out of the program they look at um their uh score 5% of Science and then uh 15% between math proficient and Ela proficiency at the high school level it says the state says again 50% this big portion here is about graduation and so schools that have less than 67% of their students graduating um that can be um uh that can put a stu uh school on that summative designation for school Improvement and again they have proficiency science chronic absenteeism and then for the high school level they have ninth grade on track is worth 8% and then that climate survey that comes in from the students so those are all weighted and the state gives us a report of how each of our students did in those categories so the types of data that are on the Illinois report card that are part of that graph are the I for CLA the SAT proficiency exam I mean for uh the high school our percentage of students who are proficient in math on the I and sat and then that growth percentile for EA Ela and math um with the elementary and middle school and then uh back this year again is the science proficiency exam uh last year they did um a percentage of for participation this now is back to proficiency these are the grade levels that students test in and our assess I runs 3 4 5 6 7 and 8 sat is grade 11 the science exam is 5 8 and 11 and then we put in our local assessment this is not part of the state assessment but we wanted you to see kind of where our students are fearing on our local assessment that we give which is the nwaa map what does that acronym stand for oh thank you Mr Brown I knew I had that in my back I I gotta look no worries no worries you can move on just no worries it's the Northwest on Association evaluation hold on no don't worries we can get back to that I I will I will get I will have that for you I I guarantee you it's in the in the glossery there okay all right so let's look at where our um students currently are for ELA this is all of our students for uh Ela are at 24% and the state is at 29% preco we were at 35% and the state was at 38% so we've had a drop preco um going postco for 11% and the state is at 9% that's pretty consistent though yes that's the Delta is pretty much equalized there so roughly it's not too bad now this chart which is also on that report card tells you um by grade level where our students fail with Ela and proficiency third grade now what the state has said is that this is like Baseline like we we start over like I know I I've said that before like every year the test is changing something different happens but the state is saying this is where you set your Baseline um and then let's see where your scores go from this year and moving forward um and so again our third fourth and fifth graders um these are their respective percentages um at 16 19 and 21 um and if we can remember our um our fifth graders preco would have been first graders all right if we look at our performance for our middle school students again the graph to the far left there really um is what's on the state report card the green level shows uh students that meet and exceed and then um other groups are approach partially met or did not meet and parents get a really um nice detailed report and they'll get that at parent teacher conferences coming up next week this shows exactly where their students are and again the respective numbers for 6th 7th and eth grade at 22 24 and 28 all right so you know I saw I heard you Mr Brown when you said you weren't always so pleased with all of the scores but I'm going to tell you this is one that we can celebrate right because there there are opportunities for growth but there there's opportunities for us to also celebrate so our all C category in ela for growth we want to be at at least 50% and we are above the state at that growth category for all on that left-and side and again in most of our subgroups um we are above the state percentage with growth and we get 50% of that weighted indicator um gives us um that summative designation so again there's opportunity ities for us to grow with this data but it shows that we're on Trend and doing better um than uh the state all right so I'm going to switch just for a minute so we can talk about our local um assessment and it's the Northwest evaluation Association measurement of academic performance there you go can you say that again yes and and it's it's it's it's in our glossery also so map is a computer adaptive test meaning that when um students need more challenging questions it gives them the rigor of their challenge when students need more support it gives the struggling students um more support but in the end the best part about a math assessment is that it has local Norms that it it looks at us it can look at us in two ways it can look at us um with our students from their peers in District and then it can look at nationally what students are doing Across the Nation um and for our map Ela data you can see that this blue here means that we're on Trend with the national Norms again this is a entry level assessment for us this fall this is the um assessment that we talk about students growing blue and students growing green and what we use for our evaluation for our teachers and our staff and so what you can see is that the orange um signifies where students are nationally low the RIT score is the number that you see here which talks about like we're on track right in the middle with the national Norm again an entry-level exam when we report in January we could talk about how students Grew From This entry level exam um and then the National High we haven't reached that status but it shows you across um the national performance norms and that's our K through five here is our Middle School respectfully again that blue area shows that we're right on Trend with the national Norms in ela for six s and8 uh here we are again for high school again with just a little bit of a dip and we've got some standard deviation um for TW 12th grade um we're we're on track and what we discovered about 12th grade is that a lot of our students um 25% of our students did not participate in the test because they were at Prairie State or out of school and so um we're working with the high school and we'll we'll come up with the plan to capture more students so if I read the numbers right on on the 12th grade 12 we would be Bel in the National Low yeah we we be we would be Falling Towards the low okay so here's our key findings from um Ela growth accounts for 50% at Elementary and high school creep m 201u is not any different than a lot of districts surrounding us I've kind of taken a look at some of there data that um and in TR with the state that we have not reached our preco levels yet um we are above the state for our all category um we know that we have some growth to do with our children with disabilities um we do know that we're closing the Gap with um our marginalized um student groups and that again on that local assessment 12 of our 133 grade levels are within that National performance of norms on that map assessment all right sat here is where our students are performing against the state these are 11th graders in 2023 and so what I will say is there's some work for us to do there's some digging and some diving and some work um that we're working with the high school um some data uh searches that we're doing and trying to see um where we can and how we can improve uh these scores strategically in a very strategic way here we are key findings um which is not included here that you didn't see last year's scores but we did increase by 3% where the state increased by 2% our Hispanic um students are achieving 4% higher than in 2019 um our female students are equal to the state average and again the achievement Gap with our SAT scores with our children with disability that Gap is 10% where the state average is 29% so again we've got some wins but we also have some opportunities um to grow as we analyze that data and work towards continuous Improvement and look at um what barriers are keeping um our students from achieving there talk a little bit you you mentioned like achievement gaps and I hear anything about African-American students or African-American male students I me I can look on here and tell you what I see but I didn't hear you mention that in the um I can go in and see particularly how our African-American male students are doing but even with our SAT um if you take a look at our African-American students I mean we're 1% above the state um but I can dig in deeper and and tell you exactly what that number is if you'd like me to include that in the FYI I can do that yeah um can you please not just the uh I want to see African-American overall and African-American males and the reason being is because of the such such a big gap traditionally yes and I want to see are we closing that Gap are we working our way up in that Gap um yeah we're 1% over the state but that's like well I can't say that but um it that's not like real exciting to to see the word that could just be a mistake here or there on the couple you know or not so yeah I can I will pull um and myself and my team will pull an extensive report and show you exactly what that looks like thank you um let's see oh our our framework so that you know what's going on in the classroom and the work that the teachers are doing um the work that our coaches are doing like the work that our leadership teams and building leaders are doing um this year um I'm I'm sorry uh over the last couple years I'll show you a timeline of how all of this work fits in there we expanded our K1 to K2 um for our step assessment and that gives um foundational skills at those early levels and looks at strengths and challenges again this gives teachers an opportunity to take a look at that assessment and see exactly what that student needs um we took a look at our inter reading K5 we implemented that I believe in 2021 um and it takes a look at a very comprehensive reading program that we had not had in quite some time we adopted a foundations program which has um evidencebased for foundational skills in getting um students to read again these are all of the platforms and curriculum pieces that are being used and are fairly new to us within the last um four years we prioritize our standards again a beauty of being in a uh unit district is that we do get to see our kids grow from 3K to 12 and so we were able to take a look at standards prioritize and say there are hundreds of Standards but this is what our kids need to know in this grade and the the grade level before them knows and the grade level after them knows and these are teachers that came to the table to do this work we developed common um formative assessments so that everyone is getting the same test and teachers can analyze and see and use evidence-based analysis to see um how students are scoring and what we can do to improve our instruction we reimagine our instructional coaching um we had coaches and we put our coaches in front of adults to help change change um those practices and help develop uh those practices um especially with our first year teachers uh we had 48 uh teachers that completed cycles and are currently completing Cycles in um Ela we reinstituted our curriculum committees uh the high school is currently revising their units of instruction um and also they are up and running with their cfas meaning their common formative Assessments in science and technology in reading and history and social um Sciences this year we also um for the first time probably in about 10 years implemented a kindergarten screening program so that we can identify um students that are at risk and we can support them better um as kindergarteners all right math all right so here we are with our math scores 2023 in the spring our students tested for I at 11% and then um preo we were at 27% so that again is a drop of 16% um but it also matches what the state did so state is at 16 % and preco they were at um 32% again our opportunity for recovery growth and to study um what has occurred so that we can better support our students in math um and we have some exciting things and new initiatives going on to help support that work state report card on the left is what it looks like and these are our scores respectively for um third fourth and fifth grade at their performance levels grades six seven and eight at their math for I now here's our growth data on I the one of the slides that I have is not correct sometimes when you're running your reports like right before um November the dat data changes so this data is a little skewed so I will make sure that I I update these numbers um the bottom line here is that we are not performing at the 50 percentile where we want to see ourselves um neither is the state but this is our opportunity for growth um and it has been for a while and we are taking this Challenge on with a lot of the work that we're doing um in our classrooms I'm going to skip this because I believe um the data may be a little skewed here so I don't want to report this I will make sure that this is updated when it goes on the website right let's take a look at our map data for map again this is our local assessment so it shows again in the blue area that National Norms this is where we're trending for our entry level assessment and so when we report again in um January we'll report on what our growth looks like of where our students landed now and where our students will be ahead of this and part of that is students set goals and teachers work with them um and talk about their their growth patterns here and so this is K5 this is our uh Middle School 67 and eight and then we're within range um for all levels here at the high school level soel on those slides those bar charts are there ranges for the National High and National Low and the kind of where the middle is or are those just data points that you kind of array in this bar chart they're the ranges the scores can go anywhere from from 100 to 300 so um you know and you could be a ninth grader that scores of 140 and so that tells us again we get personalized learning continuums for each student that tells us what skills they need how um they're we're going to be better able to support that student okay sat man again opport opportunity for recovery progress and growth um we knew um that math was going to be one of the things that we were going to have to really um spend some time and um do some needs assessment to to support our students um we had a decrease in our math proficiency the State lost 9% um we do have some achievement gaps Dr Hall as you were talking about um we do have some closing of some gaps with our black and white students um our Hispanic and white students our Black and Hispanic students versus the state and our students with IEPs versus non so I can give you the breakdown of exactly what that uh achievement Gap looks like I got a question uh what is the sample of population you are using comparing africanamerican to Caucasian because the numbers of African American students outweigh Caucasians by I don't know if it's 2 to one 3 to one so how do you compare those to and come up with a number a finite number there so this comes from our um state that does the the the and college board that does the complex you see what I'm saying you could have 100 black students and one white student if if I say it like that and the Gap can be he can this person could be a a student and all of the other 100 students on this side could be a c student and how could you compare those 100 kids to to one kid so the demographics in the school is again it's maybe two to one 3:1 2 to one it's a big number it's a big big gap so how do they come up with that percentage so it is based on their scoring and not their grades so it's gra it's based on even given that given that the score so that's I guess that's irrelevant it's a number yes yeah but the sample of population is is not in it's not equalized so to speak that they compare them with their like peers um I don't think I'm understanding are you kind of comparing average from one cohort to the average the other cohort yeah it's got to be almost the same amount of students you know you're comparing it to to come up with with a percentage there you almost got to you know where are you looking for or are they looking in assessing individual students and the percentage of their one individual where the individual scores lie on a percentage Yeah I mean that's a loaded question but I was just right now try and pull up the I don't want any student information pop up with my login information so sorry that was a loaded question I just thought I meant that to stay inside here okay and it came out it's okay I will get you an answer in the FYI all right all right again let's talk about the work that is happening um down to the classrooms that um we purchased a platform that allows all K5 teachers to do math screeners again to give them the diagnostic exam of where a student is and exactly what that student needs um we adopted a new math series um we had had two separate math Series in um K5 previously and so it was two different platforms now all of our K5 students are in one um curriculum piece and again we expect to see uh those Trends Rise um we have a platform again success maker that looks at individual students and gives them the individual support that they need um that common formative assessment um and I know that that's those are a lot of like assessment words that are being used but it's best practices um when we're looking at the same students taking the same same test answering the same type of questions um and then we can delve down into what skills they have and what those students individually need so it's that kind of personalized learning that we're looking at when we look at our instructional coaches um I believe we have about I might be off by a little bit like 18 across the district they're supporting 49 teachers K12 in math in a math coaching cycle and I'm supporting their their instructional practices um our Middle School um is prioritizing their standards again looking at their assessment practices they have something Innovative tomorrow uh going on like math day half day where all of the staff is teaching math no matter what their content area is again um with an urgency that we need to um have some better performance from our students in math and support them with those instructional strategies uh we are realigning our units at the high school again prioritizing those math standards and once again that kindergarten screener uh that we um use this summer uh to support uh our incoming kindergarten students Illinois Science assessment a lot of data all right so again science is now part of the accountability it used to be um postco uh just participation rate this is what you'll see when you go to the report card on the left and then this number is um trending up we're in the blue uh for 2023 we're at 35% and the state is at 52% and once again we are um putting some resources uh into science ninth grade on track uh an area where we can uh celebrate this looks at are our ninth graders on track to graduate from high school and as you can see um we are above the state again a reason to celebrate in all of our categories um with the exception we have a very small population of some of our sub subgroups um but we are above the state in in making sure that our ninth grade is on track to graduate uh which goes into our next slide which is our graduation rate um in four years again another reason to celebrate is that 92% of our students graduate um in our all category um as opposed to 87% at the state and again each of those levels um our students are outperforming the state meaning that our students graduate and graduate on time and just just to add to that and and Ken did K oh he's trying to hide behind Dr Hall uh I know evidence base has a lot to do with uh Finance for us and I think you alluded to it the last time you talked about Finance uh presentation you had up there and I I believe it's the same saying for every 1% of students that graduate we end up with $250,000 I think that's how it used to be I don't know if sure okay for every 1% that's dealing with the attendance you know they count that as attendance so every 1% so we go from 92 to 93 that's equates to $250,000 going to the district for revenues and used to be that like that for a long time so you say 92% and for a long time we was trending around 93 close to 94 so yeah I even like to see that number go up yeah especially from that Financial component and you can validate that Ken okay see if that Mr shmer will put that in his you didn't think you had anything to do with this present huh um all right so that's where our graduation R rates are and again we've always you're right Mr Brown we have always trended up um in this and we know that there are some factors that have yeah led into this and we're just this is about our recovery sure yeah even though we way above I think you indicated earlier 67% yes below that you know but we in a 90% now which is excellent but again there's a lot of districts out there that's hovering around 99% graduation rate but this is good I mean this is good this is really 92 93% is really good and again those um School Improvement plans that you guys approved like there is a team at every building of 10 yes teachers and staff members and the building principles and leaders working on um our figures and data like this and pulling that data apart and seeing like what actionable plans that team is going to work on and focus on very very commendable and principles are not carrying that weight by themselves they're using their team to help support that work excellent our Equity Journey a few years ago um I want to say 21 20 no 2019 is when the state we had already started our Equity Continuum and journey in the district um and then the state came up with the metrics um which they um ask schools to to look at uh those data elements and as you can see we haven't moved to this fourth category that says we have minimal gra gaps so again there's work to do and this is part of what goes into school Improvement plan what goes into the equity plan um and then again looking at that data it looks at student learning learning conditions and elev ating our Educators and we will try to again move that needle to we have the most minimal gaps that we can possibly have with our Equity Journey MH so one of the things that we know about effective school districts is that it is about building um Collective capacity and so we looked at this from the lens uh five Essentials that we have a focus and a clear Direction um prior to 2019 I don't know I've been in the District 20 years I know we've seen strategic plans come and go but this um for me was the first time in a long time that we had a living breathing strategic plan document that principles talked about it that it was always brought up that we were always looking at those measurements and um measures and so that's kind of the start of this work and I know we're going to be closing that out in December um and rebuilding a new one but again again having Focus using our data creating cultures developing our capacity with leaders involving our community and using our resources appropriately are everything that a district should be doing and we have that in place excellent as fonds we have to include this they run out in September of 24th don't know um what the government is going to do but we have to talk about how we have spent those funds in supporting students so we had our GSU teacher um intern program where uh GSU students partnered with us we have to date I believe we've hired seven of those individuals and we have four or five going into their student teaching this December and we look to again continue to build our capacity and hire those um teachers we've looked at how we we can sustain staff um that we hired with those erer funds we spent a lot of money in our summer programs our high impact after school tutoring where t uh students were seen by teachers um anywhere from a ratio from one to three we did some facility improvements to help the environment for our staff and our students technology access and upgrades from hotspots to new line panels in um all class classrooms and we're finishing out that last phase uh we purchased some digital learning platforms that got us through the pandemic um and then we're assessing which ones of those that we need to keep um and then we were able to give um staff teachers a little um money with streaming and then some summer incentives um because we realized it takes a lot to um teach after having um such um the the barriers that they were facing coming out of the pandemic and so we we did spend some money on um trying to provide summer incentives for staff next steps so we're completing um adopting program aligning our curriculum making a progression that everybody knows what to expect no matter what grade level they teach we've put a lot of resources and money in professional development from differenti instruction from looking at our multi uh multiple tiers of support looking at Equity supporting our elll students empowering our school leaders and giving coaching and then that school Improvement plan and coaching um to support our building leaders um with that work as they work with their teams um we do realize that our children with disabilities that we've got some work to do and um based on an audit of some curriculum and some instructional uh pieces that we need to tackle how will we monitor it we've got professional development happening all the times we have two times a month one day a month belongs to the district where we bring in individuals and then one day belongs to the building where the building can have the support and put um what they need in place we'll monitor the program um the progression and the goals that adult learning piece I cannot tell you um how excited we are to put adults in front of in front of other adults to help them with their practice and to have a critical friend um that they can trust and collaborate with we've got walkthroughs happening we've got external partners coming in to help support us we've got our District staff out in buildings we've got buildings going to buildings we got peers going to each other's classroom to learn from one another we have uh consistently have data meetings and data training um as well as our surveys that we get from student staff and the community I will not read all of this to you on slide number 50 but I will save it um in case you want to look and see like what the timeline has been this is a lot of work that's gone in since 2019 2020 and so um why we don't get to celebrate all parts of this work know that it's in progression and it's a lot of work that is taking place um with your teams again that glossery of terms all right questions that was a lot of information very good presentation thank you very comprehensive very good um going back to the summative designations we have the two comprehensive um as I recall I think it was the groups that were under performing were IEP is that yes for those two so then targeted is new right so what's the group that's underperforming there children with disabilities oh okay so it it's our students with um IEPs and again um working with special education department and um with those building leaders to see again doing deep dives into data now we're going to support all students um we're going to come up with some innovative ways and look at some curriculum and things that we had not looked at previously so as long as I've been on the board it seems like the way we test students changes every year and and so we're comparing apples to oranges all the time now with this now with this map data and it seemed like in your slides 2023 3 being kind of a baseline year is is that for the 2223 school year or the 23 24 23 24 okay so we would there's nothing more than I can tell you your staff wants than for them to give us some consistency on so that we can measure students from and compare apples to apples um and so we hope with what the reports and the uh webinars and meetings that we sit in um that we can have some constant something constant and consistent okay so I mean what I'd like to see is us use the 23 24 as our Baseline yes that kind of fits into going into our strategic plan starting next year and and really start start to see the ramp up from there mean you know we've got to see progress yes so um you know we see some growth in some of those numbers but for the most part they're disappointing I think you know so um anyway in what I'm trying I mean we talked about this last year but with Co is that something that's just is to use a bad analogy is the Python swallow and the Pig I mean is that just going to be with us each year I mean is it going to follow through for those children all the way through or is where you know what's our prospects that catch up you know I can tell you that I I've read had um lots of research reports and we know that it's it's not just us right um we know that this was a national worldwide Global crisis and it has impacted everyone and no one is looking for an excuse but like you said we're looking to move forward so if we can stop changing the target um and then again being able to put those resources where we needed to that we'll begin to see that progress but if we think about kind of what I said earlier those fifth graders now that missed those math foundational skills they went out in March when they were first graders then it looked very different and depending on your District you know we were in hybrid for a long time and and we had different um our parents had different our families had different feelings about sending their their kids to school because of the risk factor factors that were there so I think that yes we will begin to see it um I I would really have to look at the latest reports that I've read um to say you know Nationwide when they expect for us to see that go away but I can tell you you know the dedication of the staff that has not given up the resiliency of the kids like all of that plays a huge factor in this work no I understand and and I think that's by using the 23 24 data as your Baseline we've got Co well behind us you've got all the standards across the district now instructional standards you know so there shouldn't be any excuses going forward correct that's all I have other questions it is a lot so if there is you know something else that you would like me to include in the FYI let Dr Cara know she'll let me know and I'll I'll whip you up um a report from that 260 page document no we don't want that that many okay I I do have a few questions any other board members like to chime in before I okay well the ACT is not part of our assessment anymore right correct okay so we do the SAT and we can expect we can expect our kids that's not doing well in the classrooms on certain subject math I'll just say math we don't we don't expect them to do well on on the SAT if they're not doing well in the classroom right we can that's almost a given it's almost a given it's not always true though I said some people don't I know I know you got you know I know that's more that I I can almost you know you got bad uh gas is doing well in the classrooms and cannot do well on the test and vice versa MH okay but for the most part for the most part I is that a true statement though for the most part if they're not doing well I mean we have we have such at least p uh historical data we have had kids are algebra one class uh those who's passing that class or doing above average in that class is lower than those that's doing good I it's just the percentage of low Achievers in algebra is pretty low coming out of eighth grade or coming out of freshman is that a fair statement well I would have to that's that's what that's what has been shown to us in the past when we had the grade levels when we had the grades of the students when we had I don't know if you brought it to us but your predecessor brought us and get and gave us a update of how the kids were doing in the algebra one and all all the subjects I just to clar because I don't think I'm understanding your question so just so I understand it correctly are you asking if there's a correlation in poor classroom achievement and test scores is that what you're asking yeah okay all right I just wanted to make sure I understood the question sure thank you and I can say it is a coralation and to a certain to to a certain extent okay I'm not say it's given cuz I think my son he did terrible in the classroom but he did really well on assessments well and I would say to be the Dipper like you probably have some students that score very well on the test and may not be engaged in the classroom so without doing like a study of that I I would not make that blanket statement without having some numbers and some data behind Okay let let me narrow the scope here just for one statement here let me scope is geometry given on the SAT are there geometry questions yes yes do do all students that take the SAT take geometry get to that point to take geometry so one of the things that we've done so this year at the middle school I think previous years we had had one grade of Algebra 1 and um one grade level of geometry of giving students those credits going into the high school this year we now have two algebra and Mary you can help me if I'm wrong two algebra uh courses that are I think fairly full with um algebra students and then we have them take in Geometry we also change the order in which we give geometry at the high schools so that students again realizing that there was a problem that we needed to fix and now that that course is offered earlier so that they can have um geometry to help them with the SAT because there was that Gap that um the high school team said these kids are not getting the geometry before the SAT okay so I'll just make a general statement on that let's do all we could to prepare our kids to to take the next necessary subjects and be as proficient as possible prior to taking the assessment test okay I'll leave it at that so the next the next uh statement I would like to make I know Dr kogan is looking to come up with some high some key performance indicators okay and relative to education Finance or whatever some some big some big guns I say I would like to say as far as how the district is doing overall in this area this area this area and easy to the ey so I think a lot of the information and you said how hard it was to navigate through the state assessment and the report card and all of that a lot of the assess the information that you shared the informative data that you shared could be used in my opinion in some way kind of shrink the scope to be a performance performance indicator in the education for yes that's you know that's something as she align it with the uh strategies and strategic plan that you guys are working on over the next month or so so I really give you kudos for that but look at that to take an opportunity so if you know get these performance indicators solidify easy for the public to look at and say this is kind of where we are this is our goal this is where we trying to get to and Bam we got information so with that said and last the last thing which I really commend you on really putting a lot of emphasis on the prek the prek ELC how uh is the third year the third grade the three year olds uh classes is that full to capacity um I have to check our our last entity count I will tell you that we've had more students um enrolled in ELC than we had have in the last I believe eight years um I don't I believe our C capacity might be 240 and we might be around 220 but I can tell you that um Miss Chester and her team either recently or pretty soon are doing another round of screening to get students in so yes we're building that capacity we also received um Grant funds to open up another classroom and so I believe and Dr M can help me if we hired a teacher for that classroom already I believe we Kelly was in the last stages of of opening up that last classroom so we will be pretty full at that capacity we're going to get a tremendous bank for our buck yes putting a lot of energy in the preate and and Kate so we get we take a you do you did say we take an assessment in K right yes okay we take an assessment that and Mr Brown that's the assessment committee that you're going to help us can wait I just cannot wait that's the one oh when I saw that you was looking for volunteers I hopped on that fast so yeah looking forward to that and the U the opportunity still exists that we do kind of partnership and get the word out with those are who are younger than 3 years old with Governor State yes so I don't know if we still having some dialogue we said we had a partnership with them in some manner because you know and and I I feel for the teachers too you know the teachers can only do so much the parent engagements engagement is paramont it's it's that simple but it's it's tough so I don't know what we can do but I saw the community surveys that you got in here so we can only do so much and we need to you know support the teachers best we could because you know it's it's tough when they getting these kids and they already com in with with challenges and now it's just going up the ladder and up the ladder so I just saw the bar charts and how things were very cyclic you know and I thought the kids which how how many kids do we have coming out of the six grade or fifth grade of CSK maybe 50 kids 50 60 kids we would have two classrooms there so the most would be 50 okay about 50 kids now they go into our middle school but I saw the middle school goes down I would think that would kind of come in there you know that's a high performing school right there but it seemed like our Middle School is having some challenges so but it nonetheless thank you appreciate it good job good uh I'm not happy like say I'm not happy with all the data but you know what we can only hope for Progress okay and and I do want to mention that uh Dr uh koganes did uh come to the team and said that you want the success criteria and the the profile of a graduate what that looks like coming out of our district and to grow that from um a prek student what that profile looks like all the way through high school so that is something um that the team is working on yeah we need to have a gauge and monitor and see how progress is made so thank you appreciate it thank you all righty all righty next up is consent yeah it's going that's going to take a chunk out of this uh consent agenda approve approval first of all do we have anyone that would like to take out and vote on something separately for the consent agenda if not I would like a motion to approve the consent agenda as is so moved second second by Alex any conversation or you going to read first all right your reading here we go uh under superintendent item one approve regular meeting minutes of October 17 2023 item two approv Committee of the whole meeting minutes of October 10 2023 item three approve Committee of the whole meeting close session minutes of October 10th 2023 and then under Personnel approve changes to job descriptions under business item one approve Board of Education financial report item two approve a payment of 41,7 1250 to RL Soho for work completed at Creed Elementary item three is to approve a payment of 74100 , 7932 to CCC holding Inc for work completed at cre money High School item four appr approve a payment of $17,995 26 to RL Soho for work at CSK item five approve a payment of 40,200 uh 25679 to ARL soill for uh work completed at tala item six approve a payment of 195,00 57 um50 to ourl soul for were completed at B moral and that concludes consent okay thank you any further discussion comments the the only question I have can the high school edition where is the Target completion date the same since we have the power there now right substantial completion is set for December 1st uh uh we they are right now now uh they're beginning to lay all the flooring so we're in good shape uh we've already started the process of scheduling out the move over there um we're meeting actually at the facility on Monday with the Mec staff for a couple hours to give them a tour we've got everything laid out and everything so our plan is to have the move completed by the 21st of December and we will open up for January 8th so the condition good for the flooring it was they brought it up well the only the only the flooring that's being done now is in the offices and hallways and that the only flooring that will not be done is the gymnasium um so the gymnasium gymnasium is the only piece that will not be ready uh for the opening of school but we can get substantial completion without that um that floor will probably not be installed it'll be completed probably Fe mid-February February 15th is what we're targeting right now is that because of the conditions that's because of the condition have to condition the wood before they put it down it has to be conditioned I think four to six weeks before they can start installing it so so the other four payoffs for the 2023 is there are we getting close to we are we' already we're doing all the punchless stuff right now and so I would say by by next month we should be we should be pretty much wrapped up with that I I don't know Jason you might help me out this I think there are a couple chillers that still need testing and balancing though am I am I right on that yeah in the spring right they came in after September I think right so they still got to be so they'll still have to be tested so we'll probably hold back a little bit of money until those are tested in the spring till we turn on the system and that but everything else is pretty well set okay so in the future if you come up in here for the final payment that includes the retention can you let us know that that's I let when we do a final payment it'll say final payment so you know that yes thanks okay any other questions comments if not Madam Secretary roll call please okay Mr swes I MERS I Mr gagos I Mr Al I I Dr Hall I president I motion carries and pass all right Action Report Alpha number one 8 Alpha number one on approve a resolution authorizing submission of an application for the property tax relief pool fund have a motion to approve alpha 1 item 8 moved okay second okay any dialogue on that Ken or anybody else do we need to explain that further everybody know what that so we're going to submit the application although we think it's unlikely that we're going to get exactly yes kind of going through we'll submit the application anyway okay don't hurt okay any other further comments if not roll call please madam secretary when you ready Mr alook I Mr gagos i m rson i Mr swales I miss s dumur i Dr Hall I president Brown I motion pass next item up for approval is number eight Alpha number two approve a contract with the Apex 3 system for $778,000 60 I think I'm pronouncing this right for the Evolve Express systems for cre mon High School have a motion to approve that some moved second by Alex second by Dr Hall any comments on concerns or can did you want it to elaborate more on that item uh again we we talked about this um the committee of the whole meeting so this is a it's actually a four-year contract that it would be the initial payment the annual payment is is approximately 195 to $997,000 a year we would pay with that for that um with the additional property tax money would have come in under new construction uh that's about $600,000 a year that we haven't had budgeted so that would be the goal our uh goal on this to have the system operational um by right after spring break if we can do it earlier we will try and do that um I just can't guarantee that and but uh that's our Target right now just for clarification in case folks don't know that the Evolve Express system what it is it's the metal detector system that we've been discussing for an extended period of time okay cool I just wanted because you know that's a fancy name and if you don't know it's the metal detector system let's and it's a it's a different system than a basic metal detector like you have corre like airports yeah you know and that so it's it's a much more efficient system that and tech technology advanced system also yeah we don't expect long lines or anything like that that would hinder learning and no okay so it could not come to the board at a greater time all right any other questions or comments on this from the board hearing n Madam Secretary roll call please right Miss site stumber I Mr swales I Mr RS and I Mr gagos I Mr alre I Dr Hall I president Brown I motion pass thank you have any old business out there the only question I had to to jump on what Miss rup had brought up at the last meeting is that all the new students that are coming in are they um going through so if you come in I think to kindergarten you come in to sixth grade fifth or sixth grade and then High School you got to have shots immunizations if you do a sport you got to have a do a sports physical is that happening if they're participating in anything um I'm not sure that they are participating in anything but if they're if they come to school I think before when you're a certain grade level don't you have to have uh certain things done oration for um Mr Ser has been doing some research so us to prepare for the next board meeting but just to kind of give you some preliminary um uh they are required to have vaccinations but there is no due date so now so so that's no yeah so M SW so here what occurs is that the the immigrants as they come in are classified as mckin vento students as mckin vento students um you have to enroll them immediately without barrier and what that means is that they do not have to have immunizations what it does state in the research that we found states that uh they ask the students to get those as soon as possible but there is no deadline to that all right so so if they if they elect and they want to participate in something are they required to get a sports physical like any any other student has to participate I would I don't know the answer to that but I'm assuming yes that they would have to do because that's extracurricular okay so they would they would have to get a physical for that now in the same light and I don't want to take a lot of time we're going to talk about this next meeting because do a whole bunch of research on this but when they come to us and they don't have immunizations then we're finding resources for them to send them to get the immunizations and so if they don't they don't have their shots or or they need assistance we're partnering up uh with Hector ruio who is our family on and Karina pada who's our registar and they' be able to refer them to someone to get those things so there there's a partnership that is taking place there uh but the research that we have found there is no deadline to that okay okay we have more to follow okay okay any other old business business can you sure you don't have anything for us anything else am I supposed to no oh would you like him to okay so Mr serman maybe we just uh give an update okay there something happen we asking there something happened that I didn't know about what just just an update on the stadium and and that is that what you're asking me for where we're at with everything yeah could follow okay yeah all right please if it's just you know keep it simple I will I will try and do that um so so where we're at I I guess if I could say we're kind of in a holding pattern right now all right and what that means is the fact that we cannot do anything from a financial standpoint for the stadium until um we get the res resources to build a stadium to get the resources we have to sell um alternate revenue bonds in order to sell alternate revenue bonds you need another source of Revenue that source of Revenue is the Tiff money that is rolling off from up so we've talked to the Village over there they have paused that they're not going to terminate the Tiff for a variety of reasons uh that we we actually agree with we understand that there are financial reasons from their part but we are going to begin having conversations with them to pass a resolution hopefully in May to say that the U Tiff will be dissolved at the end of next calendar year which would then put it on the rules once that resolutions is passed we can then Begin work on planning out uh the selling of alternate revenue bonds in the fall and we can begin construction then after the football season for opening in August of 29 or 25 29 Lord 25 of a new stadium which is still the plan that we had okay we do have a minary design we've already have a preliminary design on that I have not taken that any farther and going into specific programming now Mr Ki has seen that um you know and that and has looked at that but we haven't gone into detail of that because I don't want to get other parties and and begin putting expenses out for that until such a time that we get a commitment that right okay so real quick so to clarify they are closing the Tiff on time we're just they're just not doing it early correct Dr Hall was working with the mayor to do it early because when you had said that you had mentioned that they're not uh you know going to close they are they're just going to stay on schedule at the same time the Tiff five from up rolls off Mo has Tiff three yes which will bring another million in eav to the district yes so those two tiffs will be 5 million I think it's five it's 48 or 4.9 about 4.7 and then a million so and a million from mon on the eav for that can I just take a step back yes that number you mentioned 4.5 or whatever was that predicated on that one business not being not being evaded any money no that that has nothing to do with it that's a separate entity seate entity and that only from Moy only happened if that business decided to come into not University Park oh think about that think of that right so that that abatement is is not going to take place that's my case in point if it's not taken place at all now that's part of the amount of money that we will get that should increase no it's still at 4.7 million I that has not taken into account the abatement at all it's still 4.7 million if we did a okay so what I'm saying is that business was carved out of TI five basically right because we were abating money back to potentially looking to Abate money back but now if the Tiff is going to go as for length 23 years to expire in November now this business is not part of the conversation for batement right well that we were not we were not going to Abate any of the 4.7 million what we were going to Abate was a portion about 60% of the eav on the new construction that they were doing okay so that has not already been no but we we haven't agreed to anything the board has pass anything or anything like that so okay we're not touching that 4.7 so we still right it yes we're still right there and the number you're using for the eav is 73 74 75 million 79 million and the township is using 90 so there's a big big disconnect yeah I I don't know CU it's been 75 for the longest though so maybe that number again if if I were to balloon the levy you know with that we would probably go 990 to 100 million okay if I were to balloon The Levy right now you know so okay that would be make sure make sure and one last thing on that you put two numbers up last was that last week about the new construction a new new eav came in last year 7 million this year 7 million you weren't sure about the other this year is 11 million 11 million do you know where that last year we said carvana was for one year look at just bring that I'll look find out yeah cuz that's a big that's a big number like where did that come from okay thanks Ken for your short version sure appreciate it and that was under new business any other new business and I I just would like to add that you know I believe in again the stance that we take as a district with that you I'm all about the you now you know I had my issues in the past but I am really strong on unifying the district best I could and I reached out to our CMA president Mary brags and just to meet with her on some form of paracity frequency meeting with her and Dr kogan just to you know very informal just to talk you know how things going shake hands have a cup of coffee so on and so forth and I was just thinking that not only her I was wanted to reach out to AC me president as well and in doing so because I've heard some things you know from this group and that group coming to me wanted to share some challenges they had I said let's you know let's keep the ball rolling with conversations so I'm looking to do that and I would like a board member any one of you in any given time to sit down with me with them when I do have these meetings okay so I'm just thring it out and the last thing is I'm reaching out to my colleagues here I'm taking days off just to meet with you on a personal level the week after Thanksgiving so if anyone any one of you want me to buy you breakfast lunch or dinner dinner what's what's the what's the limit is he hey Country Buffet and just spill your beans let me know you know how you feel things is going talk about the Cubs the socks but not the Bears and anything okay just reach out send me a send me an email that's with every one of you here on the board reaching out just hey Mo you you're doing a terrible job or Mo you know we can do this better and all of that I'm I'm open for just to have a a a crucial conversation with each and every one of you okay and if it doesn't work down for breast okay you got it you got it you got it okay I don't mind you know I can talk to you forever nelsie so but uh if it doesn't work for you that week the week after the holiday uh any any day say free it's free it's free okay okay so I'm reaching out now don't say more than reach out okay that's it we have no reason going to close session and can I have a motion to adjourn all in one vot vote so moved second second and all in one vote by saying I any Nays we are adjourned thank you public for joining us have a great holiday with you and your family and I thank everyone for participating

10.8 million almost 10.9 million there um is really part of that carry forward number because those are Services we're currently providing to students is that I don't know if that's an accurate characterization but I just want to make sure I'm I'm understanding that I understand why it's below because it is it's new to the general fund as opposed to being grant money um but because we're providing those Services already I'm thinking it it may it may fit better and being categorized differently you know we had that exact same conversation ourselves um late today as we were putting it together and and looked at this chart and said you know that that really is uh current programs and services so um and I was asked why why didn't I show it that way why did I show it as a a kind of a different driver um and I'm not sure I had a good answer for that so it's a excellent observation I think okay thank you John I just wanted to make sure I understood that correctly appreciate I'm sorry K I apologize I'm done thank you uh $10 million uh one small way to chip away that is like the plus s million we're getting from the state 2425 so a little bit of help but and not so it doesn't look quite as bad as an additional 10 million when we have a chip the state's going to chip at another seven but I understand our our needs I do thank you Mr Walston no thank you Mr R thank you um and and Kate just circling back to the uh the reserves question I think we have up to $5 million John and it might be a little less might be a little more that's available for us to requests um by still maintaining enough in the reserves um for for insurance purposes U but I'm not positive what that Max number is uh you know that's correct and in fact one of the calculations uh we did for the ad hoc committee and the Director of Finance showed uh how much would still be undesignated uh after the draw down and it was um more than a million dollars as I recall so could be closer to two if we were to get the res the three point reserve it would still be another million point2 or something right John I'm not an accountant but yeah not by any means you you do pretty good for one that's not uh but our bond rating not that it has any impact at what we need okay but our bond rating is is better I mean there's what there's another major city south south of us at Route 34 has a B minus credit rating and we we are what double a uh and part of that criteria is that you leave some money in your reserve funds um again it has nothing to do with what our needs and I understand that but you know just that was crossing my mind is I'm saying well that's why we need to leave a few dollars in that you're exactly right they they do emphasize that that's correct right but Mi but Mr Russo also the the Surplus is more than we have had previous years um and that only is there at least from the the district's side uh from left over Surplus monies from the pandemic uh so we would still maintain the recomended number that we've had for years uh which I would anticipate would not impact the rating um because they I think the city has enjoyed a very positive rating prior to this Surplus and I'm not sure why it would be impacted if we were go back to go back to the the the the Surplus numbers that we've historically maintained at least from the from the from the district side anyway um so our ask would would be to pull the monies the Surplus um while still maintaining the recommended and required number from the city uh which again I don't believe that impacts our rating all right thank you sir no you're welcome you for allowing me event no I understand any other questions please continue sir you all done John that yes sir that that is it from side outside of any questions that the committee might have okay Jesse anything any comments I'm assuming that that is the worst case scenario that you presented because it's a big blow to absorb um Jesse that that that's a good question um and I think the only thing at least from my my side is getting some clarity on what the cost would be um to feed kids at the high school um and that's this whole idea of tense heating systems outside during inclement weather um but when I had initially did this work with Durant and some other tenting companies you know we were talking six figures uh to make this work between um providing supervision inside the tents um heating uh making sure it was up to standard in terms of code um it it it it was was a costly Endeavor um and so th those those are the only things we don't have um costed out yet so we could be talking another 50 to $100,000 um but outside of that in terms of staff I believe we have captured um the biggest brunt of the of the request for 2425 and it would just be for that one school year until the Academy full I hope so yes yes that that is the expectation yes okay thank you no thank you Teresa I'm good thank you Louisa any questions no I'm good Al thank you Julie Milano no sir I'm good thank you very much right do you have any closing remarks Mr wals yes thank you Mr Russo so number one thank you everyone for joining us this evening um I am and will continue to be um I know we have a long road ahead of us um but I will continue to and remain to be optimistic um I know again that there's a lot of work to be done uh John and I in my office will be working hard to uh make sure we get out in the month of December when we don't have any board meetings uh but make sure we're very active as we had articulated on the budget calendar um and really just making the community aware of where we are just in term of financially and what the requests will be in in and in the in the rationale in the why um and so you know we'll make sure we'll be working on those things over the next couple of weeks leading into the holiday break um and then making sure we're position well for the board to reiterate um what we've talked about tonight and and at our meeting on the 20th um and then again in January leading into our budget prop proposal in submission to the mayor's office and Council well thank you sir thank you just yes just a reminder to follow up about that article in the paper clarification yeah very good point Teresa thank you thank you I will entertain a moment for adjournment thank you Teresa I'm looking for a second thank you Kate thank you Jesse thank you Louisa thank you Julie for taking the time all in hi have a good evening all

41 on Wednesday November 15th uh thank you for everyone joining us this afternoon um now we can go ahead and get started with roll call um everyone Kennedy will go ahead and call on you uh and when she does please state your name uh position on the commission uh and where you're zooming in from today thank you I apologize about that all righty so I'm going to go ahead and do roll call Vice Jer Keeler uh here from calling in from Ann Arbor here Damon hi yes um good afternoon everyone this is Zach Damon chairman and I am coming to you from an Arbor Michigan Washington All County Commissioner mosac good afternoon everyone I'm Kathleen mosac I'm calling in from an aror Michigan and I am a commissioner Commission Solomon Matthew Solomon commissioner an arbor was County USA commissioner Hawkins commissioner poer commissioner gosage hi everybody uh Alex gosage commissioner calling in from an Arbor Michigan commissioner I'm so sorry it's in my way uh city council um city council member godi Edwin okay commissioner Ratcliffe present commissioner Ratcliffe calling in from Ann Arbor Michigan commissioner Packard yes I'm right here calling from an arbor and commissioner Chambers hello I am Elena Chambers calling in from Ann Arbor Michigan we have corm all right thank you so much everyone thank you Kennedy um next I would like to move public comment uh yes really quick to public comment do we have anyone here for public comment I believe uh Kathleen would like to make a public comment okay go ahead commissioner Mo thank you very much for your time um I just wanted to take this moment to let everyone know that there is a local advisory Council that is attached the Ann Arbor area Transportation Authority they're looking for members and executive committee members they meet the second Tuesday of every month um they are currently meeting via Zoom from 1:30 to 300 p.m.

there has been notice of meeting provided by ofeducation january9 Mr Mrs Jones Mrs M Mrs here Mr Mrs W Mr w [Music] some yes yes yes Mr yes bus com AGA so we'll move on to [Music] reports um we did have a committee meeting the other evening was attended by myself subjects pringer chionship team [Music] mons every meeting we discuss diversity equity and inclusion recently celebrated through and curpan citizens learning that the of Lear also Focus science the [Music] discuss each criteria process looking to this is solid process all for accept process standed alter looking to process more andev students we considered advancing areas outside of academic such as sages element students Atif students through grade and may about should the goal is toway students we discussed enement opportunities with the other districts this discussion started prior simar to element it will also all for exposure our students other dist we discuss we discussed did not receive from the state and we're still seeking from the state allow add State we discussed we update the ntss process withc also asked discuss we didn't that one of school day discuss that have that so that all members ined we also discussed preschool survey survey has been thank know may I say this report is nothing if you really as Community to seek further clarification not that's really important because people children school that will receive resp so that thank you question one you consider moving a separate [Music] we just very early preliminary talk Al about the importance of data and statistics you know and it's really interesting to see you know even in the last 10 years or so like high school students in ROM statistics has really increas significantly so you know I think as we continue to look at the math skills that students need you know certainly recognize where we are in society is real demand have culating those our kids early on certain you know state has gone back and foral times again this a little conversation but you know with computer science as a separate area of standards and always talk about requiring computer science kids graduated high school hasn't quite made it there yet but you see rision some of are separate us just be technology standards right very Bas now May got sure thank you um the Poli committee met virtually on Monday November 13th at 530 join Adra Dr Osio myself join committee joined by board attorney Miss Adams there were three agenda items discuss the first was number on war dos which is our document motion platform for our district policies committee was pleased to see that war dos to process and properly formatted section 0 through 5000 of our policy manual and have a Target at the end of the week completion ofing policies through Section 9000 it was noted that section 0 5000 represent the bulk of our policies and cover our bylaws Administration programs teaching staff members sport staff members and so this is significant Pro um following completion of the remaining policies is quickly another appropriate member of the staff the policy committee will receive training on how to utilize systems policies up to dat future second we cover revisions to policy 2460 special education at the request in October Adam resarch District manisan High School and throughout County as well as the state handle electronic mail when it comes to referral identification valuation classification and the provision of a pre appr public education learn that many of the set districts do not accept email but like us that you currently accept facts the first reading tonight providing update 2460 which will allow parents and real to utilize electronic mail however the state does require Communications to Signature so we'll accept documents that are signed scanned and email the P signed valuation requests sense email shall be effective there's question when did they become effective time that starts and so they'll deep effective is uh as the next regular school day following the email submission uh or facts any time requirement shall be calculated to the extent that an email consent for fact is during Peri of school closure such as third breade email must be submitted to the superintendent principal's office will be deep effed on the next business day that the district is open any time finally the committee continued our discussion on policy 5756 transgender students after the board voted to table the second read advis that policy dur October following that meeting I supp to get feedback from all of our board members on that policy Contin to research and modifications B on feed ATS consider additional feedback that was provided during the October the committee discussed the policy including those possible Provisions further at this time it's decided not to put forth modification of the policy while certain sections are actively being litigated in numerous cour cases across the I want to take a moment to thank board members for their serious review of this policy all of you the research that they independently the feedback they provided me ass sure you that every single board member took this very seriously and their perspectives were appr I do want to remind the board that duty of policy committee and our board attorney and one of the duties of board at large to both policies close to us and our existing policies to ensure both protect in school as well as set the oversight accountability necessar provide the safest and most effective environment for our students doing so involves more than just accepting policy updates from the state or third we're not doing our job Community notu each poliy and adjusting signicant discussion felt that it not to modify the policy notal differ poliy agree that while we especially in terms of the responsibility consum rights confidentiality plans with the numerous nuances of litigations at play we don't want to make a CH understanding is that current policy place makes it clear that the bo affirmative Duty or responsibility to inform parents of the students Ser STS but it also does not prohibit School invol par practical matters related to the status or changes the policy also specifically mentions instances where other polic and legislation such as harassment intimidation ability but there's investigations that require Administration to notify parents details of those situations those might require disclosure confidential information to a parent or even law enforement on a timeline that is faster than but that the student should always be given the opportunity to make disclosure to themselves when possible from the feedback I received the majority of this board feels that parents should be involved in all these matters as appropr but many also show concern in situations where the students home not hospitable students assertions we recognize situations to harm however after discussion with confident that each and every instance where policy 5756 being required will be evaluated by her support staff and herself who have extensive training on a Case by case basis and but they will work in the best interest of the student to provide them with all available resources involve student Family Matters of practicality of confid confidentiality plan as a that is already implicit in this and other policies the committee and the administration feel there are numerous claws this policy as and again legality of many portions of itm perhaps most problematic to the committee is the fact that there is noing regulation the policy is essentially do guidance no practical timelines required professional development standards or other supportive regulations for administration and staff the policy committee will continue to monitor the ongoing location and will R and adopt as we're also committed to discussing and developing and comp regulation to support the administration and staff shows that alwayss Scar and I think that thank you community this last I'll [Music] start missor and backg his parents were very engaged sorry parents engage asking great questions and overall meeting was very [Music] informative from uh our Administration just some quick little reminders man High School open house is on 1th 6:3 this Friday 6 my kid going I thinkt anyway thank from the PTO have their P pick up is on inp room they also that isto is looking supp and then just more generally uh a playground committee has been established for the which is unus we are going to have our first meeting tomorrow afternoon the group will be um developing a preliminary budget conducting A needs assessment and discussing the priorities for the project so we'll continue to update um the community about we' also heard from parents that the lack of the library room continues to be an issue um I know that Mr G has addressed this with a few parents but I think it justes to be a point where parents are to know and Lear and then lastly the real treeing on 3 December and any question check [Applause] your [Music] know thatp Library so yeah that is my that our first graders it was nice to see them all walking over and back I went Li right up the street um you know recognizing that our facility still in care um so we are trying to arrange more those opportunities for our students go to the library know there's also very robust Children's Program you know so we are that's try to work around what is already a very busy um place but they are very welcoming um we hope to continue to kind of strengthen that relationship and take adantage Hospitality there um we think it is important for our students to be in a library setting um and and to really kind of learn their correct behaviors that you know are expected in the library certain changed over the years but you know not really a substitute for that environment you know so we really appreciate their cooperation with us um so you know we will we'll get them on the agenda anytime taking students off site so we to make have that in terms of my administrative report L by the other things that have talked about but just again congratulations to our boys and girls soccer Champion they will be joining us as it shared in December I also want to uh go back and thank everybody who created a great H me today our students um very everybody told me get ready for Halloween it was fantastic and I especially want to thank all the PTO volunteers who AR some really great events back after um it was just great to see so many parents here and and really working you know in partnership with us to make great day um we also had a very active parent teacher conference number of days I know walking around myself it was so great to turn the level of Engagement parents um and you know our students are so fortunate to have you know that level of support so we really appreciate conduc School partnership and it clearly evident you know on those parent teacher conference how um I have the reminder about schol tomorrow night for our e grade parents uh we also see that our food drive is f as we get closer to Thanksgiving so I encourage particip that and do not havee we did have investigations some I can't oh sorry is anyone else wondering why the why we can't turn the fan off it's freeing can't is there a custodian working they tried but they can't get shut it off okay thanks [Music] super3 as6 yes yes W yes Mr W yes yeses this MCD yes this yes this W yes Mr [Music] w yeses yes Mrs yes wolf yes Mr yes now I like the motion board approves F policy first reading 2416 special education Mr Beer yes Dr yes Mrs Jones yes Mr yes Mrs re yes Mrs W yes Mr yes yes yes Mrs Jones uh yes M this Yes W yes Mr W yes no you and I got a text message [Applause] from okay all right so visitors bus visitors areed to com on agenda and non-agenda items at this time please your name I jennif laste for the T [Music] and I person child and I actually signed off today back um the reason I told her the first place was to the fact that they were just kind of working on and not so dur that time I also Intervention inate which awes so but I guess not have toap way are add um so you know Lincoln is new here in and we've been alongside we're looking at multiple dat points actually Target those specific standards that stud showing so you know our teachers are on the October PD day a good amount of time digging into Benchmark a we do have someone l back in our faculty meeting in December December or January to look more closely um at how students are making progress um while we and I wish I had an explanation for why we did not receive Grant I didn't even get so much as an email so there was no Li criteria that they said real do not no um and you know it's very disappointing I was actually had a county meeting when certain districts started getting notifications so some people got the email that you were awarded it some people were like I didn't get any right so we waited until the next day um I sent an email to through the grant system asking for feedback and they said check back you'll be you'll be notified any day so the only way I found out that we didn't get it was by consistently going back into the system and then just you know a few days later it just said not awarded nothing from no no email no you know at least with the rods we got an explanation that playgrounds were taken off the list so it certainly is disappointing um you know and what we will now have to do is to kind of double down our efforts within the budget that we have right to to Really create groups and and differ differentiate our instruction so that we can help students where those gaps are you know I will say you know I think linol was just introduced this year and this PE is doing a really great job of meeting with the teachers regularly to kind of drill down on those specific needs and and tailor that programming and I know that's what the interventionists are doing as well so you know we'll be taking a second hard look at that progress um certainly good time in January and then continue to tell it in there um you know we do have homework club here you know that's a little bit less formal right and doesn't provide that targeted instruction um but we're hoping that with the tools that we have within school day finding L and L we're going to be able to make [Music] some hi I'm Kelly baldino 108 ly Trail um just followup regarding the policy for special education um so the rationale behind that was that electronic communication or consent or signatures was not um accepted in the sending districts is that accurate yes yeah so our existing policy which a standard policy from estimate that all districts have was specifically part team said electronic mail will not be accepted so that we don't know when that was written but but the idea was that we want Naval parents to be able to no has a TA machine be accept ta so we should probably update that so them to as long as you have a signature and you scan it send it in okay yeah yeah PR I mean here has been great um accepting that previously I was just wondering if it was at the high school level if there was a challenge because all of mine have been electronic so interesting um question about the uh Library and uh any movement on the committee for preschool expansion and the reason I asking about preschool expansion is because there are families within our group that have children with autism who are three and four years old and by the child study team are recommended for a full day program but we do not provide that here um and are being offered an afternoon program um most of the time when a three-year-old is sleeping and trying to develop cognitive ly um so um just wondering what your thoughts are um because my fear is that it turns into litigation and we have to pay an out of District school placement um that's you know upwards of $70,000 plus Transportation if we can consider opening up something in District based on the needs of our students um so we definitely hear what you're saying and it's been on my reard for many reasons um so that's why we had it uh kind of put after the fact onto the agenda was discussed we actually had that survey um a first draft came to us today so we are definitely in that process um there's just a lot to evaluate and Mak sure but it's something we are yeah are you collaborating with another District locally to understand where their steps have stemmed from so that we could follow a similar path well the survey was created based on an experience I had expanding with expanding half day to a full day program okay um um so survey like I said has been drafted has just received it and taking a look at it um you know and of course the community is a little bit different right we want to make sure it's tailored and that's why putting in front of our our committee is certainly very helpful to get feedback before we send it out you know um I know I learned during Co writing surveys is really challenging um but this is one that I have had experience and again some changes right it's not the exact same thing um so we definitely want to put that out there and get a sense of what the needs are I also want to be very careful that we also you know in sending this survey out that we don't over promise on certain things there's so many regulations around spaces for preschool square footage facilities you know all of those things so we also concurrently you know really need to be looking at our facil ities to do an assessment and Analysis of what kind of investment we would need to make to be able to expand our program so we want to be doing those things you know at the same time and then taking all of that information and you know really stepping back and looking at it and thinking about how we can you know move forward in a way that's going to to with tell I just to saw that the funding fore and they granted 30 projects and so like you know again or always looking for money to help us in the situation and they're actually funding it right now so it's like we would hate to miss that Mark of trying to apply for preschool expansion when they're getting it at now so we get like the you know the different components here but we also like you hey there's money now will that money be there next year will it be there Depot so I think that's just kind but you know jie said you know we you and when we're listening to the community to the parents because this is something that we've been discussing for a and um so now um you know we we're taking action we're starting with the survey and we're we're just being very careful with that respects um because it is it's a big project and we want to make sure that we took I appreciate that the last thing is about the library I know um I've been contacted about the Li Library um by various parents I told them that we' ask this question on their behalf um I know Ted isn't here but is there an update on the problem um the solution I know from the last meeting I was at there was um we you know the cost came above what we budgeted for um and if that's still the issue um is that's what we're you know stopped in our tracks because of um money or or is there an additional problem we I think we're just looking for a little bit more information right now we're trying to go through a Services Commission that will perhaps have a lower price I was texting the architect right before the meeting started he supposed to get an answer tonight I managed to reallocate some grant funding and freed up some salaries that would have been used and hopefully it will come within the amount of money that I'm looking to spend the and it's true it came in about five times higher than what we anticipate so right now we're hoping to not have to go out for a rebid which again will probably postpone it another month if that happens we're trying to go through an Education Services Commission that's already gone through that process and hopefully it'll save some time but right now that's unfortunate okay I think parents are also looking for the old school um librarian kind of um instruction um you know books and literacy are so important to us and I think the turn has been for technology um which I totally understand the the balance there um Can someone speak on on the you know the direction of library of where it stands now to where it's going for the rest of the year is the focus on technology is it focus on literacy comprehension what what is the focus think it's balance um you know um Mr D is bringing in books on Hearts he I know he's corresponded with few parents um you know and and is again adjusting to the situation that is taking longer than what we thought um but I do believe there is a balance um you know like said we're trying to get our students to the town library um and and Mr benetto is changing strategies and having them evolved as it goes on and realizes this is going to be longer you know we certainly recognize the importance of books in literacy um you know when I talked to Mr bendetta last week it was also him thinking a little bit outside the box in terms of maybe how to even better utilize classroom libraries and you know trying to use those a little bit differently so you know it is really unfortunate that this is kind of going on longer than we anticipated but we continue to try to talking about it trying to find the best way to meet the kid needs um under these circumstances and you know we will continue to to talk with him about what we can do um to ensure that we keep that balance appropriate thank you hi Valerie B foren um so what is the time frame on the library my son's in first grade so I don't really know much about what the problem is or how long it's been out in commission all I know is his Library time consists of playing video games on his Chromebook which is very disturbing but so what what is the time frame for the library can we create some kind of temporary library with Metro shelves and books and I mean he just did his whole wi wisdom was all about libraries are all around us they come in all sheets and corns um on boats on trucks um so what can we do for the kids especially the first graders that were hassling to practice reading night ACC to um it's it's a huge concern for me you know so you know try to to answer as best I can um you know we are trying to find that balance of moving books around on cards for students um taking them to this Library you know I the ins and outs of what the issues there I know it was water related um that and it's unfortunate that we only had one person come in with a bid to offer to fix it um and you know as was shared that that was an extremely high bit um out way outside of of what the anticipated cost would be according to what was shared with us and so you know we've had to now kind of double back and and think differently we can't get you know a contractor to do the work we can't find anybody that's where we're exploring other options of going through this type of mission I don't I'm not a contractor I any have any idea um you know exactly how long this work would take I don't know if Diane you had that conversation um but we certainly know that there are you know certain things that we're ready to put that Library back together very quickly once this issue with the water I guess under the floor is remediated the flooring is ready to go we just need somebody to do the work um you know if we could have somebody in here tomorrow we would you know so that's what we're working on right now we're hoping that this commission works out for us so they can get the work done and that back libr but I I can't speak specific I just I think the concern here is the fact that and just like she said it is the kids and at the lower level they're coming home and they're doing a lot of computer time and so is there like a makeshift classroom that can be done my high school just had complete Media Center renovation it took an entire year and that was from like start to finish of just ripping it apart for doing it so is there like a classroom that they can do Circle time and Co what we did was we actually had our media specialist going into a classroom and you know it was a smaller classroom one of our specialart classrooms in high school and she brought through her bookcases and she pulled out just like the essentials you know and just like you're saying at that level you know maybe the older kids don't need to this but those kids do and just to have that space so that they aren't doing computer time you know I mean I have a kid in sixth grade maybe it's okay doing the C but not the first grade so is there just a space if it's going to be the rest of this year that there is you know a spot get a trailer put it in the back of the school I come it's the job yes it's just finding of give those kids at least that you know that's the big talk the parents less T time more [Music] read well that space is used for them to gather and there are books on cards there so I know some of that is happening the books are there you know I I'm hearing Nick's messages so I will do my due diligence to follow up um you know and as I shared you know we did have a preliminary discussion about doing it in the actual classrooms rather than bringing the kids someplace else and making better use of the classroom Library so you know we are aware that this is an issue I'm hearing what you're saying I will certainly bring it back um and then you know we will see what the timeline is and hopefully as Consortium is going to be able to address the repair because otherwise we have to go out for another bid try to find a contractor to do the work and we square one so we're really hoping we get some good news um going in this alternate yeah address Miss on the timeline historical timeline so it's on District Operations in 2021 uh what happened was ition there was a water issue the floor had buckled and to the point where it was a safety concern it wasn't like just put a carpet over it it was a big big fun um and then there was compounding factors that had a ground penetrating radar and like what what was causing this and all that stuff turned out it was a water issue from the roof around but it's been a long time so it's not just this year we had we didn't have a library last year so I am concerned that classes now kindergarten first second grade haven't had this experience like no playground and no library is not a great great way to go through elementary school for young years um so so I am totally supportive I like the idea of using those spaces in the classroom have tactile hooks I'm a computer guy but I'm going to say we've got enough tablet time get their hands some some papers perod and stuff like that yeah i' love to see I don't know if there's any rooms that aren't being utilized but just something we got the books and the good thing is you have the material right did because of the supply chain concerns back then you PR purchase pouring and everything like that it's just labor we weren't expecting this to happen either we I think it's over a year since we bought all materials we have the materials it's been the contract we weren't expecting we were expecting more bids we were already expecting how expensive it was in near I don't know if anyone's had any work done contractors basically are doing whatever they want they so busy they can choose what what they're doing that's kind of what's been happening to us as well but I agree we need to be more creative in the meantime um and I think like just being in the different classrooms I have three children here uh a lot of the teachers have really really expensive classroom Library so figuring out a way for that to be better utiliz during that Library time I mean I know it's important for them to move around so if we can get a if not a different face and a different scenario within their classroom but with more folks being involved is what I'm first a yeah take have so we got rolling with that some frequency should this could could there be like a a weekly trick where it's uh approved with a single permission clip in advance or something like that I have to work with the librarian because they have a lot of programming already you know so if I'm saying I have to send you know grades K through two even right 60 kids that's four days a week where I'm ask upam toate every week yeah you know that's part of you know there's preschool and and so children's Library lovely and you know they're so you know they they recognize the plan that we're in I mean like they try to maximize and see how much time they could give us but you know um that that I think is part of I posi respectful of that as so you know try to coordinate more um I hear whatever and forward um John chrisan 624 um so I I don't want to you know bury the issue here of the fact that you know we're waiting on the actual facility to get prepared and brought up to speed and you know if and when that happens I can't wait to see what it finally looks like but we don't have to have a Top ofthe Line Platinum level Library order to give these kids a fantastic Library experience I've been a teacher for 17 years I worked in really nice buildings I've worked in buildings that are on the ver of be condensed with libraries that you know probably hadn't been updated and fixed up and de but the Librarians in there and the media specialists in there made magic happen with basically nothing does it take a little bit of elbow grease yeah it does do you have to get off your keer and swap out the books on the cart maybe run off a couple of dits off of a printer yeah you do um it takes some doing I don't know Mr B at all I I got a very nice it felt boilerplate kind of reply from him uh when I uh uh when my wife and I contacted him about what's going to be happen happening with the library this year uh he wrote we're going to have weekly Story Time sessions with read alouds I don't know that that's happened uh yet this year with my second grader um book club uh guest author visits uh research projects you don't need a topical Line library to do any these are all things that can be done with a book and a teacher so what I'm hearing that my daughter's going to go to library spend 20 minutes playing on a game like Miss bash just mentioned and then the remaining 20 minutes watching a show some type of you know educational cartoon well that makes me upset because you don't have to have all the bells and whistles to provide a cool Library experience for these kids my daughter loves to reading I finds her asleep in her room with the B on her lap on his bedtime and I do feel like she's getting robbed to a degree of that proper experience um and I don't want to be SMG Mr D here because again I don't know them but what I'm seeing in his email versus what's actually happening as per my daughter and some of the other members of the community here is not J and I again like I don't need to you know Hammer this point on until it's dead but it's okay that we don't have a fully functioning media center right now that's fine we can do things good things just a book card and just the kid's imagination and I I don't know what other responsibility the media center specialist the librarian or whatever the title is in this building is um but I do feel that we are now in the second marking period the middle of November very few if any of these things that were listed in this email have actually happened till now and I frankly think it it we're I don't know that this is going to happen in a super timely fashion it doesn't seem like it's going to so I think it's time to really think outside the box here and start you know making some moves on some Alternatives and again it won't cost a do they just take a little bit of el so thank you thank you coming out to our meeting and sharing that um because sometimes we don't know what happens operations of course and I'm getting this second and third hand I'm not in so I I and I I want to stress I don't want to I'm not trying to you know attack Mr B I'm not in there with him I can only go by what my daughter who is you know eight at the end of the day and what you know other members of the community sort of report back to us um I know that his poer his mom was a librarian uh I believe that and I know and I was very happy to hear about that when she replied back to my email too she daughter of a librarian so that made me very happy to he read is huge in our house we are huge re I do it every day it it we're blessed in that sense that we have a daughter who loves her so we want her to read you know she'll get her screen she will we'll figure out a way to get her for screen that'll be easy um but we do want her to have these opportunities and it's very with or without a library got tell you some of the libraries I've seen yes upet really I I've got a 9-year-old we love to read my was a second grade teacher yeah I think well other thing is that you know the important thing is because we don't have a library that communication coming from Mr D like to the parents and also coming from our children because I get I have kindergart second got couple fourth gr and I'm hearing I'm hearing the same thing to you know it's not just like oh like yeah we don't have a li no has Library time we are I think it's been Universal that we're hearing this from our kids right I I trust in what Mr G is saying but when I'm not hearing it back from my kids that's definitely concerning and so we just need to have like reconcile that difference it's I don't want I don't want this to be a referendum on [Applause] mrun I also it's all about what's taking like you said thank thank you for coming sharing that sharing that with us and I know Mrs poster will address okay and okay all right so we're going to move on to the payment of the [Music] bills as for motion the Board of Education authorizes the following November 2022 bills list and that the secretary is authoriz Award of treasure toal amount of 1,592 368,000 and8 Mr Beer yes Amia yes Mrs Jones yes Mrs mcdevit yes Mrs re yes Mrs Walsh yes Mr wal yes and we'll move on to discussion business members no okay and um there will be no not executive session held at the conclusion of regular Action meeting [Music] and I'll make a motion to this meeting [Applause] All In

e what time is it at this time if there are any other request to speak please fill out your form in the lobby request to speak is now closed if you haven't filled out your form good evening I'd like to call this meeting to order Mrs Richards roll call yes president Schulz like the record show that all five board members are present thank you please join me in a moment of silence and Pledge of Allegiance iedge Al to the FL of the United States of America and to the stand One Nation God indivisible I move that we approve the agenda all those in favor motion carries 5 to zero Mrs Richard superintendent report yes thank you president Schultz here is another segment of Higley Adventures tonight I'm going to help this there tonight we want to recognize Bridges Elementary they recently collected 1,500 food items for the House of Refuge in Gilbert we are so thankful that higgle supports our local community way to go Higley and way to go Bridges and this is part of our higgle helps portrait of a graduate initiative all right here we go Mandarin teachers J Shen Shang and P leatherby were recently awarded the Arizona Chinese teacher Milestone award by the mayors of both Gilbert and Chandler and the United Chinese Association of Arizona this was for their dedication to teach Mandarin and Inspire students in Arizona Public Schools there were a total of nine teachers recognized with two of those being from husd we are proud of our thriving Mandarin program and this is so supported by J Jan and P and if when I go through these if somebody's in the audience stand up and wave in a minute I know somebody's here that's getting recognized so I don't have P or here do I okay all right this is the person that is in the [Applause] audience a special recognition for higgle High's teacher April French she was honored this year at this year's State lesbian Festival as the Arizona thesbian teacher of the year for the east region this award is presented annually to a teacher who demonstrates exceptional courage and Devotion to the performing arts program at a school it is a prestigious honor that recognizes the best of the best within their ranks the Arizona thesbian executive board considers many factors in choosing the recipient of this award including years of service leadership and character Miss French's ability to encourage higgle High's theater program to be one of the best in the state Setter apart from all other candidates so congratulations April this fall two husd teachers were recognized by the Arizona language Association as outstanding World language teachers these individuals are Williamsville Alison lock and Coronado's lii liia they were each awarded an engraved plaque which was was presented during the Zella fall conference Allison and lii were nominated by our modern and dual language instructional coach Rebecca Rod Rodriguez our Allison and lei in the audience I know a principal is in the [Applause] audience so miss lock is a Spanish teacher at williamsfield high school and was recognized for her outstanding secondary work with students she is an excellent team player and also a leader on campus she's always working to improve herself in her professional skills for the benefits of students lii is the Mandarin fourth grade teacher at cornado elementary she was recognized for her outstanding Elementary work she is always striving to improve her instruction and her collaboration with her team and leading in any way she can she is also a great advocate for cultural competency and works tiously to teach both content and language with a constant background of culture her students learn and grow as she holds them in high standards and creates an amazing learning environment oops go back all right next this is williamsfield high school senior Tyler Bella he was invited to the Navy acm's candidate weekend in Maryland October 12th through the 14th candidate visit weekend is a program aimed to expose candidates to all facets of life in the Naval Academy and offers opportunities to sample University level academics this program is offered by Invitation Only In addition Tyler was invited this past summer to the Naval Academy summer seminar is Tyler in the audience all right well congratulations to [Applause] Tyler the National Merit Scholarship program is an annual academic competition among high school students for recognition and college scholarships that began in 1955 names of semifinalists and commended students for 2024 were recently released and higgle high and Williamsville students were of course on the list higgle high students included Bianca doson Caleb ladok Grant Olen Gabriela shopman McKenna sharp the higgle High semifinalist were Mason Osborne cutter ralden and Jennifer white if you're in the audience wave real big will we'll cheer you on let's give them a hand for this [Applause] amazing here are the williamsfield high school students students who were recognized by the National Merit Scholarship program our students are Ryan uh whenin and case Curtis not pictured we also have semifinalist William Robinson we are proud of these students and wish them well are you guys in the audience but let's give them a [Applause] hand okay that's it for higgle Adventures okay ready ready for points of Pride yes thank you for sharing all those wonderful accomplishments all our teachers I think it's booah bridges too right booah Bridges is that righto yes yes yes all right okay we're ready for points of Pride at this time I need Rachel Broadley and Matt bille they are the administrators from Centennial Elementary thank you all right give us one second we'll be quick [Music] sorry all right so we have the honor to recognize individuals from our campus tonight we're super excited so when you hear your name come on up and are we keeping everybody up here for the whole okay perfect and then we'll do a photo and then at the end we're going to run outside and take group photos together so we're going to start with our certified staff this one goes to Miss Crystal Smith so come on [Applause] up Crystal Smith is our points of Pride award recipient because of her commitment dedication and passion passion that she puts into everything she does at Centennial Crystal serves as a stuco adviser and on our TPS design committee she is also actively involved in the Stu student culture committee and often steps up to tackle various tasks such as creating inclusive character lesson plans that celebrate diversity and organizing our student crew structure as a teacher crystal is known for creating a fun and supportive environment where students feel safe taking risks in the classroom working collaboratively to problem solve and dig deep into the science standards students often come back to visit Crystal because she is a teacher who impacts their lives and leaves a lasting impression if you've ever seen our welcome back assemblies crystal is The Mastermind behind her amazing choreograph dance moves I just wish she could like make us all look better like I want to I want to look like she does when she dances I just don't have the Rhythm um as a colleague we appreciate Crystal's trustworthiness and willingness to do whatever it takes to get the job done so thank you [Applause] Crystal [Applause] yeah she always puts the slide thing and I have two left feet so that um we'd like to move on to our student our sixth grade Avery Gruber come on [Applause] up um she was nominated by several teachers so I'd like to read what one of those teachers had shared with us Avery is a hardworking kind and responsible student she can sit next to any student and make them feel important and welcome Avery is always willing to help others especially when we're working with partners and in groups and is kind and patient with everyone towards her teachers she shows willingness to participate and complete her best work she is sweet softspoken and truly exemplifies what it means to be a centennial Cardinal we are very proud of you [Applause] Avery okay we'd like to recognize our classified staff Miss dedr [Applause] Aledo so I'll I'll read what we wrote but um just in a nutshell it it takes a lot of people to to make a school be successful and and and run the way it should and we all know that we're not always all there and when we're when we're not we need people to step up and did she ever this year um Dedra is our points of Pride recipient this year because of her flexibility and taking on additional tasks in working with and supporting students outside of her case load this year D was slated to work with fifth and sixth grade students within our resource program but has recently started working with our Kinder students when she was approached with this change in her schedule she accepted that challenge with a smile and a willingness that shows her adaptability and commitment to our program and especially the needs of our students we appreciate dedis a sense of teamwork and dedication to our students in school thank you so [Applause] much all right and finally the guy that puts a lot of you know makes us amazing and doesn't get paid for it is our volunteer Mr James Quin so come on [Applause] up James is truly a joy to be around he currently serves on our PTO executive board as the treasur and used his expertise and background to effectively track our finances as well as to help us think creatively creatively about options to enhance how we serve our school Community he is quick-witted and keeps everyone in stitches with his sharp sense of humor which makes coming to the PTO meeting so much fun James consistently volunteers his time during our fun Friday donut donut sales as well as at other school events he has become a well-known face around campus and we are so grateful for the love and support he pours into our schools so thank you all right you guys all right and before we take our photo we're GNA see who came out here to support everybody besides our Centennial crew so uh Crystal who are who' you bring here my husband and my two kids Gavin and Gracin and Miss Avery who did you bring tonight uh my mother and Miss D who did you tonight I brought my husband Len and my daughter Sienna and James who did you bring tonight I have my wife and my mother-in-law here and also my daughter Katie who's a student at uh Centennial and my son Peter thank you guys all right ready next we want to invite Lindsay reev she's the AP at SanTan Elementary to recognize her points of Pride so we may give them a minute to yeah photos up here thank you all for having us here tonight Mr Marcado unfortunately is under the weather so he sends his congratulations and I get to talk about all the wonderful people at SanTan and I am going to start with our amazing Miss Leila [Applause] Peterson so normally at SanTan this is when I hand over the microphone to Ila so I'm going to go ahead and hold it tonight but tomorrow morning it's right back to you Lea is our student body president at SanTan this girl she's kind Dependable positive and just an all-around great student leader she recently LED our schol white assembly and she's even taken the microphone roll away from Mr Marcato and those of you at SanTan and around you know that's a big accomplishment so she's a dynamic presenter we love her leading it the student Botti enjoys her listening to her stories how she facilitates everything she this girl will do great things when she goes on to the secondary level and Beyond and Watch Out World cuz she's coming and her teacher quoted her as she's an amazing and kind person so congratulations ilila and thanks for all you [Applause] do and this is for you you got a lot of people here with you tonight um I brought my mom my dad my little brother Blizzer my older brother Graham my little brother huxton my little sister kaora and then I also brought my grandma Farnsworth and I also brought my grandpa Farnsworth and my grandma Farnsworth and I also brought my nana she's got a packed house all [Applause] right then next up we have our classified staff member Britney Gilbert come on up [Applause] Britney Britney is an amazing staff member she is a positive supported member of our front office she is calm and positive in every encounter that she has with all of our stakeholders she's professional positive supported she truly does her part to make our front office positive inviting and run smoothly so we appreciate everything you do Britney and one of her colleagues was quoted as she has worked hard learning her job and is Pleasant to everyone all at the same time she has a stressful job working with lots of different people parents staff teachers district and representatives and she never loses her cool which is awesome as our registar and our attendance clerk she deals with tons of people every day and we just always appreciate her calm kind heart and she gets the job done so thank you Britney who did you bring with you tonight I have my husband here and then my mom my dad my sister my brother-in-law and then my mother-in-law is over there and then all of our Santan family [Applause] oh and there's your certificate so now our other two points of Pride are also under the weather tonight and they are watching live at home so I told them to tune in to hear all the great things that we appreciate about them so we have Miss Megan manasco who is our certified staff member that we're recognizing tonight Megan's a differen maker on our campus she daily brings all she she has to connect engage and inspire all of her students she's a team player and always willing to lend a hand in any capacity she can to support students staff and the overall School Megan's a wealth of knowledge and she's willing to help in any way that she can she dedicates her days to help her students and the teachers of Santan so Megan get better we need you back and thank you for all you [Applause] do and then our volunteer is Mr Brett hayan and I'm going to have to read this one because it's got a lot of technical terms on it um he volunteers his time weekly if not daily to assist our robotics program at SanTan he's knowledgeable and passionate about the program and enjoys helping the kids understand the Dynamics of gear ratios coding programs and robot construction Brent gives not only multiple days a week to basically helping run the technical and construction side of the robotics program but he can also be found every Saturday that there's a tournament as the tournament manager he is encouraging and supportive and frequently guides and facilitates teams towards success success he was also stated Brent has been volunteering his time to help with robotics team for years he lendes knowledge and helps kids learn new things he goes to competition helps with all the equipment and he's just an incredible volunteer that makes a positive impact with our students in on campus so thank you Brent [Applause] w okay were you ready yes all right president Schultz upcoming events this Friday is the school visit to chaperel Elementary we hope you all can join us I know they're ready because I've been hearing rumors about how great it's going to be also who's looking forward to Thanksgiving everybody uh next week the 23rd and the 24th and then our next governing board meeting will be at 5:00 pm here in the district office on December 13th that concludes upcoming events thank you Mrs Richards my favorite part of the meeting for sure thank you okay request to speak we value input from our constituents this time on our agenda has been set aside for anyone from the audience who wishes to address the board those that wish to speak should have filled out speaker cards which are due prior to the start of the meeting members of the board may not discuss comment or take action on matters that are not specifically identified on the agenda therefore pursuant to AR ARS 38- 431.073 action taken as a result of public comment will be limited to directing staff to study the matter responding to any criticism or scheduling the matter for further consideration and decision at a later date also we ask the audience members to practice proper public meeting decorum refraining from either negative or positive responses including clapping or verbal Outburst Outburst to ensure fairness to All Points of View those that refuse to follow these rules will be asked to leave in accordance with policy bdh public participation at board meetings if considered NE necessary the governing board president shall set a time limit to the length of the comment period in order to ensure that each individual has an opportunity to address the aboard the president may also set a time limit for individual speakers thank you for your cooperation due to the number of speakers tonight given our agenda and the number of people requesting to speak we will be limiting the length of comment period to 46 minutes in addition in order for all individuals to have an opportunity to address the board the time at limit for individual speakers is now set at 2 minutes prior to this I want to just as a point of clarification the executive session requested regarding power rants was previously resolved with our attorney in executive session our first speaker is um Mrs Mindy brocker to speak with you today I do have a concern that has recently come to light and I hope you will listen and investigate further it's my understanding that one of our coaches has been offering extra practice to his team outside of school hours the at the local LDS meeting house just outside of williamsfield please let me say this is a generous offer for which I understand that his athletes are very grateful as a parent community members supporting our schools in this fashion is normally a wonderful thing however as it has been related to me this coach is overstepping and we should all be very concerned first I have heard that this coach invites adult missionaries from the community to play as opposing teams this brings unvetted adults mainly men 18 to 24 years old to interact closely with our teen athletes this is extremely inappropriate if parents are not informed second I'm told that at the end of practice without parental consent the athletes are required to attend a 15minute this minute religious study including reading from The Book of Mormon devotionals and prayer I believe this is an egregious violation of the Arizona parental Bill of Rights where um I'm summarizing ARS 1602 it states all parental rights are exclusively reserved to a parent of a minor child including the right to direct the moral or religious training of the minor child I always try to give our staff the benefit of the doubt and perhaps this is considered extra practice and the coach didn't think this to be inappropriate but the secret nature of this religious study parents are not fully informed and parents and students are not given the opportunity to opt out of the religious training is absolutely out of bounds however it is in no way fair to yoke athletic opportunity for husd athletes and additional coaching opportunities from husd coaches only to those athletes willing to endure prizing this incl excludes students from other or no religious um from other or no religions from team building and athletic Improvement I hope you'll investigate the matter further and take appropriate action to assure parents and volunteers will not be using husd team sports to indoctrinate athletes into a coach's preferred religion thank you thank you Adam Mr Adam Brock brocker excuse me thank you very much I'm going to be repeat uh reading a statement from Barbara Summers who was uh has some sick family members uh first I wanted to express my thanks over the inclusion of parents in the community in the superintendent search I went in to the in-person session and rallied some friends to join and loved being able to share our thoughts and wishes with the group I also loved hearing from the rep that she had just uh had a group of Higley students in the morning to do the same I know I can't say it enough enough but I want to see the board and District administration uh include more student advisory committees and parent and advisory committees so this made my comments and asks feel validated I appreciate the district and board taking the time to listen and to be inclusive in these matters second and it Fe it feeds right into the first topic I'm so thrilled to see agenda items .2 and 7.2 on tonight's agenda as I said above I have been asking for this for years and while we have had committees and some smaller aspects I am so glad to see a more formal advisory committee I did have a concern over the inclusion guidelines and would ask that you open it up to the Imp parents of husd students who might not live within our boundaries as school choice is such an important topic and we have so many amazing parents who choose to send their children to to our schools and are active positive par participants within our district Community even if they are unable to vote in some of the elections that affect our district I know so many who have worked tirelessly on things like our bond committees elections volunteering in our schools Etc and it would be a shame to leave their voices out some of these individuals are far more involved than the bulk of the parents who do live in our district also with at least one board member with a student who is of age uh to attend one of our amazing schools and chooses to send them to another another District it feels like the board should take into take into account those who are actively using and loving all that our District offers thank you thank you Taylor Francis Madame President and members of the board I'm a parent of two husd students discontented with the proficiency level of the district's Core Curriculum scores in fiscal year 22 one of every three students is not proficient in mathematics and English language arts and two of every three students are not proficient in science in a classroom of 30 20 students are incompetent in science every meeting I hear board members questioning science camps conference for teachers software books and a host of other resources which include controvertible topics from from highly partisan and ideological groups only to be responded with the effectless and trifling blanket statement of trust our administrators trust our teachers they will stay within standards Madam president and members of the board I am sorry I cannot simply accept this statement when 60% of your school cannot pass science test and to say other districts in the state face similar numbers is fallacious and dismissive you are here to represent an answer for your students in your District I would love for my own children to go to overnight science camps I think it would be a wonderful opportunity I wish I had such possibilities when I was a youth but perhaps we should be focusing more on the core Basics like passing a simple math English or science test I would ask that you demand the same results of your school administrators and teachers the taxpayers of the that the taxpayers demand of you be excellent in spite of the rest of the state you owe it to your students Miss Kathleen Richards good evening thank you for the opportunity to speak um I wanted to start off by saying thank you to whoever whatever team it is that organizes the I believe their quarterly meetings um I had the opportunity to attend the last one that was done on drugs and what it is that you should be looking out for as parents um and I had the opportunity to speak with the counselor who works here at the district level um after the meeting because I had a ton of questions um and she was very patient and gracious to answer all of those and point me in the right directions um I would encourage those that are watching those that are here CU there's goodness gracious um to attend as many these as you possibly can because they're incredibly informative and as a mother of a six sixth grader and a third grader there were things that I just simply didn't think of that I didn't know and my kids are actively dealing with in elementary school and I think sometimes as Elementary parents we put blinders on and think the worst thing is you know someone's kicking sand on Me on the playground or something akin to that and that simply isn't the world that we live in now the other thing that I wanted to address quickly is that I I am a little bit concerned here within the district about communication um over the last several months and I would even say over the last year or so um there have been several incidents or larger issues within the district where the rumor mill goes like that and it is quick and it is cruel and it is often Incorrect and it is something that could be gotten out in front of and I think it is really important and I'm talking about rumors about board members meeting with teachers outside of this Arena which would be inap appropriate I'm talking about uh academic inappropriateness I'm talking about all sorts of things that really if we could increase the amount of communication while balancing the the things that you need to have discretion about but I see other districts doing it and I hope Higley can do a little bit of a better job going forward thank you please refrain from clapping as a reminder there's no clapping during the board meeting thank you Mrs leam and next after that will be Heather box so we can just have the next person ready to go balsh I'm sorry Heather Bosch um good evening president Schultz members of the board I'm grateful for the opportunity to address you all today with something positive I'm a proud parent of two young girls in hickley District and my heart is full of gratitude for the incredible Educators who have played a role at their lives my husband and I feel truly fortunate that each step of our daughter's educational um past have been Guided by remarkable teachers not only have our girls excelled both socially and mically but we have also found a second family in hickley today I want to take a moment to express our heartfelt appreciation for each of the dedicated teachers who have been instrumental in shaping our daughter's education to Mrs compano and Mrs Mayan for at KY preschool thank you for taking such great care of our girls your class has truly made their time at kie special and laid a beautiful foundation for their education to miss E Mrs ibersol and Miss Pascal at hga thank you for teaching our Lily how to read and fostering her love for books we love being your pen pals and staying in touch to miss Peterson Mrs jtil Mrs Roberts Miss Myers and Miss Alita at gayway Point thank you for creating such a positive inspiring and inclusive environment this is meant the world to us we are impressed with all the opportunities you are providing our girls they are thriving and we could not do it without you in addition to being a mother I also serve as an instructional coach here in the district for the secondary math teachers and I want to also take a moment to share my appreciation for and celebrate their incredible dedication and passion for teaching while I cannot individually thank all 70 plus of the teachers that I work with I want to express my gratitude for their commitment to our students our Math teachers are lifelong Learners attending local and National math conferences like CM they fearlessly Embrace new approaches setting a powerful example for our students what is even more remarkable is their collaborative Spirit among our Math teachers they share ideas support one another and contribute to a learning community that benefits both them and most importantly our students thank you thank you and next up after will be Mr William blankin ship good evening my name is Heather balsh and I um am happy to be here tonight thank you for having me I just wanted to take a moment and tell you that in preschool last week we celebrated our veterans um it was very exciting to see all of the photos of our family members that were posted in our school um our students made cards to give to Veterans and we invited them in for coffee and donuts uh last Thursday morning so that was really fun thank you to all of the veterans that we have I'm also very excited about the citizens committee I think that diversifying perspectives within our community can enhance um engagement and Foster Rich exchange of ideas and experiences and I would love to be considered for this committee thank you after Mr Blen ship will be Miss luren conine I apologize I believe I didn't say that correctly but you're good to go thank you Mr Howdy Folks uh so I feel like we've kind of uncovered a pretty serious problem in the school district this week and it's a lack of communication and a lack of transparency my school currently doesn't have a principal I wasn't told that by the school district I still I don't know how long he's been gone and I have no idea why he left and I think at the end of the day this like this institution built on trust we as parents we trust you with our children and ultimately I feel like you are responsible to us the parents and that only works when you communicate with us and uh I feel like I've been told or I I I've been told and it's my understanding that when we see silence like this it's generally on the advice of legal counsel um in most cases I feel like that's a reasonable tradeoff but when it comes to a school district a school district is really no place place for secrets and I feel like your increased exposure to Legal Li liability really should take a backseat to like us as parents feeling safe sending our kids to school tomorrow so uh I feel like I have three explicit requests today the first is if you were in fact given legal counsel to keep secrets from parents I would ask that you reconsider that legal advice because anybody who is promoting the idea of keeping secrets from parents really has no place in our they they don't have place a place in our community um I feel like as parents we want to know one that you know what happened CU we don't know that know that you know what happened that you are working on figuring out how and why it happened and you were doing the due diligence necessary to prove to us that you were trying to keep it from happening again and instead of communicating that to us you have shown us that no matter what the issue is we are going to get silence it doesn't matter if an instructor gets caught selling drugs in a classroom you're not going to tell us if a teacher is abusing a student you're not going to tell tell us no matter what it is you're not going to tell us and as a parent that is terrifying and that is not a room I can send my children into so I'm here demanding I'm glad you said you figured it out with the attorney I'm demanding that moving forward we adopt a position of radical transparency and proactive communication with parents because a school district is no place for secrets and anybody who is promoting the idea of keeping secrets from parents you don't have a place in our community thank you [Applause] I know I'm going to ask you one more time and we'll just remove you from the audience we can't continue to have disruptions good evening I have been a proud member of the power ranch family for almost a decade I stand before you today with a broken heart to express my concerns and lack of trust in both the school board and the district's decision making process the recent new news of the forced resignation of our beloved principal Chris reuter has cast a Shadow of Doubt over the Integrity of the decisions made by the district and its governing body Chris ruer is an Innovative leader a source of inspiration and the unifying force within our school Community power ranch truly is a family and this is due in large part to Mr reuter's leadership he has tirelessly worked to create an inclusive and supportive atmosphere where every student and staff member feels valued and heard Mr reuter is not merely an administrator is a mentor a role model and our biggest cheerleader the open door policy that he has maintained allows students and staff to voice their concerns ideas and suggestions creating an atmosphere of collaboration and mutual respect the various programs and initiatives Mr rder has spearheaded such as the house system and Wednesday electives have not only elevated our students academic success as seen by our a rating but also instilled a sense of Pride and unity among students teachers and parents alike how this decision was handled has has left many of us feeling alone confused and angry it has caused us to question the transparency and accountability of the school board and the district we've been told over and over again that we are valued respected and supported but actions speak louder than words our concerns extend beyond the removal of our principal they also includeed deep unease about the decision-making processes and the priorities of the school board in the district our community has been told that husd believes in transparency open communication and collaboration which are essential elements of a successful District however for almost a month now we the teachers and staff of power ranch have been left to field unanswerable questions from parents and students while we try to keep a smile on our faces and show up for our students which we have done amid lies rumors and ridicule I urge the school board to reflect on the gravity of this situation I ask you to consider the overwhelming support from students parents and staff members who believe in Mr reuter's vision and Leadership I implore you to reconsider the decision regarding Mr reuer but more importantly I call on the school board to commit to a more transparent and inclusive decision-making process that rebuilds the trust we once had in our district leadership we are pan Panthers are proud Miss Lindsay Taylor is next and then we have Miss Carrie Edwards my name is Lindsay Taylor reuter these are my daughters photos Savannah reuter and Brielle reuter Savannah is a fifth grader at Power Ranch Elementary she's an honor role student secretary on student council plays in the school bond and is on the robotics team Briel is a second grader she's an exceptional student a role model a power ranch cheerleader for the third year in a row and is currently playing her fourth season of husd soccer these are the types of children you want growing up in your school district yet these girls will will not be growing up as Higley students due to the concerning and unwarranted actions being taken to remove Mr reuter their father from Power Ranch Elementary Additionally the disgusting accusations being made by members in the community about their father have created a nightmare situation of lies and rumors which have damaged his reputation what would you say to Savannah and Brielle when someone asks you about the names their father is being called how would you tell them that they're going to have to move schools away from their teachers and friends who love them because of this situation we wish you would have spoken out to help clear Chris's name since husd knows the truth about the horrible rumors even still the damage is done but I'd rather speak about Chris as a leader and a principal being married to Mr reuter for over a decade I know his morals and character better than anyone I've witnessed firsthand his tireless dedication to his career and more specifically Power Ranch Elementary he spends long hours early mornings evenings weekends pouring into his work answering calls returning emails putting in Sweat Equity to make his campus a safe place to learn I often would just that I was a power ranch Widow that's how much he loved his community he's beloved by an overwhelming majority of staff students and parents and it makes me lose some hope in humanity that the minority of disgruntled voices are being listened to and valued more than the enormous amount of love and support that Chris has but my hope and humanity is restored slightly when I look around this room and see all the support that he has these people are demanding that their voices are heard as well and they're willing to share truth and shed light into what feels like a very dark place right now I hope you'll take to heart the words that are spoken here tonight Chris does not deserve what is happening to him and power ranch doesn't deserve to lose a leader like Chris Mrs [Applause] Edwards we're going to have to end public comment if we continue listen I've asked for order well listen to me we've asked for order several times so we need you to remain so we can keep order and we will listen to everybody but we have asked several times for you to stop clapping and cheering I understand your passion and I understand what you want to say but we're going to have to end public comment if we don't if we continue like this Mrs Edwards those conjecturing about what Mr reuter did or did not do obviously don't actually know him if they think he would ever knowingly put a student In Harm's Way Mr reuter deeply cares about every single one of his students not just as test scores but as well-rounded human beings the time effort and care he puts into the students who need it the most is astounding but he makes sure to support and encourage every student on campus he supported missc constin in bringing a mindfulness room to campus so that students have somewhere safe to calm down and learn coping strategies instead of exploding and ending up in the office he led an assembly about sportsmanship earlier this year that my first graders still refer to on a regular basis he established electives so that students could explore new talents and hobbies he built in dear time to help encourage kids to read for just pure enjoyment he established the house system to build connections and encourage children to show character traits like perseverance kindness and integrity Integrity is important to Chris reuter every time he does the morning announcements he ends with a reminder to do the right thing even when no one is watching I wish that all of the people who hold Chris ruer and power ranch's fate in their hands cared about integrity I wish that our board members would do the right thing even when no one is watching instead of having secret private meetings with disgruntled former employees I wish the District would do the right thing and issue a statement clearing Chris Raider's name instead of letting rumors and gossip control the narrative I wish the district cared about their current employees and families if you look around the room the message is clear we support Chris reuter Miss Miss Victoria breuck is next and then after that we have Mr Christopher Hil figure it is with a heavy heart and a sense of Duty that I address you regarding the recent discussions surrounding the potential dismissal of our esteemed principal Chris reuter but more importantly I am here because of my commitment to standing up for what's best for my students that is why I became an educator and myself and all power ranch Educators always keep the needs of our students at the Forefront I mention this because it seems that Focus has been lost during the recent events Chris wer has consistently displayed a deep understanding of the diverse needs of our student body he has implemented Innovative strategies to address these needs fostering an environment where every student feels valued and has the opportunity to thrive some of the examples that you've heard already are the elective program the house system the mindfulness room the results speak for themselves with improved academic performance and a positive impact on the overall School climate power ranch is an a-rated school that all comes down to Chris's leadership I implore the school board to carefully consider the broader impact of this dismissal the potential consequences is then beyond the loss of an outstanding leader it has the potential to also erode the morale of the entire School Community let me repeat that the potential consequences extend beyond the loss of an outstanding leader it has the potential to erode the morale of the entire School Community stability and Leadership is Paramount for the well-being of our students and the sustained success of our institution I am proud to share that I have been at Power Ranch for seven years and the reason I am still here is because of Chris reuder and the climate and um culture he has supported this decision will jeopardize the invaluable contributions Chris reuer has worked so hard to make in our community I cannot explain the polar opposite mood that has been on our campus for the last few weeks let us continue to work together to build upon the foundation of Excellence that has been laid and to ensure a bright and promising future for our school we appreciate your willingness to listen to our various voices who are concerned about our students thank you Mr hillfigure and then after Mr hillfigure we have Miss Laura Garcia I'm Chris sell figure I'm not going to take a lot of your time um teaching is a second career for me I have worked a lot of jobs I've worked for a lot of people and a lot of the people that I've worked for I have not respected and I've had to endure a lot of things but when I came to power ranch when I decided that I would be a teacher um I never expected to have I never expected to have Mr reuter be the person that I would have the privilege of working for I respected Mr reuter with every single fiber of my being I don't think I've ever respected a person more actually anytime that I needed help he would drop everything to just be there and do whatever needed to be done I never questioned that I never questioned his integrity and I never questioned anything about power ranch I felt home when I came there and every day when I came to school I felt home now I don't I feel betrayed I feel like the trust that I had I feel like my home is broken I it's like I just feel lost and that's [Music] it thank you Miss Garcia after Miss Garcia is Miss Brenda curry good evening I have been working for Higley Unified School District for 20 years all those 20 years have been at Power Ranch Elementary I was hired a year after power ranch opened up I have seen the many changes challenges I've witnessed what this school has gone through each and every year I have also witnessed how Mr reuter and Mrs Kota have made Power Ranch what it is today they are amazing leaders Role Models they are always there to listen give feedback or to support any staff members and students they focus on the well-being of students and their teachers each year they make it a priority to form positive relationships with not just staff students but also parents I feel our district is lacking in a lot of those things that I just mentioned but there's also a lack of communication and transparency power ranch has been my second home for the last 20 years years and now it does not feel like home the last 3 weeks I walk onto campus I feel like I've entered a different place and I shouldn't feel that way both of my kids have been at P at in the Higley School District since Kinder and I never once doubted taking them to a different District because of the leadership that Mr reuter has had at Power Ranch I want Power Ranch to feel like a home again and the only way it's going to happen is to have our principal back thank you Miss Brenda Curry Then followed up by Lauren Miss Lauren [Music] moek I come before you not just as a staff member of this wonderful school but as a parent that purposely brought their student to Power Ranch Elementary because of the leadership of Chris reuter under that leadership our staff and our students and our parents have felt supported my student the gains that he overcome the challenges that he overcame at at Power Ranch are a testament to Mr reuter's Dedication to staff students and parents I am supported as a staff member I know that I could go to his office or approach him at any moment on that campus and his time was mine the students felt that the staff felt that the parents felt that how a minority few have been allowed to override the voices of the many is unbelievable I stand here with a broken heart for our staff for our students for our parents for him and his family it is disgusting what has happened I am glad my student is not here anymore he has graduated and moved on because I would remove him based on what has happened after Miss W will be Miss Joanne or Joan I'm sorry reuter interim superintendent members of the governing board executive directors of the district you all are either employed or elected by the members of this community and have accepted or ran for such such positions under the guise to Advocate lead and provide support to school administration teachers staff and most important our children in holding these positions not only are you to be held accountable but you are to lead with transparency and integrity leadership starts from the top that is all of you interim super and the interim superintendent excuse me you are setting the tone and creating the path for all of hickley Unified School District this district has failed to communicate timely and it has been perceived as an effort to to distance themselves from having to answer to the parents directly impact Ed by principal reuter being investigated and on leave at Power Ranch Elementary this also includes assistant principal Michelle Koda taking personal leave at a time when Power Ranch Elementary teachers needed her to step up and be their leader and said she was a coward do those of you wearing red even know what you're supporting we don't have any idea as to why he's on leave why he was investigated so the blind support for a staff member within a school district is also of high concern while I can only speak for my husband and myself I am sure there are also other parents out there that expect and demand that assistant principal Cota is also investigated for her conduct and her complacency as the right hand of principle reuter The Happenings that have come to be are a direct result of those in power or leadership this includes the interim superintendent board teachers and staff not saying something when they see something and being persistent to advocate for the children they seemingly work so hard for this district has knowingly this District knowing that an individual staff teacher or staff member failed to uh to lead and not being accountable for having Integrity should be fired not given the option to be resigned thank you Miss Lori Wilkerson Wilkerson excuse me you said joter well yeah miss Larry wierson will be up after Miss reuter today I had the opportunity to welcome 32 Asylum Seekers to the United States of America they were here uh from different countries from Colombia Peru Ecuador Dominican Republic and India and Guatemala they came here to seek a better life for themselves and and their children we gave them food they had showers they got new clothes and flights to their next homes in the United States I'm hoping that their children will have the same opportunities that our children have and I hope they get to go to a school district as awesome as Power Ranch Elementary School this staff is more caring and loving the teachers and the administrators especially my son Christopher reer and I hope that they never get to witness such an ugly and insensitive board and superintendent after Miss W Wilkerson will be Miss Tera Carr I'm presenting a paraphrase of a letter that was written by my daughter she didn't feel like she could get through it my grandchildren have attended Power Ranch Elementary since we moved to Arizona almost 6 years ago our oldest had some difficulties the first quarter of each school year from kindergarten through fourth grade in fourth grade in particular things went really badly and my grandson ended up with an in school suspension at that time my daughter went to Mr Chris reuter because she was so heartbroken and discouraged and didn't know where to turn Mr reuter took the time to sit down with her and discuss strategies for my grandson including offering to spend his time in counsel with my grandson if his parents chose that offer my grandson turned the corner and receives nothing but accolades from his teachers but his parents remember that point in time clearly where they did not know where to turn and Mr reuter was there for our family we moved to power ranch with the express purpose of living in the same neighborhood as our school we remember during the pandemic being overwhelmed by the fact that the staff at Power Ranch organized a parade around the community so they could drive by houses and encourage all the families that were H up in their home I'm sure Mr reuter LED that charge he has been present and heavily involved in every activity at the school including working as a crossing guard every morning and every afternoon we just wanted to share my family's experience with Mr reuter what an incredible person he is our oldest son will be on his way to sauc and after this year but our youngest still has three more years at Power Ranch he deserved the best he deserved Mr reuter after Miss Carr will be Mr Hudson horn um I'm reading a letter from my daughter she's a sophomore in college at University of Utah she says for those of you who don't know me my name is Briel Carr I was a part of the graduating class of 2022 and was a part of the Higley school district from sixth grade on I was very involved with the school and was student body president in elementary middle and high school while this may not seem relevant I am including this to explain that I have always worked with closely with every school's Administration along with the district while attending power ran Sher Richards was the current principal of the school however I would argue that Mr reuer as the vice princip was more involved with the students and the school itself seeing as Sher Richards was transitioning to become the principal at Bridges Elementary even after I graduated from Power Ranch Elementary I stayed on close contact with Mr reuer and the administration every year helping with their student council school fundraisers carnivals and more for seven years I saw the impact that Mr reuer put forth and I can confidently say that Mr reuter is the best principal I have seen in my entire life even though I did not get the honor of personally having him as my principal he was the one of the best leadership figures in my life this was not a day that there's not a day that went by where Mr Ro did not give his all into that elementary school for example whenever I presented an idea for the school he would help me accomplish it no matter how farfetched she may have seemed at the time this was very different from other Administration I have worked with no other teacher or leader has ever cared that much about my opinion or suggestions but Mr reuer wants his students voices to be heard and will fight for them when no one else will every single year he fights for his sixth grade students to go to science camp while science camp may not seem like a ministerial thing to many people the the administra um to many people and administrations in our district is one of the most memorable events of those kids for those kids many people don't see how special something like science camp is to the students but Mr reuer does many people won't advocate for students opinions of goals but Mr reuer will I don't doubt that every principal in this District cares for their students I would be concerned if they didn't however Mr rer takes it one step further he cares for each and every one of his students but he also knows each and every one of his students um I would not be who I am today without Mr roer and it pains me to think of my youngest sister not being able to finish Elementary School without him or all of the students at Power Ranch who thought of Mr reuter as a safe haven not only the elementary students but also the middle and high school students who will go back to visit him Mr Mr reuter is the best principal I've ever seen at any school would be honored to have a principal even a quarter of the person that Mr reuter is thank you Mr Hudson horn after Mr Hudson horn will be Miss Aaron horn good evening good evening everyone I'm here tonight to speak in support of Mr reuter my name is Hudson horn and I am the student body president at Power Ranch Elementary Mr reuter makes our school a better place by making it fun happier kind and a safe place to be I'm not sure if you know this but he knows all of the students names that's impressive if you ask me tonight I would like to ask ask you do you truly know Mr reuter and if the answer to this question is is know or even if you think you know him let me tell you how I know Mr reuer I know him because of the Legacy he has built at Power Ranch I have had the honor and privilege to have him as my principal since second grade when we first moved here I know him through the students because the students at Power Ranch embody what he has taught us at our school which is compassion bravery perseverance honor creativity kindness wisdom and most importantly Integrity now if Mr reuer can teach all of the students at Power Ranch to embody these foundational characteristics I would like the board tonight to learn a lesson from me a student at Power Ranch in the Higley Unified School District that is to First have integrity when making your decision and to remember that we as students cannot teach you Integrity but I can tell you this quoting Zig Ziggler Integrity is the glue that holds life and business together please help us keep our trust trust in the board as we trust Mr reuer after Miss Horn um I just have Jeff as after he wrote that all on his own no help from Mom good evening I am here for Mr Royer he's a beloved figure in our community he's admired obviously by students and tonight when Hudson spoke he speaking for the whole student body at his school as the president tonight unfortunately Mr reuter has been the victim of gossip and slander these rumors have been allowed to circulate without any context or proof and they have caused Mr reuter great pain and suffering I believe that the school district has responsibility to protect its employees from this kind of abuse the district should have come forward and defended Mr reuer but instead it has remained silent this silence is deafening and it speaks volumes about the character of our school board I'm deeply disappointed as a parent in the lack of leadership and willingness to allow Mr reuter to be dragged through the mud I'm here tonight to ask the board to take action and make things right I ask you to apologize to Mr reuter to parents to students who love and adore him who look up to him these rumors started with those from the district who have been harbored who have been who have been harboring these rumors and have allowed them to get out of hand and I asked the board to take a look at these individuals from the district and take properly disciplinary action our school district needs to do better we need to create a culture of respect and integrity where rumors and gossip are not tolerated this is bullying from the district to our beloved Mr reuter we need to set a higher standard for our students and we need to hold ourselves to that standard as well so tonight I urge you to please keep Mr reuer and his position as mother who has seen my children learn and grow because of this wonderful school and because of our district we can all be better I believe in you please do not take away our Mr reuer the students need him and more importantly the parents need him thank you very much after Mr Jeff will be Miss Megan Wicks good evening I'm going to start by asking you to vote to table Mr reuter's resignation if you don't have a firm decision made tonight and instead vote to reinstate Mr reuter as principal at Power Ranch it's very easy these days to speak untruths post them online and watch where it goes I could for example do that about the board member Mrs Van hul about a group that she's a member of right and what they stand for in that group unfortunately when those things happen they get posted online most of what happens is we lose what the truth is as a matter of fact in this instance with it where it was goes into a board memb home with only two of the board members by disgruntled teachers unfortunately that's not the way that we should be running our Administration today we're here we're here to speak the truth about Mr reuter I've known Mr reuer for 6 years now since my daughter's been enrolled at Power Ranch not once ever have I heard or seen any sort of interaction or anything unethical immoral or unprofessional out of Mr reuter ever in six years on the contrary repeatedly I've seen examples of traits you want to see in your principal Integrity honesty professionalism and overall doing what's right the boards received countless emails from supporters please don't ignore we're showing a ton of people here tonight supporting Mr reuter please don't ignore us I commend the supporters for being out here tonight it's not easy to do there's a ton more that wanted to be here tonight as well I'm going to leave you with a story par Ranch does a yearbook signing every single year last year it was at Peter Piper Pizza longest line of the night is always Mr Reuters it gets reuter cramp at the end of the night because he puts a personal message to every kid out there this is what he wrote to my daughter Ellie fourth grade is over wow thank you for being a leader in Miss tw's class I appreciate you doing the right thing and caring for others have a great summer and see you in fifth grade again I'm asking you to table the vote on his res resignation and reinstate him as principal at par Ranch Miss Richard thank you for wearing red tonight supporting Mr Royer after Miss Wicks we have Mr Chris I'm a parent of a past and present power ranch student and this is not our first Elementary this is a second Elementary for us as we moved into Power Ranch two years ago I had a really good principal at our last school but when I came to power ranch I realized what a great principal is and I can tell you by sharing my very first impression with him it was back to school night where we get to come meet our teachers and drop off our school supplies we had to enter through one door at the gymnasium and exit through the back to keep the school secure Mr reuter was at the front door greeting every single family that came in I watched 20 plus families in front of us be greeted every kid a hand slap a knuckle how was your summer we got up to the front of the line and he looked at my students both my kids and us and said you're new here how did he know that we were new to that school it's come to find out he knows every single student at that school I was floored I was amazed he asked what my children's names were what grade they were in what teacher they had where we moved from he cared about them and he proved throughout the entire school year again how much he cared about each of his students at the end of the school year the very last day my kids wanted a picture taken with Mr reuter that's what they cared about he is an amazing principal I ask that you do not take his resignation and you re Statum thank you isn't public discourse wonderful glad everybody's here tonight and situations like this it's important to speak truth so I'd like to start out gently speaking a little bit of truth that has been borne out out of thousands years thousands of years of recorded human history it's this that we've learned by sad experience that it's the nature and disposition of almost all people as soon as they get a little bit of authority as they suppose they will immediately begin to exercise unjust and unrighteous dominion over the people they suppose to be under their Authority when Authority is unmowed from personal responsibility people in positions of power cease to be leaders and begin to be tyrants as they slip further into false sense of superiority they instigate suffering and chaos and those they were supposed to nurture Serve and Protect so here's my opinion based on that truth that abuse of power seems to be on display by members of the board in this District it appears you've used the authority that people have trusted you with to carry out a vendetta against Mr reuter a man by the way who is praised publicly by this District on October 11th as being a perfect or great example of what a principle should be and then sequestered Days Later without any explanation now I've fortunately am in a position where I have the means and time to do an investigation of my own and there seems to be enough abnormal behavior by this board to wen't asking the Arizona attorney general's office to look into violations of the state's open meeting law not limited to violations of the serial conversation Clause if you've abuse the trust that the public has put in you if you have torn down a good man out of spite or allegiance to a personal friends and caused pain to the community of children for the sake of Vengeance then I invite you to change your behavior to change your ways forsake it confess it and make right the wrongs you've committed thanks for your [Music] time thank you that is all of our public comments I don't know if everyone heard me at the beginning so I just want to make it clear as a point of clarification the executive session requested regarding power ranch previously was was resolved prior to this meeting with our attorney in executive session um M Madam Pres you and and I apologize cuz I understand the the audience wants answers however you really need to proceed with the agenda as it's listed to comply with open meeting law thank [Music] you you just need to proceed with the meeting I'm going to clarify can I clarify give me just one second you can you can respond to criticism again you can only really have discussion on what's on the agenda okay since this is on the agenda and hopefully I'm in with my legal parameters but the the session requested previously is not a matter tonight that matter was previously closed prior to anything investigation it is not a matter I Madam president will be an answer to the par why Madam president you need to just continue with the agenda okay I'm sorry we need to continue with the [Applause] meeting thank you and Madam president so the time for public participation and comment already has passed and there are regulations and time limits that have already been abided by and so our time limit for public speak is already passed and I can no longer comment on any of this moving on to our consent agenda I move that we approve consent agenda item 5.1 through 5.14 a second second all those in favor I I motion carries 5 to zero moving on to information item 2024 through 2025 course [Applause] [Music] guides thank you yeah I don't think we took a vote I thought we seconded mov to that [Music] agenda we're going to take a f minute recess e [Music] we will now resume the meeting did I would askr moving on to 6.1 2024 d225 course guides did you speak to the officer no did President Schultz members of the board Mr lsen Heiser as soon as we quiet down the room we'll continue we need to return to the meeting we ask that you take your seats or what thanks shaa president Schultz members of the board tonight we're going to go presentation about the course guides this is an information uh session about the course guides that we're proposing for the 2024 2025 school year so for those of you who've never gone through a course guide process I just want to let you know here's what happens and as we go through the course guides represent the courses that we're going to offer at our secondary schools and so this is a process that we start very very early in the year it might seem weird but we start in August planning for the next year in terms of what we're going to offer uh final goal with this with the December 13th Action meeting for the course guides is that they get approved so that we can do registration starting in January but a lot of work goes into this and I'm very proud of the team that does the work and follows the process we start with our planning meeting on August 7th and then we get information out to our sites on August 11th on the 31st of August our team met and we review we reviewed the 2023 24 course guide the current one inevitably I find some places where I might have had some typos and things and they uh they really enjoy pointing those out to me but we go through the course guide they be able to look and say what do we need to change for next year where do we need to show Improvement sites uh send recommendations to our instructional coaches that's due on September 12th and then we review all of those uh recommendations through our instructional coaches there's an extreme vetting process where the recommendations come in and then as a team we vet them to make sure that their courses that we're able to offer in Higley and what's appropriate on the 19th that's when we reviewed it and then we come together as a whole team on the 12th and the 26th and the result of all of this work is what we're presenting to you today I need to give a shout out nope that's the wrong way there we go I need to give a shout out to the people who are involved in this because this is not an isol process here at the district members of this team include Craig Pearson our assistant director of CTE Mary Davis our assistant director of professional development Brian Campbell our student information systems manager I need to give a special comment uh shout out to Brian he brings a very very great perspective in terms of managing data and what we can do to inform our parents and then Dena Morgan our uh assistant director of counseling instructional coaches are vital to this process and the instructional coaches once again help and assist and vet the proposals that come through Maggie boury for English and this time Maggie did double duty as our social studies coach was out so she also did social studies so thank you Maggie Rachel leam for math Rebecca Rodriguez for our world language DLI program Janie Ramirez our instructional technology secondary coach and Kim Morton for science they do a lot of the heavy lifting and I can't thank them enough for their leadership and their work in the course guide for site Administration we do the principal the assistant principal in charge of curriculum and the Le lead counselor so you can see Allan Fields Brian banck and Kim Gallagher from Higley High Dan Fox Heather Wallace and Amanda Johnson from williamsfield Mr Dolan and I meet and we go through the Higley Virtual Academy proposals then Chad canell Louisa Schwarz and Colleen Crockett from kolie middle school Bruce Potts Brandon Keeling and Tanya seales from San and then our administrative McKenna pugnetti who puts everything together so I'd just like to say and if they're watching at home thank you very much for all of your hard work and dedication into providing opportunities for our students so when you look at the course guide the first thing we need to do is we focus on providing meaningful opportunities for our students to succeed and that is really our goal is what opportunities can we give to our students the course guide we our our second goal is to continue to make our course guide easy to use and provide important information about courses and processes last year we added a planning guide we we've added new uh flowcharts to help parents understand a lot of times in education we know exactly what we're talking about but our parents need a little bit more guidance and our goal is to make this an easy to usee document for parents to look at we want to update language to reflect practice and you'll see some changes that um uh we're bringing tonight just because of how we do some different things in terms of prerequisites so we're trying to update the language to reflect what we're currently doing and then our process we force communication between the schools on proposals we want the people involved to have common communication and so part of it is that both schools either the both middle schools or both high schools have to sign off on uh any proposal that comes forward and have those conversations ahead of time so we're all on the same page and we make informed decisions about which proposals we accept and which proposals we deny there are four course guides uh in Higley that we look at um here you can see the covers thank you to mcken Le for uh designing our covers for those of you who are not aware uh The District 60 is actually the outline of our district I know some people don't know that and I just want to make sure that you can see that our Higgly Unified District 60 that was for you Tyler our high school special education course guide outlines the um outlines the courses that our special education students use these courses are not available for students to register they're selected through the uh IEP process but once again a shout out to shaa Miller and her team for putting this together so that we have a course guide that we can share with those parents to help guide when we make decisions within IEP meetings we have our Middle School course guide our hva course guide and our high school course guide now previous to this all of the courses in the in the course guides have been approved and accepted on a yearly basis and so when we look at this what I do is I highlight and talk to you about the changes that we're making everything else has been previously approved these were now talking about the changes and the recommendations that this team is coming to to provide for you for the course guide for the 2425 school year once again when when approved becomes active when we start registering students using these in January for implementation in July so let's take a look at the major changes coming up from a high school course guide honestly for those of you on the board three years ago this presentation was much much longer and we had a lot of different changes that we went through over the past few years we feel like we streamlined the process and we feel like we are really providing awesome opportunities for students with all the different course choices that they have when you talk about providing Limitless Limitless opportunities we really for the size of our schools provide so much already to our kids and so you're not going to see a lot of new courses coming on because we already have a lot for our students to do we have two new courses we're looking to add for the high school first is our digital photography program has grown within CT te and we're going to add the internship component to it if you remember a few meetings ago we had the yearbook from Williams fieldcom and one of the students is running his own company for photography coming out of digital photography this would be an opportunity that he could do the internship and earn credit then for what he's learned within his digital photography additionally within CTE we have honors aerospace engineering and I'm going to speak to that and speak to the course that we're removing honors civil engineering and architecture what we get when we get to our fourth year uh engineering courses is really dependent on the specialty of the teacher there's not a lot of engineering teachers out there that can cover a broad spectrum of things our previous teacher at higgle High uh was involved and his expertise was in civil engineering and architecture which is why we're able to offer the course we use Project Lead the Way curriculum for it he left we replaced him with someone who has Aerospace expertise and Specialty which is why we're looking to add that once again using the Project Lead the Way curriculum and courses when we look at the removal of courses there were two courses that I came to you a couple years ago we looked to add as science electives astronomy and orography unfortunately the curriculum has not panned out the way that we wanted to and so those courses are not going to be continued and since we're not going to offer them at either campus we're asking that we're going to remove them out of the book because they're not going to be offered for the information up dates that's the first about 10 pages um an issue that we had this year was when people transferred in when you come from an online institution we will accept your credits from core core credits if you have a proctored final exam that is the process that we've done now we've made sure we've added that to our course guide so that when parents are looking they have to understand they have to take and come from a school that has a proctored final exam if they come from a school that does not and they want Core Credit they have to challenge test to be able to go through that but this is going to help clarify that you have to come from a school that has a final that is a proctored final exam which means it's in person which means that we actually know who's taking the final as opposed to it being at home and we don't know what happens that way our world language program and Rebecca Rodriguez as their instructional coach has asked that we add Pathways in so that they know and really what we're looking for especially is for our DLI students to see this is where you go in elementary school this is what junior high or middle school you would lead into and then these are the courses you would lead to in high school we hope that that helps with the understanding of well if you're in those programs this is where it's going to lead to and these are the opportunities that you're going to have when you get into the high school another information update that we've changed is course prerequisites in English and math traditionally in English we had a prere for English 10 of one year of English English 11 of two years of English English 12 of three years of English but in reality what's happening is we need people to get four credits of English within four years so what do we do with kids that fail are we going to stick them back in the Freshman one and then make them how do we catch them up so let me tell you how we catch them up there's a couple ways one is we allow concurrent enrollment then so they would take English n and English 10 at the same time they would have two English classes to help make that up or summer school they can go to summer school and make that up or we have our rise lab our rise lab is the uh way that kids can make up credits through a self-paced online program and so those three different things but what we never did is say I'm not going to move you as a sophomore into 10th grade English because you failed nine what we're saying is we'll find a way to boost your nine so you can get that credit but you've got to stay on track and keep moving otherwise you're never getting to 12 and we're never getting those four um years of English in the same goes with math on our core maths and our basic maths we're doing the same so that's the reason why we removed the prerequisite because we wanted to make it match the practice that we're doing board member Anderson pres yes for these students that are doing dual or if you would call it it's not dual but they're doing concurrent much better word thank you do they have a mentor do they have somebody to help them because that can if they had struggled the first time and now they're going moving up and then taking it again is there a student Mentor a counselor that's checking on them a teacher that's somebody that's really don't know if we have that program in place I know that the counselors are heavily involved because they know who needs to make up those credits and moving on but in terms of a student Mentor or anything I don't believe that we have those systems in place but I'll ask and if I'm wrong I'll let you know okay thank you and finally when we go to the fees we look at the uh dance course fees dance was left at $25 uh where most of our other Performing Arts were up to $50 we'd like to raise it to $50 for those of you who are Dance Moms you know that dance can be very expensive in terms of outfits and different things like that the same goes when you're in a high school dance class and so we need those funds as costs have increased and to help and so we're asking that you increase the uh course fees from $25 to $50 so when we look at the middle school and we look at the updates in the middle school once again you're going to see very few new courses and the information that we're putting on we're not removing any courses from middle school but we're taking a look at uh some new courses last year you allowed us to change so that kids in seventh grade could take Robotics and so what that led is a group of kids in seventh grade that really like Robotics and we didn't have a class for them in eth grade and so we're asking that we add an applied technology and robotics class that'll be for eth graders so a kid can be in robotics two years in a row instead of rece repeating the same course now we have a second-year course for them both of the schools looked at this and agreed and thinks it would be wonderful and they know they can fill that course secondly we're going to start and try something at Middle School I'm very excited about we have an opportunity because of one of the teachers there that came from a very robust CTE program that we're going to look at pipelining graphic design and photography for the kolie kids at kolie and pipeline them into williamsfield and so we're asking that we include new courses of graphic design A and B we use letters instead of numbers because we don't want to get confused with the high school course and then we look at photography a and photography B and so our goal is that kids get exposure to these in uh junior in the middle schools now they can go to williamsfield and feed right in and truly have a nice feeder into the graphic design and photography programs and so I know the schools have already been working together and planning on how they can Pipeline and get those kids excited early to go in and truly uh take advantage of the offerings at williamsfield high school and so we're asking that we add that that would be in lie of two of their current um a marketing class and a technology class and we feel like the new change would add some excitement to what they're doing there and this is going to be a coolly specific pathway we included the Spanish and Mandarin Pathways for the middle schools same idea we want to let people know this is where you're coming from and where you can go when you get to high school prerequisites for honors courses uh we met and we've come up with we include in the course guide it says District approval process and so what happens is in order for kids to get into an honors class um they're going to sign up for it we're going to review their testing data where they previously came from and if parents ask for them to be in there and fill from an honors from that perspective we know with the expansion of gate a few years ago that we have kids coming from all of our elementary schools that are ready and prepared for honors now remember we also have elas courses out there and for elas we will continue the same process where kids and parents who want to be in that will sign up they will take a placement test and we can use that to place them appropriately I think one of the hardest things that we do and what we have to be very careful for is misplacing students and a a as a high school principal I've seen it at the back end and I see coming from the Middle School a lot of times we accelerate kids early and then they get to high school and we run out of classes or we get to a point where they get stuck and so it's very important as we go through this placement process within Honors that we're looking at all a lot of different factors and trying to make the best decision with the parents and with the site Administration and with the teachers to set them up for success and so that's why when you look and say it says the process going through because it'll be the administration and the teachers working and looking at uh the prior performance of the students to see if they're prepared I would ask that any parent who wants their kid in honors to go talk to the principal and then they can go and look and say is this the best decision that's there is this the best decision for your kid and if it is let's make that happen and so that's for the middle schools finally when we look at hva and and if Mr Dolan's listening online I would like to give him huge props for what he does in leading this program you know three years ago we basically have built this uh out of scratch and through this we have learned where do we need to add courses what courses do the kids want how can we continue to expand and and the the vibrancy of our program and we're very proud of hva and the role that plays within our district new courses that we're asking to add are ones that we need for electives especially at the uh at the high school level I didn't say for high school in each of those five oh I'm sorry I forgot I'm in charge of clicking I get talking and I get pretty excited so when you take a look at it we have Visual Arts one and visual arts 2 we've done it for the middle schools but actually it's an appropriate level for the high school as well so we want to offer that opportunity for our high school students quantitative reasoning physical science and sociology are already courses that we offer in person we just want to be able to offer them online and we have not done that previously so we'd like to add those to the hva peer counseling colge and career Readiness is help help fill that ecap void online so in talking with Mr Dolan what happens is students are not just looking at how to get into college writing their resumés what prepares them for college but it's also career oriented as well and it's a survey course that they take for one semester and in reality it's a lot of Juniors it's a lot of Juniors who are getting ready to go and apply for college and how do I explore applying for college what a college is going to be appropriate for me how do I prepare for that and then after college how do I get a career and so it's been a very uh successful it's called peer counseling because that's what Florida virtual uh where we get our curriculum calls it and it's the College and Career Readiness portion for our online students we're asking to remove one course business keyboarding a definite lack of interest and uh we felt like the curriculum was not rigor us for our middle school students I think what we're seeing in general a lot of these courses business keyboarding for example or an introduction to Compu computers as our kids have gone up through Elementary School they are getting exposed to that so much that really in reality we're going to look at the middle schools and it probably won't be included for very much longer uh an important thing that we need to know parents need to know right away and so we put it right up front in the course guide is that there's an additional requirement at of hva you have to take inperson finals and State Testing it's required and it's in person and we need parents to know it right at the beginning there are times when you have to come to campus and you have to take your tests and so Mr Dolan offers a large variety they use Labs that are at Power Ranch and they come in and they take those um tests in person and especially taking the finals because then it's a proctored final exam just like what we're asking for for accepting credit from an outof District online school and State Testing is required and so they have to come in and take their state test in person there are not ways for them to take those exams online and at home and finally we're asking that we increase the seventh class fee from 160 to 175 at from a funding source we get funded for six periods if a student wants to take an additional class and take the seventh period online we encourage that however we don't get any funding for it and so just like summer school we're asking that they pay the 175 in order to cover the cost of the teacher cost of the curriculum any supplies that is necessary uh for what happens that only happens if it's the seventh class class we do not allow students to take an eighth class stop at 7 now remember we can have kids that take four iners and two online that add up to six they're good to go they're not paying for those three and three one and five however they want to do it it's when they get above and beyond and go to that seventh course that's when those fees are added so as you can see we have minimal changes that we're asking to be approved for for the 2425 course guides and um this was our information item I'd like to answer any questions that you guys have regarding the course guides and moving forward and uh we will come back on the 15th uh for approval 13 oh sorry today's the 15th 13th in December yes thank you for um going through all that I appreciate it and I also appreciate you explaining what the Care Counseling is because it didn't have a description in there um so I wasn't sure what that meant or I I assumed it was um students counseling students was my initial thought um but I uh also I didn't hear you mention the social media um class that was being offered um and I've lost my place I'm not sure which course guide that was in we have a social media class that's in our online hva school that was approved last year and that's been in our course guide and has been offered and and approved last year and um so my concern with that course is obviously we've held sessions where we we you know try to talk to students about the dangers of social media um and the fact that you know our attorney general along with 33 other states are currently suing social media meta because of the fact that it's so addictive um and so I do have a concern um that we're offering this class and I feel like it's kind of promoting the use of social media um just because there's so many negative impacts um you know mental health cyber bullying um and just so much more uh that um impacts these kids so just in the last year since it has been used um I'd love to know how in fact it is being used and what is being taught in the course s and pardon my questions this is the first time I'm seeing the course guide so I do have a lot of questions so are social media course is a curriculum again that's been approved since we opened through Florida virtual and so um I know with social media there are definitely ills and negative stero things with social media there are also a lot of jobs and different things that approach social media so if we can teach kids how to use social media appropriately that would be much better so so that's that's what we're doing is teaching them how to appropriately appropriately use it it's not a it's not a course about the dangers of social media it's how to use it appropriately thank you um question I don't have a question per se I just want to say I'm super excited about the pathways for DLI and the and the courses offered to our middle school kids um and there was I I will be happy to share that with Mrs Rodriguez she's worked very very hard on that and the credit needs to go to her Rebecca's wonderful yes I love that um Rebecca has been working all all of that and to make sure parents understand the the pathway for that there was another thing I wanted to say was awesome but I I'll go back to that when I look at my notes um one more concern I had was the um the communication skills um for our sped students um I did notice that we are using um the castle uh framework for this course and um and I have mentioned cast Castle before and and I just want to point out that you know my concerns still persist regarding the usage of Castle um and uh I'm just going to read this what I wrote um unfortunately the Seal program um that follows Castle um and their deceptive nature using different terms for similar goals complicates parents understanding of what is actually embedded in the curriculum um despite appearing well intentioned the Crux of the issue lies and how imparts competencies through um an equity lens essentially adopting um a CRT theorist viewpoint um and um I mean I we all want children to be able to have um you know the ability to control their emotions and Achieve goals and make responsible decisions um but the way that uh Castle goes about it is um not something I that I like and I don't know if there's anything else out there that could be utilized um but it would be be nice to be able to have some options there yeah and I I understand uh your perspective on that we know that this has been a very successful course for us and helpful with our um with our students uh with their communication skills within the SP department and so our recommendation is that we do uh keep it the same and keep moving out there thank you president Schultz can no I was just say additional questions please than regarding the Middle School graphic design and photography first I just want to do a shout out to Devin Adams and um um AIS Scot over at uh williamsfield they're phenomenal my daughter absolutely adores them but um I imagine I don't know the certification requirements for and Miss Johnson if you know you're outstanding to know the certification requirements for all these but for a graphic design Middle School teacher um is is this going to be a hard position to fill because I would hope that this would also at some point if it goes well and and produces that excitement and engagement would be also offered at San I would hope um but if so I imagine is it pretty difficult or are you anticipating some difficulty finding somebody qualified or certified to teach that class what with middle schools the qualifications are a little bit different than high school they're not we call it CTE but in reality CTE is starting when we're in ninth grade okay and so the qualifications a little bit less in order for that are we taking advantage of the qualifications of our new instructor at kulie yes we are you know and and Mr lebsock had developed the program at Higley High has now moved over there and he's going to be able to pipeline into Devon and Joe and really that communication between them you know and that's what we want right we want our kids sitting in our middle schools excited to go to their high schools and excited exced to see this is the progression of what I'm learning and where I go and you know I'm I'm getting a little chills right now because I feel like Mr Cantrell over there has really stepped up to say how can we everyone know that we're Williams Fields feeder and we go and this is one way that we're helping to support you go to kolie and you get involved you get involved in the DLI you get involved in the graphic design and it transitions you smoothly into williamsfield and so I I look you know and I I think when we have two schools it's always hard right I got two they're always compared okay there is never a time when it's like what are you doing at williamsfield what are you doing at Higley right what are you doing at sasman what are you doing at kolie sometimes there is some though some room for some site specific things and some spite specific things to go because I think that also challenges our schools to grow and what's the best that they can do for their kids sure completely understand and I just was just curious ious if it were to be offered in the struggles that would for thank you president Schultz uh I just wanted to express my gratitude to all the staff that took the time to help do that I mean having created it it is uh feels NeverEnding and constant but the benefit is what helps keep us in a position to be competitive and I I I think it is so very great to know that as we send our kids throughout our campuses that we are competitive with not only schools in our state but in other schools Across the Nation and we're setting our kids up for success by being able to have access to some of these skills that we are you know helping to teach and Foster here so I just want to say a great thanks to those who helped create it because it definitely puts in a lot of time and hours um and it matters thank you thank you Mrs Wade I I Echo those sentiments and I love that you said that about the middle school and keeping kids engaged through High School Mr lots and I because it's very important to keep our middle schoolers engaged yes and know how great our middle schools are anything else thank you very much for the presentation appreciate it moving on to 6.2 proposed citizen committee yes good evening board president Schultz and members of the board uh this presentation kind of stems off the October 11th board meeting where we discussed um our override reports and our bond reports that are mandated by the state so a part of that conversation was you know looking towards the future and what is next um some of the conversations stemmed around you know how you know how tough a decision uh that may be to call for that so um we brought forth a recommendation um to help ease the burden of the board as well as uh get some input from our constituents and our community um to help make uh some of these future decisions regarding our school district and and school funding so um with that this presentation regarding the prer citizens committee on a high level what is the citizens committee um it's basically what it is right it's a Citizens advisory committee a group of individuals typically comprised of parents community members Educators and other stakeholders who come together study the needs of a district uh provide input feedback and make an ultimate recommendation to the governing board um the rest specific roles and responsibilities um of such committees can vary if you recall in recent history we've used committees to um establish our strategic plan um where we you know gathered input from various stakeholders and I think we you create a more comprehensive um recommendation with that again committee participants can typically include parents community members Business Leaders teachers industry experts and school officials so um what is the goal of this proposed citizens committee regarding school funding so the goal is to seek committee input um again in our ongoing effort to promote transparency and Community engagement um we're proposing the CI citizens committee to seek their expertise and Leadership to assist the district and the governing board with critical school funding issues regarding the continuation of our override which I mentioned is is coming to expire um in the near future 20 in 2025 and in any potential future bond election so um again the goal of this committee would be to have thoughtful dialogue um be provided with um uh resources information facts and then make a conclusion and a recommendation to the governing board we established some some guidelines to provide to try to get um uh some consensus around the structure of said citizens committee so um we know each governing board is also a voting member so we wanted governing boards to have representation on the committee and so the thought is having each governing board me nominate one individual member to sit on the committee so you guys do have that representation but then it doesn't um remove your vote when said recommendation is coming back to the board uh for approval in addition there would be looking for 10 additional community members um selected by District administration through application process process so for a total of 15 citizen committee members we'd also have various District administrations sit on this so there'd be anywhere from 15 to 20 um individuals a part of this committee now there were some comments I think in in public comment and I think the board got some emails but this is um the committee members when they say must live within the boundaries that's that's one criteria or be a parent of an HD student so if they're a parent of HD student and live outside our boundaries that is still allowable in terms of I apologize it wasn't very clear on here but these are or um categories so or work for HD um I feel that encompasses like the grand um scope of our district as we have over like 1500 students that come into our district from out of our boundaries so um that is included uh that those are or not you must be meet all the criteria so um when will the citizens committee meet we've established um some some dates and some recommended uh timelines um we feel we're going to need a number of of meetings to C to provide the facts and the details regarding um school funding um if if the citizens committee um uh needs some education we want to provide them with all the resources uh to make a recommendation to the board so um we've allocated um F some time 5 to 6 we'll probably stretch a little bit beyond that as an hour can go really quick um we've designated the boardroom as a perfect uh venue for this and then um if the board were to approve this um we've established December 13th to bring back some bios um to share the citizens committee uh back with the board uh and announce those members and then starting after winter break have a series of five uh citizens committee meetings and then with the April 3D board meeting bring a recommendation and uh the board does have authority in in the board policy so the policy BDF uh does allow the board to appoint said citizens committee and and we've outlined some of the um criteria with that committee to make um a little easier on the board um but if the board were to have any changes to what we've kind kind of recommended tonight we'd be um open to to making those changes uh you just need to make a motion on the action item but since this would be a board approved committee um all of the meetings would be open meeting law would follow open meeting law and therefore have an agenda um minutes posted to their website so anybody not selected for the committee could follow along and be involved in the process as well as provide input to the committee um we feel that's important um to to be transparent with that process um and that's why we want the board to um utilize this board policy to make action and uh authorize this committee if you so prove so um that would then again make it uh subject to open meeting law and I think that satisfied some of the concerns Miss vanhook had um when we initially kind of talked about it on the October 11th meeting so with that I'll I'll take any questions will they have the option to be able to attend um the meetings online like through a zoom yeah I think we have the accommodation and the technology to make that uh possible um so I know those dates we we try to establish those dates early so people can calendar those but um in this world of you know everybody being busy um and even later this evening right we're doing a virtual meeting so um I don't see how that would be um we can accommodate that I mean it would be great if everybody can be here all together in in one room but it'd be nice just to be able to have that option available for those that can't be in for some reason yeah I certainly think we can accommodate that thank you will there president schz will there'll be any parameter set um let's say that I think it might be a very popular um committee I think there might be a lot of people that want to be on this and an unforeseen circumstance occurs and they cannot continue the membership if you will is it possible to replace them like have a backup um or would you would that seat just go empty at that point I think it'll it depend on at what point in the in the timeline that happens because obviously there's going to be a lot of leg work done to to bring um everybody up the suite at the same time and provide the same information so um you know if unfortunately somebody had to leave I I don't know if we would replace them um just to just to keep the the ball moving forward so sure and this may sound um impolite but I was just are we going to set a requirement for attendance at all if this is something that people are applying to and somebody may have missed out on that opportunity and then one person can only make two of the so many meetings you know what I mean is we say listen we we really value the input and we would really like for somebody else I don't know if that's language we want to put in there please commit to this if you can commit to this um committee yeah um Miss I understand I appreciate that com yeah I think we can so um again the plan would be to um post this on the website uh following if the board approves this citizens committee so we can incude that language because I feel it would be inherently important to be involved um whether virtually or in person in every single one of these meetings um and so uh we can include that I think it would be an expectation upon applying um but we can we can spell it out certainly I'm sorry um you said that they'd be like an hour meeting or I mean they can do have like an idea of approximately how long we've set aside an hour uh we may extend that to an hour and a half but we would want to be respectful to everybody's time so um we we' try to be concise again since these are open meeting law we would have a clear agenda um and try to keep these um moving forward obviously some work would happen outside of the meeting in terms of maybe sending comments or trying to get information to committee members um in preparation U much like we do with the board uh the board's provided uh the agenda ahead of the meeting to try to um prepare with any questions Etc um we would follow a similar process uh to keep the meetings um efficient and and moving again forward so wonderful thank you so much anyone else thank you Mr Moore I'm excited for the citizens committee moving on to 6.3 first read IMG animals and school president Schultz members of the board uh tonight we're bringing forward a proposed change to policy IMG G uh we're asking to wave second read and adopt the policy to include one minor change uh the word may um we've entered into what's called a 302 resolution with the office for civil rights uh and this is the final step requested from the OCR to better our practices when it comes to service animals uh within the school district adding the word may clarifies that the list of functions for a service animal is not exhaustive but just examples and the office of civil rights uh we'll close the case once this policy is adjusted any questions thank you thank you moving on to action item 7.1 I move that we approve voucher seconded questions comments concerns all those in favor I I all those opposed I I don't oppose I just recuse myself from the vote right motion passes for 401 I think moving on to 7.2 I move that we approve the citizen committee second questions comments concerns all those in [Music] favor sorry about that I don't know know that okay thank you all those in favor we did that okay I motion carries 5 Z I move that we wave the second read and approval of policy IMG animals and schools second questions comments concerns all those in favor I I motion carries 5- Z I move that we approve voucher second questions comments concerns all those in favor I I motion carries 5 Z I move that we approve voucher one40 second all those in or questions comments concerns all those in favor sorry oh question good that's like really painful on the ears yeah sorry um in regards to this I just um I'm just glad to know that um parental consent is obtained um before it is used with the students that's all all those in favor I I motion carries 5 Z moving on to 7.5 I move that we 7.6 sorry I move the approval of Power Ranch Elementary science camp did you I missed the second okay okay all those in or questions comments concerns excuse me all those in favor I motion carries 5 Z future agenda items uh president Schultz I'd like to ask add policy JK um to the Future agenda and then um are we going to be um bringing the BBA the legal council policy yes board member um Van Hook we can do that I just need to excuse me I think it was January right or December it may be um I can I double check how many things are on December and also uh board member Van Hook can you verify I'm sorry that was the wrong policy huh that was the wrong policy um policy bdg um the language that you want to propose is it what you sent before is it um yeah I mean I I would like to be able to um get some help to maybe clean it up a little bit um so maybe if if uh they look at it first and then we decide like we bring what you had and then everybody can say yeah let's do whatever is that okay and in the meantime maybe all worked on on okays getting um the verbiage cleaned up um and then the other one was um policy BBA um at some point I'd like to be able to have that um discussed as well and that's the uh board agenda board packet policy be D sorry be DBA ba okay we'll look at that okay sorry and then um for policy JK the only reason I want to bring that up is because it doesn't match statute um AR ars1 15- 843b um the current policy states that the superintendent shall recommend policies but the statute itself says the governing board so I want to ensure that we need it matches the law yeah thank you yeah okay we will now I move that we I move that we move into work study a second for 10.1 superintendent search all those in favor I I motion carries 5 Z we're going to take a few minutes to reset [Music] oh was I supposed to look at it

good morning we will get our ratification hearing started this morning on Thursday November 16 7:34 Al to flag of the United States of America and to the for it stands one nation under God indivisible jce for get microphone on there thank you Mr Alexander this morning we are conducting a hearing it's been appropriately advertised uh for um the pre- ratification meeting for teachers contract so uh I'm going to turn it over to you this morning thank you Dr aranov this morning's pre ratification me has been appro advertised and now open this pre- ratification meeting um Dr Taylor I'd like to call on you to provide a brief overview of the contract thank you Mr Alexander um I will be brief but please note that all this information is linked in the agenda today and has been posted on our website um since uh 72 hours prior to this meeting um this is going to be a two-year agreement with the Teachers Association the United teacher Association of Center Grove um it's going to run for this school year in next this is a significant change in the way we've compensated teachers in the past um we are moving away from a model of compensation that we've had in place since 2014 um and we are moving to a new 18o model of compensation for teachers uh the teachers can earn nine points in that model for being effective or highly effective in the prior school year on their evaluation one point in that model for a year of experience which is defined as 120 plus days employed in the prior year and then they can earn up to Four Points by contain by possessing um new content area master's degrees or credits um and those points are kind of divied up based off how many additional degrees or credits they receive up to four and then finally another category a new indicator for us is uh leadership and learning um there'll be up to Four Points possible there and this is to honor the work that we know all of our teachers are doing um as part of their their commitment to our students and to our school um and this is up to Four Points possible for up to 15 voluntary hours um and this kind of spans a lot of areas of work where teachers can receive uh professional development um outside of the workday participate in committees both at the building um and at the corporation level including curriculum development um they may do volunteer tutoring coaching or any other educational related activity um to support student learning outside of the school day um they participate in activities to promote or grow our community and stakeholder relationships um um and then finally supporting their colleagues through helping with supervision of classrooms um like during prep periods or or lunch or before after school mentoring or other assistance while a teacher might be absent so um again that's up to 15 hours and teachers can get those across that category um that that will be also from the prior school year that will count for the future um and then finally just kind of a catch all there's also a if if teachers are are needing to do that during the school day there's some exemptions for that we know we have folks that have after school activi and so they can do that with administrative approval for the first year of this agreement um the board has agreed to to put uh 1.47 five million into the pool of money for this point system and so that money gets distributed out to the teachers based off how many points they've earned um this year's point value is actually going to be at $168 per Point um so teachers might earn that up to 18 points for the 2024 25 school year um we'll actually use a percentage base uh allocation of the money and so we'll calculate how much a right now we believe that to be about a 1% raise would be and again we would Dey that out across the 18 point model that number may change and we have some options to reopen the contract and talk about whether or not that number needs to change how much available Revenue we have or if we need to make some changes to our health insurance premiums next year those are the two areas that we would look at in the 2425 school year um but other than that this contract would run through the end of June of 2025 moving on to the second page I've just got some summary and some other things we've done in that um in this agreement um the lowest base salary for a returning full-time teacher would the lowest base salary increase for a returning teacher would be $ 22,35 and the highest for returning full-time would be $3,024 and really the fluctuation and variation there really is going to come down to um the level of Education or the additional credits the teacher has earned that's what kind of kind of changes that there's five increments between those numbers a $168 apart um this will set our new starting base salary at 47500 which we think is very competitive with our neighboring schools um and a new top based salary which again is very competitive if not one of the highest of our neighboring schools at 91,8 187 if I were to take all this money and kind of look at how much new money went into the collective bargaining unit as a whole um it would equate to 4.83% in an increase so that kind of helps folks relate this to how we've given uh increases in the past where this is very different it's not a percentage increase it's a flat amount um there's an additional provision this year we've identified some teachers who have fallen behind over the years um and they actually have more years at Center Grove in experience than what their compensation might um might show and so there's something called a teacher retention catchup provision this is provided through Indiana Law um and we're going to apply this not just this school year but also next year and it kind of comes in on fiveyear break so 5 10 15 20 and 25 years we will correct those teacher salaries and then apply the new increases and so um that's something that's going to impact 52 teachers this school year and then after this school year we'll identify the group that it would impact next school year um this agreement also includes an increase for the ECA schedule it's going to increase by 3% this school year and those positions are listed in the contract and then for health insurance we've got a very modest increase this year but we did want to keep up with the market Trend um um this is less than a 1% increase for our teachers it's it's honestly I've included some dollar amounts there just to show that the corporation is going to put $88,000 in for the teacher share into the health care fund um all of the teachers combined in their increase it's going to be 11,000 and so there's a there's you can kind of see the significant dollar amount there um and how it's how it's not not significant compared to the raise that we're providing and then just to break that down one level further I wanted to just list the individual employee premiums um the highest plan that we have would be a family po premium it's going to increase $3 per pay and we have 24 pays a year so you'll see no one's going to pay more than that amount in their year and when you compare that to the lowest and highest salaries above it's we believe that's a very modest increase but it does keep that plan moving towards the reserve level which is what we want um there was one IRS change we had to make so um if an in if an individual hits their deductible within a family plan that had to go up based off IRS rules ours was previously 3,000 it has to go up to 3,200 it also will have to go up in future years it's just it's one of those rules that are out there and we have to comply with and then just always like to remind um the community and and and our staff that we do have a very rich HSA contribution it will remain at that rich level this year moving forward um and this really helps offset some of those costs when we talk about premiums um and expenses in the medical plan and so as much as 2500 for a family plan in there um finally just a couple little language and other option other items that we've included in this agreement um we've we've added the option of a non-traditional Roth 403b so teachers will be able to deduct that from their paycheck and send it to one of our vendors and then finally we're going to expand the sickly bank it's been limited only to be used on the actual teachers care for themselves and we want to expand that if they're serving as a primary care taker for an immediate family member um we wanted to allow that we also included some some ways to fund that Bank um currently the bank gets funded by teachers being hired they donate one day when they're hired and every if that bank ever felt low we' we'd replenish it um but moving forward we're going to allow days from retirees to flow into the bank we're also going to allow teachers if they hit the annual cap that they won't lose those days they will flow into the bank so we don't foresee us ever needing to do an assessment um unless the bank just really gets used or we have some catastrophic issue but that will help keep it solvent and move it forward and think it's a great benefit for teachers especially those in those difficult times where they're caretaking for an family member Tred to be brief Mr Alexander but share all the details I could and I think I'm done um again the board there's no action asked today this is just a public hearing on this the action would be taken next Tuesday morning thank you Dr Taylor um this would be the appropriate time for members of the public to comment on theend of agreement are the members of the public president like to now close this meeting are there any board members who have comments or questions and again this is this is a procedural first step in a twep process the second the approval part of this process tues of appr cont really like to do that all the time get away from thish anyone else have any comments I just want to thank everybody that participated in the process and Scott and I were on our team the teachers I think showed up a good get this year as we did together for all so I know Jason a lot of effort CH place so so thank you for your leadership they're not here know inass I want all right there is no board action required at this time we have an ex sing at 6m and then we have our vote on ratification of the contract next Tuesday morning at 7:30 a.

[Music] look oh yeah h all right well welcome looks like we're already getting into it it does this is week six of Smash this is week six and on our team is Travis cutshaw y just kidding it's just Travis C and they are facing Yoshi who is wearing a blue skin and they the current map they're facing on is town and city now what makes this map special is it has three different stage forms it goes through now what you currently see are two platforms on either side but in spans of about 35 seconds they change so we might see the platforms disappear oh look there they go They're disappearing now it's just now it's just Final Destination all over again and they're heading over to get new Platforms in a different part of the town which makes this really cool which is there a certain amount of like platforms on the side that oh yeah it changes it's either between three or two or none there's no one platform okay all righty now is the is the blast zone different from destination like last week yeah yeah so the hit boxes on the side the left and right they are they're shorter than final destinations so I feel like Travis should more try to um should more tried to uh hit them off to the side you know yeah oh but oh it looks like Travis was his first that's ironic as soon as I said that Yoshi kills off the top we cannot forget about the top oh I didn't realize Yoshi lost a stock he did cuz Travis is just so dang good oh man Yoshi's trying to keep his oh look at that grab him through the egg that's pretty cool that plasma whip can certainly grab through a bunch oo a down smash that's good side special forward smash does not make contact but the grab does and a back throw that's good knock him over to the side up air wow he's really piling on the damage this is good yeah oh and he takes his first bit a percentage but I don't think that'll be too much of an issue to worry about he still has to watch it though cuz he does Yoshi could just off the edge in an egg oh and look at that not following my advice but still he gets the kill making our stocks two to one which is pretty good yeah all right especially for Travis mhm especially all right oh the platforms are changing again now it's Final Destination now they now they can't take advantage of the platforms they're going to have to change the play style for a few seconds oh Yoshi is here's got those up airs on him oh for tilt side special fun fact samus's side special can actually be changed depending on how you do the input so if you were to like hold the control stick to the left or right and press B then it would be pink but if you were to quickly tap it and press B then it's green it doesn't really matter too much in the grand scheme of things but hey the gree one does travel faster so yeah trais has got his charge shot in the reserve so he could bust that up he really wanted to oh down down throw he's really got to watch CU he's at 141% he most certainly does all righty I think all it takes is one yeah Tris could end this right here one what down B isn't it that Yoshi just slams down the ground yeah yeah that is his down special yeah or he or he could just do that off the ledge that'd be kind of cool yeah it probably wouldn't be good for their team oh the neutral be o just almost killing Yoshi and he's got another one charge and another another one wow well he always has to have one prepared he does he does he most certainly does all righty oh neutral be but he Shields it but the dash attack goes through the shield and Travis wins while only losing one stock that is good yeah wow what a good what a good game Travis you're doing awesome all righty um do we read sponsorships today um we really really can't right now yeah we don't have scripts are bad um yeah so that was pretty good that was uh that's pretty good uh one thing about smash town and city that you may not know is that the lighting actually changes depending on what what time of day it is like right now as you could see town and city was at evening but if we started at a time at like seven then it would be nighttime yeah it changes it's got like five four or five different ones that changes through what oh wow and it looks like they're picking King K rule next oh man all right here we go has dealt with a lot of King k rules he most certainly has we have some on our own on our own team and he hasn't lost a king K rule yet he has not and let's hope let's hope he will so he jumps off the ledge cuz he lost his stock twice or once just once just once he he's good all right starts charging up the neutral be because those helped him out last time yeah all right the problem with King K rues he's just got a lot of super armor plus his down be as a reflector yeah so maybe Travis might want to go a bit a bit um so when he reflects I noticed that his whenever I'm facing him or playing him his stomach cracks yes if it cracks too much it's the same as a shield break okay so it's just another shield and it doesn't really repair over time it just keeps cracking until eventually it breaks like uh the JV team is going against piranha plant with Lucario so hopefully they do good oh and the reflector from the King K rule that's not good especially with a oh wow with the down air wow up air wow down air and up air that's satisfying now one thing that samis could do is pick up King K ru's Crown see it acts like a boomerang but unlike link and younglings boomerangs if it drops on the floor like that he can pick it up and hit King krule with his own Crown he can Crown the King which is pretty cool yeah oh speaking oh wow oh yeah see King K rule just tried to use his side B but realized that it wasn't on the top of his head oh speaking of heads wow hit to the top of the blast him that ain't good really knows what he's doing yeah he really is but Travis also knows what he's doing so let's see who knows what they're doing better oh that upy from the King K Ru that ain't good oh oh oh you almost went over it I should probably give better commentary tyan just instead of just saying O oh yeah all righty side special no well man this King K rule is playing really good though yeah oh yep there's that super armor again he didn't even Flinch I don't know why his side be doesn't have super armor he has super armor he has too much oh and the Cannonball has too much power sending Travis all the way over all the way over into the corner Blast Zone that's unfortunate for him really is yeah but that's still four stalks taken before he could lose three so that's really good actually yeah he he took more than he lost which is very good actually yeah that's always good that's always good when it comes to that looks like we got Mr Baker in there and that's pretty cool if only we could show the camera if only we could show the people if that Mr Baker is there oh and there he is it's Mr Baker look at his blue t-shirt and the shorts and the shoes look at that those shoes could rival Air Jordan's best sneakes oh well and it appears they're sending in Noah playing snake playing snake this this is going to be awesome hopefully Mr Baker sticks around for this one I'm sorry I'm not going to mention him every time it's just something I noticed all righty so King K rule versus snake all righty I like his entrance me too King K rues giggle when he comes in he's like I'm here all right and Noah does his box that's pretty good oh puts him into the Canon just like Travis oh man oh and he tried to go for another oh no he miss the upbe oh that ain't good but I know Noah and he can do this how far does snakes upb go how far yeah it goes very far but he can rejuvenate it in the form of his downby cuz if he explodes in midair it can hit him and rejuvenate his up special so he can just constantly redo it yes he can what I know it's weird oh but speaking of weird weird and broken weird and broken speaking of a broken King K rules second stock has just now been broken that's pretty good yeah that's pretty good from Noah let's see if he can take the next stock out that'd be pretty good so currently we are up a person now no what is fun to watch Noah is trying to find out where he puts the C4 it is so much fun actually like just watching Noah in general is fun yeah oh the upy oh I hate him when that happens he Noah probably could have done an air Dodge or something but man that is bad yeah oh man that sucks all right but don't worry I believe in Noah so let's see what he does all right down tilt neutral those are his grenades by the way oh wow lots of explosions oh man no just one Oh I thought that yeah he doesn't I thought he was going to Meanwhile on the JV side piranha plant just beat out uh the Lucario I couldn't see by how many stocks though oh and meanwhile losing on the topic of losing stocks Noah just lost his last stock putting our opponents one team ahead now an interesting thing about our opponents is they have never lost the game just like us so to today one of one of one of these unable teams are going to lose so unable you mean unbeatable unbeatable yes one of these unbeatable teams and it looks like they're sending in Rob to go against the piranha plant on the JV side so now we're going to see who's going to go in on the varsity side all right well looks like Lucas is coming in here so heo certainly is oh well my bad looks like Travis is coming in ah Travis I get the two mixed up all the time so it appears they're debating oh disconnecting the controller disconnecting all right so I'm by myself now so remember to like And subscribe and uh check out our merch store it's pretty cool you can get cool merch hey Travis what's up man you can also get uh I think sucks he does suck that no it's not it's not even that no cuz oh I don't even have a mic on so I can't really speed yeah no so what sucks about it is that me and Noah both try to roll out of it and for some reason it's roll stunning yeah that that kind of sucks but on the topic of um on the topic of Varsity uh Lucas is going up and he is picking Mr gaming watch yeah so that's pretty cool Mr gaming watch I barely see him around so oh well let's see how he does better watch a game yeah we're going to watch him game we're going to see gaming in the purest of forms oh boy all righty all right a little Squat and they're ready they're ready to go so the other team is up by one stock so if Lucas can just take out this stock without losing one of his own then we'll just be even I'm excited to see who this roster has like I mean Yoshi and King K rule like they just got dinosaurs at this point man what's next buddy from dinosaur train is that gonna guy G to come out I haven't see that show in Forever me neither oh but you know what else I haven't seen in Forever a good combo uh you know I forget what I was going to say oh well back to the game so it appears that the city platforms have just come in and Lucas is probably going to be using those to his advantage to get rid of the king k he can also use his down special I think yeah his down special to avoid oh to reflect that King K rule Cannonball that King K Cannonball if you will yeah but he it's kind of risky cuz he can just shoot it right back out so he can it's not really big of a punish oh side smash that's good all right neutral B oh putting on the pressure but King K rues is unfaced and as you could probably hear from the JV room the JV side is going against Kia cuz they just now beat the piranha PL so congrats to them all right goes for the side smash man the fact about King K rues he's a heavyweight so he'll probably die at a very late by State uh side because if they Lun it by side it's a medium it's Proby big but still medium class yeah oh bombs and there we go that is good so congrats to Lucas he took them down while only losing one stock so we're so we didn't really go down any we are still um we we down one St yeah yeah I I know but we didn't go down any any more we're still down by one stock but I believe cuz the king K rule is behind us we don't have to fight King K rule anymore I assum the dinosaur Tamers huh so now we going to fight the dinosaur Tamers so Pokemon trainer yeah I could definitely see them playing Pokemon trainer me too I could I could see them playing down just running down time or something yeah yeah running down the time oh boy all righty look oh it's a Roy oh it is a Roy that it's your boy Roy it's your boy Roy boy I barely see these guys what's up Mr Baker what Su Mr Baker oh look at that we both got blue t-shirts on that's pretty cool joining in the I came to listen are you guys commentating yeah we're commentating we most certainly are commentating watch and listen to you guys all right all righty just for the folks at home uh if you don't know Mr Baker is just the principal of the school he is our school principal so that's pretty cool nothing too big nothing too big all righty so Lucas is at two stocks Roy's at three they're both at 0% so I'm excited oh never mind they're no longer both at 0% oh but Roy is at a higher oh never mind oh H yeah this game could always go anyone's way it always could it always could all it takes is one miss input from one player and it's gone that's all it takes uh now it's Final Destination form which kind of makes me scared of what this Roy is going to do cuz I feel like sword Fighter characters Thrive without platforms they don't they Thrive with platforms they do because uh most of the sword fighters Ariel's attacks are stronger than the one on ground cuz they can combo oh yeah but Roy is mainly just going for smash attacks which are seem to hit so I feel like Roy's best combo star would probably be his down throw to be honest it is actually a back throw cuz the back throw acts better of a Down throw little it does wow wow so it's bad for sending them backwards but it's good for sending them down yep okay that's pretty good some characters like that for some reason doesn't make any sense all right Lucas is trying to keep his distance but he's got to get closer to deal with this Roy and also this Roy is quick oh shielded oh with the forward smash oh not enough to kill yet oh Roy just hit the triple digits darn it uh oh the grab oh no oh no oh there we go Lucas is up be oh up air up air yeah it's a good reason that's an up air because it actually fires air yeah uh but even if Lucas got the other up air to connect it wanted to kill him it's a very very tall stage that is true that is true while the side blast zones may be kind of short compared to all the others uh the up it C and SA with the up with the up hit box it's actually I think a little it's only a little bit smaller than big Battlefield so and you know how huge that Battlefield is Big Battlefield that's a big stage total of six platforms oh wow and Lucas is able to get Roy back to a higher percentage than him that's really good and both of them are in killing percent so the next blow will really decide it but just oh wow they're trying oh the bomb and look at that he dropped it on Roy and Roy went blammo oh wow all righty all right I was just told to have moreor energy all oh oh oh up B oh and he gets back yeah he just gets it that's good and it's a good thing he used that get up attack when he did as Roy's attack did not affect him yeah but he has to get this Roy down two more stocks it's going to be kind of difficult for a lightweight character such as Mr gaming you are correct as that you are correct oh man but Lucas knows how to come back he does know how to come back that is one thing I will say about him he's great at it all right you can call him a boomerang cuz he always comes back well not all boomerangs come back but I would say because he's so cool what I don't know okay I was told to put more energy in so that's good I I appreciate you doing it I appreciate that you're actually putting in the effort to make our stream better for our audience I I making it better I just don't do it as often as I should oh man like a poor marriage I do what's necessary when it's needed okay then um never experienced a marriage so I can't confirm nor deny that it's a horrible show it was pretty funny to my eyes okay then oh wow Forward Air once again how many times has that Forward Air killed that's pretty good though oh wow oh up yeah it looks like JB actually do some kind of bad they attack before the start of the game yeah so the one of them is going to have to SD yeah that's pretty sad yeah but it's not too big of a rule Setter it looks like Lucas gets the Roy down the last stock though that's going to be that is that's good we can see if he can get him down let's see will Roy do anything rash I doubt it I doubt yeah like you said I doubt he's going to do something R I'm pretty sure he's just going to play it nice and safe if the Roy played it smart he could actually reverse that neutral be and probably killed Lucas right then and there oh to kill anyway forward smash that is depressing meanwhile JV is going against the palutena yeah our last player is Jaden Jaden's great at zoning out sword fighters oh yeah it's no surprise he's the captain of The Varsity it's beautiful he's also the youngest member actually so a prodigy a person with extraordinary talents he is oh man all righty so it appears Jaden is Wheeling in all righty and they're picking they're picking they're picking they're picking it's going go JV watch it a little bit of their match yeah that'd be kind of nice actually nice Spar than staring at my face well our faces are quite gorgeous they are quite gorgeous but I'm I'm nervous for the people at home you know yeah they might not like it it Varsity starting Varsity is most certainly starting so looks like this Roy has a jum SD uh two times which for the folks at home SD means self-destruction so yeah inste saying have to like words like kill for some reason yeah I'm still going to say it just not as much yeah yeah we don't want demonetization to hit our Channel well we don't have enough viewers to that's true it's not monetized in the first place so you can't take what you don't have all right so Ro is down to one stock and Isabelle still has her three so let's see if Jaden can take four stocks from the team y a taunt a taunt and the down be is placed now that down be is very sneaky I I don't I don't like playing against it because I have to keep my eyes open for it I mean true you can destroy it but sometimes I just forget and me destroying it just leaves me open so I choose just to stay away from it but staying away from it may mean that I step on it accidentally the cuest thing about this is It's Isabelle's map so she has home stage Advantage like obviously yeah yeah but in all actuality more platforms mean or more aerial so that little shot she uses she use more of those yeah like as you saw a little bit ago the platforms move and they're on that platform while it's moving and they have as a bomb underne oh he finds a stop he gets it wow does the bounce of joy in his chair it's now even our last player versus their last player that's that's interesting I mean I'm excited to see who they bring out maybe they'll bring out NES yeah uh but right now we need to start thinking about who goes in first next round and I personally think if it's going to be the same exact way I think Noah should go in first just yeah that would be that would be pretty good that and or Lucas so I was through Lucas's match the only problem was is that he was down a stock against this Roy yeah that's true otherwise the Roy would have died at very early since he would have he would have oh well all right what are they choosing obviously you would give it a random guess without looking they got a cloud they got a cloud profile picture so I'm going to guess Cloud yeah I honestly think they're going to be playing a range character Sora no uh Link Link oh wow got the gas no way that's crazy amazing that is crazy and the fact oh but the fact but the folks at home didn't see that I guess that right before it showed so so so I may be lying yeah he may be but all right your imagination Isabelle versus Link now I feel like start off right ahe yep there we go yep yep the pocket taking all of his projecti this is the really great game for Jaden cuz Jaden knows how to PO use that pocket really well cuz he plays against my samis and other variants of range characters such as link and the young Link and etc etc plays against my Nas and Pockets my PK Thunder off stage that's very annoying yeah and he's definitely done it like more than once in the same match as well all right so all right so the so they're doing pretty good at the moment pretty even pretty even as you can see uh Isabelle has a bit more of a percentage lead see the yeah but the only problem is Jaden wants that link a lot more higher percent than he is because he's lightweight and makes medium weight that's true it's a very bad Advantage for Jaden if he's higher percent it is but I feel like Jaden can get get more percentage on him quickly Jaden is good at finding those really easy kills up by the site side oh Dash attack that ain't good oh boy yeah oh calls out the turn around that's good yeah clip this sorry if it gets a little muffled real quick all right all right um all right there should better now but anyways Jaden's trying to find a kill right here he is St the folks at home stocks just lives yeah they're lives um I refer to them as either honestly yeah that's like the only problem with this game there has so much other words so many so much lingo y um oh Shield Parry that's pretty good yeah but Jaden doesn't let him counter off the shield Parry he doesn't all right let's see he Pockets Boomerang and he's got a squeaky Hammer of broom in a bucket what household item is he going to bring out next a boomerang obviously of course cuz Jaden's just like a boomerang he can make a comeback against this he can he most certainly can this dude's at 139 which is that link is just going to try to Zone him out I don't think it's going to work for him yeah it may he may he may just throw out his Boomer rang so Jaden will pocket it just to fire arrows at him cuz if cuz if Jaden fires the Arrow when a arrow is flying out his face forward smash that's good then the boomerang will just hit the arrow and not hurt Link at all oh that Master Sword almost killing that's scary that is scary all righty let's see o all right jayen goes up oh man this is nerve-wracking so uh for the folks at home the people that we're playing against right now they won three of matches and tied another one so oh I was wrong I thought they never lost no hm but for some reason uh the program we used to say who won and lost yeah they took the win for they took the win for some reason and the other team took the loss I don't I don't know what happened it's probably because we're using a new website it is I wish we just stuck with the old one there was problems with the old one unfortunately there were but they weren't as noticeable well I didn't notice them that's cuz uh it was via the coach end it was taking too long to communicate you know that it works that's true but with Tetris it worked fine yeah with Tetris but not like games not or uh last year was B but this year it would be OverWatch o gets him with the fishing rod oh up B that's good sending him towards top of the blast zone that's actually down B so say land M rocket it's just easier cuz up is a very different move yeah upb and up special mean the same thing and the way you perform them is just by pushing up on the control stick and pressing B Jaden opts for a boomerang instead of a smash attack for oh up smash yep oh man it's very risky for Jaden Jaden's at a disadvantage here he's very close to the ledge and Link control center stage yeah a dash check will kill Jaden oh but a for smash I mean not smash that was close goodness it was close it came down to the wire so the best thing we can hope for right now is a tie we can yeah I'm actually going to go in there real quick and communicate with the rest of the team about which stage we're going to kind of pick Travis you are our man on the inside inside the Sam suit yep and inside the JV team that's pretty cool oh alrighty that's pretty cool so we did lose that game unfortunately but I have high hopes for the next one very high hopes actually okay as for the JV team it's a little mac versus an Ike all right if you could switch over the camera to that that'd be pretty cool oh we got headphones all righty if you could switch over to the JV camera that'd be awesome but oh well we are heading into the varsity varsity is picking snake and our opponents are going with Yoshi that's pretty good it's going to be a very very uh probably an easy kill or two mhm say give me a second I will I will give you a second sorry I got a phone call yeah you do all the ladies calling Travy Travy mavy that's what I call him all right putting down his land mine immediately okay all righty let's see all right down B okay all right up smash neutral B okay putting on the pressure lots of projectiles in his face oh boy oh boy snake is at a higher percentage but Yoshi is a little bit lighter so it's so hopefully that will compensate for for uh Noah having a higher percentage all righty oh and oh well Noah dies Noah's character dies my bad sorry for the Ruckus a it's okay it's okay we came here for the Smash Bros not the phone calls not the phone calls all righty yeah come on Noah Come On Come On Noah show that Yoshi What You're Made Of send them back to the cretacious age well I was going to say Cretaceous AG just more catchy is it the Cretaceous I do not know my dinosaur phases this Cretaceous is a dinosaur this Jurassic this Cretaceous no Cretaceous is more of a biopod like the centipedes stuff oh okay anyways well look at that they've evened up the stocks and Noah oh never mind I was going to say I was going to say he's at a lower percentage but he isn't anymore oh oh but he's trying to he's trying to even it up a bit Yoshi no it was mediumweight Yoshi's lightweight so yes too we know very well cuz it's actually one of my favorite Maps yeah I can I can verify almost every on on our varsity team really plays well in this map we preached about this map because it's so good well balanced oh because instead of having yeah Yoshi kicks the bomb don't think that was a good idea no but uh anyways back to the map information this map actually is decently smallish mhm it is um yeah decently small two platforms you've seen it before back on week one oh and speaking of things you've seen before uh Noah lost his second stock I haven't even seen that before but uh oh my bad that was probably very mean my bad Noah no Noah's not gonna take offense to it I'm oh up tilt yeah up tilt kills but I'm so surprised how much super armor uh Yoshi's down be is so fol at home super armor is like how strong a move has to be until knocks him out oh that was pretty good yeah it was the curvature the N hit no up smash though oh man I I thought that gun would have blocked it I thought it would have hit the gun and bounced off all right oh he's a when Noah brings out the mortar the mortar becomes one of his hit boxes so it's why it's such a risky move all righty and I believe JV won their match so yeah that's pretty good for them so congratulations to JV they're doing awesome Come On Noah all it takes is one good smash attack or one good up tilt one good one you got this man oh he went for the up tilt so he's looking for that uptilt he just cannot connect with it yeah the hit boox is kind of small for that uptilt just like most men in the 40s untendered they just cannot connect oh yeah man Yoshi kicked another bomb that wasn't good it didn't cost him his stock though oh no he's got the grenade he forgot about it I think so for some reason with the controllers we're having it's not letting us Press B in certain times that's a shame especially when we're online all right oh Dash attack let's see how this goes no goes Nikita side B oh oh the platform oh with the grenade oh you hate to see it so close that was so close yeah oh goodness only one stock ahead though so I believe we can come back yeah I wonder who going to counter pick I could see mine or Lucas's but I want to save Jaden for last though cuz I do not want Jaden to waste the Isabel that Neely took the Roy down a stock down yeah yeah um yeah that's pretty good for Yoshi though I mean he lost his first round so at least he got the glory of winning at least once so that's good for him not good for us Lucas to go so it appears they are they are picking Lucas so that's fun I'm excited to see how this goes I can see exactly how it's going to go Lucas is going to carry him off stage and after he carries him off stage is done done for him yeah yeah cuz Lucas can recover from it CU he could upy and then air Dodge which gives him even more and if he gets hit again by Yoshi it's another up another air Dodge well look at that Lucas is going with a different costume he's going for SE foam green wow he's difference yeah what well I mean his last one was black so it's Black versus color versus color so it's a shade versus color yeah let's go ahead and go switch over to the actual game play our lovely faces I I put on makeup just for this I don't wear makeup I think neither do I I'm sorry I makeup doesn't really fit well with me so have you ever tried it nope well I just tell oh it's not for you all righty so we got so we got Lucas versus this versus this Yoshi's oh I forgot about Lucas's up smash Lucas up smash has like three or four frames of inability so does so does Lucas's well game gameing watch is yeah gaming watch gameing watch and Lucas and Smash Bros both have up smash super armor I wish I could use Lucas's up smash super armor more cuz it's really hard to pull off though it is oh that speaking of us P it off like a darn champ what a champ what an utter champ I feel like they're going to bring out the Roy for this one no I have a feeling going to pull off the uh King K Ru yeah that would makes sense I mean King K Ru is pretty heavy yeah the only reason I think about this is because King kave R has a like I we said earlier very heavy very hard to knock off small platforms and he has a lot of knock back to dish out that's a knock back speaking of King k r it appears that JV is going against the king k Ru and it's one stock to one stock Sonic versus King K rule that is pretty good but meanwhile on the varsity side they pick a king K rule too I thought they were going to do yeah you're right good job good job I think Lucas is Mr Game and Watch because they haven't faced off really that much yeah when until Lucas was like one stock so and also our team has an even number of stocks as their team it's the same number yeah we're this the what we're hoping for we're hoping for a tie so we would still be kind of undefeated but at the same time yeah oh oh oh I was hoping that would but at the same time it's actually kind of bad for us if we go under tie cuz it' be mean that we were one of the best in leades League well aren't we already one of the best yes we are already one of the best cuz we only we never lost a match so far yeah but they've tied yeah they tied we're going hopefully try to tie it m but he's still hoping Hope Oh and wow the Sonic wins against the king K rule so congratulations to them you hate to see it the king K rule is just so atrocious on this map oh man his super armor with almost every smash attack like that forward smash would have collided if he didn't have it on that down smash yeah oh the humanity oh but we see that reflector in the form of the bucket that's pretty good oh and he tried to deflect the cannonball with his face which worked but it didn't hit the king K roll oh there's the cannon ball again oh he was hoping to hit the back at him that's that would have been cool if he did that but he didn't all right up smash I think that's going to be Lucas's savior up air and up smash cuz that just invincibility frames sorry stuttering yeah yeah he gets the oh oh I think he was stuck so Lucas could have infinitely done that for at least a good 100% yeah NES does that too sometimes with his down til he can do that I've seen it before I don't know how to pull it off so well there's always YouTube good thing we always have YouTube yeah one of my favorite Nest players posted a video on it yeah uh that's just just a good thing not mod I can't speak today apparently modern day Society yeah we can just look up other people that are better than us like this awesome varsity team that you are witnessing right now oh oh oh my bad oh it's good Lucas oh up smash yep Lucas is there's nothing he oh but he gets a down smash to forward smash that's good that is so s my most favorite Mr gaming watch combos it is so good the problem is it's hard to bury King K rule no not really it isn't no it's how long you hold it uh SMH that determines what who gets dug and who doesn't get dug out what is the proper way to get out of being dug on is it okay just to mash that's exactly how to get it Mash buttons is there a proper way to mash or just just go at it uh so tilts usually so you just place your thing on the joycons and just rub it really fast like your palm yeah oh cuz that's counts as attacking oh okay and it's count consider pressing a button and a Direction so it's two in one oh that's good yeah come on Lucas you got this buddy oh meanwhile the Sonic lost to the yike so that's a big shame um let's hope game of watch does not share Sonic's fate oh down is not going to share Sonic's he will not because Mr game watch is the one and only champ oh oh oh he P he grabs a crown he tried to King Kroll tried to use the side B oh there it goes yep the Crown's back on his head yeah I'm surprised that Lucas does not use judge more often no it's cuz it's it's very risky like this player we had last year named Simon H uh I can say his last name I should probably shown it Simon uh he played hero yeah he played it like just for fun and I think that's what really drug us down also I didn't really show up for most of the practices so yeah that that's a thing as well um jv's counter pyro mythra oh wow that was so close that's you hate to see it wow Lucas did a pop off it should be me or Noah like like I said I think Jaden should be the last one to be playing cuz it's going to be a hard to play against Jaden for him hey Travis what's up do you ever get the feeling that rival schools watch this stream in order to see how we play so apparently not a lot of other schools stream and no one really watched their stream besides the Grateful parents out there shout out to you it looks like they are counting picking me they are so to the L Travy my spammy Sam spammy Sammy yep spammy Sammy have fun buddy bye buddy good thing I good thing I aimed higher than normal that's pretty good actually so congrats to Lucas he did he did pretty good he did pretty good well look who it is you got a jersey now yeah that's pretty good I like how you got a jersey look at you we're matching cuz we're teammates you know it would be kind of funny if my microphone being actually mentally sane yes no no not what I was going for but imagine if my microphone just wasn't plugged in for the entirety of this oh wow and it appears they are picking Samus it's samis versus King K rule let's hope this do that they do well I'm sorry for stuttering all righty Travis just needs to pull his thing into the ring I will be back real quick that's good I don't know why people are taking so many breaks I have yet to leave so priorities am I right anyways alrighty so dvis is standing up adjusting his pockets he's checking around everything and he's putting his token back in the ring so they are starting it is Samus versus King krule now King krule did lose two stocks last round so he's going to have only one stock versus Travis is three the problem is that King coll is the second person on their team and Travis is the third so let's see how this goes all right King krule has to take the draw of Shame sucks for him but oh well now they're on even footing well I would say that but Travis oh now they're on even footing look at them all righty oh wow King K Ru is challenging samis with his with his own set of projectiles oh boy oh wow man Travis came in here and said he didn't like that King K rule that King K rule must have hurt him or something jeez he's piling on the pressure this is scary Travis what do you expect what do you mean I I wasn't talking about Travis piling pressure King R Travis is at 80 he's really not wanting to go out on the first stock oh up there but that wasn't enough oh man oh he tries to go for an up smash all right neutral b side special I'm sorry I keep switching side special oh but he King k r reflects it and he cracks his stomach he cracks it so if he does more cracks on that stomach uh yeah if he cracks that stomach more oh and back throw there we go I called I'm so awesome as you said before his stomach doesn't re it doesn't regenerate it doesn't fix itself it doesn't fix itself I don't I'm not that much of a king K rule player I just know from when I play against King K rules I don't but then again looks like it's fixing itself it is oh that's a that is a shame yep that is an absolute shame oh well the bigger they are the harder they fall yeah and I'm hoping Travis will make this King K rule fall hard hopefully here's the hoping man this King K rule Cannonball and then the crown and then another Cannonball I don't think he meant to do that I think that was a Miss input I could see on his face it changed all right will you see don't really act like this but this one oh neutral be that's good I'd clab for him you know what all right absolutely Flawless that was good it was a really good one that was absolutely great back to the uh pyro mythra versus Ike let's see how this goes alrighty alrighty let's see how they how it goes all right so they're both at one stock oh speak of the stock look at that pyate just took a stock so congratulations to pyra wow uh that was Izzy who did that so congrats to Izzy and shout outs to Izzy all righty and our oppon and our Varsity opponents they pick Roy so it's Roy versus Samus and Samus has two stocks you okay buddy mentally no physically sort of dude don't tell the audience anyways dropping off the ledge that's the drop of happiness cuz he's actually on our team the other guys take the drop of shame but we take the drop of Glory all right do you know where they fall when they take the drop of Glory they fall into the pit the pits of chaos moving on moving on Travis versus Roy um wow Travis is putting on the pressure Travis is putting on the pressure that's pretty good oh up throw all right down special neutral special neutral special again will it hit oh he's not going to fire it out just yet no he charges it before he does that just so like when so when he goes to shoot the rocket right afterwards like he's got one in the chamber yep One in the Chamber just like that one Nerf game I played right there all right oh down smash that ain't good but this Roy is at 100% that's pretty good Travis is gonna be looking to even out these stocks up smash no that's a back throw no I meant up throw but no that's a oh forward smash oh wow sorry for my voice getting loud oh all righty all right all righty all righty Roy's taking him over to the right side oh oh no but Travis gets back to the left side that's good all righty so they're fighting for control over the center of the stage cuz whoever has the center of stage has the power yeah and it appears Travis has the power and he also has got the spike if only that we're off ledge that Roy would have been gone he could have charged his he okay there it is he could charge his Cannon while the guy while the well maybe maybe he was trying to be unpredictable you know I doubt I doubt that would help with him not having it it kind of just seemed stupid oh wow oh down B neutral be Z no no that's a z the light the lightning that's his grab is up throw that is not good the lightning whips his grab isn't it as for the J huh the lightning whip that Sam does that's his grab isn't it yeah that's his grab it's known as a tether grab because it extends out um as for JV pyro mythra lost against their opponent Kia without taking a stock so that's not good yeah all righty all right up B ooh side smash it appears they're sending out Rob to go against the Kio but back to this game this is the one you came for didn't it and ain't it all right down throw Forward Air English child I'm trying man English is my first language after all oh and again but once again okay I doing it again and again and again okay I'm stop okay on topic all right so Roy has a very high percentage oh Eddie has also got sick air dodging skills reminds me of me when I play Nest sorry I got allergies anyways oh boy so appears that Rob and Kia are starting their match Rob is being played by Sam yeah so shout outs to Sam you make your team proud Sam so um so anything about Sam is that you want to tell the audience I've only fought one playing online H that's pretty good actually I've never played online on Ultimate well at home anyways I play at the Cyber it's not fun it ain't fun I play NES I make it more not fun especially if your beginning it's not fun it ain't fun you are correct you have to Lose to Win I guess Travis has lost a lot all righty so it appears that they counterpicked to the link another projectile character and also we are up a stock so that's pretty good yeah we might even be up two no I think we're only up one so congrats and uh Travis once again takes the double drop of Glory so that's pretty cool a that's cute shout outs to Joo um I wanted to say that for a while and totally was not told that shout outs to Jomo he had a kid so he is not on the stream not that he usually is on the actual communicating part of the stream but let's just say Jomo makes the Cyber tigers go around pretty much yeah kind of like how food makes my tummy go around Jomo makes the Cyber tigers go around it makes it work but he is not not at work today he is having his fifth child and I think I know exactly what he's going to call it Cinco de Mayo Cinco de Mayo all right while Jackson adjust himself well Jackson adjust himself uh samis is going to be adjusting his play style against link some of you might notice I just said his play style well Samus is a girl if you didn't know so there's that I'll be honest it took me about since it came out till like about a week ago didn't know that samis was a girl well there we go that's that's why we're that's suit Sam oh wow my bad we just missed the fact that Travis's character just died to link didn't even get to take a stock you hate to see it you hate to see Travis with his stocks gone I hate it it is bad and I don't want to see it anymore meanwhile on the JV side if we can get Travis back in here you can okay you want me you want me fine I will be fine I'll be fine like my favorite lyric in uh Dolly Parton's Hard Candy Christmas cuz I'll be F okay what he wants you to give him a second okay I um wait who is he going to replace will he replace you or me by that makes sense that makes sense all righty know more about this game than I do a Jackson don't beat yourself up there's plenty of people out there to do it for you I'm just I only started playing smash last last month that's good good that's good you playing oh Blue Jay's thinking Sora this is interesting it is interesting because I've never seen him play Sora you haven't well he plays it good so this is not sora's first time playing Sora so yeah I'm sorry do did I say sora's first time playing Sora I meant Travis's first time playing Sora you mean Jaden Jaden I got Travis on my mind and I can't get him off it's like a song that's stuck inside my head speak oh he's no longer stuck inside my head cuz here comes Travis rocking his special hoodie yeah hey we got catch games all righty yeah I was thinking catch my hands happening all righty so it's an even game at the moment we have six stocks they have six stocks yeah so what me and what took me so long actually to be in there uh we were discussing counter plays against this link cuz it seems like he's very comfortable in the air and spamming the projectiles which is very very weird for a link main I'm going to say and like just right there you see the link is going to deci side be and shield until that boomy comes back to punish so Jaden's best reaction is either going to try to Edge him out like he's doing right now or just bum rushing him and hoping it works out mhm so wow it's so awesome how our varsity team is doing so much strategy in this it's so good yeah oh down air beats up smash that's pretty good oh wow went for the side smash fun fact linkid smash is almost the exact same as Heroes yeah uh differ I can't correct oh I believe got he has a Parry so if jadden times it just right when that boom ring comes back when he Shields like normal uh he could just counter against him mhm and what you just saw with Sora flying through the air that is sora's side smash yeah no side b side B yeah side B and that basically allows him to um Target his enemy if he does choose or it can be used to get back this going this is going to be devastating yes oh boy sorry for the folks at home who have headphones if you can even hear my apology yeah they're now death yeah we just blew their ears off my bad so as anyone ever announced that yeah we're the most happiest we've been in a while because this is actually the first time we' really had a big challenge so yeah this is this is really fun for us this is good as an Varsity now don't worry all the other teams we faced are all really good in their own respect it's just that out matching and out knowing the information about certain stages like such as Pokemon Stadium 2 which I normally do when I take time out a personal day to do it so M you're doing good on that by the way with all those charts you put up and all those websites that's really cool I tried to find the most relable information yeah it also doesn't help I've been playing this game since melee the Wii version oh yeah melee wait which was it the melee or the Wii the wiii version I okay that's start playing sorry I started on melee cuz my cousins had a GameCube and I usually play it with them and that no my stepbrother had a GameCube and um they just keep it at of my house there's that Shield side B I was talking about with the boang oh it's going to be devastating for Jaden oh goes for the counter but link is not biting he's just biting his time yeah that's the best thing I unfortunately we lost that one no oh boy this ain't good no it's not but I believe in Jaden with all confidence I do too he is good all right neutral B link back rolls away link forgot that he had his thing out what thing was that Boomerang oh yeah all right uh careful Jaden yeah ohry he he could have countered yeah he definitely could have countered but he didn't have enough frames for it yeah oh but he gets the neutral be off whoa whoa he's definitely looking for his down smash which is going to be his most reliable and the Thunder and Fireball cuz Fireball is going to stop the count the arrows and stuff all right side b side B wow he can chain three of those together I don't know if it's mandatory that he does three no yeah he can stop it at at any time and look at that JV uh Rob won against the piranha plant cuz they beat the kazia punished for the that side B oh man can Jaden get another stock no oh oh maybe he can wait maybe he can all right oh oh he tries to Parry up oh the dashit attack gets him right there right when Sora hi his arm and cut him right across the armpit that's a shame probably trimmed a few of sora's armpit hairs that's sad yeah so we as you saw we played very hard as we could the opponent team just outmatched us yeah but we by either doing a annoying move which none of knows how to counter against it or sitting off stage yep oh well so it looks like like JV and varsity is done for the day yep Varsity out the sponsors cuz I don't really have a script to read off of uh sweet obsessions auction it and Wells Community Foundation Well Community Foundation and and I think we're missing one so yeah yeah sorry to that so like I was saying last OverWatch stream this is the end of the Fall Split the next time you will see us we'll be here soon I do not have a date for certain yeah so so remember to like comment and subscribe to our Channel check out the merch store it's really awesome um yeah otherwise that should be it for tonight without further Ado I'm Jordan and this has been Travis and we are saying cyber tiger goodbye to you yep peace see you guys next season

mics are up stand bying up in two and live GNA start us off Rob yeah okay hello everyone welcome to the uh Ashland select board meeting for November 15 2023 I am remote doing due to a health issue U my the vice chair Yolanda Greaves will assist at various times that become uh necessary um so welcome everyone and um uh and the first item on the agenda is the um is the uh Dei task force presentation so Michael I'll turn that over to you uh for that participation is first yeah um oh we moved to afterwards sorry sorry Rob um we're all we're all getting can we participation okay uh I just had a question or just for the board this is a procedural thing we have just 10 minutes for the tax classification here and what's the plan for that are we just opening it and having a brief discussion yeah Rob we're doing the the um planning board joint meeting at 7:30 no I understand so but we've got 710 open the tax classification he correct so we'll have 20 minutes 10 minutes Rob i' I'd like to recommend we just do citizens participation now okay rather than after the planning board discussion just to clarify what my agenda has the the planning board at 7:20 did that did not get updated correctly all right so 7:30 and the planning board knows that and we expect okay they show up they show all right so and uh yes let's do if you guys need some more time that's fine let's do um citizen participation not is there anyone um and Yolanda tell me if there's anyone in have someone here in the room for Citizens participation okay I recognize uh um introduce yourself yeah uh Steve Morgan uh 136 conquer Street good evening um I have uh couple comments concerned this evening so I guess one comment is uh I was happy to see the fence behind my home get installed um disappointed that the whole fence wasn't installed apparently there's now a plan not to install the rest of the fence that's on the original plans but be that as it may the wooden fence is now installed uh the fence is installed approximately 8 in on the town side of where the prior boundary was and the prior fence was so I'm certainly appreciative of the town's decision to put the fence 8 in on its on its property right that's where it is now based on my pictures and the prior landmarks um I am not happy and I've asked you to get Mr Kendall under control because I just received an email from him telling me that he's going to install bounds markers along my property line there are no bounds markers there on the plans he has no authority to install any bounds markers I don't consent to that that's a disputed boundary so I'm willing to let it settle with the fence I am not willing to have the project go over there and decide to put bounds markers on that property and wherever they feel like putting them so having him add bounds markers that are not in the plan and are not required by T by law is not acceptable and I need you to put a stop to it I would also tell you and this is a public documents request I'm now requesting documents and all work notes of the surveyor there has been no meeting with the surveyor this has been brought up repeatedly um surveyors are required by their legal standards for the state of Massachusetts to research calculate produce notes and talk with um other sources of information and historical records to resolve boundary disputes so if the surveyor is in good faith trying to do that he would obviously talk to the neighbors myself included and produces information and have a meeting there's been no meeting of any kind with the surveyor no offer for a meeting it's very clear that the existing fence was on the pre-established boundary on the original deed as we have discussed before so if somebody wants to quiet that boundary and agree to a new boundary I'm certainly happy to go to a meeting and have that discussion but until that happens or somebody produces an order from the land Court leave it alone it's very simple it's where it was don't be going over there trying to install any new bounds markers to try and dispute my property I don't consent to that and I can put my signs back up but as this board has already been informed the no trespass that was sent not withstanding Mr Town manager's removal of my signs is a one-year notice you're on notice self-help I mean I'm ruling to ignore the self-help you know because the fence is an acceptable place and we can kind of all move on but I'm not willing to have Mr Kendall go over there on Friday and start putting in permanent bounds markers where he feels they need to be so I don't know if anybody has a question I don't know if you're aware that he's trying to do this but apparently he sent an email earlier today claiming on Friday he's going to put in permanent bounce markers at the corners of my lot which were never in the plan not required by the bylaw and are obviously there um to cause negative will so I think the best course here is to just either sit down and settle it go to court or just agree to leave it alone where it sits on the fence that's that's my opinion I don't know if the board has any thoughts right thank you Mr Morgan um Michael do you have any response you want to make or any other the members of the committee no I do know that um Paul Kendall was talking to leis me today about this um and Paul had reached out to me to talk about it I didn't have a chance to talk to him today so I I know there was some conversation about that 3:58 this evening telling me they're going to put bounce markers so I don't consent I don't care what Town Council thinks if she wants to go to land court and get an order we can have a land court case if she doesn't have a court order she needs to stay off the property and leave it alone in Massachusetts one once bounds markers are located it's a crime to remove them or modify them and so them adding bounds markers is clearly adverse to my property and I am not in consent of them going out there and putting in bounds markers maybe that's why Town Council wants to put them there to improve her case but I'm not interested in that I think it needs to be left alone and you know we can go to court or not at your discretion I don't want to be in court I don't want to waste the time or money offense looks great so I would hope that people will stay off my property and not try and put permanent markers and then file it at the registry of deeds and all this other nonsense that apparently they're now planning to do um um I just have one question so you did you are recognizing that the fence is 8 Ines off your property line based on the photos I'm not a surveyor but based on the photos the prior markers the fence posts that were there before which seem to align with the original deed from the 50s the fence is currently little less than a foot on the town side so it's not exactly where it was it's a little on the town side okay they're now trying to put the marker 10 ft onto my property oh which is where they claim the original boundary is which it never was so they're now trying to Mark the town's property 10 ft onto my property okay okay so they're no longer at the fence line they're now 10t onto my property which is what we were disputing before and we've had this whole conversation about so okay there's there's no Town bylaw for markers in the middle of a straight line it's not on the books in this town it's not required by any of the plans and he's just doing this cuz he's cooked it up with apparently Town Council now that I know there's a conversation so maybe they like to improve their case but not interested in that it's it's clearly adverse and it is not helpful so I can go get my signs from the police station which I've left them over there not Tred to aggravate the situation and I can put them back up and we can all start this again but The Simple Solution is to leave it alone that's my opinion um Michael I just my question is is that something that you and Town Council are involved in I mean I guess I'm a little leery about Paul doing things on his own as a private citizen this should be well like I said before I know that Paul and Lisa Town Council was they were having a conversation about it today and Paul reached out to me to have a conversation but I didn't have a chance to talk to him all right about it so I'm not I'm not sure what was said you know Council hasn't talked to me nor has the surveyor and now I'd like all the documents because i' like to know how they resolved the 10t dispute I've got my pictures and my documents I know where the fence was if they did their due diligence they can show me their work because at this point if they want to permanently make a change I'd like all of those documents before anybody does any of those changes but we do have a surveyor on this hired by the town is that right Michael correct yeah and it's o the point I'm trying to make um is that he has an obligation under his U work ethics as a registered surveyor to do that work and I am therefore able to get a copy of that work and he should have already reached out to me and he hasn't so he's either not being told as a dispute and therefore he hasn't even looked at it or he was told and he's tried to resolve it in his own mind and he has work notes so at this point I like to see what he's got and you know I can put this in the portal too but a verbal request is sufficient for public records I'd like to to see all that work if we're going to go down this path if we're going to leave it alone I don't need to work okay thank you all right thank you I appreciate the time thank you all right and I would just leave it that uh Michael and his staff will follow up with whatever's needed here okay any from board members or nope okay good all right so that's uh anyone else for Citizens participation I don't see anyone on the screen with a raised hand in person okay all right so I think we can go to our next item on the agenda um the first is the Dei task force presentation and Michael were you going to start this off yeah I'll just I'll start it off um just uh on behalf of the task force we're we're happy to be here and to give an update to you um we're uh we're pleased to have let's see Makita Keegan here and MOA from uh the Dei task force as well um in addition to those two members uh kg and Ariana Karen waldstein Roger Shri go and Rabbi Eric gerbis are part of the Dei task force and um and ciny uh as well um as well as Jen and myself um so what we have been doing uh over the course of I think before since the last update before the select board is we had a meeting uh or basically a public forum about Public Safety at the at the new Public Safety building which was um a great success uh good opportunity to have an open dialogue with our police Chiefs and police chief and Fire Chief and some of their personnel as well as Makita um to talk about some of those issues um in addition to that we've been working on uh developing a strategic plan and so the first components of that were to secure the funding which we were able to do through the generous help of Senate President Karen spilka then we went through an RFP process where we got yeah 22 um different proposals um in response to that and through that process we selected I suuccess Consulting and so I'm pleased to introduce T Rene Smith um who is here to help us who has been helping us with this um a strategic plan process and at this point um I would first ask if any of the uh Dei task force members wanted to add anything before we turn it over to T Renee so people are shaking their heads no so so T Renee um I've teed it up for you how about that for a pun thank you that was great that was great and I'll take it good evening everyone I am super excited to be here with you the Dei task force and I have been working diligently over the last couple of months in preparation for our Dei strategic plan and we wanted to just provide you an overview with our scope of work and then also to give you an update so in developing the Strategic plan we develop it in four different steps so the first step is an alignment phase and we went through that phase starting in June of this year to September and there were several different things that we covered first we reviewed all of the Dei ad hoc projects that had been done by the town both in the community as well as with the workplace we looked at the deliverables and created our project checklist we established a business case for Dei within the community as well as the workplace because it is a a collective um strategy of doing both the community and the workplace so that we can have holistic Dei efforts and when we say Dei we are discussing Dei for all and we looked at the Dei governance um which we outlined the responsibility for the task force and then governance after this project is complete and then we did a stakeholder analysis we wanted to look at who was who would be the stakeholders both internal and external during this project and once the project was over one of the things that we wanted to make sure was that everybody's voice was heard everybody felt seen and everybody was included in this process and one of the things that we did in the alignment phase which will continue into the assessment phase is really just identifying there's any resistance or any push back or is there any type of training that needs to be done about what Dei is and why is it beneficial and so we focus on the benefits from a personal perspective as well as from an organizational perspective so step two is the phase that we're in which is the assessment phase which goes from October uh to February 2024 and so in this phase will be our data Gathering and data analysis phase so in the month of November we've already launched the employee and the leadership survey which was launched last week and this is an assessment of the workplace of the culture of uh past Dei efforts current Dei efforts and future Dei efforts the surveys are anonymous because we want to make sure that we get honest and transparent feedback so today we have 36 uh leaders that have excuse me we have 36 employees that have responded and we have eight leaders that have responded and so the survey will be open until next week and so our goal is to have 80% participation from the employees as well as the leaders and so this is the first phase because we wanted to really get feedback from the workplace and then we will launch a survey to the community and also elected and appointed officials and during the um survey time we'll also do qualitative analysis so we'll be doing uh focus groups one-on-one interviews so that we can tell a collective pict with the data and so we can have personal stories lived experience and we want to touch as many people as possible and so in January we will do the interviews with the community and elected officials and then in February we will do our data analysis and we'll do a report out and our findings one thing that is extremely important is to take everybody with us on the Dei Journey so that they understand what we are doing and so we will report out all of our data and step three is our connection phase and that's from December to April of 2024 and this is where we're really aligning our Dei vision mission and values with the town and with the Strategic plan or the Strategic objectives of the town I know that um doing the revamp of the Strategic plan will be underway but we want to make sure that we give guidance on Dei initiatives included in the Strategic plan and what we do is we embed Dei within the workplace and within the community so we don't look at it as a separate initiative we look at embedding it in into the workplace and the community we'll Define what Dei is diversity what Equity what inclusion and what belonging is and what it means to the town of Ashlin then we'll create a policy and then have a state a Dei statement and so the Dei policy is really more so for the community and for the the workplace and then we will have a forward-facing Dei statement one very important part throughout this entire process is ensuring that we have open communication with all Stak ERS both internal and external so we launched a full communication strategy for the leadership and the employee surveys and we will do the same thing for the community and elected officials and then we will also have a community strategy of how a communication strategy of how to communicate this um the work when we finish the Dei plan and then the last step in the connection phase is making sure that we have a Dei feedback loop so that we can have constant communication with the community and the workf phace step four which is our transformational phase which will take place in January through March of 2024 and that's where we are delivering the Dei plan making sure that it's embedded into strategic goal we will have metrics with actual actionist action uh steps with accountability who's responsible for what tasks budget requirements and then we also will make sure that we're reviewing our processes and projects through a Dei Equity lands and this will be a tool that we will leave with the City so that any major projects and processes that you can ensure that is from a Dei lens and so the foundation of this work is built on Building Bridges driving change and sustaining impact in both the community and the workplace so this has been a phenomenal experience and really getting to know the task force getting to understand the concerns and the opportunities within the community and the workplace and we're super excited to be a part thank you and then we can open it up for any questions that anyone may have thank you um yeah go ahead is anybody else from and Michael or Yolanda feel free to jump in does anyone else from the task force wish to say anything um I and actually I was gonna say I did I did not go through the next slot which is the benefits and the delivery but I can do that when you finish I just got excited from going through the project plan oh that's okay um I don't want to interrupt the flow of the uh presid so please proceed okay all right give me one second sorry about that I got so excited and presenting the project plan because we're making great progress that I didn't continue all right so why is Dei important and so we always like to start with a A leadership case study that Michael presented to the leadership team Ashley has an amazing opportunity to cultivate a workplace and a community that celebrates diversity equity and inclusion where every individual experience is a profound sense of belonging so that is every individual while progress has been made there is recognized need to address um some challenges and so our approach is to really develop and Implement a comprehensive Dei strategic plan that serves as a road mapap for creating lasting and cultural change for both current and future Generations so everything that we're doing is absolutely forward looking and in the leadership uh brief we always like to align what are our success out comes what are we expecting to achieve during this process and how will we know we're successful so our very first thing which is our deliverable within this project scope is a detailed and comprehensive Dei strategic plan that has specific goals objectives and actionable steps so that we're able to measure the progress that we're making and then we're able to see if there areas that we're falling short in and if there gaps and what we need to do to correct them number two is a heightened sense of awareness a lot of people don't understand what is they may have fear about it and they may just don't understand how they fit into it and so we're very clear in making sure that we do training and that we do awareness about Dei and how it impacts the community but also how it impacts you personally number three is making sure that we have participation and engagement and that was one of the key things in how we wanted to roll out our surveys and then also how we want to do our interviews because we want everybody to understand that their voice matters and that they are important regardless of what their position is or even if they're a Community member or official number four is that we're going to have access to data we ask very robust questions in our surveys to make sure that we get data so that we can make informed decisions based on what the data says number five establishing what our principles are moving forward of how to incorporate Dei into our policies our practices and our procedures number six is creating a blueprint and laying the foundation for an inclusive work work workplace and we'll make sure that we Define what inclusive means to the town of ashin community engagement is extremely important we are looking to use this as a springboard to enhance our community cohesion and to really strengthen our reputation as a Dei Community number eight is making sure that we have performance metrics so that we can track our progress and then number nine is ensuring that we establish a foundation for a longterm impact of continued growth M I'm done now thank you thanks T actually I yeah yeah I I don't want to I I want to make sure I want to head it back to Michael just in case the select board members have uh questions for say anything if I say anything we'll get to them don't worry so no I I think uh TR Rene presented a a very good presentation it's really exciting to be able to to do this work um you know there's always always uh whenever you have uh movements like this there's always you know that initial burst of energy and you know we've been able to maintain this and maintain you know what we're trying to do through you know an academic study essentially and then also through this and really want to thank T Renee uh for all of her help as well as the task force members they've been great at uh making sure we we stay on track and keeping us all in line so I just I have a couple of um questions the first is uh when you're talking about leadership was that leadership just the general government people or was this were the schools involved in the leadership surveys and the discussion it's more the department heads not the not the not the schools although we're going to extend that invitation okay because I I would think that this discussion I know sort of started somewhat in our schools like with area and how you know some of the things that they were saying and that brought it to the general community and that's one of the one of the impacts and things that sort of got us going with this um my other thing was um how can we take the work that's being done on this plan and make sure and this is a broader discussion and make sure it gets included when we do our larger comprehensive plan strategic plans that when we're making those goals and what we're looking for as a community that we make sure that this is part of the discussion does anybody want to take that or I can I can certainly field it so it's actually going to be um one of our strategic objectives in our Dei plan and so everything that we're doing when we're anal analyzing policies procedures we're using best practices and we're going to give recommendations based on the feedback that we get the opportunities that the community that the workplace sees and we'll give recommendations to guide what we feel should be included within the Dei strategic plan and again we're looking to incorporate the incorporate the Dei principles and establish policies and procedures so for instance if we're talking about workplace we're looking at how do we incorporate a Dei element within how we interview how we recruit how we hire um How We Do advancement so and within Community how are we doing in community engagement what type of resources are we providing for small businesses so we will actually help to guide and to lead the discussion but one of our strategic objectives will be in reference to incorporating these within the Strategic plan so it is definitely at the Forefront of our mind perfect and I think I think a key piece of this is that Equity lens from which we can review processes and different projects and the way this is lining up that should be done around the January March time frame so it should time in you know basically tie in nicely with our comprehensive plan project that we're doing great thank you other questions or thoughts from board or uh our members of um the Dei task force yeah I had a couple questions Rob I was just um you know I I would think that one of the most critical pieces of this right is is engagement and um the the people that you interview and reaching out to um parts of our community they're sometimes underrepresented um and I just wondered how you go about making sure that that those people are included in um helping to develop our goals so in our December meeting we are actually have a comprehensive plan of reaching out to the community everything from incentives to um having leaders to reach out Community leaders to reach out so it's probably about 12 to 15 best practices for engaging uh community members that are often overlooked and so that is a one of the primary things that we will be discussing in December and we have a we will have a full plan of action action for that and I guess a little bit to you know Yolanda's point I know the schools have done some Dei work um and and so I think it's critical in any change that we're trying to make in in society in the world that we are um including our schools and and the children because they're the ones that are going to going to grow up and create the New World um and you know it's easier to sometimes um it's it's easier to come through with uh the proper outlook on things than it is to try to change people's Outlook sometimes when we when we're older um so you know I I just think it might be a critical piece to make sure that we are connecting with the schools um and helping them uh you know reach their goals in this area because they do have significant um goals in this area you are absolutely right and so they are included within the community surveys that we do we wanted to do a phase uh approach and so the first one was for the leaders and the employees the second phase is for the community so it includes the police department it includes how the services that we provide it includes the reg residents it includes education so they absolutely are included in phase two rolling out and just one last question um so far the the um the leadership group that you have um sent out the survey to and your your goal is 80% um how are you doing at reaching that goal we just launched the survey and right now we have 36 leader we have 36 employees and we have eight we have eight leaders so it was a very great start to the survey so we still have a week we still have a week left and we have followup percentage you know on that I'm just wondering what the percentage is I okay I leave 100% on the leaders um and then the um like the department heads and then the uh the employees I I don't have that that exact percentage Claudia okay 30 fine 3650 maybe maybe this we need some incentives here yeah know everybody's ears perked up when that happen that came out thank you um so I have a couple things um so first of all just thank you for for the update um it you guys are are are definitely um doing a lot of work that um absolutely needs to be done and and so I just wanted to to um thank the task force for the work that they're doing because I think you know like Michael said like sometimes you start off really strong and then things kind of um Peter out a little bit and I think that that this is um a very like comprehensive uh way to look at this and I think I think that the community is going to be much stronger because of it um I did want to ask a question about you know um we had commissioned an equity study um several years ago that kind of like led to the Dei task force um I was just curious like from a data collection like is the is the study like part of the data is it going to be incorporated are you looking at different sort of like different things that that were um asked I'm just curious I know this is going to be much more comprehensive when you talk when you talk about like employees and and um staff and things like that but I'm just curious about sort of the the community aspect of it so we use uh we look at all of the data um that has been presented before and then we also look at all activities all Dei ad hoc activities so we're looking at everything that we can get our hands on that has already been done to inform our decisions of how to move forward it actually informed our decisions too and the questions that we wanted to ask because we needed to understand a baseline of where we are so even though we're asking more comprehensive type questions we still are ask asking some of the similar questions to just be able to see what the perspectives are have the sentiments change and so we do use it to inform our decisions yes okay okay thank you um and I look forward to more updates as we kind of go through this process so thank you thank you great and do anyone else want to uh comment or um questions from Members or public input we have a few minutes just one uh quick one uh Rob TR thank you for all the work that you've been uh that you've done so far with the DEA Dei DEA yeah I'm all right uh past history is coming back to me yeah uh just want to thank you for that extra work uh in your presentation and and even on this this the screen presentation as well um I hope you're including and and not um not forgetting there's another group of folks that are in that are in this town uh the senior citizens and hopefully uh they'll be part of that survey as well uh because I'm sure they have a lot that they could provide to you to your group as well yes they are in the second phase under the Community yes thank you yes you're welcome great anything further on this I'll thank the Dei task force for your work and uh Michael for coordinating this um and and uh we wish you the best and look forward to our the next uh part of the uh of the uh the de initiative all right thank you all for that all right so we have thanks everybody y um thank you thank you and you're welcome to hang around with us for the rest of the night we' a lot of exciting stuff going on here so we have about 5 minutes to the tax classification uh hearing which has to start at 7 again uh items do should we do the consent agenda anybody I move that we approve the consent agenda as presented does anybody want to um take any items out for discussion nope nope do I have a second yep Claudia seconded okay all those in favor of accepting the conset agenda say I I I I so conset agenda is passed thank you so Rob I've seen a few people pop on at our usual 7:00 time that might be here for Citizens participation that didn't realize we were starting at 6:30 wondering if we want to allow them to do citizens participation now before we have our our tax classification hearing at 710 we have a few minutes is anyone I see anyone here for Citizens participation Helen's clapping but I'm not sure if that means she wants to talk if you're if you're on zoom and want to speak for citizen citizens participation please use the raiseed hand function okay thought I did okay was that your raise hand Helen yeah there we go all right hel go ahead we have a few minutes okay I I'll try to be quick um so I actually am here I wanted to do two things the first is I'm requesting and I'll write a letter but I wanted to come in in person and request this um the historic uh commission is actually planning to um have a warrant on the spring is uh the town meeting the spring for the historic district and we would uh really like it if we could get on to the select board's agenda in in possibly in January so that we could come and discuss this with you okay that seems reasonable okay first first meeting in January or the second meeting Helen um so we're we really didn't um have one we just said January so I think wherever you have time to put us in where we could come and discuss that would be great yeah why don't you send in a agenda item request uh you could send it to the entire select board or just the Yolanda myself Michael and uh Susan Jen when we put together the agenda okay and um yeah that would be great I you know we want to kind of just let everyone know what we're doing and answer any questions and uh any issues anyone might might have so we can address those and uh see what everybody else uh thinks about the whole plan so that would be nice to be able to come and and get everyone uh involved um the second thing I just and I sent you all a letter and I did hear back from uh Brandy and Michael but I just want to reiterate my invitation for this Sunday at the right historic Cemetery we're having a speaking event and I think it's going to be very interesting and I just want to come shine invite you again just to make sure that you know you know and and if you could come that would be great R if you can't we'll we'll miss you but we would love to have you there great well thank you Ellen and thanks for the invitation Helen is that rain a shine it's rain or shine and if it's rain which it doesn't look like it should be I've been watching um it will be at the Ocean House at 2 o'cl okay thank you all right thank you anyone else quickly for Citizens participation I don't see any so we'll move on to get ready for the um classification hearing and um Yolanda could I impose upon you to read the legal notice when the time comes sure I can do that great thank you so much here um okay so I have it is pretty close close enough to 710 so if you want it's 710 close enough go ahead okay in accordance with the requirements of Massachusetts General Lodge chapter 40 section 56 the select board will hold a public hearing on fiscal 2024 for property tax classification on Wednesday November 15th 2023 at 7:10 p.m.

okay good evening everybody um I'd like to call the uh regular meeting of the Brookfield board of education for November 15 2023 to order uh please uh join me in Rising for the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the for it stands na indivisible with liy and justice for all okay so we have six of our seven board members here tonight but our seventh is at uh parent conferences this evening and will join us Midstream so um so um let me turn it over to you Dr Burl for item sure so um it is a a special board meeting for us um we um are having the uh farewell note for the Board of Education we have our four members strategically seated here that are going to be uh uh participating in their last board meeting of their their tenure and um uh before we have some gifts that we've prepared and we'd like to give to to the four of you um I'd like to give a real personal thank you um for everything you know you've done as I always share the board of education is a voluntary board and for those people watching it's very important for them to know that um of elected officials and it really is the most challenging board uh in you know local politics and and uh leadership to serve on given the amount of time and the complication and the complexity of the things you have to deal with and decisions you have to make and so I really am just so grateful for all you've done for our leadership team for our students for our faculty staff uh personally all you've done for me um and uh most importantly you know the the accomplishments on on for the kids things like um Candlewood Lake Elementary School I mean this has passed from several boards through but this board most recently really executing on that plan um the new school start times getting through covid um you know that was a long stretch for everybody and a challenge for all of us in the world um and the challenges difficulties we had to get through with that um applying those Esser funds uh to move our instructional program along with instructional coaches and summer school and interventions and things we needed to do for kids um I think somewhere over 100 policies on this board were updated in or uh developed um and of course uh you know along with health but security and safety in terms of capital investment um Personnel investment most recently and uh I just can't thank you enough I mean it's just an incredible board and incredible work that has been done so um if you'd indulge me I want to just maybe Lisa you can give me a quick hand just to make sure I give them to the right people we'll get our gifts for everybody [Music] Murphy you take your name plates yes you get to take your name PL the holder the holder thank you and while I don't mean to be anticlimactic there's the tradition in Brookfield there is a Traditional School Bell so feel free to open it if you'd like at some point and ring the bell but it's a beautiful engraved Bell personally engraved maybe when we adjourn the meeting perhaps um and so uh again thank thank you on behalf of the the leadership team faculty and staff um you know and everyone in town just thank you for everything you've done and i' I'd actually um I'd like to maybe give the opportunity to you know anybody on the board um whether it's a veteran board member or new board members if you have any parting comments or any things you want to say it's kind of a tradition here that we do this so I don't know Rosa you're putting your mic on start with you um Joy's not here right now so I guess I'm the only veteran board member that's actually staying but I just wanted each of you to know that I have thoroughly enjoyed working with with all with each of you um we've gone through a lot together and I've enjoyed our accomplishments just as much as our discourse personally because I know that it comes from a really good place and that each of you care so much about this town and our students and um I hope that we stay connected and you stay engaged and just a heartfelt thank you thank you Rosa little round Amy do you have anything I just wanted to thank everyone here as well um it's been like an incredible learning experience it's been a privilege to work with all of you and um yeah I've really learned a lot it's I'm going to I'm going to miss it I am some things I won't miss I will not miss the 11:00 end time to a few meetings a year but um this has been an honor and a privilege to do this and I really appreciate it and I will say I really appreciate um I would possibly still be sitting here after this if I didn't have a house fire and lose everything in that house fire and I just want to thank everyone sitting at this table and in the community as a whole for really supporting my family and me and it really means the world I really appreciate it so thank you did you have anything Hala I know you just started with us was there anything you wanted to say well i' I really have only attended what one and a half meetings I would say but uh one full meeting and it wasn't 11 o'clock one so U that was a nice uh entry into it I'm really looking forward to this I think this is just from what I've seen from every single member here and what I've heard uh just some really intelligent and thoughtful comments and conversations and I'm I'm sorry to see the people going because I wish I would have had more time with you but I'm certainly looking forward to everything this opportunity has to offer and I hope we can all ser with the town the best we can thank you thank you very much goodbye and thank you thanks Debbie do you have anything yeah I just wanted to say uh that serving on this board for the past six years has been a great honor I've learned so much from the administrators and the teachers and the students and my fellow board members and I'm very proud of the work that we've accomplished together we did endure some challenging times but we always forged ahead in the belief that we were doing what was right for the students it's my hope that the new board will use their Collective talents to serve the district with a singular focus on the kids I look forward to seeing what the future holds for Brookfield Public Schools thank [Music] you Dr Murphy um I didn't know I was going to have to make a speech like this um I guess I first of all I I want to thank my wife for letting me do this uh because it it comes from you know support at home allows us to stay here till 11 o'clock at night especially with my three Knuckleheads at home uh I want to thank Dr an learned tons from you and and uh I really cherish our conversations any question I've ever had to John or an always got answered um and yeah I really enjoyed being a part of this board and and proud that of lot of accomplish that that we that we made so thank you thank you Mr Beldon I don't know how to top any of those so I'm not going to try um I remember my first board meeting eight years ago uh was the board retreat where we actually sat down as a board for the first time and um we all looked at each other and said let's check our parties at the door let's just focus Fus on the kids right and doing the right things for the kids in Brookfield and you know what that's what I've treasured about this board has been that every single thing we do you wouldn't know who's a republican who's a Democrat um who's unaffiliated uh it's all been about the kids right and trying to do the right thing for our children for our families for our staff for our all the educators of all ilk in this district and uh uh as a board um we had great conversations together right I mean in a lot of different venues whether it was in executive sessions or in the middle of contract negotiations or uh in committees or even here at the at the regular meetings and uh they we listen to each other we listen to each other well and I think usually we collaborated on a good answer no matter what we did so we didn't always agree right but we we worked together in a way that we could do it and we could do it solely focused on what was right for the kids we we had some shared experience we all got Zoom bombed if you all recall that was an interesting moment for all of us I also remember our first covid meeting when we were here uh trying to do an in-person meeting um and be what 15t apart from each other so we were screaming across the room to each other to try and do a meeting if you all remember that with all behind plexiglass barriers at individual tables it was uh there's some very funny moments so um thank you all I'd like to thank the administration you guys have been great great Partners in everything that we do um and uh and all of the teachers in the district we have super super teachers and Paras and special ed teachers and I'll tell you what we should be all proud to be part of the Brookfield School District in whatever way we can so thank you all thank you guys and and uh I'm going to miss this board but I'm not going too far thank you turn it over to you now Mr Belin okay well thank you all and thank you for the bell I will treasure that absolutely so um all right so we're going to get on with our uh regular agenda um the uh first up is a student Spotlight with from whiner middle school and uh Dr will do you want to say open sure turn to Mr Rena start us off with Mr Renda we are really excited we've got some technology integration and a couple of teachers here with us with our students so oops Mr Renda apparently needs his notes I don't know what's going on here Mr Rend he needs his clicker oh he need okay there you go I'll let you take over Mr Renda this is a technology presentation that's right all right at this time you guys can start walking over I'm very excited for um Miss uh Fitzgerald our literacy teacher and Miss Whiting uh technology um for the district uh are going to come up they're going to introduce what they're going to talk about and introduce our wonderful students thanks Mr R can you that' be great right here Mr renda's gonna click for us hi guys uh I'm Miss Fitzgerald uh I teach 8th grade literacy at whiner middle school and I'm here with three fabulous students from my eighth grade team and so I'm really proud that they're here to represent us at this meeting um I just want to give a shout out to miss Whiting because without her we would not be doing all of the new and Innovative things that we're doing and these students are going to Showcase some of the work that we have done collaboratively with Miss Whiting and so having her as an instructional coach and being able to collaborate with somebody who has great ideas who's bringing new and fresh ideas to our classroom has been amazing she's actually been in my class as a co- teer with me working with kids helping us through the writing process and so I'm going to kick it over to Liden first because she's going to tell you a little bit about what we've been doing in literacy and then she'll kick it to Annabella and then Annabella will kick it to Luca and then you know if you have any questions for us just let us know and then thank you to the board members who have served and I'm happy to be here for your last meeting so okay here we go all right go ahead um okay so there have been some changes in how we've been writing this year in literacy um first instead of trying to write a perfect first draft for our um writing we just did a brain dump where we spilled every all of our thoughts out before thinking about grammar and spelling and refining our writing and uh we had a choice of what to write we had control of whether we wanted to write um informational or um argument or narrative um and within that we got to choose what what exactly we wanted to write about like I got to choose the Battle of queson or I could have chosen um to write about the book we had just read um and we did a bit of a different per review as well we um instead of just reading it to your partner and them saying that's good and moving on we had a slide that your partner filled out um to give you actual feedback that was more useful than just telling you that's good um okay and now anabella's social studies Journey okay hi Board of Education my name is Annabella Carr and I will be talking about social studies and what we have been learning about currently so Miss Evans and Miss Whiting have come up with a new method um to learn about the American dream and unlike last year when it was I believe a podcast this year we are doing a video about the American dream where we interview either strangers or our family members on what they think like how accessible the American dream is and hold on um we ask their opinion and like how you know how accessible it is and then we work with students on the B team which is the opposite team and they have videos too and we collaborate and we form our videos together and in our previous unit we learned about the gold rush and we combine the two units together so our Gold Rush simulation characters we like see like how they would respond and we type a response to the videos and we put them into groups on how accessible it is like very accessible I don't know or like not accessible at all and now for [Applause] Luca hello my name is Luca daku and I'm going to be talking to you about a new method of collecting information about a chosen genetics topic we are going to be using a research journal to collect our notes and to find articles we are going to generate research questions um using a given format such as what if should and how we are going to Google these questions and find articles that will that will give us the answers to these questions in our research Journal we are going to find F we're going to collect the most the five most important notes of information and explain why the source we found is credible it is important to know that our sources are credible so we can understand and know how this information is true this way of learning has a much different approach than I've ever done before this is because we are taking notes and generating research questions which I never thought we would do um the next step after collecting our information is to use AI we haven't been told what we're going to be using AI for yet but we know it's coming up the final step to is to create a mini document entry using the site we video If you note back to annabella's presentation we are also using we video to create our Gold Rush video because of this we will have some experience creating that and take away probably one day of precious dedicated time to making videos thank you for taking the time to listen to the good stuff happening in eth [Applause] grade any question questions question any questions for our students that was great thank you well thank you so much for your time thank you Mrs thank you thanks forie need Dana yes oh yeah a lot of Brookfield seas in there so thank you guys all right so next up is public comment we have no one signed up for public comment this evening so um that is not going to happen because there's no public comment um so NE after that we have Ava so Ava welcome hi I hope you're all doing well tonight I have a couple updates to share about what's going on within the schools over the past month um I'll start with some of the past events that we had we had our homecoming dance a couple weeks ago at the Amber Room which was a really good time and we also had our homecoming football game um some upcoming events and what's currently happening I know I can speak for a lot of seniors um and saying now we're all really really really busy with college applications um doing early action um but we have a really good I said this last time but a really good counseling department and a college and career counselor Mrs Usher um all of them are really great resources for and I I know they're super busy um finalizing all the transcripts and first quarter grades um and this week there's some half days for all the parent teacher conferences um I have a lot of updates for athletics um the last home football game for the regular season is on Thanksgiving Day um girls soccer right now um has their state semi-final it's in New Town I don't know how it's going but hopefully going well Mr Banda texted me said it's 1 to one in the second half oh my gosh okay so I guess we'll see um and I know that girl swim and dive got a couple titles over the past couple weeks for S swc Champions and state champions um we've already had some athletes at the high school commit to play sports in college which is really exciting to see um and like I said I'm the senior captain for the dance team so I can speak to a little bit what's going on there we're doing a lot of fundraising we've we've been selling pom poms at a lot of the different sports games um we did a fundraiser at Four Corners and a big sale on Election Day at all the different locations and we have our last football game performance at the Thanksgiving Day game and we're also performing at the stards tree lighting um for a couple of the clubs I'm in I have a couple updates for that um for National Honor Society we focusing on finding a lot of community service opportunities because the main part of that club is community service we have a required 60 hours that we need by the end of the year um so one of those things is we're doing the winter workshop for some kids in kindergarten in first grade that's coming up soon um I'm in the Brookfield youth commission uh we did a candidate Forum on October 24th and that went really well that's always a great way we really like doing that because the students um direct concerns can be answered by the candidates themselves which I think is a really interesting opportunity to have and also in the youth commission we're starting all of our planning for our career fair which we do in the spring we hosted it in November of last year now it's going to be in March and finally I'm in the Morgan message club which is a new club to the high school as of last year um it's focuses on student athlete mental health and all the specific um struggles and solutions that we find with that um so we're just starting the planning of that for the year we do some themed games throughout the year and yeah I think that's all I have to share wonderful thank you wonderful thank you any questions for AA no thank you have a great night thank you take care AAA okay written correspondence Marne mcniff wrote regarding a student's PPT Greg preny wrote regarding a grievance Katherine bonello wrote a letter of appreciation Omar Nassar Mariam Aziz Hassam Ramsey Lena borri and Fatima belit wrote regarding the Eid holidays and Michelle French wrote regarding special education Staffing okay thank you uh approval of board minutes I will move that the board approve the minutes from the regular meeting on October 18th and the special meeting on October 30th second okay moved and seconded any comments or questions on the minutes uh just a small correction to the um oh no sorry that's under different minutes it's under one of the okay all right so all in favor of approving the board minutes I hi okay Dr BR I'll turn it to you for your superintendent's update all right um please don't be intimidated by the amount of items there I will move through them I promise um uh a bit of sad news um that I'll start with is uh former superintendent from 1986 to 1995 uh Dr Mike Peron passed uh last week his son David called the office and let us know um and um we understand he had a beautiful and wonderful long life um he was 90 years old so um we appreciate David calling in and thank you uh Lisa for making sure I had that information um I next would like to have Mr Roland come up and give a very brief update on where he stands on strategic planning with the uh special education department thank you Dr Pearl good evening everyone I just like to say before I begin thank you to the board for the the warm welcome and the support and the guidance and the feedback you've shown me in my first few months I couldn't have gotten started and gotten off the ground without the support of the of the board at the monthly meetings and then some of the conversations we've had outside of the meeting so I appreciate that and wanted to say thank you uh in terms of the Strategic plan uh we're in phase one where we've had uh meetings with teachers uh we've had meetings with parents some of whom are here tonight and one of one of the themes that's emerging is what does special education look like in each School and what is our culture of inclusivity and that's one of the things that we're going to be exploring uh in phase two teachers have come up with uh ideas within their own buildings and we're going to try to align those to be able to present that to you in the spring um sorry my notes um in terms of the septo special ed PTO we had a meeting earlier this month one of the things that we're working on through that is to be able to give parents more information on special education as you know this CT said's uh portal can be unwieldy and it be can be kind of difficult we're going to have a presentation this month with um lean white our IEP compliance teacher to walk parents through what CT saids looks like from their perspective because the parent portal looks very different than the teacher portal uh and finally finally phase two of the Strategic plan to to close out is going to be about what the adult action should look like in our strategic plan as it's aligned with with our district strategic plan so I appreciate the opportunity this evening to speak to you and again thank you for the support and the guidance you've shown me over these first few months thanks go one of the great things you'll hear later with Dr corvo in her presentation regarding the phase two crack report is the recommendations that Bill's been and the team have been working with from the first uh uh uh program review uh the the second set of recommendations certainly it's a it's a more focused and smaller uh program that program review that occurred um and in integrating all of the uh recommendations together in a more uh comprehensive and cohesive plan so thank you both for the work on that um 14 minutes left one to one Mr Banda just texted me again just want you to know if you saw the light bing up um so um we're moving forward on that c athletic update in terms of the program review we're now getting to the point in between Seasons um I know Mr bland is working with the um uh CIA itself to get visit in here um they to be very candid they're having trouble with CIA um kind of officials from CIA getting out and doing visits so um again a lot was done in the spring in terms of surveys to parents and coaches and student athletes so they're compiling that information and uh we'll have further updates as that continues on but I wanted you to know we're there um oh please Anna go ahead just to add to that um I think that I mentioned either last time or a couple meetings ago that the CIA model has become the kind of model um an Exemplar or the beginning of an Exemplar for Nas uh the New England Association of schools and colleges which has taken the Connecticut model and is now kind of extrapolating that to a more comprehensive um framework for uh athletic departments across New England and so I am actually as I serve on the commission for neas I am a part of that subcommittee so um they are they're close to kind of finalizing the standards and the protocols and we're we're we be putting together kind of a again a Exemplar for what schools can um do in terms of inviting visiting teams in but it did start with the with our state so um and it was actually highlighted at the national Federation um and so I'm I'm just pleased that we're also engaging in that really and and we do we're ahead of the curve uh in a lot of ways in Connecticut and I'd say it's about 12 years ago 13 14 years ago I'm not sure exactly when it was the when I was a high school principal we actually brought the CIA in for a very early Athletic program review early on in the phase of doing this here in Connecticut so both of us are really familiar with it and we know it could be very helpful to the program I will I will say as a board I'll speak for the board we are looking forward to actually seeing the results of their review right because it's been out there for a bit it has it has been it's taken a little longer than we would like but it's um I think there's a lot of folks um at cic there's a lot of volunteers and it's just hard to get people down here um but under Athletics um we have the ski club kind of getting that going we had one a couple of years ago we have a ski club uh starting our technology director he volunteered himself at a meeting and turns out he actually is going to be the ski club advisor SL coach um so Mr Concklin is they had their first meeting they they're going to start some fundraising because it's h quite quite expensive of a sport um what's interesting that the people should know and some of the kids were even surprised they are going to compete with schools that have Varsity ski teams so they're going to work on trying to get them a matching uh you know jacket or that kind of a thing um I suggest that we get the B the the decal like on the uh lacrosse and the football helmets maybe get that on their ski helmet um and part of that competition is readying themselves um if they if we want to have an actual Varsity ski team down the road whether it's in another year or two they need the club needs to be uh competing it's part part of the kind of process with the CIA so we're really excited about that um in addition uh just moving along uh we had a wonderful meeting with some central Office Team and our principals with with the districtwide PTO um I have to thank Mrs Newman uh she's our PTO president for BHS she really got the ball rolling with that um fortuitously um uh we we haven't had that since covid we have not had the districtwide PTO and as I was walking out to go to kandlewood Lake to have the uh to meet the parents for that meeting Mrs frame was walking in it happened to be right after election day and she was walking in and we got to have a big hug and a hello and said we're getting districtwide PTO going again and she said it's it's about time she gave me one of those um but obviously a warm welcome it was great to see her so it was just so wonderful that I mean she was such a part of that districtwide PTO for so long so we're really excited at the parents engaging in that again and they're excited to uh work with each other uh to make sure you know calendars fundraisers and things are coherent and planned and certainly they want to be a big part of the budget campaign and and uh engaging in terms of the things we do um uh with the the admin team and our faculty uh quick candle with Lake update um I was over today uh got a look at the playscapes uh most people know we posted on Facebook that the playscape materials all the equipment has arrived um the there's uh U what are they called the foundation holes I don't know what you call those they're boring the holes and putting the concrete in they have um swing sets uh set up other uh play areas already set up and uh placed at both the prek and the K through1 playgrounds um the equipment is here for the 2 through five playground that just gets set up in another week or so they start working over there so they're really they had a crew of at least six or seven people out there today and you know all the machinery and safety equipment to get that to get that going um in addition to that uh the crews are working feverishly uh over on the north parking lot the it looks to me as I look at it for the most part the drainage uh pits are dug and uh the fill is in um you wouldn't even know Huckleberry was there and there there's one last pile of dirt we're really really hopeful that they could get to the grading uh uh phase of the work there and then before you know it start to put down the gravel and the stone dust and all the things they need to do so we can get at least a binder coat down uh in the north lot and get the driveway uh settled um as it enters through the old Huckleberry cutout um before the asphalt plants close so that's still the goal it could be two weeks away that could be four weeks away so Friday I'm supposed to get enough update from uh uh the folks at om as to where we're at and what they think they can accomplish um if they can't get that done we have the temporary lot in the South lot and we'll have to live with it through the winter if that's the case so we just don't know yet um when we get the update I'll be sure to communicate with everyone um and then uh Dr pepas will obviously communicate with the CES uh Community budget process just very important to know we're we're three short weeks away from presenting the budget on our schedule um that will be to the new board on December 6 um so everybody knows in terms of the process we started back on October 1st as an admin team uh collaborating um in terms of uh principes working with the building teams department heads working with their Department staff getting that input um assessing what they need uh taking a look at new legislation that's out there and everything that has to be done uh each school and Department have developed their budgets and put them forward um and we've held meetings uh with the principles and department heads with Casey myself and and Anna and really gone through Casey and uh Joan in the office are really fine uh fine-tuning the numbers now we're back and forth with the principles and uh have to thank Casey for some of the new things she's doing with Google as simple as Google Sheets and things that the principes are really excited about so we're tracking you know moves in the budget and so forth and uh uh we will be uh presenting that on December 6 uh in addition we've got the hand off meeting uh from current board to new board scheduled for Monday night at 6 o00 and that's really just a simple meeting to get to know each other a little bit share where we're at with subcommittees um what the status of every subcommittee is kind of how do you how do you form an agenda what's the schedule typically look like those kinds of things have a little Q&A together that's a public meeting we'll hold that at the TSO um on Monday night next week uh let's see what else B just a shout out to the bef Brookfield Education Foundation gala uh today is the last day to buy tickets so if you can go online if you want to buy a ticket December 1st it's a Friday night big the big fun rer for bef uh Brookfield broadcast newsletter our holiday edition is scheduled for December 1st we're looking to get that out and I thank Lisa for all the formatting work she does with me on on that newsletter and then um finally uh the cab uh the annual cab uh excellence and Communications Awards cab stands for um Connecticut Association of boards of Education um this is the eth or nth year now that uh the school district and the board are receiving accolades for awards of excellence in uh five particular areas for the cave Awards and we'll have someone down after the holidays from cave will come and bring plaques and certificates to acknowledge the board uh the district uh calendar of all things the district calendar quite often I think the different colors are very helpful there they they love our calendar up there I got to tell you um it's just kind of funny but they really love it um I think it's all that input on the colors um the state of the district uh that was put out in May uh our going green recycling project uh that is really an annual winner um Dr man's establishing the Baseline uh academic achievement uh report from last year uh was submitted and then uh in general everything we do with social media they're pretty impressed with so we're really excited about that and then lastly building on Comm good Communications uh our website uh Eric hlin mentioning Eric again he is really working hard with his um technology team and with the leadership team and there's a number of really exciting new website platforms that are out there um we're exploring those those and um they what's amazing about them we use this just loose phrase userfriendly what does that really mean um what the new platforms are doing we need to select one obviously is they are incorporating talking points School messenger traditional website other communication and texting options uh calendar so many things are being integrated and they're meant for not only the computer but they're really meant to interface nicely with smartphones and so um we're looking at a decision soon um the technology committee needs to meet again and then pushing forward probably a slow roll out uh as a transition after the holidays and then really a full um transition over after the April break is kind of what Eric's thinking the timeline is looking like so just wanted to kind of um salt the oat for everybody I'll let you know we're excited about that and that's coming um and then I think that's it I don't know if anybody has any questions I know I had a lot there the update is 22 there are four minutes left four minutes left 2 to two s if we win we move on to the state championship game they were down 10 or one the 2-1 in middle year report and we just came back just came back okay all right four minutes we'll get an update B it's a real Lo local battle going on all right so that's all I have Mr questions all right thank you next up are subcommittee reports um and find okay so um I'll go over our meeting on the 16th of October where we reviewed the September financial report um we really started off the year already with um a pretty significant um budget exposure um and at the time of this report um that was 41,100 special education Transportation there's some just very um uh significant impacts in terms of um student safety on the bus and needing um additional help and additional runs on those um and so that's posed some somewhat of a challenge um we've been working with at Advance um as well as uh using our own Services um to kind of um you know deal with that issue um special education tuition a typical um um thing that we that we see in the in the budget just some uh ins and outs in terms of students um and student services um there's definitely a a surprisingly uh big shortfall in teacher turnover savings that you'll also see when I report um next month um we're just not seeing the retirements that we normally see um and actually what we're seeing is a lot of of movement in um teachers that are at the lower end of the salary range so younger teachers um where we typically capture a lot of savings hiring younger teachers we see a lot of them leaving and then having to bring in perhaps teachers um or staff that are more experience and thus cost more so um we typically enter into our budget a $200,000 um savings for that so we already book in that $200,000 savings and um we're not even close to that so um that's posing a problem and I think that that's going to you'll hear that again next month when I report on um October and then lastly um athletic Transportation so you've probably heard a lot of that um kind of chatter all over social media about um athletic Transportation there is a driver shortage it with across I mean really across the state in terms of bus drivers um we're actually pretty l lucky um our bus drivers are not going on strike um which is not the case in other districts um we haven't had to cancel we've been using uh Carriage limousine services which are um comparable in in terms of their cost um but it is costing us a little bit more in order to do that um so so yeah so that's um that is generally where what we spent the bulk of the meeting talking about is that significant budget shortfall Rosa could I add a little something there so just for context on those two big issues um uh specifically um with the teacher turnover I want talk about that for a second um the piece there that people need to understand is we are in a nationwide teacher shortage a Connecticut teacher shortage and in many districts a absolute critical shortage I mean there there are districts right next door to us that are short 30 and 40 teachers and they're and they're still moving on with the year you can imagine how challenged in and how chaotic it could be in those districts we are not seeing that as a as a immediate challenge in terms of not filling our teaching positions um but to fill our teaching positions it is a buyer market for teachers and um the context is changed the game has changed it used to be um when I first started many teachers likely would stay in their district for the duration of that 30 or 35-year career it's just not the case anymore um our location we're a bit of a victim of our location on the western side of the state many teachers uh that are younger teachers either are from New York in the first place and they get their first job here in Brookfield or bethl or New Town you know on this side of the state and they have an opportunity after gaining some experience and winning a job in another in another District especially out of state where they can make a great deal more money just to be frank or go down County um or simply just move closer to home and similarly how we're filling our positions and the way our teacher contract is um uh arranged ranged veteran teachers that might be in a district nearby to Brookfield may not make the same salary and they see an opportunity to come to us and we pay them on their annual uh step and so they want to come to us they have not only a bump in salary they're excited to come to a district like Brookfield and so we've brought in some veteran teachers and be been able to fill shortage areas like World Language like science uh like mathematics and those kind of things so it's just important for people to understand the context there on on the teacher situation in terms of uh the shortage cuz we are feeling it but we're feeling it monetarily right now in a finance place we're not feeling in terms of an actual shortage where we can't fill our spots um and then the other piece um actually a reporter reached out I think it was from the news times today regarding uh All-Star transportation and the bus driver shortage and the great thing about Allstar in our town um and really it has to go to Debbie and Kim who run our bus depot cuz they all o step in and drive buses uh for us when there is uh an absentee uh situation with with drivers they are facing a driver shortage all but they're just on the cusp of having enough drivers for enough bus runs if someone's sick if there's an e family emergency and someone calls out they're able to step in I think it's only been a few times this year thankfully on the dismissal end of things where we've had a combine a bus run to make sure the kids could get home in time there are districts right next to us using Allstar that are having buses that aren't picking the kids up and getting them to school till 10:00 in the morning 11:00 in the morning I mean it's a real real challenge that that some of the other districts are facing so we're very fortunate right now however to Rose's point that same shortage or the same set of drivers with the athletic Transportation after school has been a bit more challenging um so just wanted everybody to understand there's a there's a real complicated you know picture to this to understand the context thank you that was it any questions um I'll give the update on the security task force um with Rosa myself and Shar Mike it was uh Rosa Sharon and myself are on the security task force along with many members of the administration the police chief and uh the fire marshal so this meeting on October 26th we actually covered two topics we'd asked them to come back the team to come back um and talk about are we happy with the security Staffing is Candlewood Lake because it's new it's a big facility and the answer was resoundingly yes uh very happy with the Staffing situation and how it's all working with our our uh our security monitors along with the SRO um but there the challenge we actually spent most of the time talking about is the technology right we have the cameras working which has been a real Boon uh but the Wi-Fi and the parking lot's still not there and uh they haven't had some chance chances to do certain testing that they would like to do with the with the new software and so they're they're working it it's operating it's keeping the school safe which is great they're very the police chief was very comfortable with where we were and the principal is very comfortable with where we are um so uh um so in general uh it was good to hear that uh you know where we were on that whole situation and I think Bob one of the things uh Eric Conlin was able to talk about as our technology director was able to talk about was where the north lot is being finished there's a number of light poles that need to be installed which will have the uh the Wi-Fi spots expand on that because what he what he said was there's always been a plan to have full Wi-Fi in that parking lot right it just happened to be installed on the top of the poles in the parking lot that hasn't been built yet because it's in the center where the flag pole will be and the and the thing and so trying to retrofit it into another part proved to be impossible because there was no wiring to it so uh he is more than any single person looking forward to the lighting going in on this uh on the new lot so um the uh the second topic we talked about was actually an update topic it was about the iroy gas pipeline which if you remember is down the hill a little bit uh ways away from whiner um and uh and so the there with a gas pipeline you need to have an evacuation uh plan in the eventuality that something happened what we talked about was interesting there's little things that happen and there's big big potential of bigger things we've never had a big thing happen but if an alarm goes off right how does a school get alerted and what actions does the school take so Dean Renda actually uh spent some time with us and walked us through how that works and you know you on the small things you bring the kids in and you you you bring them all into the building and you you Hunker down in place um and we've asked to actually have uh the team come back with uh a little bit more in-depth discussion on what if something big happened um and the reason for that is they're doubling the capacity down at that pump station it's currently an inprocess project it's been gosh it's been going on for 10 years so far but it hasn't been built so it's a question of just staying one step ahead and being ready right so if you ever had to evacuate for example where would you evacuate to and uh and how reasonable can you get buses there quickly and things like that so so spending a lot of time just walking through the W ifs it's and it's a crazy exercise cuz it's all what ifs right um but but it's an important exercise and the security task force is going to meet again I think at the end of this month or the beginning of next John we de we try to get one in December I don't know that we'll be able to pull that off to have a comeback um with the uh the iry people to give us some very uh uh distinct input so that was the security task force meeting so actively not not on the got a good update on how the new school's working and uh and working on kind of a a horizon type of event type of e effort um just to add to that do you think that we could also hear from the um SRO of the other schools at perhaps a future meeting absolutely okay I think that would just be helpful not not even just from a Personnel perspective but just an overall building security they a lot of them have specialized in that absolutely and Rosa being the the veteran member who's going to be on that committee I'm happy to work with you and figure that out absolutely they and they'd be more than happy to come the police chief always is in attendance so he'll bring his SRO perfect I think you just is that a volun told go ahead I was going to say the asso also not just the asro yeah yeah yeah uh now Joy's not here so and Sharon and I were the other two members so I guess I'm I'm the only one left on the facilities committee uh we had a meeting on November 1st um and it was a series of updates on different projects I'll quickly go down through them um the air conditioning project for this room right here um if you recall the issue is that there was uh added uh construction needed by the last uh uh provider that doubled the cost of what we had expect it would be um so we've actually decided to go a different direction and we're bringing in Mark sakubo who did the work for our facility study um and they are um Mr C was engaging with them and they're uh they're very good at you know give and take and really do you need to build up more physical structure on the roof to install the air conditioner um so that's underway uh the guidance Wing update um uh it's pretty much done they just uh uh they just had to finish some flashing around certain things and they were coming back to do that in the next week or two um at that time did it y okay did it um the uh the longer discussion we had was because there was that leaking in the roof there's a lot of ceiling tiles that have been damaged and so we went through a variety of scenarios talking about should we just go replace all the ceiling tiles either with our own labor or with um with a as a project and they're going out and getting estimates for that it would not only repair damage things but it would brighten the whole place up right because so it kind of fits with the concept we had had our 10-year plan about doing some with fenestration uh on the building uh but the estimates were in the 17 to $33,000 to do ceiling tiles for that whole Wing so that's uh the healthy investment we'll have that in the is that in the uh budget presentation Capital plan Capital plan budget um applicants coming in for the open CES night custodian position uh interviews were going on yep did we hire somebody we did we hired somebody since then so that's good um and interestingly and useful the we have this thing called School dude which actually is the reporting mechanism for things that are broken and need to be fixed the volume has just plummeted since we took Center and hjs offline because that was far in away the bulk of repair work that had to be done so it's making it easier for the district to go address things quickly um and that's actually a good thing so um and then there's some small additional costs with both the whis Ander wall project and the whiskin electrical upgrade um not not significant but we spent some time talking about what the process for uh taking them through uh that they were like $5,000 here $7,000 there it was you know like a wrong switch in the in the in the circuit panel so um so they uh um that there's some comebacks and we'll do that at our next meeting so one of which is anything to do with the whisner wall we want the municipal building committee to carry for it so that's pretty much what we talked about at that meeting um holla joined us um to see how one of these committees was working anything you'd like like to add H okay I think you did a beautiful job thank you okay so that's it on subcommittee reports uh next up is consent agenda I'll move that the board approve the items on the consent agenda which are new hires resignations transfers a retirement and the September financials second it's moved in second and any comments Dr uh yes you can just see a new hires we've got some uh uh bcba has been hired uh these are replacement positions uh a new perah has been hired over at the elementary school and Mr Belding we just asking you see our KN custodian has been hired um in terms of our progress there in regard to facilities um we do have um a special person that uh just recently resigned I had shared that with the board last week our HR uh HR coordinator what do we call our specialist HR specialist we have all these special names HR specialist Beth squir has been with the district for six years she's been in the specialist position for just about two years um she made the big phase of life CH changing move with her husband who happens to be one of our technology people um they're going to move to Florida so they're they're done after this week so we wish them all the best and thank them for their incredible amount of service to the district um and then retiring is one of our special education secretaries uh longtime employee U mostly at the high school Lisa mazari um she has been our special education clerk for quite a long time been with the district 19 years and she's decided to retire after the holidays so we just uh can't thank Lisa enough for all the great work she done and her beautiful big bright smile that you get to see all the time so um thanks to both Beth and Lisa for everything they've done for us that's it thank you any other questions or comments okay all in favor of approving the consent agenda I all right so we're moving on to the main part of the agenda so first Up and Under new business is are a series of reports on uh we if you remember last meeting we had uh some one some some of our reports on uh on our enrollment and and other topics um and case loads uh this time we have multilanguage Learners the class size report and The Homeschool report so I'll uh uh the these are all just action items so uh who's uh who's going to do the Catherine is going to come Catherine oo Catherine our multi uh lingual leader this is my favorite report this is actually I look forward to this report every year Catherine not only is our leader for uh uh ml students she is also our leader K12 for World Language so uh Katherine has this uh annual report to share with us um Katherine before you go I do have a note from Mr Blanda regarding things so far so good let me get here hold on uh we've got it 3 to2 Brookfield have to finish this half 3 minutes and another 10-minute halftime soccer has some funky rules so there some over time funky rules going on but we're up three to two that's all I'm going to say when I heard a scrimmage is called a friendly when I learned that in soccer that a scrimmage is a friendly that was another one I oh boy I'm learning some good stuff here so soccer you are in trouble with one of your new board members who is a soccer FNA I am sure I am sure absolutely I have a lot to learn she'll teach you absolutely so Katherine please sure um so I will just take us briefly through the report um each October we have to do a snapshot uh that is sent off to the state so we're looking for a total number of multilingual Learners uh so at the beginning of October we were at 114 um I know that's not included here but we've even had a few already join us so we're a little higher than that number since um and then there's a breakdown for you by school so at clees we have 73 students so that is the majority um and you can see the breakdown K through five of students there fairly equal um grade three smallest at seven largest cohort being 17 in grade 4 uh and then there's language breakdowns for you as well of how many languages there are as well as how many students are speaking them uh you'll notice that the Portuguese and Spanish are both bolded and have an asterisk there and that just indicates that uh according to Connecticut state law Whenever there are 20 or more students speaking that same language in the same school um that we would provide them with bilingual education so we've anticipated the Spanish already and Portuguese would be the new one we are anticipating um at whis andir we're a little smaller with 23 students um Brookfield High School has 18 and then again you see our total languages in the district is currently at 11 um and that's mostly it so if you have any questions I'm happy to answer them just for the public just to remind them a multilingual learner is defined as um a student who is not sufficiently proficient in English yet so they are working on that primarily and they may speak at least one other language at home okay and also for the public could you just read down the languages over on the right side I think that they will be very interested in uh in hearing what languages we have in our schools yeah you got it we have Albanian Arabic Bengali or B uh Bangla German Malayalam Mandarin Portuguese Russian Spanish erdu and Vietnamese it's quite a diverse group we have a very diverse group any questions Catherine thank you very much thank you thanks so much I always look forward to this I learn a lot about our certain population and in the budget presentation in December we'll address how uh we'll talk about how we're going to attack remember it's been running about this number for a while an aggregate around 110 to 120 yeah and and as I uh stated uh La last uh uh month when we're talking about the enrollment report while while it looks as though year to year we had about 16 I think new students qualifying it really is more of a swing of 36 because we exit students from the program during the year and then more students backfill so it really the number of kids that uh come from uh very diverse backgrounds continues to increase in the district but we're addressing the you said that the budget presentation would address the Portuguese the new Portuguese but we have something in place for the Spanish speaking cor we have program for Spanish but we now while we have 20 this year and as of October the beginning of the school year 20 the state um does give a provision that gives you time so the following year you're actually required to have the bilingual program and that's what we have to plan for and we anticipated that uh knowing how prevalent Portuguese uh is in our in our town but also they were in two different schools so once you put them in one school Under One Roof you're going to hit that 20 threshold we knew that was coming which we did yes right on the money next up is the class size report want me to start are you gonna introduce me Dr man doesn't need Inu well thank you um I would like to just take a moment to thank the board members um all the board members but particularly those who are uh exiting um including uh Miss Brooks and Dr Mike uh as well as Rosa for uh your work on Cape your work over the last since my um since I began in August of 2022 your support throughout uh my transition um and your service to uh to to us and to our um constituents and our community members I really valued our conversations and um the feedback and support that I've gotten from all of you um and you know you're you're warm welcome you know I came in here in August of 2022 leaving a district leaving my home and um I've really appreciated the uh the welcome that you have given me so thank you very much for all that you've done and transitioning from the MLL report you know thinking about uh as I was listening to Katherine you know when she said the majority was at Candlewood Lake Elementary it's not um you know that this it kind of in light of the class size report and the total enroll enrollment report for each of the different schools um it really is a strong majority you know I mean if we have about 1100 as you see on and I you were given this uh report earlier so you've had a chance to read through but we have 1111 students at kendlewood Lake Elementary and 73 of those students are students who speak a different language um as well as are learning English versus 23 students at whiner um out of 592 and then the high school which is our second largest school has um 870 students and only 18 of those students which means they do exit out as they go through which is what Dr bro was just referring to so um on to the actual report so I'm pleased to present this class siiz report to you as we um do every year um it gives uh you folks context for the budget that we are working on building to you know serve those students that we are building the budget for um you may have noticed and I'll start with Candlewood Lake you may have noticed that um this is the first time we have CES in this report last year we had CES and HH um and so we actually as we were building this report accidentally used the target for HH which was 20 um you know it's what we're shooting for um as our uh Max size for grades 2 through five um and actually the the target for grade five is 22 but we were still thinking about 20 um and as I was working with on this um and I talked to Dr peps saski you know it's I think it really has to do with the focus uh that we are aiming to that's a big school 1100 over 1100 little kids is a large large school something that we've talked about something that has been um you know continues to be a conversation even with the security task force and we really want to make sure that we maintain that sense of intimacy and connection with our students and so we really are focusing on that Target of 20 um for most of our students up through grade four and then uh 2020 for 22 so it's what we feel comfortable with but I have the updated numbers for uh the class size in terms of the um what the board approved uh uh guidelines classified guidelines are um and by the way we will have to up update that document because it still says CES and hes so it's a future business item so as we go through Candlewood Lake Elementary um you know you'll notice that uh and there's also something I'm anticipating as we go forward in the meeting uh we have 38 kids in our prek that's going to be a conversation um as we move forward with the kindergarten age entry um so just you know something to to take note of that 38 of those students although not all of them would be moving into um kindergarten cuz not all of them are four going on five um that's just kind of a precursor to what we'll be thinking about going into next year um as you move through the uh you know the prek and grade uh grade k um there's no max range for prek because it is a a program that we use to service our our students um but grade uh for our uh K grade you know we went down from nine sections last year to eight sections uh and and we have about four are uh over the class max range of 40 of sorry 20 we have four of those uh the largest class is 21 however each one of those uh kindergarten classes all eight have a full-time par educator it was something that we had talked about you know last year was the first year that we had a half day par uh par educator in each of the classes so we had 4.5 par Educators so four full-time equ 4.5 full-time equivalencies um for the nine sections of kindergarten this year we have eight par Educators one to each kindergarten class and that was one of the ways that we kind of were balancing out that little bit larger class size in kindergarten is that each class has a par educator right now if you go to the second page um in grade one we continue with Clay uh eight sections three of which are over the max range um or the uh of 20 but the largest is 21 one so we're just over um in grade two we had you know we have eight uh that are above that target range but only three above the actual class max of 21 um so there are three over the range of 21 the largest class size is 22 we have five of those nine sections that are actually at 21 so right at the um max range in grade three the target is 20 we have zero over the Max uh of 21 but three right at 21 um and so we are we are just barely at that you know we're again in a good good spot with grade three in grade four we had the um max is also 21 so grades three and four the max is 21 2 3 and four uh we have four of the classes uh over the max class guidelines um but the largest is 22 so of the whole of all nine sections four of them are at 22 and five of them are at 21 so right at the at the edge we have a pretty large grade four and then um for grade five which again was that incorporation of whis skiner uh middle school and right sizing the middle school and making you know an appropriate comprehensive Elementary School uh the target is 22 of which we have um eight at that uh at the targ I'm sorry we have 20 we I'm not sure exact uh 23 um is the max we have four at 23 and um zero over 23 so the largest class size is 23 and so most of them are uh the other four are below 23 um so that's where we are with that I will update this report and resubmit it so that it can be a part of the record so that you have the updated record um as far as whiskin goes our total enrollment is 592 uh and you'll notice as you go through I'm not going to go through every single grade um in every single um uh elective um but the some of these uh these sections have been adjusted uh based on the schedule there has been an adjustment to the schedule to rightsize when we rightsize the Middle School um Mr Renda and the school administration and counselors um worked to create a schedule that was more Equitable for students and gave them more opportunity to um have access to their uh elective classes specifically they're performing arts um and so now rather than pulling students out of elt time of the you know Educational Learning time they actually have chorus and and band music built into their schedule so I spoke with the uh Performing Arts um content leader today and she's thrilled she said she skips down the hallway every day she's so happy with it so um you know as you move through you can see uh that that we're in pretty good shape at the middle school I think that the it really is a appropriately sized at this point for a true Middle School experience for our students um a little bit larger on the class size if you look at PE and health um there are many about 88% of the of the sections are above that has to do again with that schedule adjustment and if you notice um we have 2.5 fed teachers um and the way that they're rotating through 1.5 Health teachers uh versus it the three uh full-time um music and music teachers so just the way that the schedule fell out you know kind of played out as they were building it over the summer uh I know that Mr Rena is looking at that and he has some ideas on how to address that for going into next year and then finally at the high school you know we're holding strong at that 870 last year I think we were at 872 um and these are really you know kind of reasonable sizes uh you know sections sections definitely fluctuate a lot in the high school it is a it is you know constantly moving adjustment to create create a comprehensive high school schedule um because not only do you have all of the requisite compulsory classes but you also have all of the electives which are part of the required um uh credits that students have to amass as they graduate um you'll notice I wanted to kind of um highlight the fact that the business class um out of 19 sections all 19 are above um the guidelines uh with the largest class at 28 it is a very popular area for our students something to kind of keep an eye on as we move through um it is an elective class um but certainly you know with personal finance being in there um which is one of the required courses uh that's one of the reasons that that class size is um pretty high and um that kind of bring me brings me just again to this last page which is the class siize uh bo the board of ed class siiz guidelines which we um will need to update to reflect the new school structure um and that might offer the opportunity to kind of look at the guidelines so that'll be something some business that we will take on in the new year so I'm happy to answer any questions any questions thank you all right and up three oh they won we won wooo just got it we're going to state championship I was catching up on my test I was going to say they're up 32 with 5 minutes left three to two we won the game we're going state championship all right congratulations girl all right uh home school report okay me again this will be much faster um so I want to just take the opportunity to thank Sarah Lynch who was the HR coordinator for her continued work and communication she is really the person who is the um you know the the focal point the Touchstone for our families um she sends out the information she talks with a lot of them she works uh with families as they have questions so I just wanted to uh recognize her and thank her for her work in gathering this information for this report um and so you'll see that uh you know this is we have 29 students out of our entire population um who are being homeschooled this year which is roughly and all of these numbers are pretty consistent with last year's numbers um it there was 28 last year so we're right around the same uh number um 24 families so those 29 students come from 24 families um and and last year I believe there are 21 families uh who represented The Homeschool population uh we send out uh notices to all of those families and asking them about the information for their students uh you know it's a Noti of intent form um of those 29 students we had five uh return so there's really no recourse for us to um ask them what their plan is um so but we did receive five and we appreciate any response that we get um and 24 students were not uh we did not gather information for three students parents were um parents sent uh refusal to cooperate to complete the form so they let us know that they are not they have no intention the others were just not returned and then you'll notice you know we kind of go through just for some um context last year uh grades one and two um we had four students and this year we had one grade three was consistent we had three in grade four we have one student who's homeschooled as opposed to six from last year in grade five we have six who were homeschooled last year there were four um in grade six there are two last year there were zero sixth graders in grade seven we have two last year there were three who were um homeschooled um in grade eight again matriculating up there are the same three well I don't know if it's the same three but three were also being uh homeschooled last year there were zero and in the high school um zero for n9th grade which was consistent with last year we had zero um last year at the high school La this year we have zero um 10th graders there were two last year this year uh we have 11 and uh for 11 and 12 we have five um last year which is up from three last year and then we didn't um know the uh grades for six of the students um and so this is in compliance with uh provision with Section 10-1 184 and section 10-22 of the general statutes so there there we go thank you any questions on the homeschooling report no okay so that's it for new business U moving on to Old business uh first up is an action to receive uh the special education program review um from C all right so I'd like to invite Dr corvo up from C A friend of ours who was here last spring with the first program review and she's got a presentation on her second program review that was conducted uh over the summer into early fall this year yes this is Dana if you don't mind I'm going to move over there so I can see your charts easier and people don't look see me looking down at my a good idea want to do off over there I don't want to be dozing off like the wizard okay thank you all right all right there we go good evening everyone uh thank you for having me back uh I was here in the spring to deliver you some information about the districtwide special education uh program review this time I'm back and I'm going to share some findings and information specific to students who are placed in out of District programs and um some of your more self-contained or uh what we would consider the restrictive end of the Continuum in your in District programs um so I'll go ahead and get started um I am Dana corvo from CRA Resource Group we are in Hartford we're one of the six resks in Connecticut I know Brookfield uh I believe you're a member of the Ed Advance resk um we are CK so we all work together and uh this is our particular Mission Vision and core values the purpose of the evaluation as I said it was twofold one was to take a look at um your out of District placements and then to take a look at your IND District programs what this review did not do was review whether or not any programs were um addressing student outcomes so we did not look at any one particular student program to make determinations about a student's program just want to make sure that's clear um so everyone's expectations you will not hear about any individual students um for this data collection we again reviewed some District documents of reports Special Education data that is publicly available through the Connecticut State Department of Education we did look at some special education student files again specific to the population we were studying uh we had a staff survey for in District staff with 21 people responding to it um and then we did a variety of focus groups and Inter interviews we did seven out of District teams some of those teams were uh a count of two people and some of those teams were a count of 11 people so I let the out of district schools decide who they wanted to bring um and that's who they brought um we talked to nine families in the district who have students currently attending school outside of Brookfield public schools and then we did speak with four IND District staff um in those programs for the IND District programs uh just to make sure you understand the limitations of this kind of research uh again it is largely perception based as was the spring so that's always something to take into account um in this particular situation the sampling size obviously is very small compared to what we did in the spring uh we're talking singled digigit numbers for some students and families so that always has its own um challenges when you're trying to do an interpretation that you're really probably not getting as representative um with such a small size in the sample group um and we did have one out of District School uh it's a it their program actually has three programs within it uh so we kind of missed a big chunk of info there but they actually declined to participate they explicitly said we would like to not participate said okay so we made do with the best we had um so I'm not going to go through the entire report you can do that at your leisure I will highlight for you the takeaways um and you will make decisions about what to do with those um as you will the promising practices we found in the district um particularly in those programs where we have uh more restrictive settings um and just to clarify I'm specifically talking about two programs you may refer to as the social emotional enrichment program and the ELC so those seem to be popular titles and names of the programs in the district so we're going to be consistent with that those are the IND in District programs we're talking about um and those students are accessing the general education setting regularly so I'm not saying whether that's good or bad but it is a promising practice in the sense that students who are in out of District programs have zero access to general education settings it is not an option for them um there's also something to to be said that these programs already exist in your buildings um there are many districts that have no IND District programs and they address the needs of uh students in different ways some may be better some maybe may be more challenging but the fact that these are established in your buildings um for a relatively long time you know they weren't just invented last year they've been around um is really optimistic and important for growth moving forward it's not changing a culture of people to accept these programs um it's maybe just looking at what improvements or adjustments need to be made um so that's a different kind of lift than if you had no programs to work with um you have very strong School base teams so in each building as we worked through the teams and then as I looked at the data from the uh spring report because we still had that information um your school-based teams for each of these programs seem to be very strong and intact they they almost rely on each other if you will um whether that's by Design or by default I guess we could argue either way but um that's again really something to work with in terms of just the culture and climate within the teams you don't have dysfunction you don't have infighting you don't have uh bad chemistry at least not from what we saw so that's a really positive um piece there um you do have special education leadership support and focus so um I think you had some of that in the spring perhaps among many other distractions leadership was not able to address some things um I can say that with your new director um and some other changes at the leadership levels um there seems to be a more explicit focus on special education and what these programs mean to the buildings and to the schools in Brookfield so that's really promising as well um and then from what we can tell the there is fiscal support there's budgetary support in place um for some program enhancements changes improvements or adjustments so there sometimes is a perception that you know money is a big bad word and so things can't be done because we have no money or because there is no budget didn't actually find that to be true despite the perception of some people who thought that to be true so the flip side of that is something's miscommunicated there's a reason people have a perception about that but upon following up with um Mr Roland and then his follow up with um I think Karen is the newer member of the team Chris okay sorry Casey Casey sorry um we discovered that there have the financial support is there to an extent um you know we can't turn the world upside down and uh gold plate everything but there's there's a there's a healthy healthy nugget to start with there um some of our key findings you're out of District programs and this is universal this was not unique to just the students attending um schools on behalf of Brookfield public is they have the ability of really manipulate their schedules to have really high levels of protected collaboration and targeted professional learning time some of these a District programs have staff return for an entire week before school starts and students show up so that's five full work days dedicated just to adults talking planning collaborating and learning together before a student steps in their door um I don't know that that's a luxury most public schools can have um and then during the year year you have some programs that will um every every every Wednesday is a half day because the second half of their day is professional development period end of story that's the design that's what you've signed up for and that's what's happening in the building and it works because they have the ability to manipulate those things they're they're private um some um some can take longer weekends or uh rotate schedules easier so again those are protected times for teach I don't know that public schools can pull that off as easily um we did discover that the ad District programs have these established theories of action or core values or just kind of known mission of their work and it was to the point where in some of the interviews I would say to the to the team you know what's your theory of action what what are you about you know what whatever you call it in your building and some of them would literally look at a like beyond the screen and they like oh yeah so those are our core values and like they were reading core values off of like printed something in a room that they were in and you know there's some disagreement um amongst education about what what do core values really mean what does a vision really mean um but the fact that the majority of these programs could just rattle them off and it seemed like that's how everyone operated there was no wonderings about well I think we kind of do this and I think we really like that so um that was really interesting to us they also have selective admissions criteria you do not so there are programs designed specifically for students with significant cognitive disabilities who do not have behavioral challenges there are programs specifically for students who have social emotional challenges with high academic achievement rates um and uh you know again you don't you're a public school district so you do not have selective admissions criteria um they again I said they don't have access uh in out of District programs to General Ed setting peers or sometimes not even the general education curriculum so that's um just by nature and design of these AO District programs if you are in a program for students with significant cognitive disability um you're you're probably not following a traditional Public School curriculum um these out of District programs also have a lot of opportunities for parents and families to build a sense of community so for example one out of District program has like um two times a year uh like a a Gala if that's what you want to refer to it as but they invite parents in it's in the evening at the school they have it catered there's a silent aution on all kinds of you know goodies and stuff like that and throughout the night they're also showing off um student work and sharing just kind of different themes across the night and so these programs attempt to create that sense of community amongst parents because as you can imagine they have students from all communities so some of your students travel really far to get to their schools there might be a a loss of sense of community for them unless they're going to these kinds of events um so those those programs tried hard to to do that um and it was in our study it was difficult to determine in in some of those cases why the students were now in an out of District placement um it wasn't always clear in IEPs and so we could make inferences if you will but that was really hard and that was really uh presumptuous on our part but in other instances um it it literally would be like a PBT occurred on this date and then I we would see another PPT occur um maybe four months later and all of a sudden like the placement changed on the IEP and we're like what happened in the middle there again we can make assumptions and there are Rarities of why something wouldn't connect the dots that way but I didn't see anything in the records to indicate that disconnect of of dots so that was interesting to me I I I expected to see a little more explicit information about why those decisions were made um so those were our findings there are more in the report and again I'm not going to go through every little Nuance in the report these were the highlights that I felt you would find beneficial tonight um and that you know you can kind of build upon and have discussion about um and then we got into recommendations so you may recall the report and the presentation the spring there were a lot of recommendations and so we try to write recommendations that don't just say do this but it's you might want to consider this because of these things so when you look at the report you'll see a little bit more elaboration around recommendations um again these are the highlights if you will and um these are systemic so big picture um I think there's not much here in terms of granular comparing building to building uh you might see some of that in the report but it wasn't enough for me to call it out um here so kind of going back to that idea of theory of action core values Universal practices um and in particular in the district having your general education colleagues and leaders part of that discussion um you're students in these programs are part of your community in school and out of school and so you also want that same representation to have a voice when doing this kind of work um you want to have I think you want to look at times for opportunities where teams can collaborate vertically so the sense that your team at kelwood Lake for your students with um significant social emotional um challenges is collap collaborating with your middle school team and although you don't have one at the high school you might down the road uh you know you're having kind of a consistent conversation K to 12 so that there's a predictability to some of this now students with you know student students are humans there's always going to be a level of unpredictability but going back to the idea of the first recommendation if you have a theory of action if you have a set of core values and those core values transcend and K to 12 you all have done this work already for your large population of students 2,000 students total so you can understand the expectations as you move through the experience as a Brookfield public school student there's predictability in it there's some confidence in that um and it's it's a you know it's like it's like a guaranteed experience um so you want to be talking about those things um one thing that is very common uh not necess necessarily unique to Brookfield but could have a lot of potential and opportunity is to really be looking at these programs and talking to those practitioners about what specifically they need for professional learning a lot of those special ed teachers probably don't need the same professional learning in science of reading that a lot of your other teachers might be getting so what specifically do they need because your out of District programs already do this inherently and it's they're they're bringing in all kinds of stuff for professional learning so you want to make sure that your teams in District are able to keep up keep pace and be ahead because you don't know what student is going to show up tomorrow um and so you want people to be ahead of that um to the extent that additional opportunities for family involvement training and support could be available you know families sometimes they just want to be private and they don't want to put themselves out there and just by virtue of show going up to something you've put yourself out there so you do have to respect that level of privacy um and I know that um Mr Roland has engaged with septo and so I think to the extent that you have opportunities for all parents is maybe just conversations for parents with children in these programs specifically they are likely going through some very different experiences even than students who have IEPs that go to the resource room um the it's likely these families are having very different experiences um and then there's um there are quality indicators for programs like this um we used a couple in particular from um Colorado is usually the one that's most referenced we pulled some other resources and came up with a list specific for Brookfield but you probably want your IND District folks to be aware of what those quality indicators are so that they are kind of almost self reflecting on a continuous basis about where are we in these different indicators not as an evaluation I want to talk you away from that do not evaluate using these quality indicators um use them as self-reflection self-evaluation and opportunities for growth um they could be really powerful also in calibrating that vertical conversation from K to 12 so um those those were some of the the things that we we thought would like really start to pull together um and really enhance these programs um along those same lines again that self- assessment there is um I put this in the report but I didn't want to put it here because it could be kind of risky um but I'm not part of the district so I guess I can say this sometimes you if you're really good at it you could align um teachers and their professional goals to some of this work and so in my experience um we got really Savvy in some of my districts where we knew these quality indicators existed and we knew where our weak spots were and just by virtue of my staff coming into awareness of that they were like oh professionally I want to learn more about that and I want to do more of that and make it better and collect data about that and find out where this lands at the end of the year I didn't tell them to do it but they figured it out and I I was pleased because it kind of took care of two birds with one stone but that's an aside and um that's not necessarily something that you can um require but it is an idea sending some of your IND District staff to those out of District programs to observe could be a form of professional learning for themselves but it also could be a way to build uh relationships and that sense of community with the families that have those students in those placements um your staff can bring back some good practices they can't bring back everything because that's the design of the AUD addition placement but certainly there are things that they probably could bring back bring back and grow up on and if there is ever the point of a student who needs to return back to District you may already have that pipeline established if you know that your staff have already been to that building and they're familiar with what that is um ensure the language in the IEP has more specificity to it um Mr Roland and I have talked a little bit um about calibrating expectations in IEP language and this was something we found in the districtwide review in the spring um just the clean up if you will of language in the IPS I looked at this through the lens of a being a previous director if I had to go to Due Process how will I defend this decision in some cases the IEP wasn't going to help me when I looked at them and so it does put you in a vulnerable space of just on paper alone you would have a lot of work to do so uh we've talked about that in terms of you know there's no like compliance way to write it but there is a defensible way to write it um and then the big one which you've talked a little bit about tonight in terms of strategic planning but the alignment of brookfield's portrait of a graduate along with the district's for CES specific to students in the district's programs so a lot of times districts write visions of The Graduate portrait of a graduate and they have vision mission statements and yes it should universally apply to all students and for all intents and purposes it probably does but has anyone had the actual sitdown explicit conversation to say what does a good communicator mean for the student in the ELC program in grade 4 what does that actually mean by the time they're ready to leave Brookfield that's going to look very different even than your students who are um in more of a resource room model it's it's just it's going to look different on purpose as it should those conversations should be had um and I think that was it zipping right through it it was a it was a smaller review but still intensity and again the report has much more depth to it um but you can read that at your leisure I'm happy to expand upon that at another time if you needed to but Mr Roland is on top of it um and we've been in communication so I think he has the capacity probably to to fill in any holes there Dana thank you for coming out tonight in the presentation um I mean at this time it' be appropriate if any board members have uh couple questions or anything like that for Dana sorry so thank you Dana appreciate that um we might need you back up here I'm not sure might as well stay up there than so so one question I when we kicked this off that I always had was the process for determining when and how we do an outplacement do we have sufficient discipline in our process I mean you kind of touched on it a little bit here on documentation but what's your sense of you know how do you make that big decis big financial decision right but it's also a big individual decision for the kids and so how are there areas on on just practices on making that specific decision Point yes there are um CT saids the new States IEP all that training will help some of that okay uh because it has to just by design of the new state IEP people are going to be forced into putting things into IEPs that maybe they weren't as focused on before so that will clean up some of it but I would say the other conversation um is what is what is the student need in their program first and then secondly where do they get that and I don't know if that's how the conversations have been had here um or in actually a lot of places to be honest with you and so what the student needs should be driving the I AP not where the student's going to get it um and so that could be an area of vulnerability for teams if if if that persists um the other one is a little bit more of like a legality piece in that you really should have a an idea of who is initiating the placement decision whether it is the school team or the parents because that matters you know there's a reason that parents might come to a PPT and say I want my child to attend this school out in Stratford and and the school team needs to investigate that and so in the IEPs we sampled um and the parents that we spoke to when we triangulated that there wasn't a depth of conversation captured um around those those reasons again we were led to make assumptions okay so and Bill you got enough insights that will help you drive sure yeah and I think Dan Dana and Bill if you could just mention or maybe I'll just mention it that uh some of these decision points that we're talking about are many many years ago and others are more recent so this is this is a a Continuum of students for many years Ju Just To Echo what Dr corvo said the questions that I'm asking of the teams now is you know we don't put kids in programs we program for the student what does the student need and I think to turn that conversation rather into we can't or we should outplay it's what can we do here what have we tried what do we know about the student and I think that piece along with CT saids being datadriven and showing that this is what we've tried so that when the decision comes for my from my thinking a Farther Along along the way to say we have done this and this and this in conjunction with parents in partnership with parents and with the teams to show that we do not have the capacity to provide the services that your child needs not to have a knee-jerk reaction frankly and that's that's not Brookfield that's in many teams where it's like I don't know what else can we do we just we we've done everything I don't know that that's the case and that's what we're looking into to be able to build those cases so in conjunction with what Dr corvo said tonight that's part of my discussion with teams and with supervisors and buildings okay uh my second question was you didn't talk you did a lot of surveying but you your your your observations and and recommendations didn't touch on those did you did in the you had a big population of our staff that you surveyed did they feel that they were getting the support that they need were they were there areas of weakness in terms of uh the structural support that they they need in the in to do their job excep so yes to both of your questions um I will say the staff's responses sounded much more positive and optimistic this time around than when I had spoken to them last year okay now it was September things are fresh and new still changes have happened I don't know the reason for that but I will say they sounded much more optimistic they sounded much more hopeful um it wasn't I hate to say but it wasn't like a doom and gloom kind of situation um and so that was better but the support there still needs to be some support areas looked at and again I get into those into the report but again Staffing still you know you're not going to fix that overnight as we pointed out in the spring so that has to continue being on the radar which I believe Mr Roland is working through um and then the perception by some of the staff that there is or isn't funding for something there's a disconnect somewhere and we talked a little bit about this in the spring because it came up on the larger districtwide review and in particular this came up when you're looking at um programs like this you usually one characteristic is you usually like a universal Behavior system right and so that requires different funding than what the school principal gets for their schoolwide social emotional learning program for some reason the the some teams didn't believe they had the ability to pull that off from a fiscal standpoint so it sounded like because of that they really didn't explore that programmatically and when I checked in with with Mr Roland you know he confirmed that no specific requests have come through and even requests that came in for special education generally none have been denied under at least his tenure and I even think last year we discovered none were declined so either someone's not asking the questions because maybe they think it doesn't the funding doesn't exist so why bother or they need professional learning to understand what kinds of questions to ask you don't know what you don't know sometimes um but that perception of the funding phenomenon probably should be discussed more explicitly among across across the teams and again if you're having that vertical conversation then there are no surprises when that student goes from kelwood Lake to Wiscon it's all intact yeah Casey I would I would observe it's not just special ed too it's across across a lot of fronts you'll hear people say well there's no money for something right and yet you'll be sitting in your chair and you'll say of course we have money for that right and uh we had that last year on pencils and paper and all sorts of weird things and uh there was never a constraint on the money we spend eight months um haggling frankly over the money that is discretionary if you will where we have control over it's not contractual it's it's instructional supplies and it's other kinds of instructional materials and why that perseverates it's something that definitely was here prior to my tenure here and I've been here now into my ninth Year and that in some Pockets that continues and I just don't understand where that comes from we talk to the principles about it and frankly uh things aren't denied I mean if if if there are materials that people need um we find a way to get them and the principles do budget for that so well there's something there's a perception issue that is pervasive in the schools and uh and I think the best way to deal with it is when somebody says we don't have money for something and you hear about it Bill we tell me why you had that perception right don't don't just say do an approve disapprove but see if we can root out where it's coming from it may be a simple as there's somebody on a staff who they they chatted with over a cup of coffee and then they said oh well there's no money sure and there have been line staff to be very very Frank that might be the first person that a staff me another staff member goes to who says you can't have that those rubber gloves for the nurses office or you can't have that and was we then get remember that rubber gloves isue amazing and then we correct that as fast as we find out and so um it's communication up and down the chain just for everybody in the middle of Co there was a situation where people said that the nurses couldn't have rubber gloves and we had boxes of still have extra rubber gloves plenty of rubber gloves anybody needs rubber gloves got rubber gloves so it was uh it was it was just that's a really important thing that we root out why when there is a real budget constraint it ought to roll right up to Bill and Casey and figure out what's going on but that seems a lot of these are not real budget constraints there just I mean we in this instance we were able to debunk that um and I think in my experience once you remove these perceived barriers and once staff are brave enough to ask really cool things can happen and and I have always been pleasantly surprised by my team when I say that's not true so in a perfect world if we wanted to meet this kind of need what would we do and then you get into a flow but uh that perception is still holding people back perhaps my third question was about Staffing levels I know you looked at Staffing levels broadly without you know getting a details are we staffed at the appropriate levels given the IEPs or are we understaffed or overstaffed um I think by an FTE count you're probably appropriately staffed but you still have to go back and do the investigation of the phenomenon where the special education teachers are providing the adult support par educator coverage and are pulled away from running their program um in your specific self-contained programs you can't necessarily expect your certified staff to be operating as a par professional uh because they're the they're they're the they're the conductor of the symphony they're the conductor of the orchestra they've got to be available to make sure everything else is running um you know is that unique to Brookfield no but I do think that is going to hold back a lot of progress um it might also mean not Staffing but it might mean role definition and responsibilities it might mean expectation for different people in different programs that have to be explicitly explored and not just assumed um so it's more than just a numbers thing it's probably a little bit more work with roll up your sleeves and and get the conversations going too okay thank you sure I've asked my three questions who else wants to ask a question I have one kind of piggy back so the certified staff uh kind of you know being pulled does that affect Maybe frequencies of ppts being done I know you mentioned it like earlier in the I don't see any recommendations related to that but it seemed like in the presentation you started with that and then yeah back the the PBT meetings did not surface as a an area of concern I think in the reality of the system trying to operate if you're pulling a resource from here to give it over there then yeah you're going to have a void so I know last year in the spring we talked about um a lot of meetings were happening and so there were reports from all stakeholders that students were either missing services or rescheduling services and those kinds of things that did not appear in this particular study as much and the PPT frequency did not come up as like an area of concern but it does have the potential to as the year rolls on for sure thank you yep okay anyone else thank you thank you for taking our questions much so Bill you've got the challenge of turning this into an actionable list now so okay all right next up on our agenda is the uh first year capital projects approval and there's a recommended motion yep I will move that the board approve the 2024 2025 one-year prioritize prioritize Capital project list as recommended by the finance subcommittee second okay it's moved and seconded um Casey you want to lead us on this one absolutely so I know this is um at least the second time sometimes the third time for some of you to um look at this list um when I presented this last year I presented it along with the 10-year Capital um Improvement plan for the district um since that meeting we we thought we had a little bit more time um to sort of marinate on on this data and this information and get some um more refined numbers for some of the 10-year um Capital plans but since then um I was informed that um the requests are due to the town um actually on Friday so um that necess necessitated uh springing this to um the finance committee um fortunately there was a lot of overlap in the board members so um that that was great um for approval tonight the only thing that changed um on on the uh on um what you're looking at right now um compared to last month is the addition of $35,900 of funding um for the whis caner uh cafeteria floor there um it wasn't on the list before because um um it actually is already in the capital plan um for 2023 however there is not enough funding so this um this brings it to a complete project uh we are very hopeful um there's a moisture problem underneath the tile flooring in the um cafeteria at whiner and so in order to to replace the flooring correctly and have it last um long enough and and as it should um there's a lot of prep work that has to go into the concrete has to be ground down and then um apply a moisture barrier so that the tiles don't continue to pop up so um the funding for that line is to take care of that issue and then um and then the the extra the escalation is just because we anticipate perhaps that um initial $35,000 request might be a little bit high so um or a little bit low since that request for the tiles was from um a previous year so that is the only change on this list um I'm happy to answer any questions so this just as a reminder we went through this list at our last meeting right and we went through this and the 10e plan and 10 yep um so there's I don't know if any body has any wants to go back and go and go through what the projects are if you just want to you know accept the addition and approve this so I'll just leave it up to everybody here we've gone through it formally with the uh finance committee but I guess informally with the facilities committee because Joy and I are both on the finance committee so um and we were unanimous right mhm yeah so any questions no I'm good all right there's going to be a long road to Marsha did tell us in our meeting that 2 $2.2 million is basically everything the town has to spend uh is as they look at their overall budget so there's going to be a lot of discussion um on this along with whatever else is coming from the town there uh I already got asked in my new role to or actually Steve got asked to um put on the agenda re uh reinvigorate the capital committee for the town so they can start through their budgetary review so um and so that's I'm expecting this that's why they need this now so they can get that going so it'll be a December January even into February type of discussions I think it'll probably be a big piece of our budget review as in the end so okay no questions all in favor of approving this to move it forward okay thank you casy okay so um next item is uh approval of policy 5112 ages of attendance I'll move that the board approve new policy number 5112 ages of attendance for a final reading as recommended by the policy and Communications subcommittee the first reading was October 18th 2023 second okay Debbie um I didn't receive any comments or questions about this policy so I don't have anything new to add unless John do you have any updates on this uh no not on the policy okay okay any questions from the board on this one okay all in favor of approving it say I I any opposed okay uh next is approval of Regulation number 6563 School library media I'll move that the board approve regulation 65 hold on I'll move that the board approve regulation 6563 School library media for a final reading as recommended by the policy and communication subcommittee first reading was on October 18th 2023 second okay mov in seconded debie okay I did receive um some input from Bob on this on this policy um most of Bob's input had to do with um formatting things and grammatical things and clerical things that um Lisa went ahead and updated for us and Lisa is that the copy that's in here now it's the newest from from the okay it's the same word in just different format yeah oh because I saw I saw a bunch of typos but I don't know if I don't know if that's uh I don't know it was just like a couple of different little things um I I can go through them if you want but yeah we well we just adjusted them I mean we could also depending on what the decision is tonight there's nothing like nothing sub we could always correct those afterwards um you know this this has been a very hot subject for a lot of districts and we've been the policy committee has been sort of continuously doing research with other districts to see language that they've Incorporated um Bob passed along some new language from new Town's policy um which you know is something to consider but I think that um being that we don't have any other glaring things that we need to address and this we could continue to sort of debate this and tweak it and finesse it um forever um I think Amy and I agreed tonight that as a committee that we're ready to go ahead and recommend that this be approved as is unless anybody has any other input for us tonight and then you know the new board or the new policy subcommittee could certainly continue to pursue any other um enhancements or expanding on the policy and regulation moving forward as it is like I said as it is such a sort of a Hot Topic these days so I didn't receive any other input or feedback or questions from anybody other than what I received from Bob so um policy committee is good with it as it is any comments questions I just um I'm just like not completely comfortable with the responsibility for selection that it lies solely um in Char of the individual Library specialist I'd like to see the language of uh collaborative effort of the school staff and faculty Administration also in that selection process not just line solely in the hand of the library mediate specialist you mean the line the line underneath it says participation in the selection process is encouraged by the collaborative efforts of the school staff I think that wording is just encouraged is I would want it to be also to include the school staff or faculty Administration not just resting solely in the hands of the libr media specialist but that's their job yeah I completely disagree with that I look at all these books around here and there's how can principles and teachers honestly be responsible alongside equally with the library media specialist to pick out every single one of these books that's ridiculous that's my opinion that's what I'm comfortable with yeah I mean I think you know we talked about the criteria for selection and the fact that you know so our library media Specialists are trained to be able to identify um meaningful and worthwhile pieces of literature based on their experience and and also professional reviews and um vetting of you know um professional journals that review these books all the time so I I feel like bringing in yet another party into the equation who you know isn't familiar with that vetting process and and isn't frankly as familiar with the literature that's out there I'm not sure really helps us um I would say as a you know as a literacy specialist I'm I feel capable of just as much vetting as a library media specialist and I would like involvement in the books in the library that I use utilize and check out um active engagement with that would be important just like I would expect the administration and the faculty and staff would be just as qualified hence many of them teaching the content and use utilizing those books um are just as qualified to be collaborative collaborators to well I believe when it comes to curricular items they do have that input these are not curricular items these are library books sure they're absolutely curricular items these are not items that are mandatory as part of the curriculum they are accessible access these books for their C teaching I'm sure if they are using it in their classroom they have probably read and reviewed the book hence they should be part of the process but I think there's an open invitation here for them to be part of the process it says that it's encouraged by the collaborative efforts of the school staff nobody's saying that they can't be so I think they would welcome input from somebody like you who's passionate about it um but to to say that it's required I think just puts an added burden on the teachers that could we could we just I'm threading a needle here could we say actively encouraged and and uh proactively sought right um not require not quite go all the way to require but solicit you know just solicit it right go ask go ask people we'd like you to come participate sure right and uh and if you have time and not would that kind of Meet the you know the objective because I I agree with joy here that being too passive here right we would love to actively encourage others to participate right get as many views as we can in Joy's case in your school you probably would be one of the people who' say yeah I'm I would love to be part of that not sure every teacher would what they're very busy right they've got lots of things but uh but to actively you know seek out input isn't a bad thing to me I mean it it just says it's encourages are actively solic yes so just I put the word actively encouraged at the put the word actively before uh on the school staffs it's just that last it's just it repeats itself around here I just uh this is so get our th it's a thorus point I'm threading a bit of a needle I know but it's uh how about we just delete the second sentence and go right to faculty administrators recommendations are actively solicited and student recommendations are encouraged and just go right there and the second sentence kind of softens it too much sure I'm fine with that I mean that's fine I don't think the goal Joy yeah I think so okay Deb would you be willing to make a note on that so we can make sure that's typed in edited properly yep assuming an approval we will amend the motion to say as this with amendments as this thank so and I I kind of have on the acquisition criteria kind of want to see since because it's it's been brought up now three times uh appropri appropriateness of content Concepts um can we put like a term sexual nature why is that specifically mentioned and not about because essentially pornography is like okay I I want I want to see some language that it's like no well this this could qualify as that since it's been done three times I I think it's prop to say that pornography is allowed in the schools under our policy or that it would show up on any of our bookshelves but you you specifically said sexual content I believe is what you started out with and and I'm not in love with that term either I'm yeah my view of that it's all very hard to Define right it's very hard to Define and you can't just explicitly say that oh we just care about sexual content I guess you have to go out and now say well we don't want political extremists content and we don't want well I'm saying based off of the three challenges yeah but you can't I don't think year make policies that are supposed to supposed to stand for the district based on very specific hopefully we are not changing this policy every single year right uh yeah I'm not saying that I my exact terms are are good but maybe you know um say something that that you know addresses the the current the current comment but aren't the words appropriateness and suited those the key terms there so something has to be appropr feels like same thing is like encouraged the language is I think I think the language is a little too soft I could be wrong but I'm just throwing out there I think they're pretty strong appropriateness and suited now who determines what's appropriate and suited is you know that's that that has to be you know obviously discussed but those two words I think are key it has to be determined that it's appropriate and it has to be determined that it's suited to the audience and the audience as our students so if something is if something is contentious then this would you know that's where it would be argued is it appropriate and is it suited to the audience I mean I think the language is there m I agree suited for for the audience right that's saying that something that you might consider sexual in nature that's appropriate for a high schooler is obviously not geared towards a second grader because it's not suited to the audience it's not appropriate the content might not be appropriate for that age or something that's too violent I just I just would have liked to see something that keeps pornography out of schools but that's that's fine well I don't think pornography in school there's a definition of pornography and it's not what we have okay any other comments I'd like to amend the motion on the table to include uh the edits as we've discussed tonight and any typo edits that uh any of us identify to uh Lisa uh by tomorrow morning I'll second all in favor of the amendment hi hi all right so that leaves the motion as amended so basically the motion to accept this as it is with a one one sentence deleted and any uh just technical edits um any further discussion all in favor please say I I any opposed okay move on uh approval of policy 61 6251 survey of students I will move that the board of approve policy 6162 do512 second moved and seconded Debbie okay this one um I did receive input from Joy thank you Joy for your very organized comments um we did review them as a committee tonight we haven't met since you gave me the input so we had our meeting tonight and reviewed the comments um we we feel that um some of the things might be easy fixes to incorporate but because um we were recommending that we adopt Cap's policy some of the questions that Joy had or or recommendations that Joy had I think really need to probably go back to Legal so um our committee recommendation would be um and oh and of course if there's any other further comments tonight we can talk about those but right now the committee recommendation is that we table this and let the new board um take a fresh look at it and see how they want to proceed but also get it over the recommendations over to Dan to take a look at right okay so I don't know if anybody else had any input uh or questions about it this this survey is going to it's going to take us forever if I remember the the history on this one we we we we originally picked up theirs it was like gobleg it was hard to follow so then we went and rewrote it with the with a lawyer time to do that and then cab issued an updated policy just as forward next day the very next day an and now we're kind of starting from scratch and we're going to go through it again so I'd rather just my advice would be let's take all our thoughts and get it the way we want it not be wedded to caves and uh and then let's go tell cab this is a better policy than you have use this one as the example I'm willing we'll see what C what we can see see what say I'm willing to do that John they'll say who are you our original yeah I have a stack like um that'll be one of the handoff items right um so uh is everyone okay with tbling us mhm okay so uh so I'll make a motion to uh we've moved and seconded um I think we ought to vote on the move and decline it for the second reason that will start the clock all over or do we want to just table it no I'm just going to table it so um I will move that we table this item it's an open motion we'll table the item for at least 60 days right to let the new board come in and get established and have a chance to get a committee formed so I I think that'll help the new board a lot thank you give you some time I'll second that okay in favor I okay it's Ted all right uh next up is the school calendar I will move that the board approve the 2024 2025 school calendar as recommended by the district calendar committee and superintendent Dr John Burell second okay moved and seconded um so at our uh last discussion meeting it was just an action item to receive it we had received some public comment um about uh a couple of holidays that had not been recognized on our then then draft calendar and we had as a board we asked Dr world to go back to his committee and you know do some real you know deep thought and Analysis and you sent us a letter on that John would you like to summarize that sure sure so um I have to thank the calendar committee uh for their work um and uh really put a lot of time into this over the last month as you can tell I did share the memo that's in front of you tonight with all of you electronically yesterday it took me you know the whole month to get this work done the calendar committee met last week and the leadership team which is our principles and our central office team met to discuss the calendar committee recommendations just yesterday so it really was right up until uh this board meeting uh for anybody viewing this memo will be part of the board minutes and documentation going forward so they can see the rationale of the decision so in in retrospect just a little bit of background Bob started to allude to we had some public comment um in regard to the original September recommendation on the calendar that was put forward by the calendar committee for the 2425 school year um and the the the two um young people that spoke was Omar and miam Omar is one of our sophomore students right now um a real great example of communication and change making so you know I I did express that to him I really appreciated that um so we really had a deep process over the last month there were five different review areas that I've taken action in uh we just talked about two of them but I'll walk you through um uh and then bring you to the uh recommendation of the Cal committee going forward um so we we wanted to get an understanding of how many students um and even faculty and staff might take uh time personal time uh excused absence time for religious observance those uh holidays that typically aren't recognized in uh by federal or state law uh or are not in our Cal our traditional calendar um just as a point of uh interest I wanted everybody to know that we did have two employees take personal time off last year we looked at last year's uh information um for religious holiday observance um and then I put into the memo from CES uh Huckleberry Whisky In the High School um we had five students from Center School uh observe uh and these are excused absences in Brookfield if students share what their religion is and their uh observance that is an excused absence so at the center five students uh took a total of 11 days off for observance at Huckleberry 12 students took a total of 17 days off for observance whis skiner 15 students for 23 days off um and 19 students um observed on 20 different days so that's that's the data in terms of the number of students um and that's any religious uh excused absence that we had on record I also put together a very brief survey with questions that I've included here in the memo uh to all of the superintendant in Connecticut I have to thank caps for helping me distribute that actually hold on sorry I don't want to just before because I wanted to clarify um with the like for the absences M where it says like for example 19 students 20 days off of school um so that means one student took two days okay all right that's what I okay you follow me so five students took a total of 11 so it all depends on their family their religion that's what I was that's this all religious not just all religious not just muslim okay which was what the public comment was about um requesting uh uh taking the uh the holy days Muslim holidays off um so then we went and looked at the the the survey and the survey asked some simple questions does your District of the superintendents in 169 districts um and uh 86 responded uh does your District recognize any Muslim holidays on the calendar does your District close school for any of the Muslim holidays um and if your District uh does close which are the specific holidays because there's there's different holy holidays obviously and and the major religions here in the United States um so like I was saying 86 of 169 Poss possible districts responded that's about half 18 of the responding districts do recognize Muslim holidays on the calendar in some fashion either including a list on the back of the calendar of the major holidays and the Muslim holidays are included um and of those 18 that responded eight of those districts so eight of the 169 districts actually take time off for Muslim holidays um by closing school so that's that was attendance and the survey are the first two areas of action the second was having a conversation with legal counil one of the things um that step back from this religious holiday uh particular issue for a second that many many people in the public uh who aren't working in education or not volunteering on a board um often think there are Simple Solutions uh to what they think are simple questions or simple challenges or simple problems and the reality is they're very complicated and very complex much has to do with uh contracts and uh the law that we must follow and in confirming with legal counsel um we only have a certain window of time to get our 180 school days in in Brookfield we have 182 but there's a statute that we all public schools have to have 180 days and you cannot go to school into July in addition to that we have six different bargaining units we collectively bargain with six unions uh those those include nurses teachers custodians secretaries par Educators administrators they all have different contracts and they all uh while there's commonality they recognize different holidays and you also have to have a window of time to get in all the required work days for all six different unions so you can't just make decisions on a whim frankly or fast um when it comes to uh taking time off for any reason so it's very important for people to understand that so from a very practical matter it's not easy to just make a decision and say you know what next year we're going to take a day off there's a lot of conversation that has to go into that if you're going to go in that direction um so please know that that's that's very important um so there's many obligations we must meet and we have to be careful and very judicious in making decisions in addition to that uh like I said earlier we talked with the calendar committee um they're they really were very respectful understanding um kind of excited to have the meeting and Tackle this this issue um I shared with them the survey results the attendance uh from last year uh my legal consultation and when we talked they really thought the calendar that was proposed in September was the calendar we should go with next year given some of those things I've already talked about some of those constraints we have to deal with however they did have some significant recommendations and I'll get to that in just a second um and then in addition to that I ran everything by the district leadership team yesterday and they agreed with the calendar committee um and in their uh recommendations and kind of philosophy on how we maybe approach things a bit differently and a in a bit more an inclusive tone with our calendar and so the recommendation um simply put is that we want to make sure that we don't put any student at a disadvantage um or um have any students singled out because of their religious observances and in the case of um the students who came forward at public comment what they're talking about is they're having to come to school on their religious holiday and then having to get an excused absence they they really have trouble with taking tests and and there's all kinds of things in top of the respect and the inclusion and the importance of their holiday wanting it to be recognized and so we all recognize that and so we don't want anyone singled out we certainly don't want our kids placed at an academic disadvantage um so some of the things we talked about that we want to move forward on very explicitly with our faculty and staff is that um on religious holidays that are not um school holidays where we would have the day off uh homework not being assigned on the evenings of significant religious holidays um many observances do begin in it sundown no tests scheduled on such religious holidays um adjustments being made by faculty uh regarding deadlines um when these things fall um teachers making adequate Provisions for students to make up any class assignments missed due to excused absences for religious holiday observance um and certainly we're going to always like we even do now try our best not to schedule special activities during these periods and as we all know there's only so many evenings uh in a school year and there's just so many activities going on the two main recommendations that are coming from the the calendar committee and supported by the district leadership team uh is that the district calendar committee recommends including a list of significant religious observances of the major faiths represented in the United States as an addendum to the 24-25 district calendar um and we would cross check that with the American def defamation League that has that very comprehensive list and then additionally the calendar committee recommends uh beginning with 2425 school year that no tests be scheduled on the day after or the day of religious holidays um and so those are the two recommendations however they do not recommend changing the calendar as proposed back in September so they're not recommending anything on the homework um even though you had it on your list it wasn't part of the recommendation yeah so it's the the formal recommendation is no tests and then we're going to work with the schools on on the homework piece um and we can talk a little bit further on that but we will be consistent at all three schools okay so the difference in the calendar that people would see is we would include either as an addendum or on the back of the calendar obviously depending if you look at it electronically or uh in hard copy we would include all those uh all the major uh religious holidays that are recognized here in the United States on yeah the high holded days Etc so sorry no that was it for me personally I don't think I think these recommendations are great I think they should be implemented immediately but I don't think it goes far enough to be quite honest um I think there are two major religions that are given a day two days weeks um and I think no matter what we do if we do these recommendations and only these recommendations are Muslim Students still are singled out they still are alone they still are not in school and that is exactly what they came here and explicitly told us they didn't want to be excluded and yet we're still doing that all of that said I understand and I've I've looked at the how the Eid holidays fall for the next 10 years and it's very complicated because it it changes pretty frequently sometime some years there would be one day off some years there would be potentially two days off of school sometimes it would fall really nicely with our April break sometimes not um and so I understand that that poses another potential problem but I do think we need to come back to this as looking at it from an equity lens and that is just we're not looking at religions the same so whether we add days off to the calendar or remove days from the calendar that are recognized explicitly as religious holidays I could be in favor of either one um I think I think the what we call the Holiday recess in December that would be very difficult to try to to pry back um and I don't think we'd have any students or teachers coming to work that week um but it could be our winter break I don't think they has to change that but right now on the 2425 calendar we just have rashash Shana that's the only other religious holiday that I see on here I say we make that a school day and then going forward as a standard practice same thing some years we have good Friday off that'll be a school day now well I think let's think about the message that they were sending to us too that they want to feel included so why don't we use it as a way to set like we do on Veterans Day right now that's different a little bit different but it's the same concept that kids are in school and we celebrate I did think about that too and that's my initial reaction was is was like well if we have a day off of school I mean I don't know if kids are really gonna like actually learn about that holiday you know would it be better to have a school day where it is like explicitly recognized but their practice is to be at home with their families and so the idea of saying oh we're including you by serving a special food in the cafeteria even though we know you're not going to be here because that's how you really celebrate the holiday that doesn't send a good message I think to me about what equality really is I also I believe you asked that you Rose asked that last time and they said like no yeah you know very nicely because they said we we would still like to be with our we don't want to be we the whole point is to not be in school and we typically take the day off and I understand that but I also understand the complexity of having these holidays that kind of are very difficult to incorporate into our calendar I have a couple of things um one of the things that I heard them say both of the the uh young people who stood up last time to talk was that they're very concerned about missing curriculum missing school work um and so that obviously would be addressed by the tests and I think the this the recommendation for the following school year about not having work due the day after the holiday I think is Extreme ex important because um you know just even on the religious holiday they they they can't be doing work while they're at home celebrating but the other thing that I wanted to I actually have two things do we know when we've got these statistics about religious observance I mean you use the word reported so these are the people who actually told us especially in the younger grades where it doesn't really matter we don't these are the on there may be more we just don't know it because they didn't tell us why they were absent but do we know that these were for Muslim holidays we don't so we don't know we have no way of knowing that unless we do a survey and parents would be willing to tell us what their religion is right so then my next qu not question but comment is dwali is taking place right now this week um and so what happens with things that are not Muslim holidays what happens with dwali what happens with hly what happens with Quanza um you know it's it's a it's complicated because then if you're if we're talking about inclusion why include this segment of students and not another segment and especially with demographics that are changing clearly across many districts in the state that may be coming up more and more so just comments I mean just things to think about but I think that I think the the like you said Rosa I think the um idea of not assigning work is really really important yeah I mean in an ideal situation and I thought about that too you know is it a is it a dangerous slippery slope where now there's a there's a bunch of other holidays that maybe we need to observe those too I mean at least you know but that becomes very problematic and I'm honestly I a huge proponent of adding instructional time not taking it away um I actually get very frustrated with all the days off in half days [Music] but what I'm weighing is what is the most Equitable way to address a problem that students have brought to us and it's a fair one is it possible um to keep this as an ongoing charge for the calendar committee like incorporate the recommendations that they made now for next year but maybe do a deeper dive to some of the other holidays and see what the observances include like some holidays maybe their practice involves doing something in the evening or you know on a weekend and it doesn't require them to be out of school so it's not as critical that school that you know school be closed on that day you know these holidays specifically say that part of the observance is being home with your family right um so it maybe might not be as big of an issue for other holidays we could still apply the same recommendations about not having tests on those days and not having homework do after those holidays but maybe not necessarily close school on those days so we can be inclusive of other holidays in you know the list on the calendar and the guidelines regarding homework and and assignments but there may be some holidays where the observance itself doesn't require that they not be in school I don't know I don't know the answer to this question my mic is actually is it working I guess it is um does Brookfield have a policy in general about uh breaks not having homework over breaks so for example the you know the Christmas what or the winter holiday do do do you do teachers not assign homework on I have to double check that H so for the Christmas I can't I can't give you a full confirmatory answer okay because sometimes they do sometimes they do and sometimes they don't okay because um I know the the so the district that I came from actually adopted the homey and it was across the board so every Rel Christmas you know rashash Shana yam kapor uh K Quanza whatever every single holiday that was listed on the calendar just like what the recommendation is now the homework policy AC applied across the board so I mean that's one way of being a little bit more Equitable and then the other way it's rather than because I I'm with you like taking off instructional time you know that's so tough and with calendar it's really really tough but there could be inclusion in other ways and it doesn't have to be you know recognizing a particular holiday on the day itself but it could be something like that's done the month of for example you know it doesn't so I don't know I mean these are these are just ideas and and thoughts to try to kind of go around taking off school but trying to be I really appreciate that and those were all discussions that have been been had um I hope I hope the board appreciates the work that went into this in the last month AB so complicated and and these are the conversations that that we had like I said um it is a very practical they're very practical and sensitive recommendations clearly trying to strike a balance um people could agree to a degree or not uh to to that statement um but we the the board this is a pretty clearly defined role of the board to adopt to to select and adopt the calendar superintendent and the calendar committee can only bring so much forth um so it really is a board decision there's those operational decisions that many times we tell the board that is not your role we are the administration or we are the teachers we handle that but this is a board decision so I do want you to know that but we do have to at some point we're not going a rush but we do have to get a calendar adopted our community expects the calendar in December or January typically here um and there's a lot of implications for things going forward in all of our planning you know we start the budget process very early for planning for next year so this is one of these things um we want to be careful not to conflate all of the other issues around that curriculum instruction um the things that holla was just talking about all everything's related is very holistic but we do have to adopt the calendar and make some decisions so I just want to um encourage the board to be thinking about that we can't try to solve everything with the calendar it's just not going to happen so so I just will put my two cents forth then um the uh the the thing that actually resonated with me on this discussion was how hard it would be to deal with the employment contracts right we but all of us have dealt with it so to to my way of thinking if we were racing into approving a calendar that had those days off or took a different day and removed it um ahead of actually having thought through how that would fit into our employment calendar um employ employment contracts we would be shooting ourselves in the foot right because and and let me finish Rosa because I know you want to react to that so my reaction to this is It's a reasonable First Step but it may not be the last step um and uh and I don't think your recommendations went far enough um I think the including the list of the the the the key holidays is is a very good thing but I think no tests and no homework would be a much stronger signal for equity and inclusion but I would also think that saying we're not going to let it go right we're going to come back and think through all of the employment stuff over the next year before we do the 25 26 Calendar and come back with uh here's what you can do instead of what you can't do I'm smiling Bob because the the committee didn't want to be presumptuous and tell the board we encourage you to continue looking at this but this this is really a first step in going in this direction so um they wanted to and you could certainly take the homework piece and as a board make that decision as part of this we so I I mean my reaction is if we can do the we're faced with approving a calendar to take the steps to really say we this is something that we in we've internalized in terms of doing it but really say we in terms of days off of school it's is a complex Rubik's cube right and let's make that a serious analysis that not that it was this wasn't serious but a really something you take time to do you take time to do you look at I mean you know adding one extra day to the end of the school year in order to do this doesn't bother me for one um but if it's uh or maybe moving around your PLC day or your PD day to have it float on the days that that would happen makes sense but it does take a lot of work to get there and number one work is those Union contracts um because as all of you who've served on those negotiations they always are bringing in here's the next calendar here's the next uh holiday I want to do and we've had to look them in the eye and say there's only so many days in the year right you're going to open up a can of worms here in terms of whose favorite holiday they want to take off right President's Day uh Martin Luther King day I mean there's a a bunch of them right that are um that are not holidays on calendars Veterans Day right not holidays on calendars but uh because we only have so many days in the year and I got a guarantee those Union groups would love to open up that discussion right and take two three four more days um and then on the paid days off and on the flip side of that there's actual work days that have to be conducted in some of the contracts and you might not be able to meet them and you have a hard stop on the end of June so so I look it's a to me this is a first step but I would like it to be harder right uh I mean firmer on what we're doing for the kids on those days that's my two cents I agree on that I do think the no homework and the no assignments do the next day would be a harder stance and I would be totally in favor of that test so yeah and no test okay um personally I think and I I I do think that there's a larger discussion to be had because I don't think even even just this group is enough viewpoints to really understand the complexities of the different religions and how they're celebrated I really um so I do think there needs to be deeper work a deeper work with you know Representatives Stu student Representatives would be fantastic from if we had students from the major religions that could provide input and how they observe those um holidays but in terms of us needing to approve the calendar I still need to see equity and I I think I think I always did but I think now that it was sort of brought to our face I don't think we can to me I I don't think we canot act I wouldn't be in favor of having rashash Shana off and not other I think well that just H so happens to be the only other the only religious holiday on here explicitly but um Good Friday right it that one's actually I don't know when Easter falls that year but I'd have to check Good Friday might be a state holiday Good Friday might be a state holiday I'd have to double check that not just religious holidays I think it's buried in the I think it's buried in the uh April break April break sometime sometimes our April break it doesn't always align with uh Easter doesn't always align with April break but yeah the part of Easter the issue with Easter and the issue with Hy is they move around so much yes both of them do yeah and I'm actually thankful I mean not not selfishly selfishly I kind of wish it always aligned with Easter but looking at it really from an equitable standpoint I'm I'm happy to see that it doesn't um because then that would be favorable to to Christians Good Friday is off yeah Good Friday is Good Friday is a state holiday so in in Connecticut yep State [Music] holid any other discussion I would just say that if if there is going to continue to be work on it as I said I would like to include a a deeper dive at the some of the other holidays that we talked about diali and other things that members of our community celebrate and what are the practices for those you know because somebody else will come to the next meeting and say we should have this holiday off you know in Brookfield isn't isn't the first uh District to uh have these requests and and this kind of a thing there are people we can learn from I'm sure there's some Consultants that we if this is a real priority for the board the Consultants can be hired to help the board in their decision process uh and engage the community hly you said that the the your District it was uh no homework no tests in and and and on all a whole list of holidays all all the religious holiday religious holidays and how was that received by the students and the families no the students and the families really appreciated it and of course no homework who's going to argue with that but I think sometimes it frustrated teachers because um you know when you have a whole list of religious holidays and if you're I think Brookfield is on a block schedule too so we were on a block schedule so if let's say a holiday fell on Wednesday and you have a Tuesday class and you're seeing them Thursday so you're not giving homework that day but then the next day the teachers aren't giving so you know it sort of compounds um but that was just one way that they the district um kind of took a hard line on it and said this is this is only fair I did anecdotally connected with uh Kevin from from Wilton and Marty from Trumble and uh uh Allison from Watertown and uh and Rob from Oxford who uh similar approaches uh in that in that regard but my question keeps coming back down to the students in the families did they feel properly that the district was being properly respectful I think anecdotally the superintendent said that I don't know if that did a survey on it or anything like that but anecdotally I think I think anybody would appreciate the the effort for sure and then that way nobody was singled out at all it's just across the board doesn't matter what your what faith you follow or everybody everybody in in the school on these days does not get homework and there's so it's there's nothing due for the next time you know and we could work with the spirit of that and work with our team yeah I don't think as a board we we stick our nose into the policies on homework and testing but we can give you guidance absolutely um so anybody [Music] else well then can I put a motion on the table and if it gets shot down it gets shut down but I would have move to amend uh the calendars to remove October 3rd rashishana as a day off and instead make it a school day is there a second I'll second okay it's been moved and seconded any discussion on the motion for Amendment okay all in favor of the amendment please say I I I all against please say no and wait I'm the amendment is to remove rashash remove rash we're just voting on the amendment yeah we're just voting on the amendment not the not the calendar okay then I vote in favor of the amendment okay so the amendment fails 3 to four so um okay so we're back to the uh motion to approve the calendar I'd like to propose an amendment to the motion that in addition we give guidance and uh direction to urge the uh superintendent to Institute policies for no testing and no homework on all religious holidays do I have a second second we do have to do I thought for that part to the list well that that that would be that that is that is that is the John in the in the adoption of the calendar Does it include item one here which is the including the list of religious holiday the the list I was uh we're developing it right now um and crosschecking it obviously I told you uh with the uh ADL uh published calendar uh along with looking at some of the other distri more like a regular let me let me modify my motion my motion is that uh my Amendment would be that the uh the calendar would include an attachment for the significant religious observances for the major faiths in the United States as an addendum to the calendar and that we would urge the superintendent to work with his leadership team to have all those holidays not have tests or homework on religious holidays on the day after the day after the day after a second clear okay we got that this on the on the day of or day after yeah so you don't assign you know the the holiday is Wednesday you don't assign homework Tuesday and nothing's due Thursday right so that um you know people don't whoever's observing that holiday isn't doing work for the next day so you're clear on objective here is because that's an we can only urge as a board here so do I have a second on that I did second okay so moved and seconded any discussion on that Amendment all in favor please say I I I okay we all agree on that okay so the amended motion all in favor of approving the amended motion which is to approve the calendar with the amendment uh the attachment with the the religious holidays and the guidance to the superintendent on homework and uh testing please say I I I it's unanimous okay just housekeeping on that too um Lisa the fall conferences are still not colored I don't know if it was the spring or whatever before right they're not in the might be a cop maybe out of purple yeah I think electronically remember remember cave loves our colors on our calendar if we get award make sure the bar and and John just as a to finalize the discussion let's not let this die let's use the let the the discussion on days off on the calendar let's let's continue that and and long before the calendar approval bring it back to the board for a discussion I think um yeah and like I said the following year yeah and and that also is a very deep discussion though that if if the new board feels the same way as this board feels tonight um there are those who are experiencing expert in the field that could help us as well I want people to go get advice much advice and I love the thought of involving students in the disc oh it has to be a public engagement absolutely I think it's a good public engagement to have because I think this is right now your data says it's a relatively small group of schools that are doing recognizing these holidays it will grow over time and uh you'll do this report three or four years from now and it will say 8% of the schools are doing this so it's actually 44% of the 18 that responded are are closing closed on Muslim holidays eight of 11 eight no eight of 18 eight of the eight of the total districts take the days in the in the state no no it said 86 responded 18 recognize the holidays and when they recognize the holidays they took the day off 44% oh I see okay yeah so it's so it stands to reason it's basically half the districts responded to the survey in general so perhaps instead of eight 16 may may districts may take if they well the 18 is going to go up yep the point it's just going to go up because there's a population change going on in Connecticut so okay um the last item on our uh old businesses pay rate guidelines I will move that the board approve the pay rate guidelines for special programs as recommended by the finance subcommittee effective January 1 2024 second okay um you want to go through sure thank you Bob um this is old business this predates my arrival here in the district um I think the finance committee has been discussing an update to these guidelines uh for some time um I tried to make it um as easy as possible and thank you Bob for I hope it works your suggestion um I did um indicate in blue any items that um actually necessitate a proposed change in the rate itself and first just to back up up what we're looking at is not um to be conflated with like stiffened positions coaches positions or um advisor or um student council or anything like this these are um very specific needs um that are outside of the normal work day um or sometimes within the workday as a substitute um um but um and so they they are not dictated by in most cases Union contract however there are instances where the contract does um speak to um the the need so summer school and summer work for teachers that actually is addressed in the teacher um in the teacher contract so essentially what I'm what we're recommending here in this update to the pay rate guideline is that it reflect that language and it just refers back to what um the Union contract says so anytime um the pay rate is um is disc is addressed through a contract the language is just suggesting that you refer to that contract um anything that's only um outlined in black is just a language change um a description to what the the work being done is um but you'll see that the the rates that change um the the pay rates that change are all necessitated because as of January 1st the Connecticut minimum wage is increasing and um so our daily rate for par professionals um which is $95 a day is no longer adequate to meet the Connecticut um minimum wage increase so our contract with ESS which is our vendor that um helps you know Supply us with our daily substitutes um we will be getting a new contract to also reflect those increased prices so we're just reflecting that um additional increase here as the pair of professional daily rate increased we also are recommending an increase by $5 a day to the um the teacher um substitute rate uh the permanent building sub um and then clerical custodian and student helpers are all um we're also recommending that those just go to Connecticut minimum wage so you don't have to come back and continuously update those um nurses we are um recommending an increase there because it's just um frankly impossible to find a nurse um for the day for less than that rate um and that's essentially it this I think this is and um Rosa you can attest to it I think this is a long time coming updates to these guidelines and it's very helpful especially when we um have our annual audit and we have you know time sheets that we pay individuals for these um very specific functions that we have um an updated guideline that says this person was paid for this work this amount because of an approved rate guideline by the board so it's very helpful if this um if we have this so that's it any questions for day-to-day substitute teachers it says you know so propos 105 a day aren't a lot of the districts around us 125 um that seems a little high I don't I don't recall being that high okay yeah I I heard a rumor oh oh B is 125 I heard a rumor I'll double check I I I haven't verified but I heard a rumor we'll double check that get back to there's there's D 125 yeah you do find higher rates in the cities than you do in the Suburban districts um I do know that Danbury struggles to get substitutes right any other questions everyone any questions guys no okay all in favor of approving the pay rate guideline updates please say I I okay thank you thanks okay uh just get past public comment since there's nobody here uh three main points my last one yes um well definitely the correct report M and then I thought for the second item I would combine the multilingual learner report class siiz report and homeschool and just say that we got updates on all three of those areas and then I think after this lengthy discussion on the calendar that maybe the calendar should be the third one I agree okay that sounds everyone okay with that all right okay upcoming events okay all schools have an early release next Wednesday and are closed Thursday and Friday for the Thanksgiving holiday at Candlewood Lake The Candlewood craze um ongoing fundraiser culminates this Friday November 17th the fourth grade has field trips to the capital on Monday December 4th and Wednesday December 6th and they have a picture retake day on Tuesday December 5th whiskin has early release for conferences again tomorrow and also a PTO meeting tomorrow and picture retake day on Friday and the high school has early release for conferences tomorrow and a PTO meeting next Tuesday that's all that I have okay so uh we do have one last item on the agenda which is an executive session um and uh I'll move that the board and so for anyone listening uh uh we're not you're not going to hear us adjourn the meeting cuz we adjourn it after the executive session but we are ending The Telecast at this time so thank you for listening in um I'd like to make a motion that the board enter into executive session for the purpose of discussing and approving the superintendent's goals second moved and second and all in favor of entering executive session all right thank you all for attending all right thank you everyone there's the Bell good for you Deb [Music]

15 2023 can I have a roll call please m m yes sir M here Mr chairman you have a quum thank you sir and for theed Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the for it stands one nation God indivisible liy and justice for all okay do we have any correspondents from the audience we do not present there was no correspondence today item number three daos Transportation contract and sent over a lot of information theps on this good evening everyone welcome I I prepared just a few um really prepared one last document that summarizes what I'm about to say and I'll just hit the highlights but our contract with our transportation provider that go expires this coming June 30th of 2024 and as uh board planning committee members know we have met with the president of of d d Deo I've been negotiating back and forth with Scott bant their Chief Financial Officer on what a new five-year contract would look like if we just negotiated as opposed to one have to bid they had provided an initial term sheet which was presented to the planning committee and then um there were some things that we wanted adjusted including looking if we can have Deo sh and pencil on the renewal uh increased percentages in the contract and they did do that for us so I did include in the package the actual term sheet but it's documented in the analysis and recommendations for bid wave memo so um the big highlights are this would be a five-year contract which we're allowed to do under state law um we asked if they would include in their offer um at our discretion an additional five years so the contract could go as long as 10 years but in accordance with state law they would have to have at least one electric bus so let's not we're not proposing a a 10-year contract now it's a 5year contract but with an option to extend up to 10 years if they make one electric tight bus operation for the end of the contract term the increases in this contract would be 6% in year one followed by 3 4% increases and then in the last year 3% that's very attractive and I'm give you some of the reasons why in just a few minutes uh as part of this uh proposal if we agree they will also replace the existing diesel buses 50% of the fleet will get brand new diesel buses which will be obviously not only you know more comfortable for the students but you know they'll have better efficiency and improved emissions but they would be diesel buses can I ask you a question quick sure on that one so new vehicles are Place practically 50% of the fleet in the first contract year so that you're saying what is that first contract year the 24 24 through June 30th of 2 so they're replace 50% of yeah so roughly 20 buses and now didn't we just do didn't they just do a rather large Flip Flip of they did yes they did I think it was about 13 Vehicles out of 35 out of yeah roughly 40 let's okay yeah so we have 40 and they just did 13 and just being within the last two years so okay so the the fleet will be relatively new yep um also on the buses they would provide you know all the all the technology that we need GPS tracking which we already have video cameras inside the bus um they'll make sure that the bus has the ability with GPS that if we wanted add a parent app for bus tracking a software that we use would support that so we can roll that out and they'll make sure that the fleet is capable of doing that and also if the state um allows which they don't currently turn by turn driver navigation would be equipped in those buses so right now school buses cannot use GPS navigation but the state is looking at that so they've committed to doing that if it's allowed by the state and then the last item which they threw in which was not in the first term sheet proposal is they'll give us a one-time credit to be used for equipment upgrades or if we want to use it for bus service costs they put that out there because we did request um I believe Mr White brought up can we have extended stop arms on all our buses so rather than limited to that they said we'll give you a $220,000 credit to be used in that first year for you know whatever you think makes sense so that's at a high level that's the proposal few things that I wanted to address first of all um the renewal rates average if you take the 6% three fours and the 3% that's about a 4 and a half% increase if we just averaged it we are ending a contract that was a 1.6% average increase per year so we're coming off some very low contract rates what happened when we signed the contract in 2019 with dco um the minimum wage was $10 an hour three months after we signed that contract the governor signed legislation that increased the minimum wage over four years from $10 to 15 as you know and that we did not have to pay any addition but obviously D absor the cost as driver wages increased I'm not saying that the drivers were at $10 per hour they certainly had an increase driver wages over the term of our contract um like all bus companies they've been struggling with driver shortages and in order to compensate for that they had increased pay to their drivers and that did not affect our R over the last 5 years so I certainly expected that we were going to see a substantial increase in this contract proposal and you know although I think thato came in with some reasonable proposal at at first shot we were able to negotiate that down to this 4 and a half% increase per year so I I think it's just on Bas value based on the last five years of wage increases the proposal is very attractive beyond that though um and you'll see on the easiest place to see this this last page this grd which is an attachment I prepared so what this is is a um the results of a survey that the school business officials put together and you'll see in the middle and yellow I highlighted chessur rates if you start with the 20 24 24 column which is the third column that has a rates you could see that Dao's proposed rate of $377 so this is the daily rate for the large type one bus and this particular sheet is ranked from the highest cost to the lowest cost in 2425 so you could see that we're just below the middle of the pack at a $377 daily rate at the top or Greenwich Richfield Trumble all over $500 uh per bus per day um and then you know at the low ends we have a couple of small communities that are 318 and 325 down at the bottom what I what I showed you is the summary of what this this looks like so if you go to that all the way to the bottom section where it says average rate excluding Chesser in the 2425 column it's $45 see that chesh is at 377 so chesher is $28 lower per day and the important thing is at 180 days we're $ 5,65 lower per bus and times out 29 type Vehicles were $146,000 for the year lower than the average and then if you go across you'll see that to the extent that other contracts have rates are and I want to call it savings but you know it becomes more and more attractive because that those increases are lower than the increases that other towns other the districts are experiencing all right and then just above where I was pointing out if you look at the where it says chessur increase per year you see at the bot it says 6% 4% 4% 3% right above that those other companies excluding chesher the increases are 5.7% 6.2 7.8 7.9 now there's less bus companies as you get further out but the average increase is much higher than dco is proposing based on what other contracts are growing by so the point is that Deco put together a proposal that's very competitive below the average increases that other towns are experiencing for their bus contract increases but also the dollar amount that will be at the end of this contract in 2829 at 437 even with those increases still looks very attractive so the recommendation obviously that I'm putting forth is that we request the bid wer um the risk of going out to bid and doing better than this is is pretty low I don't think we'll do better and if we do better it won't be by much and there's some other peripheral information that I I do want to provide about dco but that's the kind of the financial analysis and I see Mr Mr White has a question thanks Andrew um yeah so 30 seconds or less because this is not a really really serious question but I am curious yeah um just looking down the list of the vendor names and I see Newington it says Town owned buses is that something that you've ever considered is it just a crazy idea um it's not a crazy idea the obstacle will be though the capital that we have to outlay to buy the the transition would be a total pain yeah okay maintenance hiring the staff and maintaining the drivers and it's not a business that we have expertise in yeah no no no I get it but just the Capital would be the probably biggest obstacle and just to for anyone who's listening at home your favorite line um we pay for the fuel so this is over this is completely separate from the fuel for the buses this is just correct an increase of for Staffing or for sof class or whatever it is for the management of the fleet to D these rates um these are for the most part in Connecticut all the districts buy their own fuel the reason for that is we don't pay tax right and if the bus company bought the fuel well we would pay the tax which we don't want to do we've gotten quotes in the past when we've gone out to bid for rates with fuel and without fuel included and obviously if the bus company is providing fuel they are going to hedge sure that you know the cost of fuel doesn't work against them so yes we do buy our own fuel but when you look at this analysis it's Apples to Apples and I will say one more thing um that since you bring that up Andrew one of the cost advantages that we have is that we own the bus depot property technically releasing it from the state right now we're in the process of getting it transferred to the town but that helps us without cost cost Deo does the snow plowing and any type of repairs related to the facility but us owning the property helps us without without bus RS so in terms of leasing it's like a dollar a dollar per year so it's insignificant got it um a couple of a couple of questions you mentioned about the difficulty finding drivers over the past few years are they still having difficulty less but relative to say 5 years ago they were in better shape than they were during the pandemic you know pre pandemic we were doing just fine you know during the pandemic and post pandemic dco definitely struggled with drivers we did not suffer like in many other communities where we had cancel bus runs constantly or double up students somebody just went on strike didn't they right around merid yeah that's whole another story and if you look at meriden's um rate increases the first year increase is astronomically high but then their increases year over over Year s and a half percent so they just signed with a new bus contract for student um um we fed pretty well we work very we have a very good working relationship at the yard level with dco with the drivers out you know we have a transportation manag and two office staff they work very closely with the dispatch manager and the drivers at thato and so it's not unusual you know for their dispatcher to do a bus run and for our transportation manager to dispatch buses we work very closely and that's how we've been able to get through they have um quite a few drivers in training right now which is a good sign there's about a 50% conversion rate though from from people in training to actually you know passing um so we're doing better than we were last year at this time and there is a commitment and that's part of the term sheet of you that they're committed to um making sure that we have adequate spare drivers and spare buses so just as the COO of the CH Public Schools do you feel that this is like you obviously have to deal with a lot of operational issues in this District I'm sure transportation is one of the largest ones all in all they're responsive and they are at the best like you wouldn't want to necessarily cost as side work on somebody else like you feel like we're getting I think we're getting excellent service and we have been for years we have a really strong relationship I think the yard level is the most important but even you know with with their senior staff I pick up the phone if I need to speak to Scott or Don devivo the president they're no problem getting through and and they're respons they're one of the biggest providers in Conneticut they're not a national company and like first student is one of the national companies that's been very competitive in Connecticut but I don't see any reason to change based on the the type of service that we've been receiving from dco pre pandemic post pandemic and currently but there's more yeah no I'm just GNA I agree with the end 100% finances aside the service matters so thank and the kids of school is really important yeah we don't have an operational school um so one second I just J down a couple things um so I don't I mean generally speaking I don't care I I don't care for bid waivers but I'm balanced this makes sense so I'll support it I do have one question though anyway which is the with regard to Electric school buses electrifying a fleet um first of all for TV Land you had mentioned the state is moving from a five to a 10year possible contract so we are allowed to our discretion we extend it just so people at home understand I believe the driving force behind that was electric school buses because the payback on an electric school bus is 10 years not five years so the school bus companies want someone locked in for 10 years basically if they're going to be doing electric school buses instead of the fiveyear payback on a diesel type thing with that said I'm just trying to I'm trying to understand what you're thinking in terms of uh so you said we have about 40 buses next year they would replace 50 of them with diesel which I'm not really happy about but you said we did about yeah 50% sorry 50% 40 and we did 13 buses recently so that would be about 33 of the 40 buses that would be as would be you know three years old so be looking at locking for those 33 buses for another I'll just say seven years from from next year maybe maybe not I'm just trying to think I'm just trying to understand what you're thinking on that like the fleet to Electric I mean I'm assuming that we we'll start doing it and you do it gradually sure I don't I would think that if there's a really strong um and compelling reason that we should move quickly to Electric you know from a financial point of view I think dco would be on board they're they're pretty aggressive in the electric bus Market at this point point you know they've got you know a lot deployed but a lot in today's market means about 20 electric buses so it do they have 20 on the road or 20 in production at a facilties no I believe they have 20 on the road okay you know between a couple of different districts I think Middle handon have it I don't know it's been pretty slow I mean to get buses deployed and a lot of that you know has to do with the infrastructure if that's necessary yeah no and I completely understand that it's we're looking at a c if we go with a 10-year life for these diesel buses that's a certain amount of lockin that we have right there on the technology that I'd prefer to avoid I'm not saying don't do it but I know I'd prefer to avoid it and that's what I'm just wondering about does it is there a is there an economic case that that goes thinking of where a bus gets to like six years old and it could make sense for them to convert it rather than waiting for the full 10 years I don't know that I I think I don't want to mix up the whether we have diesel or electric with the with the term of the contract so I would think that for us to extend past five we're going to want to have a meaningful number of electric buses or at least a commitment to it to your point I think five years from now you're going to see them I think you can see the costs come down hopefully the battery life increasing and the economics of electric cost becoming better I mean from the presentation that we had with them back several months ago I feel like they're on The Cutting Edge and they are keeping up on this a whole legend bus thing as it comes forward you know just like he was talking about the different Grant programs that are available the federal funding and you know supply chain issues so they're watching that so I get a good feeling whereas some these other folks might not be that I think they know what we want as a community too yeah no I didn't know if it advanc if if there been any more discussions since then I guess you know I think we met um Kevin devivo at was that the presentation the he's the son he's he's he is their Alternative Energy okay bus specialist there was just a a h webinar I was on two weeks ago I think it was with Connecticut clean cities group and he was one of the presenters yeah yeah yeah I saw that um so they they want to do it I think it's just finding a path that makes sense for us to do it and most of the funding that's been approved for Grants they still to more of the economically disadvantaged communities so it hasn't reached us yet but I think you know Andrew's right I think they're a partner that will help lead us into to the electrification of the fleet so then so one other angle on this when we had that discussion with them the law as I understand it is zero emissions by 20 240 or low emissions effectively natural gas by but this is a 5year contract and we could just go to another bus company in 5 years if we chose to do so I just the more I think about it the more unrealistic I think it is to change bus providers it's not that it can't be done but that's a tough one to do this does I mean this certainly doesn't lock Us in past the point of yeah okay that it's going to interfere with what we do with electric and I okay I I'm pretty sure in a couple of years you know we're ready to to take on or start taking on a electric school bus or more than one EO is going to be willing to do that with us and would that change I don't think it would change the the pricing but you know we would have to work a deal on how the electric bus oh sure no I understand that yeah no it's just I see the lock in on 50% of our buses next year and it's the reality we have I think the technology is coming and going to be coming relatively quickly but the transition can be less than ideal from my perspective but that's okay I mean we need to have the buses so I just think we um kind of owe it to ourselves also for the sake of capitalism to look at what the other companies are offering because I get it the relationship is there um I do sense that when they presented to us that they are kind of at the Forefront and keeping up to speed and looking for other Alternatives but there's no comparative right now we've only been with them so I kind of want to see what first student has to offer where are they in their position of the next you know 10 years and so forth that's all so I'm just gonna say I I was chasing about 10 years ago I said something very similar and it was Paul cose who brought us and brought it to us and asked for a waiver on the bus contract it's not to say this would happen again but we got it burned it was an extra $200,000 a year I pushed it and the Town Council agreed to go along with it just do a comparative analysis of you know well to put it out to put it out to b b yeah so there could be more to it like what you're maybe you're saying something different but I literally just said no I mean I think on principle we should not wave bids that is how I still feel in general right but we got burned because it was 200,000 a year which is a couple of teachers per year it's actually in this in this memo that in it was 20091 when Tim White made the boo boo it doesn't say that back recordings you're the you're admitting that but that's not who I heard was responsible I heard it was um the deciding vote with Sheldon D so what Happ where is it in this it in I think it's on the second page where it says the bus price history yeah so if you look at the line 20091 where it shows 12% yep what happened is um Greg floron Paul C was with Deo they presented ultimately to the council a negotiated price the council voted against approving the bid waiver went out to bid and the first year increase was 12% and instead of I believe four was what was negotiated and Deo still won the bid yeah so that was the ironic part of it it was like you could have have four and you got 12 with the same bus provider but there's no stipulation that we have to go out to bid we can well if we the either you go to bid yeah or you have to have a bid w we approved right not to go to bid those are our choices but you can't get like a term sheet from that you out to have to be I put I put it forth because ultimately you as a planning committee have to decide if you want to move it to the board you know my recommendation is if we go out to bid I doubt we're going to do better better and if we do not by much that's why the recommendation is what it it is and you know just to to that point it's to me saving you know a few dollars or 20 whatever it is you're G to get somebody else in here who doesn't know the town doesn't know the roots doesn't know the you know there's a level of service that comes with using something that you know if the level of service wasn't there and we this we were just being complacent and we were just not wanting to do it because it was just easier to not go out to bed but I can't imagine that it's not a lot of work to go out to bed so there's got to be a pretty strong feeling on your part this is the best of of District financially and operationally and I've done we've done out to bit yeah it's work but that's not the reason I would recommend that we go to Big W before you um I I do want to present one more piece which is related which I think is is important for us and that is that Deco is making a you know they made a commitment to the town they just bought the building at 1187 High on Avenue they Clos on it they own it which is on the corner of rout 10 and sandbank Road treasure glass yeah yes so they're going to have in that building they're going to have offices um and they also intend to use that as for bus maintenance right now when we have our buses maintained we drive them to Durham and back and that's fuels on us where's their headquarters in dur in Durham yeah well that's where their maintenance okay so if we don't have to drive the buses there savings is around $10,000 per year however there's there's a little bit more to it the that property AB buts the bus dep property so the thought is by having them in that building they're going to use the second floor of the building if they could clear the trees on our property they can dispatch from that building they wouldn't need that office trailer that they have which is four years old so they would be willing to sell that to us and we could potentially take it and move it to Highland and use it as a portable classroom this is just an side I'm not sure all of that will take place however however it does um you know present another possibility for us that would be attractive yeah you know certainly the ability to just have the buses maintained next door is helpful and it saves us a little bit of money I don't want a nitpick so these comparatives are all type ones it doesn't look like it yeah they are these are all the type ones and is that the largest size that is the largest size what I did um what's the capacity for type one 70 it could go as high as as 81 I was a 77 and then what I did on the third page of this analysis if you want to go back to the memo just through this and I know there's a lot of numbers on this but if you look at the at the top section where all the way on the right it shows 14, 52,000 so what that what this analysis is showing you is um the five years of the contract we have type one type two and vans you could see the cost per bus so if you just look at at that to the left of that 14 million 52 240 you could see what the cost is per year what the increase is per year so a 6% 4% 4% 4% 3% you come up with 14 million if we go out to bid the the second lower portion of the analysis basically says if instead of getting the six three fours and a three if we go out to bid and see a 6% increase per year yeah then instead of 14 million our contract cost is $4.6 million so I think that what I'm saying here is I think if we went out to bid that's more likely what we'll see so the swing um is about 600,000 over the five years of the contract does this what about field trips does this cost impact because I know there's separate rates for field trip requests here um that isn't include these are our base runs right so there there are and it's it's actually included in their term sheet what the cost would be so where do we allocate those monies if it's not I just didn't include it in the analysis because the field trip costable are comparable to where they are currently they they did increase on the same percent even like the sports runs yeah but the field trip total cost per year is couple hundred, you know our the big cost of the contract is in the daily runs of the type one type two as Advance I'm just thinking Some bu is coming soon where that line item would stand is it all encompassing the transportation it is okay it is now what if they have to add buses like for increased students what was that if they to add buses add to the fleet then this is the which they probably will right if enrollment continues to grow I mean there be a major shift in the next in this five years be major shift in transportation networks in town I'm sure these would be our rates if they have to add a bus it's you know 30077 would be the type one rate for next year similarly with which I don't think is going to happen if we reduce a run we don't pay for bus runs that we don't have how many kids do we like now holds with our runs especially the bigger KS I'm thinking of B in the routes so how many typically on average how on a bus yeah you said the capacity is about 70 yeah so we're not maxing out capacity well it depends on like the Elementary bus runs are typically we're in the 60s on average and we have some that we don't have any additional room on the buses it depends on the route you know we try and and optimize and be as efficient as possible as you get to high school yeah it's the per seit I'm thinking of the bigger kids will need obviously either two per se or the little ones you can squeeze in three per seat that's why I'm trying to figure out they get older they stop taking the bus some yeah yeah yeah I mean we don't but to your point of adding if the enrollment increases what's our projection based on the capacity now within the daily runs that's all we may if our enrollment increases when if we could add some more kids without creating a logistical problem where we're getting complaints about know three to a seat we we'll deal with that but I mean you know we've we've managed with recent years to reduce the number of runs it's going to start going the other way as enrollment increases part of the way we've reduced the runs is you know we have Consolidated bus stops um we have op we have asked parents if their kids not coming onto the bus opt out and if you need the kid you know the student assigned to the bus again we'll just add them within 24 hours so it's always a work in progress because ferally you have to provide transportation for everybody so every bus stop has to be serviced unless the parents all opt out and in line with what we just discussed at the policy meeting with regards to uh in or increasing the M you know half a mile to a mile now and so forth Just for the walking distance for the kindergarten who request is transport you know at that point who can re bu transportation and so I'm just I think what I'm hearing is is that if enrollment becomes gross to a certain point if we add buses we pay an additional fee based on that additional bus run just like if we cut back on so it's like we get we we pay for what we use right so it's like the fuel and the runs so if there's an increase in runs we're GNA pay an extra whatever if there's a decrease then we're going to pay a decrease same with fuel so what is one bus in the year $70,000 377 180 yeah and that's just the contract price plus you the fuel and I no problem saying it's probably it's the way the municipal bidding works is is that when we put out this bid every person bidding on this cond is GNA know exactly what we've paid for the past five years to Dao oh yeah so it's and I think it's inherent issue with bidding no problem saying on the record um for municipal government because they always know what money we're spending as it is going into it and so it's easy for another bus company to come in here and offer us a little bit lower of a price and we don't know what kind of service we're going to get so I mean the starting point the reality is we provide a copy of the current contract in our you know invitation to bid because they're going to any provider is going to ask for it anyway AB and I know it's the last time we went out to FID which was you know two cycles ago now you could see everybody's starting point was what was the expiring price on the contract and that's where they either increased or decreased and actually Deco in the first year of the big contract dropped 3% and that's how they won the bid so they actually lowered our price 3% I just based on this analysis and based on the relationship I I don't think we're going to do better I don't think it's worth the risk to go out to bid but I have no way of guaranteeing that that's my recommendation I know I mean one of the things that one of the things that always goes through my mind is just from being on the council for a while and one of the things that I think the PBC is allowed to do is not just an RFP but they do qualifications an RFQ something along those lines because the service matters too it's not necessarily the best price and I based on me getting burned and passed that 12% is you just everything that you're saying but I I mean I'm comfortable supporting if it doesn't it doesn't go forward we're stuck for five years then is not going to be in that seat in five years you already I still care thanks all right I will make a motion and let's see what happens uh I make I move that the planning committee recommends the chesher Board of Education request the chesher Town Council waves the bidding requirements and approves entering into a new agreement with dco in accordance with a proposal to October 12 2023 to provide transportation services to the treasure public schools in the period from July 1st 2024 to June 30th 20 29 annual escalation at 6% 4% 4% 4% and 3% in the final year do I have a second motion at second by 10 discussion I would support this with um the caveat that we at least entertain information seeking for some of the other vendors and then what um in what Manner do you suggest um I'd like to see what's first student um what their plan is for the upcoming legislation changes what their Fleet looks like same presentation that that will provided to us have to see what they are planning to do and follow that change the the um if you watch that webinar the other there was Kevin Deo from D presented and also I forget the gentleman's name from first student um and I I may have a copy of the presentation you know and I'll I'll pull that and I'll share it I I think that you know first student dco they're probably on an equal playing field in terms of being in the electric bus market and and wanting to you know be an active player in that the difference I is is that Deco is is regional first student is a national company but deos does have its own company that purchases and sells Vehicles so they're not a small player just Regional so in terms of that um first student I think so you said requested presentation yeah if they want to come I can't I can't make a comparison I you know again going by based on the relationship that had with them for years and their presentation the daco presentation yeah no I mean I think something like that could make sense to ask first student to come in why just first student no I not just I'm just saying maybe the top three that you feel are the most competitive within this day I don't know that that I I guess what we have have to do if we're going to do that I think we have to go that yeah I mean I don't know how you'd ask you can't Window Shop PRI yeah I don't I don't I mean if we're going to do that yeah I think we'd have the decision the reason I'm bringing this now and the reason that we've been working on this is because if if a bid waer isn't approved or that isn't the desire I have to get the invitation to bid out by January you know the goal being that you know we have to know by March if there's going to be a new bus provider they have to have time to do all the swap out we can take a vote now and see where it goes and then if it passes I'll go to the full board then we could discuss it tomorrow night the other the other thing that's going through my mind is in relation to the time constraints um getting getting those companies in here to do that presentation they may very well but I definitely I mean we can't be in you know we obviously can't be in a situation where we don't want the buses like set up next September so there is a small window that makes that does make me not nervous but just concerned let's see I'm just more or less thinking within this we approved this for years at least within the 5e span that we go and Shop others not not within the time constraints here yeah I just don't want again Vin's not going to be to se I will feel more comfortable when the contract starts coming up again that we've done some of our homework you know ahead of time I see we're doing that now I me to me yeah I agree because at the same time I don't like the idea of staying on autopilot and not going out to it um yeah you just you know whoever your contractor is or your consultant I think it's important to keep on their toes um that just my comment before is just this isn't like our auditor nobody notices that it can happen sort of quietly as some phone calls this is much bigger yeah I'm not knowledgeable of any other well I do professionally with germ services and we transport but I don't know them as well contextually yeah yeah and you can see some of the rates not that if we were not to bid they would give us the same rates as other um other districts but you could see the names of the providers on that analysis and I don't know that you could draw can draw a comparison you know first student is you know higher in some places and lower in other places than our current rates and I know that they won Meridan um our first year would that though this increase is 377 their first year in Meridan is 451 for a type one again that has to do with their cost structure currently and as I said that they had a really large increase in that first year because Meridan had their back to wall there was a strike the current provider did not want to go forward so the only way to know definitively is to go to bid so I think I I would be I'm on board with that 100% if say you mentioned before as the next contract comes up for Renewal I'm thinking like in the next two years that's what I mean yeah not years we sign the contract and not do our initial so does it have to be a 5e to get these to get those CHS yeah and I haven't asked you know to do a one or twoe extension I just because of these changes I just feel like they're going to start being a bit more competitive I know I don't say saying the Chang you know the changes was going with electric and so forth oh okay but they might start being a bit more competitive with each other yeah the thing is is that I I mean my when I was talking about it before it's the 10year lock in is what was in my mind but in the next two years I don't see much changing I mean if we got one electric bus the next two years I'd be thrilled I I don't think they because there's I mean the supply chain issues for the electric buses are there as far as I know like based on the limited reading I do they've got they've got big problems in the industry uh just getting buses out the door and so I if we I'm comfortable doing the fiveyear as your recommending them um but definitely also Jeff's team in the next two years for you retire just yet before you retire I've got a threeyear contract iise to get some get some of them in get some of in the door to do some presentations for us please you know what do that yeah that's all that's so but okay so we still have we have a motion on the table that's second so now we have to do this again so we vote to move it to the F board or not all right so now any more discussion no okay all right so motion on the table move that the planning committee recommends the treasure Board of Education request the treasure Town Council waves the requirements that provs entering into new agreement with that and Accord to the proposed proposal dated October 12th 2023 to provide transportation services to the CH public schools with period from July 1 124 June 30th 29 with annual escalations of 3% all those in favor okay passes One Step F I just needed him to say publicly that he's gonna do this before well I mean tomorrow night so this will go tomorrow night to the full board unfortunately two years guys going to be like I forgot to do it fire me okay first of all on the there is no way two years is going to go by without asking us he's here for four more years I know unfortunately I'll be watching um okay so thank you to my friends here in the planning committee um let's go on to item number four Elementary classroom expansion it a enrollment update okay so the next two documents I want to walk you through and these next two items are going to be pretty quick because I actually don't have a proposal from anazi but I'm going to look at this sheet first this is um enrollment one it's there your last going down this top section and I highlighted Highland in blue this shows the projected number of students class sizes for this year and the bottom section shows actual as of October 30th of 2023 so if we just focus on Highland for a minute you could see that we have 46 classroom teachers 878 students and we projected an average class size of 19.1 that's what we built our budget on if you look at right below that the actual number of classroom teachers is the same 46 we have eight students more than was projected so we're at 886 as of October 30th and the average class size is 19.3 so Highland is running a little ahead of the nesda projection that was provided last year you don't necessarily have to pull it out but the second document I provided is the slam report that showed what Highlands of R was going to be slammed the next for this year had us at 858 Highlands actually at 886 so we're 28 students above slams projection and if you add 28 more students for next year's projection P will be at about 914 it could be even more than that because I think we all know what the amount of residential construction that's in construction but not yet available that number is going to grow and I'm not necessarily talking about the apartment unit but just some of the multi the force family or excuse me the four bedroom you know Colonials like right road that was not even part of any of this that's 24 housing units what is that the corner of we Academy that one consider no there no we Academy was considered but the one on the old Kurt's property on um Wallingford Road oh that was that and that is there's only two lots left all the lots are sold they're like and they big houses are there more land that people all suddenly purchase to um there's other developments that are in Pre review right now yeah I just the percent margin of error is about 20 based on their yeah I I remember explicitly like so back this slam document came out what three years ago it was two do you have another one of those I don't have that districtwide projections so I remember when this came out it you got met with a lot of like yeah right this is never GNA Happ and now we're higher that's what I mean I just do you not have this I gave it to oh she's me it's fine I know we had enough so so have not sorry for those watching home sorry about this it's Andrew's last time so I I don't think Highlands enrollment is going in anywhere but up we know over this past summer we made some modifications inside of Highland where we put our learning support tutors into the basically into the hallways we buillt cubicles as nicely as we could we have three learning support tutors in what is a storage closet we made some room there's some storage in that closet but the three learning supports stors learn supp support tutors of very small spaces we really don't have anywhere else to go with Highland I think we need to be prepared because we need to live in that building um for two more years I think we do need to go down the road of adding the Portables what I did and is um as I mentioned a few minutes ago as we were talking about about dco if that triple wide becomes available will it fit on the Highland Property I'm just looking at Andrew because you okay yeah I'm just I'm just wondering why I have some C so I reached out to um anazi you know I spoke to Michael Sasso and Lisa Yates and presented them with this notion that you know if we took the portable that's at dadco and moved it to Highland would it fit as an option the thought being that we could buy that at a reasonable price it's certainly big enough square footage wise to enable us to make two classrooms out of it it does have bathrooms um they took an initial look you know at at the design because we we have the floor plan um so they're putting together a proposal that I'll bring back to the planning committee to take a look at and and planning committee will decide yep we want to go forward with this you know the timing of it is pretty good because we'll know whether or not there's going to be a bid wer approval at least at the board level um and if the bid waiver does go forward from the board to the council the council will hear it I think December 11th assuming I get on the agenda so we have some time to make to get this proposal in hand I was hoping to have it tonight but they did have to contact UM SLR to um get some survey information which they would include include as part of their proposal so that's why it's taking them a bit longer I talked it up early last week so more information to follow but I wanted to give you that update Highlands jam packed yeah think we need to do something we'll come back with the propos proposal from anazi when they have it well we talked about this last time just making certain that it's not going to be a permanent ex we have total is total enrollment in here anywhere yet do you have total enrollment as of this is that's just Elementary yeah I don't have middle and high school so if we if we were going to if we were going to buy some classrooms or lease them or whatever do we need to have are we pass the point of ordering them yeah for September of next year we we would want to try and get that order in you know by January go out to bid um or try and find others this this might be convenient yeah oh no no no I understand but it's not necessarily the only option are we still enrolling like heavy even now as far I mean students are coming in or exiting it's we're still I mean I mean I guess the good news here is is that we are below what was projected yes District elementary student body wide Yeah by but still D's lower which is good because dittle was the second concern Gonna Fill that one n's a bit higher and and Darcy we really don't need to worry about island is outrage the kindergarten enrollment is outrageous compared to every yeah it's just that school the reach of is just so large you know and it just happens to be inass all of the open former Open Spaces of town I mean there really isn't much opportunity to say well we could redistrict temporarily because all the schools and all the elementary schools you know are pretty close to capacity so what mean do those oh capacity I was looking at relative to I was looking at actuals relative to projected but actuals relative to capacity doesn't make it any better yeah it's when you have to increase the number of classroom teachers meaning you need another classroom that's where you that's where you know you're going to run out of space so yeah do Little's only got third grade in kindergarten where it's well I I mean this is not a surprise we knew that the enrollment was coming we knew that we had a potential of running out of space that's why we've been working on it as planning committee for a year so sorry if I missed this are we thinking about uh extra classrooms at D we we might no adding Portables yeah I think we'll get by I think okay so you only have Highland on your radar right now for next year at least so if we need to get if we need to get a building it's just a Highland got it because I didn't but that would be would that be next year would that be next school year or the following I think we should try and be ready for the fall no when we were talking whatever five or six months ago I mean I remember thinking this is a year from now we've go we've got to move now because you don't you don't buy this at Costco but so for the 20 for 2024 25 could we get that portable from d and that gonna be ready to move into those new offices yeah they closed in October man it's not our only option but if it is an option that would be an important one to look at not to get not to get too deep into but are there is zoning required for that because you said like bus maintenance that's why that's why because that sounds like an if still like this be no they well their initial proposal is to move just offices in way I understand it right they have oh okay in that building they bought it and they're going to be moving in that's the expectation and the maintenance would happen if approvals everything mostly office space is empty from what I understand in that building yeah but these Coast Mechanicals in there and Chester glass still there's the chch manager company there does all the Irrigation Supplies things um but planning Planning and Zoning you know would have to we'd have to go to Planning and Zoning on the Portables and that's why they need to engage SLR and that's only one classroom that's going to house how many classrooms fit too I think it yeah is it I think it's that last time I was in I just didn't feel I think this I think it's 1800 square feet oh wow that's a lot bigger than I it doesn't feel like it though no it looks like a little yeah because there was a one that was there that was replaced a couple years ago that's like a double wide maybe maybe that's it picturing like the old gray one yeah okay so we get two classrooms out of it yeah with bathrooms okay do you have a place for the bathrooms where You' be able to hook them up if pnz approved that's part of yeah I mean there's utilities there now because we have the two portables and Highland yeah oh okay okay okay got it and the the portals at Highland already have bathrooms in yes and you could collocated with those Portables yes okay just lose that ball field for the some of it some of it for a couple years we may have to move the playground equipment a bit all doable we do have 450,000 appropriated from the council and I do think that we could make this work you know within that budget so we don't need any additional fun again not nobody wants to do this I think we have to do it yeah we have to do it I mean it is what it is I mean what are you going to do you can't kids have different place to go so it's just unfortunate um all right so anything so that's a and b under item four okay um item number five update on energia and energy performance contract 2.0 so very quickly the council did approve entering into the contract with energia Sean Kimble he's required to sign the contract we provided it to energia we had our first um meeting with them virtually sent them a lot of information including access to all our you know energy costs over the last few years and so they've started their analysis so I I'll update the planning committee as we go forward who may be on that point dat okay and so we're talking about right now you're thinking from a school perspective primarily doitt for everything across that probably a bigger piece of it they're going to analyze I mean My Hope Is that they do analysis across all the school town buildings identify all the energy savings opportunities um and then we focus on the major items we want to do with do little you know which is we know we need a new roof we know we need new windows and we'd like to get that building air conditioned and we need electricity so yes well yeah I'm sorry you're right that's part of the roof yeah yeah you know that helps us with the Energy savings portion of it so they have all that information but you they just got the information last week so OB need to give them some time to put together their analysis and then they'll come back to us and'll come back to the plan that's it anything else yeah um so one thing I've been I realized two weeks ago at the energy commission meeting I didn't f appreciate this the board a year and a half ago voted in favor of serious consideration of Net Zero buildings for the new schools at the time I had for whatever reason in my mind I thought the lowest life cycle costs were synonymous with Net Zero I found out at the o or it sort of crystallized in my mind I did kind of know this before this but it crystallized my mind mind at the October 30th energy Commission meeting that those two things are different so we have these Net Zero buildings we're moving forward with but they're not necessarily the lowest life cycle cost so in the past since the energy commission meeting I me and me alone um I have gone to the school building committee meeting probably a week ago and then also the town council meeting last night Y and asked the council to go to the architect and ask for some due diligence on good numbers if if there was a supplemental appropriation for the schools if it could have a lower life cycle cost it's you know we're putting in a building 50 years it should be there for more than 50 years but I hope that the council will get the architect or whoever it is to do some real diligence in a timely fashion in the next couple weeks because my understanding is the school buildings could still pivot on the Energy System they could change did they act on it last night the council yes I couldn't hear it the tape was awful the tape was awful no they no they couldn't no they didn't act Tim made a comedy said he doesn't see something like that happening the reality is we just had an election and the council changed so I don't know how the new Council will feel about it I've reached out to I've reached out to a couple of them just to sort of voice this concern because there is this moment in time where there's no shovels in the ground I don't think no rfps have gone out to bit right so they could still pivot at this point but that that moment in time changes pretty quickly because they're going to have to go out RFP and start buying materials in not so distant future just for my own knowledge So when you say P you're talking about specifications and design IE mechanical systems heat pumps versus solar versus exactly geothermal exactly not just I don't think it's anything that has any impact on buildings or oh no I mean I don't you know if that was something the architect said made sense I just I'm just looking I'm just think in terms of the energy systems and the equipment that they have to put in there and seeing if it would are designs at that granular level yet no they're starting to work on that though and I think that's that's the concern you yeah you to the extent it affects how the interior of the building is designed not not the classroom spaces but you know Plum things above the ceiling those are the things that I think are critical path from a design point of view did you request to have it on agenda 28 no does look like not Bas what I saw I actually this only started cross the past week and have to do this on fly as other oh yeah yeah no I be happy to mention it yeah um I think I think the school building committee update pretty sure is on the agenda so come that I think ultimately the way this moves forward is I'm just thinking about it now if the board voted on something to request it of the council we certainly could do that um I kind of feel like they the way I see it happening if something's gonna happen is the new council is having a conversation with the town manager and saying hey can you make this happen the town manager is gonna be like yeah I get it got it the Jeff report has it Jo in the next J right okay okay so and then I guess I'm closing this is my last planning committee meeting and so I just want to say thank you to then for all the um agendas and items that you brought forward to this committee and to Tim s together for the past four years and Sam and Ann before you and Katherine before that um I think that we this was an exciting time and I think that we moved a lot of things forward um I know that when I came and I first had my meeting in this room I thought that I had to do meeting minutes which was interesting I actually did a vol timee job and I learned that VIN does that on behalf back to still abely um but you know it was it was interesting time we we inherited a a district that was in search of some sort of Direction and new school buildings and we we moved those forward and that all came out of planning committee which got moved to the full board which was a pretty big deal um and I know that you guys are going to continue to do that I think that tonight just talk talk about the trailers at the schools I mean it just shows that we've been proactive and we're just trying to make the best decisions for our town so it's been honor and a pleasure and I'm sorry I was a little scattered tonight I'm so sad you know so it's hard um but yeah it's I'm just fortunate I've been able to serve this role for the time so thanks to all of you guys thank you Andre yes thank you much think G missed your expertise which to follow with that please stay connected you know where to find me yes we do we know where your office is for sure but um I think your expertise have been really valuable from what I observed for the past couple years here and then hopefully support our next steps and Stage phase two somehow as well too so thank you for your service sirk you gra up that grand list Mr Project fun these projects all right anything else before we call for motion toj return all right motion toour thank you and thank you thank you everyone

to order um Teresa is there any way that you could take notes I know you were uh tasked with that yesterday and I hate to ask you again but I know Bridget is uh in the car traveling so sorry I I've got all I could do to do the last night's meeting I'm sorry and I'm not feeling that good okay sorry that's okay that's I'm sorry it's okay it's okay I'm just gonna start a document real quick then that way I can take some notes Here right okay all right uh so we are opening the meeting now at 6:06 pm and we do have a quorum at as well as being joined by Mrs Cooper thank you Mrs Cooper um we're going to uh start with the agenda and uh Kelly I'm gonna turn it over to you as we go through the 2000 series thank you sure um good evening everyone I would like to actually start with the first if it's okay with you um miss canetta the first item that we had was the codification which is part of the 2000 series as well as the others um as those committee members REM recall from our previous discussion when we went through the C policy audit um they did help us to rec codify or organize our policies into their coding system from the zero series through the 9,000 Series um and so this chart which I'll display in just one moment um what I'd like to propose to the group is it takes the old code and the new code recommended by cab and is just a chart um that outlines and we could make one action um at the board of education level we would do a first read and then a second reading with a vote um to just um Rec codify or rumber all of our policies in accordance with K yes tresa um we've already done it we're just doing the approvals finally correct what cave did is they organized all of our policies on our website into their numeric system um but we should do an official vote um that we're maintaining the or moving towards the new number would be our recommendation um so that way we don't maintain two numbers our original code and the new cave code thank you so Kelly if that's um to take place what will H what will happen on our end it'll be different in other words we've been going through doing a comparison back and forth so we'll just be looking now numberto number comparison correct so we would we would still go through um the original way we were tackling it as I don't know if you remember in the zero series there were I think there was one policy we we agreed to reum um and to bring it to the board level this would allow us so that every time we go to a new series we we've taken care of the numbering system and we would just focus on the content of the policies um but I would list old policy number for example 2000 new policy number 2000 um so that way it aligned and makes made sense um and if it' be helpful I'm happy to share my screen um and just quickly show the um show the um chart that I'm referring to just to make sure everyone's following along um what I did can everyone see that the K policy review um so what it shows is um the cave number is listed uh for it's the policy first the title of the a policy um the cave number so for example last time we did the zero series um and you'll see see the old number was 8 d101 and it's renumbered to be uh just four zeros um and then it's it goes down um by uh series um and this would just align old number with the new number that's organized by cab um so there are quite a few pages as you look through it um but simply just a match between our original policy number and the C and the new cave number this is not a vote to change any content or substance of the policy it's simply the numbering any questions from committee members about this thank you this is really really nice nice job Kelly thank you I did I did copy and paste from just so everyone's aware directly out of the cave audit but reorganized it so that it made sense for this this committee to review thank you I guess what I would questions sorry I'm good for me go ahead kin I was just gonna ask if we um wanted to uh make a motion to bring this to the board for um consideration yes the board would be the board would be voting on this Kelly correct yes so we're just making a recommendation correct okay all right thank you Teresa for the motion may I have a second please thank you Julie all those in favor please signify by saying I I I I I I motion carries thank you all right let's go right ahead Kelly if I could just add I just wanted to clarify for the committee um we what I would recommend is that we put this on the first uh for first read on the first meeting in January just so that we have the same group of people that would be looking at the first read and second read if we were to do it at our upcoming meeting um there will be some members that will change so I think that would just help with the approval process um so do we need to adjust that motion in any way or amend it nope at just information that we would put it as long as this committee is okay with that that we would put it on the first agenda in January okay and that will be for a first read is that right that's correct so um we would do it the same way that we've been doing our previous policies first read and then a second read with a okay thank you very much is it okay if I go on to the second item please do yes thank you um so the second uh second item consists of quite a few different policies um these are all of the um you'll see in the chart here we have our current policies um I did put in the number the new number there just for consistency um assuming that we took the recommendations the previous one um and then the revised policy or the recommended policies um in this section right here the chart that we're talking about starting with 2000 um every one of these is a required cave policy except for one and when we get to it I will explicitly um show that one it's a subset to a policy that's required um so these are all policies that currently exist in your policy manual um we can go through one by one I will say with the exception of one that is quite um quite a lot more um meat to it most of the contents of the policies um you know carry the same essence or weight but they have been rewarded slightly um so I don't know if you want to go through item by item but the first one that I would propose we look at um is a 2000 uh policy which is Administration basic concepts and I'll pull that up so that hasn't been changed um so the old um the old policy Teresa is very similarly worded um so uh if you look um here uh the Board of Education I'm kind of looking right here the Board of Education um expects the superintendent and other administrators to understand the practices effectively the old policy reflects the same three um items they're worded a little differently so item one for example in the former policy says the processes of decision making and Communications here it says decision making and communication um the second one is methods of planning organizing implementing and evaluating here you'll see that they've added evaluation of programs and Personnel so both things um and then the third one is how to coordinate and guide the various centers of power within the school system and the community to enable people to do things together for educ sorry for Education uh which they may not be able to do separately um and you'll see here um an emphasis on coordination between the school system and Community to work on behalf of the um Board of Education um so very similar content uh we certainly can talk through um whether or not to adopt you conser we are proposing or recommending the new language in this policy consistent with Cade um but this is subject to make um any edits that this committee wishes to do any thoughts from committee members about this Terry yeah well go ahead ahead Michelle go ahead um I I just would you be so kind as to reread to me the old number three point the change with the um the language sure thank you so the old policy reads how to coordinate and guide the various centers of power within the school system and the community to enable people to do things together for Education which they may not be able to do separately thank you I that's I you're right the meaning is the same but it the wording is totally different uh I'm not comfortable without a proper uh revision I I don't know what do you think Kate um Terry can you um help me understand what you mean by proper revision uh Kelly's asking the um the the intent and the wording is is just little different than the original um wording and without doing a formal uh approval process for the change in wording I'm just not comfortable leave you know doing it willy-nilly or not willy-nilly but just going ahead and and changing it without uh it's it's just like doing the numbering system you know we didn't approve it in the past and now we're doing the right thing we're going through channels to approve it and you know and send it to the full board and this is why I kind of feel a little bit uh uncomfortable so maybe I can help clarify a little bit because in in all of these circumstances when we go through the review process at the policy committee level what we do is we take a look in depth at the policies and the recommended policy and we come to a a sort of a decision a consensus here and then we make a recommendation for review of this policy at the board level so we'll make that recommendation there and it will go for a first read at one meeting and then it will come forward for a second reading at a second meeting and then it will be put up to board vote as to whether or not board wants to adopt the policy so there will be a a point at which everybody is looking at this information and reviewing it it's not just uh you know we're not exclusively making a decision here except to whether or not to send it to the board level does that make um does does that feel more comfortable right right I mean I Kelly's asking us should we do that or should we just stay and just accepted as it is the the reion if I could try for a second too I also think it's important that we did enlist the cab uh policy service for this so this is the model policy for 2000 according to cab um so they look at all the latest you know research uh legal court cases all of that and and really revise the policy um are just for reference our Administration concept policy number the former uh policy 2000 was last adopted in August of 1999 um and so another um part of our C policy audit is we should be looking at the policies regularly um and really uh keeping up with the with recommendations which is one of the reasons so this was not written um by anyone in the district um this is the cab uh policy uh Rec as recommended um by their service um which we have agreed to partner with um and typically take um you know advice on many of our policies um so we are recommending that this that this policy in front of you um with the proposed new language um is the one that we are recommending for consideration of this committee um certainly if there was wording in here that anyone felt strongly you know against that they wanted to tweak or change we can those are conversations that we can have here um but all the policies you'll see tonight we are recommending as written by C uh I right now I have no problems with the way it's written it's just that I do want to reflect that we we have reviewed it we've updated it and and proposed it to the board for their first and second read or whatever uh that's how I look at it I um just changing it the way C wants it without going through that I think is um not what we're here to do we we actually cannot do that so I think when I'm saying I recommend we we make the changes I'm recommending to the policy committee that we make the recommendation to the full board um so I just want to be clear on that I am not recommending we actually do not have the authority in the committee um to make a decision on behalf of the bo board we can make a recommendation to them for their full consideration so if maybe my words were not chosen um as carefully as they should have but at my recommendation to the committee um is that the committee considers making this policy um update a recommendation to the full board I apologize I thought uh because the wording was very close know you just wanted to no keep what the cave was and you know you know I agree I agree I I would make a motion to accept it as readed to the board so before we do that and I appreciate that I'll keep you in mind when I call for that motion but I just want to make sure that if um any other committee members um have any uh feedback for us that we hear from them so I don't know if Michelle Julie or bridg has anything I have ack question sure go ahead Julie in order if they want to or not I'm sorry Julie could you say that again please he access to the all and new verify check anything I think the question was and correct me would would the full board have access to the old policy and the new recommended policy um and the answer would be yes in the board packet we would put the recommended new policy um but there we can certainly put a link or reference um to our website which currently hosts um each of the prior policies okay perfect thank you in as well of course brid go ahead I just want I just wanted to say I'm comfortable with the policy as presented and comfortable with moving forward and recommending it to the the board uh in January as had mentioned earlier Mrs Cooper did you want to U participate uh Kelly I I just want to say thank you um you know we've been working on this uh for a while this is the first time that you did the leadership role in in our policy and it's a very uh time consuming job and I I really want to thank you uh and I think there's no reason not to move forward with the recommendation that you made uh Cave is our leader cave have sit beside us and directed us all these years and uh we have two meetings that if we want to insert something new or insert something different that going to bring a different tone uh and as we make these changes we got to also remember that you know at different time there will be different board members that comeing up and make other changes where things uh might be different so I apport you and thank you uh for working on this and making this uh much more accessible so board members can understand how we go about setting up policy thank you Miss Cooper anything else I'm Kate if you want my opinion I'm I'm okay with the language it looks like it's been streamlined a bit um the third one was the only only one that I just you know would be concerned to make sure that there's transparency between the coordination of the school system the community and the local education you know but other than that that would be the case I believe in the prior policy as well as written so I'm I'm fine with it going to the board for a first read or whatever review okay so with that in mind and thank you all for weighing in um may have a motion to recommend to the board for first reading policy revised uh sorry policy 2000 as presented by C i' I'd like to make that motion please I'll second thank you Michelle thank you Bridget any further conversation okay all those in favor please signify by saying I I I I I okay thank you motion passes and again as we discussed before this will be on the January agenda so that um new board members will be looking at it all right please continue okay thank you Kell you're welcome thank you um next policy up um is 2100 uh and this is Administrative St staff organizations um again between the prior policy and this policy you will see that the content um is very similar speaking to uh the supervisory responsibilities um of the superintendent um the prior policy was a couple of sentences in length and this further spells out the responsibilities of the superintendent um as uh uh this is the policy exactly as recommended by cave um so this is what we would be proposing for your review and if anyone wants me to toggle between the pr prior policy and this one I'm happy to do that as well yeah could you do that sure please bear with me on my uh Tech skills here um so here you will see um this is the former policy uh that we're speaking to and again it was a 1999 adoption which you will find consistent with most of the policies in this series wow could you make it a little bit bigger Kelly just a little bit um give me just one second to do that because it's yeah I think I got to get B focals I think I'm just gonna have to stop sharing for one second give me one moment if you can't don't worry about it I'll I'll do out I can actually it just I have to unshare I think just to do it for one second I will reshare again in one second there you go I hope that's a little bit easier for much better yes much better thank you Ellie will we still be able to access the revised ones tomorrow if we wanted to pull them off yes none of everything that is in the agenda will stay linked the only time the link would then become obsolete would be after a full board vote um because when we when we um if we were to approve a policy it would be replaced on our website um but until the board makes a full vote um you will have access to each and every one of these um for the time being thank you is it do you want me to toggle back to the recommended sorry each time I toggle I think I'm gonna have to reset that thank you [Music] K the first time I've seen the words e excellence in education on anything please if there's any questions about the content um please let let us know this is definitely a more robust version of this uh policy so Terry have we ever seen uh a district Staffing plan or did I miss something there are organizational charts that I know have been shared in in the past um and those tend to be things that are updated as there are uh changes or upon requests so um yes there there is one um and certainly if that's something you know this this policy allows the board to make the request if they want to see an updated one or would make well what what I've seen is what we need seven in this school we need eight in this department I mean we've seen it that way I uh so I I think you know we can get into that conversation separately but I think you know in looking at the policy stuff because I I just want to make sure we've got you know other um items on the agenda we want to get through that we don't um we stay focused on the policy piece of this so if if you feel that there are parts of the policy that you know would be helpful to us as as a group to you know Foster um better oversight and and cooperation then by all means I just don't want to get into a conversation necessarily about the specifics of it um I agree Kate with Teresa i' I myself have requested that information previously and as um we just Kelly just said that that's information that policy can committee can request I would like to see that outlined you know it doesn't have to we don't have to go into it but I definitely would like that produce sure and I think that request would probably better come from the board directly Michelle from okay whatever you think however that best works that that's great I just definitely want to make that not comment okay thank you um any thoughts on the the policy and the policy language here that was recommended by cap Mrs Cooper any thoughts you want to share no all right then in that case I'm going to look for a motion to uh recommend for a first reading of this policy uh I I make that motion thank you go uh Bridget appreciate that and may have a second please I'll second Kate thank you Michelle any further conversation all right all those in favor please signify by saying I I I I I okay thank you all all right Kelly I'm going to do the same thing uh project the old policy which again dates back to August TW uh sorry I almost said 1999 um this policy is I apologize 2131 um and it's again another one under Administration superintendent of schools so this is the old policy um and you will see I'm going to scroll down I can certainly go back up if anyone needs to look at it again the way this policy was structured is it wrote out 16 different responsibilities of uh the superintendent um as proposed by the Board of Education policy this is the old one this is the old one let me know if you want to scroll back up I know everyone had these materials in advance but I know it's a lot to cover as well so I'm happy to stay here as long as needed if committee members have any questions or any comments please feel free to jump in what's hard is not seeing what's xed out and what's added uh on such a u such a policy there's just so much you know what what is missing or what's added compared to you know doing it back and forth and I even have a hard copy here I certainly understand that this one is the way in which it's restructured is it's not numbered in the same fashion um you will see that um the vast majority of of the um they're worded slightly differently um but the intent of the responsibilities of the superintendent are um written in paragraph format and um aligned under multiple sub sets actually if I could just go I can certainly go back if needed um here is I'm sorry for the scrolling um here is the the new policy um as recommended by cab so again this is 2131 um and it outlines uh the super intendent of schools and then it goes into subcategories relationship uh within the school organization personnel and Staffing curriculum and programming budgeting and fiscal operations facility and transportation planning p and parents um and community relations um so you will see those categories um take the content of the 1 through 16 and write it out into paragraph form um I also just want to note that many of the follow-up policies are going to further explore areas here so for example when you're talking about personnel and Staffing um we have specific policies on hiring certain positions within our district right uh things that are voted on by the board so those will be further spelled out in that section um you know how we um you know our facilities and transportation and how we go about budgeting and so forth there are additional policies that will come later that will further detail each one of those areas as required by by law um so this is this policy is meant to be a general overview um of all the responsibilities as and remember this comes at the beginning of the policy manual and the series to F follow further spell out each area in in much more detail so Kelly I noticed at the bottom there's a note here it says where whenever the term superintendent or superintendent of schools is used it is understood to include and or his or her design KNE is that a note that we should carry over to this other policy or is that implied it it is typically implied but I don't think it's a bad idea it was strategically added into your last policy um and I think um and I'll also jump forward uh the next policy also speaks a little bit about in the absence of the superintendent what would happen until um the board was able to convene and appoint someone um so and we can go over that in a moment but it is generally understood in here um the superintendent's responsible for everything in the organization so he had he or she would have designes um to do you know a a vast majority of of things um particularly you'll see your your core cabinet members are typically delegated certain responsibilities as well as your building principles teachers and so forth thank you so I personally think it's a good idea to put in there so that it is explicit do you do you want me to scroll a little bit I I've I've read through these quit a few times so I'm leaving this other uh committee members to to offer feedback on that any questions or comments about this okay so I I'm gon to um Mrs Cooper did you have something no um I'm gonna uh ask for a motion to bring this to bring this uh revised uh C policy 2131 to the full board for first read um with the uh notation that we're going to add that uh that explicit uh note at the bottom that whenever the term superintendent or superintendent of schools is used it is understood to include Andor his or her disign Terry are you making the motion I am making the motion thank you may I have a second please second thank you Michelle uh any conversation on this all right seeing none uh all those in favor please signify by saying I I I I all right motion carries at 6:40 PM that will go to uh the full board in January for our first read all right point one point one um so this remember how I started uh by saying um that there all of them were mandated policies and there was one exception um this is the one exception this is because it's the point.

High School District Board of Trustees meeting excuse me November 16th 2023 is called to order at 3:30 PM following members are present Anna El pery Katherine H Smith Amry R tro and Brian O'Neal absent is Jessica Guerrero staff has requested the following amendments to the agenda replace exhibit Q to a line format with previous M us Q exhibit Q question I'll just a message what is it doing it's uh to align format with previous M us oh okay okay then exhibit ZZ replace page one to reflect changes to Gilbert High School's field trip oh they had to postpone a bummer that was exhibit ZZ now exhibit Triple G replace page 41 which is the last page in the exhibit to include trustey Guerrero's request for Cho Chana heritage month for the month of August everybody got it okay I motion to adopt the amended agenda so move second Motion in a second all in favor say I I I opposed 4 Z we will now move to oh excuse me what question why do we have the page one of the agenda here I have page one yeah I didn't compare because it was page we had what you have is your original and that that first and second page is just the amended agenda there was an additional Clos session item posted on Monday yeah added 4.8 yeah was yes okay yeah okay okay so we're do public comments for close session items anybody wishing to speak seeing none the bo ches will hold close session items discuss 4.1 through 4.8 and it is now

all right I guess I'll start over here so I have couple of questions okay I'm ready ER what's the date today 15th good evening everyone my name is Matt tennis I'm the clerk of the board for the Chico Unified School District and I am going to call to order our meeting tonight but we will immediately adjourn to closed session it is currently 50:06 p.m.

however they are considering possibly meeting by monthly but that has not been decided if you want more information you can go to the ride.org you click on leadership and at the bottom of the page it describes the local advisory Council it has their bylaws and everything listed and there's also a place to click on how to email them or you can call for more information at 6500 thank you so much commissioner mosac did you want me to put that on the minutes under communication that would be oh that would be perfect thank you so much okay we'll do thank you so much hey Kennedy I just had a quick question um uh because I just want to make sure that uh this meeting uh is fully accessible but I didn't see any popup for close caption do we know if that's active right now it's working it's showing up on my end okay thank you appreciate it you see it at the bottom yes I do thank you okay no problem yep um all right all right next we have the approval of today's agenda so everyone should have uh received an electronic copy uh of today's agenda for review um I would just like to open it up if there are any uh Corrections that need to be made uh if there are no Corrections um I do we have uh a motion to approve the agenda this is Kathleen I will move to approve okay thank you I'm sorry who seconded I did thank you lar okay Vice chairman keiller seconds um all in favor of approving today's agenda um if you could unmute please uh and say I I I I I all right thank you very much today's agenda uh has been approved uh next I would like to move down to the approval uh of the meeting minutes of from October uh as usual uh the meeting minutes are also on the agenda um please take a moment to mention at this time if there are any corrections uh to those meeting minutes um if there are not um i' would like to I would like to make a motion to approve uh the meeting minutes from October this is commissioner mosac I'll go ahead and uh move to approve those okay thank you uh is there a second second commissioner Ratcliff okay thank you uh commissioner Ratcliffe I'm all in favor of approving uh the meeting minutes from the October meeting um if you could please unmute and say I I okay thank you all right next I'd like to move down to our special presentation um portion uh of the agenda and I would like to welcome uh Jada uh and her team uh at the Downtown Development Authority um for all the work uh that they've been doing and making sure that the commission um you know is informed on what they're doing and uh you know with that I will turn it over to J and the Downtown Development Authority um for their presentation before they start I would like to uh let all of you know um that I will open it up for Q&A um after that but depending on the length of the responses uh we may have to uh move forward on that um you know if it exceeds a certain amount of time but I will open it up to a couple of questions after the presentation thank you thank you so much and again my name is Jada HRA I'm the parking manager at the Ann Arbor DBA and very happy to be here today um Kennedy are you able to um tell me if my colleagues from Walker are on the call um Christy manini Nichols is going to be leading the presentation today yes she is on the call okay thank you um she has her hand up okay I have a brief a very brief introduction and then I'm going to be turning it over to her and she can share her screen um and talk through the presentation if that's okay yep that's perfectly good yep great great welcome thank you again for having um us here we attended one of your meetings maybe a little over a year ago as our study got underway and we appreciate the opportunity to speak with you again um as I said I want to leave plenty of time for for Chrissy and Jim to do their presentation but I thought it might be helpful to share a bit of information um kind of high level information and if you're seeing Chrissy's screen now she you might be seeing a a slide about um the parking system but again this is just some high level information for you to have in mind as you learn more about our study um excuse me J we don't excuse me Jada I didn't mean to interrupt we uh we don't see anything as of yet so I'm so sorry I didn't mean to interrupt but I want to make sure um that everyone can see everything first oh okay looks like Chrissy's getting it set up okay perfect okay thank you chrisy um so the DDA manages operates and maintains um the public parking system through an agreement with um the city of an arbor um the parking facilities are City assets um we manage them in support of city and DDA goals and values and in general um you know towards a a vital um and a vibrant downtown um the parking system is self- sustaining system so the revenues produced in the parking system pay for the system and those revenues also support other Transportation elements um a good example would be um The Go pass the that is funded um through the parking Revenue next slide Chrissy 20% of parking Revenue goes back to the city um to the general fund and then separate from our management of the parking the city manages and receives revenue from um parking enforcement and uh the residential parking program so I just kind of want wanted to set the stage a little bit and make sure we all kind of understood um the different roles and responsibilities so I will turn it over to Chrissy now thank you Chia we don't hear anything okay can you hear me now yes thank you all right great I'm just gonna all righty all right thanks J again and and hi everyone my name is Christy manini with Walker consultants and I'm joined by my colleague Jim Corbett and we've been working with Jada and her team at the DDA on the curb management study and we just wanted to start out by saying you know thanks for having us we've been looking at C Management in um the DDA area downtown and you know what we're seeing is really when we think about best practices and working with cities across the country you know Ann Arbor really has achieved many of the best practices we want to see for our streets and our curb space um you know bring bringing more access to people walking biking you know increasing safety increas accessibility you know pretty much an Arbor's become you know one of the best practices that we talk about so just want to highlight that at the beginning of the study BEC and why that matters is you know we don't look at the curb space as just a piece of concrete you know what we do and how we prioritize curb space can support lots of different goals for climate for transportation for the um people friendly streets program so that's why you know it's so important today to talk through this study and talk with you and get your feedback so first off we collected data to understand how the curbs are used City W um downtown and we collected data on Liberty Street in Cary town and then areas um around South University and Forest near the university and what we found overall was that you know the curb is highly utilized um there's a lot of access happening but that parking meters um there's a high utilization when parking meters are not enforced so that's throwing some peak times um off balance and you're unable to manage some of these peak times of curb use um most of the curb sessions and parking sessions are very shortterm less than 15 minutes even less than five minutes so you know that's a significant finding but also something we're seeing across the country with so much online shopping and fast um casual food pickup and uh you know delivery there's a lot of these very short-term sessions also people are parking everywhere at the curb no matter if it's regulated for parking or no parking you know essentially you know if it's an alley if it's a driveway people are just trying to find a space because they have these very short sessions and they're just parking getting in and out um trying not to get that ticket but that gets into there's a significant amount of curb violations occurring and when we talk about curb violations you know we collected data using cameras so we saw everything that was going on um and this does not include curb cite curb tickets or parking tickets for overstaying a meter this this is just what our camera showed in terms of people parking and space is not uh regulated for parking so for example 20% in the South University study area almost 20% of all the curb sessions were violations um that's about 100 per day you know that's a significant amount of people you know that causes conflict it decreases access to business you know things that we care about for the Vitality of downtown um and those violations were had a median duration of only four minutes so really challenging to enforce uh so you know that's what we want to talk through when we um show you the data and then overall we are defining some areas around downtown into typology so you know you have your dense residential fast casual areas um with a lot of dense retail and restaurants you know like a main street or Liberty or or Forest um then you know more neighborhoody commercial type areas like carry town and then there's the areas outside of dense residential with h which have um you know mostly the single family homes and duplexes you know what we want to talk about here is you know there's a need for short-term space there's a need to move longer term parking to garages you know thinking about increasing meter rates or expanding meter times but you know when we talk about removing parking we really appreciate the Nuance that you know some people have to drive and park um you know so it's not either or if we want to build a bike lane if you want to build a Transit Lane we're really thinking about well where's the parking spillover going to go how do we maintain access to business andess access to everyone that needs to arrive no matter you know their travel mode um so you know thinking through that Nuance is really important um for you know providing access to all of these locations so just getting into the data quickly so here you can see in Cary town and Liberty Street 60% of all the curb sessions were less than 15 minutes you know very short sessions um you know steady Peaks throughout the day uh almost to 8:00 p.m.